Donkey Kong Country Returns (Wii)
Here’s another one I played to completion a while after finishing it. My reason for leaving this off was because I’d almost only played it in co-op with my bro (hi bro!), so when we’d finished it and I’d moved away I just didn’t play it solo. But to wash out the taste of Jungle Beat, I started a new file and got to 100% completion (but not Mirror Mode or Time Attack… bugger that).
It was really great, although a few differences I’d noticed from co-op to solo was that I was accumulating a lot more coins (because I bought less lives to use in levels) and that it was much harder, especially the secret levels. I had to buy powerups, which we hadn’t done before. It’s a hard game, man! But so lovingly made. (Not enough love if you ask some people, at least love for DKC—some fans are big purists). This time I was able to take it slower, really take in the music and the backgrounds. The game looks great and sounds great, despite the over-reliance on DKC1 remixes and mediocrity of most new tracks. There’s also too many rocket barrel levels that are too unforgiving.
Fortunately the follow-up, Tropical Freeze, seems to be addressing every single major complaint people had. Yes even that one. David Wise is back now to bring us awesome music, level environments are even more imaginative and lively, water levels and more Kongs are back with the gameplay variations they bring. A few tweaks have been made to make things more forgiving, despite the levels seeming to be no less difficult. Also, it has new antagonists that have a lot more character than the Tikis: alright, they’re not the Kremlings but they are superior to Tikis in the same ways the Kremlings would be, so although I love them in this case nostalgia has to give way.
Well, I talked about TF a lot there. Anyways DKCR is pretty damn awesome, along with the new Raymans 2D platformers are going strong right now. Sure it falls short in a few ways but it’s very polished and just fun to play, and well executed on its aims. Let’s keep this short and cut it off here. Play DKCR, it’s on 3DS now which is supposedly an even better version (despite some slight graphical compromises). Bring some patience for the harder levels though.
