Late last night, Nintendo added the final Donkey Kong Land game to its Nintendo Switch Online classic library. Released in late 1997, Donkey Kong Land 3 capped off the portable trilogy of titles by taking the themes and visuals from its SNES counterpart and downmixing them for Game Boy owners. Since it was released before the Game Boy Color, it didn’t have native color support for the handheld. There was Super Game Boy support, but that wasn’t the same as having a title designed specifically for color.
Interestingly, though, in Japan, the game did eventually receive a Game Boy Color port. In early 2000, it was re-released for the GBC and despite a few cutbacks with regards to animations, is otherwise the same exact game in full-color. As you would expect, Nintendo did not include this colorized version for US NSO subscribers, but it is actually available on the Japanese NSO Game Boy app. Talk about bizarre.
How to play Donkey Kong Land 3 in color on NSO
While that’s kind of silly, you don’t need to rush out and find some pre-paid yen cards to access this version. Thanks to the Switch being region-free, you can simply create a Japanese NSO account and access the Japanese NSO apps from your current Switch. By doing so, you’ll be able to play Donkey Kong Land 3 in color. I don’t see why that version didn’t become the default, but I suppose having both available is fun.
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Written by Peter Glagowski
Peter has been a freelance gaming and film critic for over seven years. His passion for Nintendo is only matched by the size of his collection.
