Me and my friend played this co op and it was one of the most fun platformers I've ever played. I just love Donkey kong and even though it's a difficult franchise and all I still love it. This was the first one I've played to completion though and everything is just so beautiful. Donkey really wants to showcase the beautiful Serenity of nature and the music compliments it so well. As much as we struggled, I don't remember Raging at this game too much but I love this game. It's just a game where me and my friend could shoot the breeze over.

IT'S A GAME ABOUT MONKEYS.

IT DOESN'T HAVE TO GO THIS HARD.

Level design, soundtrack, physics. I love Donkey Kong but I especially love this game for getting me into the series in the first place on the Wii U and I'm glad I got to actually pull the trigger on the purchase of the port and replay it.

I will admit though that I'm a fraud and did not play Funky Mode but I still had a phenomenal time. The bosses (except Volcano Dome) were all just fun to play as opposed to making me want to shrimp myself like DKC Returns.

As far as I know, this was the very first video game I ever felt excited for. I remember during a trip I took with my family to NYC we stopped at the Nintendo store and I vividly remember saying "I can't wait for this game to come out" to my mom. It's odd, really, I had never even played a Donkey Kong game before and didn't even know what it was about but I was excited for it? I don't know I was like 10 and I barely even played video games much at that age. Regardless, my mom bought the game for me when it came out and you just know I was so amped to play it. I think I beat the first level and then put it down for roughly half a decade.

This habit sucks, by the way, I have a tendency to not abandon games entirely but rather finish them long after I made the purchase. I rarely finish games I buy close to when I bought them. Anyway, jump to I think May of 2018 when they released the overpriced port of this game and I was at a Gamestop when I happened to see it. I remember having a weird connection to this game, it was one of those games where I stopped playing early on but I always felt the urge to come back to some day. Which doesn't make sense because if you want to play the game then just play it right? Yeah so I bought the game again with me now having spent 110 dollars on this 15 hour platformer determined that I would beat it this time. And I beat the first world and like one level of world 2 and stopped yet again. I'd put it down this time for 3 years which now makes me in possession of a game I'm more than willing to play for 7 years. I still don't understand.

One night in 2021 I was laying in bed scrolling on my phone like I usually do and I stumbled upon a video of the game. To be more specific, it was a video of Busted Bayou, one of the three silhouette levels in the game and it just... filled me with nostalgia? I've sunk at this point, MAYBE 2 hours into the game in total from years ago and I'm nostalgic for it? I did some more digging and I ended up listening to a bit of the soundtrack for it. Somehow from years back I recognized Windmill Hills, the song for the first level of world 2, the farthest I ever got. To say this song amplified my nostalgia I was already feeling would be an understatement. I planned to start the game when I woke up the next morning.

And so I did. In the morning, I started a new file of the game for the third time. It felt different, I've never felt a hankering to play this game as much as I did today. I played through the first world and put the game down. This time for just a few hours though. I had a pool party at my friend's house today. I'll spare the details and just say I got the worst sunburn of my fucking life and soon would start to really feel it. Anyway, I got back home and holy shit I felt like continuing the game. It's a miracle. I played through world 2 and my god it clicked. Felt like that one Danny Devito gif. It was the first rocket barrel level I had just beaten and I sent a message to my friends saying "God dude this game fuckin rocks."

I keep breezing through the game all the while I'm in the worst pain of my life because my entire upper back and shoulders are covered in burns, I swear to god it was the only thing keeping me sane during that time. I think I played exactly two worlds per day for 3 days and the pain just got worse. Then when the pain settled a bit it started to itch and my lord I wanted to off myself. Anybody who's gotten a bad sunburn will know. Anyway, on the third day of playing this game I finished it. All levels with all puzzle pieces and KONG letters including World 7. I knew something right away. This was my favorite 2D platformer of all time and later would become my favorite platformer in general. What could initially be chalked up to recency bias remained as my opinion of the game only grew the more I played it. The seven year wait was worth it. It's like I always knew I'd love this game but I just had to let it sit.

Story time over. With my favorite games, it usually takes more than just a fun game to completely win me over. Completely out of the game's control obviously but it's the memories of what I was doing during that time that really solidify its place among my favorites. At the moment, I was miserable and almost ironically so. Suffering from a sunburn while playing a game all about taking your home back from the arctic? Yeah real funny God I'm laughing so hard. But reminiscing on my experience, it really brought out the best of the game. It's supposed to make you feel good and it succeeded.

But I'm not a game designer. I'm not gonna dissect each level to see what really makes them expertly crafted because that's not my thing. The game's just really damn fun man. I know it's a bit overstated but the platforms being organically woven into the scenery? It's things like that which make me feel like I'm playing a game that had care poured into it. The world makes sense in a video-game, over-the-top fantasy kind of way, you know? And as I mentioned previously, the music in most of these levels? If this ain't one of the greatest video game soundtracks of all time then I don't know what is honestly. In a game with like 60 something levels, to say that probably half of these songs have been stuck in my head at some point or another speaks volumes to me. The game's not very difficult to me anymore so it's one of those games I can really just relax to. Trust me, it doesn't take a lot for a video game to catch my attention. I just want them to be fun, plain and simple. I'm not gonna be like "See, games don't need a crazy deep story or thought-provoking characters to be good! Thanks Nintendo!" or anything like that because those things are always welcome. But it's a game about a dumb gorilla and his family against a barrage of penguins. The game really just needed to be fun to be good. But it's underselling it to just say it's fun and has great music because a lot of games fit that description. It accomplishes something that not many games can do. It makes me truly happy to play.

So I wasn't absolutely in love with the wiiU version. And the switch port featuring Funky Kong doesn't change a lot...And the meme/critique of them functionally charging $60 for Funky Kong is absolutely valid...But I got a lot more into this release than the original.

While I still feel like it's a disappointing follow-up to the original trilogy I actually really enjoy speedrunning this one. Specifically with Funky mode added in the Switch port. His movement is a lot of fun and the tropical settings with jazzy music kind of fit better when you're just air surfing all over the place as Funky. I'm just able to get into the vibe the game's going for a lot more with the inherently charismatic Funky Kong. And the levels are fun to learn. The improved load times over the WiiU also help keep the flow going much better. Also it's a lot more complicated but Cranky's speedrun capabilities are also a lot of fun. The speedrun just flows so beautifully.

To me this game is best played speedrunning, and the Switch Port is the best version to speedrun. Very standard New Super Mario Bros style sequel otherwise though. It's a testiment to how good this game is that despite all my objections it's still a consistently enjoyable game, regardless of which version you're playing. I definitely recommend it to someone looking for a competent 2D platformer that's a bit more modern, there's a good chance you'll have a great time with it regardless of if you're speedrunning or not. Though I will say Funky IS meant to kind of be the easy mode, not sure if he'd be as fun to play if I wasn't going for speed, just to put that out there.

To me Tropical Freeze is Funky Kong's own dedicated game and I have a lot more appreciation for it from that point of view.

They improved on DKCR in every way. This is the best DKC game since DKC 2!

The level design is better, the music is amazing, more Kongs are back and the bosses are better and don't drag on as much as in DKCR.

Game is still hard while fixing up some of the gimmicks that didn't work as well in DKCR (thank you retro for letting us take more than one hit on the rocket barrel!).

Funky mode is a fun distraction that works well for speedruns, but I lost interest in playing through it casually since it made the game too easy.

Tatsächlich hat Tropical Freeze mich, als jemand der mit Donkey Kong Country aufgewachsen ist, ein wenig enttäuscht.

Der Hauptgrund dafür ist sicherlich die Steuerung, mit der ich überhaupt nicht warm geworden bin. Die Rolle und alle Aktionen die auf eine Rolle folgen fühlen sich einfach viel zu schwammig, behäbig und unpräzise für solch einen Platformer an. Das ging tatsächlich so weit für mich, dass ich die Rolle praktisch überhaupt nicht benutzt habe in meinem ganzen Durchlauf. Das schränkt das Gameplay schon extrem ein und steht im starken Kontrast zu dem eigentlich guten Level-Design.

Tropical Freeze war schlussendlich aber kein totaler Reinfall für mich und das liegt hauptsächlich an den "besonderen" Leveln, also die Loren-Level oder die Flappybird mäßigen Fass-Level. Diese tauchen häufiger auf als im Original und bringen stets eine willkommene Abwechslung.

Höchstwahrscheinlich werde ich allerdings Tropical Freeze nicht besonders gut im Gedächtnis behalten und im Falle eines Nostalgieschubs für dieses Franchise immer zum Original greifen.

Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze is a fucking masterpiece.


This game is a work of art, a masterpiece from beginning to end, as a sequel to Returns it improves and every category, the levels are even more explosive, daring, and far more unique, the game looks fucking incredible, even better than how beautiful returns was, the soundtrack is even more peak shit, all of it was absolutely beautiful, and the controls are basically perfect.

The levels in Returns were already really good, but god damn they’ve been improved here tenfold, every level is brimming with personality and creativity, I can say this, the previous games have all had at least like a few levels that were not really that good, but there is not a single bad level in this game, not even a single mediocre one in it either, they’re all great.
There is never a moment in this game where the fun dies down, not only are level themes and general worlds improved and much more varied, even the mine cart and rocket barrel levels are really fun, the game just never loses your attention.
The controls are vastly improved here from Returns, gone is any bullshit with Wii remote controls, now you can play like a normal person and it’s great, controls are tight and precise while still carrying that same DKC weight that all these games have had.
In the switch version, there’s also Funky Kong, and he controls wonderfully, they did not need to go that hard for what is essentially an easy mode character, like he controls so well that we could easily have a whole game designed around him.

It also helps that in terms of the visuals, this is by far one of the best looking 2D platformers ever made, and in my opinion, one of the best looking games ever made, it has style, it has grace, and a good amount of the enemies have a funny face.
Every level is brought to life with just how damn good the game looks, even when levels have the same theme, they are made distinct thanks to just how good they can look.

The soundtrack man, THE SOUNDTRACK, David wise returned here and it shows, every single level has the funkiest music you can imagine, the water levels especially GOD DAMN, it adds more atmosphere to everything, just like the og trilogy.

My complaints for this game are very minimal honestly, even though I do like the variety with your kong buddies, Dixie is just the objectively best one, her little float and upward movement is much better than Diddy’s hover, Cranky is unique enough to be his own thing and I’ve seen speed runners do crazy shit with him, but I always just stuck with Dixie.
Another complaint is that, while they are better and more dynamic than they were in returns, the bosses are still just decent at best, and both games final bosses are a far cry from K. Rool and his multiple alter egos.

Those gripes though just absolutely can’t take away from how great this game is, it’s incredibly fun all the way through and not only is it easily one of Nintendo’s best games, not only is it my favorite 2D platformer, it’s also one of my personal favorite games of all time.


And so ends the DK series, you know, considering that games like Metroid and Pikmin have made a comeback on the switch, I think it’s time for Donkey Kong to make his comeback, just make K. Rool and the kremlings the main villains again, it was nice to have some new villains but I also think it’s time for them to make their return.

Game is really good but I think it lacks some sort of distraction that would help break up the constant hardcore platforming. In between levels you're just navigating the world map or buying stuff that you probably don't need at the shop. The game is all about platforming, which makes sense for a platformer, but it makes you want to put the game down for a bit just to get a break from this game's singular focus which it really doesn't let up on much. There are the minecart/rocket levels but iirc there are less of them than in DKC Returns. I don't know what the distraction is that this game needs, but it for sure needs one.

Other than the fun challenging levels, music, and general creativity, what stands out to me about this game is that the level layouts are diegetic. Meaning they all make sense in the game world. In most other games a floating platform would go unexplained, but in Tropical Freeze everything follows the logic of the world that DK inhabits. And that's pretty neat.

Very fun and challenging platformer, just remember to take breaks because there is very little downtime from the platforming.