Review of Donkey Kong Country Returns HD – a formidable platformer that is still relevant today

It’s strange to see off the end of the Switch with an HD remaster of a 15-year-old Wii game, but that’s exactly where we find ourselves with the launch of Donkey Kong Country Returns HD. Originally created by the folks at Retro Studios and now updated by prolific Switch publisher and port company Forever Entertainment, this challenging 2D platformer is itself an attempt to bring back the glory days of DK from the SNES days, making it something of a double dip in shades of pink. puddles of nostalgia.

But having played Returns back then, and again when it came to the 3DS in 2013, it’s still nice to know that yes, a decade and a half ago, it wasn’t just a great platformer in its own right – it remains, even now, a stunning platformer that has endured stands the test of time with its demanding athleticism, perfect timing and many devious secrets. Taken on its own, it’s as worth playing today as it ever was, and is a powerful reminder of how great Donkey Kong Country can be.

However, this is so rare that we Maybe view things in isolation these days, and it’s doubly strange to come back to this when its excellent sequel, Tropical Freeze, was ported to Switch back in 2018 (and still costs a hefty £50, as does Returns HD). At the time, the Switch’s lifespan was just over a year, but was it worth ordering the console over its simplistic and slightly boring-looking predecessor? You can’t help but feel like these two games should have come the other way around, and if I had to pick one DKC game to play for £50 at the end of the console generation, it would be Tropical Freeze, no question.

Still, let’s not get ahead of ourselves unnecessarily. As I said, there’s a lot to recommend Returns HD on its own, especially since it includes some of the extra features of the 3DS version, such as a more forgiving difficulty mode where players have extra health, items, and more. And right from the start, Returns HD doesn’t give players any effort when it comes to keeping players moving forward, requiring a deft understanding of Donkey Kong and Diddy’s respective abilities and limitations to master tough running and jumping challenges that surprise in equal measure and make you happy. .

In some ways, the 3DS still feels like a more natural home for Returns. Especially in the early stages, DK will regularly plunder pieces of background scenery for collectible KONG letters and hidden puzzle pieces (the latter of which will gradually join the ranks of the game’s vast libraries of sounds and images if they are all eradicated in a single level). This landscape will also regularly cascade into the foreground, with pillars of stone dominoes cascading down cliffs to span the looming chasms ahead of you, while kraken tentacles snake through narrow sea caves blocking your path, and pesky moles drop deadly bombs from rival minecarts . crystal-encrusted tunnels.

It’s a wonderful collision of senses as your fingers fly over your Joy-Con’s button space to keep up with the sights and sounds being thrown at you from front and behind. The dynamic camera captures the action with a nimble and flexible lens, zooming in for intense, frantic precision work, then zooming out to capture every bit of the ornate spectacle. And all this to the bombastic melodies of David Wise’s original score, reworked here by Alexander Yastrzhebsky. That dramatic back-and-forth movement is a feeling that’s by no means dulled on the Switch, but when I spent most of my time playing the game in handheld mode, I had to turn the 3DS’ stereoscopic slider back on to drink it up. all in.

I was also reminded how much time you have left to discover the subtle nuances of platforming. While there will be handy tutorial pigs popping up from time to time to teach you basic controls – say, how to grab onto a vine or slam DK’s fists into the ground to break broken furniture in a scene – there are lessons on how to apply some of the more advanced platforming techniques , can be found here. never been so expected. I’ll admit, I had 15 years of muscle memory to help me here, and so I already knew that repeatedly clicking on enemies’ heads, Mario and Luigi style, would allow me to gain extra height, and rolling would help me speed up to soar across large gaps.

You’ll inevitably learn some of this through serendipity, because luckily this world is replete with little moments of magic like this one. For example, slamming a suspicious platform and causing it to flip over to reveal a hidden barrel in one of her many secret rooms, or crouching down to blow a stream of air, only for it to release a tiny, barely noticeable propeller seed into the air with a bunch of bananas or a piece puzzles in tow. Small, random actions like these make each level feel alive with possibilities wide open, and how that knowledge then influences how you approach later levels on Kong Island remains one of Returns HD’s greatest strengths.

However, the more likely scenario is that you’ll learn most of these techniques the hard way – through persistence and tears, and constantly dying in some of the toughest platforming segments, where precise application of these skills is your only path to success. . The minecart levels that were once the highlight of DKC games are particularly bad at this, although the curious bananas and collectibles at least help push you towards some sort of revelation, however frustrating it may be. However, with one foot in the wrong often being the only thing standing between you and a hasty reboot, there are times when Returns HD can feel irritatingly arcane – something you might have hoped would have been fixed in this remaster – and no extra health on a lower difficulty mode will help soften the blow.

Purists will say that this is par for the course for Returns. After all, it was extremely difficult to begin with, and remains so today, even for someone like me. Right off the bat, it’s noticeably more difficult than most other platformers, although it’s not insurmountable – simply collecting bananas and coins, which can be spent at Cranky Kong’s store to buy extra lives, is more than enough to ensure you never see the real one. game behind the screen. Likewise, after dying a few times in a row, these tutorial pigs will eventually offer to deploy the returning Super Guide feature to also skip you to the end (albeit at the expense of any collectibles you’ve collected and any pride you have left). .

Continue through these pains and aches, however, and underneath there is still a supremely satisfying platformer to be found – one in which skill is often rewarded and the discovery of its finer details is supremely satisfying. It remains a very good video game, even if it will inevitably feel like a bit of a step back for those who already played and loved Tropical Freeze, whose prettier visuals and more ambitious set-pieces easily surpass this rather simple, no-frills remaster. If you missed it or just can’t resist the lure of nostalgia, there’s still a good time to be had with Returns HD. But really, if you haven’t played any of the Retro DKC games at this point in the Switch’s lifecycle, you should probably just jump right into Tropical Freeze. This is a Donkey Kong game at its peak, and Returns HD remains more of a warm-up game.

A copy of Donkey Kong Country Returns HD was provided for review by publisher Nintendo.