This month is a special one for Donkey Kong Country, marking the 30th anniversary of the game's release across several regions.
So, to celebrate, a group of ROM hackers has got together to create three new ROM hacks for those who consider themselves experts at the game, which are all inspired by unlockable modes from later Donkey Kong Country releases.
The first of these hacks, Challenge Edition, is influenced by the hidden difficulty mode from Donkey Kong Country 2, which was activated in that game by using a cheat code. It removes the game's DK barrels and warp barrels, making it impossible to bring back lost characters and perform level skips. The second, meanwhile, called Expert Edition, does all of the above but also takes its cue from a hidden Donkey Kong Country 3 cheat to strip out all of the checkpoint barrels, meaning you'll have to finish every level in one clean go.
If neither of these seems difficult enough for you, though, don't get too cocky, as there is also a third and final option: the Diddy Kong-centric Hero Edition. This introduces the additional requirement that you will need to beat the game with the weaker and slightly harder-to-control Diddy and is based on the unlockable "1 Player Hero mode" in Donkey Kong Country's Game Boy Advance.
The hacks are the work of the ROM hacker Q and were built using RainbowSprinklez' RainbowZ Editor — a multi-purpose editor for Donkey Kong Country that allows users to edit level attributes, alongside other aspects of the game. All three hacks can be downloaded now from the ROM Hack Plaza.