In a nutshell, I think DKCR pales in comparison to any 2D Mario. I also
didn’t really like the original DKC (they were decent), but for completely
different reasons.

The thing about Donkey Kong Country Returns is that it is severely
scripted. If I may use the phrase, emergent gameplay is very limited. For
example: there is a level in World 8 where you need to stand on a rock
while it floats up in lava beneath you. As you go up, the rock sinks and
in very specific times, other rocks fall out of the wall and become
platforms.

There are two problems with this sequence (besides the fact it’s an
elevator section and I hate elevator sections).

1. It is very long. If you die ANYWHERE, and are forced to repeat it, I
assure you by the second time you’ll be well ahead of the animations and
you will be waiting a couple of seconds after every 2 jumps, because you
already know where and when they’ll appear.

2. It’s not hard at all, but there are times where you will die simply
because you didn’t know where the platform was gonna be. It’s the cheap
kind of difficulty.

Again, this is an example for most of the game: The levels change a lot
and platforms appear/disappear after you hit a certain section. Everything
is scripted and the levels lose their appeal after the first playthrough.
It’s very similar to Mario Galaxy in this area and it’s why the internet
love this game and hail it as the second coming.

That is the biggest problem, but there are other problems too, such as:

– You’re required to gather all of the KONG letters in every level in
order to get to the “best” secret levels. It’s even worse than Mario 5
because there are 4 letters instead of 3 star coins.

– The bosses suffer a very similar problem to the levels, they’re scripted
up the arse and completely the same in every attempt. I will list the 6th
boss’s actions right now:

First, he charges at you. Then, he charges at you faster and hits the wall
which confuses him. Then, he jumps at you, and repeats the cycle. In the
second phase, the cycle is the same, except he shoots fire first then does
the other things. It’s extremely annoying. Again, similar to Galaxy.

– The controls are not optimal. This is a serious, fundamental problem.

– The enemies are fodder, and similarly to Galaxy, they are either there
for no reason (and extremely easy to kill or skip), or they are there for
you to jump on to get an item.

– Lastly, the music is not nearly as good as the original DKC trilogy.

That concludes my impressions. The internet will love this game and call
it GOTY or whatever, but I think Retro screwed up royally. Sorry for the
long email and I hope you enjoy the game if you buy it.

P.S. the multiplayer is not as fun as the single player, which is quite an
incredible feat in itself. I have no clue how they did it, but I prefer to
play it by myself… yet I still love Mario 5’s multiplayer way more than
single player. I wonder what went wrong there. It’s a shame, because maybe
I would’ve liked the game better in multiplayer.

I haven’t played the game so I cannot confirm or deny any of the above.

But I do not have to play the game to know that I am disappointed by several design decisions. First among these is not allowing controller options. Does Nintendo not realize how uncomfortable the Wii controller turned sideways is? It is more uncomfortable than the NES controller! We only use the controller that way because it is easy to play a quick NES or Turbographx-16 Virtual Console game. Games being able to allow different controllers and even different buttons is a function that is over twenty years old. The only reason why it wasn’t done is intentional. I blame NCL for it.

Being unable to switch to Diddy Kong from Donkey Kong in single player is a major oversight. Part of the appeal of the original DKC games was being able to play the character you wish. Heck, it was the appeal of SMB 2 USA as well. Again, the only reason why this wasn’t done had to have been intentional.

I, too, have noticed the same people who thought the Galaxy games were the bee’s knees are also excited about DKCR. I figured this is because these people respond favorably to superfluous graphics. Until this email, I didn’t suspect it was about the ‘scripted experiences’.

DKCR was made before the success of Mario 5. All the home console 2d platformers out there prior to Mario 5 have failed because they adopted the same pernicious doctrines that have infected the mainstay of 3d games. And these include scripted experiences, collect-a-thons, and lack of emergent gameplay.

Mario 5 was clearly made emulating NSMB DS, SMB3, and SMW which is why it did many things right (even though Nintendo probably isn’t sure what exactly). The multiplayer itself is a source of much emergent gameplay (Luigi can suddenly kick Toad instead of help him).

I have seen all the 2d platformers that have come out since the main Mario games (since they are pretty few). They all share the sins with their 3d counterparts. If DKCR doesn’t do the job it is supposed to do, Nintendo is going to be faced with the stark reality that the issue is beyond 2d versus 3d games, beyond mere ‘accessibility’. I actually think they do see this issue but are in intense denial about it.

Consider Zelda for a moment. What does every Zelda fan say they wish to have? They want a Zelda where you just start out in the middle of nowhere with a sword and that is it. At that point, the player can go anywhere and is in charge of his destiny and adventure. This was how Zelda came into the world. Instead, we get scripts, horrible story, atrocious NPCs, a joke for an overworld, and a linear chain of ‘puzzle dungeons’. Aonuma knows what we want, but he will not give it to us because such a game would require actual ‘work’, painful work, to construct. It would not allow developers to do ‘fun stuff’ like write bad dialogue for stupid NPC characters.

A fun development experience often translates to a poor consumer experience. But since games now take YEARS to make, no one wants to invest years of their life not having fun. So like a virus, all games seem to be made designed around having the developer to have ‘fun times’ such as stories and scripts. The only solution I know of this problem is to rein back the development gestation time back to pre-3d Revolution levels.

It didn’t take two years to make Donkey Kong Country. Why on Earth did it take two years to make Donkey Kong Country Returns?