6 Hardest Donkey Kong Levels Ever

The Donkey Kong series has made a few big changes over the years. It’s been an arcade game, tough-as-nails platformer, massive collect-a-thon, and one of the best examples of how to make a destructible world into a great platformer. While the series isn’t always challenging, most of the best games in Donkey Kong‘s long history feature incredibly difficult platforming. That’s especially true on the Super Nintendo, but a few other DK games have come along to give players fits.

Here are the six hardest levels in Donkey Kong history.

6) New Donk City – Donkey Kong Bananza

Donkey Kong Bananza lets you dig up pretty much everything, letting you create your own paths through each level. That generally means most of the platforming challenges are pretty simple. Generally, the real challenge is your own imagination. If you can dream up a solution, you can often make it happen.

The final level is a different beast. When you arrive in New Donk City, you’ll need to use every single Bananza transformation at your disposal to get through all of King K. Rool’s many challenges. If you haven’t mastered each form, you’re going to struggle. And don’t forget to keep an eye on your Bananza meter. You need to keep that thing topped up so you can stay transformed the entire time.

5) Platform Problems – Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze

Tropical Freeze features a few challenging levels, but Platform Problems is the toughest of the bunch. This one is all about mastering your timing and learning the patterns. It’s highly unlikely you’ll get through Platform Problems on your first try because those platforms move in ways you wouldn’t expect.

Even when you get it down, you’ll need to stay on your “A” game. There are a few sections, especially toward the end, that require perfect timing to get through. Thankfully, you can use Dixie’s glide to offset some of the problems. However, if you try to use Donkey Kong, it’s going to be even tougher.

4) Animal Antics – Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest

Animal Antics doesn’t seem that hard at first. You’ll smash through Rambi’s section with ease, and Enguarde’s swimming section isn’t too challenging either. Tension starts to rise when you become Squitter, but most players can get past this section once they learn how to place web platforms properly.

Then, things take a massive turn in the other direction. As soon as you become Squawks, you’ll instantly know you’re in for a challenge. You have to slowly navigate a maze of brambles and bees, all while the wind constantly changes, sending you every which way. The good news is that, if you can get past Squawks’ section, you’ll have a relatively easy Rattly segment to celebrate.

3) Perilous Passage – Donkey Kong Country Returns

Perilous Passage is one of the many Donkey Kong Country Returns levels where the developers love to use insta-kill traps to ruin your life. You’re going to run into Bionic Bees that follow your movement, tons of enemies that start their attack off-screen, making it impossible to know they’re coming, and tons of lava.

Making it even worse, you’ll need to navigate several platforming sections that require near-pixel-perfect timing. Oh, and don’t forget that a few of those jumps use springs, adding another factor to keep in mind. You’ll get past this level with enough practice, but don’t expect it to be easy.

2) Poison Pond – Donkey Kong Country

The original DKC has a few hard levels that could’ve made the list, including Platform Perils, which is something of a precursor to Tropical Freeze‘s Platform Problems. However, Poison Pond has to take the top spot.

This underwater level is filled with spinning spiked wheels that are tough to dodge with the Kong’s floaty swimming. Even if you know where to pick up Enguarde to make swimming more manageable, you’ll find his speed working against you during certain sections. It also doesn’t help that the level makes it difficult to see exactly what’s going on, thanks to the poisonous cloud over everything.

1) Toxic Tower – Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest

Most players agree that Toxic Tower is the hardest level the various Donkey Kong teams have ever dreamed up. In fact, some point to this level as the sole reason players call DKC2 the hardest game in the series. To start, the green acid is constantly rising. That means you have to move fast, but you can never backtrack to get collectibles.

That’s annoying enough, but Toxic Tower is chock-full of enemies. You need to use a few of them for impromptu jumping platforms, but you won’t know that during your first few times through. You also cannot take a second to think about it because that acid is forcing you to constantly stay on the move. Toxic Tower is difficult for a casual playthrough, but anyone trying to get a perfect save file is going to feel even more pain trying to master this level.

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