So I uhh, just beat Jungle Climber. I feel so accomplished. And that's a huge thing in and of itself. Because when I beat Sonic Rush Adventure, there wasn't a sense of accomplishment. It was more just a feeling of "yay, I beat the game," instead of "Alright! Booyah! I beat the game, WOOT! *Does DK hand clasp celebratory thing from the end of DKC*" The latter is how I felt just now. I'm still kind of elated. You might be wondering why there's a difference. The answer is perhaps too simple and obvious. The game was mighty challenging, and games these days (at least where platformers are concerned) are just not bringing the heat. If I can beat an entire game without ever seeing the game over screen or if it's possible to beat each level and each boss in a very minimal amount of lives, then there's no challenge there. That was the case with SRA. Once I overcame the learning curve, I breezed through the rest of the game. Granted, there's still plenty to do and those missions are what will give me a hearty challenge, but the main game was lacking, at least compared to DKJC's Adventure mode. ...I feel like I'm ranting, so I'll just get to my point. My point is I just beat DKJC and it took some honest effort and practice and skill mastery (which was awesome) and beating it gave me a true, genuine sense of accomplishment because the game is not a pushover and I'm very glad I chose to get it because I haven't played a challenging platformer since YIDS and before that, not since the N64-PS1 days.

So now on to the epic battle itself. Embarassingly, it took more lives to get through the level than it did to beat K.Rool. Yesterday, I had played through a couple of the "bonus island" levels and got 25 DK coins, which unlocked the Six Crystal Star cheat. Then, I went to 1-2 to rack up some lives and 2-1 to get enough gems to get six stars. And then tonight, I marched over to 6-3 and like a man on a mission, I worked my way through the level (at this point, I want to say that perhaps one of the things I've realized I don't really like about the boss levels is that there's an actual level preceding the boss fight. It's a wee bit annoying.). I got through the first phase of the fight surprisingly quick. And the second part...well, I realized that in order for me to have any chance at all, I was really going to have to keep Diddy alive past the first hit on K.Rool. Eventually, I did manage to pull that off. I dodged the first round of meteors, had no problem with the fireballs, and then hit him again. The only way I ever hit him was by blasting Diddy into his jaw. For the second round of meteors, I used one of my stars to bypass the whole obstacle. The only obstacle I really had to worry about was the wind current swinging. Somehow, I stayed completely alive during both of those phases. I didn't use a star for them, and I never got hit. The battle seemed to just fly by, and I was shocked when K.Rool only had one hit point left. It was pretty much the cleanest run through that boss fight ever. I don't think I'll ever be able to recreate it. But I don't really need to, unless I want to get the one banana coin I missed. Eh, another day.

Well, I just wanted to tell you all the good news. Hope you're all having a great weekend. 8)