![]() Mercifully, the game provides an in-game store in which to spend the hundreds of coins you pick up throughout the stages. The premise of Tropical Freeze doesn't seem quite so outlandish after the weather we've been having this winter.ĭonkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze can be downright devious, even if lives are plentiful-I distinctly recall losing 30-odd Kongs during an unusually evil section in the second-to-last stage. Even if you go into a stage with the intention of sniffing out most of these pieces, odds are, you're going to walk away with less than half-if you fail to do what the game demands for a puzzle piece, there's no way to give it another go unless you off yourself and respawn at a past checkpoint, or finish the stage and enter it again. Some provide compelling answers to questions like "What if I figured out how to jump up there?" while most of the others are hidden away in mini-challenges that involve collecting all of the bananas that pop out of a background element before they fade from existence, or nabbing the ones strung up between some particularly dangerous territory. While the typical letters K, O, N, and G can be found out in the open throughout most of the game, Tropical Freeze's puzzle pieces - used to unlock art, music, character models, and other extras - reward performance as well as experimentation. The stages of Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze are peppered with hidden trinkets, but thankfully, the developers have snuck them into stages a little more thoughtfully than expected. Even the long, multi-stage boss fights feel like levels in and of themselves it can be annoying to start over from square one when you lose, but these overpowered foes rarely run out of new tricks before you stomp their heads one final time. In one stage, you'll be swimming frantically to the surface while a massive squid lurking in the background attacks you from all angles, while another will have you leaping across platforms that light up with energy-draining electricity when they pass by glowing nodes in the background. Outside of the forced-scrolling rocket sled and mine cart stages, Tropical Freeze takes a page from Super Mario 3D World by never lingering on one idea for too long. Like Donkey Kong Country Returns, Tropical Freeze doesn't mess around it's demanding from the get-go, but rarely in an unfair way. Of course, if you take a few hits with a fellow Kong strapped to your back, you'll be stuck with the relatively limited powers of DK himself. Certain stages are designed with specific secondary abilities in mind, but others allow for a choice between the three, letting you decide what approach would work best. Diddy gives DK the ability to hover after a jump, Dixie provides a double-jump, and Cranky can bounce DK off of the ground with a pogo-cane move undoubtedly stolen from DuckTales. Like Returns, Tropical Freeze brings Donkey Kong back to basics by focusing on the titular character DK can team up with a handful of his relatives, but they act more like Mario Bros.-style power-ups than co-op partners. U to Donkey Kong Country Returns' New Super Mario Bros. ![]() Of course, if you played 2010's Donkey Kong Country Returns, none of this should really be news to you if anything, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze is the New Super Mario Bros. Theory: Cranky Kong takes a wrong turn and ends up fighting Fry Guys in McDonaldland. And while the Kong family's designs are forever stalled in Clinton-era amber, the world Retro (formerly of Metroid Prime fame) crafted around them in Tropical Freeze makes for a much more appealing take on platforming action. It's hard to believe, but that was nearly 20 years ago, and while I've dabbled in DK here and there, anything branded with his hideously rendered mid-'90s mug acted as a warning sign for these past few decades. And when the supremely inventive Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island released the following year and caught barely a whiff of DKC's fame and adulation, that was the last straw: Donkey Kong was dead to me. When the novelty of DKC's impressive-for-the-time graphics faded, though, the wizard behind the curtain was revealed as just another shallow platformer, one that lacked the sheer craftsmanship of Nintendo's first-party Super Nintendo titles. When the original Donkey Kong Country launched in 1994 as Nintendo's 16-bit console war coup de grace, you couldn't help but be on board for a game made with the unimaginable power of - GASP! - Jurassic Park-rendering CGI machines.
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