I want you to do me a favor. Yes, you reading this. Now that
Super Smash Bros. is out and you’ll
most likely finally be picking up a Wii U, you will soon be in a position to
play one of the finest platformers ever created. After you’ve had your initial fill of smashing,
go out and pick up Donkey Kong Country:Tropical Freeze. I haven’t heard many people talking about this game, and
right now it seems destined to become a criminally overlooked gem for the struggling
console. Tropical Freeze is
marvelous; a beautiful, rich experience full of detail and some of the most
lushly-realized environments I’ve ever seen in a platformer. It’s a joy to play
and just to look at and especially to listen to. To think that I was so disappointed by this game’s initial announcement back at E3 2013. I’d like to
go back in time and punch my stupid Donkey Kong-bemoaning face into the ground.
Tropical Freeze is truly special and
one of the most wonderful gaming experiences I’ve ever had.
I
enjoyed Donkey Kong Country Returns a lot, especially after I replayed it last year and gave it my full attention.
It’s a brilliant platformer, but it didn’t quite speak to me on a deeply
personal level. It mainly channeled the spirit of the original Donkey Kong Country for Super Nintendo, another great game but not my personal
favorite. No, my favorite DK game (and one of my favorite games period) is the
first SNES sequel to that game, Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong-Quest. Tropical Freeze evokes the magic of DKC2 and has provided me with what feels
like the true successor to that SNES gem all these years later. Part of the
reason I love DKC2 so much in
relation to the first DKC is because
it felt so much more lively and adventurous and has much more memorable and
vibrant environments. I feel that DKC2 has
more personality than its predecessor as well as an atmosphere and a feeling
that speaks to me more. Tropical Freeze
follows this trend with environments that feel more creative and new than the
ones in Returns and it appeals to me
much more as a result.
Besides
just how damn great the game feels to play, I think there are three things that
immediately grab me about Tropical Freeze:
the narrative, the environments, and the music.
That narrative is simple but is executed to near-perfection here. The
Kong family’s island is conquered by the invading Snowmads, a group of
Viking-like arctic animals that bring to mind the Kremlings in all the right
ways and have way more personality than the Tikis from Returns (who, for the
record, I actually liked). DK Island is literally frozen over courtesy of a
giant magical horn (because that’s just how the Snowmads do things I guess) and
the four Kongs (Donkey, Diddy, Dixie and Cranky) are blown far out into the far
reaches of the neighboring seas. The game’s first level is set up brilliantly:
DK lands in a wrecked plane suspended in the tangled branches of a massive
mangrove forest. After busting out of the plane, he and his buddies’ adventure
begins. I love the way that the frozen DK Island can be seen as a tiny speck
far in the background right at the beginning of the first level: this
wonderfully communicates a clear goal (get back to your island and take it
back) while the distance of the island communicates what a grand adventure
awaits. Something I’ve always loved about the DKC games is that the Kongs are never on some selfless quest to
save the whole world just for the sake of it, but rather their quest is usually
a personal one, with the familial bonds shared between the Kongs often a
highlight. In Tropical Freeze, DK and
pals are not trying to save the world,
but their world, so to speak. One
might say I’m spending too much time focusing on the narrative of a Donkey Kong
platformer, in which cartoonish apes collect bananas and fight fish-throwing
walruses, but everything is just executed so well in TF and the opening and ending cinematics are both gorgeously rendered
and so very fitting for their situations and the feelings that they aim to
evoke.
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| The Kongs are in this together |
Something
that often irks me about platformers (especially Nintendo-produced platformers)
is how they often rely on all the same old environment tropes and stale themes
that the Super Mario Bros. series established
back in the NES days (particularly in Super Mario Bros. 3), with the worst offender these days of the “grass world,desert world, water world, etc.” pattern being the Mario series itself. Tropical
Freeze forgoes the Nintendo trend of copying Mario for some of the richest, most well-fleshed-out and beautiful
environments I’ve ever had the pleasure of journeying through in a platformer.
Each of the game’s six different islands is alive with its own atmosphere,
feeling, and wildlife and each one feels like a game in themselves. The themes
here are naturalistic and based on real-world natural biomes (for the most
part), and fit Donkey Kong’s world supremely well while also being more
creative and lively than your typical themed worlds. This is Retro Studios, so
it goes without saying that Tropical
Freeze boasts beautiful visuals and art design and incredible detail and
depth when it comes to the environments. But saying it this way doesn’t do
Retro’s first HD work justice. Small animals in the far background of levels
are animated, backgrounds stretch way into the distance and are fully-modeled
and detailed with imposing cave-sprinkled mountains, tropical islands, and deep
caverns full of torchlight and castles. In just about every level, I want to
jump into the background and explore, and each background feels like the world
of an entire adventure game in itself. It’s marvelous. Each level in the game
is like a new present on Christmas morning, with each new loading screen prior
to a level filling me with giddy anticipation for what new sights and
experiences awaited. A forgotten mangrove forest in the middle of the ocean
full of wrecked planes, submarines and ships is one hell of a memorable opening
world, and by the game’s second world, a majestic autumn-time wonderland themed
after parts of western and central Europe, I was already in love. If the game
had ended there, it would have been enough. Then the first level of the third
world had me almost tearing up with its beauty and inventiveness.
The level designs themselves are fantastic. The minecart levels, despite there being an unfortunately small number of them, are the best in the series. Levels feature unique new designs and themes as well as ones inspired by DKC 1, 2 and 3, although not in a pandering way, but in one that builds and expands on those old ideas (the entire second world in particular and my personal favorite, Autumn Heights, feels in large part like a homage to Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong’s Double Trouble, which I was surprised by given that game’s relative lack of popularity). I plan on making a separate post here listing out some of my favorite levels in the game, so I’ll save the details for later, but for now some of my favorite levels (besides the sublime savannah level I mentioned earlier) include a thrilling log-plume ride through a sawmill during a thunderstorm, a harrowing romp through a scorched wilderness set on fire, and a beautiful Limbo-esque silhouetted climb up an avalanche.
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| Tropical Freeze's worlds and levels are superbly designed and rich with beauty |
Besides the original DKC trilogy, Tropical Freeze notably takes inspiration from many great
platformers throughout the years such as the Super Mario series, DuckTales,
the Sonic the Hedgehog series, and Rayman Origins. Some might call it
“ripping off” in some areas, especially when it comes to elements like the way
Cranky Kong uses his cane to bounce around a la Scrooge McDuck, but the game
uses these ideas in conjunction with its own to create something special with
its own unique feel. Actually, Tropical
Freeze feels somewhat like a conglomeration of ideas from all the best
platformers throughout history mixed with its own original ideas. The result is
simply a supremely well-designed game that is absolutely joyous to play and
experience. And then there’s that soundtrack…
That
David Wise soundtrack. As one of the composers of DKC1 and DKC3 and the
sole composer for the absolutely stellar soundtrack to Donkey Kong Country 2, this was perhaps the element of Tropical Freeze that I was looking
forward to the most. Very rarely are my expectations exceeded like they have been with the phenomenal work Wise has done
for this game. Perhaps it wouldn’t be right to say he has surpassed DKC2’s score, but he’s certainly equaled
it in terms of magic and wonder (only losing out in terms of nostalgia, but
that will come with time). Donkey Kong
Country Returns, which Wise did not compose for, had mostly straightforward
updates of classic tunes from DKC1 that
were designed to evoke nostalgia, but for Tropical
Freeze Wise chose to compose mainly entirely new tracks, while using
remixes and new compositions of old favorites sparingly and often in more
creative ways, like hiding samples from classic songs in new tunes. I’m all for
this choice, as the overly familiar OST of Returns
was just a bit boring to me (as great as those classic songs are). There
are only a few straight updates here, a beautiful update to Aquatic Ambiance
being one of them, while the rest are all original pieces. The only update to a
classic that I really wanted was Stickerbush Symphony, my personal favorite DKC2 track (and I’m sure many others’ as
well) and…well, Retro kind of screwed up here. Retro, I love you, but I just
have to ask: why didn’t you put the Stickerbush remix with the bramble level
you created? Both a Stickerbush Symphony remix and a bramble-themed level are
here, but bafflingly are not put together. The remix of Stickerbush Symphony is
nice, although in truth I didn’t even recognize it at first; it’s more of a
different take on the song like the Super Smash Bros. Brawl remix (although more faithful in feeling than that one)
than a straightforward orchestrated update of the original, which is kind of
what I was hoping for in this case, but really any version of this song is
great, especially a new version from the original composer himself. The really
odd thing though is that the remix of SS is used as filler music for the
beginning and ending of one rocket barrel stage that has different music for
most of the level. Maybe this is some kind of purposeful troll on Retro’s part
or simply an oversight. While I know I’m asking for fan-service here, including
both a return of the bramble level theme and a Stickerbush remix in the game is
already fan-service so why aren’t they paired together? It’s a nitpick, but as
such a huge fan of the original bramble levels and music in DKC2, it’s something that stood out to
me and was a bit disappointing. But enough of that. I really can’t praise David
Wise’s work on this soundtrack enough. The man is a beautiful human being and
instead of failing to really describe how much I love this music, just have a
listen to Mangrove Cove, Windmill Hills, and Amiss Abyss. Those are three songs
that I love, but I have many other favorites. There’s really not a single track
that isn’t stellar in its own way.
You may
have noticed that I haven’t really said anything bad about this game (besides
the Stickerbush nitpick); in fact, this review has been almost entirely glowing
praise so far, hasn’t it? Well, that’s because I really love this game, if you
can’t tell, and I really don’t have much bad to say about it. I do have a few
issues though, and one of them has to do with the controls. Now, unlike in DKC Returns, Tropical Freeze gives multiple control options, so if you don’t
like shaking a stick to roll, now you can use buttons! I thought this would be
a great thing, but then I realized that I actually found the Wii remote and nunchuk
to be the most comfortable out of all the control schemes, and it was also the
one I was used to from Returns, and I
even realized that I actually like the motion stuff! Well, kind of. I actually
think that the kinetic and active nature of wildly air-drumming with the
Wii-chuk combo lends itself well to DK’s ground-pound move as well to pummeling
bosses in the face after one of the game’s terrific boss fights. I even like
giving the Wii remote one quick shake to do a roll. It just feels good. I enjoyed
this in Returns as well and across both games, there were only a few rare occurrences
where the motion control led to a screw-up (such as when I want to
ground-pound, but haven’t let go of the control stick yet and accidently go
rolling off a platform and into a pit, but this is more an issue with two
actions being mapped to the same control input than motion control). However,
there are a few areas where the motion control seems to fail me. I found
dashing with Rambi the rhinoceros, which is required frequently in the levels
that involve him, to be an awkward exercise. Shaking the Wii-chuk in short
bursts is all well and good, but it gets tiring constantly flailing one’s means
of controlling a game for a long period while dashing, while also remembering
to press buttons on the instruments of said flailing, make precise jumps, and
avoid obstacles. Also, this might not even be an issue with the motion control,
but Rambi’s momentum seems incredibly wonky, especially when dashing and
jumping, which led to many deaths. All this makes the Rambi levels (which are
very few and far between) some of my least favorite in the game, which is a
shame because they’re otherwise very thrilling, well-designed, and should by
all accounts be some of the funnest levels. I also feel that a precisely-timed
Wiimote shake being one’s only means of attacking underwater (sans Cranky
Kong’s cane swipe) isn’t ideal and felt a bit janky to me.
Speaking
of swimming, what a great and convenient segue to lead into my only big complaint
with Tropical Freeze, and even this
one is ultimately trifling when it comes to the experience as a whole. As
someone who has always actually enjoyed water-based levels in platformers and
the atmosphere that they bring, and with the DKC series being known for its memorable and wondrous water levels,
I was actually thrilled that they were bringing back swimming in Tropical Freeze, and had missed it in Returns. Swimming in Tropical Freeze feels fluid and fun, the
game’s fully underwater levels are mostly well-designed and backed by beautiful
music of course, and in short bursts (such as the levels that involve pools of
water but where it’s not the focus), the swimming overall works great.
Unfortunately, one irritating design choice puts a serious damper on the levels
that take place almost entirely underwater and I’m sure by now you can guess
what it is: yep, the air meter. In the classic DKCs, just like in Super
Mario games, Donkey Kong and his friends could hold their breath forever,
but now Retro decided to go all realistic on us and add a tiny air meter that
rapidly empties, leading to a group of apes that is even more water-phobic than
Sonic the Hedgehog. What’s worse, in the depths of the abyss, the only way to
refill air, which again one must do constantly,
is by using air bubbles also similar to Sonic games, and those air bubbles are
annoyingly spread fairly thin in some of these levels. Put bluntly, there’s
just nothing good about the air meter. One of the central charms of the water
levels in classic DKC games,
especially the first one, is their peaceful, calming nature. The water levels
in Tropical Freeze are beautiful and
I want to take my time and explore them and enjoy that sweet, sweet David Wise
soundtrack, but I have trouble doing this when every ten seconds or so the
annoying air meter starts beeping and completely shatters my immersion. This
design mechanic is in stark contrast to the serene music and atmosphere of
these levels. Similar to the timer in Super Mario 3D World, the air meter adds nothing to the experience and takes away
so much. It might add a minimal amount of challenge, but it mostly just adds
irritation and wastes the player’s time when they have to rush backwards in a
level to find the last air source that they passed, or otherwise hamper their
enjoyment of a level by forcing them to rush forwards through it. Even if one argued
that the air meter adds a paltry amount of added challenge and a touch of
realism, the sacrifice in atmosphere and enjoyment in these levels just isn’t
worth either of these things. The air meter just feels really out of place and
I wish it’d never made it into the final game.
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| I love this level; I just wish I didn't have to worry about that tiny blue bar in the upper left corner |
But in
the grand scheme of the experience, my complaints with controls and the air
meter are ultimately trivial. Even though I feel as though the developers chiefly
had the Wii remote and nunchuk in mind when designing the game, several other controller
options are available and you might
like them better than I. I simply wish that the moves delegated to motion
control could have been mapped to either the C-button on the nunchuk or the Z-trigger
on the Wii remote as both of these buttons are used for the same action
(grabbing) and thus one of them could have easily been used for the actions
that require shaking (with the other one still being for grabbing). Perhaps
ground-pounding could still have been mapped to shaking the Wii-chuk, and
rolling, dashing with Rambi, and the swimming attack could have been delegated
to one of these two buttons. This easily possible set-up would create the ideal
control scheme for the game in my opinion. As for swimming, there’s only a
handful of fully underwater levels in the game and all of them are contained in
the same world, so their grievances were quickly forgotten when I was hopping
and bopping back on dry land again. Not only this, but upon revisiting the
underwater levels, I found that once I was familiar with their layouts, the air
meter mechanic became more manageable (but still annoying) and I was able to
enjoy them more. The levels of course should be enjoyable on one’s first
run-through and this in no way pardons the air meter, but it’s worth
mentioning.
Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze is
a stellar experience. Not only is it a fantastic adventure in its own right,
but it subtly improves on just about everything from its predecessor, Donkey Kong Country Returns. The
additions of Dixie Kong and Cranky Kong alongside the returning Diddy Kong are
great and all of these partners for Donkey Kong bring useful and fun abilities
to the table in the single-player mode (to say nothing of the added variety that
they bring to the co-operative multiplayer mode, which I have not tried myself,
either in Returns or in Tropical Freeze); having secret exits
hidden in levels Super Mario Bros.-style
is way more exciting than simply buying a key in a shop to unlock a bonus level
(not to mention, spoiler alert, TF
has a slightly more substantial secret world than just one level like Returns had); the already mentioned
several different control options; and to my utter surprise, no Super Guide. I had to look this up
while writing this review to make sure, but sure enough, Tropical Freeze completely nixes the crutch that Nintendo has
usually been adamant about putting in most of their modern platformers. Now let
me clarify, I actually don’t have much of an issue with the concept of Super Guide
itself. While I do think even having the option takes away from the experience
a bit and I always prefer just old-fashioned good game design to unsubtle hand-holding elements, I respect the fact that there’s an option for less-skilled players to
skip a level that they are frustrated with or learn how to conquer it,
especially in a challenging game like Tropical
Freeze. What I don’t like, as someone who never touches the Super Guide, is
that obnoxious, horrible, immensely nerve-grating, beeping, flag-waving pig
from Returns that would appear at a
checkpoint after just a small number of deaths and every single subsequent time
that I screwed up, reminding me that, “HEY! YOU CAN USE THE SUPER GUIDE!!!”. “THANKS,
PIG! I KNOW! AND I DON’T WANT TO! NOT NOW, AND NOT EVER!!!” This was especially awful on the incredibly challenging bonus levels in Returns.
Seeing and listening to that pig over and over and over again tripled the
frustration, at least. All I ask for when it comes to Super Guide is an option
to stop it from ever appearing at all, but I’ll also accept just not having it
in the game period (although that pig still hangs around at checkpoints and peeks around corners to give the occasional button prompt, but as long as it's not waving a flag in my face, I'm cool with it).
Tropical
Freeze has, what I feel, is the perfect challenge level for a platformer
like this. It feels very fair, and with the exception of the fully underwater
levels, was never frustrating for me. My failures were almost always my own
fault, and cheap deaths were rare during my playthrough. There were a few trial
and error situations in the normal levels, but not many, and less than in Returns from what I remember. I didn’t
find the difficulty in Returns to be
as harrowing as some, but it did certainly get very brutal at times (and thanks
to that pig, quite frustrating). I found Tropical
Freeze to be much more manageable, while also still providing plenty of
challenge. The hidden temple levels from Returns
return in Tropical Freeze, and while they
are still a great challenge and involve a few more moments of trial and error
than standard levels, are far more manageable than the ones in Returns and far less frustrating. Also,
mine-cart and rocket barrel levels are no longer a one-hit kill scenario in Tropical Freeze like they were in Returns, giving the player two hits this
time before they go down, and this too is a smart improvement (and there’s
always the unlockable hard mode if you still want that unforgiving challenge).
And even though there is no Super Guide, there is still plenty of help in Funky Kong’s shop if players need it; for just a few banana coins (which are
plentifully available in each level), players can purchase a heart that adds an
extra hit-point, a balloon that will rescue them from a pit, and much more. One
can even collect figurines of every friend and foe in the game (but I just have
to ask: what the heck is up with Funky Kong’s “voice” in this game?). If one
aims for all the game’s collectibles (which are worth it just for the thrill of
the hunt and also to see the game’s gorgeous concept artwork, which contains a
lot of unused ideas that I would have loved to have seen in the game; perhaps
they’ll influence a sequel?), there’s a lot of trial and error in Tropical Freeze, but this mainly comes
from going for all of the game’s well-hidden puzzle pieces (as opposed to the
collectible K-O-N-G letters, which are often easier to nab). Finding and acquiring
everything certainly takes patience and while I don’t mind this kind of thing,
I respect that others don’t have that kind of patience. The reason I don’t mind
is because I was thrilled to have an excuse to go back and replay levels over and
over again thanks to their excellent design and music, and just how damn
wonderful the game feels to play. The game is really as difficult as one makes
it: if you just want to get to the end of the game, it’s a very fair challenge;
if you want to collect all of the K-O-N-G letters to see all of the hidden
levels, it’s difficult but very manageable; and finally if you want to go for
all of the puzzles pieces to unlock hidden artwork, it will take time, but it’s
a rewarding journey (and Squawks the parrot is there to help you out if you
need their help as an item that can be purchased in the shop). A level’s
K-O-N-G letters have to all be grabbed in one go and are usually easy to spot
but sometimes tricky to acquire (and then make it back in one piece), whereas
the puzzle pieces can be acquired one by one and are usually more well-hidden. I
think that this duel system of collectibles is genius. And even beyond these
main collectibles, Tropical Freeze is
a game that rewards the player at every corner. Pulling an object out of the
ground here and doing a ground-pound there, grabbing every banana clustered
together in a certain part of a level, investigating a suspicious piece of
scenery…players are almost always rewarded for their curiosity with a banana
coin, an extra life, a puzzle piece, or something else.
I’ll say it once again, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze is
marvelous. There’s just not much more to be said now than if you’re in a
position to play it (that is, if you own a Wii U), you should play it,
especially if you’re a fan of platformers. Tropical
Freeze evokes the magic of Donkey Kong
Country 2 while also being entirely its own experience and creating its own
brand of wonder. Donkey Kong Country Returns
is a fantastic game but it felt like it was largely concerned with paying
homage to the first DKC game. Tropical Freeze
feels more like its own, original game and similarly to DKC2, it branches out into creative new worlds and feels like a
real adventure as DK and friends travel to places beyond DK Island. The only
thing that seems to be missing is the other animal buddies besides just Rambi,
and while I’ll admit that leaving them out does take away a big aspect of the
old DKC trilogy’s identity, when the
platforming is this well-constructed, I just find it easy to overlook this. The
Retro Studios DKC games are simply a
different beast, and when they’re as damn good as they are, that’s totally fine
with me. Retro, I’m sorry I was ever disappointed by you in any way. If you
choose to make a third DKC game, or
if you are already working on it, I will eagerly anticipate it when it’s
announced.
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