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StarTopic Donkey Kong Community |ST| No Country For Old Kongs

Romancedawn said:
DK was going through growing pains but no way that a series that was so iconic during 2 different eras was not cared for.
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DK is definitely very important to Nintendo, if only for obvious historical reasons. I don't think anyone doubts that. On the other hand, Donkey Kong as an IP and Donkey Kong Country as a series of games are two separate things. I don't think Nintendo dislikes Country at all, but I do think they're ambivalent;

I never believed the fantasies that Nintendo was jealous of Rare. On the other hand, I think they have a very different view of DK, which Miyamoto himself explicitly considers to be "his friend", and Country, which they respect and accept, but which is not THEIR creation. Taking characters from the Rare era is not the same as taking a game concept invented by Rare.

When Miyamoto asks one of the company's brightest talents, who has just founded a division in Tokyo, to make a DK game to inaugurate that division, it shows just how important DK is to Nintendo. But what Jungle Beat will also make clear is that, even when devoting in-house talent and resources to DK, EPD apparently has no desire to continue the Country series in-house.

I don't think Nintendo didn't want to relaunch the series sooner, I think they just didn't have a developer to entrust it to. Waiting for Retro to finish its three Metroid Prime games is ultimately waiting for the right developer to relaunch the series. And the main reason many of us think the next DK game will be developed by EPD is that Retro is busy again with Prime.

In fact, it's often a question of resources and concepts with Nintendo's IPs. It took Next Level Games to relaunch Luigi's Mansion, it took Mercury Steam to relaunch Metroid, and if there was no 3D Metroid before Retro, it's because Sakamoto himself didn't want to/couldn't come up with a 3D concept. They don't seem to know what to do with Starfox and F-Zero. And even at EPD, it wasn't until in-house talent from different projects got together and gave it a lot of time that Mario Wonder was born. As I've said before, I think if Country is to continue, NLG may be a serious possibility. But it wouldn't be until the next Luigi's Mansion.
 
boodream said:
When Miyamoto asks one of the company's brightest talents, who has just founded a division in Tokyo, to make a DK game to inaugurate that division, it shows just how important DK is to Nintendo. But what Jungle Beat will also make clear is that, even when devoting in-house talent and resources to DK, EPD apparently has no desire to continue the Country series in-house.
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And during the development of Double Dash, they originally wanted to use Jr. as DK's partner
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Though nowadays I'd say Diddy has been 100% adopted (and more or less Cranky, Dixie and Funky too), and he even appears in internal EPD material.

Csrartwork.jpg
 
boodream said:
DK is definitely very important to Nintendo, if only for obvious historical reasons. I don't think anyone doubts that. On the other hand, Donkey Kong as an IP and Donkey Kong Country as a series of games are two separate things. I don't think Nintendo dislikes Country at all, but I do think they're ambivalent;

I never believed the fantasies that Nintendo was jealous of Rare. On the other hand, I think they have a very different view of DK, which Miyamoto himself explicitly considers to be "his friend", and Country, which they respect and accept, but which is not THEIR creation. Taking characters from the Rare era is not the same as taking a game concept invented by Rare.

When Miyamoto asks one of the company's brightest talents, who has just founded a division in Tokyo, to make a DK game to inaugurate that division, it shows just how important DK is to Nintendo. But what Jungle Beat will also make clear is that, even when devoting in-house talent and resources to DK, EPD apparently has no desire to continue the Country series in-house.

I don't think Nintendo didn't want to relaunch the series sooner, I think they just didn't have a developer to entrust it to. Waiting for Retro to finish its three Metroid Prime games is ultimately waiting for the right developer to relaunch the series. And the main reason many of us think the next DK game will be developed by EPD is that Retro is busy again with Prime.

In fact, it's often a question of resources and concepts with Nintendo's IPs. It took Next Level Games to relaunch Luigi's Mansion, it took Mercury Steam to relaunch Metroid, and if there was no 3D Metroid before Retro, it's because Sakamoto himself didn't want to/couldn't come up with a 3D concept. They don't seem to know what to do with Starfox and F-Zero. And even at EPD, it wasn't until in-house talent from different projects got together and gave it a lot of time that Mario Wonder was born. As I've said before, I think if Country is to continue, NLG may be a serious possibility. But it wouldn't be until the next Luigi's Mansion.
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Miyamaoto also said that for Jungle Beat he let Koizumi and company basically do whatever they wanted, so Koizumi could have done a traditional DK Country if he wanted

Of course, Koizumi and company were adults or late teens by the time DK Country came out, whereas many EPD folks now were kids when it came out, and rumors say that the new DK project was championed by fans of the original Super Donkey Kong aka DK Country
 
Drybones2015 said:
Yeah I know the question being answered was about her redesign.

But I'm specifically pointing out how the answer was vague enough that it could just be interpreted as them saying "Nintendo is the reason Tiny is in the game". Especially with the following remark, which wouldn't really make sense towards the question. And if it is, then it's just evidence for Nintendo actually likes human shaped Kongs.
But then rereading the question now, if true, Tiny hade her original design still in Barrel Blast before both were shown off at the same E3 with the new design in DKR DS. Was there no communication there? If it was Nintendo's choice then surely there would be? It just seems more likely that Rare did do the redesign and Nintendo preferred that so Paon changed her for their game.
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I'm very curious about this screenshot of Barrel Blast with Tiny's old design. I feel like I vaguely remember it, but cannot find it anywhere.

EDIT - Disregard. Read a few pages back and this info is not correct.
Drybones2015 said:
Rare using her original design before them changing it is perfectly plausible. Ultimately, Rare were the developers. If teen Tiny originated from DKR DS, then Rare made the redesign. Nintendo just approved it.
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You can definitely tell it was changed at some point, as both Dixie and Tiny are sporting their old designs in these icons.

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A lot of this comes down to Nintendo simply having differing priorities and interests with the DK franchise than much of the fandom does. It's a common scenario with a lot of series, with even the former Donkey Kong caretakers Rare themselves going through a variation that with Banjo-Kazooie Nuts and Bolts. Two things can be true in this case:

-There's obvious care, experimentation, and polish in non-Country releases paired with genuine investment in Donkey Kong throughout its history.
-The market has generally not responded as strongly to such games in comparison to outright DKC platform releases and the overall concepts introduced by Rare and/or built upon by Retro have typically taken hold within the gaming cultural sphere more than anything else barring maybe the original 1981 arcade game.

The development of DKC Returns I don't think was an admission of defeat by Nintendo about the IP in any sense, just an acknowledgement that Retro could do strong work with the form that many fans seemed to like most.
 
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JazzyFuture said:
3D Mario is more different to 2D Mario than Jungle Beat is to Country. Hell, Diddy Kong Racing is more disconnected from the DKC series than most of the non-Rare spinoffs.
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Personally, I don't really agree. Some 3D Mario games like 3D Land and 3D World, of course, but even the Mario Galaxy games, with their relative linearity, have a real filiation with the 2D Mario games and in a way retain some of their spirit, in my opinion. On the other hand, when you play Jungle Beat with bongos, the first thing you think is "Well, that's another strange experiment from Nintendo", rather than "Well, it's a continuation of Donkey Kong Country", in my opinion.

Obviously, if you compare Country with a racing game, Jungle Beat as a 2D platformer will be more similar. Nevertheless, given the arcade-oriented approach adopted by Jungle Beat, whether in the gameplay or the scoring system, I'd almost say that Jungle Beat is more in keeping with the legacy of the first Donkey Kong game, which was primarily an arcade game, than with the continuity of Rare's work.

Number1000DKFan said:
Miyamaoto also said that for Jungle Beat he let Koizumi and company basically do whatever they wanted, so Koizumi could have done a traditional DK Country if he wanted

Of course, Koizumi and company were adults or late teens by the time DK Country came out, whereas many EPD folks now were kids when it came out, and rumors say that the new DK project was championed by fans of the original Super Donkey Kong aka DK Country
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I have no doubt that a lot of people at EPD like DK Country, whether it's people who grew up with it or even Koizumi, I don't think anyone at Nintendo dislikes DK Country at all. I do think they have a problem with the fact that it's not their creation. Not in the sense that they don't like it, but in the sense that they don't want to take over another studio's legacy. That's why it took Retro to relaunch Country, in my opinion.

Miyamoto gave Koizumi freedom to make a Donkey Kong game indeed, but giving that freedom may also mean "come up with something creatively different from what Rare has done". We'll see. I could be wrong, and maybe the next DK game is a Country game developed by EPD. But honestly, I'd be very surprised.
 
I've said it before, but I'm completely fine with EPD doing something different with DK, just as long as some of DKC's legacy characters are still around.

I think everyone in Tropical Freeze, K. Rool and Enguarde is all I really need.
 
boodream said:
Personally, I don't really agree. Some 3D Mario games like 3D Land and 3D World, of course, but even the Mario Galaxy games, with their relative linearity, have a real filiation with the 2D Mario games and in a way retain some of their spirit, in my opinion.
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All of those came after New Super Mario Bros.
boodream said:
Obviously, if you compare Country with a racing game, Jungle Beat as a 2D platformer will be more similar. Nevertheless, given the arcade-oriented approach adopted by Jungle Beat, whether in the gameplay or the scoring system, I'd almost say that Jungle Beat is more in keeping with the legacy of the first Donkey Kong game, which was primarily an arcade game, than with the continuity of Rare's work.
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With this, I was talking about future DK's spinoffs usage of characters and collectibles. Barrel Blast uses a wide variety of Kongs and Kremlings, Animal Buddies, it even incorporates minecarts and Barrel Cannons. While DKR basically just has bananas and Diddy, because it was never meant to be a Donkey Kong game initially. Even the Konga games use a lot of DKC characters and iconography, despite just being a reskinned Taiko No Tatsujin game. The Pegboard games also use a lot of DKC characters, enemies, and even collectibles, only skipping out on the animal buddies, and that's also with not originally being DK themed. Even Mario spinoffs started adopting DKC characters and visuals, a few of the series like Kart and Party started it before Rare even got sold, and only got better at using DKC stuff with time, even before Returns, where things arguably got worse.

Jungle Beat skips on bringing back legacy characters, but makes it's own animal buddies and just all around aesthetically is very much following in the footsteps of the weirder parts of Rare's Donkey Kong games, like DKC3 and DK64. Hell, the bongos even existing is a DK64 reference. It's very weird and experimental, but I think it's very clear that it was EPD's take on DKC. DKC1 and 2 love asking you to keep moving and keep up roll speed, but you can also go secret hunting. Jungle Beat gets rid of the latter, but I think it's flow very much feels like DKC1 and 2, despite lacking a roll. I firmly believe it's not called Donkey Kong Country Jungle Beat mostly because it's was made by a JP studio that was giving their own take on something that was only called "Super Donkey Kong".
 
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boodream said:
Personally, I don't really agree. Some 3D Mario games like 3D Land and 3D World, of course, but even the Mario Galaxy games, with their relative linearity, have a real filiation with the 2D Mario games and in a way retain some of their spirit, in my opinion. On the other hand, when you play Jungle Beat with bongos, the first thing you think is "Well, that's another strange experiment from Nintendo", rather than "Well, it's a continuation of Donkey Kong Country", in my opinion.

Obviously, if you compare Country with a racing game, Jungle Beat as a 2D platformer will be more similar. Nevertheless, given the arcade-oriented approach adopted by Jungle Beat, whether in the gameplay or the scoring system, I'd almost say that Jungle Beat is more in keeping with the legacy of the first Donkey Kong game, which was primarily an arcade game, than with the continuity of Rare's work.


I have no doubt that a lot of people at EPD like DK Country, whether it's people who grew up with it or even Koizumi, I don't think anyone at Nintendo dislikes DK Country at all. I do think they have a problem with the fact that it's not their creation. Not in the sense that they don't like it, but in the sense that they don't want to take over another studio's legacy. That's why it took Retro to relaunch Country, in my opinion.

Miyamoto gave Koizumi freedom to make a Donkey Kong game indeed, but giving that freedom may also mean "come up with something creatively different from what Rare has done". We'll see. I could be wrong, and maybe the next DK game is a Country game developed by EPD. But honestly, I'd be very surprised.
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I think it will be a DK Country Like, without being literally called DK Country

The reasons for believing this are
1) Again, the age of the younger developers and the rumors that they championed a new DK game because of their love of Super DK
2) DK Country is the only DK brand that has sold serious numbers since the arcade days

My guess is a kind of hybrid of DK Country and Jungle Beat, where it’s a 2D platformer that retains the exploration of Country while keeping some fighting stuff from Jungle Beat
 
JazzyFuture said:
All of those came after New Super Mario Bros.
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You're right, the huge sales of New Super Mario Bros clearly had a big influence on 3D Land/World. However, I'm not sure that's the case with Galaxy, which only came out 18 months later. Mario Galaxy's design choices always gave me the feeling that it was Nintendo thinking about how they could have transposed the essence and simplicty of the Super Mario games into 3D if they hadn't taken the sandbox route with Mario 64. This is also in line with the Wii's more casual positioning,

JazzyFuture said:
With this, I was talking about future DK's spinoffs usage of characters and collectibles.
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JazzyFuture said:
a few of the series like Kart and Party started it before Rare even got sold, and only got better at using DKC stuff with time, even before Returns, where things arguably got worse.
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I think this perfectly illustrates Nintendo's ambivalence and constant refusal to fully assume Rare's heritage, while never really ceasing to emphasize it. It's the same thing with the evolution of character design. If you made references to Country, it wasn't in platform games. If you made a 2D Donkey Kong platformer in-house, not only did you not call it Country, but you also made sure to give it a very distinct identity with its very experimental approach. And even when you finally tbring back the Country series, not only does EPD itself not make the games, but they intervene so that the enemies are different from the Rare games. They give the impression of simply not wanting to have a clear position on this. Or maybe there are internal differences of opinion.
 
I think at some point it becomes just a semantic question; Donkey Kong "Country" did not ever exist in Japan as a brand before the theme park!

But there is clearly a line of games mainly including the arcade games and Donkey Kong '94 (and the first vs. DK, if you want) on the one hand, mainly featuring Mario or a Mario-like character as a playable character and DK as an enemy mostly in a single-screen setting, and a line a games started by Donkey Kong Country 1994 starring DK and/or his fellow Kongs as playable characters in a more traditional platform framework. Land, 64 and Jungle Beat were both extensions of the later, either providing a handheld counterpart, attempting a 3D evolution, or having a different developer giving a different spin to the core concept.
 
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FF7 Remake and Rebirth, which were both made by a good number of people who played the original FF7 in their childhoods (that includes the director, Mr Hamaguchi), have been praised for how good they feel to play as well as how accurate to the characters and locations of the original they feel, which got me thinking: if EPD Tokyo were to put together a team of young people that played the Rare DKC games in their childhoods on a DK game, there's probably at least a possibility that the studio could recapture what made those games so good to so many people and what even people don't feel the Retro games recaptured fully.
 
entut1 said:
if EPD Tokyo were to put together a team of young people that played the Rare DKC games in their childhoods on a DK game, there's probably at least a possibility that the studio could recapture what made those games so good to so many people and what even people don't feel the Retro games recaptured fully.
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That was Square's way of thinking when they put together Tokyo RPG Factory, so maybe.
 
The secret sauce Retro was missing is actually quite simple (when you've devoted as much of your short time on this earth to thinking about it as I have):

a) Willingness or ability to actually use Rare's work instead of reverse-engineering it.

b) Willingness and ability to write and take pride in their world and characters instead of deriding them as silly and not worth the effort.

c) Fondness for Victorian adventure novels.

I don't think we're getting the old art style back, and I'm worried about the music in an EPD game if only because I'm not sure Nintendo has any in-house talent left that's capable of doing the style to the standards of the series, but the rest of this is really all that's left separating Tropical Freeze from the original trilogy.
 
I miss the tag mechanics too.

Having Diddy, Dixie and Cranky as moveset enhancements for DK isn't the same thing.

Actually the Team up throws of DKC2 and DKC3, are a way better way to emphasize the cooperation between Kongs.
 
Number1000DKFan said:
The biggest thing that separates Rare from Retro in terms of gameplay is the animal buddies
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I'd say that in general they're a lot more leery about non-standard gameplay, but also a lot more committal when they do feature it. Very very focused on platforming and, especially in Tropical Freeze, the straightforward left-to-right platforming that their movement system is best at. Throwing items are rare, no new barrel cannon varieties or Animal Buddies, team-up throw and a lot of the more esoteric and creative secret design are both gone. But for things they did implement like Rambi/mine carts/rocket barrels/swimming, they went much harder on dedicating full levels to them than Rare ever did. The most consecutive screentime Rambi got in any Rare game was half of his own level, whereas Tropical Freeze gives him three to himself. DKC1 has four water levels spread out across the whole game, Tropical Freeze has more than that just in Sea Breeze Cove.

I think the "no-frills" nature of Retro's revival is one of the main things about it that rubs fans of the originals the wrong way. It's easiest to notice in the lack of side characters in general, but a lot of their gameplay mechanics and associated design are also gone. No Funky in Returns doesn't just mean a terminal lack of jorts, it means we don't have his role as a gatekeeper of travel to keep you from being able to always grind extra lives in the first level, or an expansion on DKC3's world map exploration with vehicles. The only characters that really became mechanically redundant because of other things Retro added were Rattly/Winky and Enguarde in Tropical Freeze. The rest just didn't have their roles filled at all. Even Cranky, who was there in both games, doesn't really offer his old hints or his complaints about games these days in either of them.
 
Many of the old characters were personification of mechanics that otherwise would have been kept to a menu or the manual. It was clunkier, but also made things charming in those old games. Candy is a clunky save button. Funky is a warp whistle map screen. Cranky is the Nintendo hotline rep insulting you.

The old animal buddies were also there to enhance abilities that otherwise the Kongs couldn't do, ala Yoshi, but unlike Yoshi they are not even close to as versatile individually.
 
Mer.Saloon said:
Many of the old characters were personification of mechanics that otherwise would have been kept to a menu or the manual. It was clunkier, but also made things charming in those old games. Candy is a clunky save button. Funky is a warp whistle map screen. Cranky is the Nintendo hotline rep insulting you.
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There was originally a gameplay purpose behind not being able to save or travel freely, because they were still attempting to preserve the tension of a Game Over even in a post-SMW platformer where you could freely replay levels. That's why DKC2 has the really unpopular pay to save thing but the first one is free, it's to discourage you from save scumming.

Although, despite the complaints, a lot of this challenge also doesn't come across as well nowadays, because you have to actively reset Virtual Console games or you'll just resume from a save state (not sure about NSO). They were definitely balanced around periodically losing your extra lives and coins whenever you turned the game off. If you play through DKC2 in one sitting you can easily go past 99 lives without grinding and discover that Rare never implemented a cap, it just stops counting and you'll die and the number won't go down. Players were never expected to have that many in the first place.

They still didn't have to have characters hosting it I suppose, but there was more to the game design that was lost by making it a quick and easy menu option than some surfer lingo and sick music.
 
I’m halfway through Unicorn Overlord and, while I love it, I’m starting to feel the burn from 100 hour RPG after 40 hour RPG after two 150 hour Zeldas. I was looking at my backlog and I see that I have Yooka Laylee and the Impossible Lair waiting. Kinda itchy to try that, and hoping it will help soothe some of the longing for new DK.
 
Regulus Tera said:
I’m halfway through Unicorn Overlord and, while I love it, I’m starting to feel the burn from 100 hour RPG after 40 hour RPG after two 150 hour Zeldas. I was looking at my backlog and I see that I have Yooka Laylee and the Impossible Lair waiting. Kinda itchy to try that, and hoping it will help soothe some of the longing for new DK.
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Impossible Lair is a great time but I will admit it took me a good while to fully get into it. When it clicks it really does click, and there's some really amazing gimmicks in the game. Would definitely reccomend
 
The first DKC has a terrible save system and clearly Rare believed a change was needed

The second DKC has a difficult save system but it’s actually brilliant because it encourages exploration
 
I don’t miss the old save systems, but definitely would love for them to expand on the map style they had with DKC3. But that game is seen as the odd one out of the trilogy by both fans and Nintendo so it’s not surprising they abandoned that direction.
 
The year is 2010. Mere minutes after Nintendo made one of the best reveals ever in E3 history with DKC Returns, they tease even more Donkey Kong goodness coming to their brand new handheld system.
JwBUamx.jpg
...
 
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Hibby said:
Decided to turn my DK Jr concept into a thread. Hope y'all enjoy.

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Even if I'm not completely behind the idea of Jr. coming back in this context (that would be just more confusing and more fuel for the people who advocate for complete retcon and erasure of what Rare has established), I'm here for the adorable drawings! Great job, Hibby!

And here's my pitch: have Jr. around for Mario spinoffs like he was in Mario Tennis 64 alongside modern DK and Diddy. It doesn't need to have a lore explanation, Baby Mario are always in these games too, so why would be that hard?
 
CyberWolfBia said:
Even if I'm not completely behind the idea of Jr. coming back in this context (that would be just more confusing and more fuel for the people who advocate for complete retcon and erasure of what Rare has established), I'm here for the adorable drawings! Great job, Hibby!

And here's my pitch: have Jr. around for Mario spinoffs like he was in Mario Tennis 64 alongside modern DK and Diddy. It doesn't need to have a lore explanation, Baby Mario are always in these games too, so why would be that hard?
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Thank you!! I'd be okay with that, too. I think Baby DK muddies the waters a bit on that. The DK lore Rare established is unfortunately already confusing thanks to additions like him.
 
Hibby said:
Thank you!! I'd be okay with that, too. I think Baby DK muddies the waters a bit on that. The DK lore Rare established is unfortunately already confusing thanks to additions like him.
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Well, you see.. I've always took Baby DK as an infant Cranky Kong/DK Sr., since he was "born" at the sametime as Mario, Luigi, Wario and Peach (I'd take Baby Bowser is slight older); .. and if we buy the whole thing of apes aging much faster than humans, or even the hypothesis of the Mushroom Kingdom having a different passage of time.. I thiiink it can work.

Heck, I'd love to see the world burn and have a team up of both DK Jr. and Baby DK in doubles in Tennis, while in the same game you have Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong in the other team ;P
 
Mekanos said:
I don’t miss the old save systems, but definitely would love for them to expand on the map style they had with DKC3. But that game is seen as the odd one out of the trilogy by both fans and Nintendo so it’s not surprising they abandoned that direction.
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I actually see a lot of hardcore fans asking for the next game to expand upon DKC3's map, but I suspect if Nintendo paid attention to hardcore Donkey Kong fans we would be in a very different place right now...

It blew my mind the first time I played the game, but over the years it's really struck me how vestigial the overworld stuff is in 3. It's kind of quaint nowadays with games like Mario Wonder and Impossible Lair, but I mean even before that. You can fully complete every level without ever really interacting with it outside of talking to Benny to use the chairlift and raising Krematoa/blowing up the boulders. The only secrets are the Banana Bird caves, and since you can only freely move in water their placement is pretty limited. Something I learned fairly recently is that the Brothers Bear quest was originally partly on the main path because they gave you the vehicle parts instead of the bosses, and the three less Bonus Coins you get from bosses because of this is why there are a few random Krematoa levels with extra bonus rooms. I can't for the life of me find the prerelease images where this information came from, and no one seems to have documented it outside of whatever thread on the (now gone) old DK Vine forums it was posted in. So for all I know it was a dream.

I'd really like to see a game that more fully integrates the world map some day though. It doesn't have to be DKC, but it would be a natural fit for the series. I've seen some games get close-ish, but none that quite make the overworld "part of the adventure" like I'm imagining.
 


If any of you have Twitter accounts, here's a poll that I did about DK EPD. If you don't have any accounts on there, you can still respond here.
 
0
Man, Rare could have saved everyone a lot of confusion and headaches if they had just made modern Donkey Kong DK Jr all grown up, just like they made Cranky the original DK aged up.
 
Stilt Village said:
I actually see a lot of hardcore fans asking for the next game to expand upon DKC3's map, but I suspect if Nintendo paid attention to hardcore Donkey Kong fans we would be in a very different place right now...

It blew my mind the first time I played the game, but over the years it's really struck me how vestigial the overworld stuff is in 3. It's kind of quaint nowadays with games like Mario Wonder and Impossible Lair, but I mean even before that. You can fully complete every level without ever really interacting with it outside of talking to Benny to use the chairlift and raising Krematoa/blowing up the boulders. The only secrets are the Banana Bird caves, and since you can only freely move in water their placement is pretty limited. Something I learned fairly recently is that the Brothers Bear quest was originally partly on the main path because they gave you the vehicle parts instead of the bosses, and the three less Bonus Coins you get from bosses because of this is why there are a few random Krematoa levels with extra bonus rooms. I can't for the life of me find the prerelease images where this information came from, and no one seems to have documented it outside of whatever thread on the (now gone) old DK Vine forums it was posted in. So for all I know it was a dream.

I'd really like to see a game that more fully integrates the world map some day though. It doesn't have to be DKC, but it would be a natural fit for the series. I've seen some games get close-ish, but none that quite make the overworld "part of the adventure" like I'm imagining.
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Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair does it best tbh. It’s the closest thing to 3 and even surpasses it imo. Something similar to that but even bigger would be great.
 


I really do like seeing these guys, and can't wait until they're fully ready. They were my favorite of the Returns enemies in that they had some personality. Even if said personality was panic to death.
 
Mer.Saloon said:
Many of the old characters were personification of mechanics that otherwise would have been kept to a menu or the manual. It was clunkier, but also made things charming in those old games. Candy is a clunky save button. Funky is a warp whistle map screen. Cranky is the Nintendo hotline rep insulting you.

The old animal buddies were also there to enhance abilities that otherwise the Kongs couldn't do, ala Yoshi, but unlike Yoshi they are not even close to as versatile individually.
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In other words, Rare's design philosophy in that regard just didn't age well.

Not their fault though. Still, characters shouldn't be included just for the sake of it.

Returns: DK is the main character. Diddy is the "partner" that adds to DK's repertoire a la a reverse Yoshi. Cranky is there for shop purposes. Chops is the tutorial guy.

TF: Gameplay expansion of the partner mechanic through Dixie and Cranky, which bring new movement options. Funky takes over as shopkeeper, then becomes the noob character by clever implementation of his surfing skills.

Retro in general streamlined really well what Rare introduced, all while bringing their own gameplay ideas like allowing DK to climb vegetation and pull things from the ground. And putting a huge emphasis on environmental interaction and level exploring, even more than Rare did. I feel like people focus too much on what Retro DIDN'T copy from Rare than their own ideas and contributions to the franchise.

But alas, some characters just end up unnecessary. Like, do we really need Enguarde when the DK already has fast swimming through Dixie and can attack underwater? Even Rare knew this, which is why they filled the GBA DKC remakes with all sorts of useless minigames to further justify Cranky, Funky etc, being there (I admit I enjoyed the ostrich races, but that's it.)
 
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entut1 said:
FF7 Remake and Rebirth, which were both made by a good number of people who played the original FF7 in their childhoods (that includes the director, Mr Hamaguchi), have been praised for how good they feel to play as well as how accurate to the characters and locations of the original they feel, which got me thinking: if EPD Tokyo were to put together a team of young people that played the Rare DKC games in their childhoods on a DK game, there's probably at least a possibility that the studio could recapture what made those games so good to so many people and what even people don't feel the Retro games recaptured fully.
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But you see, that WAS exactly the point of Retro's revival. So much the devs played the games back to back in order to recapture what made them good.

At that point, you might as well just beg for Rare to come back and make a new game. And even then, I doubt it would end up just like the older games as the studio is no longer the same. No one is going to be championing the return of Candy Kong, a byproduct of a more objectifying era. Or Tiny Kong, who mostly existed to be the obligatory girl power rep that Dixie wasn't (I still think it's wild Tiny's redesign was Nintendo-mandated). Swanky I guess COULD work as some sort of shady shopkeeper if they intend to keep going with that gameplay idea.

Lanky is the real shame though because he's entirely unique and has lots of potential as a playable character of his own.

I certainly don't expect EPD to do exactly what Rare did either, because, as many here have stated, a lot of Rare's design ideas only made sense in the era they made those games. And with a good dose of British humor and conventions that neither Retro nor EPD would be able to replicate for obvious reasons.
 
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KCannon said:
But you see, that WAS exactly the point of Retro's revival. So much the devs played the games back to back in order to recapture what made them good.

At that point, you might as well just beg for Rare to come back and make a new game. And even then, I doubt it would end up just like the older games as the studio is no longer the same. No one is going to be championing the return of Candy Kong, a byproduct of a more objectifying era. Or Tiny Kong, who mostly existed to be the obligatory girl power rep that Dixie wasn't (I still think it's wild Tiny's redesign was Nintendo-mandated). Swanky I guess COULD work as some sort of shady shopkeeper if they intend to keep going with that gameplay idea.

Lanky is the real shame though because he's entirely unique and has lots of potential as a playable character of his own.

I certainly don't expect EPD to do exactly what Rare did either, because, as many here have stated, a lot of Rare's design ideas only made sense in the era they made those games. And with a good dose of British humor and conventions that neither Retro nor EPD would be able to replicate for obvious reasons.
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I'm perfectly fine with Retro's stuff tbf. I would even go as far as to call Tropical Freeze the single best 2D platformer of all time. Just throwing around some ideas since it seems we won't see them on a new DK game anytime soon.
 
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Hibby said:
Decided to turn my DK Jr concept into a thread. Hope y'all enjoy.

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Mario Tennis 64 was my first console games and the DK Jr ereader cards was one of the first games on a handheld I played. I absolutely loved this obscure ape as a kid. I still think he is one of the cutest designed characters that Nintendo has ever made. It really sucks we'll probably never see a modern take of him.
 
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