Donkey Kong Country Returns is a fantastic reboot of the DKC franchise from the SNES, but it is a bit hard to see this game as nothing more than Tropical Freeze's lesser predecessor. This game captures what made the original games so good, but differentiates itself through Donkey Kong's weighty jumps, and way more cinematic level design. Seriously, one of the first levels is one where you jump between pieces of wrecked ships while a giant octopus is destroying them. The major issue with this game is that this doesn't quite go all in on the theming and level design like Tropical Freeze does. There are incredible levels like the one I just mentioned, but there are so many others that are just unremarkable. There are of course other things I could pick on like there being only like 5 bonus rooms all of which are boring, the lack of animal buddies, or putting so many dandelions everywhere for Donkey Kong to blow on (like really? they thought making the big ape stop to blow on dandelions was a fun idea?), but I think the core issue is the level design. This game is still quite good though, it just isn't as remarkable as Tropical Freeze.

Just want to say a couple things about the 3ds version: It's good! It runs and looks pretty fantastic honestly. In fact I would say this is my preferred way to play since the game fits a handheld really well, and I don't need to waggle at all.

Bottom line though: Play Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze. It's so good.