Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze

Pages

Since there's a lot of discussion about this in the Wii U thread, how about a catch-all for one of the best side-scrolling platformers of the year? Of the decade? Of all time?

Of a while, that's for sure.

Just beat the game and the final relic world, am now stumbling and bumbling through the extra world. Looks like it's only 3 levels, if nothing new appears, but boy howdy: they aren't pulling any punches here.

Just to clear up any questions for those peeping into this thread: this is absolutely a must-own game for the Wii U. If you like platformers, I'd even go so far as to say it's a system seller.

I may have spoken too soon concerning my cranky opinion of World 5. See what I did there. Cranky, heh! Anyway, moving on. Jelly Jamboree was awesome! That's 5-5 which also had a killer soundtrack. I also enjoyed 5-4. I jumped the gun to slate Juicy Jungle after what I found to be pedestrian levels in 5-1 and 5-3. I had fun with 5-2 although it is not my favorite rocket barrel outing. I cannot wait to tackle 5-6 tomorrow.

The secret stages in that world are great. 5-A is one of my favorites for the whole game.

Cranky Kong approves of this thread.

IMAGE(http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20121106021817/mario/images/3/3c/Cranky_Kong,_DK_Jungle_Climber.png)

We may have burned-out on Tropical Freeze chatter over in the Wii U thread! It was full to bursting with Kong comments. I've got a few busy days of work on the go, which has unfortunately slowed my progress. All I've managed lately is a few levels of World 5 which were awesome in-between puzzle piece hunting when the window of opportunity arrose.

Tropical Freeze is generating a real buzz to go back and play the SNES games. Come on Nintendo, get them on the eShop!

Well, we bought this today and we beat the first world. This still isn't as co-op friendly as the Mario series so I don't know how far Demyx and I will get before putting this in our individual piles for single-player. In DKCR I think we made it to 2-2 and had to stop because we couldn't get the timing on the tidal waves or something.

Game is absolutely gorgeous although sometimes it's hard to discern what's a hazard and what's just part of the background. The soundtrack so far has been really pleasant.

RnRClown wrote:

Tropical Freeze is generating a real buzz to go back and play the SNES games. Come on Nintendo, get them on the eShop!

They were in the Wii Virtual Console for a while, but I think I saw somewhere they were yanked late 2012. I'm guessing there's some sort of licensing agreement they need to renew with Rare/MS.

Made it to world 5 this weekend, crazy and fun so far. How many worlds are there? There also seems to be a lot of extra stages I haven't figured out how to access.

Farscry wrote:

Made it to world 5 this weekend, crazy and fun so far. How many worlds are there? There also seems to be a lot of extra stages I haven't figured out how to access.

6. Plus a small crazy-hard bonus world (3 levels) if you find all the artifacts.

6 is the best of all of them, too. It's the island from DKCR, except frozen, and each level pays homage to the world it was taken from in the previous game. Lots of little neat callbacks, like this guy in 6-4:

IMAGE(http://operationrainfall.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/donkey-kong-bat.png)

Also, those world 7 levels are haaaard. I've completed two of the three, and haven't gotten to turn the Wii U on in about a week, but they are not for the faint of heart.

The more I play Donkey Kong, the more I think it's the side scrolling equivalent of Rock Band or Guitar Hero. Each level has at least one section where you absolutely have to memorize a chain of exactly timed sequences in order to survive.

I think you just redefined "Nintendo Hard"

ChrisLTD wrote:

The more I play Donkey Kong, the more I think it's the side scrolling equivalent of Rock Band or Guitar Hero. Each level has at least one section where you absolutely have to memorize a chain of exactly timed sequences in order to survive.

I did not find that to be true at all. There were plenty of later stages (like world 5 and beyond) that I cleared without death. Even a few in world 6. They just require really good reflexes.

Minarchist wrote:
ChrisLTD wrote:

The more I play Donkey Kong, the more I think it's the side scrolling equivalent of Rock Band or Guitar Hero. Each level has at least one section where you absolutely have to memorize a chain of exactly timed sequences in order to survive.

I did not find that to be true at all. There were plenty of later stages (like world 5 and beyond) that I cleared without death. Even a few in world 6. They just require really good reflexes. :)

I'm in the latter camp, too. I have completed a great deal of levels in one shot. I miss a few puzzle pieces along the way, but I come back for those later. The K levels are a different beast in that regard, where memory of the course could be described as necessary. Even then my reflexes can still let me down irrespective of my acquired clairvoyance for what is to come. 4-K is testament to this where I had everything mapped out in my mind eventually, yet still missed a beat here or there and had to start over many, many times. Yet I came really, really close to seeing the level through in my first handful of attempts where it was still a foreign level to me. Reflexes be damned!

I guess I'm just terrible

(Or, I keep going for puzzle pieces and letters...)

IMAGE(https://d3esbfg30x759i.cloudfront.net/ss/zlCfzRo-88UZAqkb-T)

This game's levels just keep getting better as it goes on. I'm actually going back and starting world one on hard mode, and it feels a bit boring. Too easy. The ramp-up is great and World 6 is phenomenal, but is still somehow eclipsed by World 7's brilliance. It's worth it to persevere! Those last few stages are amazing.

I project my odds of completing Hard Mode at about roughly 0%. If it were just the platforming stages, I might actually take the time to do it, but the bosses — though perhaps easier to complete unscathed than some of the later platforming levels — would just be a total drag.

I'm at World 6 now. Looking forward to it tomorrow. I don't know how I'll cope without Tropical Freeze when it's over. I've had as much fun with this game as I can recall for many, many years.

Finally getting back to this. I'm up to World 3 and still really love it. World 2 might be the prettiest thing I've seen in a game in years.

World 2 was one of beauty. The artwork throughout the game is top notch. It's difficult to say which World impressed me most in that respect. Worlds 4 and 5 have their share of lush levels. I also adore a few levels in World 3. The latter reminds me of The Lion King at a few moments.

I'm at 98% with one level of the secret world remaining. World 6 wasn't as difficult as I had predicted. The boss was a challenge, one that saw me take a break and walk away for a time, but the levels and the puzzle pieces, even 6-K, were all within reasonable grasp. Now the secret levels are a different story. They're fun and challenging.

I hope you enjoy World 3, Clocky. I loved it. In fact, I may replay a few levels later, just because.

RnRClown wrote:

I hope you enjoy World 3, Clocky. I loved it. In fact, I may replay a few levels later, just because.

Well, once you finish the last secret world, you can replay them in Hard Mode.

Could this game have been made on the Wii?

I'm pretty sure it could have been made (albeit in a significantly downgraded state of visuals in order to get decent performance) on the N64.

garion333 wrote:

Could this game have been made on the Wii?

I'm not entirely sure what you're asking. In terms of visuals, I'm not sure this could have been made for the PS3, much less the Wii. In terms of pure game play, you could probably make it with sprites on an SNES.

ClockworkHouse wrote:
garion333 wrote:

Could this game have been made on the Wii?

I'm not entirely sure what you're asking. In terms of visuals, I'm not sure this could have been made for the PS3, much less the Wii. In terms of pure game play, you could probably make it with sprites on an SNES.

That's basically what I was trying to say.

garion333 wrote:

Could this game have been made on the Wii?

Why do you ask?

SixteenBlue wrote:
garion333 wrote:

Could this game have been made on the Wii?

Why do you ask?

He wants to know if it's two Donkey Kongs ducttaped together.

Minarchist wrote:
RnRClown wrote:

I hope you enjoy World 3, Clocky. I loved it. In fact, I may replay a few levels later, just because.

Well, once you finish the last secret world, you can replay them in Hard Mode. :)

I may shelve the Hard Mode playthrough until I wrap-up a few other games. I think I've put around 60 hours into Tropical Freeze. I've enjoyed it, but it became all encompassing. Deus Ex, ZombiU, AC3, Mario 3D, and now Duck Tales await my attention. Runner 2 and Trine 2 are also in the mix. I'm also looking at Scram Kitty & His Buddy on Rails with envy. I forgot that I bought Nano Assault Neo!

garion333 wrote:

Could this game have been made on the Wii?

Okay, here's what I was wondering.

Minarchist has been extremely vocal about this game and after reading many of his posts and everyone else's posts something got me wondering about what the special sauce was in this game that everyone was in love with. The easy, and most likely, answer is level design.

However, the more I read I was left wondering if that's all their was to it. How much was due to better sounds, better visuals, better physics, better atmosphere, etc. There's a reason I prefer Super Mario World to Super Mario Bros. 3 and a part of that is that SMW isn't as drab as SMB3. Could SMW have been made on NES hardware? I'm not sure it could because of the addition of Yoshi and flying physics. The step up in visuals and sound clearly are tied to hardware, but I think some of the additions to gameplay were also connected to the step up in hardware. I've long stopped thinking more powerful hardware makes a better 2D platformer, however. Heck, I'm not sure 3D platformers benefit from stronger hardware considering I think Mario Galaxy could've been done on the Gamecube without suffering too much.

Ubisoft's UbiArt is amazing. Simply breathtaking. The latest Rayman games are quite fun and absolutely beautiful. UbiArt couldn't run on older hardware and look the way it does now. The platforming that takes place, however, seems like it could've existed on the NES. Clearly, any of the Wii U specific features exist only on that particular hardware and they can't be replicated elsewhere (yet). I mean, if Nintendo had developed a NES U Gamepad in the 80's the thing would've been the size of an arcade cabinet due to manufacturing limitations at the time, etc.

I'm making all sorts of assumptions here on hardware and I hope you read them in the general sense I meant them. Clearly I didn't work on any of those games and I haven't ever developed for those systems, so I'm making what could be completely baseless claims. Still, I hope you understand the intent of what I'm saying through my examples.

So, I ask, could Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze have been developed for the Wii or other systems and if so would it have been just as good?

garion333 wrote:

So, I ask, could Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze have been developed for the Wii or other systems and if so would it have been just as good?

No. Part of what makes this game as good as it is are the visuals and level of detail in the world. The levels are fun to play through in terms of pure platforming, but what makes them so engaging for me is the way that these 2D platforming courses are inhabiting these gorgeous 3D worlds.

There's a level that has you playing across the Savannah during a storm. Through the first part of the level, you can see the storm whirling in the distance, and as you progress you move closer and closer to it until you're inside the whirlwind jumping across swirling platforms and dodging enemies tossed through the air. It's all gorgeously rendered, and the power (such as it is) of the Wii U is used to really give that level a sense of depth and space that you wouldn't get with a hypothetical 16-bit version of the game.

There's also something to be said for the smoothness of the gameplay, which is tied to the hardware it's running on. It's a steady 60 fps, as near as I can tell, with no framerate drops, shaky textures, or other visual bugs. I'm not sure that level of smoothness would be possible on older systems.

So could a hypothetical Wii version of this game be good? Sure, and Donkey Kong Country Returns is fairly close to just that and is very good. Would the Wii version be as good? I don't think so.

garion333 wrote:

So, I ask, could Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze have been developed for the Wii or other systems and if so would it have been just as good?

I think it could have been just as good on the Wii. And perhaps DKC Returns was almost "just as good", but the controls were so imprecise due to the non-optional waggle crap that it killed the game for me. I've played some of it on the 3DS re-release, but the controls on that platform -- while better -- are still not as solid as the controls for Tropical Freeze using the new "classic pro" pad for the Wii U.

Sure, the graphics and sound are phenomenal on Tropical Freeze. But it's the razor-sharp controls and absolutely incredible level design that make the game awesome to me. It's why I can still go back and play the old SNES DKC games to this day and have a blast.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

There's a level that has you playing across the Savannah during a storm. Through the first part of the level, you can see the storm whirling in the distance, and as you progress you move closer and closer to it until you're inside the whirlwind jumping across swirling platforms and dodging enemies tossed through the air. It's all gorgeously rendered, and the power (such as it is) of the Wii U is used to really give that level a sense of depth and space that you wouldn't get with a hypothetical 16-bit version of the game.

This is the sort of example I was thinking about when my brain went down this path. There seems to be just enough power over something like the Wii to have pushed the creativity in visuals and sound to make this something special instead of just very good. (Also see: NSMB2 post.)

Farscry wrote:

[And perhaps DKC Returns was almost "just as good", but the controls were so imprecise due to the non-optional waggle crap that it killed the game for me. I've played some of it on the 3DS re-release, but the controls on that platform -- while better -- are still not as solid as the controls for Tropical Freeze using the new "classic pro" pad for the Wii U.

Sure, the graphics and sound are phenomenal on Tropical Freeze. But it's the razor-sharp controls and absolutely incredible level design that make the game awesome to me. It's why I can still go back and play the old SNES DKC games to this day and have a blast.

I have DKC Returns for the 3DS and it is a reason I've been so interested in Tropical Freeze. Well, vice versa instead, my interest in TF had me go out and buy the 3DS game. I'm not overly thrilled with the controls in the 3DS game and controls are the most important thing to me in a platformer. Sadly I tend to fall into the camp that believes all platformers should control like Mario. The DK games have never quite hit home as something more than enjoyable for me, but not memorable.

My interest in TF continues to be academic, but when I do get my hands on a Wii U it's near the top of the list of games I'm likely to get. And a big part is because you all have convinced me there's something truly special with this release.

Pages