In 2025, the Nintendo Switch will see the return of a 15-year-old Wii classic that is still ahead of its time in some ways.
I can’t start every article about Donkey Kong with the DK rap. It’s just not done. Super unprofessional and, after the umpteenth time, no longer funny. Am I really that uncreative?
So they’re finally here, performing for you / If you know the words, you can join in too / Put your hands together, if you want to clap / As we take you through this monkey rap! Huh! DK! Donkey Kong!
I’m (not) sorry! Okay, let’s get down to business: Donkey Kong Country Returns hops onto the Nintendo Switch as an HD port. The platform game originally came out in 2010 for the Nintendo Wii, complete with motion controls and Why doesn’t it recognize my input?
Cursing. Ah, the good old days.
Is it still fun 15 years later?Yes, it is. But DKC Returns has a big problem: its successor. Confusing? I’ll explain it to you!
Table of Contents
Timelessly good game design
The plot of Donkey Kong Country Returns can be summarized with a sharpie on a banana peel: a nasty tribe of Tiki-Tak is stealing Donkey Kong’s bananas. Together with his sidekick Diddy Kong, he wants to get them back.
Take a few minutes to let this substantial plot sink in. All joking aside: you don’t play platformers from Nintendo for their story, but for the great gameplay. And here, DKC Returns can still hold its own in the premier league today.
The 80 levels are bursting with ideas and you’ll never get bored. The banana rescue mission takes you through the entire island home of the monkey gang. Sometimes you jump from liana to liana through the jungle, sometimes you run from a giant octopus on the beach or race through an old mine on a trolley. You collect KONG letters for extra lives and puzzle pieces for unlockable bonus levels.
The familiar strengths of the Donkey Kong series also come into play in Returns. The enemy design is great, the controls are smooth from the first minute, the soundtrack fires one catchy tune after another at you, and the difficulty level is as crisp as the skin of a slightly green banana in the supermarket. However, that cannot be said about all of the game content in the port.
Missed opportunities
The biggest innovations of the Switch port are, in addition to the visuals, a local co-op mode for two players and the inclusion of the eight additional levels previously exclusive to the Nintendo 3DS – that’s it.
Remasters are usually a welcome opportunity for the development team to not only improve the visuals but also to make some gameplay changes. This is not the case with DKC Returns, a few examples:
- The boring bonus rooms continue to lack variety and thus quickly become an unloved compulsory task if you want to collect all the puzzle pieces.
- There are still only two animal companions, namely Rambi the rhino and Squawks the parrot. The former only appears as a mount in a few levels, while the latter does not intervene in the gameplay at all, but merely points out overlooked puzzle pieces to you as an option.
Nintendo is selling this remaster of a 15-year-old Wii game at full price. The manufacturer could have easily gone the extra mile to address the criticisms that existed even back then.
HD graphics with questionable decisions
Anyone who hears the word ‘remaster’ and sees ‘HD’ in the title naturally expects a dedicated technical section. To use a stock phrase: when it comes to graphics, there is light and shadow.
Donkey Kong Country Returns HD runs in handheld mode in 720p (1280 x 768 pixels), in docked mode it is 1080p (1920 x 1080 pixels). The frame rate is a constant 60 FPS, and no bugs were encountered during the playthrough. There is no reason to complain here.
What did not only raise one, but two eyebrows with me, is the fact that the graphics sometimes even look worse than the Wii original!
- Some effects have been downscaled in terms of details or are missing entirely. Especially the lighting, which was still very pretty on the Wii, suffers from this in many places.
- Some textures have a higher resolution, while others are much blurrier.
- Due to the significantly increased resolution, the game occasionally looks sharp to Especially the contours of objects in the background stand out unattractively as a result.
Leaving out the higher resolution, I find the Wii original to be the more beautiful version because it looks more harmonious. Back then, everything seemed to fit together. The Switch port, on the other hand, seems to follow the motto HD at all costs!
The YouTube channel GameXPlain presents the sometimes strange differences in the comparison video:
Two monkeys get in each other’s way
In 2014, Donkey Kong Returns received a sequel with the suffix Tropical Freeze. This has also been available for a few years now for the Nintendo Switch and makes everything even better than Returns – at the same non-binding price recommendation of just under 60 euros, often even cheaper in regular retail stores.
The excessive price for Returns HD has no effect on our rating. In direct comparison, however, Tropical Freeze on the Switch offers the better gaming experience for sometimes less money.
Donkey Kong Country Returns HD is still a really great experience.If you want to enjoy the games chronologically or already own Tropical Freeze, you can get it without hesitation. This platformer should not be missing from any Switch collection.
Editor’s conclusion
When I played DKC Returns again, I had just as much fun as the five times before, only now everything looks much sharper than on the Wii. On the one hand, this speaks for the timelessly good gameplay of the title. The levels are still colorful, varied and pleasantly challenging. The music is a delight, even though I personally always prefer the DK rap.
On the other hand, I would have been happy about one or two “aha!” moments. A remaster should not only sell itself on the optics, but above all with a thoroughly revised gaming experience. The new edition would have been the ideal opportunity to turn a very good game into a brilliant one with just a few tweaks – but the chance was wasted.
So the few annoying quirks of Returns remain on the Nintendo Switch. Above all, the lame bonus rooms are a horror for me. Added to this is the fact that the graphics of the HD remaster are now and then worse than the Wii original. You have to be able to do that first, chapeau!
But enough criticism, because despite the points of criticism, one thing is certain: Donkey Kong Returns HD is and remains a must-have for anyone for whom jumping around in Super Mario games is too shallow.
