| Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Mar 18 2014, 05:38 PM (215 Views) | |
| TheGreg | Mar 18 2014, 05:38 PM Post #1 |
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Add another excellent platformer to the Wii U lineup. Retro Studios’ follow-up to their outstanding Donkey Kong Country Returns is gorgeous, brilliantly-designed, and brutally challenging. Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze doesn’t reinvent the series, but does introduce several new twists while maintaining its predecessor’s exhilarating, devious style. After the game’s relatively tame first world, Tropical Freeze unleashes increasingly relentless level design that is, at times, outrageously difficult without crossing the line into unfair. It is the perfect blend of difficulty and fun. Aside from the obvious platform obstacles, the game also brings back Returns’ brutal barrel jet levels, as well as the series’ trademark mine cart stages. Some of these are so frantic that it is inconceivable to complete them in a single try. Thankfully, the game is fairly generous with its checkpoints. Even so, towards the end of the game, I was hemorrhaging lives. Boss fights are equally thrilling and particularly notable. All of them are multi-phase affairs that truly test your reflexes and pattern recognition ability. So many modern games hold the player’s hand and all but walk them through the game. It’s refreshing to see a return to the white-knuckle action of old. Perhaps the most notable gameplay addition is the ability to play with two additional members of the Kong family. While the previous game featured Donkey and Diddy Kong, Tropical Freeze adds the propeller-haired Dixie and the old coot himself, Cranky Kong. Like in Donkey Kong Country Returns, the player always controls Donkey, but receives additional abilities based on the other characters. Diddy supplies some limited hovering via jet pack, Dixie’s helicopter hair gives some additional boost to jumps, and Cranky can bounce over spiky obstacles using his cane. This provides an additional depth to gameplay as some areas are only accessible using certain characters, and control styles changes based on who you select. As per usual, levels are filled with secrets, some even containing multiple exits that lead to different levels and paths through the stage maps. Tropical Freeze also makes great use of the additional processing power of the Wii U. The game’s 2.5D visual style is brilliantly-realized with lush, vibrant art and some impressive visual detail. The Kongs themselves sport impressive fur animation and the game runs at a silky-smooth framerate despite the game’s chaos. Tropical Freeze even trumps Returns in terms of music. Composer David Wise, who leapt to fame after his work on the series back in its Super Nintendo glory days, returns to provide a fantastic, energetic score that recalls his classic work both stylistically and thematically. Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze is another outstanding platformer for Nintendo’s console. It’s a fantastic follow-up to Donkey Kong Country Returns, and strikes an addictive balance between fun and frustration. |
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