Platform guide
All Donkey Kong Game Boy games
Four Donkey Kong cartridges came out for the Game Boy in Europe, and the first one is not what its name suggests: the 1994 Donkey Kong opens with the arcade game and then runs for another 97 levels. The other three are the Donkey Kong Land trilogy, Rare’s handheld answer to Donkey Kong Country. Here is what each one is, what it costs to buy well, and the save battery question that decides what a used cartridge is worth.
The short answer
Donkey Kong (1994) → Donkey Kong Land (1995) → Donkey Kong Land 2 (1996) → Donkey Kong Land III (1997). Start with Donkey Kong — it is the best of the four and the cheapest. All four play on a Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance or GBA SP, but not on a Game Boy Micro, a DS or a 3DS.
Tested Donkey Kong Game Boy games in stock
Shell opened, board checked and the save tested on real hardware before listing.
Donkey Kong Land
Personally tested · Good condition
Donkey Kong
Personally tested · Good condition
Donkey Kong Land III
Personally tested · Good condition
Donkey Kong Land III — original manual
Personally tested · Good condition
Donkey Kong Land 2 — original manual
Personally tested · Good condition
Donkey Kong — original manual
Personally tested · Good condition
Every Donkey Kong Game Boy cartridge, in order
| Game | Released (EU) | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Donkey Kong | September 1994 | Puzzle platformer |
| Donkey Kong Land | 24 August 1995 | Country spin-off |
| Donkey Kong Land 2 | 28 November 1996 | Country 2 spin-off |
| Donkey Kong Land III | 30 October 1997 | Country 3 spin-off |
Game by game — the buying notes
Donkey Kong (1994)
The most misunderstood cartridge on this list. It opens with the four levels of the 1981 arcade game and then keeps going for 97 more across nine worlds — key-and-door puzzle levels where Mario can backflip, handstand, throw the hammer upwards and swing from wires. It is one of the best games on the console and it is not the arcade port. If somebody sold you “Donkey Kong for Game Boy” expecting four screens, this is what actually arrives, and it is the better deal.
Donkey Kong Land (1995)
Rare squeezing the pre-rendered look of Donkey Kong Country onto a screen four shades of green wide. It is not a port: the levels are new and harder, built for short bursts, and the sprites are small enough that the original Game Boy makes some jumps genuinely difficult — a Game Boy Color or a GBA screen helps more here than on almost any other cartridge. It came in a banana-yellow shell and sold 3.91 million copies, and it is by some distance the one we pay the most for today — on our own shelf it runs to three times what the 1994 Donkey Kong does.
Donkey Kong Land 2 (1996)
This one does follow its console counterpart closely — Diddy and Dixie, the pirate theme, the same level structure as Donkey Kong Country 2 rebuilt for the handheld. It reads far better than the first Land because Rare had learned what the screen could hold. It supports the Super Game Boy, which puts it in colour on a SNES with a border around the screen.
Donkey Kong Land III (1997)
Dixie and Kiddy, and the most generous of the three Lands: more levels, a bonus world for finishing everything, and the smoothest handling. It arrived on 30 October 1997, when the Game Boy was between generations and attention had moved on. A Game Boy Color version exists but only in Japan, released in January 2000 as Donkey Kong GB: Dinky Kong & Dixie Kong — if you see that name on a box, it is an import and its manual will be Japanese.
The save battery, and why it matters here
This is the generation where saves genuinely go flat. A Game Boy cartridge that saves progress usually keeps that save in SRAM powered by a coin cell soldered inside the shell. The cell lasts fifteen or twenty years. All of these are older than that, so a cartridge that has never been opened is a cartridge whose save may already be gone — the game still plays, it simply forgets you every time you switch off.
It is not damage and it is not expensive to fix: the cell is a standard CR2025 or CR2032 with tabs, and replacing it takes a tri-wing screwdriver and a steady hand. But it is the difference between a working cartridge and a nice-looking one, and it is the single thing worth asking about before you buy any Game Boy game from anybody.
Or buy one that has already been checked
Every Game Boy cartridge we sell is opened, the board is checked, and the save is tested on real hardware before it is listed — so a listing that says it saves, saves. We have been doing this since 2019, with 1400+ verified reviews at 5.0★, and we ship tracked to all 27 EU countries.
See every Game Boy game we haveQuestions we get asked
How many Donkey Kong games are there on the Game Boy?
Four in Europe: Donkey Kong (1994), Donkey Kong Land (1995), Donkey Kong Land 2 (1996) and Donkey Kong Land III (1997). The Game Boy Color re-release of Land III, Donkey Kong GB: Dinky Kong & Dixie Kong, only ever came out in Japan. Donkey Kong Country itself is a SNES game, and the handheld versions of it are the Game Boy Advance ports from 2003 onwards — a different cartridge and a different console.
Is the 1994 Donkey Kong the arcade game?
Only for the first four levels. After that it becomes something else entirely: 97 more levels across nine worlds, built as key-and-door puzzles because the developers decided the small screen suited puzzles better than pure arcade climbing. Mario picks up moves he never had in 1981 — backflips, handstands, throwing the hammer upward. It is widely considered one of the best games on the system, and it is the reason people who wanted a straight arcade port end up happy anyway.
Do Game Boy cartridges lose their saves?
Some do, and it is worth knowing which. Game Boy and Game Boy Color cartridges that save progress usually do it with SRAM kept alive by a coin cell inside the shell, and those cells are now thirty years old — when one dies, the save is gone and a new game starts each time. It does not damage anything and a battery can be replaced. The Donkey Kong Land games all save, so this applies to them; ask before you buy from anyone who has not opened the shell.
Which consoles play a Game Boy Donkey Kong?
The original Game Boy, the Game Boy Pocket, the Game Boy Color, the Game Boy Advance and the GBA SP all play these four. The Game Boy Micro does not — it has no support for the older cartridges. Neither does the DS in any form, the 3DS, or the Switch. A Game Boy Advance SP is the most comfortable way to play them today, because it has a lit screen and the sprites in Donkey Kong Land need one.
Are Game Boy cartridges region-locked?
No. A European Game Boy cartridge plays on an American or Japanese console and the other way round. What differs is the language of the manual and the box. Everything we sell is the European version unless the product page says otherwise, which also means the box art matches the one you remember if you grew up here.
Which Donkey Kong Game Boy game should I buy first?
Donkey Kong (1994) if you want the best game, Donkey Kong Land 2 if you want the Donkey Kong Country experience on a handheld and want it to feel good rather than punishing. Donkey Kong Land is the one to buy last: it is the hardest to read on an unlit screen, and on our shelf it costs about three times what the other Game Boy Donkey Kongs do.
Do you ship Game Boy games across the EU?
Yes — tracked shipping from the Netherlands to all 27 EU countries, no customs charges inside the EU, and 30 days to return an order. Your country’s exact rate appears at checkout before you pay.
One console up: Donkey Kong on Nintendo DS — or the whole series in order. Same cartridge slot, different franchise: all Pokémon Game Boy games and all Zelda Game Boy games.
Dutch reader? Game Boy-games — het hele aanbod in het Nederlands.