Donkey Kong Country Returns HD is the latest in a return to DK, bringing the original Wii-era adventure back to the Nintendo Switch as a platformer sailing into the sunset. It’s a very interesting development, as Nintendo gave the reigns to Forever Fun, which was then completely rebuilt to run in the Unity Engine.
The Return of Kong Returns is definitely an option but there are some considerations here – the much more enjoyable DKC Tropical Freeze is already available on the Switch, so bring over the Wii game means you come Experience both of Retro Studios’ Kong adventures in one place.
This was their first non-Metroid Prime game, released back in 2010, and was a pivot that provided a different feel to the genre. I personally liked the game back then, but its controls felt a little lackluster compared to Super NES titles and the music seemed a little cheap on the original. Three years later, the game was ported to the Nintendo 3DS, requiring a change from 60fps to 30fps gameplay, with a port managed by Excite Truck developer Monster Games.
For the current port to Switch, I’m a little nervous about the game’s prospects given Forever’s track record, which includes slightly sub-par remakes of Panzer Dragoon and House of the Dead. However, I needn’t have worried – this is the best work to come out of Forever Fun to date.
The remastering is always tasteful, the new textures often look very good and it feels true to the original. In addition, as a shared game on the Switch, the resolution and frame-rate are surprising, especially because Forever’s Switch games in the past were good, but there are some misconceptions as well.
Let’s start with the opening FMV. This has been greatly improved and may have been restored if the originals were still available. This may seem like a small thing, but the handling of video assets often tells a lot about the quality of the conversion. When little attention is paid to FMV quality, it often shows that corners have been cut, at least in my experience. Thankfully, that’s not the case.
Control the dough
In-game first impressions are also good, with the remaster still true to the original visual design. The focus here is on new materials, changing effects and new characters, as well as the underlying scene geometry has not changed much. The new textures are sharper, hold up well at higher resolutions – 1080p in docked mode and 720p in portable mode – and the picture quality is decent. I like the new sky here and I’m glad that they made the background image clear so it doesn’t look bad. Rain and water rendering is also better.
The closer you look though, the more you start to see some oddities. The visual effects that were missing in the first trailer have been used and improved, but there are still minor effects – the dust cloud that kicks out when pounding the DK character is reduced, and the animation of the barrel Break as DK shot out of it was a bit sloppy.
You may not see things like this when just playing, but you will probably see the sunset disappearing in the third stage, the low-level text KONG, and the simple shadows of instructions for the first boss fight. These nips and tucks are common, and while these are small changes, it still feels weird to see a game release a bigger powerhouse with fewer effects and details.
If this was the change, I would most likely shrug and just roll with it because the end result is still beautiful, but there are two problems. First, the load time. These aren’t too bad, but they last nearly twice as long as they did on the Wii version running on the disc. Sure, asset sizes have increased, but this still seems like a big step back.
The second is the frame-rate. It’s important to note that we’ve seen Unity games run at 1080p 60fps on the Switch – including Yooka-Laylee and Impossible Lair with better visuals – but most Unity releases look like run with high performance or lower, so 1080p 60fps is still. worth celebrating. But the Wii version of this game started working poorly, so a few areas of slowness left. The fact that this game runs worse than its technically advanced sequel doesn’t sit well with me.
That’s what makes this game so hard to talk about. On the surface, Forever did a better job here than anything else in their back catalog, but it still falls short of what Retro Studios did with their Switch ports, and of this price, there is no need to compromise.
On top of everything, while the game is amazing, I think it’s the least successful game Retro Studios has made to date. It is very by-the-numbers; The controls and operations seem less interesting than the classic DKC games and the level design is repetitive compared to Tropical Freeze. The biggest sin should be the music but frankly I’m not satisfied thanks to some beautiful music and bad instruments in some of the remakes.
So what is the takeaway here? The fact is that this release is both good and disappointing at the same time. The recovery efforts are impressive, but the areas where it falls short are incredible considering the age of the original. When you think about the best performance expected from a Retro Studios game, it’s even more debatable.
If you’re hungry for DKC Returns and haven’t played yet, it’s a great game and one that lets you play without the controller antics of the Wii version. If you are already au fait with the name, there are many exciting retro remakes to spend your time with.
