I don't know exactly what prompted me to speed run this game. When I downloaded this game for the Wii Virtual Console, I was just doing it for nostalgia. Then I saw ArneTheGreat's 24:24 DKC Tool-assisted speed run and saw all the rolling he did in it. I thought "cool!" to myself and wanted to get through the game doing as many rolls as I could. Then I saw the DKC topics in SDA and thought everyone abandoned the run, so the idea just jumped into my head. That was in March 2007.

The results you see (or will see) form my first speed run. I tried to do as many tricks as was in the latest TAS run as possible, making many compromises to accommodate my skill level. I think it turned out very well and I hope you do, too.

Thanks goes to Tompa for his helpful comments, and of course ArneTheGreat for most of the standards I followed.

Enjoy!

So much for a theoretical limit of 47 minutes.

Here's a 101% speedrun for Donkey Kong Country, SNES version. Finishes in 00:44, according to the in-game timer. The run is single-segment; it was done without saving the game.

DKC has always been one of my favorite Super Nintendo games. Playing the Competition Cartridge with my little sister in Blockbuster's competition a decade ago is one of my favorite gaming experiences. By the way, she's probably a lot better at this game than you are. >_>

Getting "101%" in DKC means not only completing every level in the game, but visiting every bonus area. There are two "bonus areas," however, that don't count towards the percentage. They're commonly believed to be bonus areas, but they aren't. These rooms appear in Bouncy Bonanza and Manic Mincers. If you're wondering why I skipped these rooms, that's why.

There are two things about the in-game timer I'd like to mention. First, a lot of slowdown is created in the Torchlight Trouble level, but I believe this also slows down the in-game clock, rendering the slowdown irrelevant. Next, the timer doesn't run on the world map. One could take a five-minute break on the world map, go and get a drink, come back, and not have lost any time. I did no such thing, but I could have if I wanted. There was a point where I accidentally beat Master Necky Jr too early, and had to backtrack back to Monkey Mines to visit the bonus areas for Millstone Mayhem, then use Funky Flights to proceed to the Vine Valley levels. While this looks odd, this did not cost me any time, because of the way the timer works.

This speedrun was done on SNES version 1.1 (or maybe it's 1.2) of the game. I'm aware of two major changes to this version from the original: First, I believe it's impossible to skip the world map "celebration" by mashing buttons. I haven't had any luck getting it to work on this version of the game. Not that this makes any difference, as the timer doesn't run on the world map. Next, the popular warp glitch that allows for warping to Orang-utan Gang from World 1, is fixed. So not only did I not use said glitch in this run, I couldn't have if I wanted to.

This run went very well, apart from a sloppy performance in Vulture Culture. A time of 00:43 is possible, but it would require using a more aggressive, riskier route than the one I used. It would be very difficult to achieve.

Enjoy the run.