Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze

 Retro Studios (Nintendo) / Monster Games - 2014 - WiiU

(On my Top 10 Game Soundtracks list)

I grew up with the Donkey Kong Country games and am a huge fan. When Donkey Kong Country Returns came out in 2010, I was super excited to see the franchise revived after nearly a 15 year absence. But I was ultimately pretty dissapointed with that game mostly due to control scheme problems. It was back when every Wii game was obliged to shoehorn in Wii Remote waggling of some sort or another, so DKC:Returns forced you to shake the controller every time you want to roll. It was just awful. A simple design decision made what would have been an otherwise pretty good platformer nearly unplayable for me. I found a downloadable hack online that patched in the ability to map the controller shaking to a button, so I'd recommend Googling for it if you want to go back and play DKC: Returns because that game is fundamentally broken out of the box. The egregious controller shaking was unforgivable, but I noticed another small problem with DKC:Returns. It had a bit of an identity problem. It was a decent platformer with some admittedly pretty good level design, but it didn't really feel like a Donkey Kong Country game. Where were the Kremlings? Where were all the animal buddies other than Rambi? Where was the amazing head rocking music I was used to from previous entries? Sure it featured Donkey Kong characters, but the soul of the game was stripped away. For a game titled "Donkey Kong Country Returns", it didn't really feel like the franchise HAD actually returned.

So now onto Tropical Freeze. The first thing it does right is provide support for other control schemes. There is still Wii Remote waggling, but you don't have to do it if you play with either the WiiU gamepad or pro controller. Hallelujah!! This automatically makes the game much more enjoyable. The game also looks gorgeous in HD. The visuals were always so striking in DKC games, even on the SNES so it was nice to see some TLC paid to the backgrounds and artwork. The next thing you'll notice is the soundtrack. David Wise, the main composer of the SNES trilogy, has returned to the franchise to pump some soul back into it. I'll talk about him later, but what really made this a Donkey Kong Country game for me was a simple animation. Dixie Kong's falling/sliding animation. It's an animation that's rarely ever seen in either Tropical Freeze or the SNES DKC games, but it plays when Dixie is sliding down a surface. She sticks her arms and legs straight up and flails them around in the air. Again, it's a silly animation rarely ever used, but as soon as I saw it, it made me smile. It's the little polish developers can apply that make die-hard fans like myself feel at home in the franchise. No, there's still no Kremlings or animal buddies other than Rambi. But Tropical Freeze is a Donkey Kong Country game.

Dixie Kong is back from DKC 2/3! And Cranky Kong is now a playable character! Each Kong has their own special abilities. Diddy retains his jetpack hover from DKC:Returns and can now use it underwater to swim super quickly. Dixie makes Diddy somewhat obsolete with her hair flutter which carries the player higher/father in the air than Diddy's jetpack. Cranky Kong, my new favorite Kong, can pogo bounce on enemies and over spikes with his cane a la Duck Tales. Choosing which Kong to accompany you on a level is a new interesting decision as certain levels are tailored to certain Kong's abilities. Each level has been designed perfectly for speed running and platform and enemy placement is done just so basting through at full speed is possible if you have enough skill. Another speedrunner-friendly addition is then inclusion of replays. When you finish a level, you can post your replay online for friends/challengers to see. You can also view the replays of the top speed runs for a given level to see how it was actually possible to complete it in 43 seconds or whatever. This was a pretty cool addition. And don't let the cutsey Nintendo mascots fool you. This game is hard. Old-school hard. And if the normal levels aren't hard enough for you, you can find all of the K-O-N-G letters in each world to unlock bonus levels that are obnoxiously hard. I have only been able to finish one of the bonus levels so far. And I'm pretty darn good at this game.

Can we talk about the genius of David Wise for a second? When I heard he was back to work on the Tropical Freeze soundtrack, I was super pumped. Listening to the soundtrack was what actually made me want to play this game. The original tracks are awesome - Windmill Hills, Deep Keep and Fruity Factory. And the remix tracks are awesome too - Current Capers (Remix of DKC Aquatic Ambience), Irate Eight Chase (Remix of DKC2 Lockjaw's Saga) and Twilight Terror (Remix of DKC2 Stickerbrush Symphony). I actually think I like that cover of Stickerbrush Symphony better than the original. And I love the Original. If you like video game music or David Wise's work, I'd encourage you to listen to the whole soundtrack. There's lots of musical variety and it's absolutely phenomenal.

Video Review of DKC: Tropical Freeze

Summary
Tropical Freeze is the true return of the Donkey Kong Country franchise. A game with tight controls (yay!), excellent level design, striking visuals and rocking music are what you'll find here. If you're a fan of challenging platformers, speedrunning or excellent audiovisual presentation, you'll enjoy Tropical Freeze. It's a fun game to play cooperatively as well.

Ori and the Blind Forest

Moon Studios - 2015 - PC/XboxOne

You may remember this game from its brief demo at E3 last year (2014) where a white squirrel thing was shown jumping through beautiful scenery. It was one of the most visually memorable trailers I saw at E3 last year. And I'm happy to report the game is just as strikingly beautiful as its trailer. Ori and the Blind forest is a Metroidvania style platformer and is the first game from indie developer Moon Studios. I suspect Moon Studios is comprised of at least a couple industry veterans as this game is beautiful, very well designed and oozes quality.

Before being published by Microsoft, Ori and the Blind Forest was developed in the Unity engine over the course of four years. Moon Studios cited the Rayman and Metroid franchises as influences for these games, and that's immediately obvious in both the high quality artwork (Rayman) and gameplay (Metroid). I'm personally a big fan of Metroidvania style gameplay, but since the Metroid series is somewhat MIA right now and Castlevania seems to be content making God of War clones, I've had to turn to other games like Ori to get my Metroidvania fix

If you've never played a Metoidvania style game before, the game is usually set in a large, non-linear game world with an emphasis on exploration and finding secrets. They often feature some sort of blend of platforming and combat, and often have light RPG elements where you can progress and improve your player character. Ori chooses to go somewhat light on the combat aspect (most enemies can be defeated by simply mashing the attack button), but instead focus most of the difficulty in the game around platforming. I didn't find the combat in this game that engaging or challenging at all, but there were a few segments that demanded perfect execution of precision platforming in a limited amount of time and messing up required repeating the entire platforming segment. It never felt TOO frustrating, but it was close.

Aside from this game's striking visuals, the first unique thing I noticed about it is that Ori will let you save nearly anywhere you like and at any time you like, provided there are no enemies nearby and you also have enough "spirit energy", which this game uses as currency for saving. Since the player can save anywhere and anytime they wish, Ori is free to ramp up the difficulty of the platforming to a pretty high level and also introduce enemies and hazards that can kill you in one hit. But it never feels unfair because you only lose as much progress since you last saved. I found I had enough spirit energy to comfortably save about every 30 seconds. It's kind of the Super Meat Boy effect. The game is quite difficult and you'll die often, but it never becomes too frustrating or feels too unfair because you only lose about 5-10 seconds of progress and then the game immediately brings you right back to try again.

Ori and the Blind Forest Video Review

Summary 
If you like Metroid or Castlevania styled games, or games like Guacamelee!, for instance, you may want to give Ori a try. Or if you dig really artsy and visually striking games, Ori also applies. I really enjoyed my time with Ori and the Blind Forest and am looking forward to see what's next from Moon Studios

Rayman Legends

Ubisoft - 2013 - PC/PS3/PS4/Vita/WiiU/X360/XboxOne

If you're looking for excellent platformers, or great couch co-op experiences, the WiiU is the next-gen console you want. To me, what sets the WiiU apart from any of the other next gen consoles are its tablet and its first-party games. The first-party games for WiiIU are the high level of quality you'd expect from Nintendo. Mario Kart 8 and Smash 4 are great and Super Mario 3D world is the best Mario game I've played to date. But I've noticed Nintendo doesn't really know how to implement its own tablet into its own first-party games. Mario Kart 8 simply maps the touch screen to a horn, Smash 4 only uses it to duplicate what's on the TV screen while Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze opts to turn the tablet screen completely off. None of these are inherently bad designs, but it's curios to see Nintendo stumped about what to do with its own hardware. Sure, Mario 3D World does have some light uses of the tablet where occasionally the game will require you to touch some block or something. But nothing like Rayman Legends. I know this game is on a plethora of other platforms, but you NEED to play the WiiU version of this game that utilizes all of the functionality of the WiiU tablet. I'm sure the developers would agree. I also hope Nintendo developers have played this game and are taking notes on how to properly utilize the gamepad.

The beauty of playing this game with the WiiU gamepad comes into play when there's at least more than one player playing the game. One player can play with a Wii Remote or Pro controller and plays through the platforming in a traditional fashion while the other player plays with the tablet screen and is tasked with helping the platforming player progress through levels. This is accomplished by touching to move and slide walls or platforms on the tablet screen or by keeping the platforming player safe by tapping to tickle monsters or by deflecting projectiles away from hitting the platforming player. It seems like each level has a new and inventive use of the tablet's touch screen that made playing each level fun and fresh. Neither the tablet player nor the platforming player are performing the same set of actions either, but both sets of actions are necessary for the level to be completed. This type of asynchronous gameplay experience is especially well implemented in Rayman Legends and requires both the tablet player and the platforming player to work together as a team to solve puzzles and complete the level. This, to me, is also why the definitive version of Rayman Legends can only be played on the WiiU and is probably best played with a partner.

Another thing that sets Rayman Legends apart from other platformers is its use of music. I've seen it before in other games where some background elements will move or dance in time with the music, but Rayman Legends takes this to another level. A lot of Rayman Legends levels require you to actually do platforming actions in time with music. If what I'm describing doesn't make sense, check out this video. But if you do, it may detract from the joy of discovering Rayman Legend's musical levels for yourself for the first time. The musical levels were so cool and I'd love to see this concept implemented in other platformers or even other game genres

Rayman Legends Video Review

Summary
Rayman Legends is one of the best platformers I've played in a long time and I'm enjoying seeing this resurgence of platformers and couch co-op experiences on the WiiU. The WiiU version of Rayman Legends also makes great use of the WiiU gamepad to implement a fun asynchronous co-op experience for both players. The music levels are wonderful and the game does have a great soundtrack in its own right too. Oh and it even features some of the best levels taken from Rayman Origins too! This is a great game and a must-play if you like platformers, co-op play, excellent music and art direction, or creative implementation of asynchronous gameplay