Best Family Games Like Donkey Kong Country

The best family games like Donkey Kong Country are Donkey Kong Country 2, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze and Super Mario World. Below are 7, each with the reason it is here — and, at the end, what filtering to family costs you.

Why Family Is a Good Answer for Donkey Kong Country

Filtering to family means the game has to work for a child and an adult at the same table without either of them being bored. That is a much harder design problem than a difficulty slider.

What you get: Something you can put in front of anyone. The best family games make the skill gap not matter rather than pretending it is not there.

What made Donkey Kong Country worth playing in the first place is covered on the full list. This page is the family part of that answer, and only the family part.

7 Family Games Like Donkey Kong Country

  1. 1. Donkey Kong Country 2

    The best of the trilogy, and much harder.

  2. 2. Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze

    The modern entry, and one of the best platformers ever made.

  3. 3. Super Mario World

    The SNES platformer it competed with, and the secret exits are the same idea.

  4. 4. Rayman Legends

    The most polished 2D platformer since, with the same secret-hunting.

  5. 5. Yoshi's Island

    The other great SNES platformer, and far stranger.

  6. 6. Kaze and the Wild Masks

    Made deliberately to be Donkey Kong Country again.

  7. 7. Crash Bandicoot 4

    The same feel translated into three dimensions.

What This Filter Leaves Out

Edge. Family games rarely go anywhere uncomfortable, and a few of them are too generous to hold an experienced player for long alone.

Specifically, these are strong answers for Donkey Kong Country that are not family games, so they are not on this page:

The full list is on games like Donkey Kong Country — 9 picks, no genre filter.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best family game like Donkey Kong Country?

Donkey Kong Country 2. The best of the trilogy, and much harder.

Are all of these on the Super Nintendo?

No. Donkey Kong Country released on the Super Nintendo, but a recommendation is only useful if you can play it, so the picks above span platforms and eras. What they share is the genre and the reason.

How do I check a game is suitable?

Age ratings cover content but not difficulty or frustration, which is what actually ruins a family session. Five minutes of unedited play footage tells you more than any rating.

Competitive or co-operative?

With mixed ages, co-operative usually wins. The competitive ones that work are the ones where being in last place is still entertaining.

How are these chosen?

By hand. Each pick was written for the full Donkey Kong Country list first, on what the game actually does, and this page is the part of that list that is family — never a genre tag lookup, which is how "best racing games like Super Mario 64" used to be a page on this site.

Other Angles on Donkey Kong Country

More Family Games Recommendations

Or read the family guide for where to start in the genre generally.