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Son of a Monkey - Donkey Kong Country Returns By: PoisonRamune, the Apathetic Lizardman Being one of the greatest selling SNES games of all time, Donkey Kong Country took the gaming world by storm during its release in 1994. The game was known to gamers as an accessible yet tough platformer with graphics that were revolutionary for its time. The game featured the titular gorilla, Donkey Kong (who is actually Donkey Jr. of the 1982 arcade game) and his new world monkey companion, Diddy Kong (keep in mind a new world ape is from a totally different continent as a gorilla). The game follows the traditional platformer gameplay style with jumping and maneuvering your way across each level in order to dodge the numerous: pitfalls, obstacles and enemies. While nearly every level was very straight forward, there were many opportunities for exploration in the form of little hidden paths which led to bonus areas. The game also featured some levels with some different gameplay styles and quirks to them such as: swimming levels and the mine cart levels. The game spawned a few sequels over next few years and became one of the gaming industries best known franchises.
Over 15 years after the release of the first Donkey Kong Country, Retro Studios (the folks that made Metroid an FPS) and Nintendo brought forth Donkey Kong Country Returns. The game plays as a throwback/rebirth game that’s become popular over the last couple years, where a game’s style of play (and sometimes graphics) reflects the style of earlier games in the franchise. This time Donkey Kong Country Returns returns to its 2-D platformer roots and retains that notorious challenge from the previous DKC titles. The game remains true to the legacy created in the mid-90’s and even offers a couple new tricks from the advances in console technology (not the motion controls though). The game looks very similar design-wise to the previous DKC titles; however, the graphics are obviously updated to the standards of today. Not only are the graphics “cleaner” this time around there are also a couple graphic tricks the developers use that weren’t possible during the SNES era, the most noticeable one being the use of 3-D in a 2-D world. Occasionally, you’ll come across something that will push/fling/shoot you into the background and will then get a wide angle view of Donkey and Diddy running out in the distance or obstacles and baddies will cut in from the background to the foreground (and vice versa).
The game also features a couple major changes in the gameplay department. Diddy Kong can no longer be tagged and independently controlled (except in 2 player mode), but rather acts as a sort of power up as he rides upon Donkey Kong’s back. In 2 player mode each player takes control of a Kong of their own. If there’s a huge discrepancy between skill levels in both gamers playing, it might be wiser to give Diddy to the player with less platforming prowess as Diddy can jump onto Donkey’s back and be carried through tough parts (or just for a breather) if need be. Donkey Kong Country Returns brings some new types of levels and modes to the table. Gone are the stony and floaty water/swimming stages in the SNES games; and in are these quirky and fun rocket barrel levels where you need to hold/tap the jump button to keep your barrel from flying into obstructions. The game also features a couple modes (such as time trial) and extra collectables (beyond KONG letters) to keep it from quickly going stale with a fast beat. Sadly, a couple changes made by Retro and Nintendo were not for the better. The game is missing the array of animal helpers you got in the previous games, leaving you with just Rambi the Rhino and Squawks (the latter is actually just some dumb hint power up you buy). While the Rambi-centric levels are very fun, there’s something definitely lacking in the classic Donkey Kong Country feel with omission of other support animals and general infrequency of the Rambi levels in Donkey Kong Country Returns. Another change for the worst is Nintendo’s insistence in adding motion controls to all their games. Many times shaking the Wiimote to do a roll often results in a mistimed roll or doing a similar action such as a ground pound (which also requires shaking the Wiimote, but with a different D-pad action). This normally results in dying due to poor timing, missing some sort of item (when trying to collect everything) or botching some crucial, time saving jump (when playing time trial mode). Though it would be near impossible to incorporate waggle free controls with the horizontal wiimote control style, that doesn’t mean they couldn’t just give some sort of classic controller support with a button layout similar to SNES mapping. I mean, isn’t that what buying a $20 accessory is all about, using it?
Even with all the changes (for better or worse), the game still feels like a proper sequel to the Donkey Kong Country series. It still has that tough platformer action seen in the original SNES games (in fact, I was actually tempted to use that Super Guide a couple times during my playthrough). Long stretches of mine cart sequences and levels that have you time your barrel blasts will make you feel that same uneasiness you knew 15 years ago seeing similar obstacles (this time they’re just rendered better).
The soundtrack is even nostalgic with a good portion of the background music and jingles being remixed songs from the previous games. The music carries that appropriate brisk Donkey Kong Country feel and even the nonremixed tracks feel as if you’ve heard them before due to how well they set the game’s mood. The sound effects and foley are kind of annoying in this game. This is most due to the fact that the sound effects are either really bassy (ground slams, earthquakes, etc) or really high pitched (birds cawing, monkey screams, etc). I would highly recommend this game to anyone who was a fan of the original Donkey Kong Country games. This title will not disappoint if you’re expecting a game that’s pretty much a straight up sequel (or title similar to a sequel) to any of the Donkey Kong Countries. I’d even go as far as to recommend this over the original Donkey Kong Country for anyone who’s new to the series and just wants to get into it (especially if they’re not a “hardcore gamer”). The game is definitely more beatable than its forefathers, plus the Super Guide adds a bit of a frustration buster keeping you from hating the series by getting outright stuck somewhere.
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