![]() At the beginning of the game, Donkey Kong can easily knock them out of the way by jumping on their heads or rolling into them. For example, Tucks (the penguin-like enemy) are a fairly standard foe that Donkey Kong encounters throughout his journey. The Snowmads are a legion of penguins, owls, rabbits, sea lions, and walruses obsessed with turning Donkey Kong’s home into a winter wonderland.Įach enemy type slowly evolves as Donkey Kong gets closer to his home. For Tropical Freeze, Nintendo’s brutish gorilla now has an army of Nordic animals to face off against. In Returns, the DK crew battled a group of tribal-looking creatures called Tikis. In the Rare-designed Donkey Kong Country classics, Donkey Kong battled an army of crocodiles called Kremlings. However, Donkey Kong isn’t stomping on the same old enemies he’s been wrestling with for decades. In all the right ways, Tropical Freeze feels like a classic Donkey Kong Country title. During our three hours of hands-on time, we bounded across the tops of hot air balloons while dodging giant owls, bounced off giant squares of Jell-O to climb over bamboo fences, and swam through electrified coral reefs teeming with colorful fish.ĭonkey Kong uses vines to swing over bottomless death traps, rides rollercoaster-like mine carts through dim caves, and blasts out of barrels while trees topple to the ground all around him. ![]() With a name like Tropical Freeze you might expect Donkey Kong’s new game to be full of ice-capped trees and crystalized lakes, but the worlds in DK’s new adventure are more diverse than ever (see sidebar on page 66). The original ape, Cranky Kong, joins the fray once again Instead, Donkey Kong’s handlers are doubling down on polish, crafting a platforming experience that will challenge fans and hopefully give Wii U owners something to brag about. With the company’s follow-up title, Tropical Freeze, Retro doesn’t shake up the formula, either. When Retro Studios revived the series with the 2010 Wii title Donkey Kong Country Returns, the new developer held true to the design principles Rare established nearly two decades ago. He rode wild animals through mine-filled jungles and blasted out of the mouths of wooden barrels to soar over canyons. Donkey Kong finally had his own identity again out from the shadow of Mario. ![]() It was one of the best looking titles on the SNES, turning heads even though it released only weeks before Sony’s new PlayStation console hit Japan.ĭonkey Kong Country was so successful that it spawned a series of new games and helped established Rare as one of the premier developers of the 1990s. The result was Donkey Kong Country, and even though it was released during a heyday of 2D platformers, the game stood out as a refreshing take on the genre. Nintendo handed them the Donkey Kong brand and tasked the studio with making something fresh. In the early ‘90s, Nintendo approached a relatively obscure UK developer and asked them if they could make a game that looked better than any platformer on the market. But as Mario’s star rose, Donkey Kong took a back seat and fell out of the limelight. Originally conceived in the early ‘80s as a King Kong-like scoundrel who abducted women and pinned them to the top of construction girders, Donkey Kong was Nintendo’s biggest cash cow and one of gaming’s most iconic characters. Note: This story originally appeared in issue 249 of Game Informer.ĭonkey Kong’s lineage is nearly as old as the industry itself. If he ever wants to see his birthplace again, the big ape must navigate the hazards of a small island chain. Caught off guard, Donkey Kong is ejected from his home and banished to a neighboring island. With a single blow from a magical horn, the leader of the Snowmads summons a monstrous ice dragon that coats the tropical forest with a blanket of snow. Like the Old Norse seafarers, they sweep across the land, conquering its inhabitants and corrupting the soil. Viking armies of arctic creatures, known as Snowmads, have sailed onto DK Island’s tropical shores.
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