| CaptainExplosion said: Donkey Kong Country 2 is the pinnacle of 2D platforming even now. It's been so hard to top it, I don't think many if any platformers have been able to do that. |
Personally, I think I'd go with Super Metroid, Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams, Celeste, Hollow Knight, Braid, and maybe even Rayman Legends and a few others over Diddy's Kong Quest. Still, when it came to linear platforming platforming games released up to that point in time at least, I would say Diddy's Kong Quest was my favorite too. The big controversy around it was the lack of a playable Donkey Kong, but I found it much more fun to have two equally nimble monkeys to play as instead, and found Dixie's hair-spin move indispensable. Also much enjoyed the heightened level of challenge on offer (as by this time I was something of a platforming veteran; platformers having been really the biggest game genre of the age), the existence of a hidden world you could gain access to (which gave you an actual reason to explore off the beaten path), the new Kongs (especially the replacement of Candy Kong with Wrinkly, to be frank), the fun pirate theme, the richer graphics with all the glowing gold and stuff, and above all the soundtrack. Seriously, Diddy's Kong Quest has one of the very best soundtracks ever to exist in a video game for my taste. It's ridiculously engrossing! Such a cartoony game had no right to feel that immersive! When you add onto that the continuation of the first game's biggest breakthrough, the actually functional two-player co-op system, which was the best in gaming at the time, it made for a the all-around best entry in the classic DKC trilogy and the best linear platforming game of the era, in my personal opinion.
