GameLog Page

Please sign in or sign up!

...blogs for gamers

Find a GameLog

... by game	... by platform

[ advanced search ]

HOME	GAMES	LOGS	MEMBERS			ABOUT	HELP

dkirschner's Donkey Kong Country Returns (Wii)

[February 24, 2019 11:40:39 PM]

Done and done. Plowed straight through, using shortcuts and eventually not worrying about collecting optional puzzle pieces or KONG letters. Silly and fun game that reminded me of being a kid again playing old SNES Donkey Kong and other old platformers.

Donkey Kong's and Diddy Kong's (both playable characters) island has been overrun by some sentient tiki instruments, who have enslaved local fauna to do their bidding, which seems to be collecting the island's bananas, much to the chagrin of our DK heroes. Platform your way through 8 zones, defeating a boss at each one, until you beat the tiki king.

Donkey Kong can perform a handful of actions -- pounding, blowing, jumping, grabbing. Pounding is the most frequently used, and is fun because you shake the Wiimote up and down (like you're beating a drum). Pound to break things. Blow to blow things (pinwheels, dandelions, stun some enemies). Jump to platform and bonk enemies on the head. Grab to do some climbing and throw barrels. If you have Diddy Kong, who rides on Donkey Kong's shoulders, you get two additional hearts and can briefly glide after you jump. The game is significantly easier if you also have Diddy Kong, but you've got to find him in barrels and not let him die to keep him around. I recall one boss fight on a mine cart where you have to play whack-a-mole. Being able to glide lets you be much more precise about which mole to stomp on. That was one of my favorites.

The zones are fairly distinct with some unique enemies and platforming elements, especially as you get farther in the game. There is a mine (with some mine cart levels), a jungle, a factory (this was hardest), a volcano (with lots of fireballs to dodge), some cliffs, a pirate themed zone, and more. I especially enjoyed the perspective shifts when you'd get in a barrel and shoot into the background of a level, then shoot back to the foreground. A lot of the "set piece" type platforming sections were among my favorite.

Overall, the game was not difficult, although there were a couple difficulty spikes. The last boss probably took me 40 tries, but with Donkey Kong, what was once difficult becomes simple. I recall the level 5 boss, this poisonous snake-like creature that follows you around the level, which is comprised of four or five large wheels covered in grass that you can hang on. You have to climb around the moving wheels and pound a particular spot on each. This is when I learned that you can pound while hanging. I didn't realize this for a while, and spent half an hour trying to only pound the designated spot when I was on top of it. I wound up being perplexed at how I could do it in time, and decided to try pounding while hanging, which worked! I think I beat it after a few tries next.

There's plenty more to do in the game, such as playing co-op, doing speedruns, getting all the hidden puzzle pieces and tricky to grab KONG letters in each level, and unlocking something called the Golden Temple, which I've no idea how to do. But I'm satisfied just going through the silly story and moving on to the next thing. Good clean fun.