Donkey Kong Country 4 is a bootleg port of the 1994 SNES game Donkey Kong Country for the Famicom. The game was developed by Hummer Team and released by J.Y. Company in 1997. It is often considered to be significantly superior to other bootleg games based on the Donkey Kong Country series.
Overview[]
The player controls Donkey Kong and Diddy through numerous side-scrolling levels of many different themes. The two Kongs can be swapped by pressing Select, provided both are available.
Many of the boss fights are from the original game. As opposed to the original game, where the game displays the map every time a level is beaten, Donkey Kong Country 4 only displays the map after the title screen and after the player defeats a boss. The only map shown in the game is the world map.
The gameplay, graphics, and sound in this game are similar to the original game, albeit downgraded to work within the Famicom's limitations. For instance, the sprites are smaller than in the SNES original, likely because of the Famicom's sprite limit. Nevertheless, there is still the occasional sprite flickering in-game. The animal buddies are completely missing, which is the case in many other Donkey Kong Country bootlegs.
The save feature was removed, and replaced with a password system similar to Hummer Team's Aladdin. The passwords are displayed whenever the player gets a game over as opposed to beating a level like in Aladdin. However, because the player starts with 25 lives, it takes a while to reach this screen.
The ending was replaced with a simple scrolling credit sequence as well as a "The End" message.
Variations[]
The Jungle Book 2's title screen.
Common with other games released by J.Y., several variations are contained within the same ROM. This allows them to sell multiple different versions simply by soldering points on the PCB:
- The Jungle Book 2 - A hack that replaces both Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong with Mowgli from The Jungle Book. It gives the player 30 lives instead of 25, removes the password system, and starts on the third level instead of the first.
- 2-in-1 - A menu that gives the player a choice to play either Donkey Kong Country 4 or The Jungle Book 2.
Similarities to Donkey Kong Land[]
Despite being a port of Donkey Kong Country, this game also has a few similarities to Donkey Kong Land:
- Only one Kong can appear on the screen at a time.
- The teleporting animation when breaking a DK Barrel, as well as the shrinking animation when switching a Kong, are both very similar to Donkey Kong Land's animations.
- When falling down a pit, the game will restart the level with only one Kong, even if the player had two before falling down the pit. This is also true in Donkey Kong Land.
- When pausing the game, all the sprites disappear. However, other Hummer games such as Somari (released before Donkey Kong Land) have this feature.
Connections to other Hummer Team games[]
- If the player jumps while carrying a barrel, they will slow down slightly, similar to Somari and Super Mario World.
- This game has similar graphical errors to other Hummer Team games.
- The game contains leftover music tracks from Hummer Team's Super Mario World Famicom port that goes unused - this includes music for the ghost house, castle and ending themes from that game. This suggests that Donkey Kong Country 4 may have been built off of its engine.
- The sprites for the numbers are identical to the ones from Somari, only being moved a pixel lower.
- Earlier versions of some of the music tracks can be found in Earthworm Jim 3, another game developed by Hummer Team.
Staff[]
- Programmers: Hung Hsiang LIN, S.S HSIEH
- Picture: Kathy CHEN
- Music: Hummer CHENG
- Graphics: Y.Y.C, Carroll, Freeman, Sakula
Bugs[]
If the player gets hit and falls down a pit, there is a glitch where the player will lose a life, even if the player has both Kongs. This is similar to the glitch that usually happens in Donkey Kong Land when the player gets hit when there is no ground on the bottom of the screen.
Passwords[]
Password screen.
Key: KR = K. Rool; DK = Donkey Kong; DD = Diddy; CH = Chomps
- DK - CH - DD - DK (Stage 1-1)
- CH - KR - DK - CH (Stage 2-1)
- DD - DD - KR - DK (Stage 3-1)
- DK - DD - KR - DK (Stage 4-1)
- KR - DD - KR - DK (Stage 4-4)
- CH - CH - DK - DD (Stage 5-3/Final Boss)
- KR - DK - DD - DD (Credits)
Trivia[]
- The 4 on the title screen is seemingly out of place, similar to the 6 on Sonic 3D Blast 6's title screen, and is missing a tile.
- This is the only bootleg game based on Donkey Kong Country to use the Western name rather than the Japanese name (Super Donkey Kong).
- The J.Y. logo can be accessed by hitting Up, Down, Up, Down, Left, Left, Right, Right on the title screen.
- Sound effects, music, and graphics from this game would be reused in Hummer Team's later Famicom and plug & play games released in the 2000s.
- War, a game included on the Super New Year Cart 15-in-1 multicart, uses the renditions of Aquatic Ambience, Fear Factory, Life in the Mines, Bad Boss Boogie, and Simian Segue from Donkey Kong Country 4 for the title screen, first level, second level, final level, and game over screen respectively; the first three songs in particular are the versions that are present as unused tracks in Earthworm Jim 3. The second level of the game also reuses graphics from the Reptile Rumble level in Donkey Kong Country 4.
- A version of the level clear jingle is used in the ZDog and Samuri, two plug and play systems based on VT03 hardware produced in 2006 by Zechess that contain menu software and games developed by Hummer Team (who were now operating as a formal company and going under the name Hummer Technology). Both systems use the sound effect when a round in a game is completed.
- The Duck and The Egg use an unfinished rendition of Bonus Room Blitz found in the game code for their title screen.
- Some versions of the cartridge art of this game (numbered JY013 and JY014) contain Super Smash Bros. Melee screenshots with Donkey Kong, Those were sold in Russia in late 2001. The original JY-033 version uses SNES Donkey Kong Country artwork.
Gallery[]
Screenshots[]
_Credits.png "Donkey Kong Country 4 (Pirate Original) Credits.png (610 bytes)")
Cartridges and Box arts[]
