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I am grateful for a second DK '94 hack having been made (and one that's quite a bit more robust than mine, even!), and I also appreciate them figuring out the infinite lives thing, which is something I wanted mine to have. Some of the levels have some neat ideas, but I won't spoil the good parts.

That said, something I never liked about the original game was how unpredictable certain enemies are (the Fireballs, the Snapjaws, etc.), and this hack leans into that unpredictability at times, even using it as the basis for entire levels' challenges. For example, 2-12 has DK tossing rocks beside a hammer you need to grab, but you also need to bring the hammer across a moving platform right below it. This means you have to time your movements around two things that aren't synced up with each other, resulting in you just sitting there, waiting for an opening to happen at the right moment. Similarly, the final level (3-4)'s challenge is based entirely on how frequently DK Jr. decides to toss mushrooms while you're trying to bring up the rightmost two locks; the rest of the level is quite simple.

There are also a few levels that, while not unreliable, are just slow and tedious. I get that we probably don't know how to lower the amount of time the octopi latch onto Mario's head (while, of course, lowering the key's timer to compensate), but did you really need FOUR near-identical levels that use them in unavoidable situations? Even after the player figures out what to do, that's a lot of waiting. Heck, 2-6 is just a worse version of 2-7; you could improve the hack by cutting 2-6 entirely. Still, the worst example isn't even any of those four levels, but 2-11, where you have to bring the key up a long, repetitive staircase...WHILE UNDERWATER, making the whole thing unnecessarily slow and tedious as well. The only time I used a savestate for this hack (besides the start of 2-10 to mitigate the softlock) was when I finally made it to the water's surface in that level, where the level design finally changes. That level's underwater segment should be cut in half, at least; dragging it out like this doesn't make the level harder, only less fun. 1-7 is also in that vein, what with bringing the key up the repeating platforms and what with all the level's collectibles being at the end of long, flat walkways, but the oil barrel jumps are a decent idea that deserve a better level.

The difficulty curve is also all over the place, with some levels being so easy, they come across as padding (like 1-4, 2-9, and 3-1)...though I guess I can't rag about that too much since 50m in my hack also ended up being little more than padding.

I know there's a lot of negativity here, but I'm just trying to provide detailed criticism so the hack can be improved. I kinda wish the site didn't make me pick yes or no on recommending, but I'm going with No for now since I'm holding out hope for an update that'll fix some of these issues I mentioned.

P.S. Besides the softlock mentioned in the readme, I encountered two other bugs. In 2-4, I assumed the goal was next to Pauline due to the conspicuous empty space there, but it isn't, and doing a handstand-jump into that area causes Mario to teleport offscreen somewhere and not die. I recommend blocking that area off entirely, and making the lower platform more conspicuous since that's where the goal ACTUALLY is (2-8 could also use a more conspicuous indicator for its goal as well, as I accidentally beat the level before getting all the collectibles). Also, 2-10 has a second possibility to softlock if you land on the diagonal bullets in just the right way (it happened to me twice: https://i.imgur.com/IzNe3il.mp4 https://i.imgur.com/a74xfIm.mp4).

P.P.S. The waterfalls in 1-1 should just be replaced with normal water since the key also can't be brought up normal water, but more importantly, swimming up the waterfall requires such quick tapping for so long, it hurt my finger.

P.P.P.S. Minor issue, but the in-game credits in 3-6 and 3-7 are illegible. I could barely even make out the "thanks for playing" in 3-5, but since that level is currently only one screen large, maybe you could expand it like you did with some of the other levels to give the rest of the credits some more breathing room. I did find 3-8 to be funny, though.