I hate Nintendo of America nowadays. They refuse to release any Donkey Kong games on the Virtual Console here (at least the ones worth playing). Japan got all three DKL games earlier this year, and Europe got all DKC and DKL games this month... and meanwhile, North America gets
NOTHING. What an insult. Are they racist? Isn't it bad enough that they refused to release Super Mario Bros. Deluxe here?
It's also a good example of why region lock is a very bad idea. There was a point in time where none of Nintendo's handhelds had region lock, and this was a good thing. I do have quite a few imported games, such as the Japanese version of DKL3
(and a bunch of Spanish Pokémon games among a few other things, but I'm about to get off-topic here). But ever since the DSi, Nintendo started adding region lock to their handhelds. It's one reason (but certainly not the only one) why I never got a DSi -- it was an absolute joke of a system if you ask me. And of course, the 3DS borrowed this flaw from the DSi, so we're stuck with problems like Virtual Console games not being released everywhere.
And while I'm mentioning this, I do know at least one person who has a Japanese 3DS instead of a North American one due to region locking (she wanted to play Japanese-exclusive games).Anyway, back to DKC and DKL. I hope Nintendo realizes their mistake and releases them here in North America soon. It's almost DKC's 20th anniversary, after all! If it doesn't come soon, someone should really start a campaign like Operation Rainfall to pressure Nintendo to release the games here. I'd do something like that myself if I knew what I was doing. But anyway, it really feels like Nintendo doesn't want our money, because I would pay for these games, even if I already have them. No wonder Nintendo keeps losing money every year now -- they never used to do that. Also, I heard the Wii versions of DKC and DKC2 removed that headache-inducing flashing effect in Torchlight Trouble and Glimmer's Galleon, so that's reason alone to get those games again, assuming the Wii U versions also have that change. (Really, I always made it a point to avoid turning around in those levels as much as possible, and if it was inevitable, I would close my eyes during the flash.)
Also, while I am not expecting it, I hope that there's an official English GBC version of DKL3 as an apology for making us wait for a ridiculously long time (just like
this patch), but it's really unlikely it will happen, especially when Europe simply got the regular Game Boy version (which happens to be English v1.1).
Sorry if I sound stressed... I can't help it when Nintendo does really dumb things like this.