Nintendo announces date for GBA Donkey Kong Country 2

Nintendo Europe has announced plans to release Donkey Kong Country 2 for Game Boy Advance on June 25th, and has confirmed various changes that give it the edge over the original 16-bit SNES release of the same name. As with the original title's GBA debut, we're hardly dealing with a groundbreaking list of additions, but it's nice to see a little more effort than simply copying and pasting from the platform holder.

Principle amongst the additions is a new option called "Diddy's Dash", which will allow players to race through previously completed levels against the clock for extra rewards. We're not quite sure how much fun this will be given that replaying DKC2 levels was something of a pre-requisite anyway - with DK coins, secret rooms and those K-O-N-G letters to find - but it's sure to increase the lifespan of the otherwise three-to-four hour title for completists.

Nintendo is also promising four-player link cable support in a series of new mini-games. Bonus Bonanza, the quirky quiz show from the SNES original, returns here in expanded form, and is joined by gyrocopters at Funky's Flights, and other activities like Expresso's Racing and Bag-a-Bug.

Although you'll have to wait until June 25th to play DKC2 on your Game Boy Advance, it'll probably appear in the USA first, so we'll take a look at it then. For reference though, a lot of people reckoned the SNES title to be better than its blockbusting predecessor, but this writer recently played through both and vastly preferred the first game. Then again, I'm arguing with Super Play (Zy Nicholson no less) in saying that, which is something else to consider...