From my personal experience, I haven't played the DKL's too much... the one I played the most was the original DKL, and as a result, I became aware of that game's story through the instruction manual. Apparently, this game has a story different than that of DKC, where Cranky bets that Donkey and Diddy wouldn't be able to make another smash gaming hit like they did with DKC on a less graphically-competent system, the Game Boy. Apparently, Cranky arranges to have K. Rool broken out of jail
![Question :?:](./images/smilies/icon_question.gif)
Like I said, my experience with the other two DKL's is very limited. I don't believe DKL2 has a unique story, and I read on the DKU some time ago that DKL2 takes place directly after DKC2, where Krocodile Isle has somehow resurfaced, which would explain the merged terrain (it's the second world, forgot the name) and the different level layouts. I don't know if DKL2's story goes along with the DKU's description of it, but if anyone has any more information to add about it, let me know.
DKL3 could possibly be canon, since it has its own unique story, so it's less likely to be considered a retelling of the same DKC3 story (which I believe is the case with DKC2-DKL2.) However, there's one, big problem that I found in DK64, which seems to question whether DKL3 is canon. In DK64, Wrinkly's ghost mentions that she died sometime after DKC3. If DKL3 occurred after DKC3, why didn't she say she died after DKL3? It would have been the last time we saw her alive in the DK continuity if we consider DKL3 to be canon. Although, she could be senile and completely forgot about being in DKL3 (like most DKC fans do.)
![Rolling Eyes :roll:](./images/smilies/icon_rolleyes.gif)
This is what I know about the series, which isn't much. In my opinion, DKL2 is the only DKL that doesn't have a very good chance of being considered canon, due to it's extremely similar premise to DKC2, which probably means that it's basically a reinterpretation of the same event that occurred in DKC2. Both DKL1 and DKL3 could possibly be considered canon, but DKL's story is weird and DKL3 is confronted with a rather interesting continuity problem posed by DK64, which questions whether it happened at all.