REVIEW: ‘Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze’ – Nintendo’s Best 2D Platformer In Decades

The year 2014 was significant for the Donkey Kong Country series. Not only was it the 20th anniversary of the original Donkey Kong Country on Super Nintendo, it was the year Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze released for the Wii U. Developed by Retro Studios, this was Retro’s second Donkey Kong Country game in four years, their first being Donkey Kong Country Returns for the Wii in 2010. Even though the Wii U ended up having a much, much smaller user base than the Wii, that didn’t stop Retro from creating one of Nintendo’s greatest 2D platformers in Tropical Freeze.

If Nintendo’s Kirby series targets a younger audience new to platformers, and Super Mario is designed to be as mainstream as possible towards gamers of all ages, then Donkey Kong Country is for platformer veterans. Meaning, they’re difficult games, and Tropical Freeze is no exception. This game will test you.

Donkey Kong runs, jumps, swings, climbs, rolls, pounds, throws, blasts, and stomps just like he always has, and he has not just Diddy Kong, but also Dixie Kong and Cranky Kong to help him out. Diddy can hover in the air using his jetpack, Dixie can use her hair for extra height when jumping, and Cranky can use his cane to pogo off the ground, or off enemies, for lots of extra height. The basic gameplay structure is identical to Donkey Kong Country Returns on Wii. Every stage has K-O-N-G letters and puzzle pieces to collect. You can purchase power-ups with the banana coins you collect in the levels.

Much of the difficulty comes from the stages and environments not letting you rest. As the challenge gets more demanding in the later worlds, the ground beneath Donkey Kong’s feet never seems to be solid, as platforms are always crumbling or moving. The levels are designed to push you forward, when sometimes what you want to do is take your time so you don’t die. The game never lets you get too comfortable moving through at your own pace, and you’ll have no choice but to think on your feet – and if your decisions and reactions aren’t perfect, you’ll find yourself back at your last checkpoint trying again.

If you’re going to play Tropical Freeze, it’s best if you go into it knowing you’re going to die a lot, because you will. I don’t care how good you are at platformers, your first time going through Tropical Freeze will result in frequent deaths. However, you’re rewarded with lots of extra lives to get through the game, and banana coins to purchase as many extra lives as you need, plus other power-ups which you can purchase as well. So while the platforming is tough, the game is self-aware of its own difficulty and gives the player what they need to make it through.

That being said, if Tropical Freeze is your first experience playing a Donkey Kong Country game, I highly recommend you start with Funky Mode. It does a much better job of easing the player into the game. Unfortunately, the Wii U version doesn’t have Funky Mode, but the Switch version thankfully does. You get extra hearts for taking damage, power-ups are cheaper to buy, you can equip more power-ups, every K-O-N-G letter you attain is permanent in case you die and have to restart from a checkpoint, and you can use Funky Kong as a playable character who can walk on spikes and other hazards. It has a lot of advantages and should be considered the real normal mode given how difficult the game gets. However, even in Funky Mode, Tropical Freeze still offers plenty of challenge, and then some.

One example of how this hit home with me was playing through the bonus stage in the second world of the game. There was a particular section towards the end I was having trouble with. I was dying…a lot, and since there are no checkpoints in the bonus stages, I was having to replay the level from the beginning every time I died. I was doing my best to soldier through, but then I remembered I could use items. I used a balloon item that rescues Donkey Kong when he falls into a pit, and it got me through the section that had been defeating me. However, when I replayed the stage again immediately after to get the last puzzle piece I had missed, I cleared it with no help at all on the first try. That little bit of help made a big difference in helping me get better at the game. So the scalable difficulty is pretty nuanced and quite ingenious in how it’s implemented.

Visually, Tropical Freeze looks fantastic. A Donkey Kong platformer is a different kind of game and world from the Metroid Prime titles Retro is known for, but their art direction and visual chops shine through once again. It runs at a smooth 60 FPS from start to finish with no significant drops that I could detect. The characters and environments are detailed, colorful, and lush. Everything looks beautiful.

You can’t talk about a Donkey Kong Country game without mentioning the music. David Wise’s soundtrack is brilliant. I’m not just saying it because it’s David Wise and we’re supposed to praise everything he does. It’s legitimately one of the best soundtracks I’ve heard in years. You know a soundtrack is good when it distracts you from the game. You stop playing, or maybe take damage and die, because you’re listening to the music. That happened to me several times playing Tropical Freeze. There’s lots of original tunes, but also a lot of classic tunes from the series’ past, which David Wise also wrote. It’s a fantastic mix that really puts an exclamation point on the whole experience. Every new level I was playing, I couldn’t wait to hear what the music would sound like. I mean, listen to this:

David Wise and the Donkey Kong Country series were meant for each other. No other way to say it.

VERDICT

Tropical Freeze was probably the best 2D platformer on Wii U when it released in 2014, and you could make a case for it being the best in its genre on Switch as well, or very close to the top. Funky Mode allows for a less punishing difficulty for newcomers that might be a turn-off for players. It lets you set a reasonable bar for how difficult you want the game to be, and allows the player to get better at their own pace. It becomes a very satisfying platformer at that point that rewards the player for success, and encourages them to keep challenging themselves as they learn the stages and get better. It makes a big difference in the approachability of a game that really has it all.

If you like challenging platformers, buy Tropical Freeze. If you like Donkey Kong, buy Tropical Freeze. If you appreciate a great video game soundtrack, buy Tropical Freeze. If you appreciate great art direction, buy Tropical Freeze. Even being over a decade old, it’s easily one of the best platformers on Switch, and likely will be on Switch 2 as well. Highly recommended.