38. Ripcurl Reef ( GBA only )

Gusty-Glade-style wind & water: as a wise critic once said, “It’s like puking on a pile of shit”. But e’en “Gusty Glade” a’least made some effort to arrange its level based on its abruptly changing wind; “Ripcurl Reef” demands you to precisely maneuver your large hitboxes ’mong colonies o’ Lurchins with a weird gold & green palette that looks glitchy, which would be harsh but fair; but add in having to adjust gainst wind, & it loses that latter attribute. It doesn’t help that they choose the most dickish wind they could, 1 that’s so strong that you sometimes can’t fight gainst it no matter how hard you slam on the right arrow, & unlike the notorious “Animal Antics”, where the wind changed on a consistent interval, here it changes whene’er it pleases, with no way to prepare other than to memorize the level. & the level is arranged to take advantage o’ this to screw you o’er as much as possible: in addition to 1 part where if you don’t anticipate a hard wind going left you’ll be pushed into a Lurchin to the left no matter how hard you hold right, there is legit 1 section where you need to hold right to fight gainst leftward wind & avoid a Lurchin to the left, only for the wind to suddenly swing rightward just as you reach a Lurchin to your right, throwing you right into it. All this adds up to the most frustratingly unfair level in the entire trilogy.

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Donkey Kong Country 3 is considered the weak point o’ the original trilogy, & that’s not entirely unwarranted: coming @ the very end o’ the SNES’s lifetime — to the point that this game was released after Super Mario 64 — Rare was shifting development toward the N64, with much o’ the core DKC staff, including the main game designer, Gregg Mayles, & 1 o’ the main composers, David Wise ( tho he did compose a few songs, & this was balanced out by the other main composer, Eveline Novakovic, not composing anything for DKC2 ). While I’d argue that Novakovic did a great job with this game’s soundtrack, which I only appreciate mo’ & mo’ with each listen, the loss o’ Mayles lost this game many level design touches that made the other DKC levels, specially those in DKC2, great, most notably the careful positioning o’ elements, such as Zingers, to always allow players a way to get thru obstacles without stopping & waiting, & the the lack o’ variety & balance in levels, with levels in this game focusing too monotonously on their gimmicks.

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