The Panda Prince

The Panda Prince
The Panda Prince's Title Screen
Publisher	Taiwan Shin-Shin
Developer	Taiwan Shin-Shin
Console	Famicom
Date	1996
Sound engine	Taiwan Shin-Shin
Alternate names/hacks	The Panda Prince 2(?), Super Lion King 2

The Panda Prince is a pirated Donkey Kong Country port made by Shin-Shin Electronics in 1996.

Overview

File:PandaPrinceGameplay.png

Panda Prince's Gameplay

The Panda Prince is mostly like Donkey Kong Country, but with a different story of a queen panda getting captured by a wasp (who looks like the wasp from Donkey Kong Country). The intro has some original graphics but the some of music is from the Donkey Kong Land pirate (which is from Donkey Kong Land on the Game Boy), other music is from DKC for SNES, and some of the music is new.

The gameplay and graphics resemble Donkey Kong Country, but the 3rd level and mine cart level are a little bit original. Also, the bosses are faced outside rather then infront of bananas, and the bosses have minor graphic edits like back packs and staches. There is a bonus stage in the first level like the one from DKC, although when the player exits it they're sent back to the start of the level. There are also no checkpoints in this game. Like in Donkey Kong Country 4, the save feature from the original has been replaced with passwords, which are given after every level.

The ending has the main character clapping while the queen looks to the left constantly (even though the last boss was a flamingo and not the wasp in the intro).

A hack of this game, published by N.T. in 1997, was released titled Super Lion King 2. It removes the opening storyline, replaces the Panda Prince with Simba and changes the levels. The first is a different mine cart level, with the second and third being done from scratch before the final boss against the ostrich from that game. Strangely, on the third level a bonus game can be accessed which sends the player to the first level of The Panda Prince where the player goes through the levels of that game. The passwords from that game work in this as well.

Trivia

• There are unused graphics such as a Panda Prince 2 title and map screen graphics, even though the game doesn't have a map screen. Also there are a bunch of tiles from The Dragon like the bomb and the crate, suggesting this game was built from it. This game also has some unused levels, almost all of them appearing in Super Lion King 2. One that isn't used at all is a red and yellow underwater level with the music slightly sped up. There is also a wasp battle that you never encounter in the game despite the story mentioning a wasp stealing the princess. Another interesting thing about the battle is that you can pick up barrels to throw at the wasp (in Super Lion King 2, the invincibility time is infinite for the wasp so after the first hit, you're stuck). Beating the wasp brings you to a glitched up title screen. These levels can be accessed through pressing Start in the bonus room (with the 3 barrels). You press up or down to choose what level to go to. Pressing Start selects the level. Pressing Select lets you choose the banana rooms and bosses. If you wait a while on the selection screen, it sends you back to the intro.
• Strangely, the Panda Prince collects bananas, which doesn't make any sense in this game.
• This game predates Super Donkey Kong due to Panda Prince's title screen music appearing in SDK's NSF.
• One game, "Jungle Adventure", on the vanGard 8-bit Gamecore is a ripoff of the boss levels from this game.[1] "Lair's Secret" on the same console is a hack of Sachen's Rockball with music from this game.
• The game genie code AANGAIPA changes the game to Chinese mode where the intro and menu is all in Chinese and the title screen is different with scrolling pandas going across.