11. Course No. 18

This level saves its best ideas for the treasure, which is fitting, as beating this level doesn’t open anything else. After a bridge o’ switch blocks o’er spikes you reach a long path o’ spikes you can’t cross without taking a hit or maybe using the jet powerup if you have it & a door. @ the end o’ that door’s room is a switch & ’nother door. Going thru this door will seem to lead you back out where you entered, but with a bridge newly created before you, but that’s wrong: this is a repeated setpiece later in the level. If you instead go back to the door in which you entered the switch room & exit that way, you’ll see a newly created ladder just beside the door, leading to the path toward the key.

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23. Course No. 12

This level builds on some mechanics introduced earlier, weakens on others: its combination o’ conveyor belts & bridges in the 2nd room are mo’ interesting than in levels 5 & 11, but the climb up the mountain cliffs @ the end is far weaker than the many times you’ve done that in this mountain world, e’en with the introduction o’ a new enemy, the boomerang-throwing duck, D. D., whom players will see many times later, & who is so slow to throw its boomerang that you can just jump past them with no delay.

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29. Course No. 19

This level presents itself as an increased challenge, which would be fitting for the boss level, but it’s pretty weak. The most interesting, & only truly unique, room has you dodging slow-moving spiky stakes underwater; but I found the hermit crab enemies @ the end harder to dodge. & it’s not as if dodging moving spikes underwater is exciting.

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35. Course No. 25

“Stove Canyon” ends with much o’ the same that filled its center: basic platforming on platforms with basic enemies & lots & lots o’ hopping Bō. Granted, I can see that they tried to add some interest with the sections where you fall into horizontal passages & 1 part where you have to ride a falling bridge part so you can time a jump to a lower platform… Yeah, those are just basic platforming setpieces in other platformers; but they weren’t done in the other lava levels & they’re well implemented — well, ’cept for having to wait for the Bō before the falling sections.

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The 1st Wario Land might be the Mario game that has been worst affected by age. You can see it kind o’ attempt very forward-thinking elements for 1993, including its focus on collecting coins with actual rewards for doing so beyond a high score & extra lives & the focus on finding hidden treasure in levels, making this arguably the 1st collectathon platformer, &, as part o’ that, its alternate endings.

But I say “kind o’ attempt”, ’cause Wario Land doesn’t do much with this collectathon aspect beyond different endings, & I would say it didn’t implement them well. Treasures basically just act as alternate exits like in Super Mario World, including requiring carrying a key to a keyhole, which is on top o’ this game having alternate exits, too, including a whole bonus world that doesn’t offer any tangible reward for completion — contrast to Super Mario World’s fun reward for beating Special World. & as we’ll see, Wario Land’s treasure & alternate exit puzzles are not nearly as clever as Super Mario World’s.

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6. Riverside Race

This level finds the best balance ’tween simple ’nough to not be a miasma as you try racing thru it, but having just ’nough twists to keep it from getting as monotonous as, say, “Ripsaw Rage”. Also, unlike that level, this level’s gimmick o’ having you race ’gain a swarm o’ red-hot wasps ( as well as the time for an o’erworld sidequest, which was a nice touch ) actually encourages you to go fast, acting as a horizontal version o’ DKC2’s “rise to the challenge”.

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14. Ropey Rumpus

In a game that tended mo’ toward slower levels, it’s refreshing to see such an unapologetic romp o’ a level, where you can just zip down ropes, weaving thru intricate layouts o’ spinning or moving Zingers. Going right & left & up & down in zigzag patterns. ¿Is it yet ’nother level where you’re dodging moving bees in a trilogy full o’ dodging moving bees? Yes. ¿Does it repeat some setpieces, like the green Zingers circling red Zingers or the parts with the Zingers spinning round vertical passageways with rows o’ ropes where you have to jump up twice to find a safe spot? Yes. ¿Does this level, like many DKC3 levels, focus a bit too heavily on its gimmick, which isn’t e’en that amazing, rather than add some variety? Definitely. In fact, Zingers are the only enemies, ’less you count Koin as an enemy, in this level. Still, e’en if repeated once or twice extra, the arrangements o’ Zingers are novel & the arrangements o’ the ropes going all o’er the place, while still having coherent paths, are interesting, as well.

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22. Tearaway Toboggan

As I mentioned with “Demolition Drain-Pipe”, these cart levels turn DKC3’s proclivity for repetition into a strength — or a’least not a hindrance — as its mo’ urgent gameplay doesn’t warrant much complication, & like “Demolition Drain-Pipe” — in fact, e’en mo’ than “Demolition Drain-Pipe” — this level is packed with mo’ dangers than this games 2 predecessors. There’s a simple but strong enjoyment in bouncing on 3 Skiddas in a row that, surprisingly, doesn’t appear in any o’ the previous cart levels.

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30. Murky Mill

While I can’t fault this game’s developers for getting creative with their gimmicks, this gimmick just doesn’t work well. 1 o’ the problems is that this animal buddy’s use is the most contrived in the whole trilogy. Almost e’ery other time an animal buddy is forced on you, one could argue that the animal buddy is an improvement o’er the Kongs’ own movement. E’en if one doesn’t like controlling Squawks, its ability to fly makes it necessary for getting thru parts that require flight. But here not only is Ellie redundant for throwing barrels, when the Kongs can do that themselves, she is a liability in that she gets scared ’way from rats that the Kongs could just bash thru. The only reason you have to play as Ellie is ’cause there’s a magical barrel in a narrow opening that forces you to transform into her.

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38. Ripcurl Reef ( GBA only )

Gusty-Glade-style wind & water: as a wise critic once said, “It’s like puking on a pile of shit”. But e’en “Gusty Glade” a’least made some effort to arrange its level based on its abruptly changing wind; “Ripcurl Reef” demands you to precisely maneuver your large hitboxes ’mong colonies o’ Lurchins with a weird gold & green palette that looks glitchy, which would be harsh but fair; but add in having to adjust gainst wind, & it loses that latter attribute. It doesn’t help that they choose the most dickish wind they could, 1 that’s so strong that you sometimes can’t fight gainst it no matter how hard you slam on the right arrow, & unlike the notorious “Animal Antics”, where the wind changed on a consistent interval, here it changes whene’er it pleases, with no way to prepare other than to memorize the level. & the level is arranged to take advantage o’ this to screw you o’er as much as possible: in addition to 1 part where if you don’t anticipate a hard wind going left you’ll be pushed into a Lurchin to the left no matter how hard you hold right, there is legit 1 section where you need to hold right to fight gainst leftward wind & avoid a Lurchin to the left, only for the wind to suddenly swing rightward just as you reach a Lurchin to your right, throwing you right into it. All this adds up to the most frustratingly unfair level in the entire trilogy.

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