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[Deku Tree]

I am trying to reach a decision on whether or not I will get enough mileage from this game to warrant purchasing it:

I am hugely a fan of the music, not to mention the level design and aesthetics on display, and my older brother is a fan of the original Donkey Kong Country.

However

I was raised on 3D Mario platforming titles, having played Super Mario 64 starting at the age of 5 or 7, and never leaving that particular series, and never playing 2D platformers much aside from brief play sessions of the original Super Mario Bros., New Super Mario Bros. Wii, and Sonic the Hedgehog. I should also state that if given a method of making a game easier to complete (such as the guides present in the recent Mario games), I will refuse them (I say this because I hear that this game has something to that effect).

From what I can gather, this puts me at a massive disadvantage if I get this game. So what do you guys think, should I get the game, or let it pass due to the risk of potentially not playing it enough to justify the (digital) purchase?


On an additional note, the only game I have ever performed 100% completion on is Super Mario 64 (and even then I was essentially finishing my brother's and my save file, though I did replicate the tasks in Super Mario 64 DS [which I was 1 star away from 100%ing]), so I am more than likely going to end up at least finishing the game's story, but getting much farther than that (or collecting much more in any levels) is far, far from guaranteed.

Go for it. Buy it. Well worth it.

DKC games do play very different from Mario.
In this game DK is a heavy ape and you can feel it. His physics are different. Also there is no time limit. No flag poles. Lots of boss battles.

DK is different from Mario but also incredibly fun.

 

[Linkhero1]

One thing that's pretty apparent is that they've improved the boss battles from previous DKC games. I would even go as far as to say that this game has the best boss battles out of all platformers.*

* I've only completed world 1

 

[RMS Gigantic]

In this game DK is a heavy ape and you can feel it. His physics are different.

I may actually go and buy it based primarily on these statements! I enjoy playing characters with weight: I have a Maus in World of Tanks (the heaviest tank ever built) and a Super Cod in Steel Diver: Sub Wars (the submarine with the most HP in the game). I don't care how sluggish the thing is, I tend to find ways of making them work.

 

[javac]

The cutscenes in this game are hilarious. The emotions they portray are hilarious. The little minions cheering in the background. Getting fucking raged when they squish a banana lmao. So good.

 

[Dragonborn]

Well, just bought it. Should be here by Tuesday (damn my weakness!)

 

[Linkhero1]

Well, just bought it. Should be here by Tuesday (damn my weakness!)

More like a strength a majority of Wii U owners lack.

 

[The Xtortionist]

World 3 down in hard mode. Boss wasn't as bad as I thought. Now to the bullet hell that is world 4 with one heart...

 

[Thoraxes]

Goddammit I was FORCING myself not to want this. I was doing pretty well till I decided to fucking look at some levels and listen to the AMAZING soundtrack omg!!!
How long is the game? Its short right? Convince me not to buy it right nowwww

Definitely don't buy it.

And definitely don't click those links.

Spoiler

Don't resist, do it! DOOOOO IITTTTTT The game is awesome!

 

[Kacho]

Great game. Yup. Can't put it down. It grabbed me from the start unlike DKCR a few years back. Controls are on point thanks to no forced waggle.

 

[Interceptor]

Guys... guys! This has possible been said before, but i was just listening to the OST and couldn´t believe my ears. This piece is OBVIOUSLY heavily "inspired by some iconic Soundtrack from one of the best RPGs ever. Please tell me i am not crazy.

Spoiler

One wingend angel

 

[Community Forum]

Can't believe how many lives I lost on 2-2.

Also can't believe the curse words that were coming out of my mouth.

I'm all better now.

 

[MetalGuardian]

Gold is pretty good.

Now get Shiny Gold.

this is some sick sort of joke right

I convinced some customer at GameStop today to buy a copy of the game. He asked me if we had any new games I'd recommend, and I immediately jumped to Donkey Kong (all the while thinking "yeah right, no way this dude owns a Wii U"). Much to my delight, he mentioned that he got a Wii U for Christmas, and asked for some more details. I proceeded to gush like a little girl about how magical the game is and then... he left


Twenty minutes later he came back and said "Man, I can't stop thinking about what you said about Donkey Kong. I think I'll go ahead and buy it after all."

tl;dr: I saved the Wii U today!

Oh and Bopopolis can frigg right off. It took me a solid forty or fifty tries to beat it!

 

[Thoraxes]

Guys... guys! This has possible been said before, but i was just listening to the OST and couldn´t believe my ears. This piece is OBVIOUSLY heavily "inspired by some iconic Soundtrack from one of the best RPGs ever. Please tell me i am not crazy.

Spoiler

One wingend angel

I don't think it's inspired by it, but I can see how you'd feel a similarity.

 

[mr stroke]

As someone who loves the original series and hated Returns, I would say go for it. This game is levels ahead of Returns. I would even put this above 3D World as the best platformer currently on the Wii U.

well hell then Sold!


I was gonna pass on this as I didn't care for the 3DS version, but with so much hype in this thread, I guess I am gonna have to grab this tomorrow.

 

[Marjar]

I just beat the first underwater level, and I gotta say I REALLY don't like the air meter. Shouldn't be there at all.

 

[Interceptor]

I don't think it's inspired by it, but I can see how you'd feel a similarity.

Listening to the beginning again i would even say it´s almost a straight copy.

 

[Kacho]

Having kick ass tunes in a platformer is so key. It adds so much to the game in ways I can't properly describe.

 

[Linkhero1]

well hell then Sold!


I was gonna pass on this as I didn't care for the 3DS version, but with so much hype in this thread, I guess I am gonna have to grab this tomorrow.

That's just me though but I'm enjoying it tons more. The level of difficulty is perfect so far. I've been losing lives like there's no tomorrow. Also as much as I had disdain towards Retro working on this game, I'm glad they went with it.

 

[Kacho]

I just beat the first underwater level, and I gotta say I REALLY don't like the air meter. Shouldn't be there at all.

Agreed. It's an odd and unnecessary addition that adds nothing to the game IMO.

 

[Thoraxes]

Listening to the beginning again i would even say it´s almost a straight copy.

It's pulsitile, but there's too much material between the heavy downbeats and skin percussion for me to really feel like it's taken from it. I know that the melody starts with the same rhythm as the chorus for the antecedent of the phrase though, which is why I think you could get that impression.

This feels more passive than symphonic to my ears.

 

[Interceptor]

It's pulsitile, but there's too much material between the heavy downbeats and skin percussion for me to really feel like it's taken from it. I know that the melody starts with the same rhythm as the chorus for the antecedent of the phrase though, which is why I think you could get that impression.

This feels more passive than symphonic to my ears.

As a huge fan of the original tune i was just really surprised listening to this track. Maybe you are right.

 

[oatmeal]

I shall be ordering some points cards tomorrow from BestBuy.com and then pick them up, and then go home and spend them on glorious DKC.

 

[Thoraxes]

As a huge fan of the original tune i was just really surprised listening to this track. Maybe you are right.

I think if he really meant to copy it with purpose, he'd go a lot further.

They're kinda similar like apples and pears. To use a kind of comparison thing - they both have a core, they're both sweet, they both have a stem, and they're both round. But they have a different taste and color.

idk if this helps any. I studied musicology and composition for two degrees so I only mean to try and give some insight based on my own knowledge about how Wise composes. I can totally see where in the music your ears are hearing the similarities at and identify them.

I'm sorry if I come off too harshly/brash or anything! I only mean to be helpful in my explanations!

 

[Tom Nook Sawyer]

I do have to say that I miss shaking the wiimote to groundpound, but am glad that they removed shake to roll.

Huh? You can still shake to groundpound AND to roll, at least if you're using the Wii Remote and Nunchuk.

 

[Marjar]

Okay I'm just gonna go out on a limb here and say that the underwater levels in general are just not fun so far.

At least the music's good for them, so it's not that torturous. The controls just feel really weird to me in comparison to on land.

Spoiler

4-4 with that goddamn octopus is making me want to hurt people. Ugh.

 

[RealDeadOne]

Having kick ass tunes in a platformer is so key. It adds so much to the game in ways I can't properly describe.

Absolutely right. When you're dying a lot or doing poorly, as soon as you get back in the game you start humming along with the song and feel more driven to continue. Enticing visuals and catchy music are absolutely ESSENTIAL to the core of a platformer game, without it it wouldn't be nearly as addictive.

 

[Out of Working Order]

The cutscenes in this game are hilarious. The emotions they portray are hilarious. The little minions cheering in the background. Getting fucking raged when they squish a banana lmao. So good.

Thought his reaction in the intro when his birthday candle is snuffed out was funny.

He's such a dumb loveable apeth.

 

[The Xtortionist]

Irate Eight hard mode with blue KONG in two tries

0_0

 

[LOCK]

Quick opinion: Upto the end of World 2

Pros:
Love the longer levels. It actually feels like you are traversing the islands.

Love the little quirks, like objects in the background.

Good god the animations are amazing.

God tier music.

Bosses are actually hard and very good. World 2's boss is great.

Cons:
Longer than normal loading times. But the longer levels sort of negate this.

 

[Gummb]

Okay I'm just gonna go out on a limb here and say that the underwater levels in general are just not fun so far.

At least the music's good for them, so it's not that torturous. The controls just feel really weird to me in comparison to on land.

Spoiler

4-4 with that goddamn octopus is making me want to hurt people. Ugh.

Fully 360 degrees of motion with tapping "A" for more power, even with a friend on your back. Keep perfecting your strategy and you'll get there. It's surprisingly fun to swim around when you get the hang of it.

 

[CouldBeWorse]

Just like the last game, Tropical Freeze is infuriating. Unlike the two Mario games, which are great fun to play with my wife, TF is really not a good multiplayer game and it's too difficult for its own good, often because of poor design decisions like:

1. Unintuitive controls. Ground pound should not be the same as the roll button because you can easily kill yourself when trying to ground pound because you were barely still moving forward. Holding down trigger to grab barrels or grass/vines just feels wrong. The roll is way too fast for its own good. Coming straight from a lot of Mario and Rayman, I never quite feel comfortable controlling DK or te side characters.

2. Poor and infrequent checkpoints. If it's a mine cart level, start me in the damn cart immediately. Don't make me have to make a few jumps and do a minigame to stock my lives back up. That should happen ON the cart.

3. Way too many instant deaths and trial and error. This is made much worse by the infrequent checkpoints.

4. Having lives. Just stop it. They are meaningless.

5. No quick way to restart a checkpoint or a level (unless I just missed it).

Maybe it's just me and the fact that I really don't want this type of difficulty, but I enjoy the first three DKC games immensely and just don't find the Retro games to be nearly as fun, even though I can acknowledge that they are much more complex and much deeper games.

 

[Kacho]

Haha it is so pointless to have lives. Game over is non-existent.

 

[lingpanda]

Just like the last game, Tropical Freeze is infuriating. Unlike the two Mario games, which are great fun to play with my wife, TF is really not a good multiplayer game and it's too difficult for its own good, often because of poor design decisions like:

1. Unintuitive controls. Ground pound should not be the same as the roll button because you can easily kill yourself when trying to ground pound because you were barely still moving forward. Holding down trigger to grab barrels or grass/vines just feels wrong. The roll is way too fast for its own good. Coming straight from a lot of Mario and Rayman, I never quite feel comfortable controlling DK or te side characters.

2. Poor and infrequent checkpoints. If it's a mine cart level, start me in the damn cart immediately. Don't make me have to make a few jumps and do a minigame to stock my lives back up. That should happen ON the cart.

3. Way too many instant deaths and trial and error. This is made much worse by the infrequent checkpoints.

4. Having lives. Just stop it. They are meaningless.

5. No quick way to restart a checkpoint or a level (unless I just missed it).

Maybe it's just me and the fact that I really don't want this type of difficulty, but I enjoy the first three DKC games immensely and just don't find the Retro games to be nearly as fun, even though I can acknowledge that they are much more complex and much deeper games.

I feel you on many of these points. The whole time I'm playing I find myself saying too hard for my daughter. I don't see her beating many of these levels. SM3D World she thoroughly enjoys and can get through worlds.

 

[Out of Working Order]

Haha it is so pointless to have lives. Game over is non-existent.

I would argue that this is the case for every game that auto-saves after every level. But yes, it is pointless.

 

[Marjar]

Just like the last game, Tropical Freeze is infuriating. Unlike the two Mario games, which are great fun to play with my wife, TF is really not a good multiplayer game and it's too difficult for its own good, often because of poor design decisions like:

1. Unintuitive controls. Ground pound should not be the same as the roll button because you can easily kill yourself when trying to ground pound because you were barely still moving forward. Holding down trigger to grab barrels or grass/vines just feels wrong. The roll is way too fast for its own good. Coming straight from a lot of Mario and Rayman, I never quite feel comfortable controlling DK or te side characters.

2. Poor and infrequent checkpoints. If it's a mine cart level, start me in the damn cart immediately. Don't make me have to make a few jumps and do a minigame to stock my lives back up. That should happen ON the cart.

3. Way too many instant deaths and trial and error. This is made much worse by the infrequent checkpoints.

4. Having lives. Just stop it. They are meaningless.

5. No quick way to restart a checkpoint or a level (unless I just missed it).

Maybe it's just me and the fact that I really don't want this type of difficulty, but I enjoy the first three DKC games immensely and just don't find the Retro games to be nearly as fun, even though I can acknowledge that they are much more complex and much deeper games.

I'm beginning to agree with this. Not necessarily the controls, which I think are fine (aside from the underwater ones), but the difficulty. Generally, the levels are really fun, but some levels are just infuriating and unfun, most notably the awful water levels.

World 4 spoiler:

Spoiler

The fish boss in world 4 is one of the worst boss fights I've ever had the displeasure of playing in recent memory, and further makes me wish they just went the Mario route and had very quick, relatively easy boss fights so you can get to the good stuff: the actual platforming. Having to manage your air supply in a goddamn boss fight is just a plain horrible design decision.

 

[Lunar15]

The only point I really agree with there are the infrequent checkpoints. They're put in odd spots, I don't quite get them.

 

[The Hermit]

Just like the last game, Tropical Freeze is infuriating. Unlike the two Mario games, which are great fun to play with my wife, TF is really not a good multiplayer game and it's too difficult for its own good, often because of poor design decisions like:

Funny, I just played both 3D world and tropical Freeze with my absolutely non-gamer GF (not even mobile) for the first time and she was having a really hard time with 3D world and not much fun, with the timer, the 3D and having to hold run while jumping...

Then I reluctantly booted up DKC and she already liked the graphics and the presentation more. After a while she was controlling better than me!
I was shocked as hell, since I was telling her how hard that game is, but once she got the controls, she was even having fun.

The best mechanic is that I can literally carry her (she was playing with Dixie obviously) during the hardest parts, like a controlled Super Mode. She loved the music too

I think this is an amazing multiplayer game

 

[Coda]

Funny, I just played both 3D world and tropical Freeze with my absolutely non-gamer GF (not even mobile) for the first time and she was having a really hard time with 3D world and not much fun, with the timer, the 3D and having to hold run while jumping...

Then I reluctantly booted up DKC and she already liked the graphics and the presentation more. After a while she was controlling better than me!
I was shocked as hell, since I was telling her how hard that game is, but once she got the controls, she was even having fun.

The best mechanic is that I can literally carry her (she was playing with Dixie obviously) during the hardest parts, like a controlled Super Mode. She loved the music too

I think this is an amazing multiplayer game

3D World can trick even a gamer's visual perspective, it tripped me up a couple times. The strictly 2D plane of DKC: TF probably is much easier for a non-gamer.

 

[ohlawd]

I feel you on many of these points. The whole time I'm playing I find myself saying too hard for my daughter. I don't see her beating many of these levels. SM3D World she thoroughly enjoys and can get through worlds.

and don't you think that's fine? is it because we have insane expectations of Nintendo making easily accessible games all the time?

 

[Squall5042]

Enjoying the game but damn, I wish there was a way to play the game through the tv and audio through the headphone jack maybe in a patch, but doubtful...

 

[Glorified G]

Enjoying the game but damn, I wish there was a way to play the game through the tv and audio through the headphone jack maybe in a patch, but doubtful...

What? Every other Wii U game allows you to use headphones while playing on the tv. I use a monitor without speakers so there is no way I can get sound besides off tv play?

 

[Esque7]

1-K was great, lost plenty of lives there. The first boss was good too, much better than the stuff in returns. Just starting world 2 now, and damn was that first level gorgeous.

 

[The Xtortionist]

World 4 down in hard mode.

I...I can swim good now...

Spoiler

thanks Cranky <3

 

[Squall5042]

What? Every other Wii U game allows you to use headphones while playing on the tv. I use a monitor without speakers so there is no way I can get sound besides off tv play?

If you play the game through the TV, the gamepad screen is blank and only plays certain sound effects (collecting bananas, coins, etc.)

 

[Seth Enosh]

What? Every other Wii U game allows you to use headphones while playing on the tv. I use a monitor without speakers so there is no way I can get sound besides off tv play?

wind waker and some other games don't support this.

but you can buy an adapter to plug your headphones directly into the Wii u. Get a Wii or Wii U composite cable that has the red / white audio plugs, and a female RCA to female 3.5mm converter plug. The Wii u system settings has an option to output sound over the RCA cables and video over the hdmi.

 

[HoJu]

i'm only at world 3, but I have yet to have had an "unfair" or "trial and error" death. there is always a tell, whether it's the crumbling of the platform or shit going on in the background. I mean sometimes it comes awfully close, but you just have to pay attention and that's part of the fun.

I feel the same way about DCKR.

 

[DICKS AHOY]

Ironic considering the difficulty, but playing this with my sister has been one of the best offline co-op experiences I've ever had. Dying tons and even hit the Game Over screen at one point, but I feel Dixie is a way more accessible 'beginner' character (which figures since that was the point behind her introduction in DKC2) than Diddy was in Returns so even if we're dying a lot it's less frustrating?

Have yet to try it out on my friends who're way more into gaming; they were into the comparatively easy Rayman Legends than 3DWorld's or NSMBU's multiplayer, but then we've also play a lot of Mario Kart/Smash/Halo/TF2 together so it's hard to draw a conclusion from that.

Cranky seemed a bit gimmicky when he was revealed but holy shit is he amazing once you realize his pogo bounce keeps your horizontal momentum and you're literally flying through stages borderline Sonic-style. Sonic 4 needed more self-referential old gorillas.

 

[Muzy72]

Just got to 6-1, holy fuck. What a level! What a game!

 

[Glorified G]

If you play the game through the TV, the gamepad screen is blank and only plays certain sound effects (collecting bananas, coins, etc.)

I was hoping it would still have music through the pad. Disappointing.

wind waker and some other games don't support this.

but you can buy an adapter to plug your headphones directly into the Wii u. Get a Wii or Wii U composite cable that has the red / white audio plugs, and a female RCA to female 3.5mm converter plug. The Wii u system settings has an option to output sound over the RCA cables and video over the hdmi.

Didn't know that about Wind Waker. I have it but didn't play it yet. I'll try that method thanks.

 

[Thoraxes]

Ah shit, it's so pretty ;_;