Donkey Kong Country Returns

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Donkey Kong Country Returns
Donkeykongcountryreturns.jpg
North American box art
Developer(s) Retro Studios
Nintendo
Monster Games (3DS)[1]
Publisher(s) Nintendo
Director(s) Bryan Walker
Producer(s) Kensuke Tanabe
Composer(s) Kenji Yamamoto
Minako Hamano
Masaru Tajima
Shinji Ushiroda
Daisuke Matsuoka
Series Donkey Kong
Platform(s) Wii, Nintendo 3DS
Release date(s) Wii
  • NA November 21, 2010
  • AUS December 2, 2010
  • EU December 3, 2010
  • JP December 9, 2010
Nintendo 3DS
  • JP June 13, 2013
  • NA May 24, 2013
  • EU May 24, 2013
  • AUS May 25, 2013
Genre(s) Platforming
Mode(s) Single-player, multiplayer

Donkey Kong Country Returns, known as Donkey Kong Returns (ドンキーコング リターンズ Donkī Kongu Ritānzu?) in Japan, is a side-scrolling platform game developed by Retro Studios and released by Nintendo for the Wii console in North America on November 21, 2010, then in Australia, Europe and Japan in December 2010.[2][3][4][5] It is the series' first traditional home console installment since Donkey Kong Jungle Beat (2005), and also the first Donkey Kong Country entry not to involve British video game developer Rare during its development.[2]

The game's story focuses on a group of evil creatures called Tikis known as the Tiki Tak Tribe that arrive on Donkey Kong Island,[6] and hypnotize the island's animals to steal Donkey Kong's bananas. This forces him to retrieve the hoard with the help of his friend Diddy Kong.[7] The game received generally positive reviews, receiving an average score of 87% on GameRankings and Metacritic, and selling 4.96 million copies worldwide by the end of March 2011.[8]

On February 14, 2013 Nintendo announced that a 3D port titled Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D was in development for the Nintendo 3DS, and was released in Europe and North America on May 24, 2013.[9]

Contents

Gameplay [edit]

Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong riding a barrel. Returns combines 2D gameplay with 3D graphics such as the character models and this train in the foreground.

Players take control of the series's protagonist Donkey Kong, as well as his friend Diddy Kong in certain situations,[2] with many traditional elements of the Donkey Kong Country series returning, including mine cart levels, the ability to swing between vines and collect bananas, and the golden "KONG" puzzle pieces.[10] New gameplay elements include levels in which the characters and foreground environments appear as silhouettes, spawning several new gameplay mechanics.[11] In single-player mode, players can only play as Donkey Kong, although Diddy Kong rides on Donkey Kong's back, and Donkey Kong can use Diddy's jetpack to jump further. Multiplayer mode enables a second player to control Diddy Kong.[11] If a player's character dies in two-player mode, it can be brought back by using the other character to hit a "DK Barrel" that floats into view, a mechanic similar to the one used in New Super Mario Bros. Wii. To avoid problems arising from differences in the players' skills, Diddy can hop on Donkey's back to take on a more passive role, while his jetpack can be used to make his partner's jumps easier.[11] Both Donkey and Diddy can pound the ground to defeat enemies and unveil secret items.[11]

The game has two control schemes, with the standard system using the Wii Remote in conjunction with the Nunchuk, while a more classical approach requires that the Wii Remote be held sideways. Both methods use motion controls for the "Ground Pound" move.[2] In addition to common series elements like secrets and unlockables, there is also an optional time attack mode.[11] Two animal buddies, Rambi and Squawks, appear and assist Donkey Kong at certain points in the game.[12] The game also utilises the "Super Guide" feature that previously appeared in New Super Mario Bros. Wii and Super Mario Galaxy 2. If the player loses eight lives in a single level, they are given the option to allow a white-colored Donkey Kong named Super Kong to take over and complete the level for them. However, Super Kong will not look for collectible items, nor will he show the player where they are. He also keeps anything he happens to collect, so the player is not rewarded for these items.[13]

After beating Tiki Tong, an additional stage called "The Golden Temple" is unlocked. In order to play the stage, the player has to find objects called "Rare orbs" hidden in each worlds' temple. Upon competing the Golden Temple, a new mode is unlocked known as the Mirror Mode. In this mode, the stages are flipped, Donkey Kong only has one unit of health, he cannot use items bought from Cranky Kong, and he cannot get any help from Diddy Kong.

Plot [edit]

The game's story revolves around creatures known as Tikis, which are new to the series. The different types of Tikis fill the role of the antagonists in the story, replacing the Kremlings from Donkey Kong Country.[2][11] Cranky Kong, who owns shops throughout the island, is the only Kong family member that appears in addition to Donkey and Diddy.[6] The story begins when a group of evil Tikis known as the Tiki Tak Tribe arrive on Donkey Kong Island after being awaken by a volcanic explosion,[6] and plays music to hypnotize the animals on the island to steal Donkey Kong's bananas. Since Donkey Kong is resistant to the Tiki's music, he works with Diddy Kong to retrieve his hoard of bananas from the Tikis.[7] Throughout the game, the pair travels through eight worlds to recover their stolen bananas: the Jungle, the Beach, the Ruins, the Cave, the Forest, the Cliff, the Factory, and the Volcano.[14] In each world, they must defeat a Tiki Tak Tribe leader: Kalimba, the Maraca Triplets, Gong, Banjo, Panflute, Xylophone, Accordion, and Tiki Tong—the Tiki Tak Tribe's king.

Development [edit]

Kensuke Tanabe, seen here at the Game Developers Conference in 2011, was the producer for Returns. He also produced all three titles in the Metroid Prime series.

Development on Donkey Kong Country Returns started in April 2008, soon after key personnel of Retro Studios had left the company.[2][15] At that time, Shigeru Miyamoto wanted to create a new Donkey Kong game and, at his request, producer Kensuke Tanabe recommended Michael Kelbaugh, the CEO of Retro Studios, who had previously worked on the Donkey Kong Country series while he was employed at Nintendo of America.[2][15] Satoru Iwata frequently referred to this turn of events as "fate" in his meetings with Retro Studios, which is why Kelbaugh suggested the homophonous project codename F8 for the game.[2][15]

Similar to New Super Mario Bros., the game was developed with the intention to invoke nostalgic feelings in players with its art style and sound, while trying to provide them with new gameplay experiences.[15] Retro tried to make the game "accesible to all players", but with a "kind of difficulty that made players want to try it again".[16] The game employs fully polygonal 3D graphics with levels containing three times the amount of textures and polygons that Retro's Metroid Prime 3: Corruption offered in a single room.[2] Though Miyamoto initially opposed the idea, simultaneous two-player gameplay was eventually implemented, contrary to the tag-team system of the original series.[7][15] Tanabe said a partial inspiration for the feature was to make Returns "stand out" compared to the New Play Control! re-release of Donkey Kong Jungle Beat.[15] Over the course of six months, two-thirds of the game's tools and engine had to be rewritten by the programmers, the animation and collision systems being subject to the most changes,[2] and while experiments were conducted with underwater levels, they were ultimately omitted as they felt too slow and unfitting to the overall gameplay.[17] Two levels in the game, "Tidal Terror" and "Mangoruby Run", proved to be the most difficult levels to design and program, each requiring several months of development time.[16][18] In Returns, Retro tried to use the same camera engine used for the Morph Ball in Metroid Prime, but found it unable to handle the quick and complex movements of the characters, particularly after the implementation of two-player gameplay.[19]

Development accelerated in early 2010, and the project was "beginning to cohere as a game" around the time of E3.[16] Donkey Kong Country Returns was officially announced at Nintendo's press conference held on June 15, with four playable levels available on the show floor. Although the game was set for release later that year, the team still had 70 levels to create or refine.[18] Around the end of development, Tanabe had lower back pain and needed to take a week off. During that time, assistant producer Risa Tabata took over his duties, and Tanabe decided to keep her in charge for the rest of production.[16] The music, which was inspired by David Wise and Eveline Fischer's score for the Super NES games in the series,[2] was written by Kenji Yamamoto, who had worked on the Prime trilogy. Yamamoto wrote songs to fit the mood of certain levels, and some songs were rewritten if their matching levels were heavily redesigned.[16] Takashi Nagasako voiced both Donkey Kong and Cranky Kong, while Katsumi Suzuki voiced Diddy Kong.

On February 14, 2013, Nintendo announced in its Nintendo Direct conference that a port for the Nintendo 3DS, titled Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D, was in development and was released on May 24, 2013. The port was developed from the ground up and features stereoscopic 3D graphics.[20] Development efforts of the Nintendo 3DS re-release is courtesy of Monster Games.[21] The 3DS version includes two modes, "Original Mode" which plays the same as the original Wii version, and "New Mode" which introduces a handful of new items to make the game easier, including extra health. The 3DS version also contains an extra world with new levels not present in the original Wii version.[22]

Reception [edit]

 Donkey Kong Country Returns
Aggregate scores
Aggregator Score
GameRankings 87.79%[23]
Metacritic 87[24]
Review scores
Publication Score
Game Informer 9.5/10[25]
GamesRadar 8/10[26]
GameTrailers 9.0/10[27]
IGN 9/10[28]
X-Play 4/5[29]

Donkey Kong Country Returns received generally positive reviews. It has an aggregated score of 87% on both GameRankings and Metacritic.[23][24] For its awards for games released in 2010, IGN gave Returns awards for "Best Retro Design" and "Most Challenging",[30][31] then selected the game as the 5th best on the console.[32] Game Informer named it Game of the Month for December 2010, with reviewer Dan Ryckert hailing it as "one of the best platformers [they'd] ever played".[25] The publication later picked it as the "Best Platformer" and "Best Wii Exclusive" of 2010.[33]

IGN's Craig Harris awarded the game an Editor's Choice award, stating, "This is an incredibly challenging, old-school throwback that might not set the genre afire with innovation, but in my book, it's better than the awesome game that inspired it. [...] Rare should be proud that its design is in the right hands. Or just insanely jealous. Either works."[28] Video game talk show Good Game's two presenters gave the game a 9 and 8.5 out of 10, praising how true the music kept to the style of the original tracks, and that it managed to keep from becoming too complex while still avoiding being over-simplified, saying "If you're a fan of the old Donkeys, or you just want a great platforming experience, this is worth at least as much as Kong's golden banana hoard."[34] X-Play praised the similarity of Returns to previous games in the series, the game's replay value, and its graphics, but the review criticized the motion controls "that force you to react quickly at bad times, a button press would suffice" and the co-op game play, saying, "If your partner has a penchant for dying, look forward to some short games as he or she will most likely drain the number of lives you both share."[29] GamesRadar complimented the title for its standout levels and fan service, while criticizing it for levels that are "frustrating, unclear and often misleading way that is unlike any prior Donkey Kong adventure", and motion controls that make them "question the controls in a platformer".[26] GameTrailers praised the game's gameplay and the diversity of the levels,[27] while Giant Bomb claimed, "Retro recaptures most of Donkey Kong's venerated platforming roots in this fine Wii sequel."[35]

The game debuted third on the Japanese video game charts, with 163,310 units sold,[36] and it has sold 638,305 copies in Japan as of January 2, 2011.[37] In North America, the game debuted at sixth place on the charts,[38] with 430,470 units sold.[39] By the end of March 2011, the game had sold 4.96 million copies worldwide.[8]

References [edit]

  1. ^ http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/33513
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Craig Harris (17 June 2010). "E3 2010: Kensuke Tanabe and the Metroid Palm Tree". IGN. IGN. Retrieved 18 June 2010. 
  3. ^ "Nintendo Refreshes the Dog Days of Summer with Upcoming Cool Games". What's New. Nintendo. 17 August 2010. Retrieved 18 September 2010. 
  4. ^ Matt Wales (29 September 2010). "Donkey Kong Country Returns Gets UK Date". IGN. IGN. Retrieved 29 September 2010. 
  5. ^ "ドンキーコング リターンズ". Nintendo. Retrieved 10 November 2010. 
  6. ^ a b c Chris Slate. "The Boys are Back!". Nintendo Power (Future Publishing Limited) (December 2010): 48–56. 
  7. ^ a b c "Donkey Kong Country Returns". Nintendo E3 Network. Nintendo. 15 June 2010. Retrieved 2012-02-10. [dead link]
  8. ^ a b "Supplementary Information about Earnings Release" (PDF). Nintendo. 2011-04-26. p. 10. Retrieved 2011-04-26. 
  9. ^ "Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D announced for 3DS". Retrieved 14 February 2013. 
  10. ^ Simon Bramble (15 June 2010). "Donkey Kong Country Returns revealed". Official Nintendo Magazine. Future plc. Retrieved 15 June 2010. 
  11. ^ a b c d e f "E3 2010: Reviving DKC Interview". GameTrailers. MTV Networks. 18 June 2010. Retrieved 18 June 2010. 
  12. ^ Craig Harris (22 September 2010). "Monkeying Around in Donkey Kong Country Returns". IGN. IGN. Retrieved 22 September 2010. 
  13. ^ Kristine Steimer (8 November 2010). "Donkey Kong Country Returns: Diddy's Day Out". IGN. IGN. Retrieved 8 November 2010. 
  14. ^ Troup, Christina (2010-11-19). "Donkey Kong Country Returns Review". 1UP. Retrieved 2012-02-12. 
  15. ^ a b c d e f "Iwata Asks: DKCR". Nintendo E3 Network. Nintendo. 16 June 2010. Archived from the original on 20 June 2010. Retrieved 16 June 2010. 
  16. ^ a b c d e "Iwata Asks: Donkey Kong Country Returns". Nintendo. 2010. Retrieved 2012-02-10. 
  17. ^ "Their Orders Are To 'Make A Better Donkey Kong Country'". Kotaku. Gawker Media. 25 June 2010. Retrieved 28 June 2010. 
  18. ^ a b Claiborn, Samuel (3 March 2011). "GDC: 10 Things You Didn't Know About Donkey Kong Country Returns and Retro Studios". IGN. Retrieved 2012-02-10. 
  19. ^ Fletcher, JC (2011-03-04). "Retro reflects on Donkey Kong Country Returns, denies sequel plans". Joystiq. Retrieved 2011-08-23. 
  20. ^ http://kotaku.com/5984221/donkey-kong-returns-isreturning-and-heading-to-the-3ds
  21. ^ McFerran, Damien (2013-03-07). "Nintendo Outsourcing Development Of Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D". Nintendo Life. Retrieved 2013-03-08. 
  22. ^ "Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D adds more than 3D to the barrel". vooks.net. 2013-04-17. Retrieved 2013-04-18. 
  23. ^ a b "Donkey Kong Country Returns". GameRankings. Retrieved November 21, 2010. 
  24. ^ a b "Donkey Kong Country Returns". Metacritic. Retrieved November 21, 2010. 
  25. ^ a b CVG Staff (2010-11-13). "Donkey Kong Country Returns review". Game Informer. Retrieved 2012-02-10. 
  26. ^ a b Elston, Brett (2010-11-19). "Donkey Kong Country Returns review". GamesRadar. Retrieved 2012-02-10. 
  27. ^ a b "Donkey Kong Country Returns". GameTrailers. 2010-11-19. Retrieved 2012-02-10. 
  28. ^ a b Harris, Craig (2010-11-19). "Donkey Kong Country Returns Review". IGN. Retrieved 2012-02-10. 
  29. ^ a b ""Donkey Kong Country Returns" Review". X-Play. 2010-12-08. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYzEYxjmUvk. Retrieved 2012-02-10.
  30. ^ "Best Retro Design". IGN. Retrieved 2012-02-10. 
  31. ^ "Most Challenging". IGN. Retrieved 2012-02-10. 
  32. ^ "The Top 25 Wii Games". IGN. Retrieved 2012-07-26. 
  33. ^ Donkey Kong Country Returns. Game Informer. February 2011. pp. 40–41. 
  34. ^ Bendixsen, O'Donnell (29 November 2010). "Donkey Kong Country Returns Review". Season 5. Episode 42. ABC Television.
  35. ^ Shoemaker, Brad (2010-11-19). "Donkey Kong Country Returns Reviews". Giant Bomb. Retrieved 2012-02-10. 
  36. ^ Sinclair, Brendan (2010-12-17). "Big in Japan December 6–12: Monster Hunter Portable 3". GameSpot. Retrieved 2012-02-10. 
  37. ^ Ishaan (January 6, 2011). "This Week In Sales: Coming Out Of The Holidays". Siliconera. Retrieved 2011-01-10. 
  38. ^ Fletcher, JC (2010-12-09). "November NPD: Best month ever for retail, Xbox". Joystiq. Retrieved 2010-12-25. 
  39. ^ Invisible Walls, Episode 139. GameTrailers. 2010-12-24. Event occurs at 15:22. Retrieved 2010-01-10. 

External links [edit]
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