Dvader said:You can buy lives, you should never be under 30 lives...
I know, stop ruining my story with your cold logic!
Here is some pretty nice concept art for the game:
travo said:I can't wait to see what you think after completing it, Iga.
Well it your funeral, so here I go.
Finished Donkey Kong Country Returns. I did not complete it yet. In the first four worlds, I found all the K-O-N-G letters, all the puzzle pieces and completed the K-levels. Still need to do that for the latter four world, but I played enough to give my verdict.
Graphics are gorgous. Retro together with Tokyo EAD are the very best programmer on the Wii. The art, the tech everything is drop dead gorgous in DKCR. And it animates nicely and it even runs at 60fps. I would say that Retro's art design is ligtyears beyond Rare's atrocious furry monkey art. Even all enemies have a certain likeability about them, my favorite being the sharks. Their is one weakness in the tech though, this was always Reto's achilles heel, load times. Unlike SMG1 and 2, DKCR has some significant load times before and after each level. But overall it is very excellent.
The music is good. Kenji Yamamoto from Metroid frame did a good job, but Yamammoto is not David Wise and it shows. Although the music is good it is not nearly as good as the DKC2 soundtrack. Nintendo pay attention, hire Wise now. He is a free agent and this leaves Yamamoto free to do Metroid again, which is more suited for his style.
The controls are exellent except for the motion controls, they are serviceable at best. The motion controls are not sensitive and intuitive enough. I died a few times, because the roll would not work. The blow moves blows. It is a horrible idea. To blow stuff you have to duck and shake the wiimote. Some enemies that are one fire need to be defeated with this move. This means that you have to duck, wait for the enemy to come to you and then shake the wiimote. This totally kills any pacing you had, it is unwieldy to do under any kind of pressure.
The jumping of enemies is weird also. It is not like Mario that you hold the jump button and you are lauched in the air. No you have to press the jump button before you land on the enemy. This would not be a problem if this was only used to get items like the KONG letters or puzzle pieces. The problem is that it is required in some levels multiple times just to get through the level. Not sure why you would make an easy move, harder to perform. All in all excellent controls with some issues.
The level design is awesome most of the time, but there are a half dozen times were it is horrible trial and error. For example, the boss from the cliff area (world 6) has an attack that shoots a large flame. When he starts the attack you see some build up and then he fires. You cannot avoid the attack the first time, because when you see it, you are already hit. You need to duck under it, but you do not know this before you actually see the attack. The last boss is especially cheap in this regard. The same is true for some minecart levels. There is one level while on a minecart and you can clearly see that the track dissapears in the lava only to come back up again. So you ride to the edge and jump, only to have a fireball suddenly appear and hitting you, ending you then and there. There are other examples, usually the rocket barrel and minecarts are the worse offenders of this, but there are a few normal platform like levels (1-K near the end) that have this too.
Another problem is that sometimes shit blow up at the background while shit is happening at the foregorund. This can make it difficult to follow everything, whitout being overwhelmed by the spectacle. But this is a minor problem, this will only kill you once and then you will know better.
The collectables are also well designed. The puzzle pieces require exploration and the K-O-N-G letters pure platforming skill. And if you can't find a puzzle piece you can have Squawks help you. Too bad that you can ride and control him like in DKC2. But the important thing is, that it never ever becomes a collecthaton.
But in the most levels all is fair. Some of them, like the secret K levels, are fucking awesome. When it works it works awesomely, but sometimes you can clearly see that this is Retro's first effort in platforming. Overall the level design is mostly excellent, with some frustrating bits in between that drag it down somewhat.
The bosses are weak. Which is weird, because Retro showed us with the Prime Trilogy that they know a thing or two about boss design. The bosses are either way to easy or frustrating excersises of trial and error, that become easy once you figure out how to beat them.
The variety is excellent, all levels have their own gimmick and identity. Their are a few weaknesses here. First there are way too many rocket barrel and minecart levels. Heck cave (world 4) only consists of rocket barrel and minecart levels. There are no swimming levels at all, Retro tought they would not be fun, which is weird for me, because the DKJB water levels were excellent. Would rather play a few more water levels that yet another minecart level. Also like NSMBWii, DKCR have themed world, like Jungle, Beach, Ruins, etc. There is enough variety within each theme, but the levels are still limited to their own themes. The variety is good, but nowhere as good as Super Mario Galaxy and Galaxy 2. Those games had so much variety and were not held back by any world theme.
The length is also excellent. It will take a while before you complete it. Going for all the K-O-N-G letters and puzzle pieces will extend your play time even further. And you can also try the time attack mode in each level. However Donkey Kong has limited moves compared to Mario. So there is not nearly as many advanced manoeuvres. There is no back flipping and wall jumping to skip a part of a level. there is no using the gravity to slingshot you around multiple obstacles in one jump, there is no using flip switches to launch you in the air like the incredible hulk. In Mario games and especially the Galaxy games, there are multiple ways to complete the levels, which gives you extra replay value. This is not true for DKCR.
Donkey Kong country Return is a very good platform game. If Mario is King than this would be the prince. DKCR is nowhere as good as the Galaxy games, this is objectivly true. Galaxy has better controls, much more variety, no trial and error and much better bosses. Heck even NSMBWii is better designed, it has better bosses, controls and also no trial and error. But that does not mean that DKCR is bad. It is exellent, there are some issues like some control issues, some cheap trial and error, stupid bosses that hold it back. But when it work is work really well. Hope they do a sequel that fixes all these issues and have more animal friends. Rambi is not enough.
Fuck yes, this is awesome
When playing DKCR I always wondered where the hell the awesome barrel maze levels were. They were some, but they were never that difficult. Level 5-K changed everything, so difficult and sooo good. And not a single cheap moment in the game. If you mess up, you timed it wrong. Awesome.
Tried level 6-K also. Just to check it out. Very awesome too.
Okay finished the last level. Was not that difficult. Disapointed that it was only one level and not a complete world. Also disapointed that there were no galaxy like gravity levels.
Unlocked the mirror mode, it is allright. Not sure if I want to complete that too. I think it is time for a new game.
You can buy lives, you should never be under 30 lives...