Gaming Update: Donkey Kong Country Returns is Bullshit and More

I just want to quit....

I beat Donkey Kong Country Returns a while back but I went back to do these secret dungeons that unlock a final secret level. The secret dungeons were pretty cool, even if sometimes unnecessarily hard. There were high concept levels, which was nice. The final secret level, however, was bullshit.

It was just a stupid gimmick level where are the platforms were various fruits. The platforming was hard, but in the lame, erratic movements, kind of way. And the reward for doing all of this? Mirror Mode. The levels are reversed and you don't get Diddy Kong, items, and only 1 health. Like I'm going to play an even more bullshit version of a game I already thought was hard in an incredibly lame way.

Screw that.

I'm about 270 pages into REAMDE and it seems like it's reaching towards a conclusion. This is weird for me because it's an almost 1,100 page book. Then I realized that it's broken into separate parts and I'm still on the first part. This makes me feel better, as it makes me feel better about my reading pace.

In other news, I'm probably going to start playing WoW again. I don't plan on doing the endgame stuff, at least not right away. The changes for Mists of Pandaria really excite me. Also, buying a year's subscription gets me Diablo III for free, so that's pretty damn cool. I'm going to level a Tauren paladin.

My Gamefly sale games came in, so I'm looking forward to playing Naughty Bear, 3D Dot Game Heroes, Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together, Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, and (possibly) Metroid: Other M. Where I shall find the time I have no idea.

Donkey Kong Country Returns Finale

Bramble Scramble

I finished Donkey Kong Country Returns today. By 'finished' I mean beat the final boss. There is still secret level to unlock (more on that later). Overall, I'd say I enjoyed the game, but I definitely have complaints.

My first complaint is regarding the difficulty. It seems to be aligned along the path of "This is hard, and not in the 'Oh! I figured it out!' sort of way, but we're going to give you plenty of lives to deal with it." This means that you'll often get stuck in sections that have precise timing requirements and die repeatedly. I really wouldn't expect kids to beat this, they'd get frustrated far too easily.

Secondly, there are these sections where you fly a rocket barrel (no doubt borrowed from Donkey Kong Barrel Blast. There are particularly frustrating since you go from taking 2-4 hits to die to just 1. They have finicky controls and ask the player to make some fairly precision movements.

Health and DK barrels come too few and too far between in many of the more frustrating levels. You'll go for very long times without your little buddy. All the boss stages start with a DK barrel, but none of the boss battles do. So the first time you try a boss, you'll have full (4) health, but if you die and retry the boss battle you won't.

One distinct praise that I would like to have for it. Each level has 4 K.O.N.G. letters and a certain number of puzzle pieces. Collecting all of one of those groups for a stage gets you a medal. This is integral to unlocking the final super bonus level. However, you (thankfully) don't have to collect all of them. If you collect enough of them in a 'world' you unlock a secret level for that world. Beat all those secret levels and you unlock the final super bonus level. I hate having to collect all of something in a game, because some of them are particularly hard to collect. I really like having the flexibility to not collect all of them.

I'd have to say this game was enjoyable, but I it's a very tenuous enjoyment.

Donkey Kong Country Returns Impressions

I bought Donkey Kong Country Returns recently because it was on discount at Walmart.com and you are lucky if you can find a Nintendo game for less than $40. I've played through the first two areas (being a group of stages) and I'm very conflicted about it.

I've had very good experiences with Donkey Kong games in the past, having just avoided Donkey Kong 64. Most recently, I played all the way through everything in Donkey Kong Country 2 and before that I've played through all of Donkey Kong Jungle Beat. Both of those games are very different from Returns.

Unlike in DKC2, you can't use your partner as a weapon or a platforming tool. When you get Diddy from a Barrel, your life is extended and his jetpacks help you stay aloft longer, but you don't jump higher. If DK takes too much damage, Diddy goes away. In single player mode, you never get to play as Diddy.

The movement is slower, the mid-air readjusting is slower. It doesn't feel like it's in the same series as DKC or DKC2. It feels like it's a different game that's just aping the style of Donkey Kong Country. But, I've started the third area recently and it's definitely growing on me. I've give my full impressions of it when I finish it and have played the co-op. I'm enjoying it, I just with it had more of that Donkey Kong feel.