Donkey Kong Country 3 is considered the weak point o’ the original trilogy, & that’s not entirely unwarranted: coming @ the very end o’ the SNES’s lifetime — to the point that this game was released after Super Mario 64 — Rare was shifting development toward the N64, with much o’ the core DKC staff, including the main game designer, Gregg Mayles, & 1 o’ the main composers, David Wise ( tho he did compose a few songs, & this was balanced out by the other main composer, Eveline Novakovic, not composing anything for DKC2 ). While I’d argue that Novakovic did a great job with this game’s soundtrack, which I only appreciate mo’ & mo’ with each listen, the loss o’ Mayles lost this game many level design touches that made the other DKC levels, specially those in DKC2, great, most notably the careful positioning o’ elements, such as Zingers, to always allow players a way to get thru obstacles without stopping & waiting, & the the lack o’ variety & balance in levels, with levels in this game focusing too monotonously on their gimmicks.

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7. Toxic Tower

It only struck me now that this level is, to a large extent, “Animal Antics” done right: the 3 most interesting animal buddies in this game ( & also the new animal buddies 1st introduced in this game ) challenged in a race upward gainst the rising toxic green lava, or whate’er it’s s’posed to be. This is also a much better version o’ “Slime Climb”, as the toxic lava is consistently rising @ the same pace so that gains you make @ certain setpieces give you mo’ time in later setpieces, rather than having the water jump to near where you are @ e’ery so event point, like in “Slime Climb”.

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