Donkey Kong Barrel Blast: Difference between revisions

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|image=[[File:Cover DKBB.jpg|250px]]<br>'''North American box art'''

|developer=[[Paon]]<br>[[Nintendo SPD Group No.4]]

|publisher=[[Nintendo]]

|genre=[[Genre#Racing|Racing]]

|modes=Single-player, Multiplayer

|platforms=[[Wii]]

|media={{media|wii=1}}

|input={{input|nunchuk=1}}

}}

This racing game, unlike most other racing games, takes place in the sky, where three dimensions of navigation are used rather than two. Players race around courses using rocket-powered bongos, and during a race, players are able to use items, [[Wild Move]]s and shortcuts in an attempt to reach first place. The items are used to give players advantages over their competitors, similarly to the ''[[Mario Kart (series)|Mario Kart]]'' series, though the game has various other elements unique to it, such as using Wild Moves to gain a speed boost or riding on [[Animal Friends]] to smash through obstacles. The game makes heavy use of motion control during the race, where players are required to use the [[Wii#Wii Remote|Wii Remote]] and Nunchuk accordingly to perform various moves, such as accelerating or jumping. The game supports up to four players, but only in the Jungle Grand Prix and Single Race modes; the other game modes are for only one player. Jungle Grand Prix, the main mode of the game, features eight racers in a multi-lap race to the finish line on a given race track.

This game requires twenty-two blocks on the player's Wii system to save game data, and the game data can also be copied and moved to an [[Memory Card|SD card]] or transferred to another Wii.

==Gameplay==

The vehicular form of transportation in ''Donkey Kong Barrel Blast'' are rocket-powered bongos; due to their aerial nature, the racers are unaffected by the course's grounded terrain, but they move slower underwater and automatically reach their top speed inside a wormhole and when entering a Launcher Barrel. As with all racing games, players pick a character with varying stats, strengths and weaknesses, and race around an obstacle filled course in an attempt to finish in first place out of eight competing racers. During a race, players can obtain [[list of items|items]] from [[Balloon (Donkey Kong Barrel Blast)|balloon]]s and use them to interfere their rivals progress, which draws inspiration from that of the general [[Mario Kart (series)|''Mario Kart'' series]]. Additionally, also drawing inspiration from the ''Mario Kart'' series, more powerful items are awarded to racers who are further behind; players in first place are likely to get either the weaker [[Banana Bunch]]es or [[Backward Barrel]]s items, while those near last place may get a [[Crystal Coconut]], [[Mega TNT Barrel]] or [[Quawks]]. When a race is completed, players receive a certain amount of points depending on which position they finished a race in. The player with the most amount of points at the end of the set of races is the winner.

A unique feature in this game is the ability to ride a [[Toboggan]], a [[Minecart]], as well as [[Animal Friends]]. The former two pits the player in a small bonus game were they can obtain more bananas and use the bonus area as a shortcut, while the latter allows a player to break through obstacles. Several types of barrels are also present, each with a different purpose. Normal barrels are weak obstacles that are essential to Wild Move combos, [[Iron Barrel]]s significantly slows down a player who bumps into them while [[Barrel Cannon|Launcher Barrel]]s can be used as shortcuts. Players also encounter some wooden panels with a red '''!'''-mark on them. These are known as Surprise Panels, and they summon a wide variety of items after being touched. Some examples are [[Golden Banana]]s, barrels, and Launcher Barrels. Three difficulty levels not only control the difficultly of CU players during a race, but how fast a player will move once they reach their top speed, with Rookie being the slowest, Pro being medium and Expert being the fastest.

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!width=4%|1st!!width=4%|2nd!!width=4%|3rd!!width=4%|4th!!width=4%|5th!!width=4%|6th!!width=4%|7th!!width=4%|8th

==Jungle Grand Prix==

[[File:DKBB JungleGrandPrix.png|thumb|upright=1.4|The cup selection screen.]]

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===Cup unlocking criteria===

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!Sapphire Cup

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==Other modes==

==Playable characters==

[[File:DKBB characterselection.png|thumb|upright=1.4|The character select screen.]]

It is also not possible for one player to use Ultra Barrel DK while another player uses Donkey Kong or vice versa, due to them sharing the same character slot. If a character has not been unlocked yet, a black silhouette of Donkey Kong takes its place on their character slot, except for Ultra Barrel DK. Once he is unlocked, the player sees a small speech bubble when hovering over DK's character slot that explains the buttons that needs to be pressed in order to select him. In order to select Ultra Barrel DK on the character select screen, the player needs to highlight Donkey Kong, hold {{button|wii|Z}} and press {{button|wii|A}}.

===[[Kong]]s===

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===[[Kremling]]s===

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==Enemies==

These characters act as obstacles and tries to attack racers. Racers slow down when struck by their attack or by colliding with them directly. A defeated enemy rewards a racer with ten bananas. Defeated enemies respawn after a while.

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|align=center|[[File:Flipflap DKBB.png|120px]]<br>[[Flipflap]]

===Red balloon items===

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!Image

===Blue balloon items===

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===Both===

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===Bananas===

The key to winning is collecting bananas to fill the Wild Move gauge. It takes 50 bananas to fill it and obtain a Wild Move. Collected bananas respawn on the racetrack after a while.

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!Image

===[[Animal Friend]]s===

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!Image

==Barrels==

''Donkey Kong Barrel Blast'' features a variety of Barrels. Some of them can be spawned by touching a Surprise Panel.

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|[[File:DKlauncherbarrel.png|120px]]

|align="center"|[[Barrel Cannon|DK Launcher Barrel]]

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==Pre-release and unused content==

{{main|List of Donkey Kong Barrel Blast pre-release and unused content}}

==Staff==

{{main|List of Donkey Kong Barrel Blast staff}}

The game director is Kenichi Imaeda, and supervising is done by [[Shigeru Miyamoto]] and [[Takashi Tezuka]]. Paon's president Rikiya Nakagawa is one of the three producers of the game, Eiji Akahori is the lead programmer and Takashi Kouga composed the game's music.

==Critical reception==

''Donkey Kong Barrel Blast'' was met with mostly negative reviews for its slow racing, imprecise controls, a lack of online mode, and that the Bongo Controllers were left out of the game even though GameCube controllers are completely compatible with the Wii. It has an average score of 43.94% from 32 reviews on GameRankings and an average of 46 based on 34 reviews on Metacritic.

!colspan="4"style="font-size:120%; text-align: center; background-color:silver"|Reviews

|-style="background-color:#E6E6E6;"

|colspan=2|[https://web.archive.org/web/20191209015129/http://www.gamerankings.com/wii/933035-donkey-kong-barrel-blast/index.html 43.94%]

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===Sales===

==Names in other languages==

*[https://www.nintendo.co.jp/wii/rdkj/index2.html Official Japanese website]

*[https://web.archive.org/web/20130507053633/http://www.nintendo.com/sites/dkbb/ Official North American website] (archived)

{{DKBB}}

{{Wii}}

[[Category:Wii games]]