Donkey Kong (Game Boy)

The Game Boy Donkey Kong is the precursor to the Mario vs. Donkey Kong series. Grab keys, open doors, throw barrels at monkeys and vice versa. Notably, this was one of the final times people would see "classic" Donkey Kong before Rare rebooted the franchise later that year, with a bit of foreshadowing being sprinkled in by giving the titular ape his soon-to-be-signature tie.

There are several surprises to be found when playing this game using a Super Game Boy.

Prerelease Info

Odd Stage Option#

This stage option appears directly after the 9-5 option. Selecting it effectively freezes the game.

Unused Stages#

Game Genie codes for revision 0 3E4-F3D-081 ??4-F4D-4CE 004-F5D-C49 (where "??" is one of the below IDs) will send you to that stage when you try to enter a stage. Note that when using this code, the palette (with the exception of final boss stages) and stage intro/exit cutscenes are hardcoded to the original stages being replaced, and the game will softlock if Donkey Kong tries to enter a locked door that isn't in the stage.

Stage 65#

Identical to Stage 9-9, with two exceptions. The first is the Rappy enemy circling the middle platform.

The second is this odd counter. It displays how many times in the game you've hit an object while doing a handstand.

Stages 66-67#

Like stage 65, but with two Rappies. In stage 67 the two Rappies move faster.

Stage 68#

An odd hybrid of stages. The layout, music, and default palette are from Stage 0-1 (25m), but the level graphics are from Stage 9-5 (Tileset 0f).

Stages 69-FF#

A near-barren stage that takes up the remaining stage ID slots. Plays the music that first appears in Stage 1-7. Every copy of the stage has a different random palette.

Unused Graphics#

The game has a bunch of unused graphics and enemies. All of them are stored compressed using the same compression algorithm as the other graphics, scattered across the game's real tileset.
They can be used in stages as well, however, some of them lack game logic so they spawn statically and do nothing.

Unused Enemy: Cockroach#

Found at Bank 0x0d Offset 0x5dc0

Unused Enemy: Pterodactyl#

Found at Bank 0x0e Offset 0x64c5

Unused Enemy: Robot#

Found at Bank 0x0d Offset 0x5be7

Unused Enemy: Mecha#

Found at Bank 0x16 Offset 0x7387. This one animates and moves when spawned in Airplane and Retro stages. It was also seen in some early screenshots.

Unused Enemy: Plant#

Found at Bank 0x16 Offset 0x747e. This one animates and moves when spawned in Forest and Jungle stages.

Unused Enemy: Cactus#

Found at Bank 0x16 Offset 0x74f3. This one animates and moves when spawned in Rocky Valley (Tilset IDs: 04 and 14) stages.

Unused Enemy: Golem#

Found at Bank 0x16 Offset 0x775a. This one animates and moves when spawned in Big City stages.

Unused Enemy: Vampire#

Found at Bank 0x16 Offset 0x77e6. This one animates and moves when spawned in certain Desert and Tower (Tileset IDs: 0f and 1f) stages.

Unused Block#

Found at Bank 0x0e Offset 0x60b4
Probably meant to be an item that allows you to place a block that spawns mushrooms.

Unused Sound#

There is an unused medium explosion SOUND 410C0088 command in all versions, located at 0x078100. This could have been used anywhere, although it would have likely been during the boss battles when Donkey Kong stomps the ground making objects fall, or when Giant Donkey Kong slams his fists in the final battle.

Game Genie code 027-71C-916 will replace the SOUND 4180808C loaded shortly after booting up.

Nintendo Switch Online Changes#

The rapid flashing during world transitions has been slowed down massively to prevent potential seizures.

References#