Say what you will about Nintendo, but, if nothing else, they’re certainly full of surprises. This particular unexpected episode began early last year, when Nintendo announced that Donkey Kong would make an appearance on the GameCube, finally, but rather than starring in a platform game, as one might expect, he would instead appear in a rhythm game called Donkey Konga, complete with a bongo controller. I approached Donkey Konga with a healthy dose of trepidation; I have enough useless controllers lying around as it is, after all. I ended up succumbing, mainly because games like Frequency and Amplitude have made me a fan of rhythm games, and the presence of downstairs neighbors have kept Dance Dance Revolution from being a viable option.
Needless to say, I was surprised to see that Nintendo was not only going to create additional games to support the bongo controller, but that they weren’t going to all be sequels to Donkey Konga. Enter Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat, the first bongo-controlled side-scrolling platform game.
Let’s get one thing out of the way really quickly: If you’re looking for a deep, meaningful storyline, with hours of cinematics and theatrical voice acting, you’re looking in the wrong place. In fact, there’s barely any story to speak of; Donkey Kong simply goes from point A to point B, chomping on a giant fruit at the end, and occasionally battling some sort of mutant animal boss creature. There may be some sort of overarching plot there, but, frankly, I couldn’t find it.
In all honesty, though, the lack of storyline really isn’t much of an issue at all for a game like Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat; a game like this lives and dies on its gameplay alone. As far as the game itself, DK: Jungle Beat is an interesting throwback to the 2D side-scrollers of the NES era; levels are short and sweet, and the emphasis is less on just completing the levels than on how you complete them. To that end, there are bananas scattered around the levels that not only represent DK’s life but also the player’s score; you earn crests based on the number of bananas you have left at the end of any given set of levels.
Of course, what sets DK: Jungle Beat apart is not how the levels are structured, but the control. Controlling the game with the bongos truly is a unique experience, and fairly easy to pick up. Tapping either bongo by itself makes DK run in the corresponding direction, tapping both simultaneously makes DK jump, and clapping makes DK clap as well, which is both your attack and your way of interacting with your environment. It’s awkward at first, but it does get to feel somewhat natural, and within a couple of levels you’ll likely be stringing together moves to create intricate combos for extra bananas, which is really where Jungle Beat shines. I did find that the clap sensor was a bit finicky; often, it was either too sensitive or not sensitive enough. This is easily adjusted in the options, but it can be a hassle, especially when you’re first getting used to the game.
Once you’re acclimated, Jungle Beat is a lot of fun in easy-to-digest bursts. There’s something inherently satisfying about navigating through the levels by beating on the bongos, especially when you grab onto an enemy, the camera zooms in, and you have to do a drum roll as fast as you can to beat up on the enemy. I found myself really getting into beating up on the enemies in a way I rarely do in games nowadays, mainly because I felt like I was actually the one doing the beating up, as opposed to my character. (In fact, I enjoyed it so much that I developed a small blister on one of my fingers, which is actually a first in my gaming career. I played through the pain and took one for the team to bring you this review.)
The boss battles, in particular, are well designed and a lot of fun. As soon as I encountered the first boss, who you have to dodge and counterpunch, Punch-Out!! style, I knew that the designers had put a lot of thought into the different ways that the bongos could be used to control the action. Unfortunately, there are only five bosses (four standard bosses plus the end boss) with slight variations for different levels. I was kind of disappointed once I noticed the bosses repeating, because I was extremely impressed with the bosses the first time around and was looking forward to what was coming next.
Unfortunately, that is endemic of the game as a whole. While the designers throw in new twists every now and again (one of my favorites toward the end, for example, was a clock tower with grinding gears that you need to navigate via a bird that DK latches onto), a lot of the later levels just feel like more of the same. It feels like Jungle Beat has a lot of potential, but the designers really didn’t leave it all on the field, so to speak. Perhaps they’re saving it for sequels, but I really felt like there was more that could have been done with the bongos, and I had such high hopes as a result of the first few levels that I felt almost cheated by the end of the game.
It doesn’t help that Jungle Beat is a short and fairly easy game, to boot. Most decent gamers should be able to blow through the game in a matter of hours, physical stamina permitting, of course. (Banging on the bongos doesn’t provide a DDR-caliber workout, but it can be tiring, especially on the palms of the hands.) The difficulty level is fairly low, as well; it’s extremely hard to lose a life, and even the final boss was vanquished with minimal effort. The true difficulty comes in completionism; earning all the crests takes quite a bit of dedication and practice. However, unlike a rhythm game, that isn’t enough to make me want to keep playing; I felt like I’d seen all that I needed to see by the end, despite the promise of bonus levels to unlock.
I should take the time to note that Jungle Beat is playable with a standard controller as well. While possible, I found the experience akin to watching a 3D movie without the glasses; you certainly can do it, but you’re missing out on half the fun and you’ll only end up giving yourself a headache by the end. In any event, if you really want to play Jungle Beat that way, the controls are unchanged, only adapted to the controller. That is to say that holding down the analog stick in the direction you want to run won’t do anything; instead, you have to tap the stick repeatedly in the direction you want to run, just as though you were using the bongos. Again, it’s extremely awkward and not recommended at all, but if you want to play with a standard controller, you can.
Graphically, Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat looks excellent, though you won’t always know it. Some of the effects that are used are simply beautiful, especially DK’s fur and some of the reflection and lighting effects. Furthermore, even with all that fancy stuff on the screen, I never noticed an ounce of slowdown or any other graphical glitchiness. It’s just a shame that, most of the time, the game is zoomed out so far that you won’t really be able to tell that all that cool stuff is going on, but it’s there, and it looks awesome through and through.
Sound isn’t quite as impressive. There’s nothing wrong with it, per se, but the sound effects aren’t particularly memorable, nor is the music, and there’s obviously no voice acting (not that there needs to be). In all honesty, that’s not a particularly big deal, though, because you’ll probably be drowning out the sound with the slamming of the bongos anyway, and that’s the only sound that matters.
I can easily say that Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat is one of the more interesting games that I’ve played in recent months, and if you already own a pair of bongos, you really owe it to yourself to give this game a shot, because it will provide several hours of non-stop fun. The question of whether to buy Jungle Beat is something of a dicier proposition, however. The current price of $60 for the game bundled with the bongos is extremely high, and even $40 for the game by itself (if you already have the bongos) is pushing it for a game that will last no more than a couple of days, unless you love it enough to hunt down every last crest. If only the game weren’t so expensive, the added cost of the bongos notwithstanding, I’d be able to recommend it in a heartbeat, but the relative brevity and light difficulty keep me from being able to recommend Jungle Beat as anything other than a solid rental. I truly appreciate Nintendo’s efforts to both innovate and support their offbeat accessories; next time, though, I hope that, when their mad scientists are cooking up their wacky (but brilliant) ideas, they can brew up some lasting play value to go along with them.
