Donkey Kong Country (Game Boy Color)

Donkey Kong Country
Also known as: Donkey Kong 2001 (JP) Developer: Rare Publisher: Nintendo Platform: Game Boy Color Released in JP: January 21, 2001 Released in US: November 20, 2000 Released in EU: November 17, 2000 Released in AU: 2000 This game has unused graphics. This game has unused music. This game has unused text. This game has regional differences. This game has a prototype article

The Game Boy Color version of Donkey Kong Country is, as you'd expect, a remake of the SNES original. It then got reremade a few years later to the Game Boy Advance, soon followed by its sequels.

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Prototype Info

Unused Graphics

A "coming soon" message, likely intended for a demo version, is present at offset 0x3D9D00 in the American and European versions. The palette is just a guess, as there is no known way to make it load in-game.

(Source: Mattrizzle)

Unused Text

In a similar fashion to the SNES original, it is possible to display the string ERROR where the name of the level goes. In the International version, it can be displayed by changing the byte at hex address 0xC608 which controls what level is to be entered. One way to get the text displayed is to enter Kongo Jungle and set that byte to 0x1C.

Alternately, enter Kongo Jungle and enable GameShark code 011C08C6.

Unused Music

By changing the hex byte 0x03C40AE in the ROM to a different value (or Game Genie code ??0-AEB-D52), the music on the language select screen can be altered. By changing the byte to one of the following values, music tracks from Donkey Kong Land and Donkey Kong Land III that go unused in this game can be heard.

• 0C - File Select (Donkey Kong Land)
• 1A - Bonus Area, Intro
• 1B - Bonus Area, no Intro
• 1C - Bonus Win
• 1E - Goal
• 1F - Swanky's Showdown Lose (Donkey Kong Country 3; not used in Donkey Kong Land III)

While it's possible these could have been used as placeholder music in earlier builds, the Bonus Area and Goal themes received minor tweaks to bring them more in line with their SNES counterparts, implying they were intended to be used at some point. The existence of these tunes in the game could also be a hint that this version of Donkey Kong Country was built off of Donkey Kong Land III.

(Source: Talk page)

Regional Differences

To do: Find out if there are more differences.

International	Japanese

The Japanese version of the game is called Donkey Kong 2001 rather than Super Donkey Kong. Somewhat understandable, considering its Japanese release is in 2001 that's no longer on the Super Famicom and everything, although Super Famicom was discontinued in Japan only in 2003.

• In the international versions, the Rare/Nintendo logo plays slower, causing the jingle from the original game plays over the Rareware logo only, with the Nintendo logo and the copyright text using a short original theme. In the Japanese version, the logos were sped up so the jingle plays over all three screens like in the SNES version. As a result, this leaves the new music unused.

• Donkey Kong Country can be played in English, Spanish, French, Italian, or German. Donkey Kong 2001 can only be played in Japanese. As such, it lacks the language selection menu when starting up the game.

International	Japanese

• The graphic that appears when the game is paused reads "PAUSED" in international versions and "PAUSE" in the Japanese version.

• In the international versions, the player must wait for the title screen to finish scrolling to reveal the PRESS START text before entering the mode select screen. In the Japanese version, the player can press the Start button at any point to make the scrolling sequence end early.