THE TRIBUNAL: Donkey Konga (Nintendo Gamecube)

Well, Donkey Konga is not a Beatmania game, but it’s as close as we have for now, which makes me happy. The game comes with two great bongo drums, and there are 4 different “notes”: left drum, right drum, both drums, or clap. It’s a lot of fun to play, especially with a friend, and it even has mini-games you can play, including a really awesome juggling one which uses the drums.

The best part about the game is the song list. There are some really great games in here, and most of them are arranged very well for play with the game. Nothing beats getting REALLY into the groove and playing the bongos like they were the real thing. The only problems are the few songs that DON’T go well with the game. On the Road Again by Willie Nelson is one of those. And the notes you hit don’t go well with the song as a whole, so it’s hard to play simply because there is no groove to get in to. Fortunately, those songs are few and far between. Most of the songs are excellent.

In my opinion, Donkey Konga suffers from only one drastic flaw. The scoring system is set up in a way that you get points for hitting a correct note, and points removed for hitting a note incorrectly, or missing it. Because of this, it is entirely possible to get completely perfect on a song, up until the last note, and still not completely fill up your score bar. Whereas, you can miss a decent amount near the beginning, then ace the song, and your score is maxed. This annoys someone like myself, who wants all golds for the songs. See, you get a silver if you pass a song, but you get gold if you max out the score meter. Sadly, there appear to be no bonus songs or anything of the sort, but it’s still a goal to attain.

And was instantly hooked. As was everybody else who played it. And now the full version has arrived, with even more songs, and harder difficulty levels, and it’s even better than I recall.

Matching Konami’s legendary series was always going to be tough, but Nintendo and Namco have teamed up to achieve this; while the game retains much of what makes the Bemani series so great, there’s more than enough new little twists to make the game stand out.

The bongos themselves are simple yet effective, and a perfect balance between response and durability. The song list is excellent (Lee’s jealous that the PAL version has “99 Red Balloons”) and it has a HUGE ‘passer-by attract factor’ – Over an hour or so on a Saturday afternoon, things escalated from “me having a quick game” to “everybody in the house taking turns”.

One of the biggest problems I’ve had with Donkey Konga is the song list. There simply aren’t enough songs to give it extensive replay value; for the first iteration of what will hopefully become a full-fledged rhythm-based franchise, the number of songs is respectable but still somewhat low. This will be remedied by future song packs, but it’s still a problem now. A quarter of the songs have simply no use whatsoever. These include most of the Kids’ songs, which are an insult to anyone over the age of five, but also “On the Road Again,” “Rock Lobster,” “Stupid Cupid,” and the “DK Rap.” The first is woefully out of place, and the latter three are simply asinine and irritating. Even the “Pokemon Theme” has more appeal than these. The pop songs range from fair to good, but the best songs are those that are least popular, such as the Hungarian Dance and Turkish March, as well as the genuine conga music. The Nintendo fan service is highly appreciated, and deserves to be much more prominent, as they mix nostalgia with good songs and enjoyable play.

The Appeal factor for this one is oddly split. The Bongo controller is fun, pure and simple, and it draws crowds of onlookers who can barely resist the urge to try it. In fact, it has far more newbie appeal than DDR, since it doesn’t appear so skill-intensive and physically draining. The song list, however, will definitely put off a lot of players, particularly since the Kids’ songs are the first on the menu. I understand Nintendo’s desire to be a family company first and foremost, but songs like the “Campfire Medley” are simply patronizing. The rest of the soundtrack is family-friendly without being unplayable to every other demographic, making the nursery rhymes even worse.

The game’s balance is good, but not great. Monkey difficulty is easy to pick up, and can be mastered within an hour, and Gorilla is fast enough and complicated enough to give even seasoned rhythm players difficulty, but Chimp difficulty level isn’t a fair middle ground; the line between harder Monkey songs and easier Chimp songs is negligible, but there is a vast disconnect between harder Chimp songs and easier Gorilla songs.

It has a fair amount of innovation, surprisingly. The multiplayer goes above and beyond the standard VS mode with its Duets and Quartets, making a much more cooperative experience, good for pulling in girlfriends or casual gamers who are usually put off by competitive multi against friends with far more experience with the game. The inclusion of mini-games is appreciated, but only Banana-Juggling is worthwhile. The Vine Climb’s controls are unresponsive to the point of unplayability, and the Whack-A-Mole is just boring.