In all, Donkey Konga does a good job of catering to players of all skill levels. The three levels of difficulty--monkey, chimp, and gorilla--ramp up the challenge at a nice pace. Beginners should feel comfortable with monkey, and the chimp level is just right for those who have been playing Donkey Konga, or really any rhythm game, for a while. The gorilla level is an experts-only experience, and though there isn't incredible depth to the action, it will regularly challenge you with tight, complex strings of commands that will make even the most hard-bitten rhythm game players sweat. There are songs with multiple timing changes, and the game can go from mimicking the rhythm of the song to mimicking its melody at the drop of a hat, which can be a bit bewildering but will keep you on your toes. A good sense of rhythm can get you far--but as with most rhythm games, true mastery will require total memorization of the different patterns for the different songs.
There are more than 30 different songs in Donkey Konga--a respectable number for a rhythm game--but the selection of music that you'll be banging your fake bongos along to is less than cohesive. Though the game doesn't cordon them off from each other, there are three major groups of music in the game: grade-school sing-alongs, contemporary pop, and Nintendo theme songs. You likely already know many of the sing-alongs from your own youth, though you probably don't remember them being as slickly produced and Euro-dance-club-friendly as the versions of "Yankee Doodle" and "Bingo" included in Donkey Konga. The Nintendo music includes the highly recognizable Super Mario Bros. and Legend of Zelda themes, along with the themes for the cartoons based on Kirby and Pokémon. "The DK Rap," originally featured in Donkey Kong 64 and last heard in Super Smash Bros. Melee, is a no-brainer addition to the soundtrack, and, unsurprisingly, it's the best fit of the Nintendo songs.
The choices that Nintendo made when picking pop songs for the US version of Donkey Konga are probably the strangest part of the game, just because they're so random. There's everything from The Kingsmen's "Louie, Louie" to the B-52s' "Rock Lobster" to "Right Here, Right Now" by Jesus Jones. Blink 182's "All the Small Things" is as contemporary as the game gets, though it's worth noting that none of these songs are actually performed by the original artists, but rather were recorded by decent cover artists. It's pretty apparent that Nintendo really wants Donkey Konga to be a full-on family activity, and the music selection goes a long way toward helping it appeal to a broad age range. However, if you yourself are not a family of four, you'll probably find yourself zeroing in on a handful of the songs that appeal to you and ignoring the rest.
Who is the music selection in Donkey Konga supposed to appeal to?
Though your vision will be too tightly focused on the incoming stream of drum commands while you're playing Donkey Konga to really notice, taking a break and watching someone else play reveals the underlying graphics to be technically and creatively unexciting. The backgrounds stick to basic jungle-type stuff, which is fitting but still pretty monotonous. The characters have a prerendered look to them--not unlike the trademark look of the Donkey Kong Country games--that is quaint at best and dated at worst. Again, this doesn't have a massive impact on the gameplay experience, but it doesn't make the game terribly enticing for onlookers.
If Donkey Konga's primary goal was to be a rhythm game that anyone could play, then it succeeded. The DK Bongos are nice and responsive, the action can be genuinely fun, and though some of the music choices are extremely weird, there is, in fact, a little something here for everyone. Whether the game will be right for you will depend on how much of that "everyone" you account for.
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