Donkey Kong Jungle Beat

Donkey Kong Jungle Beat is a 2004 platform and score-attack video game developed and published by Nintendo for the GameCube. It is part of the Donkey Kong franchise and follows the gorilla Donkey Kong as he sets out to defeat a series of evil kings and conquer the jungle. Jungle Beat is designed for use with the DK Bongos, a bongo drum-style GameCube controller previously used with the Donkey Konga series of music games. The player uses the DK Bongos to control Donkey Kong through various side-scrolling levels as he collects bananas, swings on vines, chains combos, rides animals, and defeats enemies and bosses.
Jungle Beat was the debut project of the 65-member Nintendo EAD Tokyo, with development beginning around July 2003, after Shigeru Miyamoto suggested that Nintendo should commission a new Donkey Kong game. Development was led by director Yoshiaki Koizumi and producer Takao Shimizu, who sought to create a simple, accessible game in contrast to more complex contemporary games. Koizumi conceived a game that used the DK Bongos instead of a standard gamepad to control the player character, and applied lessons he had learned from previous projects during development. Because the tone differed from previous Donkey Kong games, the team chose to exclude most of the franchise's existing elements and characters.
Jungle Beat was released in Japan in December 2004, with Western releases following a few months later in 2005. It received positive reviews from critics, who complimented its use of the DK Bongos; they also praised its visuals and level design. Criticism was directed at its short length and low difficulty level. The team that worked on Jungle Beat went on to develop the critically acclaimed Super Mario Galaxy (2007), which notably retained and refined concepts that were introduced in Jungle Beat. Jungle Beat was rereleased as part of Nintendo's New Play Control! line of GameCube ports for the Wii in 2008; the port contains reworked controls and levels. This version was later released as a downloadable game for the Wii U in 2016.
Category:Video Games