Donkey Kong Land 2

Donkey Kong Land 2 is the second game in the Donkey Kong Land series. All Donkey Kong Land games largely borrow elements from their Country counterparts, so this one naturally is largely based off of Donkey Kong Country 2. While many people mistake the game as a GB port of DKC2, it is, in fact, a new game due to the different layouts of the levels. Unfortunately, this game doesn't innovate as much as the first DKL did, but the physics are improved, it is easier to see the screen due to the different graphics, and it is also the only one in the DKL series to retain Funky Kong.

Unused Super Game Boy Function
Super Game Boy packet with bit set to  automatically switches to the default Super Game Boy palettes and is unused since palettes are disabled, ergo the command is unused. Rare could have originally intended to simply have the palettes switch back as done with Donkey Kong Land. Game Genie code will enable palettes.

Boss Bossanova
Here is an unused piece of music in DKL2: it's the Boss Bossanova theme, but in 8-bit! Anybody who has played DKC2 should be able to recognize this music: there, it's played in all boss stages, except for the fights against K. Rool, which use the Crocodile Cacophony music. In the final version of DKL2, all boss stages use the Crocodile Cacophony music instead. It's unclear why the Boss Bossanova theme isn't used at all in DKL2.

To hear the music, change ROM offsets, , , and to. This will cause the Boss Bossanova music to be played in Krow's Nest, Kleaver's Kiln, King Zing Sting, and Kreepy Krow, respectively.

Unused Sound Effect
By going to ROM offset (or  in the Japanese version) and changing its value, the sound effect that is heard from collecting all the stars in any Collect the Stars bonus stage is changed. If this is changed to, the Kong Token sound effect from Donkey Kong Land can be heard.

Unused Rambi Sprite
Like other Donkey Kong games, Rambi has a sprite for when he gets hurt. However, under normal conditions, it is impossible for Rambi to take damage in this game.

However, the GameShark code will allow Rambi to appear in any level. For this code to work properly, it must be used just before entering or exiting a bonus level to properly refresh the sprite (and therefore, its behavior). If Rambi is brought into levels with certain stage hazards, you can see Rambi getting hurt if he touches these hazards. Some of these include:


 * The brambles in bramble levels (Bramble Blast, Bramble Scramble, Screech's Sprint)
 * The roller coaster tracks in roller coaster levels (Target Terror, Rickety Race, Krazy Koaster)
 * The toxic water in Slime Climb and Toxic Tower
 * The lava in Lava Lagoon
 * The water in Clapper's Cavern
 * The spikes in jungle levels (Jungle Jinx, Klobber Karnage, Animal Antics)

Unused Water Tiles
The ship hold stages (Lockjaw's Locker, Lava Lagoon, and Glimmer's Galleon) were originally going to use different tiles from what the final game uses. These tiles are initially loaded into VRAM at - when first entering these levels, but they are instantly replaced by the animated water tiles, which the ice stages (Arctic Abyss and Clapper's Cavern) also use. (The animated water tiles are uncompressed, and are located at - in the ROM.) Going to offset and changing the value from  to  will prevent the original water tiles from being overwritten in the ship hold stages; therefore, this restores the unused tiles, as seen on the right.

There are a few possibilities as to why these tiles are never used. The first possibility is that all animated tiles appear in ROM bank, but there is no room in this bank for any more animated tiles (partially due to other data in this bank as well), making it impossible to create additional animated tiles without getting rid of existing ones. The second possibility is that these tiles do not look good with the shading layer that occurs in the lava in Lava Lagoon, since the layer is too low compared to the waves. Finally, it is possible that the early water graphics were considered inconsistent with that of the ice stages, so the developers may have decided to use consistent graphics for the water across all levels.

Placeholder/Unused Bonus Rooms
z_3siUFamLE Various placeholder bonus rooms exist in Donkey Kong Land 2, suggesting that more bonus levels were planned in the game. These have the IDs of, , , , , , , , , , and. All of these rooms, except for bonus room ID, are copies of the warp room in Pirate Panic and Gangplank Galley with corrupted tiles and sprites.

Bonus room ID takes place in a roller coaster setting, suggesting that it was meant to be used in either Target Terror, Rickety Race (which has no bonus stages), or Krazy Koaster. ROM offset determines the destination of the first bonus stage in Target Terror, so changing the value of this offset to  will make this stage playable. Alternately, the GameShark code will change the destination of the first bonus stage of the current level to this unused map, although it only loads properly when the main stage is a roller coaster stage.

The stage itself is a Collect the Stars bonus stage, where 20 stars need to be collected in 25 seconds. Like the Collect the Stars bonus stage that is used in Krazy Koaster, there are more stars than necessary. The bonus stage also involves bouncing over holes in the track by jumping on Flitters.

Title Screen
In a chronologically confused moment, Donkey Kong Land 2 is known as ドンキーコングランド (Donkey Kong Land) in Japan. (The first game was released in Japan, but it was called Super Donkey Kong GB.)

In addition, the Japanese version also has the "Diddy's Kong Quest" subtitle that was present in the English DKC2. This subtitle pushes the rest of the title screen up, causing coloring errors on Diddy and Dixie that weren't present in the International version.

Enemy Names
Like in Donkey Kong Country 2, some enemies have had their names changed. Unlike in DKC2, their names are in plain English, as opposed to katakana.
 * Click-Clack is called Beetle in Japan, which is unfortunately less creative.


 * Krow has the unique name of Zocky in Japan.


 * Interestingly, in Japan, King Zing is called King B instead. This can be interpreted as being in relationship with Queen B in Donkey Kong Country.

Level Changes
The Japanese version of the game features several level design changes, by and large to make the game slightly easier.


 * In Bramble Blast, there is a section before the Star Barrel where there are two Blast Barrels pointing diagonally down and to the right. In this section, there are two Zingers in the International version, but only one in the Japanese version.


 * In Parrot Chute Panic, in a section shortly after the Star Barrel, two Zingers were removed in the Japanese version. This was probably done to prevent sprite overload -- in the International version, if too many Zingers appear on the screen in this part, the DK Barrel won't appear.


 * In Kreepy Krow, when hitting Krow twice, two hooks appear. In the Japanese version, the top hook appears higher up. The platform above is also higher, and the rope climbing section is a bit shorter.

Cheat Codes
In the International version, there exist cheat codes to make the game easier. All of these are done on the file select screen.


 * Hold Left or Right, then press A, A, B, B to start with 50 lives.
 * Hold Left or Right, then press B, B, A, A to start with 40 Banana Coins.
 * Hold Left or Right, then press A, B, A, B to start with 47 Kremkoins.

These cheat codes do not work in the Japanese version. They still exist in the ROM from to, and the routine to handle the cheat codes still exists at , but it is made inaccessible in the Japanese version.

Bonus Counter Glitch
In the English version, there is a glitch that involves the counter used in bonus stages. For the Destroy Them All and Collect The Stars bonus stages, the game keeps track of how many enemies (or stars) are remaining in the bonus stage by using a counter. However, when losing a bonus stage, the counter does not reset to zero, so in a main level, this counter can continue to decrease upon collecting single bananas or defeating enemies. When the counter reaches zero, a sound effect is heard, as if a Kremkoin just appeared.

The Japanese version fixes this glitch by resetting the counter to zero every time a main level is entered, so that the sound effect does not play when it should not. Oddly, this change was not kept in any version of Donkey Kong Land III, so in that game, the glitch reappears, although the counter only decreases when defeating enemies.