Donkey Kong Land III

While the level environments and themes are the same as Donkey Kong Country 3, the level designs are all unique. ==Plot==

A contest has begun with big prizes for the first person who discovers the Lost World. Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong have already left to find it, leaving a disgruntled Dixie Kong behind. Deciding to prove herself every bit as capable as them, Dixie partners up with her toddler cousin Kiddy Kong. Baron K. Roolenstein and the Kremling Krew are also searching high and low for the fabled land. ==Development==

Donkey Kong Land 3 was coded by Ian Manders. Manders started at Rare in 1994 with his first project being ''Ken Griffey Jr.'s Winning Run. The game used the same engine that Robert Harrison wrote from the ground up for Donkey Kong Land 2''. Manders said that programming the game was a challenge as he was new to the tighter constraints for which the CPU of the Game Boy allowed. The game deviates more from its console counterpart Donkey Kong Country 3, if not more than the first game which had new enemies in addition to new scenery and level design. Harrison stated that this was because most of the attention was being made for games for the Nintendo 64 at Rare and that using an existing game engine allowed for more original elements to be made for the game. On 28 January 2000, less than three years after the game's North American and European releases, Nintendo released an updated Game Boy Color version of the game in Japan. Titled Donkey Kong GB: Dinky Kong & Dixie Kong, it was not released outside of Japan. This version is the same as the Game Boy version, but lacks some animations and dialogues. This version was also released on the 3DS Virtual Console in Japan in 2014, and again on the Japanese Nintendo Classics service in December 2024. ==Reception==

Donkey Kong Land III received a score of 81.25% at GameRankings based on four reviews. Nintendojo and Nintendo Power praised the games sprites with the former citing fluid animation and both complimenting that the character sprites stood out on the screen. Nintendo Power's reviewers found that the Game Boy screen became too blurry during scrolling stages. Nintendo Power recommend players to play the game via the Super Game Boy to alleviate these issues. Both reviews complimented the abundance of content in the game. Hyper praised the visuals and game control while saying it lacked challenging gameplay. The reviewer found the game did not offer a lot of surprises, while stating that "no one ever expected it to." Nintendo Power and Nintendo Life described the game as the best of the Donkey Kong game for the Game Boy to date and the best of the Donkey Kong Land series respectively. ==References==