The Modern MAGIC of Donkey Kong Country Returns | GEEK CRITIQUE

[Music] and the mid-90s just for a little while it seemed as though Donkey Kong ruled the gaming world the franchise and his characters seemed at times to surpass even Mario as the de facto base of an Tendo flash-forward to the late 2000s though and it was tough to be a Donkey Kong van more than a dozen years had passed since the last entry in the mainline country series a GameCube era saw the franchise bound to a gimmicky Bongo controller an error when the best offerings were remakes of games from days gone by aside from that more and more it seemed like Donkey Kong was no longer a franchise player he was just an ancillary part of the mario cast and by the end of the decade it was getting tough to be a traditional Nintendo fan early on the Wii was very well supported with games for the casual and hardcore alike but when it became obvious just how overtly the console had caught fire with people who didn't consider themselves gamers the company doubled down on the bat demographic and look I'm not a gatekeeper for real gamers or whatever I thought it was awesome that I had games I could play with my parents it just felt like it may have been coming a little bit at the expense of people who'd been longtime fans of the company I remember a year where it seemed like all Nintendo had was Animal Crossing like that was supposed to be enough for us while Nintendo worked on Wii music could we fit in the freaking vitality sensor but you know water under the bridge I'm not gonna be bitter the point is Nintendo was so successful with this strategy that by 2010 even gamers who didn't give a crap about Nintendo had reason to be anxious Sony and Microsoft had seen the Wii success and they were dipping their toes in that big blue ocean so it's kind of funny at the very same e3 where its competitors were promoting the newest of the industry's many attempts to turn you into the controller Nintendo of America's ready Fiza may stood on stage and said this as you know retro studios in Texas has produced some great Metroid titles but when they said they were ready for something new we asked them to take one of the most treasured franchises in videogame history and to make it magic again if you listen you can hear incoming that music that landscape I couldn't believe it it didn't make any sense it in compute it seemed impossible but it was real Donkey Kong Country Returns [Music] the fact that they included that country branding was such a good sign the jungle beat had just been ported to the Wii the previous year so the way that game went out of its way to avoid referencing the country trilogy was like the banana fresh in everyone's mind we took it almost as given that Nintendo wasn't interested in promoting or building on anything that rare had created it's a lot like how the Metroid fandom became extremely cynical toward Nintendo after other end that's where DK fans were at the time and that's exactly why this reveal caught everyone so off-guard to have the president of Nintendo of America acknowledge that the series had been mishandled that they wanted it to be magic again this wasn't just surprising it was vindicating immediately after the conference of course people became skeptical of retro studios ability to recapture what made the Donkey Kong Country trilogy so magical after 14 years yeah they weren't turning into a first-person coconut shooter but they had also never made anything other than this we may have been vindicated but were we selfish were we wrong hey it was the 2000s let's find out the story begins not on a dark and stormy night but on a bright and Karie day when the active volcano that was apparently beneath gorilla glacier explodes will mourn the loss of slip slide ride but the eruption has unleashed something far more heinous the Tiki tak tribe this ancient assortment of sentient flying musical instruments immediately starts hypnotizing the wildlife of DK island and enlist them to for some reason and steal the banana hoard but their particular brand of hypnosis doesn't have any effect on Donkey Kong probably because he underwent a clemency training after that incident with the toy factory boobs and from there at Cusco seamlessly into gameplay as the first thing you're asked to do is violently hammer the Wii Remote to violently hammer DK as unwelcome guests no dialogue no more cutscenes given what a sought-after possession the banana hoard was this inciting incident is more than enough I've always been less than thrilled though with the Tiki Tech tribe themselves especially as the primary antagonists I guess it's a unique concept deeming them all-around instruments like this but those masks really allow for the expressive characters that made the Creveling so memorable and I want to stress I'm not writing them just because they're not the kremlings they just seem to be designed for functionality first for getting you enemies with wide flat heads to bounce on and the designs all kind of run together but the de tech tribes reception pales in comparison to by far the most controversial thing about not just this game but the console it's on though waggle controls in the 16-bit games tapping the Y button would make the Kong's do some kind of rolling attack and keeping a held would make them sprint in this game your character speed is determined by the analog stick which you know makes sense but you don't hit a button to roll no don't be ridiculous that would just be silly no instead a function that you'll need to precisely time multiple times throughout every single stage of the game is relegated to flicking the Wii Remote and you know what it didn't bother me even a little no seriously it felt like second nature by the second level I didn't miss time it I didn't activate it when I didn't want to and I thought it actually felt pretty immersive when it was used to like beat up bosses the reason I was in a position to get the hang of it so fast though is because by 2010 many many many many Wii games had used a flick of the Wiimote as part of their control scheme so to me it was already as natural as hitting a button on the other hand all of those other games had some kind of a reason to limit the control scheme to the Wii Remote in Twilight Princess he weren't mimicking a sword new super mario has been making an NES controller Mario Galaxy required the pointer and Mario Cart amazing as it seems actually let you use different controllers but with returns you're locked to the Wii Remote it is absolutely ludicrous that on a system with a pro controller that looks this much like a Super Nintendo pad a 2d revival of a Super Nintendo series couldn't support it the for survival controls might not have bothered me but failing to give the player the option was a tone-deaf decision they introduced an unnecessary learning curve and even kept some people from giving the game a chance if you fall into that camp the game was remade for the 3ds a few years later and on that version all the level mechanics are mapped to buttons unfortunately the trade-off is that it suffers from a much lower frame rate the Wii version is 60 FPS but the three yes struggles to maintain its target of 30 but it is really impressive that they got it running with no other consequences on this hardware and if you're into that sort of thing and I really am the 3d effect is a natural fit for the game too some people swear by this version and there are a few very substantial additions that we'll get to later but aside from one big one I take waggle over a low frame rate any day now of course if you've got a beefy enough PC the dolphin emulator can give you the best of both worlds and beyond the bulk of what you're seeing here was played on dolphin with the same controller layout as a 3ds version at 60fps with a massive upscale in resolution and a fan-made HD texture pack for the 2d HUD elements it looks gorgeous controls perfectly and even a rig that's a few years out of date should be able to run it at a higher rest in the Wii at this point I would call this the definitive way to play the game if your computer can handle it but I digress even if returns had supported this controller it still wanted have played like the Super NES games this is not a retro throwback this is a whole new style of Donkey Kong Country and it handles a lot of things differently Donkey Kong himself just feels different he moves and jumps with the weight and might you'd expect to the gorilla dashing from standstill has a little scampering build up and down sitting on enemies isn't as floaty as it wasn't the originals also you can no longer bounce higher off enemies just by holding the jump button you've got to tie-in it consistently and combined with how frantic the game can get anyway I find the window on that is a little too strict one of the best changes though is how climbing works DAC had vines and ropes but returns has entire surfaces that you can clean too without any change in decays momentum these surfaces can even curve and it adds a lot to stage variety there's no longer much of an emphasis on barrels and even aside from the waggle rolling works completely differently in the 16-bit titles rolling through an enemy would extend both the speed and length of your attack it was where a lot of that blow came from as you could barrel through groups of enemies and build mode in return Donkey Kong's drawl has been earth really rolling in general is one of the biggest reasons this game feels so different because rolling is also significantly faster than just running so if you're going for speed it's better to leap out of a roll to maintain land speed instead of browsing through enemies with it it's not a smooth blowing maneuver anymore it's an explosive burst of momentum and unless you jump it only lasts for this long whether you hit enemies with it or not one signature of the classic trilogy was the way that instead of relegating player functions - like an in-game menu a cast of characters were attached to those services cranky Kong gave you hints from Kela you travel the map candy saved your game and a floating star barrel served as your level checkpoint wait that last one doesn't fit doesn't ah it's because in returns this pig is now your level checkpoint but retro only captured this particular focus to an extent the fact is cranky didn't just give you hints he antagonized you and broke the fourth wall funky was a dude candy was a love interest and an abomination they might have been one-dimensional but the Kong's were all characters this pig on the other hand didn't even have a name and wouldn't get one until the sequel speaking of cranky though he's the one helper Kong that actually makes return in DKC returns well it would have been nice if Moore had made an appearance I can understand it all their function had been made obsolete by the evolving standards of pain design you can jump around the map screen at any time so you don't need funky the game autosave so you mercifully don't need candy all that's really left to do is run a shop and since cranky is the most memorable of the bunch it makes sense that he would get the job one other signature of the dkc series was it's tag team dynamic and so for the first time since 1995 diddy kong was used as DK sidekick but the tag team is now more of a Texas tornado Diddy isn't really a separate playable character anymore at least not in single-player you're always controlling Donkey Kong when you have him dady rides on decays back so he works more like a traditional powerup giving you access to more abilities and going away when he takes enough damage such a change necessitates that those abilities are worth it and they the role moves when you have Diddy is massively buff it just barrels along the ground and can go on as long as the terrain does and of course you can still go over a legs and jump out of a roll Diddy also comes with this rocket barrels letting you get more distance and more importantly more control out of your jumps but one downside to making Diddy more of a powerup than a second character is that stage is no longer have to feature it's not uncommon for you to be able to pass checkpoint with Diddy but if you die there's no way you're getting him back it's not necessarily a negative but it is a little awkward that the only way to have another shot with him is just to go to another stage and get him well unless you're playing multiplayer the 16-bit games had a couple different ways to let you switch off in multiplayer but I never covered those modes I mean it was nice that it was there but it felt a bit tacked on and I mean I guess it had to be given how the games were designed but in returns both players play co-op at the same time unlike the 90s trilogy and unlike certain newer 2d platformers it actually feels for the most part that this game was designed with two player in mind you never collide with each other and defeated enemies even stick around for a few seconds so both players have an opportunity to bounce off the second player can hop on decays back at any time if a section gets too tough and you can spend a life to come back instantly if one of you dies the only time it does get a little dicey is in the minecart and rocket barrel stages but these would have to lose a lot to be playable simultaneously so I don't mind it my initial playthrough of this game was pretty much all done in multiplayer and it was a blast this is how you do a co-op platformer the first game had this weird little move called the ground pound it was fun I guess but it was really situational it could uncover hidden items but not the ones that were visibly buried it was just an odd ability and it was totally possible to get through the whole game without ever using it no surprise the sequels did away with it entirely until now the ground pound in returns is one of the most important moves in your repertoire it doesn't have that weird wind-up andele anymore it's totally instant and it has to be because it's used for so many things it can still uncover items but it can also stun enemies demolish terrain and activate set pieces it makes a lot of sense bringing Donkey Kong strength to the forefront of his moveset and I love it but kind of the opposite of the ground pound is the blowing mechanic where the ground pound feels great and makes sense of character blowing on things is a clunky maneuver requiring you to awkwardly position yourself and ex2 things it's also more laggy than the ground pound and I really questioned what sort of thought process would lead to this being a sensible move for Donkey Kong it's occasionally used for some cool moments and it's neat when it's used to blow out the fire enemies but mostly I just feel like it has too much overlap with ground pounding without being anywhere near as fun since the actual result of what they do is so similar ground pounding and blowing can lead to a lot of starting and stopping which if you let them break up the flow of the gameplay you could be totally immersed in the feel of the game only to be pulled out if you need to break that thing or blow on that dandelion now like I said they're also used for a lot of set-piece moments or discovering hidden rooms but I do feel like stages are filled with way too many background elements that only exist to justify these moves and I mean it's at least a plus that each stage archetype has its own things to break our blow on but a lot of them don't even give you anything however I can kind of excuse this potential interruption of flow for a couple of reasons for one thing it's only potential there's absolutely no reason you have to search out everything one of the many things the original trilogy did well was nailing that balance and allowing the player to choose between action and exploration if you wanted to barrel your way through levels with all the finesse of a pounding drum you'd have a blast but if you wanted to take your time soak in that ambience and find all the secrets that could be just as fun the games were accommodating to either approach Donkey Kong Country Returns recaptures this balance and it might even do it better in some ways every single level is brimming with secret areas to discover and things to collect but every single level is also designed in such a way that a skilled player can barrage through them with a speed and grace worthy of the aesthetic and in fact they have to be built with speed in mind there's a new Time Trial mode with a ludicrously high skill ceiling which actually requires you to master every single beat of a level but maybe the greatest indication of this approach to balance isn't two of the collectables con letters and puzzle pieces the con letters aren't really hidden there in plain sight but they tend to require the player to pull off a risky move to get them but they don't grant an extra life anymore instead getting every column letter in a world unlocks a key temple stage this is one of those bits of new series lore that really fits the idea that the T key survival sparked these temples to appear I love the ancient technology aesthetic but I love playing them even more look the game is normally tough but these stages just drive you crazy they ask so much of you the mechanics all come together and there's so much tension and pressure and you just die over over again but it's exhilarating and all that challenge makes getting to the end so satisfying but let's set that aside for now and contrast that with a new collectible puzzle pieces unlike the con letters you'll have to actively search for they're hidden throughout the stages themselves but there are also rewards for completing bonus stages collecting them will unlock well a bonus stuff like a piece of concept art or a diorama look like I said a billion times in the Metroid series I'm not a complete fittest so my approach to puzzle pieces is simple I'll get up if I come across them but I never go out of my way to find them all I mean look the cons don't even mind losing bonus stages anymore but that's kind of the beauty of it you are challenged you'll get more of it as a reward for proving your skill by grabbing those Kong letters but you rather explore you'll also be rewarded with bonus content do you maybe want to find everything but you suck at actually doing so like I do cranky lets you hire squawks who will help seek out puzzle pieces is the game's difficulty overwhelming cranky also sells power-ups that protect you from crashes give you more hit points and even make you invincible the 3ds version even adds a new mode literally new mode a Nintendo so good at naming things new mode makes the game easier by giving the Kong's more hit points and items and if you die too many times in the stage both versions will even give you the option to just show you how to play it and let you move on although you don't get any of the collectibles this way locked in a game instead of playing it will kind of miss the point for me but hey I was a kid who couldn't beat anything without a game genie once upon a time and there's nothing wrong with having options what's telling us that needeth the puzzle pieces or the Time Attack medals even count toward your completion percentage I love this approach the developers are giving you the freedom and the incentive to play the game in the wait it's the most fun for you of course I'd find the puzzle pieces a lot more fun if the bonus stages they were tied to were more interesting now I don't have a problem with puzzle pieces in stages and in fact some of them are hidden really cleverly moments like this where you have to notice the potential for the background elements to form a certain shape or another indication of what a good fit retro was for this project but every single bonus age just boils down to grabbing a bunch of stuff within a time limit and there are only a handful of types like the aesthetic is the only thing that differentiates world once bonus stages from World eights you and Donkey Kong Country one had slightly more variety than this but I guess the original did also suffer from simplistic repetitive bonus stages and since returns is similarly kicking off a new series I can give it a pass this time unfortunately one way of pales in comparison to the original is in its use of animal buddy's art of be more accurate the lack thereof dkc1 had for rideable buddies plus walks held a light in that one stage in return squawks is also in a support role and the most famous animal buddy is back Randy true to the game style he's more powerful than ever invincible to everything except fire and to be fair he is thrilling to play ass crashing through barriers and destroying set pieces but he's only in four stages and he's the only rideable buddy in the game like I said I'll excuse some things in light of this being the first game in a new series I do still wish there was a way to play as Diddy and single-player or to have him take point I do as other animal buddies and Kong's had shown up I do think it loses something in terms of momentum and the ability to switch characters Lindt the older games a little more variety but in sacrificing this variability returns becomes more consistent than the classic spot of mine as the game design and the approach are very different but that crunchy core is still there and ultimately it's as solid as ever and boy does it need to be solid I remember when the e3 reveal happened there was a lot of concern about this and endo gave him those filthy casuls again are we Nintendo made real games but we were so [Music] it might let you take two hits for pong but DKC returns turns out to be exponentially more difficult than its 16-bit ancestors nearly every stage has a gimmick that's taught via that old-school skill curve the concept is introduced then it's used in situation after situation ever increasing in complexity twisting as it goes with other gimmicks to create this exhilarating degree of challenge unlike the older games and more obviously unlike most 2d revivals of retro franchises DKC returns actually puts modern hardware to use to create hazards that never could have been done in 16bits waves crash in from the background flinging enemies and items alike and forcing you to seek out shelter a freakin octopus chases you down to an entire level physics are often used in ways of the Super Nintendo just wasn't capable of with platforms shifting under DK's weight at entire structures collapsing but even a more traditional dkc element like blast barrels are so much more impactful in returns just having a camera that can swing through the environment like this gives them a lot more scope the pace tends to be way more frenetic than the older games but I think in light of that people forget that it's not just a bombastic spectacle this is not like the difference between classic Sonic's momentum and platforming versus the Boost games non-stop energy for sure and still has plenty of slower stages based around more traditional platforming it has plenty of ambience it's just not the same realistic ambience of the original game most famously these silhouette stages are just breathtaking and on three of the manage to convey a completely different feel on the flipside the minecart stages have been so bolstered by the Wiis Hardware they really do superannuated the classics which makes a lot of sense in those original games these were all ready to vom bastok fast paced stages and return to invigorate some with hazards and designs that never could have even remotely been done on Super Nintendo when the drag starts breaking apart or getting cut in half it can be such an adrenaline and it's a testament to how well designed they are that I always feel like I have enough time to react to this stuff they even incorporate platforming sections and bury things up now mine carts are just a perfect fit for the game style that urban flow between the canonical precision platforming and all this spectacle makes the high is all the more thrilling it really surprised me that a developer who never made a 2d platformer could practically master the pace of a game like this stages never over stay there woman Wow almost never the counterpart to the minecarts are these new rocket barrel stages they're also many are in the vehicle based but they're not nearly as well designed what kills it here are the controls or to be more accurate to the control because all you can do is hold down the a button to ascend and you automatically fall when it's not held down there's this intentional lag that keeps you from changing directions too quickly so there's a rhythm you have to master to even go in a straight line why is all this screen real estate back here not being used oh it's so they can put things behind you sometimes now you have to pay attention to the dodging obstacles from two different directions with such limited controls when you die in one it other stages constantly you zoom the camera in and out so why not just move the player forward when they want to do that the late game rocket barrel stages in particular are the one-time returns really war on me it can be such a repetitive futur to get through well technically I guess the rocket barrel isn't entirely new yeah what a surprise Josh's dismissive of something that's originating from dkc3 but this style of stage isn't anything like that games and the point stands the vast majority of the music is made up of adaptations for tracks from the original game some have taken issue with this but it never bothered me I mean most of the level tropes and even the setting itself are the same as Donkey Kong Country so it feels right for the music to hail from it too especially since most of them are really strong remixes and are often put to use in new ways like it's a great touch how the map screen music changes in each world now for that matter it's a great touch with the whole map is now just one big model mix the whole adventure feel nice and interconnected very occasionally the melancholic dkc tracks don't gel well with the over-the-top approach like when the tranquil interests different water can be abstract plays while a massive whale draft through pirate ships there are some new tracks as well but they don't tend to be nearly as catchy or memorable I mean they're serviceable but a being David wises Greatest Hits was the right call I cannot help but smile every time one of those old familiar tunes would hit due to how fast-paced and difficult this game is it demands that you stay engaged you can't really focus on anything else when you're playing returns because it asks so much of you I can kick back relax and speed through dkc2 without really thinking about it I mean he used to be a hard game once upon a time but even when it wasn't anymore the flow of its design has kept me coming back all these years returns much higher difficulty coupled with its decreased emphasis on kinetic momentum causes it to lose some replayability for me compared to the classics I've beaten the original trilogy dozens of times but this is only my third time through returns this might not be a game to relax with but that's not at all a bad thing and the difficulty really helped return stand out in the modern industry it wasn't gonna be able to set a new standard with its graphics the way the original did so it makes up to that with its ability to challenge even those longtime gamers who loved and mastered those classics where the originals immerse - with an atmosphere that was unparalleled at the time returns immerses you through its mechanics the way it forces you to stay aware of every action you take in the hands of a less competent developer levels so challenging might have felt like obstacle courses but retro studios did their home and immersive cohesive design is one of the most critical strengths of the Donkey Kong Country series that concept was set back in the original game it was way ahead of a curve being realistic and atmospheric at a time when games couldn't usually be anything except cartoony but by 2010 the industry had figured out atmospheric a little too well some times and some DKC returns goes for a more ostentatious style despite this the level design is still rooted in believability platforms don't just float in midair they're connected to the terrain now very rarely I had trouble discerning that terrain from the foreground like that ledge gets me every time the environment and the way the characters and enemies impacted are more believable than they ever could have been with pre-rendered tiled backgrounds at the start of a new stage you're usually even traversing out of the previous levels of medic the attention to world building the retro proofs so capable of in the prime series made them a perfect fit for Donkey Kong and it's wonderful to see them to get to go in a more vibrant direction while many of the world themes are inspired by the original dkc retro only uses that as a jumping-off point for instance before you can break back into chrome croc industries you'll have to go through an entire world made up of these cliffs the factories are pumping oil into this area is only previously visible on the original games map screen and when you do finally get into those factories they're completely distinct in gameplay and tone from the originals the factory might actually be one of my favorite worlds there's a series of stages where you have to find sweetest power / rockets puzzles that harken back to retro is prime category and even a short vertical rocket barrel stage the controls have way better than the others unfortunately the final world doesn't quite match that level of quality it's in the volcano the tikis are up today and one that makes sense within the context of the story well look the volcano destroyed one of Donkey Kong Islands most iconic frontiers gorilla glacier and I wish this world had a little more pathos I wish it made the player feel the loss in a threat more calling back to those gorgeous ice caves which are now pouring lava and melting as you traverse than the quality to some menacing somber remix of slips I'd ride could have directly appealed to the emotions and the nostalgia of a player and gotten them to want to seek vengeance against the enemies who did this instead of that Returns volcano is aesthetically just a very generic video game world although at least it is a new archetype compared to dkc ones anti climactic garage of even more caves actually I guess one neat way of looking at it is that these lava stages from dkc2 have long been rumored to have been designed for dkc1 but were cut for time some I guess it's cool that we finally did get some kind of volcano on DK Isle but this world is also the one part of the game where a challenge sometimes passes over into cheapness look the final world should definitely be hard but when there's no reasonable way a player could have seen an obstacle coming unless they just decided to stop it's too much trial and it's still an above-average two set of platforming stages and the final silhouette state is particularly phenomenal but the world as a whole doesn't quite feel congruent with the level of quality the game's maintained at his point and that speaks to something else I've noticed when retro studios appropriated and modernized something to my classics it intended to go well the ground-pound the mine cards Randy the approach to level design the musical remixes all of these are spectacular but when retro invented original concepts from this game they aren't necessarily bad per se they just don't tend to be as strong the blowing mechanic the rocket barrel the new music the enemy designs and the final world these all feel comparatively undercooked like retro was playing it a little too safe and that also goes for one more thing the bosses most of the original game's bosses were a bit dull but they were so over in no time as the series went on the bosses got more complex and interesting but aside from the end game a skilled player could always tear through any of them in a minute or two retros bosses follow a more modern formula they go through sequences that scale in difficulty and I do still enjoy the majority of them but I finally fall into the same trap that a lot of metroid primes did the sequences repeat way too many times testing the player for things they've already proven they can do it's frustrating especially in the late game to die to something that you couldn't have seen coming and have to repeat such a long fight actually asked one of rares riders Chris Allcock about returns on Twitter and without missing a beat he made a crack about how long it takes to actually defeat a boss in this game though it should be noted he also thinks doctor did a fantastic job bringing back the series and thank you for allowing me the honor of quoting you sir the final boss of returns is the mastermind behind the whole banana thieving plot Tiki Tong said of the peak of DK island in contrast to most of his subordinates I actually quite liked his design he's way more expressive than the rest of him and the way he laughs and taught the player makes him come across as unhinged and dangerous oh and he is dangerous he shoves just a small sampling of the banana hoard into his top and then [Music] ah retro always expanding lore and making it make sense because as we learned here decays banana hoard has never just been a bunch of ordinary bananas a demon gives Tiki Tong a massive and magical boost in power with after sixty years it justifies why Donkey Kong's enemies were always trying to steal them but the actual fight against him is another example of retro being a little too generic yeah does this remind you of anything yeah that one's obvious but I yep there it is on the bright side he's tough as nails and more importantly has a flurry of cool attacks that never overstay their welcome as his tradition the final boss is also the best beating him triggers an explosion of magical energy that hurtles DK into space into space what shouldn't the moon colliding with the planet cause more I don't know kept asked her feet than that and is it just gonna sit that no yeah oh okay this ending and it pains me to say this but this ending is even worse than Donkey Kong Country threes like yeah dropping an egg on K rool was a horrible anticlimax but at least it was totally in line with the rest of the series returns tends to be much more over-the-top but in every other instance it still maintains at least a degree of verisimilitude with what came before but this ridiculous moon thought isn't even in line with how returns is presented it's world to this point it veers way overboard into cartoony nonsense and the moon somehow just was walking itself back into the sky is even worse oh well the Horde erupting out of the volcano is a great image to end on and ah look at golden temples been revealed oh they are building this thing up but you need to be all of those strenuous K temple stages to unlock it alright returns I've beaten your worst what's my reward [Music] ha no I uh I don't even mind this I don't know what was in that banana but it was definitely magic so I actually think this justifies itself a lot better than the ending the music in the states even remixes the DK jr. theme calling back to our modern calms of organs it breaks hard from the rest of the aesthetic to the point that it kind of feels a completely different game that also means it really stands out it's just one stage but you're not gonna forget it on the other hand it's just one stage yet it's so built up with cutscenes and hype it feels like it's gonna be so much more substantial than it is an oh look it's the 3ds version they're the golden temple still ends with that same whimsical stage but prior to that it's got an entire world to get through these stages are honestly some of the more brilliantly designed levels in returns which is impressive considering that retro studios had nothing to do with them no credit for that goes to the studio deported returns of 3ds monster games and if they've proven themselves this capable I wouldn't mind seeing them take the reins of the series if retro is finished with it so after all that did this game live up to its promise did retro studio succeed in making Donkey Kong Country magic again well I have spent a lot of time in this critique comparing returns to the games that inspired us but there are things that did different things that did better and things that did worse but the 16-bit Donkey Kong Country was undeniably of a jumping-off point for the game design and so comparing them like this is only fair and however it is impossible for me to hold it up to those classics in a way that's remotely fair Donkey Kong Country Returns was a game I loved playing when I was 22 but Donkey Kong Country 2 was a game that solidified my lifelong love of the medium when I was 8 it doesn't matter how good the newer game is it's never going to be able to eclipse those memories keeping that in mind I do think that retros game loses a degree of charm that the originals even the third one maintained the lack of characters and animal buddies and even the way the core gameplay has been changed served to de-emphasize the feeling of community of cohesion of style the rare brought to the franchise I want to stress again that defining what makes a game stick with you is incredibly subjective especially when you're comparing a game that you played when you were a kid versus one that you played when you were an adult if I had played returns when I was eight I don't think I'd have noticed any of this stuff and if I'm being honest a lot of these criticisms didn't even occur to me until the sequel to this game fixed them so it's not gonna stand up to my childhood nostalgia some a few things about it feel tonally off that doesn't take away from the fact that for 99 percent of the game every time I've played it I have had an amazing time it's so solid so fun and most importantly so so talented to a degree that very few modern games are especially ones that look like this find me another game released in the last 10 years that's this bright this vibrant and this tough I think retro had a reason to take this approach and it speaks to their strengths as a developer rareware made their name by taking into those concepts and building them to even greater heights if you'll pardon the pun there were that rare developer that could actually outplay Nintendo at their own game and when the two companies aligned it was pure magic retro studios did not recapture that magic but Richie never said they would he said they would make it magic again and in that way retro studios is an appropriate name because of Justice they had done before they proved themselves the Masters of understanding the nuance of a franchise that it burned out generations before 2d platformers are making a comeback in 2010 but most of them leaned hard on pure old-school appeal there's nothing wrong with that but retro studios isn't about iterating on footwork 20 years ago and I'd even argue that a straight remake of dkc in a 3d engine would have been counter to what made it special in the first place so retro took the risky path and in doing so raised the bar of what a 2d platformer should be in the modern era without losing the soul of what made the series legendary Donkey Kong Country Returns is a magical game not because another game was magic 20 years ago but because retro studios moon aided their own it is far and away my favorite game on the week after a few years of uncertainty Nintendo was ready to make games like this again Donkey Kong can return to prominence and this one game would go on to single-handedly outsell the entire Metroid Prime trilogy back at e3 2010 right before returns was revealed actually a brand new Metroid game was shown off perhaps that raises a question if returns really was that much of a success then how come when a sequel was announced those hardcore Nintendo fans who should have loved it reacted like of this next week we'll find out when I take a plunge and a tropical freeze for just $1 a month patrons can see it right now a week early for 3 bucks you can binge the entire completed season and my milestone bonus this time will be for a game that nearly killed a franchise Metroid Other M thanks for watching you keep geeking I'll keep critiquing

Channel: The Geek Critique

Views: 278,973

Keywords: The Geek Critique, TGC, Geek Critique, Josh Wallen, dk, donkey kong, retro studios, dkc, dkc returns, donkey kong country, donkey kong country returns, donkey kong country returns 3d, dkc returns 3d, review, retrospective, analysis

Id: hwbVop6n6ac

Length: 36min 26sec (2186 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 07 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/Burtzman]

Love this reviewer. He goes super in depth about things I never even noticed.

[u/MC_Fap_Commander]

The game is mistakenly, I believe, lauded primarily for its graphics. The level structure is so intricate and challenging. Its legacy is evident in Tropical Freeze and I believe the standard DKC set may be the high water mark of Nintendo 2D platformers.