Donkey Kong Country Returns HD Review – Another Return on Nintendo’s Investment

Donkey Kong Country Returns is set to return yet again. The fourth entry in the Donkey Kong Country series bounded onto Wii in 2010, was revived as Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D on the 3DS in 2013, and now, over a decade later, Nintendo returns to the well with Donkey Kong Country Returns HD for the Switch. You definitely can’t say The Big N hasn’t recouped their original investment on this one.

Is Donkey Kong Country Returns HD still a barrel-blasting bash here in 2025? Or has this once-ripe banana gone bad? Grab your red tie, it’s time to go to work on this one…

As with the previous versions of the game, Donkey Kong Country Returns HD opens with the Tiki Tak Tribe (a bunch of sentient tiki masks that replace the series’ previous crocodilian baddies) stealing DK’s banana hoard. Naturally, DK grabs his buddy Diddy and charges off to pound some sense into them. That’s about all you get in terms of story, which shouldn’t surprise anyone even passingly familiar with this franchise.

As the title on the box implies, Donkey Kong Country Returns HD updates the original game’s standard-def image, giving everything a sharper, more high-contrast look. Donkey Kong Island looks nice enough in HD, although the game’s visuals don’t quite wow like they did 15 years ago. While some effects and background elements do look slightly “off” in this version, most of the game’s less-attractive moments are simply a case of the higher resolution and brighter lighting highlighting shortcomings in the original assets. At least the game runs at a nice, smooth 60fps most of the time, with the few minor hiccups I noticed being countable on a single hand.

For those coming to Donkey Kong Country Returns for the first time, our fuzzy hero’s abilities are simple, with no real power-ups to speak of aside from occasionally being able to hop on Rambi the rhinoceros. DK can jump, bounce on enemies, roll, pound the ground, and in a quirky addition for this game only, blow on items like flowers and pinwheels. DK feels a bit heavy and unwieldy at first compared to platforming contemporaries like Mario, but you should get used to controlling the big ape fairly quickly. The original game required a bit of Wiimote waggle to use some abilities like the ground pound, but, to the relief of most I suspect, you can now execute all actions with simple button presses. That said, the game’s control scheme still isn’t perfect — ground pound and your roll attack being assigned to the same button can result in accidents where you tumble into oblivion without meaning to.

In addition to his own abilities, DK can sometimes free Diddy from a barrel, who will hop on your back, doubling your health and giving you a limited rocket-boost for crossing gaps. Diddy’s abilities are a nice level-up to DK’s, but partner barrels are often irritatingly limited, and while you don’t technically need Diddy to complete any of the game’s challenges, some of the tough-as-nails later levels feel pretty insurmountable without his rocket boost. The game also offers same-couch co-op with one player controlling DK and the other Diddy, although the mode doesn’t offer any real benefit. In fact, if you and your buddy both die at the same time, as will happen often during more frantic sequences, you’ll lose two lives instead of one. Co-op can certainly be fun, but realistically, it’s often more trouble than its worth.

In terms of level design, Donkey Kong Country Returns was designed to be a continuation of what Rare laid down with the original SNES DKC trilogy, with simple, challenging stage layouts that push the player forward at a steady pace, as well as plenty of precarious jumps, things to swing on, barrel cannons, and yes, those dang mine carts. Everything feels a bit more fluid here due to the game being fully polygonal, replacing the sometimes-stiff pre-rendered visuals of the original DKC games, but not everything always feels as smooth as it could.

In retrospect, developer Retro Studios was clearly still finding their footing a bit here. While there’s plenty of variety to be found in DKCR, with individual levels serving up unique challenges like outwitting a giant octopus, running from a horde of bugs, avoiding crushing waves, and more, there are times when the game gets in a bit of a rut, serving up several similar levels in a row. This is particularly egregious once you get to World 4, as Retro, in their infinite wisdom, decided it should exist entirely of minecar and rocket barrel levels. Unlike the next entry in the series, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, minecart and rocket barrel levels are one-hit kills in DKCR and will eat your lives for lunch, as they really require rote memorization to get through. I feel like World 4 might be a breaking point for some newer players.

Donkey Kong Country Return’s difficulty may be something today’s player struggle with in general. This is a hard game, and that’s coming from somebody who’s played through more than his share of difficult platformers — including this one back on the Wii! Playing the game again, it serves up a lot of moments where the challenge doesn’t feel particularly fair, with deadly hazards you can’t reasonably foresee coming and “gotcha” style platform layouts. Tropical Freeze was a lot better about presenting intense, challenging levels that didn’t feel unfair.

There are ways to mitigate DKCR’s challenge, like visiting Cranky’s Shop to buy extra lives, a temporary expansion to your heart meter, and other helpful items using the Banana Coins you find strewn around levels. You can also take advantage of the Super Kong feature, which will become available once you’ve died several times on a level. Super Kong will play the level for you, with you being able to take control whenever you like, which is a neat enough trick, but not terribly satisfying, particularly when you realize that none of the collectibles grabbed after Super Kong is activated count toward your totals. Players can also choose to play on “Modern Mode” from the beginning of the game, which is essentially a rebranding of the “New Mode” from the 3DS version of the game, which gives you more hearts and some additional items to buy at Cranky’s shop.

This slightly tweaked new difficulty option is pretty much all you can expect in terms of new content in Donkey Kong Country Returns HD – aside from that, you just get what was included in the 3DS version. That said, there’s no denying there’s a good amount of content here. The main campaign will take you a solid dozen hours to complete, and those looking to track down all those devilish K-O-N-G letters and puzzle pieces, and beat all the maddeningly difficult secret levels, will take at least twice that long. Still, one can’t help but feel like more could have been done here. Donkey Kong Country Returns was a cutting-edge 2D platformer back in 2010, but it’s been surpassed by a number of other games since then, with the superior Tropical Freeze being the most obvious point of comparison. With a few tweaks the game could have been brought closer to modern standards, but, as is, this silverback is starting to show its age.

This review was based on a copy of Donkey Kong Country Returns HD provided by publisher Nintendo.

7.5

WCCFTECH RATING

Donkey Kong Country Returns HD