Press release: A New Country for Old Friends Controlled by a group of evil Tikis, the animals in Donkey Kong Island have raided Donkey Kong's Banana Hoard and stolen his stash of bananas - and he understandably wants them back. Retro Studios brings Donkey Kong™ back in a new side-scrolling adventure with familiar characters and new levels that reignite the passion players had for the Super NES™ original. FEATURES: • Retro Studios faithfully restores everything that made the original series great, from barrel cannons to mine carts, and then builds on those elements with stunning graphics and new layers of depth to the world and game play. The game offers the traditional side-scrolling experience everyone loved, but with levels created in fully rendered 3-D environments. • Diddy Kong™ joins the quest. With his trusty backpack, he can produce a jet pack or Peanut Pop Guns to give Donkey Kong more abilities. • For the first time ever, the franchise features the ability for two people to play together at the same time - one as Donkey Kong, one as Diddy Kong. Players can navigate the levels separately or as one unit. Diddy Kong can ride on Donkey Kong's back and hop off whenever he pleases, allowing novice players to ride on Donkey Kong's back through more challenging areas of the game. [* Additional accessories required and are sold separately.] • Hidden items, puzzle pieces and other surprises are found all through the jungle. Spell out K-O-N-G by the end of each level to earn an extra bonus. • Motion controls give players a real feeling of control. Players move Donkey Kong using the Control Stick on the Nunchuk™ controller and can shake the Wii Remote™ controller to make Donkey Kong slap the ground. • Vibrant colors, beautiful graphics and fun characters draw players in. Even people who have never played a Donkey Kong game before can pick up a controller and start collecting loads of bananas. • Every level offers new fun and new challenges. Sometimes Donkey Kong is running through the jungle, sometimes his action takes place on a tropical beach and other times he must become a master of timing as he jumps chasms in a mine cart. These screens are from people pressing "prt scrn" while watching a portion of the live conference stream which was streaming the trailer. THe game is quite a bit more vibrant The co-op gameplay sounds suuuuuuuuuuuhweet!
fuck. Super mario bros wii really did start something awesome off here. And awesome choice of studio, even if rare was still with nintendo they'd probably fuck it up. I base my faith in retro all from metroid prime, which may not mean much for this, but to me it showed that they knew how to revitalize a franchise while staying true to its roots.
hyped as fuck as I am right now... and this could be an impopular opinion, but... I think the "old style" (pre-rendered, semi-realistic graphics) looks better. Don't get me wrong, it looks great, really fun (co-op, dammit! That alone is a great reason to buy this one) and all that, but oh well... looks a bit too "modern DK" for my tastes (Jungle Beat onwards) And I'll never tire of saying it - I hope the music reaches the levels of the DKC trilogy (having Dave Wise involved should be imperative, now that he's working freelance) also, Cuontry.
ah, actually, that would make sense if diddy was only used for co op then. Perhaps in single player you either just have donkey and have 2 hits, or both, and one hit each?
cuountry immediately from the trailer I'm seeing a consecutive enemy kill combo system which is kinda Jungle Beatish, and some killer background/foreground platforming (could lead to some awesome co-op puzzles), plus remixed stage 1 music, boss battles, and some very drastic changes to visual style from stage to stage. part of me has the though "hmmmm, I wonder what this would look like if they didn't render in 3D and went for a Warioland Shake It, or Kirby Epic Yarn approach (spiritually)." I'm not at all saying that I think this looks BAD, not at all. Just sayin' It's fine though because another part of me says "FUCK YEAH RETRO STUDIOS!" show that dev parading around calling themselves Rare a thing or two
Beyond excited for this. Super excited about how they added a new dnyamic while keeping the traditional 2-d side scrolling action.
Nintendo could have just gone into their conference and said "hey guys, know all those beloved franchises that we've ruined over the years? Donkey Kong was a music game, Kirby was a racing game. Well now we've got our heads screwed on right and decided to actually give people what they want. Classic franchise revivals for all, even Kid Icarus!" But no. They added 3DS. What a killer fucking conference. The first time I've been excited that I own a Wii in ages (discounting Super Mario Galaxy 2).
hey now symph, Kirby Canvas curse flushed out any bad taste that air ride could've possibly left in our mouths. But yeah, Epic Yarn looks fucking awesome. anyway, this is a DKCR thread, aight yo
Seems to me that Nintendo is almost outright showing that to them Retro Studios is their new Rare. Which is fine by me, they basically have been ever since Rare left nintendo.
even though Retro Studios's track record is impeccable (so far), they still can't match Rare in the number of games they released (in the n64 era, of course), most, if not all of them, pretty high quality.
But they are basically becoming Nintendos go to 1st party developer that isnt really directly controlled by them.... kinda like Rare was back in the 64 days. Also lets face it Rare made some not so great games themselves even during their golden age.
That is indeed a fucking awesome gif. Like DK and Diddy were placed into the music video for Go With the Flow. Less sexuality though also reminds me, when the fuck is Night Sky coming for WIiware?!
I agree with both points. The new style feels very timid/wimpy...and I had to say it as well but, modern (in a bad and bland way). It's a bit too light and bright looking. All the visuals in the snes version were built from detailed looking 2d textures. It wasn't real 3d, but still appears that way because textures were very detailed (with multiple layers in depth) for it's time. It's the change to proper 3d looking animations which meant they had to ditch the graphic style because those sorts of static textures wouldn't have transferred over very well. They had to go back and make everything look so plain and cell shaded as it was hard enough to make things look 3d back then. However I think that times change and they could easily make it look more like the snes originals by really making those textures good. This kind of annoys me because it's just such an easy route going with cell shading, and they just kept it this way since donkey kong 64. Many games look this way these days, especially the ones shown at E3 this year. Just look at Sonic 4, probably same gameplay, but it just doesn't look the same. The colours look too light/shallow and everything is very smooth. It's a hard thing for me to explain, but basically I have this feeling that every level is going to have this bland feel about it, compared to the detailed and unique feel to each level of the originals. Now it is probably going to be like: jungle, ship, beach etc. I also bet it will be really short and easily and will not have any collectables (more of which you found in DKC2 and DKC3). It's probably just my nostalgic thoughts, but I just think it would be nice to have a more classic look to it. and the music...yeah, even Donkey kong country had really surprisingly atmospheric music back then (when you ignore the main themes you always hear). I bet that element was flown out the window when making this. I think the new music will sound very aimed at kids and basically just all dumb and goofy with the bongo stuff you got with those modern DK games. The original music didn't really sound like it was aimed at kids to begin with. Even if they replicate the music, I think they will just change it up completely (for the worse). I would love to see David Wise recording specially for this.
lots of conclusions jumped-to there. plus the press release at the top confirms collectibles, plus the sunsetting level already flies in the face of your jungle, ship, beach bit. But I do understand where you're coming from and do think that I might be even more excited about this if it weren't running 3D models. At the moment, I just remember that this is Retro Studios we're talking about. Extremely talented group that have a keen understanding of what core game elements make a franchise great to begin with and what to do to it in bringing it back to players with modern additions. DKC was also just as much about smart platforming, as it was about audio/visuals. You do realize that most of your post spoke to visuals alone? And the co-op gameplay additions seem to escape your musings as well. For now let's just go on Retro's track record and wait till we see more
I never complained about gameplay because... hell, there's nothing about gameplay to complain, actually. I have faith in Retro. That's why I focused on graphics - because it's the only gripe I have with it.
First they need David Wiise to do the soundtrack, if he's not on, i'm not on. Then they need to do something about the graphics, looks like fucking KongaBonga style poop.
Nice! This and Muramasa almost make me want to get a Wii... The SNES classics are going to be hard to top, though. Along with the score, which you've all mentioned, those mine cart levels are among the greatest moments in game history.
What else has Retro done for nintendo besides Metroid Prime (trilogy) and now DKC4? Serious question.
They were working on Gamecube games called Raven Blade, Car Combat, and NFL Retro Football before those got canceled when focus shifted to the Prime series. Before being bought by Nintendo they never really got any finished products out to market. There's is sort of an interesting and odd tale.
K_G just likened how Nintendo are handling their relationship with Retro to how they handled that with Rare
Yeah of course, I was just talking about visuals and music. As long as the style is slightly nostalgic then I won't mind. I'm sure it will be hard to fuck up the actual gameplay, and it looks pretty spot on so far. I do agree with the sunset thing..it looks pretty cool. I hope they bring other things like that. Co op is obviously good stuff as well.
this is a very good interview with some of the people involved in the game: http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3-2010-donkey-kong/700682 They're fans of the original trilogy and really passionate about it, so I think the game's in good hands.
This game looks like it's going to be a blast, but I have to admit that I'm a little disappointed that there won't be any Kremlings in it, going by the interview.
im so fucking ready for this game to lick me up and down. Apparently Kenji Yamamoto is helming the soundtrack (so it's in very good hands) and it will be heavily reminiscent of the first two DKC games, with additional influence from Banjo-Kazooie's soundtrack (his words). Also the game is going to be punishing check the vids from Kombo (there is co-op but he was flying solo): http://wii.kombo.com/article.php?artid=15934 http://wii.kombo.com/article.php?artid=15938 edit: peole are always clamoring for a new foe for Mario, but Donkey Kong gets one (presumably) and people cry foul? I'm thinking K Rool will make an appearance, but maybe in more of a metaknight capacity, and not exactly as a menacing villain.
hmmm bit weird that he is just playing as DK and not diddy. I wonder if it is just for that level only or if it always lets you switch when you want. I personally always preferred to play as Diddy because he felt faster. Is it just me or is the camera a little more zoomed out than the originals? I'm not sure that it really matters though, and I'm sure they will mix the zoom up.
