The Official Donkey Konga Thread (and Nintendo)

Dark Hogosha · Trick Member Joined: 12 Feb 2002 Location: Dubuque, Iowa

Picked up Konga and two bongos on Wednesday. More or less, it's all my friends and I have been playing. Yeah, a couple of us can roll through any song on any difficulty (could the first night we got it), but it's STILL really fun. I'm probably gonna pick up two more bongos within a week...it's definitely a party game, and I wanna get four of us bangin' away.

And is it just me, or does the songlist in the American release just flat out OWN? Even songs I normally hate like All The Small Things are REALLY fun in this game.

Cheez · Trick Member Joined: 08 Feb 2002 Location: Sumner, MI

This game is a lot of fun. It's a little on the simple side, as I was able to get golds on everything on gorilla withing a couple tries, but it's still a whole lot of fun to play. And I found that if you have a second set of bongos, playing duet mode by yourself is a lot of fun too, makes me wish there was an actual doubles mode in the game.

-Cheez

Wolfman Jake · Trick Member Joined: 13 Sep 2002

Cheez · Trick Member Joined: 08 Feb 2002 Location: Sumner, MI

I tap the sides too, but mostly because my room is right next to the living room and I'm just trying to keep it quiet. When no one is around, I'll clap. When I play Duet mode, I have to do both. When you have to clap on both players at the same time, a good solid clap will register for both players, but when I have to hit something like right on P1 and clap on P2, I have to tap the side for P2. I have my sensitivity about 2/3 of the way up (or I guess down if you wanted to get really technical) I don't hit the drums very hard so I don't get any phantom claps, and all of my taps register, just my actual clapping will be a little too low on occasion.

-Cheez

Thomas Hobbes · Posted: Sat Oct 02, 2004 7:02 pm Post subject:

My friend and I were playing around and basically you could do Doubles Mode if you play with one bongo in front of you and the other behind so it kind of looks like this:

O-O
O-O

Thus, when you clap you clap in the center and when you do the double hits for say a red symbol, you just hit the 1P (top) bongo with your ring finger and pinky whilst you hit the bottom with your thumb and index finger. Alternatively, if you have big hands like my friend does, you can just hit both with one hand. He had to get this box to hold the bongos in to stop moving around when he did that but yeah, it works.

However, my friend was just playing on songs that had the same symbols for 1P and 2P so yeah...I don't know how it work if you played different symbols and such.

Also, I usually clap but when my hands hurt I tap the side of the bongo. If you want to change the sensitivity then go to DK Town in the game and it'll tell you directions there. I think the problem with your left bongo=clap problem is that you're hitting the bongo too hard as when you hit it hard it causes vibration which is sound. The microphone will then pick it up as a clap, that's why some people tap the side of the bongos instead of clapping.

That's your problem I believe but you should also try going in DK Town and fixing the sensitivity of the clap mic by altering it higher or lower.
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Wolfman Jake · Trick Member Joined: 13 Sep 2002

Yes, I already have tried to adjust the mic gain in DK Town, but decreasing the sensitivity/increasing the threshold simply changes the problem from phantom claps registering when I hit the left drum to claps not registering when I tap the bongos for a clap. Your other suggestion might be on the money, however. I think sometimes I either hit the left drum too hard or I don't hit it squarely enough and end up hitting the plastic lip around the rubber drum skin, which is probably causing the vibrations that the mic picks up. The interesting thing is I don't get that problem when I hit the right drum. It could be that I'm just more of a spaz with my left hand. I'm VERY right hand dominant. I might just have to train my left hand to be a little more precise with the hits. Or maybe I just need a gentler touch. I started to notice the problem when stepping up to Gorilla difficulty, so it's also probably something to do with reaction time and getting a little sloppy as the notes come in more jumbled and harder to read. Then again, I also notice the problem when playing the "Whack-a-Mole" mini-game (the hammer kept hitting the center when I wanted it to hit left) and during the banana juggling game (Diddy kept handing me bananas which I would immediately drop because I was actually trying to simply juggle the bananas I already had).

Junior Asparagus · Administrator Joined: 23 Jan 2002 Location: Natick, MA

I actually clap when the claps come up. I tried tapping the bongos, but I don't do as well when I do that.

The game's a bit easy. I've never failed a song (only 1 more left to buy and it's an easy one) and I've almost got a gold on everything. But it's still really fun. I always use the bongo sounds, and I bought one mini game (the climbing one) and it was lame, so I think I'll just be sticking to the music part.
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Dark Hogosha · Trick Member Joined: 12 Feb 2002 Location: Dubuque, Iowa

Thomas Hobbes · Posted: Sun Oct 03, 2004 11:21 am Post subject:

I have the Juggling and Vine game. The vine game is okay but the best out of these two is the juggling game. It's quite fun and difficult at the same time.

The only problem I have is I think Diddy Kong sometimes gives you bannannas out of no where. They always drop down.

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"I am about to take my last voyage, a great leap in the dark."

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LAN040 · Posted: Sun Oct 03, 2004 12:21 pm Post subject:

I played the demo at Toys r us. One of the worker people came up and said "whoa! Your like, the best person who has ever played this at my store!" uhhhhhhh, sure.

Anyhoo, I'm getting the game. Anyone know if they sell an extra set of Bongos, so I can get two without having to buy another bundle?

Thomas Hobbes · Posted: Sun Oct 03, 2004 1:32 pm Post subject:

They should sell them seperately as well. The MSRP is $29.99 but some stores sell them for $34.99. You can get them off of Nintendo's website as well.
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"I am about to take my last voyage, a great leap in the dark."

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Wolfman Jake · Trick Member Joined: 13 Sep 2002

Well, after some more practice, Gorilla isn't really that bad either. Only one song right now is mocking my attempts to earn a gold DK emblem: "Dancing in the Streets" Gorilla. It comes down to that last weird pattern that goes ((* ((* ))* ))*, where (=left, )=right, and *=clap. The notes overlap closely with one another (have to hit them very fast). I always lose the rhythm on the last tripplet and get a bad/miss, which depletes one bar off the top of the meter, thus eliminating my chance at a gold DK emblem. Does anyone have a good technique to offer for this one part? I wish there were a traning mode in this game so I could practice this one weird little pattern.

Junior Asparagus · Administrator Joined: 23 Jan 2002 Location: Natick, MA

Wolfman Jake · Trick Member Joined: 13 Sep 2002

Cheez · Trick Member Joined: 08 Feb 2002 Location: Sumner, MI

Dancing in the Streets was the very last song I got a gold on, and it was that last pattern that kept killing it for me every time. I usually tap the sides for clapping, but I could not for the life of me get it to register the claps during that part...until I actually tried clapping. You gotta be pretty quick to do it, but clapping is the only way I could get that part down.

-Cheez

Wolfman Jake · Trick Member Joined: 13 Sep 2002

Thanks, Cheez. Actually clapping finally did the trick! Now I've got a gold DK rating on all songs for Monkey, Chimp, and Gorilla!

*thumps chest in triumph*

Um...err...*cough, cough*

*howls in triumph*

There, that's better

Now I'm just enjoying playing the songs I especially like in the game and messing around a bit with the alternate bongo sounds. Most of the new sounds lose their novelty after a single song, though.

Solid Snakke · Posted: Fri Oct 08, 2004 12:14 am Post subject:

I play "Oye Como Va" and "Para Los Rumberos" in Gorilla difficulty over, and over, and over, and over, and over.

They rule.

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