Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze review

[bcass]

I have no intention of buying a Wii-U in the near future, but I've been listening to the full soundtrack for this and there's some amazing music in this game. Some of the best I've heard in years actually. It's not all great, but there's more than a handful of superb tracks. It's a pretty sad indictment on the industry that someone as musically gifted as Dave Wise has been ignored for all these years. It truly boggles the mind that Microsoft had a company full to the brim of equally skilled people (in the form of Rare) and quite literally pissed it all away.

[dataDave]

I'm looking forward to playing this. It's still in its wrap here at work. I could go and 'spoil' the soundtrack right now but I like the memories attaching to stage elements/visuals.

[Adam Stone]

Still very much addicted to this

Beat the final boss but now clearing up all the remaining KONGs - first game in while where I want to find everything.

As just been mentioned, some of the music is amazing - a few tracks would fit quite nicely in a new metroid too
Enjoying this a hell of a lot more than returns for some reason. Being able to use the pro pad instead of waggle makes a big difference too -

[dataDave]

Well, this is magnificent, isn't it? After never playing DKR properly this doesn't really feel like DKC at all due to the weight of DK, however it does retain the trickiness and platforming ethics of the original series.

I'm not sure what the difference between Diddy and Dixie is, but Cranky is a damned powerhouse with that pogo jump! It's like having Rolento in a platform game. Easily my favourite companion after not feeling convinced on his announcement.

This is also going to be yet another bastard to 100%. The KONG letters aren't too bad thus far, however those puzzle pieces are fiendishly hidden.

Just one thing... Is anyone noticing the framerate refresh? It's most apparent for me on the minecart levels. The speed and the consistent 60fps makes the scenery look blurry. This is just the nature of 60fps and not a problem with the game, it's just that I'm noticing perfectly horizontal motion brings it out. I might have a dabble with the clearscan bollocks on a low setting to see if it smooths it out without much input latency.

[briareos_kerensky]

I'm not sure what the difference between Diddy and Dixie is,

Both can hover, but Diddy for a longer time, while Dixie's hovering ends up with a small increase in altitude. I completed the first island yesterday when I got the game, and I think that Diddy is the least useful of the three.

[PaTaito]

Both can hover, but Diddy for a longer time, while Dixie's hovering ends up with a small increase in altitude. I completed the first island yesterday when I got the game, and I think that Diddy is the least useful of the three.

If you want horizontal distance diddy is the best, dixie gives you that yoshie style jump as you mentioned....also the underwater jetstreaming.

Diddy in still invaluable though...that extra length in his jumps are most valuable getting tricky pieces.

As for sonic games, they should just leave it...its never felt right in 3d, never has and never will.

[parkinho]

Reached the end credits this morning - what a wonderful game! Almost everything is polished to perfection, from DK's momentum based controls to the incredibly tight and varied level design, with the final world being the absolute pinnacle for me. Not forgetting the God-tier OST of course

Only a few slight niggles - the loading screens are sloppy and the lack of animal buddies compared to the original trilogy is an area I would like to see any further sequel improve upon. Regardless, this is the best platforming game in years, and considering we have been spoilt by the fantastic SM3DW and Rayman Legends in recent months that is no mean feat. Time to go for 100% completion and then onto hard mode!

[Adam Stone]

Finally got all of the KONGS and beaten all of the Special levels world 1-6! Ah man, so so happy. I haven't actually punched the air out of sheer unrelenting joy for a very long time... but my god, I was hysterically throwing my fists like a crazed madman after beating those special levels - So satisfying!

I'm on the extra world now - I really want to beat that quickly because i cannot wait to play Hard mode. I love playing as Kong, but i'm pretty excited about playing as Diddy and Dixie by themselves. An awesome little touch and a great incentive to replay.

I know this is very different to Rayman and shouldn't be compared (I love them both) - however i would say i am enjoying DK more than Legends (I adored the art style of legends, though found it very easy - perhaps i was spoilt by the challenge mode pre-release -and kinda like a sequence of mini-games. Still think it is fantastic, but personally i prefer DK-TF )

[Adam Stone]

One more special level left!!!! I'm determined to do it this evening - no matter how many bloody lives!
I've been having to get up and walk off my gaming-fail frustrations, haha. This is proper old school gaming - I haven't felt this killer 'just one more go' feeling since I was a kid. kinda nice to be owned by a game again -
Right! Break over - final level bring it!

[QualityChimp]

I thought this was a great article:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jordanshapiro/2014/02/28/how-to-think-critically-about-video-games/

[Adam Stone]

I enjoyed reading that article - very nice.

Though i wish the writer had mentioned that sometimes it's good to just feel - you don't always need to connect a verbal understanding to that feeling because suddenly you're thinking too much, and suddenly the importance of that one moment is gone, mixed up with lots of other stuff.

But yes, a good article.

[dataDave]

The 'K' levels are wonderfully designed, and really demand more from you given they are quite short and meant to be done in a one-banger. I wish the entire game was like this.

[dataDave]

I've just completed this, finally, and I must say that for the most part the level design has been completely lacking. Reaching frozen DK Island and unlocking the K levels highlights this more than anything as those stages are genius, it's like an entirely different team worked on them, and if the whole game was at that level this would be an easy 9 or even 10 from me. It's another NSMBU case for me as I feel the stage design of the earlier levels was hampered on purpose in the name of accessibility.

I've never been sold on the Rayman brand but I reckon I'll give that a go next seeing as everyone is jizzing all over it.

[dataDave]

Actually, even the likes of Super Mario World has bland opening levels. I think because the genre was so fresh back then people are easy to forgive and forget.

[Adam Stone]

You can have too much too soon and it's often quite useful to keep early level layouts straight forward to help encourage players to play around with the basic game mechanics. Anyone can throw a level together with heaps of ideas and complex geometry - that doesn't necessarily lead to 'good' level design. It may be interesting but good level design takes a step back and looks at the bigger picture of what it's trying to achieve as a whole.