Giant oranges and watermelons are flung at you from the background as you ride your barrel to salvation, propelling upwards by holding down the A-button and letting go for a steep drop. These are well-designed, if initially punishing miniature wars, worth every second in the final moments of a beatdown.īoth the mine cart and barrel-rocket levels make a return, Retro mixing in the environment more than ever to connect the player with his or her surroundings. The vast melancholy I felt after finally felling the big guy was only matched by elation. Make no mistake, you definitely deserve it after causing the polar bear to lose his Popsicle into the great blue. Without checkpoints, but with multiple phases and evolving movesets, a simple polar bear or owl becomes a natural disaster, a force of pure, long-unrequited evil. Dangers are most definitely afoot.īoss stages, specifically, bring the game as close as it can get to frustrating without pushing you over the edge. Just don't go in with an expectation of a breezy walk through the jungle. But as is always a requisite, the challenge is fair, and makes accomplishing a single level a feat of immense satisfaction, especially when it comes after a multitude of retries. The levels are long, dense with fast transitions and increasing challenge, and always juxtaposed with an optimistic and jovial presentation, rivaling memories of Sega Genesis' 'The Lion King' platforming from back in the day. More than often you won't survive some new horror masked in the adorable and endearing environment the first time, but liberally placed checkpoints keep you moving forward even in the toughest of spots.
Imagine skateboarding as the world crumbles inches from your back wheels. Levels often break apart around you, requiring forward momentum in the wake of tumbling pillars and exploding barrels.
Most obstacles are telegraphed with just enough time to evaluate and react, but just barely. Marked by a satisfying rhythm, combining Donkey Kong's rolls and jumps with the fire-laden plains in Bright Savannah or the tongue-wetting giant fruit factory in Juicy Jungle is not just enlivening to the spirit, it's distinct among the crowded genre of 2D platformers almost singularly concerned with jumping and running.Īnd part of that formula is failure, teetering very close to a trial-and-error pitfall while wielding an unfaltering devotion to sweaty palms and held-back yelps of anger. Donkey Kong's uniquely weighty yet nimble maneuverability, which has the ape doing very apelike things among swinging vines and grapple-happy ceilings, has always been and remains a fertile groundwork for level design. It's a mad scientist's concoction of palm trees and Viking penguins, the world of Tropical Freeze, and the game is never one to hold back on throwing one dastardly trap into the mix with another. It works, but only if you're already a fan of the formula. Lacking any revisionist surprise, Retro opted instead to refine and explore the things that made the first game so successful. Thankfully not a continuous stream of notoriously annoying ice-caked platforms, as the title might suggest, 'Tropical Freeze' is a sequel in the best and worst way. Retro Studio's original 'Donkey Kong Country Returns' was indeed a triumphant return to the titular Ape's glory days of rhythmic vine-swinging, crocodile-bopping, barrel-exploding goodness, and the developer strikes a similar cord in this year's sequel, the long-winded 'Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze.' But it's the good kind of speed that makes you feel invincible until that final fatal moment, wherein you restart the level and subject yourself again with a manic smile on your face. If Mario platformers are an acid trip in a playground, then Donkey Kong is on speed in a death trap.
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