Donkey Kong Country Returns HD - Nintendo Switch Review - It's Fine But Something's Not Quite Right

Donkey Kong Country Returns isn't our favourite game from Retro Studios, but here we are with a remaster for Switch. Generally, it's fine but the attention to detail just isn't quite right and performance isn't quite as good as the Wii original. John has the DF review for you.

00:00 - Introduction
00:41 - Donkey Kong Returned
03:42 - Comparisons to Wii and 3DS
08:52 - Performance Analysis
10:45 - I'm Not A Big Fan
13:46 - Wrap-up

[albinosquirrelmpls]

I don’t think I’ve ever heard John less enthused about the subject of a video, lol

[HueyTheDoctor]

All you need to hear is the loading times are double what they were from a DVD on the Wii fifteen years ago.
Kate, we have to go back.

[HunterTinsley]

Completely unacceptable for this to be released at the $60 price point.

[JsYTA]

The one thing I thought this game would excel at over Tropical Freeze was it's load times

[JPLiquids]

The fact that this game is priced at full price it's absurd

[cireza_]

As usual with Forever Entertainment, colors are off and contrast is way too strong. They absolutely destroyed Panzer Dragoon and HOTD in terms of visual direction, and you can clearly see remnants of this here. Darks are way too dark, brights too brights, contrast is too high. Doesn't look good overall in terms of colors.

[theinvisibleman-ev]

fantastic review! the longer load times and frame rate drops on boss fights is not really acceptable for 60 bucks. The music seems below par on this version.

[maverickhunterzx]

In regards to the music, Nintendo did bring back the amazing David Wise to compose the soundtrack for Tropical freeze and he, as always did an outstanding job

[johnclark]

The year is 2025. Nintendo’s net worth is $70.46 billion. An entire Donkey Kong Country section at Universal Japan opened last month. This is the first Donkey Kong Country game in 6 years, 8 months. It’s a Switch port of a Unity port of a 3DS port of a Wii game released in 2010 handled primarily by a third party shovelware developer. $60.

[cyrus]

People were really thinking the multi billion dollar company is scared of announcing their next gen system the same day as a release of a rerelease of a game from 2010

[Polmo]

Why switching the entire project to Unity? Like the engine already worked on the Switch.

[Megapig]

Surprised by how the video doesn’t mention that it includes the previous 3DS Exclusive levels

[garden]

This and Luigi's mansion 2 seem to me like nintendo said: "we had to delay the switch 2 so lets just cheaply remaster 3DS Games to fill in the gaps on our squedule".

[Guitarist]

11:40 bruh please don’t diss Kenji Yamamoto’s music because he was told by Miyamoto to make it sound like the original (which had a lot of ambience). I know Tropical Freeze sounds better but that’s because David Wise was given total freedom, unlike Yamamoto. Rocket Barrel is a hit.

[seanmcbay]

I know Tropical Freeze is mostly better with better theming, music and art direction but I actually prefer the level design in this game.

[iKaGe]

The load times should not be double... Damn

[adamkungl]

Just finished Impossible Lair. It's good - but absolutely not a better game than DKC Returns

[putridscene]

I am genuinely baffled by the critique of the game itself. I loved this game on Wii to the point I gladly double dipped on the 3DS just to experience it again. Tropical Freeze is fun but I wouldn't consider it remarkably better than this one.

[_SPZL]

"...who then rebuilt the whole thing to run, in the Unity Engine."

Ooh noo.

[marwan]

Calling this game an average platformer is crazy