I have been in a big platforming mood after getting burnt out on RPGs, so I decided to move onto another handheld platformer which I'd never played before after running through Super Mario 3D Land. I'd played a tiny bit of Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze on the Wii U, so I had a bit of a sense of what was going to be in the game, but I knew very little about the level design, controls, etc.
The game is a port of the Wii game Donkey Kong Country Returns, which was original developed by Retro Studios. The port was developed by Monster Games, but is largely identical to the original, save that it does not include motion controls, and has additional levels added. Also, it's handheld, which rules.
The game is a return to the basic control and gameplay style featured in the original Donkey Kong Country series, with a few extra tricks including the ability to climb on mossy walls and ceilings, and blowing things (seriously). The plot is pretty different, featuring a brand new series of villains, a set of hypnotic instruments who mind control the innocent creatures of your world to steal all of your bananas. Ok, maybe not that different. But King K. Rool and the Kremlins never appear here, so it definitely is a bit of a break in tone from previous games in the series.
The controls are generally very good, and are even better than for the SNES games. Slippery controls were always a bit of an issue for the classics, and they've tightened up substantially here. My only complaint about the controls is how Diddy is controlled. Rather than a tag up system like in the original trilogy, Diddy rides on your back in this game, and his use is essentially limited to holding A to hover. However, part of the design of many levels is that you need to hit A precisely at the time you hit an enemy to bounce higher to clear gaps or reach secrets. With this control scheme, it makes it so that if you just hit the button a fraction of a second too soon, you'll hover rather than land on the enemy's head. I wish that they had made the hover button something separate, like the bumpers, or L, which would have made the precision just go up a hair and result in far fewer deaths in which you are cheated by the controls rather than your lack of skill.
The graphics are fine. They're not the remarkable spectacle of the SNES games, but they capture that spirit again, and look good. The backgrounds are nice, the enemies are charmingly designed, and there's little to complain about.
The sound for this game is magnificent. The music is excellent, clearly drawing inspiration (and many songs) from the original trilogy, and it all works very well. The sound effects are absolutely fantastic, with every action being accompanied by a very satisfying sound that fits the action.
The game truly shines in its level design, and really leans into the heritage of the SNES games. Levels are crushingly difficult, and embrace a more iterative style of gameplay in which you need to play through the levels many times and remember all of the obstacles in order to complete them. While I generally prefer a more intuitive style of learning about games, this one recaptures the tone of the originals, and the levels are fun despite the repetition. The most fun levels in this game are the toughest ones, although there were a few that just had unfair portions that were not fun. For the most part, though, I really enjoyed the process of grinding through each level and the associated joy that accompanied the completion of a really tough one.
The game's boss fights are really good, and are probably the best in the series. The SNES games rarely had consistently good boss fights, but each boss in this game has its own theme to it, and learning the boss patterns is great fun.
I really did not like how they implemented Diddy Kong. Part of the great charm of Donkey Kong Country and Donkey Kong Country 3 was the highly differentiated playstyles of the two characters. Need to kill a big tough guy? Better call Donkey! Need to jump far or move quicker? Get Dixie! This game treats Diddy Kong like a temporary ability for Donkey, and it suffers for that. Getting Diddy is basically an extra health bar for you, and that's a really boring way to implement one of the aspects of the original trilogy that was one of the most original things about it.
I also thought the new levels for the 3DS version were very boring. I was looking forward to getting to play through a hyper tough world at the end, especially given the challenge of unlocking it (you need to find the KONG letters in every other level, which is really tough in a handful of levels). But I actually just received 8 cupcake levels, and one extremely tough one. This was a disappointment for me, but seeing as they were just bonus levels, I can't knock off too much from it.
I also thought that the new villains lacked the quirky charm of K. Rool and co., and kept hoping for a Mega Man situation in which it turns out the K. Rool was the villain all along, but was left disappointed. Facing off with K. Rool at the end is as much a part of the Donkey Kong experience as is fighting Dr. Wiley, so losing it here doesn't feel great, especially since the new villains lacked an interesting hook.
The single most annoying thing about the game was the lack of control customization. You have the option to use either the control pad or the d-pad, but the schemes completely change the controls around depending on which scheme you want. This is silly, and they should have either created more control schemes or made it so that you can assign buttons. The d-pad scheme basically made it so that the rest of the buttons were unusable, so the game can basically not use what I can only describe as The Greatest D-Pad of All Time. No, I am not joking, the 3DS d-pad is that good!
All in all, Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D was an excellent game and scratched the platforming itch I had been feeling for a while. It has its flaws, but if you enjoyed the SNES games, there's a lot here to like, and a lot that actually improves on the formula of the originals. I'll give it a 8.8/10. I'll definitely get to Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, developed by the same team, at some point soon, so keep an eye out!
Next up on my handheld queue is a game that translates to an extremely tough teaser! Good luck!
-TRO
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