Donkey Kong Country Returns Review

The Nintendo Wii was the first video game console I ever owned; my parents gifted it to me for Christmas in 2010. For a long time, the only three games I owned were Mario Kart Wii, Super Mario Galaxy, and Super Paper Mario. I got a lot of mileage out of those three games and I love them to death. Nevertheless, every Walmart trip I would find myself back in the Nintendo section, trying out the available demos and scoping out what my next game would be. I always remember one particular game standing out in the demos: Donkey Kong Country Returns. Specifically, I would replay the one level with a giant tidal wave crashing into the foreground and the octopus wreaking havoc everywhere. That level became imprinted in my mind, and I knew I had to play the rest of the game. Unfortunately, I never ended up getting the game, and so DKC Returns would remain an unrequited desire.

Fast forward almost 15 years and I still never had the opportunity to play the game. As new consoles and games came out, DKC Returns fell lower and lower down my list of games to play, especially once I played Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze. With the announcement of the remaster of Donkey Kong Country Returns a few months ago, I decided it was finally my time to play the game myself. Rather than spending $60 on a glorified remaster, I decided to purchase the original game from somebody online for $20. That $40 difference was well worth the slightly worse graphics and missing a few levels from the 3DS game.

Like most platformers, DKCR’s story is simple: the Tiki Tak Tribe has taken over Donkey Kong Island so Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong must venture throughout the island to stop the Tiki minions and reclaim their land and bananas. I love the Tiki Tak villains in this game. They all have cool designs – created to mimic musical instruments – and I was always excited to hear their melodies before each boss fight. All the worlds are straight-forward; forest, beach, jungle, and volcano, to name a few. The Factory creating more Tiki minions and the Cliff with all of its dinosaur fossils were stand-outs for me. Although the game plays it safe with world ideas, DKCR separates itself from other platformers in how it brings each level within the worlds to life. This game is packed with so many fun ideas to keep the world engaging and exciting to play through. The player finds themselves in plenty of interesting situations, from infiltrating an enemy ship to trying to escape from a crumbling temple. DKCR uses the background in clever ways as well, such as sending the player further back to platforms in the distance, or having rocks rolling into the foreground for the player to dodge. “Floating” platforms are rare in this game as almost every platform is a part of the level’s scenery. Rather than random floating blocks, you’re jumping on tree canopies or hopping from one cooled lava section to the next. It does a great job of investing the player in the world. David Wise and team once again hit a home run with the soundtrack once again. Each song perfectly captures the atmosphere and vibe of the levels, from the serene Aquatic Ambience to the adrenaline-pumping Gear Getaway theme.

Every level has its own unique mechanic and theme so it never feels like you’re just replaying the same level over and over again. The game also mixes the platforming levels with mine carts, rocket barrel, and Rambi levels so you’re not just jumping left and right the entire time. Riding Rambi is satisfying since you can aimlessly ram through enemies and obstacles without concern, and I get an adrenaline rush during the mine cart levels as I carefully hop from cart to cart nonstop. The rocket barrel levels are some of my favorites in the entire game. You need to weave through flying obstacles while the level transforms around you; they’re truly a spectacle to fly through and witness. Not every level’s mechanic is a winner, some of them can be boring to traverse through. Regardless, a majority of the levels are all winners.

I played the entire game using just a standard wii remote. The wii remote definitely feels a bit dated. My hands would get cramped after playing for a while, and I had some trouble with inputs trying to click a button and shake the remote at the same time. Sometimes I would roll when I actually wanted to blow a candle out. Running, jumping, and rolling around as Donkey Kong feels great, and having Diddy Kong to give me a couple seconds of extra air time was a blessing. One pet peeve I had is that some of the levels felt especially difficult without Diddy Kong. The first temple level, for example, took me dozens of tries just with Donkey Kong, but then I went back and did it with Diddy Kong and it became significantly easier. It serves as a good challenge if people are looking for one, but I wish there was a better way of getting Diddy Kong without having to enter another random level to retrieve him. The items in Cranky Kong’s shop are really useful; the banana juice is especially strong during boss battles. Since I spent so many tries trying to beat the first temple level, I had more than enough banana coins for the rest of the game.

The bosses are hit or miss in this game. While they are all interesting in concept, some of them aren’t as fun to fight. The crab trio is pretty simple and they have odd hitboxes. The Mole Miner is also a cool boss in theory, but it has a very small margin for error making it more frustrating. The final boss is especially annoying since you usually have Diddy Kong for boss battles, but if you die and respawn you have no way of getting Diddy Kong back. If you want to get him back for the final boss, you must leave the level and restart from the rocket entrance section and then return to the boss. I ended up just fighting the boss with two hearts and no Diddy Kong since I didn’t want to have to redo the entire rocket part beforehand. It made the boss a lot more difficult, but I managed to beat it eventually. I enjoyed hunting the KONG collectables in every level, especially since I was incentivized to unlock the temples in each world. The temples were fun, tough challenges at the end of every world, and the final level was a satisfying end to the temples. I didn’t go out of my way to get every single puzzle piece, but they’re a good excuse to return to levels in the future.

Donkey Kong Country Returns was the foundation for bringing the Donkey Kong Country series to the modern age of gaming, similar to New Super Mario Bros for the Super Mario Bros series. It takes what made the previous games great and evolves it with a bunch of thrilling ideas. The game can be unnecessarily difficult, especially when there’s no option to use Diddy Kong in many levels. In a post-Tropical Freeze world, it’s hard to recommend this game when Tropical Freeze does everything better. Regardless, I had a good time playing through the game and making my childhood dreams come true.

Jose Folgar 3/16/2025