Quite a solid offering for Nintendo’s first stateside rhythm game. The bongo controller is great!

The music/rhythm genre started out in the arcades, but quickly made its way over to the home consoles. It’s been primarily seen on the PlayStation 2 or even Xbox, but Nintendo is now hopping on the bandwagon; they’re introducing a rhythm game for the first time in the US with Donkey Konga.

As with other games in the genre, Donkey Konga is all about hitting the controller in time with icons that run across the screen. You can use a regular Gamecube controller for this, but it is really meant to be played with the new bongo controller, which comes packaged with the game.

The bongo controller has two connected drums, with a microphone and a start button between them. While playing along to one of the 33 songs in the game, you must hit one drum, both drums, perform a drum roll, or clap your hands. The microphone is to detect the clapping sound, but any sound that’s loud enough will suffice.

The main problem with the microphone is that it sometimes detects a sound when you don’t want it to. This can result in a clap being sensed too early, and cause you to get a bad score on that clap, or more commonly that you’ll hit one of the drums and it will register as a clap instead.

You can adjust the microphone sensitivity, but then you might end up not getting credit for a clap because the setting is too high. If you can find the right setting and you get the feel for the bongo controller itself, the clapping idea really is a nice touch to the game, but it just adds a hint of annoyance that honestly did not have to be there.

As mentioned earlier, there are 33 songs in the game. This is very much on the low side for rhythm games, and the fact that the music genres are so widespread means there are several songs you likely won’t even touch unless you want to complete everything.

Yes, the songs range from “Itsy Bitsy Spider” to “Whip It”. There are also a couple Nintendo-themed songs in there such as a remix of the original Mario Brothers and Legend of Zelda themes, as well as DK Rap and the Donkey Konga theme song. A good point, however, is that a very good majority of these songs are songs you won’t find in any other game.

The game allows for up to four player simultaneous play, and each player can use either a standard Gamecube controller or a bongo controller. Inside the multiplayer spectrum, there are a few different modes. In “battle”, you have special “attacks” and bonuses during the song to help you get the higher score. “Jam session” lets you and your opponents play different rhythms at the same time to create a harmonic drumming session. And of course there is a standard head-to-head mode. You can also actually play against the computer if you don’t have any friends to join you.

Donkey Konga also has some mini-games, mainly to show off the other possibilities of the bongo controller. You unlock these with coins that you earn in the single-player mode of the game, and include a whack-a-mole-esque game, a race game, and a game where you have to juggle bananas. These are generally mundane and do not add a whole lot to the overall experience.

Also unlockable is the “gorilla” difficulty setting, and additional in-game sounds, which replace the bongo sound during the songs. There are no unlockable songs, so the 33 you start with is all you get. It will take you a while to buy all the unloackable items in the game, but unfortunately, since these items are not a big part of the game, there’s little incentive to do so.

The songs sound generally good in Donkey Konga. None of the songs has the actual record artist, but the cover artists are sufficient enough. As far as visuals go, there’s really not a lot to talk about. Sure, you’re not spending your time looking at the background images, but Nintendo certainly could have added more.

On the whole, Donkey Konga is quite a solid game for Nintendo’s first stateside rhythm game. Given that the song selection is the most crucial part in a game like this, it truly is unfortunate that there is not a bigger or better selection. Still, everyone’s going to find a few songs they like, and the novelty of the bongo controller makes the game more worthwhile.


Review by Mark Raby.