Positives:
- All the fun of "Donkey Konga" is here in spades.
- Even though the game is only playable in Japanese (unless a fan translation exists), the menus are largely easy enough to navigate so that you won't get too lost.
- A bit more approachable than "Donkey Konga 2" as far as difficulty, which is good for a newcomer.
- Some more polish as far as the visuals and aesthetics are concerned, which is nice.
- While I loved the soundtrack of the last game, its focus on "hits" might've put some off; I feel like this has a much more fitting soundtrack for the kind of game it is.
- Multiplayer gameplay will be just as fun here.
- The addition of Famicom medleys is pretty cool.
- Funky Kong.
Negatives:
- After "Donkey Konga 2" made it a bit easier to rack up coins to get the Gorilla arrangements, it feels like this one was a bit more of a grind, which was disappointing.
- I...don't quite know what that Banana Tree minigame was for. Hell, compared to the last game, I found all of the "minigames" lacking.
Consensus: As someone who grew up with the "Donkey Konga" series (the first one was the game that made me want a GameCube back in the day), my younger self was very sad when "Donkey Konga 3" never got released in America. I learned about the game through GameTrailers, and...well, you know how kids are; they want things they can't have. But thankfully, I've gotten to experience the game through, umm...TOTALLY legal methods. And ultimately, I enjoyed the game. It brought more of the "Donkey Konga" fun that I'm used to for the series, although I'll admit that I kinda got burned out at a point when playing it. Grinding the same songs to get enough coins for the Gorilla arrangements is already tedious throughout the series, but after "Donkey Konga 2" made it a bit easier to grind, it felt like "Donkey Konga 3" made it a bit more tedious. Thus, it was a little harder to fall in love with it in the same way. Nevertheless, it's still a fun game, and I'm glad to have gotten to experience it finally. A part of me wonders what the soundtrack of an American-released version would've looked like, but I know we'll never get that answer. Ah well, at least I finally got to play it after all these years.
Final rating: 8 out of 10 "Great"