Donkey Kong Country Returns HD Review — Banana Slamma

Donkey Kong Country Returns was originally released on the Wii back in 2010 with critical acclaim from fans and critics. About 14 and a half years later, an HD version of the classic arrives on the Switch. A modern version is added with new items and rules that make it a bit more accessible. This HD is great with its catchy soundtrack, neat story, physics and intricate level designs. It does, however, have some questionable graphical changes and a glaring issue with the mapping of the button controls.

In the 12-hour campaign, Donkey Kong, alongside Diddy Kong, has to defend their island from the adversary Tiki Tak Tribe, whose leader is Tiki Tong. Their main goal is to steal bananas for Tiki Tong, which is such a great centrepiece for the story. The story is very simple too, which is easily comprehensive for all ages. Every world has an innocent animal that is hypnotised by each of the Tiki Tak Tribe members, which fits well.

Donkey Kong Country Returns HD has great character physics that mesh well with the intricate level design. Donkey Kong feels responsive. But rolling and slamming are mapped to the same controls. This caused issues with making one unintentional move instead of the other. But, on the brighter side, the variety of skills and mechanics like Diddy Kong’s Jetpack gives a satisfying advantage for the more difficult stages. The minecart and rocket sections also have a nice flow that feels great to control.

Impressively, the level designs are very varied and packed with secrets that encourage exploration, which is quite rewarding. Each world progressively raises the difficulty and variety of platform and enemy types ideally. Using Donkey Kong’s range of abilities that can be enhanced with Diddy Kong (who can be found in DK barrels) makes the approach to platform challenges more enjoyable. This can be combined with other moves to form satisfyingly swift actions. For example, rolling and jumping, then hovering, allows you to skip platforms, avoid harm, and find secrets more easily. Most bosses are very distinctive, which is best presented by how they are defeated. One boss has you jump on its back, and another has you slam its machine to protect them. Yet, the rehashed, harder versions don’t have the same impression as the original ones.

Each typical stage contains various collectibles: Banana coins, KONG letters and puzzle pieces. They are scattered within stages, making it quite the effort to find, especially puzzle pieces. This compliments the exploration aspect mentioned beforehand. Banana coins are used to buy items at Kranky Kong’s shop. Squawks the Parrot helps you find puzzle pieces and invincibility potions that are suitable for boss fights. When all KONG letters are found in every stage, a special stage is unlocked, and an orb is awarded for the Golden Temple. Finding them is pretty hard in a positive way. Unfortunately, you can just purchase the orbs after the story, which defeats the purpose of finding the KONG letters. Puzzle pieces, however, only reward you with artwork and nothing less trivial. Time trials and mirror mode reward nothing but a 200% completion rate. Bonus banana coins would’ve made finding puzzle pieces and doing time trials more worthwhile.

There are some differences between the modern and classic modes that are quite interesting. The classic version doesn’t have the red and green balloons, crash guard potions and DK barrels available at Kranky Kong’s shop. The prices for items are also far more expensive. There is only one slot for one set of items. DK and Diddy Kong also have two hearts, not three, which ramps up the difficulty nicely. Playing the classic version is a pleasurable challenge that forces you to approach the game with different tactics.

At 1080p and 60fps, the whole experience housed no frame rate issues or glitches. The graphics are silky and smooth, especially the animations of waterfalls. They are very pleasantly mixed with the soothing sound they make. However, some changes to the lighting and saturation of some visual objects make things paler than the original Wii title.

Donkey Kong Country Returns HD also has great sound design. Particularly, the stage themes for World 1 and World 7 have the best themes that closely match their environments. Speaking of stage themes, the iconic and best theme, “DK Island Swing”, returns both as an original theme and a handful of variants in different worlds. The change of genres really personifies the different worlds.

Despite its drawbacks, from the control system to the odd changes to the graphics, traversing the island always felt like a treat in Donkey Kong Country Returns HD. Donkey Kong, alongside Diddy Kong, felt great to control, except for the bothersome button mapping. The structure of the story was fluid and never dragged for too long.