5/5 ★ – kabobby's review of Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze.

99/100 How do I give a game 6 stars? While I enjoyed each of the previous four games, especially DKC2, there’s something about Tropical Freeze that just puts it on a level above all the rest. Is it the wonderful progressive level themes? The difficult yet forgiving tight platforming? Or that sweet music? Tropical Freeze’s world feels like a bit of the same of Returns. Some clever stage design, but nothing that really jumps out at you. However, we do get introduced to many new ideas pretty early on. First of all, in the very first level we are reintroduced to swimming. But rather than the usual “tap tap tap” swimming that’s present in Mario games, as well as DKC past, we have evolved. Donkey Kong can now be controller just by moving the stick in a direction. When not touching anything, he holds still. The jump button can still be used to paddle, which speeds you up in the direction he is facing. He also has a new corkscrew attack, which is nice seeing as there’s no return of Enguarde. There’s also another new addition to swimming, but I’ll get to that later. Just a few levels in, we notice there are some new barrels. Rather than the usual red “DK” barrels, there are now barrels labeled with “DD”, “DX”, and “CK”. In addition to the return of Diddy Kong, we can now be accompanied by Dixie and Cranky. While we are still stuck as Donkey in single player, I think that having the second character be relegated to power up makes a lot more sense when we have options. They also tried to make each Kong feel unique and mostly succeeded. Diddy Kong acts the same as before. Dixie can act as a double jump. And Cranky Kong can pogo, giving you extra height and nullifying damage from spikes. Initially it may feel like there’s no point in having these options when there’s a clear winner in most cases. And that’s not entirely wrong. Dixie is generally the go to. She can travel further horizontally than Diddy, as well as higher. She also is the only one who can fight against certain water currents. For most players, she is the best case scenario every time. However, the developers did a good job making her feel not entirely game breaking and she doesn’t make the others completely obsolete. First of all, while most Buddy Barrels let you choose which Kong to take (and options are awesome right?) there are a few levels where you are forced to play with a certain Kong or none at all. Most of the time when it does this it’s Diddy, sometimes Dixie, and rarely Cranky, but at least they try. Second, there are other use cases for character abilities. Cranky can not only jump on spikes, but attack enemies with spiky hats or bodies. Cranky is also able to attack some enemies underwater that the others cannot. Third, speedrunning is where your decisions really matter. Going through lots of water? Diddy’s jet pack is the fastest way to move around. Need to do lots of jumps in quick succession? Cranky will keep the momentum going. Is there a spot where a little more height can skip a big chunk of level? Dixie Kong is the choice. They all have values, especially in a speed setting, which is why I recommend players try the time trial mode for at least a few levels. Animal buddies are once again largely lacking, with only Rambi returning yet again. But honestly I can’t fault it too much. I thought you couldn’t make me have fun with a platformer without lots of power ups but Retro has proven me dead wrong. But not everything is perfect. There are two areas of the game I wasn’t overly fond of. First of which would be the underwater stuff. Swimming underwater is back, and in most ways better than ever. But… it’s still underwater. While I think Tropical Freeze has some of the best underwater levels ever made, it still feels like a step down from the rest of the game. There isn’t the quick snappiness of the normal platforming. I do prefer how DK moves through the water here compared to the old games, but it does take some getting used to. But really, my main gripe has to be the air meter. There was no air meter in any previous DKC game, so I don’t see the thought process behind adding one here. It doesn’t even really add to the gameplay at all. I guess it’s supposed to add pressure to keep moving, but bubbles are frequent enough where you’ll almost never run out. So why is it a concern? Because if it’s that easy to get the air bubbles, why include them at all? The other problem I have with Tropical Freeze are its bosses. Now, I know some people consider them to be a highlight, so they can’t be all that bad. And I find the bosses to be much better than Returns and better than most original game bosses as well. At least, in terms of design. The main problem is duration. These fights can drag on! In time trials these bosses have been killed in just a minute or two each, but especially for a first playthrough, a single attempt can last five or more minutes. And you will die a lot. You could easily spend half an hour or more to one boss. It’s nice to see these well animated bosses, but there are long periods of time where you can’t even attack them. Well designed bosses, but could be better. I think more openings to attack would have helped. But that’s about it in terms of gripes I have with the game. Everything else is great. Of course the true hero is the level design. People have talked about it to death, but they are among the best levels ever created. Each world tells a story through the levels, and within each level another story of its own. Each level evokes, introducing one idea, then another, then mixing them. You never feel like you’re retreading old ground. And every level is memorable. Often times in a platformer somebody could show you a couple seconds of a level and you might not be able to figure out what it is. But every level here is so defined. So many new ideas. Crumbling levels, giant tornados, underwater chases, zip lines, it has it all. And the lovely silhouette levels return, this time better than before. I could nitpick every single little detail that makes this game phenomenal, but we’d be sitting here all day. It really is that good. But the last thing I really do need to highlight is that music. David Wise is back, and his music better than ever. Many songs from past games are remixed in new and wondrous ways. And the new songs stand out, most of them total earworms. The songs also change and evolve like the levels themselves. I’m used to platformers having maybe one or two songs per world. But Tropical Freeze not only rarely reuses any songs, but most songs change as you progress through the level. The amount of effort put into the soundtrack is miraculous. This has got to be one of the best soundtracks of all time, and I’ll even listen to it outside of the game. I’ve always thought that even if there are other platformers out there as good as Mario, none of them could really appeal to me on quite the same level. Even with the first few DK games it kinda felt that way. But I’m glad to have a platformer that not only did I enjoy it, but I did to such a degree I would consider Tropcial Freeze one of my favorite games of all time. Please play this game.