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Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze |OT| There's always money in the banana stand

jnWake

Member
I can't stop doing Time Trials! At this rate I'll never progress in the game haha. At least I got very good times in 1-1 and 1-2 (rank 11 in 1-2!). Any Gaffer doing Time Trials? It'd be cool to have some in my friend list to compare times :p
 

Calamari41

41 > 38
(World 3 boss spoiler) Did anybody else get a kick out of
the phase where they start doing Sonic's spin dash, down to the same or at least very similar sound effect?
 

mr.beers

Member
Love DK's idle animation, play that 3DS bro! Favorite music so far is 2-1 love, love that song. Granted I'm only in world 2 I have much more to hear and see.


Edit: The game is beautiful, dare I say that this is best looking WiiU game to date? I do dare say.
 
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 agree.

I stated earlier I find the movement clunky and slippery, all at once. Too much momentum with DK; the controls can feel off and imprecise, especially if you need to jump or come to a stop quickly.
 
Edit: The game is beautiful, dare I say that this is best looking WiiU game to date? I do dare say.

The amount they squeezed out of the Wii U, with maintaining what seems to be a locked 60fps, with AA, is impressive.

Could be me, but it seems the game gets more visually impressive, as you progress. The animations are top-notch.

It seems Retro is only capable of quality
 

Watch Da Birdie

I buy cakes for myself on my birthday it's not weird lots of people do it I bet
It's probably been discussed, but in regards to Animal Buddies...

I don't think they really fit Retro's Donkey Kong Country, thus why we have yet to see them make a triumphant return and, in my opinion, we likely won't unless Retro sacrifices a few elements of Returns...

First off, the feel and gameplay of Retro's Donkey Kong just wouldn't flow with the other Animal Buddies. In the original Donkey Kong Country, the levels were designed to be much more limiting when it came to platforming, as in you're usually restricted to pretty much a small field of view when it comes to making your jumps (there are exceptions), and jumps were usually "hit-or-miss", you usually couldn't recover from a blunder that easy. Thus the Animal Buddies, such as Expresso, often served the purpose of giving your more freedom of movement and acting as a way to make the platforming "easier", when the level wasn't using the Animal Buddy specifically as a challenge as was the case in the bonus worlds.

Furthermore, the original DKCs also featured more traditional left-to-right, or up-to-down levels that, while tight, were also open-ended enough that you could use Animal Buddies to bypass certain elements or head in different directions without messing with the flow of the level. In Returns, that's all changed, as the level design is both more open in terms of platforming, as the Kongs are way more acrobatic and the more fluid dynamics of 3D platforming allow you to often tackle platforms in a variety of different ways yet, at the same time, the levels are also built to have a certain flow, with the stage often changing quickly on the fly, requiring a certain amount of stability on the part of what the characters are capable of doing and, for the most part, discouraging "mounts" that would allow you to bypass certain sequences entirely.

I feel if they actually included more Animal Buddies, it likely wouldn't be in the old sense where they were like Yoshi and simply added on to the basic mechanics, they'd probably be incorporated as their own "stage gimmicks", like how Rambi's in so few levels and, when he is in one, the entire level is more or less dedicated to utilizing him, where in the old Donkey Kong Countries, usually Animal Buddies were an addition to a stage, not the primary focus, bar a few special cases (especially in 3). Rambi being in any other normal level would just throw things off.

Beyond that, all the Pre-existing Animal Buddies are basically made redundant now, or wouldn't really make the transition well. Ellie and Squitter's unique elements are a bit too slow to work in the faster-paced Returns, the Kongs are capable of much more acrobatic movements now so Expresso and Wrinkly wouldn't be much use, Cranky Kong fills in for Rattly, and as of Tropical Freeze, Enguarde's no longer needed to enable the Kongs to attack underwater. As for Squaks, the Rocket Barrel Boost levels more or less provide the "flying" platforming elements that he did, bar faster-paced. And in general, with more health, there's no need for the Animal Buddies to act as the "third heart" like they did in the original trilogy.
 

Watch Da Birdie

I buy cakes for myself on my birthday it's not weird lots of people do it I bet
I actually felt the checkpoint placement in the Mine Cart/Rocket Barrel levels feels more fair in Tropical Freeze than in Returns, although I'll need to check...
 

uberluigi

Banned
This might be a question but... I just finished the game and I wanna get 100% complete, how do I go back to the previous worlds?

Edit: nvm just press back lol oops
 

DirtyLarry

Member
How does one get the "DK" coin for each level?
Meaning you have 3 coins that represent the goals and items in each level.
Star Coin (Orange).
Puzzle Coin (Green).
DK Coin (Unknown).

It is that last DK Coin I am not quite sure about and it is driving me nuts, as I know I should remember this, although in all fairness it has been a long time since I played the original DCKR.
 
I've gotten to the credits, now I'm doing the K levels. Just went through 2-K. The level taught me that the timing for getting extra height when jumping on an enemy is FAR looser than what I was doing the entire game. And it only cost me 15 lives.
 

Tathanen

Get Inside Her!
How does one get the "DK" coin for each level?
Meaning you have 3 coins that represent the goals and items in each level.
Star Coin (Orange).
Puzzle Coin (Green).
DK Coin (Unknown).

It is that last DK Coin I am not quite sure about and it is driving me nuts, as I know I should remember this, although in all fairness it has been a long time since I played the original DCKR.

Get a time trial medal. The DK emblem will be the same color as the medal you get.
 

Thoraxes

Member
How does one get the "DK" coin for each level?
Meaning you have 3 coins that represent the goals and items in each level.
Star Coin (Orange).
Puzzle Coin (Green).
DK Coin (Unknown).

It is that last DK Coin I am not quite sure about and it is driving me nuts, as I know I should remember this, although in all fairness it has been a long time since I played the original DCKR.

Is it to hit the DK on the roulette on the end barrel?

Edit: Time trials!
 

Dupy

"it is in giving that we receive"
I actually felt the checkpoint placement in the Mine Cart/Rocket Barrel levels feels more fair in Tropical Freeze than in Returns, although I'll need to check...

I thought this too. I've seen 3 checkpoints in some of the TF mine cart levels and I swear Returns never had more than 1-2. I'm not getting nearly as frustrated.
 

DirtyLarry

Member
Get a time trial medal. The DK emblem will be the same color as the medal you get.
Ahhhh that completely explains why it was driving me crazy and why I was not seeing it, as I have not even done a single time trial yet.
Thanks for the fast reply. My mind is finally at ease.
 
I give this game a 2/10.

The graphics, with the exception of the Kongs themselves, are a bit subpar for the console. Luckily expert art design and great lighting make everything look absolutely beautiful, especially in motion.

The music and sound are just nothing short of legendary. When David Wise was announced I had the feeling he was going to disappoint, as many of the old guard from the SNES days do when they return in the modern era. Thankfully Wise blessed this game with one of the most phenomenal soundtracks not just in modern games but even relative to the very best that Nintendo has to offer! It's right up there with the best, actually even blows his DKC2 work out of the water and will be remembered as a classic years from now.

The level design is also brilliant in every department, and while I thought Returns was also fantastic in this regard, Tropical Freeze is even better and more creative, on par with the best of Mario. It definitely trumps the original trilogy in this regard. There hasn't been a single moment in a level that I didn't think was great fun, even parts that were frustrating or difficult had me retrying again and again because it was just that fun to play.

So why is it a 2, you ask? Well the game has one fatal flaw: when you clear a level on the world map and the little fanfare starts to play, DK DOESN'T DANCE, he just stands there!

Good try, Retro, solid effort, but maybe next time you'll get it right.
 

Linkhero1

Member
I give this game a 2/10.

The graphics, with the exception of the Kongs themselves, are a bit subpar for the console. Luckily expert art design and great lighting make everything look absolutely beautiful, especially in motion.

The music and sound are just nothing short of legendary. When David Wise was announced I had the feeling he was going to disappoint, as many of the old guard from the SNES days do when they return in the modern era. Thankfully Wise blessed this game with one of the most phenomenal soundtracks not just in modern games but even relative to the very best that Nintendo has to offer! It's right up there with the best, actually even blows his DKC2 work out of the water and will be remembered as a classic years from now.

The level design is also brilliant in every department, and while I thought Returns was also fantastic in this regard, Tropical Freeze is even better and more creative, on par with the best of Mario. It definitely trumps the original trilogy in this regard. There hasn't been a single moment in a level that I didn't think was great fun, even parts that were frustrating or difficult had me retrying again and again because it was just that fun to play.

So why is it a 2, you ask? Well the game has one fatal flaw: when you clear a level on the world map and the little fanfare starts to play, DK DOESN'T DANCE, he just stands there!

Good try, Retro, solid effort, but maybe next time you'll get it right.
I wish I had that Robert De Niro gif on hand.
 

NateDrake

Member
I give this game a 2/10.

The graphics, with the exception of the Kongs themselves, are a bit subpar for the console. Luckily expert art design and great lighting make everything look absolutely beautiful, especially in motion.

The music and sound are just nothing short of legendary. When David Wise was announced I had the feeling he was going to disappoint, as many of the old guard from the SNES days do when they return in the modern era. Thankfully Wise blessed this game with one of the most phenomenal soundtracks not just in modern games but even relative to the very best that Nintendo has to offer! It's right up there with the best, actually even blows his DKC2 work out of the water and will be remembered as a classic years from now.

The level design is also brilliant in every department, and while I thought Returns was also fantastic in this regard, Tropical Freeze is even better and more creative, on par with the best of Mario. It definitely trumps the original trilogy in this regard. There hasn't been a single moment in a level that I didn't think was great fun, even parts that were frustrating or difficult had me retrying again and again because it was just that fun to play.

So why is it a 2, you ask? Well the game has one fatal flaw: when you clear a level on the world map and the little fanfare starts to play, DK DOESN'T DANCE, he just stands there!

Good try, Retro, solid effort, but maybe next time you'll get it right.

I read the first line & thought 'WTF!!!' and then read the rest. Well played, chap.
 

bon

Member
The level design. The graphics. The David Wise.

This is GOTY material. I want Retro to keep making Donkey Kong games.
 

Marjar

Banned
This is one of those games that gets frustrating to the point that I just have to put it down for a minute. :p

It definitely has reminded me how terrible I am at 2D platformers, despite loving them. Thank God for the Funky Kong shop.
 

Watch Da Birdie

I buy cakes for myself on my birthday it's not weird lots of people do it I bet
Damn, the Africa World really delivers...although I'm finding it a bit easier than the Autumn World.

Loved the cow flying in during the Tornado Level, should've seen that coming. By the way, was the music in that level from the old games? It sounded familiar.
 

DNAbro

Member
Started and finished the game in one sitting with some friends tagging in in co op. Loved all the creativity in the levels and the challenge. I would like to go back and get secrets but the game was frustrating enough as is without trying to get everything.
 
I give this game a 2/10.


So why is it a 2, you ask? Well the game has one fatal flaw: when you clear a level on the world map and the little fanfare starts to play, DK DOESN'T DANCE, he just stands there!

Good try, Retro, solid effort, but maybe next time you'll get it right.

Agreed.

I was at least expecting a stereotypical, one finger, disco dance. What did i get? Nothing.

Immediately ejected the disc, threw it at the wall, and it shattered into pieces.

Cheap.
 

xclaw

Member
Passing out post fueled with beer and DK but this game is glorious. If you are on the fence just flop over. The music, the GFX the levels... just perfection.
 

Danielsan

Member
Man, I'm sorry for shitting on you for making another Donkey Kong Country game Retro. Finished the first 2 worlds. This game is so fresh. Almost every level is filled with originality. And it looks and sounds great too!

I will say though. I still think the original DKC games play better. I don´t really like the weighty handling of Donkey Kong. It´s actually an issue that also pops up in the New Super Mario Brothers games.
 
The song Funky Waters just may be one of the best songs ive ever heard in a video game, period.

The way Wise captures the characteristics of the kongs, in synth form, is a one of a kind taste.

yes, i think its better than Aquatic Ambiance
 
It is done.

BhJmqjDCYAAnEcu.jpg:large
 

kizmah

Member
I have one complain so far. I hate that I have to exit a level and then choose it again if I want to restart. Why not a simple "restart level" in the pause menu? One loading screen is better than two in a row.
 

Kinsei

Banned
I've finished the fifth island and I have to say that it is my favorite so far. With how creative Frozen Fruits was I can't wait to see what they do for the levels on DK Island.


It is done.

Now beat every level on hard mode with each Kong. Have fun with Punch Bowl as just DK.
 

Feindflug

Member
Almost finished with World 2 and all I have to say is that the Crumble Cavern and Alpine Incline were absolutely amazing levels in level design and in visuals/audio...oh man this game is god tier isn't it? never doubt Retro people, never.

wiiu_screenshot_tv_01aesbu.jpg


So good. <3
 
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