I might have mentioned this before, but Shigeru Miyamoto, creator of Mario, Zelda, Pikmin, and much more, was no fan of the first Donkey Kong Country game. Basically, he saw it as a subpar developer (in this case, Rare) ruining one of his creations with flash-in-the-pan graphics and platforming action that wasn't up to his standards.
Now, Miyamoto-san's standards might be pretty unattainable by most mortals (I'll once again say that the man made Mario, Zelda, and Pikmin for Christ's sake), but by almost any other standards, I think the first DKC game was a success. It took what was beforehand just a pretty blatant rip-off of King Kong and gave him some personality. It's a world that's worth exploring, and the millions of copies sold really speak to that fact.
The challenge for DKC2, then, was to distinguish itself enough from its predecessor to be worth exploring that world again. This game is often seen as the best of the Country series (well, at least until Donkey Kong Country Returns comes out), mainly due to its increased challenge and freewheeling, exploratory nature. Was it a radical departure from the first game? Well… having played it recently, I'd have to say no.
Basically, Donkey Kong Country's formula is followed almost to a fault here. You're still doing inventive platforming that includes the ability to ride animals, shoot across chasms in barrels, and bop the heads of crocodiles. However, there are enough small tweaks to make the game interesting outside of a "more of the same would be a good thing" type of attitude. For one, Donkey Kong is missing in this game. You never play as him once. Rather, you play as Diddy, his son (returning from the first game) and Dixie, Diddy's cousin. Both play very differently from Donkey; especially Dixie. Diddy is useful in situations where you need speed and the ability to pick things up quickly. As well, his cartwheel attack is pretty handy in tough situations. Dixie, on the other hand, has the ability (like most Nintendo females, for some reason) to float for short periods of time.
Where the original DKC perhaps faltered a bit, and this one particularly shines, is in creating a cohesive world. I never understood why there were crocodiles all over the place in the first one, but in DKC2, with its pirate theme, finds clever ways to expand the world into disparate locales without feeling too slapdash. Not to mention that some of these level designs are just as intricate and (occasionally) devilish as anything Miyamoto and crew have come up with. The Bramble Barrel Blast in particular is a disorienting maze unlike anything I've seen in a videogame, before or since. Add in the several secret passageways and the part of the game that appeals to collecto-thon whores like myself (getting 102% in this game is very, very, very difficult), and this is a game that you could play for years.
Really, though, if I can find any faults with the game, it's that Rare didn't really do too much to inspire people who played the first game to get this one. Little has changed outside of an upward spike in difficulty and the new characters and locales. Pumping out a new game only a year after the first one (and the even less inspired third installment just a year after that) shows that sometimes it pays to take a break and re-evaluate some fundamental things, even if your formula has been successful. DKC2 is still my favourite of the Country games, mostly because it plays the best, but there's no denying that a game like Super Mario World 2 showed that Miyamoto was still leading the charge in the platforming arena. Radical changes in that genre are almost de rigeur, really.
Despite the kind of waxy graphics that have aged really poorly, this is still one of the best platformers of the 90s. You or one of your friends have likely played it, so I have no hesitations in saying that it's almost as good as you remember. Here's hoping that DKC Returns is as good as this game, if a little bit more adventurous.