I replayed the game and honestly, I can't say I'm a fan. First of all, visually I think Donkey Kong Country Returns looks soulless and overly generic. Compare it to the original SNES games
Jungle Beat has aged better visually as well.
The second major issue is the music. The game often opts to go for remixes of the original DKC ost instead of original tracks, and so many of them sound bizarrely worse. Compare fear factory (my favorite track from the original)
View: https://youtu.be/GNHPvgH0mqs?si=631OMlakxhMhqwQz
View: https://youtu.be/T9ruhocCrjU?si=axiiYwtT-Ktpzmml
The main issue with Donkey Kong Country Returns in my opinion, is the gameplay.
Donkey Kong does not feel good to control. Unlike the original DKC where he feels fast and agile, Donkey Kong here feels heavy and slow which makes levels drag on. I understand that they wanted to make DK feel more powerful, but making him this sluggish is not a good way of doing so.
Donkey Kong Returns has absolutely terrible difficulty balancing. Most of the game until World 6 is laughably easy. The kind of easy that makes the game a chore to get through and extremely forgettable. I one hundred percented the game as a child and I cannot name even ten levels that stand out to me.
There is some fairly decent level gimmicks, (I personally am fond of the barrel rocket levels) but they're easy to forget thanks to the lack of proper escalation.
There is also the Temple levels (you can access them by collecting the kong letters) which are imo, are a mixed bag. Some of them are the best levels in the game with an emphasis on reaction times and mastery of the games mechanics. Others are cheap trial and error fests that are designed to waste your time.
By world 6, the game finally escalates its difficulty and becomes slightly interesting. It's nothing hard, mind you, but it is more engaging. World 7 follows suite and adds a decent map puzzle (think the forest in Mario World) where you have to find all the hidden buttons inside the levels to progress. (They're all fairly easy to find.)
World 8 is a huge difficulty jump. The devs at this point must've figured that players would be more skilled so almost every level in world 8 is the kind of trial and error rubbish I mentioned being a problem with the Temple levels.
They contain the kind of cheap difficulty that doesn't feel accomplishing at all. I do not feel good about myself after memorizing a poorly designed level that was designed to waste my time and pad the game out. I just feel like I wasted time that I could've been using to play a game that's actually good.
Overall, I'd say Donkey Kong Country Returns is just an OK game. It doesn't have the same soul that other Donkey Kong games have. Replay value is next to non-existent because of how poorly the games difficulty is handled. If you want an actual good 2010s platformer I'd suggest Rayman Origins.
Jungle Beat has aged better visually as well.
The second major issue is the music. The game often opts to go for remixes of the original DKC ost instead of original tracks, and so many of them sound bizarrely worse. Compare fear factory (my favorite track from the original)
View: https://youtu.be/GNHPvgH0mqs?si=631OMlakxhMhqwQz
View: https://youtu.be/T9ruhocCrjU?si=axiiYwtT-Ktpzmml
The main issue with Donkey Kong Country Returns in my opinion, is the gameplay.
Donkey Kong does not feel good to control. Unlike the original DKC where he feels fast and agile, Donkey Kong here feels heavy and slow which makes levels drag on. I understand that they wanted to make DK feel more powerful, but making him this sluggish is not a good way of doing so.
Donkey Kong Returns has absolutely terrible difficulty balancing. Most of the game until World 6 is laughably easy. The kind of easy that makes the game a chore to get through and extremely forgettable. I one hundred percented the game as a child and I cannot name even ten levels that stand out to me.
There is some fairly decent level gimmicks, (I personally am fond of the barrel rocket levels) but they're easy to forget thanks to the lack of proper escalation.
There is also the Temple levels (you can access them by collecting the kong letters) which are imo, are a mixed bag. Some of them are the best levels in the game with an emphasis on reaction times and mastery of the games mechanics. Others are cheap trial and error fests that are designed to waste your time.
By world 6, the game finally escalates its difficulty and becomes slightly interesting. It's nothing hard, mind you, but it is more engaging. World 7 follows suite and adds a decent map puzzle (think the forest in Mario World) where you have to find all the hidden buttons inside the levels to progress. (They're all fairly easy to find.)
World 8 is a huge difficulty jump. The devs at this point must've figured that players would be more skilled so almost every level in world 8 is the kind of trial and error rubbish I mentioned being a problem with the Temple levels.
They contain the kind of cheap difficulty that doesn't feel accomplishing at all. I do not feel good about myself after memorizing a poorly designed level that was designed to waste my time and pad the game out. I just feel like I wasted time that I could've been using to play a game that's actually good.
Overall, I'd say Donkey Kong Country Returns is just an OK game. It doesn't have the same soul that other Donkey Kong games have. Replay value is next to non-existent because of how poorly the games difficulty is handled. If you want an actual good 2010s platformer I'd suggest Rayman Origins.
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