Your thoughts on Donkey Kong Country - Tropical Freeze

[the8thark]

What are your thoughts on the game?
Here are mine.

I never played the game on WiiU but I did buy the Switch game. Everyone I know and everywhere I have read said the game is amazing and a must buy. So I took all of the advice and bought the game. I'll share a few points on what I thought about the game.

As a big fan of Donkey Kong Country 2, it being the first SNES game I played, I know what a good Donkey Kong Country game should be like. Tropical Freeze on the other hand well hmmm . . .

The Good

1. The music. It's really good and changes subtly depending on which part of the stage you're in. It's seriously good.
2. The graphics. The game looks good and has a great aesthetic. Sure it's not cutting edge but it looks great.
3. Level design. For the most part the stages are designed quite well. Even the K stages though tough are not unfair at all. Though I think the spots where cheap deaths can occur right before the end of the stage are bad design.
4. The new type of enemines, ie the move away from kremlings works well.

The Bad

1. Gameplay. DK along with all of his helper buddies are so hard to control. Trying to jump and move accurately which is required for many of the tougher platforming is just not possible without much frustration. This forced me to use Funky Kong for most of the game. I don't need the extra hearts or spike immunity I just need the double jump to get anywhere. His single jump is just as terrible as DK's one is.
2. The controls. Overall they work but some of the choices are really bad. Like requiring L or R held to hold on to a vine. Just not required and makes the overall game harder to play. Also it's not easy to run and not easy to manage the height of your jumps. This is evident on the mine cart as an example. It's hard to get the right hights you need for each jump.
3. I just play with Funky, avoid all the spikes and kill myself when I lose as many hearts as would be a death in the WiiU classic mode. So I make the game as hard as it was on WiiU but with a character that plays at least semi decently.
4. The bonus areas. There is just a few of them, they all have the same look and just repeat over and over. The SNES DKC2 and DKC3 had bonus stages, all unique and all specifically designed to fit the theme of the stage they were in. So well done there on the SNES. A shame Tropical Freeze did not do this better.
5. Also you can't re-try a bonus stage in a level without dying or exiting the level first. Something you could do in DKC 2 and 3 for most of the bonus stages.
6. Difficulty Curve. The SNES games gave you at most 2 hits at any one time then you're dead. They had frequent checkpoints so you could not brute force your way through any part of the game. You had to slowly get better and better at each section to make the next checkpoint barrel. Tropical Freeze also has checkpoints but they are not used at all well.
7. No world map to connect the smaller individual island maps.
8. Reused elements in the game. For example, in the beehive stage, the bees just hold grass for you to hold on to. There's no need to reuse the grass for this. It also breaks the aesthetic the stage is aiming to capture. Something like sticky bees was or honey would have fit in way better. In a few other stages this occurs as well. The developers chose existing assets to get the job done, instead of making new assets to better fit the theme of a particular stage.

Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze is not a bad game overall. It feels like a better reimagining of the first SNES DKC game. I would say in all aspects apart from raw graphics the 2nd and 3rd SNES games are better games. They have better controls, better bonus stages and a better difficulty curve.

Overall Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze is not that hard of a game. Well based on level design. The majority of the difficulty comes from fighting the terrible controls, input delay and other similar things. The SNES trilogy are harder games but they feel more fair and forgiving because of the better controls and better level design. Though I will say a few of the stages in DKC3 were not designed all that well.

Is DKC Tropical Freeaze worth getting on the Switch?
I would say yes, It's a good game. However it's totally clear that the RARE magic that made the SNES trilogy so good is not present in Tropical Freeze at all. We're talking the difference between a good game (DKC-TF) and a great game (SNES DKC games).

 

[YIGAhim]

I hsd no issues with the controls. I however enjoyed DKC Returns much more...

Music is still top tier

 

[Quin]

One of the best modern era 2D platformers, maybe the best, alongside the rayman games.
Some more control options would be nice, but thats nintendo for ya. Atleast it was HEAPS better than DKCR on wii.

Amazing music, level design, and I have had no problem with the controls honestly. If you feel like your forced to use funky, it kinda seems like thats on you. I played just fine with donkey on wii U, and the games difficulty is pretty overrated.

 

[the8thark]

I played just fine with donkey on wii U, and the games difficulty is pretty overrated.

I agree, the game is not that hard. I did not take that long to beat it. I do think it's a good modern era platform era. But that's comparatively because there's just not that many good modern 2D platformers.

I think the original SNES trilogy were much harder games (in parts) and are much better games than Tropical Freeze. But they are not modern so they don't count as we're talking modern 2D platformers only.

 

[Cfrock]

I played it on the Wii U and, apart from the ridiculously long loading times, I had no problems with the game. Controls never felt cumbersome and I never felt like DK's jumps weren't up to snuff. I can't speak for the Switch version, though, nor how the controls would feel on the joy-cons (assuming that's what you were using).

I loved Tropical Freeze, even more than DKCR. TF is my favourite platformer in a very long time and I was throughly impressed with it. Levels felt inventive in their theming and design, and it was challenging without being overbearing. As you said, Thark, it never felt unfair, and that led to a tangible sense of satisfaction as I beat what the game threw at me.

Going back to theming, world five, the Juicy Jungle, was fantastic. I thought it was so great to follow the whole production of popsicles from harvesting the fruit, processing, and then making the final product. Really gave that world a lot of character and I think they squeezed a lot out of the concept in terms of level design.

I agree about the bonus levels. DKCR had the same issue with repetitive, bland bonus stages. DKC2 and 3 had the best, in my opinion, with a whole load of different goals that all took place in areas resembling their corresponding levels. The music also helped make them feel like little events and it did wonders to break up the pace of the game without losing your momentum as a player. I also wish the animal friends were used more often in these new DK games. They introduced water back into the series in TF, but Enguarde never showed up. Felt like a no-brainer to have him come back, but I guess not.

There were some missed opportunities in TF but overall I had a blast with the game and it's up near the top for me with regard to DKC games.

Spoiler

My favourite is DKC3 which is apparently a controversial opinion. I don't really know why.

 

[Spirit]

DKCTF is awesome.

Difficult but it never felt unfair. It was always my fault. DK feels like he should; fluid but with a good sense of weight behind him.

Diddy and Cranky are pointless with Dixie in the mix. Though bouncing on Cranky's cane is fun and Cranky is cool anyway.

The music is great too and i love the level design. I like that there are no floating platforms. Not something you notice straight away but it helps the world feel more believable. I love how levels carry on too. Like how a tornado blows a fire enemy into brushland and the brush catches fire.

I played it on WiiU but have it on Switch (sold the U copy) and it is nice to have quicker load times. Funky is a nice addition for a change of pace.

The only thing that does disappoint me is that there aren't any animal buddies. I'd have liked Espresso, Winky, Enguarde and the gang to come back with some new friends.

I remember when the game first released on the U and the made a big deal about the camera being dynamic... which happened maybe five times...

But hey still a great game.

Also @Cfrock DKC3 is bad and you should feel bad, apparantly. I don't like DKC2 so...

 

[kr14]

dog **** i raged so hard with this terrible game first i was exited for dkc returns but after playing this i aint buying that luckily i got the game from a library

 

[Guinea]

I want this game and Tropical Freeze because recently I played the first 3 DK Country games and I liked them a lot.

 

[Daku Rinku]

I want this game and Tropical Freeze because recently I played the first 3 DK Country games and I liked them a lot.

Those first three are classics. M
I enjoy N64 game too, even though at times it felt like a Banjo Kazooie clone.

 

[Turo602]

I think it's easily one of the best 2D platformers I've ever played, but completing it 100% was very stressful, and I'm glad it's behind me. There's just way too many hidden collectibles in each level and the completionist in me just doesn't feel right moving on until I've cleared it all.

I had originally started the game on the Wii U and got about halfway through before I got burned out because of this which is very reminiscent of my experience with Crash Bandicoot 4 which I also ended up putting down. The platforming challenges are difficult enough without worrying about collectibles which feels like an unnecessary damper on what should be an exhilarating platforming experience.

Sometimes, you just want an easy-going fun but rewarding platformer to unwind with and Donkey Kong definitely isn't that, which is fine. But I also feel like it requires getting into the right headspace to properly enjoy it. At least for someone like me who does tend to go for a complete run because games like this will test your abilities in ways Mario never could which is satisfying in its own way.

I also really enjoyed the inclusion of Dixie and Cranky as companions which added much needed variety to the gameplay with their unique abilities that completely alter your strategy and approach to specific levels. Though personally, I found myself sticking with Dixie the most as her extra air time and slight boost up greatly reduces the margin for error in platforming.

My only real issue with Tropical Freeze aside from my own completionist block was how often challenge rooms would repeat themselves for a puzzle piece. I think they ultimately disrupt the pace of the levels and add unnecessary repetition to the experience. I know they're a staple of the series but they definitely need to either reinvent them or start implementing them throughout the world map like Super Mario Bros. Wonder did with its badge specific challenges, so they don't disrupt the flow of the levels themselves.

This game was also originally released before the trend of removing lives in platformers which was a great change for the genre and after playing Tropical Freeze, I couldn't help but feel like it contributed to that shift as lives were pretty meaningless here with how easy they were to obtain as I was hovering around 100 lives for the majority of the game despite dying all the time.