I've been excited for Donkey Kong Country Returns to come out for a while. It was announced at E3 last year, and I've been pumped up for its release. E3 is the Electronic Entertainment Expo, for those who don't know, an event that happens annually and is the go-to event for people who want to see what the latest and greatest plans are for the video game industry. I later heard that Retro was designing the game, who also designed the Metroid Prime series for Gamecube and the Wii. Retro hasn't designed any other games EXCEPT those, and they're AWESOME. After my disappointment with Activision's rendition of Goldeneye 007, I was guaranteed to be more satisfied with this. For the most part, I guessed correctly. However, the game does leave me wanting.
The game, overall, is great. It's very reminiscent of classic Donkey Kong Country from 1994 - the scenes are very similar, the feel and physics of the game are very similar, and the music is a phenomenal remaking of the entire original soundtrack. Upon getting into the game, you really feel like you're playing the original, but souped up to today's standards.
As I got further into the game, that's when I started to notice the things I thought could have been done better.
I'm quite a ways into the game (probably three quarters), and have noticed the distinct lack of cast. There's Donkey and Diddy as the playable characters, then there's Cranky Kong. That's it. There's no Funky, no Candy, nor any of the characters from other DKC games. With Cranky, he runs a shop in each world, selling items such as extra lives and temporary powerups. He makes smart-ass comments at you when you visit, but nothing like the classic story-telling he did in the original. Additionally, there is only one ridable animal friend - Rambi. There's no Expresso the Ostrich, Enguarde the Swordfish, or Winky the Frog - just Rambi. Squawks is available as one of the temporary powerups that helps you find puzzle pieces in levels (more on that later). But the lack of characters and interaction gives a very desolate feel to the game, which feels out of place for a DKC.
The story is also very impersonal - the island volcano erupts to ejactulate some random, evil, tiki spirit antagonists into the area who possess the native wildlife into feral rages. No talking, no selfish king trying to steal a stash of bananas - just some 5-year-old's sporatic imagination. Nothing against 5-year-olds, but their writing and logic skills are a bit... underdeveloped.
I've also noticed that there are no swimming or snow levels. Swimming levels were a good way to add variety to the game (I'd prefer them over the barrel rocket levels... ugh, how irritating), and I'm sure there could be lots of improvements to the gameplay and flow of them (swimming levels) after 16 years. The snow levels - I know they were hard back in the day. But they were memorable for more than just their difficulty; they gave a desolate tone to that area of the game with the scenery and amazing music. Using the increasing volume of snowfall to decrease visibility and add to the chaos made that a remarkably signature part of the game for me. Leaving out these two settings was a huge mistake on Retro's part.
As you look at the map screen, it's got a very Super Mario World/New Super Mario Brothers feel. There are alternate paths through worlds, bonus levels, and Cranky's shops. It's easy to navigate and pretty to look at.
For each level, there are up to 3 medals to collect (I call them medals, but they're really just icons that show up next to the level's title on the map screen).
1) The first is obtained by collecting all 4 of the K-O-N-G letters scattered through the level in a single run of the stage. Similarly to the original DKC, you keep letters you've collected up to the check point if you die and return to that check point. Collecting the Kong medal in each level for a world will unlock a bonus stage with its own unique collectible (not sure what happens when you get all those yet!).
2) The second medal is obtained by collecting all the puzzle pieces scattered through a level - there are anywhere from three to nine pieces in each stage except for boss levels. Any puzzle pieces you pick up, you keep permanently, even if you die. The only time you won't keep them is if you manually quit a level or run out of lives before finishing it. You maintain that progress - but there's no way to check how many puzzle pieces you've obtained for a level unless you actually enter the level and pause the game to look at your level progress. On the map screen, there's a nifty little "Level Progress" option that lets you view your medals and best time trial times for every level, but it doesn't show you how many puzzle pieces you've collected - you actually have to enter the level. Very odd. Upon collecting all the pieces in a stage, you unlock images and music in the bonus gallery. Nothing super for the gameplay, but still kinda cool.
3) The third medal is a bronze/silver/gold medal obtained by attempting a time trial available to the level after completing it normally. The gold medal times are very difficult to obtain, and there's even a "platinum" rank (a glittering gold medal) for getting close to the fastest time humanly possible. Definitely for the hardcore only.
Moving on to the gameplay itself... In single player, you either have Donkey Kong by himself, or you have Donkey Kong with Diddy riding on his back. Unlike the original, you can't have JUST Diddy (unless you're playing 2-player - more on that in a bit). When you have Diddy, you can absorb 2 hits before he runs away, then Donkey alone can take 2 additional hits before dying. When you have Diddy, you also get the benefit of his jetpack, a crafty little item that lets you hover for a full second or so during a jump or fall, and you can continue moving left or right while doing so.
It's nice having this little perk to make some parts of the game easier, but it's clear that some *other* parts of the game were designed with the jetpack in mind. That being said, it's REALLY hard to get through some of those areas without it. Being the experienced player that I am, even I found them difficult (by difficult, I mean losing tens of lives). I imagine it would be quitting time for someone of substantially less experience.
The thing is, it would have been very easy to simply make it possible to play as JUST Diddy (or just Donkey). In 2-player, you play as Donkey and Diddy simultaneously. Diddy, played by 2nd player (the person who is typically less experienced), gets the jet pack as well as the peanut gun, a weapon that Diddy fires as he slams the ground. It does damage to most killable enemies, so it's nice for the less experienced player to have. Something else that's nice about 2-player - you can't get trapped off-screen, the way you can in New SMB Wii, for example. If one person lags behind and disappears off-screen, a timer appears, counting down from 3 seconds, and then the player just gets moved up to where the person in front is. It conserves your shared extra lives, and also prevents players that like to dick around from holding up progress.
But back to Diddy - I'd have preferred to have Diddy playable SEPARATELY from Donkey Kong in single player. The thing is, the jetpack presents a complication. I'd like to have the 2 extra hits WITHOUT having the jetpack (playing as Donkey alone) - having it can lead to some of the mechanic downfalls of the game.
In most platformers where you can kill enemies by jumping on them, you have control over the height of the "bounce" you get after landing on them. In the original DKC or most Mario games, you'll bounce higher by holding the jump button as you land on the enemy. There are two issues we run into in DKCR.
First of all, you can't simply jump and hold down the jump button (the "2" button) to get a high bounce after landing on an enemy - they designed it so you have to make a separate press of "2", soon before landing on each enemy, perhaps to add to the challenge so you can't just hold the button down to jump on a long chain of enemies. This feels awkward because it's not like other platformers - games usually check whether you're holding the button or not upon hitting the enemy - that's it. When you add in this odd need to TIME the pressing of "2" while you're in midair, you lose some degree of control: You have a lot less certainty as to whether or not you're going to get a high bounce. The game is hard enough without this added challenge, and it's certainly not an added challenge that adds to the enjoyment of the game.
The second problem is that the "2" button also engages Diddy's jetpack. So now you're forced into hovering for a second above an enemy before landing on them, if you want to get a high bounce. There is, however, a split second as you land on the enemy, that will get you a high bounce without turning on Diddy's jetpack. This is very hard to hit, and is just another arbitrary challenge added to the mechanics.
Next, another mechanic I noticed that may have been overlooked... In most cases, if you bounce on an enemy or tire, you maintain your horizontal momentum. So, if you're running full blast through a level, and you jump and land on an enemy or tire to bounce, you continue at your fast speed forward. The exception to this, however, is after launching out of a vertical barrel cannon. After launching out of such a cannon and bouncing on an enemy/tire, your horizontal momentum is reset to zero, so it takes a moment to accelerate back up to speed.
For most of the game, this isn't a problem. But a few levels have you launching up out of a barrel cannon, then you have to maneuver in midair to land on an enemy or tire and bounce to the next obstacle or platform. When you launch out of the cannon and start holding to the right, you get some horizontal momentum that you're adjusted to keeping when you land on an enemy or tire, but you lose it in this case. Additionally, following a cannon, you can't get high bounces from landing on enemies (you can on tires, though). Again, these occasions are few and far between, but I've lost so many lives to them that it's worth mentioning.
There are some other mechanics I've found to be a nuisance. One of them is in mine cart levels. Even if you have Diddy with you (that means 4 hits to kill you, normally), one hit in a mine cart will kill you. Any collision with an enemy, wall, ceiling or barrier will end your attempt. The mine cart levels are already challenging - letting you take at least 1 extra hit for having Diddy would not make them trivial, but no. You hit anything, you die.
The mine cart levels are also one of the places I've noticed an "I Wanna Be The Guy" moment. "I Wanna Be The Guy" is a free indie game that, simply said, is designed to kill the player thousands of times with its tons of hidden threats that can only be discovered by dying and avoided by prior knowledge or trial and error.
I'll be coming up to either: A) a harmless-looking area, or B) an impassable obstacle and I'll not know what to do; then I'll suddenly be dead. For instance, while riding a mine cart, I'll be riding straight for a huge stone pillar in my path. Having not already played the level and not being gifted as a Jedi with predetermination, I'll have no knowledge as to what the game is going to present to me.
Do I jump and run into the pillar, or stay on the tracks and run into the pillar? Is the pillar going to start tipping toward me and see-saw over a big rock to open a small path underneath, in which case I should avoid jumping, or is the pillar going to tip away from me so I have to jump... Oh, it didn't move until I was a hundredth of a second away from it, so I'm dead. Yep, I was supposed to jump.
Again, an "I Wanna Be The Guy" moment.
The last thing I have a beef with is the "waggle" function of the remote. This could very well be the most frustrating part of the whole deal for me.
Retro decided to link the "waggle" function (shaking the remote) to 3 actions: Slamming the ground (while pressing no buttons), blowing air (while crouching), and rolling (while moving). For slamming the ground and blowing air, I don't have an issue, since both of those things are done rarely (relatively) and while standing still. However, waggle is a terrible function to link to such a fundamental ability as rolling. I've read that many people do not mind this, but I certainly do. There are so many parts of the game that require very precise timing and movements - having to rely on the not-fully-reliable waggle function to perform such an important and common action is very frustrating. Not only does it make it difficult to be precise with timing it, but it doesn't always work. With a button press, it's clear to the game what your intent was. The "1" button serves all the same functions as the "Y" button in the original (running faster, grabbing barrels) except rolling. Why? There's no reason for it, and they could have very easily made a controller configuration to do it.
Through all these issues, the game is still keeping me busy, and I'm determined to collect all the Kong and puzzle medals. I may go for bronzes or silvers on the time trials, but no more. In any case, I'll still have to go back to playing my Virtual Console if I want a true DKC experience.
~A
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