Retro Studios shows Nintendo how it's done – whether it's Metroid games, Mario Kart courses, or Jump'n'Run levels. And the latter is especially creative and motivating in Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze on the Wii U. It's quite different from New Super Mario Bros. U, where you get the same plains, desert, forest, ice, mountain, sky, and volcano worlds for the forth time. Instead, it clearly sets itself apart from its predecessor, Donkey Kong Country Returns, with new ideas.
For example, the Autumn Falls take place in a Bavaria-inspired alpine scenery, including big beer mugs. The Bright Savanna, which will transition into a canyon, offers something new in every level, where this even tells a story of how the world is progressing. That's also true for the fifth world, the Juicy Jungle, where you may expect your typical forest- and jungle-themed levels, but it's actually a sherbet factory. First the fruits will be plucked, then sliced, then turned into jelly, and finally frozen, where Donkey Kong has to survive all these steps. The final world then brings back him back to his Island from Donkey Kong Country Returns, where each world of that game was turned into a single level that is frozen over. There's a ton of creativity found in Tropical Freeze, something that Super Mario has been lacking lately.
But it's not just the worlds and their themes, the levels themselves are also very well done. Well, similar to the previous game, you will have to learn them to a degree, because the levels may change as you keep going. And with certain things it's hard to react when you don't see them coming. That may not be to your taste, but once you've got to know a level, they will offer a nice flow, where most of them where clearly designed for speed-running, which requires you to truly master each level. If one jump doesn't have the right timing, it can already be over.
That may sound frustrating, but the levels stay surprisingly motivating, so that you keep trying. The game's Hard Mode may even bear testimony to that, despite the fact that there are no checkpoints and you only get one heart, so that you will to start over after a single mistake. That sounds impudently frustrating on paper, but it's charmingly addicting. Of course, unless you're just exceptionally good at Jump 'n' Runs, you will die a lot, but there is a joy to be found in mastering the levels step by step. And this is coming from someone, who didn't like the Mirror Mode in Returns as much, even though that one still had checkpoints. It's not Tropical Freeze is the easier game of the two, but it's certainly the fairer one.
Additional modes like this also offer you more replay value. You won't just run through the game once and that's it. In Tropical Freeze Hard Mode might be where the real game begins for you, and everything until then was just the warm-up. Additionally, the game also comes with a Time Attack mode again, where you have to speed-run each levels to earn different medals. This has much improved from the predecessor, because a death will now reset both the level and the timer. In Returns the timer kept running, which meant that you had to leave and reload a level whenever you wanted to truly start over. That was already cumbersome enough, but with the loading times in Tropical Freeze this would be a catastrophe.
That's one point of criticism that needs to be mentioned. We're used to short loading times with Nintendo games, but in Tropical Freeze you are staring at clouds. Even the loading screens are freezing sometimes! Looks like Retro Studios has lost mainly their optimizations talents, less so the creative fellows.
What's really frustrating about the game are puzzle pieces, however, which is another thing worse than in Returns. For the most part the puzzle pieces used to be about discovering hidden secrets, which can be a lot of fun for those who love to explore, like myself. And to a degree this is still true for Tropical Freeze, but more than often this has now turned into banana-collecting mini-games, where you have to grab a given number within a time limit and/or under challenging circumstances. So, instead of getting the puzzle piece directly from a vase, it spawns some erratically flying bananas, where you have to jump around like a monkey to not miss one of them.
The rocket barrel levels are some of the worst offenders, where you have to perfectly catch a stream of bananas. If you don't want to replay the entire level whenever you have missed a banana, you will have no choice but to kill yourself and try again from the latest checkpoint. And then try again. And again. It's not exactly the best video game design if it encourages in-game suicides on such a degree, where I have called the game "Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Frust" after some point. Given, this only matters for completion and it has already been a problem in the previous title, but not as badly.
This is also true for the bonus rooms, which only add insult to injury here. They still interrupt the game, as they did before, but they have even less to offer. There are now only ten configurations, instead of twelve, and they lack the visual variety this time. You also won't get any balloons or coins anymore, because that's apparently too much of a bonus, and instead you have to collect exactly 100 bananas in each of them. This gets old very quickly and also requires these rooms to be larger, where the image is zoomed out quite a bit, making this even harder. And you can't repeat the bonus rooms, so again you will to kill yourself for another attempt at the puzzle piece. (In one level this wasn't even possible with a bonus room at the very end, which means you really have to repeat this from the beginning if you screw it up.) If you are a completionist, then the puzzle pieces will probably become the worst part of the game for you.
Another topic of interest are Donkey Kong's barrel buddies, where next to Diddy Kong you will also be able to play as Dixie and Cranky this time. That's fantastic on first glance and a main selling point of the game, but the problem is that Dixie completely outshines her boyfriend in all aspects. While Diddy can hover for a bit in the air and also get a single boost underwater with his jet pack, Dixie's hair lets her gain additional altitude after a jump and can be used like a propeller when submerged. So, there is no good reason to ever pick Diddy, unless the game forces you to.
At least Cranky Kong has some usage with his pogo move, which is helpful against certain bosses and even required from some of the secrets. But when playing Hard Mode, where you can chose any character, Dixie will be the way to go 95% of the time. And that's just shows how unbalanced they are. Also, there are still no other animal buddies besides Squawks (for finding puzzle pieces) and Rambi, who again is as rare as the beautiful silhouette levels. At least with the re-introduction of underwater stages you would have expected to meet Enguarde somewhere...
This might have helped with those levels being quite slow-paced, which is in stark contrast to the snappy gameplay ashore. World 4, which primarily takes place under the ocean, can therefore be a real pace killer. But there is again an answer to that in the form of Dixie and her propeller hair, letting you breeze through the waters...
Finally, the soundtrack by David Wise also needs to be mentioned, because it's tremendous. While Kenji Yamamoto's work on the games from Retro Studios, including Donkey Kong Country Returns, was also great, the music in Tropical Freeze offers a groove that perfectly matches the action.
The Good:
- Sublime level design in creative worlds
- Perfectly crafted levels
- Difficult, but motivating
- No annoying super guide
- Ear candy soundtrack
- Responsive controls
The Bad:
- Frustrating "get all bananas" puzzle pieces
- Dixie makes Diddy obsolete
- No new animal buddies
- Long loading times
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