My 101% Run in Donkey Kong Country via Nintendo Switch Online
In this article I will cover my attempt to achieve a 100 percent completion in Donkey Kong Country which means completing all levels of Donkey Kong Country and discovering every single bonus room in the game. Join me on this journey playing the game via Nintendo Switch Online, but please don’t mind some tiny spoilers. As it’s not my first time 100%’ing this game, I’ll mention the levels by name in which I have not found all secrets by myself - even after several attempts. My aim is to use this blogpost as a benchmark to compete against future me when I’ll play the game in a couple of years again.
My 101% Track Record
Donkey Kong Country is not only a challenging game to beat, it is also quite difficult to find all the secrets in the game. Some might even state that it’s not possible to find all secrets by yourself, since some bonus rooms are hidden in the most unexpected areas. Some years ago, somewhere in 2016, I discovered to my surprise that I might have never achieved a 100 percent completion back in the days. I’m actually not quite sure, but the save file on my childhood cartridge said 100% - and not 101%. Motivated by this flaw, I decided to give Donkey Kong Country a proper replay - and celebrated a 101% run on my SNES some days later. This is a photo of my SNES save file:
Roughly 4 years later, in August 2020, I went for my first attempt for a 101% run playing Donkey Kong Country via Nintendo Switch Online. In my very first run, mastering the game completely by myself, without looking anything up, I achieved 87%:
In this 4,5 hrs playtime it is included that every time I have beaten a level, I always played the level several times again with the aim to find all secrets by myself. But as you can see, there are still 14 secrets left. That proves a point I like a lot about the game:
Even after playing Donkey Kong Country a bunch of times in the past 25 years, some bonus rooms are just too well hidden! It is really challenging (and rewarding) to try to find them on your own. So please do yourself a favour and play all levels multiple times before you consult the Internet!
The easiest way to check if you found all bonus rooms in one level is the exclamation mark (!) after the level name, which is in my mind a subtle way of indicating the completeness of a level. A rewarding indicator for the player - and sadly hardly being used in nowadays games anymore. Rareware had a pretty great idea of showing the player with the “!”, that all secrets have been found. I still can remember the schoolyard talk back in the day:
Do you have a “!” in Barrel Cannon Canyon? No not yet, you?
Brilliant!
Since I want to use this blogpost also in a competitive sense for future playthroughs regarding playtime and % (and I’d be happy when some of you’d do the same!), I won’t explicitly describe what to do or where to find the exact area for the secrets. What I’ll do is to list the level I was missing the bonus level and showcase an indication where the bonus level can be found.
To keep the backtracking experience as “Old School” as possible, I haven’t used the rewind feature that often and have used the Original Donkey Kong Country Guide instead; to dig into the level maps old-school-like. So which levels did I have to re-visit?
Ropey Rampage
Interesting. Already in the second level of the first area of the game, Kongo Jungle, I was not able to find all the bonus rooms. To be exact: I have not found any of the two bonus levels on my own! Am I losing my Donkey Kong skills? What the kong!
This bonus level is exactly one of these secrets, that you usually just discover by coincidence.
Oh snap! This bonus room was not necessary to miss! Next time I do better - hopefully!
Stop & Go Station
The bananas are showing you the way! All the way up. Nothing can stop me!
Forest Frenzy
Passages such as this one usually gets the player nervous to navigate the Kongs through all that flying Neckies, looking out for bonus rooms don’t seem to be natural here.
Temple Tempest
This bonus room I could have definitely found on my own! Hopefully next time.
Orang-utan Gang
In this level I was actually missing three (3!) bonus levels (out of five!), and I would say it's the most difficult (and annoying) level to find all the bonus rooms. For one secret I missed, you have to do a lot of backtracking with Expresso. Here I’m really wondering which players were able to find this bonus room by themselves, but again: That’s the charm of a Donkey Kong Country. Finding this bonus level can be a bit hard - or at least I did cost my several tries (Don’t rewind, let’s hit Start and Select to keep it classy).
For the second bonus room that I missed you need the assistance of your Animal Friend as well.
The third secret can be reached without Expresso’s help.
Snow Barrel Blast
Another one of these bonus rooms that you might have discovered only by accident …
Oil Drum Alley
In this level I found three (3!) bonus rooms by myself. But there is even one more % to find! And this one is a very clever one - and pretty unique, since it is the only secret of this kind of the entire game. I assume this % is actually the one I never managed to find prior 2016. Bravo, Rareware!
Elevator Antics
Here I would say this is a typical Donkey Kong Country series (or Yooka Laylee!) secret. Always nice - and easy to miss.
Mine Cart Madness
The % I missed here is also a clever one: I actually found the spot, since I assumed a bonus room there, but it seems I haven’t looked hard enough ...
Tanked Up Trouble
Another bonus room that is a typical Rareware/Playtonic Games secret. Have you found this one by yourself? I haven't, and that's why I missed the % here! Nice one!
Loopy Lights
This bonus level was maybe a tad bit difficult to find, but on the other hand very doable. I’m a bit upset with myself that I have missed that one. Usually the golden rule: Where there is a Barrel, there is also a ….
I did it! 101%
And it’s a wrap! I successfully spotted the missing 14 bonus rooms, and the remaining 14% were added to my my save file:
Interestingly I needed exactly 37 minutes longer than my last 101% run back in 2016 on my original SNES. Did I lose a bit of my Donkey Kong Country skills? Or did I, although I actually tried to not use the rewind function too much, have I played around nevertheless with the function and wasted some time here? Or was I simply a bit slow, since I looked up in the original guide - instead of watching a Let’s Plays, what allowed me to go straight away to the missing bonus rooms?
Let’s see - my next 101% run will tell, maybe I won’t even wait 4 years, to navigate the Kongs through Donkey Kong Island ...
Happy to hear how your 101% runs - or attempts to reach 101% turned out. And let me know if you are interested in a similar summary when I'm trying to complete Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest via Nintendo Switch Online some day. :)
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