http://www.mariowiki.com/List_of_Donkey_...a_elements
Okay so I found something VERY interesting while searching through old Beta's for games. Donkey Kong 64, AKA one of my few childhood experiences with the N64 only had a few minor changes like a cameo of Banjo and Kazooie being taken out, a restructuring of the Jack in The Box boss on the 3rd level, and Army Dillo having a harder battle the first encounter that mimics the second.
However I found one HUGE difference that would have possibly made the game a bit strange and less creative. One of the more memorable parts of the game were all the crazy, kooky weapons each Kong got. The weapons were clearly based off of real weapon but shot fruit instead of bullets and were made of wood. However originally this wasn't the case as these early screenshots depict Donkey Kong with a realistic looking double barrel shotgun and Diddy Kong with a pair of realistic looking pistols. Even though the change seems to have been made for obvious reasons, it might be deeper than that.
Ya see, rather than being changed from real guns to wooden guns might not just be due to the weirdness and inappropriateness of apes and monkeys carrying real guns. For one thing, the wooden weapons were more creative and ultimately added a big difference between the characters but think about all the Kong's weapons. Donkey Kong's coconut shooter was clearly meant to be a shotgun, Diddy Kong's peanut popguns were meant to be twin pistols, Tiny Kong has a crossbow, and Chunky Kong had a bazooka. Lanky Kong is the oddball of the group however as he has a dart gun which isnt really traditional but makes more sense with the jungle theme. Dart guns aren't usually metallic and are generally made of wood. He could have been the oddball to have a wooden weapon compared to all the other realistic ones than they thought maybe make them all wooden and give them special types of ammo to make the style unique.
Just a theory/thought you know but what we do know that all the Kong's were meant to have realistic weapons at one point in development and were scrapped. It should also be noted that Lanky Kong is based on an enemy in the original Donkey Kong country named "Manky Kong" described as "Kong family rejects" in the manual. These enemies had long arms like Lanky and tossed barrels down hills as a homage to the original Donkey Kong arcade game. Also, just putting this out there but there are links to Beta elements for all Mario games on this website, which would make for a lot of great content and videos.
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Donkey Kong 64 DYKG
Donkey Kong 64 DYKG 
