Donkey Kong and the Golden Temple Quest!

7. September, 2011 by Brian Console 2,301 comments

A few weeks ago I beat Donkey Kong Country Returns. At least the main part of the game. After the final boss was vanquished, a golden temple rose from the jungle floor. So I made my way to this golden temple to reap my reward for beating the game! Only there was one issue, the door was locked! And since Donkey Kong doesn’t have opposable thumbs, he’s not the greatest lock picker. Looks like I would have to go about this the hard way.

As with all good things in life, this wasn’t going to be easy.

It seems I needed eight colored orbs, called “rare orbs”, in order to unlock the secrets of the Golden Temple. Great, but how the heck was I supposed to do that?

See in every level except for boss levels there are letters to collect that spell out K-O-N-G. Collect the KONG letters in every level in a world to unlock a bonus level. Beat the bonus level and you’ll get a rare orb. There are eight rare orbs to collect, one in the bonus level of each World. Once you have them all, The Golden Temple will be unlocked.

Here’s the thing, you must collect all of the letters in the word KONG at once. Meaning if you die in a level, and haven’t yet reached a checkpoint, you have to collect those letters again. You can’t collect one or two levels and then come back. It’s either all or nothing.

I had already obtained six of the eight rare orbs and was only missing two. Now each of these bonus stages had no checkpoints meaning you have to go from start to finish in one run (a.k.a. break your controller after dying for the 500th time). So I set my sights towards world eight’s bonus stage “Five Monkey Trial”.

Now only one rare orb stood between me and the golden temple. Next was world six. After obtaining all the KONG letters in each of the stages, it was on to the bonus stage “Perilous Passage”. I had already faced this level previously and just could not beat it, but I was bound and determined to beat this final challenge.

Finally, all eight rare orbs were in my possession. I made my way to the Golden Temple to finally unlock the surprise hidden inside. With all eight orbs put into place, the door to the Golden Temple opened. What happened next was a surprise.

Yes indeed, the Golden Temple wasn’t the reward but a gateway into the bonus ninth level. My reward for beating this final stage? A silver mirror which unlocked mirror mode. Well it’s certainly not what I was expecting. In fact it just makes more work for me! I thought when DK peeled back the banana and took a bite, maybe he’d turn into Super Kong (that would have been awesome). I’d have even been happy with a new character, color, or even a new level.

Donkey Kong doin his thing

Just like in Bayonetta there was no achievement or real prize for my trouble, but hey I did it. I unlocked and beat the Golden Temple baby! Yet another gaming milestone beaten and done. I guess next is trying to find all the puzzle pieces, and if I don’t hate my life after that, a few time attacks and maybe mirror mode.

Though like they say, the journey to the destination is half the fun…or some crap like that.

BTW: If you’d like to see the entire journey to the Golden Temple, check out the videos from our stream on justin.tv.