When Vangelis met DK (part 1)

Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest's musical piece In a Snow-Bound Land has been one of my most favourite tracks in the game for a long time. But I searched it up on YouTube, and what did some people say?
"Rip-off of Vangelis's Antarctica!"

I, being naturally curious, went to search for this Vangelis dude and his music. Finding the piece they were referring to, I discovered something.
It almost sounded exactly like the DKC track. Listening to more musical pieces by this man, I became a fan of the atmospheric tunes he had created. Some of it just sounds so unmistakably Donkey Kong-esque! And mr. Vangelis, and David Wise, too if you happen to be reading this... that's a good thing.

But really, it just can't be a coincidence!

The things that differ from the show and games and WHY

First off, I kinda lost track. Sorry about that. I found out about Tumblr and I have been posting there more often than here. Sincerely sorry. Find me here; click! I will always use this blog for my long-winded ramblings, do not worry!

You won't believe how many times I hear people yelling; "The show sucks! It's nothing like the games!" And that makes me a little sad, to be honest. Nelvana still did their best and I can see how much attention to detail they paid. The DKC TV show, while by no means perfect, is still enjoyable and the few things that were changed, were changed with reason.

1. K. Rool's cape and tail

In the show, the King himself lacks a tail and has an extremely short cape that bears resemblance to a tiny napkin.

Why is this?

As you can see with Klump here, his tail's as stiff as a plank. This was because back then, it was virtually impossible to animate tails, apparently. Because Klump doesn't lay down very often, it's not that bad. But K. Rool jumps and scurries all over the place, and all his expressive mannerisms and movements would certainly clash with a un-moving tail. For this same reason, Diddy Kong didn't have a moving tail until season 2. Why didn't the others get moving tails too, I hears ya ask? Monkey tails are much easier to animate than fat crocodile tails.

As for his cape, it was impossible to animate flowing cloth or hair back in 1998. That's why it's so crazily short, too.

Oh my! Sound effects!

Alright, I had to share this. My dad is watching this movie The Spiderwick Chronicles on the television, and I'm sitting here on my living room-PC listening to Vangelis and drawing stuff that will probably never see the light of day. But what do I hear coming from the television? I hear the first part of the roar of Dogadon, the fearsome dragon-fly boss from Donkey Kong 64's Angry Aztec! You know, that "Eeeeehhr-ROOOARGHGH!"... without the latter part. Apparently, his roar was either a stock sound effect, or it was merely stolen.

...just had to share this. And here's a nice drawing of a stylized African sunset I doodled up a while ago.

Take a look at Death

...And no, not at Gregg. Only if you feel like getting cussed at.

Have we ever realized how many characters die in Rare's games? Not just "game over", but just plain die, never to return, with sometimes irreversible results? Few games have the guts to actually show it, but like usual, there's always exceptions.

Conker's Bad Fur Day
Characters die by the dozen here, but we never really care, do we? Well, I know I didn't. When Conker died, he got confronted with a pint-sized Grim Reaper called Gregg who possessed a colourful vocabulary, who claimed Conker's got as many lives as he thought he'd get away with, to which the squirrel usually ended up unharmed.

Death wasn't really taken seriously in this game. I just laughed at those poor Uga Buga cavemen who were to be devoured by some deranged Yoshi-clone with sharp teeth. But near the end, I couldn't help but weep. Why? Berri, of course. Conker's girlfriend, ruthlessly killed by a mob boss's gun. As she lay on the ground, Conker tried to wake her up, but it was too late.

Later on, the airlock opened (they were in space or something) and she got sucked out into the endless abyss of space. So to this day her lifeless body is floating around in space. I wonder how Mario will react if he sees her on his space adventures like in Super Mario Galaxy.

On animated movies + bonus short fan fic!

Alright, I am sorry for posting an off-topic post. This is just the only place I could post it without bounds... And if I offended anyone, my sincerest apologies.

I have watched animated films all my life, as some of you have probably heard before. Same for that, I have watched all of Pixar's films and enjoyed them all, some more than others. However, Pixar has been disappointing me lately... much like a certain game studio. Rare decides to make sports' games, and Pixar makes a sequel to one of their least imaginative films, Cars. However, Pixar will release a new movie with new characters after that (that includes amazing scenery, which I like being a forest fetishist) whereas Rare proclaims to not disappoint their old fans but having said nothing about Banjo nor Conker.

But what is it now? I think I may end up liking Dreamworks better.

Dreamworks animation studios has long been known for negating Disney's clichés and themes and happily avert fairy tail-like tales. (Did I say fairy tail? I meant fairy tale, of course.) All of this with a good helping of pop-culture references and gross-out jokes. And let's not forget their massive case of sequelitis, with the worst offender being Shrek who currently has four movies on his name with a spin-off in the works! Their first computer-animated film, Antz, did not really know which audience it wanted to appeal to, having been marketed as family enjoyment, but containing mature themes such as decapitated ants and the word damn. It's 'this Kong's one hell of a guy!' all over again! Well... and the decapitated head part I guess Conker and the zombies? Oh well. Apart from that, they appeared to be more in it for the money, pumping out sequels just for the funsies.

Species and stuff

Have you ever wondered what species the animals in Donkey Kong Country were? Wonder no more!

1) Squawks.

Squawks looks like a parrot, acts like a parrot, and moves like a parrot. Yet, his species is more closely related to the common breegull than the parrot. Because the species began to move and act like a parrot, it became a parrot. Looks-like, at least. It's comparable to the way how marsupials look a lot like other mammals because they share the same lifestyle. Tasmanian Devil=Wolverine, Thylacine=Wolf, you get the point. But why is Squawks's species closely related to the Breegulls? The answer lies in its odd way of protecting itself - spitting eggs. Females have insanely quick-working ovaries and screwed-up innards, which means that they can use their unfertilized eggs as projectiles. Quite glaringly similar to a Breegull.

It's more than that, though. Detailed studies revealed oddly similar wing-shapes.

The two species share a similar skeletal structures as well, but this is not able to be seen with the naked eye. That's where the similarity ends, though.

Little things that'll blow your mind

There's just so much behind the DKC games, some more obvious than others. I'll share the less obvious ones here in a fresh, new blog post. Easter eggs and such at no extra cost included.

1. The Theme Song

Honestly, when I heard this myself, my jaw dropped. It's still on the floor as we speak. Sure, Cranky standing on some girders was enough to see that he was actually the original Donkey Kong, but I never quite realized that the original arcade game had exactly that theme he was playing on his old record.

Unbelievable. It's odd when you realize Rare borrowed more from the source material (which is arcade DK) than Retro did (which happens to be DKC)