Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze

[Kosheh]

Really now. Mario games stick googly eyes on a lot of things but it's not okay with Banjo?

LOOK A BOMB WITH EYES AND FEET!

The difference here is that nintendo actually took some effort to stylize each character so that it was different from the other (and its obvious source of inspiration). Like, a Koopa is a turtle and a Goomba is a zombie mushroom, but they took some liberties with each of them. Note the Bob-Omb is a wind-up toy with simple feet; the Goomba really got boned in the evolutionary process and the Koopa is weirdly bipedal, yellow and owns a pair of shoes.
Then, you have characters like Kooper and Parakarry, who they add articles and coloration to actually make them stand out against the other species of Koopa.

Besides Banjo-Kazooie has an incredible list of characters and enemies that aren't objects with googly eyes.
I happen to really like Portrait Chompa. These guys always made me nervous.

that's...fishbones with googly eyes. just a cartoon set of fishbones with googly eyes.

i think probably one of the most well-designed enemies from that game are probably the grublins

i can't tell what the hell this thing is, and that's a good thing

the grublin sailors and robin grublins kinda go in line with what i'm saying; apart from being a different-looking goblin in appearance, they literally look like a sailor or robin hood, with not much deviation from the source material and their bodies are literally humanoid. if they even had like, donkey kong's stature i'd be ok with that. but its literally a goblin but a people

The Donkey Kong Country reboot series has way better designs for enemies (hypnotic tiki mask monsters vs anthropomorphic alligators).

Its funny you should say that. Everyone seems to say the Tikis were boring wooden drums with no personality. People begged for the Kremlings to return. Could their designs be that bad if people loved and missed them so much?

now all i'm saying here is ironic because i love the kremlings, and like koopaul said, i kinda wished they'd return with a bit of a nintendo touch to them. like, if they returned in their king of swing glory, i'd be 100% totally okay with that