Donkey Kong Country Returns

[Erik Aston]

Jun 26, 2010 14:12:29 GMT -5 Fryguy64 said:

When a game is continuously produced, there are minor developments to the game over time that add up to a big change. So DKC1 to DKC3 are much the same style of game with improvements. If they had continued to be produced in that way as 2D platformers, then perhaps we would have seen more developments and something a little different today.

Because these games weren't continuously produced, what we are seeing is studios going back and finding their feet with these old games again. Like New Super Mario Bros., Punch-Out!! and so on, I am expecting DKCR will offer very little in the way of new gameplay, as they want to give something to the fans that they know they love.

However, then the series can start to diverge from that and take some more risks. That's what I'm hoping to see.

Hopefully they show more of the old source content like the animal buddies and other Kongs. They shouldn't "save" that stuff for a sequel. Pay respects to all the old stuff now, so you can start adding new animal buddies, and new Kongs and side-Kongs to the first sequel. I don't want the old "this stuff should have been in the first game" problem.

In the original trilogy, the content totally changed from 1 to 3. I personally rank the games first 2, then 1, then 3, and think a lot of the changes from 2 to 3 were for the worse. But what was awesome was the way the content kept changing. All the environments and enemies were totally redesigned in each game, and each game added new animal buddies. Environments like the bee hive, bramble, and theme park in DKC2 were amazing, totally unlike anything in DKC1, and made for the best levels in the series, IMO.

Instead of being able to jump back into that (into totally warping and changing the content around the Kong characters) I see them having to do what they did in NSMBW, in bringing back more old content that they ignored for the first one. NSMBW was still brilliant, but was kind of scant on new environments and enemies. The biggest "additions" were bringing back the Koopalings and Yoshi. Now that they've done that, hopefully they can start coming up with more new stuff for NSMB3. I just wish they would show Rambi, Squawks, Cranky and Funky for DKCR, and wish they had Dixie and maybe Kiddy or the DK64 Kongs for this game, so that stuff wouldn't have to be taken as the "big additions" for DKCR2.

[Fryguy64]

What I am expecting to see is Cranky and Funky in some role and Rambi and Squawks... at minimum. I won't be upset if they're not there, but those four are almost as important to the series as DK, Diddy and the banana hoard.

That is if they're trying to recapture all the old fans, which I presume is the aim. After all, Jungle Beat was a perfectly formed platformer, a very solid game, and a wonderful DK game, but it didn't capture all the old fans.

I just love the fact you can see that it was the same team that worked on Jungle Beat, Yoshi's Story and the Mario Galaxy games. They very much enjoy their surreal environments. DKCR is in the hands of Retro, but it looks like they've got some of the Jungle Beat artists on board. I'm very excited at that prospect.

[Manspeed]

At least this time the enemies and environments actually fit the DK style. Most of the enemies in Jungle Beat looked considerably more Mario-ish. The ones in the trailer for DONKEY KONG COUNTRY RETURNS look surreal, but just surreal enough, around the same level as the enemies in DKC3 (which has the most surreal-looking characters of the original trilogy).

[cheatmaster30]

To me, the style of Jungle Beat looks more like that of Wario World if anything. But either way, the reason the fans hated Jungle Beat was because it's not a style suited for Donkey Kong Country games, at all. It'd be like if Mario was in a grim 'realistic' style or Wario Land was in Yoshi's Island style, it'd just look 'wrong', and the surreal designs just jarred with most of the previous enemy and character designs in the series (apart from Squirt in Donkey Kong Country 3, most are fairly... realistically styled and made to fit a world style, but the Jungle Beat enemies were just weird).

That and well, the creators just didn't really care about the Donkey Kong series. They basically said 'screw anything anyone else made for the series, we'll change it all because we don't like it'. That's not a popular thing to say a series fandom, and it shows one of Nintendo's only real weaknesses, their inability to accept the ideas and work of other developers/designers/people (Looks at how Mario platformers and RPGs seem to be almost alternate universes from each other with very little consideration of things in the other genre games).

God, I can't really explain myself well here.

[Manspeed]

Good luck trying to. The last time I explained why people disliked Jungle Beat around here I got laughed out of the room.

[Erik Aston]

I never played Jungle Beat. Maybe it was a great game. But it ignored the history of the series, and it was like the third bongo game when people already didn't care about the bongos. Maybe as a "great game" it led to EAD Tokyo getting to make Mario Galaxy, but on it's own, it was sent to die.

As excited as I am for this game... As much as it looks like Retro nailed the look and "feel" of the game... With the comments about "Why do the Kremlings need to be in the game?" I'm just not going to believe anything is in the game until I see it.

The question for me, is why would they show three different clips of mine cart levels and two different clips of swinging on vines if the animal buddies and other Kongs are in there? Why not show other fan favorites to get an even better response to the trailer? I guess the more I think about it, the more I worry Nintendo nixed all the original content of the series again.

And thinking about it... The Tiki bad guys still could have worked with the Kremlings. K. Rool could have been dressed up as some crazy voodoo/shaman/witch doctor guy. Kremlings with grass skirts, blowdarts, spears, etc. Putting the Kremlings in new, ridiculous outfits would have been extremely true to the series. And then replacing all the beavers, snakes, vultures and whatever else with the new enemies they've shown so far would have been fine; all those enemies disappeared for DKC2 anyways.

Eh.... Prove me wrong, Nintendo.

[Shrikeswind]

The cold hard truth is that nothing can come down to one reason. NOTHING can. And this is no exception, naturally. Jungle Beat was a compilation of problems that were just stacked one on top of the other.

On a side-note, I maintain that the entire DK arcade series was a wildlife release program that segued into DK Jungle Beat, where DK obtained his banana hoard, and that segues (with a period of silence) into DKC.

[Koopaul]

I loved Jungle Beat as a game and defended it to death from the haters. But certainly wasn't a "Donkey Kong" game in terms of style, and spirit. And I would have loved to have seen DK characters in a DK game.

People always get the wrong idea about me with Jungle Beat. They either think I hate it or love it.

[Shrikeswind]

That post says you love it, though picked up problems. Sounds EXACTLY like what I saw.

[Da Robot]

Here's the DKCR Jimmy Fallon footage.

[superpoppybros]

"Can I keep this?"
"No"

For some reason I couldn't help but laugh at that.

Anyway, for all of you who liked the DKC water levels or like water levels in games in general, well they are gone.
gonintendo.com/viewstory.php?id=128238

Too bad, I actually enjoyed them(mostly for the music). They brought IMO a good balance in the games when things needed to or at least could slow down a bit.

[Dances in Undergarments]

Jun 27, 2010 2:57:14 GMT -5 @superpoppybros said:

"Can I keep this?"
"No"

For some reason I couldn't help but laugh at that.

Anyway, for all of you who liked the DKC water levels or like water levels in games in general, well they are gone.
gonintendo.com/viewstory.php?id=128238

Too bad, I actually enjoyed them(mostly for the music). They brought IMO a good balance in the games when things needed to or at least could slow down a bit.

The day water levels are abolished entirely from gaming will be one of the greatest days in gaming history. Good riddance.

[Manspeed]

but


but Aquatic Ambience

[The Qu]

Really, only the water levels from the first DKC were tolerable. The ones in the second game were all meh and the third game had a few cool ones (The one with the glowey fish was cool, as was Nibbla's), but that's about it.

So, as Steve King would say, no great loss.

[Arcadenik]

Aww.. that means no Enguarde, Clapper, and Glimmer. I liked the water levels because they provided a nice change to the standard run-and-jump gameplay. I like variety, you know...