Best Donkey Kong Country Bosses

This is easily the best boss battle in the original Donkey Kong Country. It is challenging, unique, and appealing, in contrast to every other boss battle. This game clearly has one of the worst selections of bosses in a video game. Half are bad and the other half are just okay. But King K. Rool is an exception. It starts off nice and smooth and gradually becomes more difficult.

After six hits, there's even a fake ending credits scene before he wakes up for his last phase. It's all just so well made. Part of what makes this battle so epic and fun is the song. David Wise managed to compose a final boss song out of the norm. It's not dark or grand but instead jolly and in a way childlike. Despite sounding light-hearted, it's still badass and feels like your final challenge.

It starts off pretty happy, you know, pirate-y, but becomes more climactic over time, just like the battle itself. By the last phase, you're all pumped up and ready to take out King K. Rool once and for all. This isn't just the best boss battle in the original DKC, but it might also be one of my favorite bosses in the entire series. It's that good, surprisingly, compared to its peers.

Similarly to how Really Gnawty improved on Very Gnawty, Master Necky Senior improves on Master Necky. This is the purple counterpart of Necky, and aside from King K. Rool, it's probably the only somewhat decent fight this game has.

It also looks aesthetically cool like the Master Necky Junior, but the fight itself is pretty decent too. He spits out nuts like his predecessor, but every time you hit him, he spits out one additional nut. It's actually pretty difficult because he spits them out very fast. You really need quick reflexes for this.

Once he spits them all out, you need to hit him before he starts spitting again. So, yeah, overall, this boss is actually okay. But of course, the number one boss is none other than...

Really Gnawty should have been the only Gnawty boss in the game, really (no pun intended). In a nutshell, he's Very Gnawty's more difficult counterpart. Plus, he's brown instead of green. This guy, while still not necessarily a good boss, is miles better than Very Gnawty.

In this fight, he already jumps as fast as Very Gnawty did in his last phase, which means Really Gnawty jumps really fast as the fight goes on. Additionally, every time you hit him, he leaps super high, making you unable to hit him. All of this makes for a much better and harder fight than Very Gnawty, and it honestly should've been the first boss.

Believe it or not, in the GBA remake, he IS the first boss, only a bit easier. Instead, the boss for Gorilla Glaciers there is another teal Gnawty, who will cause stalactites to drop on you. Clearly, a better boss level overall. But still, it's a bit too simplistic.

Queen B. is apparently the only non-K. Rool boss battle in the game who didn't get a re-skinned fight. Boss Dumb Drum doesn't count. This makes her fight stand out a bit more in contrast to some of the other boss battles, but on the other hand, it's still pretty generic.

You just pick up a barrel, hit her, watch her come for you, then pick up another barrel, and repeat. It's a bit longer than some of the other fights due to her invincibility phase where she chases you, but it's not very difficult. The GBA version takes even longer, but there's also more challenge there. Instead of chasing you around like a madman, she just summons smaller Zingers which you need to take out before you can hit her again.

So, overall, it's another meh fight. Not much else to go on.

Master Necky is a bit interesting. Out of all the bosses, he and his purple counterpart are definitely the best-looking bosses aesthetically, excluding King K. Rool. It's pretty meh that we only see his face, but it is detailed, and this fight gets a few points for that.

But, like Very Gnawty, it's just too easy. It's definitely more difficult than Very Gnawty, that's for sure. He has actual invincibility frames and he actually attacks. However, Master Necky doesn't get more difficult as the fight goes on. He spits one nut, then we jump on him. No progression of difficulty.

That alone makes it a pretty meh boss. But it's much better than what we just discussed.

Very Gnawty is the first boss in the game. And boy, is he simplistic as heck. I don't just mean that he's easy. Yes, he's also too easy and is a pretty generic idea, just jumping back and forth with no attacks. But I've beaten him before I've even finished talking.

You can literally beat him in like seven seconds. All Very Gnawty does is jump back and forth. He jumps faster with every hit, but it's barely a difference in difficulty. It also doesn't help that his cooldown is one second long. It's about the most generic boss battle you can have in any game.

However, the fact that it is incredibly short also saves it from being worse. Because it's such a simplistic and boring boss, it's nice that we can get over with it quickly. Unlike, ahem, Dumb Drum.

By far, the WORST boss battle in any video game, not just in Donkey Kong Country. It's ATROCIOUS! I literally can't see why anyone could enjoy this fight. It's not even a fight. Boss Dumb Drum, the boss of Kremkroc Industries, is one of those drums you see in Misty Mine but enlarged. He literally just spits out enemies for you to destroy, then tries to smash you a couple of times, and it goes on for around a minute until he decides to basically kill himself.

What is this? A boss battle or an enemy minigame? Even as an enemy minigame, it's not fun because it's literally just that, an enemy minigame. When Dumb Drum isn't spitting out enemies, he's slowly trying to smash us into the ground. There is not a single good thing about this fight. Heck, I'll play Mine Cart Carnage over Boss Dumb Drum any day of the week.

The GBA version of this fight is actually better, though. Here, a barrel spawns every now and then, and you actually attack him. But even then, he's still bad because he's just a slightly more interesting Kudgel. All in all, trash boss.