Donkey Konga

[Ginza]

Mine arrived at 10.59 exactly this morning (it says so on the tracker im not that sad)

The drum feels really high quality im amazed. I cant get around the game but iv stumbled across a few modes where i can just beat the drum and get points.

tis fantastic and i would recommend it to anyone with a gamecube as it works with the freeloader aswell!

[Bleeders]

Yer, as Ginza says, it's quite heavy on the ol' Japanese though.

[tankplanker]

Mine turned up today (posted Thursday night) complete with all four drums, thanks Play-Asia!

The boxes for the additional controllers are identical to the game and controller pack, which is a bit confusing. I was surprised how small the controllers where, but they are the same size as my sisters "proper" bongos. The controllers are very well made, and are as high quality as the Taiko no Tatsujin drums, with a loose feeling drum skin on top. Cable length isn't brilliant - it is about the same length as the standard controller, so you will need to move your controller extention leads over.

I've tested the game both with my switch on my US console and with Freeloader version 1.0.6b, both work fine. I do not have a PAL console for testing.

The game itself doesn't have a lot of fuff around it, but the presentation is to a high quality and is a big step up from Taiko no Tatsujin. The menus are a little confusing for the Non Japanese reading adience, but you can workout what is going on for most options through trial and error.

The first option seems to be 1 player easy mode, which is far to easy, stick to the next option down, this seems to be normal mode. The next option appears to be hard mode, but the songs are locked. The next set of options are for multiplater, either 1 vs 1, 2 player co-op (which includes an endless mode), 1 ~ 4 vs mode, and the mini games. The mini games are locked to one player mode to begin with, you need to unlock the multiplayer versions of these.

Unlocking consists of earning coins(?) for completing songs with a certain points/combo ratio (I haven't sussed this yet), then going into the shop and purchasing either songs (I think for hard mode or for multiplayer) or mini games. I can't say I'm that impressed that most of the multiplayer is locked away subject to completing the one player songs.

Completing a song you are awarded a gold/silver/bronze (not seen that one) DK logo next to the song you have completed. This is only on one player, you don't seem to accure coins in the multiplayer modes. The choice of songs (I haven't spent any coins yet, so not really gone through the unlockables) is a mixture of world wide pop songs, j-pop, classical and three donkey kong themes (including the DK Rap). As the choice is mainly Japanese orientated, the US release will have a lot of different songs, meaning we'll get a new batch fairly soon.

Actual play is a lot of fun, and obviously the fun rises with the more people you have playing. I had a two hour go this lunchtime, which included a 30 minute three player session (and a four player if you cound the one with the kids), ace! I need to tweak the clap sensativity in the options, as it was picking up other peoples claps, but this seems easy to do.

The in game graphics for one/two player has DK and DK Jnr updated cgi models from DK Country banging the bongos (or clapping) in time with you. These get dropped for 3/4 player due to the amount of screen space needed. Everything looks like a higher resolution version (it supports progressive scan) of Taiko no Tatsujin, with the madness (dancing drum sticks for example) toned down a touch.

The actual gameplay is bang the left drum for a yellow circle, right for red circle, both for purple, clap for blue. Extended bongo rolls start with the colour of the roll (e.g., purple for both), but you can carry on the roll with both sides of the drum.

If you enjoyed Taiko no Tatsujin, then you are going to like this a lot, if you like other rythm action games, again you are going to like it too. If you are going to get it, make sure you get two or more bongos, its best in multiplayer.

[jimmbob]

The game itself doesn't have a lot of fuff around it, but the presentation is to a high quality and is a big step up from Taiko no Tatsujin. The menus are a little confusing for the Non Japanese reading adience, but you can workout what is going on for most options through trial and error.

The first option seems to be 1 player easy mode, which is far to easy, stick to the next option down, this seems to be normal mode. The next option appears to be hard mode, but the songs are locked. The next set of options are for multiplater, either 1 vs 1, 2 player co-op (which includes an endless mode), 1 ~ 4 vs mode, and the mini games. The mini games are locked to one player mode to begin with, you need to unlock the multiplayer versions of these.

It sounds fantastic, hopefully my copy will be arriving this week sometime. Multiplayer is what I'm most looking forward to. [What is it about games with monkeys in that makes them so much fun?!]
Perhaps some kind person can post up a translation of the menus for us poor [lazy] souls who can't figure it out.
Does the game auto-save?...

[Ginza]

Brilliant tank thanks for that. Now i know what the blue spikey circle and long thing is for... clapping

This has to be the most enjoyable game i have played on my gamecube that has compelled me from the start.

If only somebody on here could do a proper translation for all the menus then i will be in heaven

Tank if im being honest if i didnt have the game i wouldnt want to read all those spoilers of yours so maybe put the revealing stuff in spoiler text. Stuff like the controls and stuff its more fun to find out for yourself i find. Would have ruined it if i had read that before it arrived. Just a thought anyway.

Ok so i cant navigate the menus/options or save but its still the best time iv had on the gc for ages.
Ginz.

[tankplanker]

what spoilers? I'll hide them if you point them out.

I can give the menus a go, but I can't read Japanese so it would be a guestimate, does anybody who own the game actually read Japanese?

[emjay2kay]

Nice write-up Tank. Hopefully I'll get it through early this week, possibly tomorrow. I cannot wait, although I'm slightly apprehensive about the Japanese Menus. I manage on WE6FE mind you, so trial and error works out eventually.

Is anyone going to get all three sets from each region? I have an extra set of Bongos on the way, but when the US and Pal versions come out, I might buy them for the extra songs and then I'll have 4 Bongos too.

[jimmbob]

Is anyone going to get all three sets from each region? I have an extra set of Bongos on the way, but when the US and Pal versions come out, I might buy them for the extra songs and then I'll have 4 Bongos too.

I may try the US version aswell aslong as there's a big enough difference in the track list.
It's a shame you can't put your own CD's in like in Vib-Ribbon, that'd be ace. Although impossible due to the stupid discs they use. Ahhwell...

[tankplanker]

I'd be happy if they let you download songs from a central server onto the SD memory card adapter. Shame no online But I guess that would prevent them from selling additional "song" packs

4 player online battles would have been ace, it worked well for amplitude.

I'm going to be getting the US disk for sure, I think about half of the songs will be different, based on my quick look through. I'm planning on selling one of my additonal drum sets in excahnge for it.

[?pint]

Well I'm getting 2 bongos for the Japanese version, so if the song list is radically different for the US version I'll get that and probably another two sets of bongo's as well .

[bowser123]

Got a great surprise when I got in from work, my copy of Konga.
Lovely game, little text heavy for my liking but I'm sure I can work it out.

One thing I have found useful is rather than clapping for the blue spikey circles is to tap the side of the drums for that symbol.

Also some of the levels replace circles with barrels that have no colour differentation on them, what is the key to matching the drum to the barrels?

[Ginza]

Been playing this since about 7 oclock. So solid 5 hours and it was fun for all the family. Me, my brother, mother and father all played. but mum and dad were getting too good so me and me bro continued playing.

Absolutely brilliant, just wish i had bought more drums.

[Mr Ono]

Is this a 2-player max game or 4 player?

[mr_sockochris]

4 8)

[mattSix]

anyone here using freeloader with donkey konga?

there are some reports on gamefaqs of memory card loading issues... which is strange because lik-sang report:

We have also made sure that everything works flawless by testing the actual save games and checking if the saves are usable on other consoles and if other games can still use it etc.

can anyone confirm being able to save & load using freeloader on a western cube (pal or us ntsc)?