Donkey Kong Country Returns

[Alpha Six]

As you were saying with the side games, whenever DK gets a side game...

...You get a game that isn't DK.

side game

isn't DK

Duh.

[JackMan]

As far as I am concerned, DKC is the series now.
The original DK has nothing to do with the series now, aside from the barrels.

King of Swing was the only GBA game I was familiar with, so.. I guess it could count. It was fun.

[Kage Kazumi]

It.. It was an opinion.. :C

You lost me when using the word PERFECT. Nothing can NEVER be perfect and those who seek it only find disappointment.

[Cobalt Blue]

The original DK has nothing to do with the series now, aside from the barrels.

if you ignore that cranky kong is literally the original DK, yeah sure.

[Koopaul]

You all need to know the difference between spinoffs and side games.

A spinoff is an entirely new series that came from another series.

DKC Series and Mario Series spun off from the DK Arcade Series.

Side games are like the Christmas Specials of the same series.

Donkey Konga is a side game of Donkey Kong Country series.

[Cobalt Blue]

basically every mario game is a side game of itself then?

[Clutch]

This image help anyone? Arguably, I could've thrown DK Jr. in there too, but the point is the same.

Pessimism cannot ruin this game for me. I love the Kremlings, but I'm trusting Retro to know what they're doing.

In a way they seem to be trying to recreate the feeling of playing the first DKC back in 1994 (without the internet spoiling everything): You don't know which characters are in the game other than a few key players like Rambi, DK, and Diddy and they're intentionally keeping information hidden so you'll discover things to nostalgia-gasm over while playing the game instead of watching it through low-quality expo footage (probably why most of the levels we've seen look like they'd fit within the same world). The manual for the original DKC even kept the final boss's appearance a secret. Plus instead of gawking over ACM, they're sticking loads of stuff for you to watch in the background.

Admittedly the graphics aren't a 1:1 aesthetic match to DKC (Prime didn't look like an exact match to Super Metroid either), but we've had a lot of deviation from those days, and I know I'm settling for less here, but I'm kinda glad it even came close. It seems like an amalgamation of the visual styles of DKC, DK64, and PAON's games. You compare it to Sonic 4, but I see an inherent laziness in that game's visuals that I don't see here. Compare the sunset levels between the two, for instance.

The only things I feel I should speak out about are Diddy not being available for Solo play (unless there's a secret mode that we don't know about) and them not tracking down David Wise to do the soundtrack (he doesn't work at Rare anymore, he'd probably be available for a sequel). They aren't going to kill the game for me though.

[JackMan]

Nothing really to say there.
Your comment was genius, Clutch.

I miss David Wise. I could jam to some of the songs that he made in DKC2.
:'(

[Koopaul]

Nintendo Power confirms Cranky Kong is the only other returning Kong and they rejoiced.

Why does NP have such a vendetta agaist the DK Crew?

Even in their Brawl review they said they always hated Diddy.

[Ton]

Yeah, I don't get it either. Some of the characters (Kiddy, Swanky, Tiny, Chunky...) are pretty lame, but the main ones (DK, Diddy, Dixie, Cranky) are pretty solid.

[~DrakoRero~]

People always want to kill off or dislike the other characters, like people not wanting Tails, Knuckles and so on to be in Sonic games.

[TomGuycott]

People always want to kill off or dislike the other characters, like people not wanting Tails, Knuckles and so on to be in Sonic games.

I always hope they'd make a Megaman X9 and kill off Axl.

[Kosheh]

From what I played, not too hard. It's a little different than the original DKC games. There's more background stuff to interact with and stuff hidden in it, which can be good or bad. It might mean that the levels aren't as well-designed because they no longer have to hide DK coins in them. Then can just stick it in a venus flytrap in the background. But I'm not sure. I haven't played too much.

Actually, now they have jigsaw pieces (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) hidden throughout the level
My girlfriend and I at NYCC were incredibly concise during gameplay, tried our best to collect everything in sight and had people crowding around us. A lot of dialogue between us and we were definitely working as a team, trying to find every little secret within the first level of the demo...but there are 12 jigsaw pieces in the first level. We only found 8 of them and I have to admit, I was bummed >>;

But that says a lot because that means there's a lot of hidden-ness throughout the game, since that means you're gonna be backtracking to the very first level just for 100% completion!

Ton, how's the gameplay? And for what you said about the background interaction, how does that affect the gameplay?

Gameplay is definitely solid - except Nunchuk controls are really awkward. Most of DK's "unique" moves are done by holding a direction on the nunchuk and shaking the remote, i.e.
rolling attack -> horizontal direction + shake remote
ground slap -> down + shake remote

Background interaction does come into play, but I'm kind of fuzzy on it. Some of the things seem so gimmicky (in the first level, Jungle Japes? there are wild flowers DK can blow on, similar to dandelions by crouching and hitting Z in front of one I think) but then there are some pretty cool things like transition from foreground to background (there are barrel cannons that shoot you to the background which you can play around there and grab hidden things you might see - I think Super Paper Mario did this)

And as I might have mentioned previously, this game is AWESOME in co-op. It's only 2P co-op but you're definitely talking to your friend on the couch a lot more, as you need to pull off combo abilities (?) in order to reach areas, or access something that only DK or Diddy can reach (since the two now have independent control in multiplayer)

It also made me wonder about competitive gameplay which was something I liked about the original DKC, and I asked the Nintendo rep there and she gave me a nice, honest "I don't know" :/

[Helmo]

I liked Jungle Beat a lot. I will definatly play this.

lots of dk characters are lame, diddy kong is not, k.rool and kremlins should be in more games but whatever

[Koopaul]

Just for the sake of an argument on another forum. (where we don't understand why there are people who don't care about DK characters)

Why do you think DK characters are lame?