Donkey Kong Country Returns

[Hobocop]

The game seems to have a good amount of positive feedback all around, and considering a project based on the property was recently released here, I figure it's as good a place as any to continue discussion on it.

Some interesting developments about the music:

"From the very beginning, there was a very strong desire on Mr. Miyamoto's part to offer up those original songs. Those original melodies. So those are the core of the music for this brand-new Donkey Kong Country."

"Just an interesting note, the same composer that did all the Metroid Prime stuff is working with Nintendo's composer on the NCL side, Mr. Yamamoto. We have a long relationship with him, and the goal was to use the familiar melodies but bring them into a more contemporary sound. We didn't want it any other way. How do you have DKC without that soundtrack? So we updated it, using the staff we've used with all the other games we've worked on."

Source: http://wii.ign.com/articles/109/1099190p1.html

I'm happy that the foundations of the soundtrack will remain intact, but it seems that they are using their own guys (/says a prayer for the moon).

Either way, it seems that they have most things as they should be. They even said that you can have the option to hold the Wii remote sideways (no motion controls!), so I'm getting more enthusiastic with every piece I read/see. Except for the comment about no crocodiles in the game

Another quote from the article:

"The first week that we knew we were working on this project, we played every single DK game. We wanted to just immerse ourselves in Donkey Kong. We made everybody play through all three of them."

[noTuX]

*orgasm*

This is great news indeed. I have been waiting for this day to come since I beat DKC3 for the first time.

[Malaki-LEGEND.sys]

Well Nintendo's E3 media briefing left me on an oldschool kick, so after tackling Kid Icarus(fun times), I'm now going through Donkey Kong Country 2(my personal favorite out of the three). I've gotta say that this game is much more fun than I remember and holy shit I had no idea the music was this excellent either.

If Retro can manage to bring modern gameplay innovation to the formula a la New Super Mario Bros. Wii or something while maintaining just half of what makes DKC2 so great, I'm on board.

[Mirby]

I'm going through DKC2 GBA for the first time. Beat the original many times. Where the hell's the feather in Slime Climb?

Anyways, this does look awesome, and they'd better try bringing in Dave Wise.

Hey, let's have Bahamut e-mail him again with this request! It worked last time!

[Hobocop]

This video might have some spoilers for people:

Shows off a good lengthy portion of the demo. Not sure what the music at the end is for but I like it

[Skyline Drop]

I'm pretty sure just about anyone who's ever played any of the Donkey Kong Country games almost wet themselves seeing this announcement...

Or maybe just me...

Anyway, it's been *way* too long since a straight, no gimmicks, no Konga DK game was made. I was worried Nintendo was going to abandon him ever since they lost Rare. Very glad to see this come about.

[Mirby]

Well now they have Retro!

[EC2151]

You know, I was thinking while I was doing work today, about DKCR, and I thought "you know, if Nintendo asked ME to make a new Donkey Kong game, the first thing I'd do is play every single Donkey Kong Country game and try to find out why they are all so fun"

It's good to see that I was not alone in that approach.

Go Retro!

[A-RoN]

Wow...I don't know what to say. I'm a huge DKC2 fan, and dismissed any game after playing the repetitive and very childish Donkey Kong 64 (although Diddy still had some of the coolness factor in that game). This game may be the thing after Super Mario Galaxy 2 to get me buying a Wii. The feel of the game is very impressive and is what the Kongs would have experienced if we had the technology we have now back in '94.

[Less Ashamed Of Self]

So I had a long embarrassingly public arguement with a friend of mine on a facebook wall about whether the other kongs or kremlings would be in it at all. There's conclusive evidence from the trailer that they will not be:

-The pirate ship has a new skull & crossbones crest with what looks like an octopus/kraken/kthulu face instead of a kremling one.

-Many enemies seem to be replacements for the old ones which may have been kremlings.

-The tiki man in the airship stealing the bananas appears to be the primary antagonist (although a theory was posed that he works for K. Rool or that K. Rool would wind up being the REAL end boss anyway.)

-and in one scene there appears to be a cow/pig creature sitting at a desk near a dk barrel with a friendly demeanor on it's face. I'm assuming that's something in a store or checkpoint vein... eitherway; an ideal candidate for a kong replacement.

Another thing worth noting, if you pause the video near the beginning and look to the right... there is a very obvious shining, spinning, collectible golden puzzle piece.

[Mirby]

Watched a 10 minute long vid of gameplay; yes, you do collect puzzle pieces. I think the amount varies per stage.

Someone on an IRC chan I go to claims that the director or producer said that Kremlings aren't returning and neither is Dave Wise. Whether or not this is true, I don't know. He didn't cite a source. But still...

[BlackPanther]

Wow...I don't know what to say. I'm a huge DKC2 fan, and dismissed any game after playing the repetitive and very childish Donkey Kong 64 (although Diddy still had some of the coolness factor in that game). This game may be the thing after Super Mario Galaxy 2 to get me buying a Wii. The feel of the game is very impressive and is what the Kongs would have experienced if we had the technology we have now back in '94.

Whaaat? You didn't like DK64? I felt like it was a decent successor to the DKC series. Definitely one of my favorite 64 titles.

[Hobocop]

From the interview I linked on the first page:

Retro: There are no crocodiles in the game. (laughs)

So it seems that the enemies are of Retro's own creation. There's always loopholes though... who knows. Previously they stated that they don't want to reveal too much so that they could keep surprise in the game. They say they want to have this game appeal to nostalgia, but the supporting characters in DKC1-3 were largely what made the game so great.

As for music, it also seems that they have their own composers doing it. Even if David Wise isn't in the project at this point, I would really like if there was still some possibility... like maybe opening a tracklist he made after beating the game as a reward or something.

[Chernabogue]

My biggest surprise at E3 this year. This is great, it's been a while we haven't have a real DKC game.

[ocre]

Kenji Yamamoto is doing the music. (He did the Prime series music.)

And yeah, Retro has stated that they're about 90% done with the game so far and that even though they're already working on the last level, they will be making small tweaks until the release date (Winter 2010) so that the game is pitch perfect. And yeah they're keeping very many details about the game close to the chest, which says to me, 'yes, there will be other Kongs returning(I doubt they will be nor do I want them to be playable)' and absolutely 'yes, there will be Animal Buddies' and I'm pretty sure the Kremlings will make at least a tiny appearance.

Either way, this is going to be one hell of a game.

[Thalzon]

This may sound weird, but with this game coming out, I want to ask something:

Just what IS Donkey Kong?

Not the character -- the series. It shifts around wildly, from platforming to racing to music-based... Only Mario does as much genre-shifting (and maybe pokemon, but those two do genre shifts for OTHER reasons).

To me, it still sort of feels like Donkey Kong as a franchise is still trying to find its niche amongst the Nintendo lineups. Donkey Kong is basically a vessel for whatever game Nintendo wants to make but just doesn't feel like using Mario for whatever reason.

There is no consistency in what the DK games entail -- Nintendo gets on a bongo drum bent, then they go for racing, and now a platformer. We know Mario games are primarily platformers, Pokemon games are primarily RPGs, etc. But Donkey Kong games have no primary genre or gameplay type. It's very odd.

[Hobocop]

This may sound weird, but with this game coming out, I want to ask something:

Just what IS Donkey Kong?

Not the character -- the series. It shifts around wildly, from platforming to racing to music-based... Only Mario does as much genre-shifting (and maybe pokemon, but those two do genre shifts for OTHER reasons).

To me, it still sort of feels like Donkey Kong as a franchise is still trying to find its niche amongst the Nintendo lineups. Donkey Kong is basically a vessel for whatever game Nintendo wants to make but just doesn't feel like using Mario for whatever reason.

There is no consistency in what the DK games entail -- Nintendo gets on a bongo drum bent, then they go for racing, and now a platformer. We know Mario games are primarily platformers, Pokemon games are primarily RPGs, etc. But Donkey Kong games have no primary genre or gameplay type. It's very odd.

Yeah, I think for the last little while they have been using him as a test subject for the mass market. I remember the amount of marketing and hype they made for the series on the N64, but instead of continuing in that line of games it seems that they gave the character canary status. I'd think that they wanted to give him a different niche but it failed so bad.

In another IGN interview with Miyamoto, he said this game (partially) came about because of the high demand for it in the NA market. If nothing else, at least they (eventually) put their trajectories for the character to the side to respond to market conditions. Originally, I saw the series as a response to Sonic, as they were both trying to convey the counter establishment kind of mentalities (you can even see this when DK takes over Cranky's music in the first DKC). And then you get supporting cast like Funky and Candy and it's pretty obvious that this is the case.

Then in 1996 with the third game, apparently it was too 'childish' with one protagonists being named 'Kiddy' at a time when the company was beginning to get the same image when compared to PS1. This is getting a bit long but what I'm saying is that it seems that the series is kind of a pulse for the company, and as a reflection of the direction of both the company and the series this year (seemingly), they are going back to what made them great as opposed to motion control gimmicks, that surveys have shown are becoming decreasingly popular anyway.

Annotated guess: The series is a reflection of the company's market strategy, not necessarily something self contained

[ocre]

I would hope it's generally thought that the series found it's high point in the DKC series. Sure, maybe Rare created DKC as a 'response' to one of Nintendo's competitors, but it's obvious a lot of love went into the creation of the three games as well. Gearing the series into a platformer, driven by a plot, and having created a non-Mario enemy in the Kremlings, they elevated the series out of becoming rehash after rehash of the original arcade series.

Then, after Rare's departure, the series was pulled in so many directions. Namco's Donkey Konga. The other bongo game by Nintendo of Japan, Jungle Beat. PAON's Jungle Climber and Barrel Blast games. And sprinkles of Mario vs DK in there.

If you pay attention, these games all portray DK differently, because people have different interpretations of what DK is supposed to be. There are those that believe that the DKC/R Donkey Kong is the same Donkey Kong that kidnapped Pauline in the original Donkey Kong games. And then there are people who believe that Donkey Kong is either the son(DK Jr) of the original ape (who is now Cranky Kong). I am inclined to agree with the latter and I think DKCR is a long-overdue return to form that was only kept barely alive with the PAON games.

Maybe this is a bad example, but imagine if the original "Mario Bros" (not Super) was the only Mario game that had been developed by Nintendo. And then here comes another company that ends up creating Peach, Bowser, Super Mushrooms, Goombas, et cetera. After three 'Super Mario Bros' games, 3 different developers each handle their own Mario projects; maybe one of them has Mario hitting bricks to pop music (complete with a weird drum peripheral that makes Mario jump), maybe two of them just have Mario and Luigi in a sewer, punching out crabs. No jumping on enemies. No mention of Peach or Bowser or Toad. Hey, maybe some people would like those games.

I think that's sort of how the DK series is fragmented.

[JCvgluvr]

So, after I'd heard of this game, it instantly reminded me of Sonic, and the game that's coming out for him (Sonic 4). Yet, I find it so funny...Sonic goes back to his roots, with 2.5D platforming added, and he gets a rather rude reception. But DK does it, and everybody goes wild! With that in mind, here was a joke topic I made on gamefaqs:

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/997764-donkey-kong-country-returns/55219579

[BardicKnowledge]

I would hope it's generally thought that the series found it's high point in the DKC series. Sure, maybe Rare created DKC as a 'response' to one of Nintendo's competitors, but it's obvious a lot of love went into the creation of the three games as well. Gearing the series into a platformer, driven by a plot, and having created a non-Mario enemy in the Kremlings, they elevated the series out of becoming rehash after rehash of the original arcade series.

Then, after Rare's departure, the series was pulled in so many directions. Namco's Donkey Konga. The other bongo game by Nintendo of Japan, Jungle Beat. PAON's Jungle Climber and Barrel Blast games. And sprinkles of Mario vs DK in there.

If you pay attention, these games all portray DK differently, because people have different interpretations of what DK is supposed to be. There are those that believe that the DKC/R Donkey Kong is the same Donkey Kong that kidnapped Pauline in the original Donkey Kong games. And then there are people who believe that Donkey Kong is either the son(DK Jr) of the original ape (who is now Cranky Kong). I am inclined to agree with the latter and I think DKCR is a long-overdue return to form that was only kept barely alive with the PAON games.

Maybe this is a bad example, but imagine if the original "Mario Bros" (not Super) was the only Mario game that had been developed by Nintendo. And then here comes another company that ends up creating Peach, Bowser, Super Mushrooms, Goombas, et cetera. After three 'Super Mario Bros' games, 3 different developers each handle their own Mario projects; maybe one of them has Mario hitting bricks to pop music (complete with a weird drum peripheral that makes Mario jump), maybe two of them just have Mario and Luigi in a sewer, punching out crabs. No jumping on enemies. No mention of Peach or Bowser or Toad. Hey, maybe some people would like those games.

I think that's sort of how the DK series is fragmented.

IIRC, the DKC Donkey Kong is the grandson of Cranky, the original Donkey Kong from the arcade game (he even talks about those days in his dialogue). That's what Rare originally intended -- whether or not that's what has happened to him is certainly debatable.

[TheKrow]

Needs moar David Wise.

[Liontamer]

Needs moar David Wise.

Yes, yes! Needs some D. Wise.

[Bleck]

Sonic goes back to his roots, with 2.5D platforming added, and he gets a rather rude reception. But DK does it, and everybody goes wild!

that's because sonic was never good

[Geoffrey Taucer]

that's because sonic was never good

I hate to say it, but there's some real truth in this. I recently picked up the Sonic compilation released on gamecube -- and regretted it after playing the games. They're not nearly as fun as I remember them being. Certainly haven't held up as well as Mario or DK.

[Malaki-LEGEND.sys]

So, after I'd heard of this game, it instantly reminded me of Sonic, and the game that's coming out for him (Sonic 4). Yet, I find it so funny...Sonic goes back to his roots, with 2.5D platforming added, and he gets a rather rude reception. But DK does it, and everybody goes wild! With that in mind, here was a joke topic I made on gamefaqs

2 points:

A) Gamefaqs? I don't even

The reason is because Nintendo hasn't developed a bad habit of periodically shitting all over their best franchises. They're in stark contrast compared to Sega, in the fact that every so often they might make a bad game, whereas in Sega's case, every now and then they might make an ok Sonic game.

That being said, I'm excited about Sonic 4 and apparently people are liking Sonic Colors a lot, but this is a DKCR thread.