Donkey Kong Country Returns

[Tyrannosaurus Reich]

[Jesuszilla]

what the fuck

[UHMEEEEBA]

Well that's the stuff of nightmares.

[DMK]

Donkey Kong could give Snake a run for his money being that sneaky.

[UHMEEEEBA]

Game is now out just so you know. Some people have already gotten from midnight releases.

A bit late but the Japanese site launched. Not much to say besides there being a fairly decent remix (in comparison to the others I've heard anyways) of Forest Frenzy (It's #4 on the jukebox). Nintendo's embedding powers are better than Capcoms, can't rip if for you guys sorry. It'll be up on youtube by tomorrow though probably.

[UHMEEEEBA]

You have to climb to the top of the island? If only we knew someone with a plane.

...

[Jesuszilla]

?

Where'd he say that?

[UHMEEEEBA]

It's one of the lines he says in the shop, paraphrased. He also asks you to tell "that Rhino" to visit him among other things randomly.

He has rantings in the instruction book like he did in the ones for DKC 1 and 2 by the way.

[Tyrannosaurus Reich]

There was this one video on Gametrailers which shown some cam footage of the game, and it had some cool original music over it.

I need to find that video, and I hope to god that music is in the game because so far it's leaps and bounds better than most of the remixes in this game.

[UHMEEEEBA]

Oh meant to say this in the last post, Diddy sounds like a goddamn squeaky dog toy when he jumps. Which will be often.

[Jesuszilla]

Better than sounding like a car tire when somebody brakes too hard like he did in Brawl.

[UHMEEEEBA]

Nope that level was listed in the level list I posted awhile back as a first world level and not the games Lost World. It was confirmed awhile back Cranky sells keys to alternate route levels, just didn't expect them to be like that.

Well we were both wrong, [spoiler]you have to collect all the KONG letters in each level in a world (including Cranky's locked one) to unlock the world's respective "K" level (which is on the same map screen, so yeah you can do that video I linked to before even fighting the first boss if you feel like it). Supposedly beating all eight opens up the Golden Temple.[/spoiler]

Also yes, Fear Factory is in the game.

[UHMEEEEBA]

Eh, I need to hear the song without the game sounds before I can make a final judgement

Here you go.

[Jesuszilla]

Too nice. It totally takes away from the dark mystery of the sea that the original had.

[UHMEEEEBA]

It also plays on a platforming intensive stage on the back of a whale, it doesn't fit.

The game is actually pretty good, I'd recommend at least renting it some time if you liked the old ones. I'm not 100 % done yet but I've got a few complaints I'd like to bitch about.

-Roll is tied to waggle. This is stupid, it's a running attack it just doesn't feel right. Also being waggle it can be ureliable at times which is not good when you're trying to do the roll jump off a cliff. It works fine, I guess, for the other moves that require waggle.

-World 4, the cave level has no platforming in it. All the levels are either mine carts or the rocket barrel levels, fine every now and then and the mine cart levels in general are pretty good and they do mix them up, but the pacing just seems bad.

[spoiler=Minor World 4 Spoiler]Got to give Retro credit for making a mine cart boss. It's awesome.[/spoiler]

-The music on the whole isn't doing it for me very much but their are some nice arranges here and there (all DKC1 music, nothing from the others). On the plus side the mine cart music gets level specific remixes, hence why the first version had drums in it, that's the jungle mine cart theme. The new stuff is either ok, or barely qualifies as music.

-I don't like the Rocket Barrel, it works but it's just not good. Also strangely while Minecart Madness gets remixes for each world there is only one Rocket Barrel theme...

-As expected the new enemies are painfully generic. Also their grand plot is just... well... stupid.

-Physics on the whole are different than the other DKC games (especially the jumping off enemy ones), takes some getting use to.

-Puzzle pieces unlock art and music and are not required for 100 % completion so really they are just there for the sake of having something to collect. Seems silly.

-Bonus levels can only be attempted once per stage run/life. Further they are all of the "collect items in 30 seconds!" variety.

-Retro claimed they axed swimming to speed the pace of the game up, well the game is pretty dang slow as you stop about every few seconds to ground pound plants or other various things looking for the aforementioned pointless puzzle pieces.

-The cast seems fairly bare boned. Also they don't even bother explaining the pig, it's just there with no explanation. Personally I choose to believe Wrinkly Kong's ghost possessed it.

-I don't think it'd be possible to make a more anti-climatic, generic final boss.

-The lack of other animal helpers seems a bit silly. I can understand not wanting something platforming intensive like Squitter, but they could have brought back Winky or something. Concept art shows they had some ideas for new ones, shame they didn't get used.

-Banana juice is not yellow. You'll understand what I mean when it happens.


And now for some good things to say about it:

-Unlike in some other "co-op" Nintendo platformers, the co-op here works fairly well. Diddy is unbalanced though. The players share lives which helps curtail team killing.

-The game is harder than it looks, do not underestimate it. Time Trial will fucking kick your ass, it's not required for 100 % completion but getting gold medals is very hard.

-The level gimmicks are pretty varied and keep the game fairly fresh without being obnoxious like say Poisonous Pipeline in DKC3. The level design on the whole is pretty good.

-Cranky has some funny lines.

-Some of the boss fights are pretty good.

-It's definitely an improvement on the GC-era Bongo shit, and DK64. I'd say it's a little better than DKC3 but not as good as 2. I don't agree with all of Retro's decisions but I'd rather have this than seeing DK doomed to shitty mini-games.