"Donkey Kong" is "Super Mario" chaotic, fiery and demanding younger siblings. Instead of "Marios" reliable and precise platforming involved "Donkey Kong" with precise timing during stressful situations.
Here gorilla - the title name Donkey Kong - Tropical Island becomes frozen of Viking penguins, walruses and owls, and he must control this up in the traditional platforms. It is to navigate through the archipelago DEVICES courses - from the side - by swinging on vines, jump over the falling platforms while you have to avoid enemies and traps.
You play as Donkey Kong, but will almost always using one of Kong's three friends - Diddy, Dixie and Cranky Kong - to clear the paths. They add namely both two extra lives to Kong's health meter, and also the skill to hover. Without them Kong just two hearts in life and can only be damaged twice before he dies.
But even with the help of friends, this is a fiendishly difficult platformer. Almost every track contains platforms that fall as soon as you touch them. And far too many courses contain lianas - requiring an extra button to grab. It can be about a millimeter, but because the gameplay is all about precise timing during the chaotic shapes, it's very easy to miss the right moment. I die often and rarely know why.
In addition, the courses get save points very scattered. Bandesignens form is stiff, and builds consistently on the idea of being able to easily fall or trial and error and die before they can succeed. It feels incredibly old fashioned, irritating and feeble.
Despite the fact that the enemies are charming and runways colorful tropics glitters, feels "Tropical Freeze" passé. A clear example of this is the design of the co-op mode. While a player may control Donkey Kong gets another control any of his friends. But not if they sit on his back - then Kong namely also control Buddy, and the latter's control becomes redundant. When either player dies, they can be revived with a balloon that must be captured by the surviving player. If you miss the balloon - loaded with one's friends - lose another life. Playing with a friend should be entertaining, but this retrogressive design just makes it frustrating.
One of last year's best games were platform game "Rayman Legends" - imaginative, humorous, challenging and detailed. It moved up the genre in the present. "Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze" lives in turn left in the 90's game design. It lacks creativity and is compared with both the "Rayman Legends" and the recent "Super Mario 3D World" meager and tedious. It does unfortunately not matter that the "Tropical Freeze" to challenge with high difficulty and chaos level design - not when there will be neither funny or original.
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