Sorry
@~ Valkyrie ~ , but I
STRONGLY disagree with most of this.
For a start, the SNES and DK64 era DK sounded cooler than the Scooby Kong we have now, but
in his own series he was known to be kidnapped more than playable, and when he was playable once in his breakout trilogy, he was easily overshadowed by the new Kong on the block: Diddy. Diddy is the one most players flocked to, because even though he was weaker than Donkey his speed made him more fun to play as. I'm certainly not a fan of the CG cartoon, as I found everyone in it to be cringeworthy even as a kid. By the time 64 came around, Miyamoto was enforcing his "dumb ape" vision, and even without it DK didn't seem cool. I mean seriously, he's a big musclebound gorilla who slaps as a standard attack, and playing Patty-Cake with K. Rool in a blooper. DK64 was far more cartoony than the original trilogy, no doubt thanks to being repurposed from Banjo-Kazooie. However, it didn't start there. When DKC3 started referencing Terminator (KAOS), Scooby Doo ("I would've gotten away with it too if it weren't for you meddling Kongs!") Frankenstein (K.Roolenstein), and Wizard of Oz (K. Rool controlling KAOS behind a curtain) you know they've scraped the bottom of the barrel, as they're getting dangerously close to a Hanna-Barbara cartoon. It was far too cliche, even back then.
Even with modern DK's unintelligible blubbering I still find him to be far more competent, agile and powerful than the one Rare introduced. He has the friendliness of a Nintendo character, and the personality I expect of a gorilla: belligerent (Jungle Beat), stubborn (Returns and Tropical Freeze), aggressive (Jungle Beat, Returns, Tropical Freeze and Punch-Out Wii), hyperactive (all the above), yet still laid back and endearingly goofy (again all of the above).
I also fiercely disagree with your statement about the level design. Looking back on Jungle Beat and Retro's games, the only one that somewhat embodies that is Jungle Beat, which definitely has props in there for whatever fits the gameplay and nothing else. That is the most Nintendo-styled DK platformer of them all, and while I'm glad it failed, it was actually a very fun game. However, there is nothing uninspired by Retro's DKCs. They made sure everything in the level was there for a reason, even going so much as saying so in interviews. They worked the gameplay in with the setting and environment seamlessly in Returns then took it even further in the sequel. The stages, as they say each "tells a story"; Returns brought continuity between levels by having elements from the previous "world" (which I'll be calling Sections or Islands from now on) present in the first level of the new one. That was a bona-fide first for the series and showed a realistic sense of progression; they layered the stages with background events and elements that can only be found in one stage each, then sprinkled Easter Eggs on top for more density. There's far more depth to the levels than the obstacle course with no rhyme or reason that the NSMB games have.
I could infer more about the islands of Tropical Freeze just from looking at the levels' scenery than I could from Jungle Beat AND the original DKCs, and that's not just because of hardware limitations. Retro made sure to pack each stage with detail to make it feel like DK's was a living, breathing world; you had the back, fore and midground interacting often, villains doing more than waiting on you to kill them, and level/narrative continuity. You absolutely cannot tell me that Juicy Jungle didn't show us a gradual process of how they made their products from level to level. You can't dispute that Donkey Kong Island being frozen over didn't imply an arctic apocalypse and the aftermath of the Snowmads' actions. The ruined state of the final island hits harder for players who visited those Sections in Returns. And that's just those 2 islands; even Returns had an implied level narrative at the very least. To this day, the Tikis stealing bananas makes far more sense than K. Rool doing it, because we actually got an in-game reason. It took nearly a decade for Rare to explain it, and they did so on a fanmail section of their website.
This is in comparison to the original trilogy, which never allowed us to interact with more than one layer of any level, which used to be very linear until DKC3 came out, which had identical backgrounds for level types and which--in DKC1's case especially--had the most uninspired bosses except K. Rool. That game gave us: a giant Beaver and his recolor, a giant vulture and his recolor, a giant bee that changes colors, and a giant level hazard that spat out generic enemies they couldn't make bosses out of. For all the garbage that the Tikis are, they have more going for them than 99% of DKC1's bosses, and DKC3's Belcha. Their musical hypnosis is actually more compelling than: this Beaver works for K. Rool, or this Oil Drum is alive and helping K. Rool. Then we have the Snowmads, whose leaders all have almost as much personality as K. Rool with the exception of Fredrik (whose a lame ripoff); that in and of itself speaks volumes, as the bosses in Rare's games were 1-Dimensional.
I only somewhat disagree here. Yea there's an established lore in the original DKCs starting with DKC2 and moving forward, but there's clearly an established lore in Retro's, and not just with the Banana Temples. The difference is that Rare's DKCs share the lore through text and dialogue, but Retro implies it through visuals. Again, look at the level narratives of Returns and Tropical Freeze's levels. The Forest Section of Returns is infested with huge dormant Tikis; the Factory's been repurposed from the Kremlings and turned into their breeding ground; the Volcano is their birthplace and their throne. Lost Mangroves is full of an unusually large amount of scrap metal and busted vehicles that the Snowmads use for their army--how those vehicles and contraptions ended up there is a mystery for anyone's interpretation; Bright Savanna shows us what a deadly tornado does to the island as it creates a wildfire that threatens the whole place, and is ruled by a native that's clearly been brought into the Snowmad's alliance; Sea Breeze Cove shows us an ancient Atlantis-like civilization that's long abandoned the area; how and why is anyone's guess. You already know the deal with Juicy Jungle and DK Isle, Kremcroc Industries got hijacked again and is now left to rot in the ice. Unlike the SNES games, the lore here is implied, letting us connect whatever dots we wish while keeping gameplay at the forefront.
DK's various enemies: The Kremlings, Ghastly King's Thralls, The Tikis, Wizpig and The Snowmads actually bolster the series' lore, because unlike Mario's, DK's is varied enough to show that there's more to his world than one enemy faction. There's more to fight than anthropomorphic Krocs, more islands than DK's and Crocodile Isle, at least 7 in fact. We have an expansive look at what's going on beyond DK's home; we know that Autumn Heights is nearby, and thanks to Odyssey, we know that New Donk City is a thing. Fighting K. Rool constantly would give the series a Saturday Morning Cartoon feel, which DKC3 and '64 were definitely shifting towards. And honestly, Retro's DKCs are far more daring. Yes, DKC2 and 3 were getting innovative, but Retro's games are far more layered, the gameplay a bit more creative (2.5D Banjo-Kazooie with unique elements for each level is a step up from the SNES games by a good margin), the levels have vastly more action (Haunted Hall is one of the few levels in the entire SNES trilogy that can compete with the dozens of action-packed levels from either Returns or Tropical Freeze), far more interesting Bosses (with only some exceptions), and honestly more personality from each playable Kong, based entirely on their animations. The 2D Mario games should be taking notes from Retro's DKCs, as those are cookie-cutter and uninspired--yet still enjoyable--games. There's a certain level of care and attention to detail Retro has showed the series and I want them to continue to do so. There's things that they've done much better than Rare would've.
On a side note, as much as I loved Crash, Warped is where they went generic. Gameplay-wise it's the best of Naughty Dog's trilogy, but the setting is so Saturday Morning Cartoony that they sorta lost the identity that Crash 2 was showing. Instead of learning more about Crash's world we get an abridged, surface-level version of real world history, but with a twist being Cortex corrupting it. Still a really good game though, but I think Naughty Dog was running out of ideas for where to take the setting.
ColtonS25
,
N
Nartic
and
ze9
a big welcome! Things have quieted down quite a bit, but I'm glad y'all are here.![[Maple]](/data/avatars/l/410/410915.jpg?1575327283){kind=avatar}
