Over the last few weeks, the Donkey Kong Land trilogy has slowly but surely been added to Nintendo Switch Online. The trilogy is now complete, as Donkey Kong Land III is now available on the Game Boy app. Unfortunately for users in North America, it’s not the best version. While subscribers in Japan got treated to the Game Boy Color version of Donkey Kong Land III, players in North America ended up with the one that appeared on the original Game Boy. That means players don’t get the far superior colors that were featured in that version.
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The reason for this decision is likely the fact that the Game Boy Color version of Donkey Kong Land III was never released outside of Japan. Donkey Kong Land III was released in North America and Europe in 1997, while players in Japan were kept waiting until 2000. By that point, Game Boy Color had been on the market for a while, so Japan got a colorized version instead. While Nintendo has had no problem adding Japanese games to Nintendo Switch Online, for some reason the GBC version of Donkey Kong Land III has remained an exception. And this is not the first time this has happened either; when Donkey Kong Land III was added to the 3DS Virtual Console, users in North America and Europe got the GB version, while users in Japan got the GBC one.
At the end of the day, the gameplay is still the same, but the visual difference is pretty notable. A trailer for Donkey Kong Land III‘s Nintendo Switch release in Japan can be found below.
It’s hard to see those colors and not get a little bit jealous! The GBC version looks significantly better, and it will be interesting to see if that one ever gets a release in North America. All of that said, Donkey Kong Land III is still worth checking out, even if North American fans didn’t get the best version. Developer Rare did an impressive job carrying over a lot of elements of the Super Nintendo Donkey Kong Country games, but with a number of changes that set these titles apart. The first Donkey Kong Land remains the most unique out of the Land trilogy, but all three are a lot of fun, and well worth checking out for Donkey Kong fans.
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These Donkey Kong Land games seem to have been added to Nintendo Switch Online as a way of building hype for the release of Donkey Kong Country Returns HD next month. It remains to be seen whether Nintendo will continue to add more Donkey Kong games while we wait, but there are still some missing on NSO. On the Game Boy app, the company could still add Donkey Kong ’94, and the GBC remake of the original Donkey Kong Country (which did get a release in North America). On N64, we could also see Donkey Kong 64 and Diddy Kong Racing. Hopefully there are still more Donkey Kong games to come!
Are you disappointed the GBC version of Donkey Kong Land III wasn’t released in North America? Have you been enjoying these old Donkey Kong games? Share your thoughts with me directly on Twitter at @Marcdachamp, on Bluesky at @Marcdachamp, or on Instagram at @Dachampgaming!