He has no style, he has no grace, this kong, has a funny face!

You can actually grab the G in Shipwreck Shore, then backtrack to the secret exit, assuming you haven't lost Dixie. Lost Mangroves is my favourite world to go through because you can hit all the secret exits once and not have to revisit a stage. You can go Mangrove Cove > Shipwreck Shore > Zipline Shrine > Canopy Chaos > Busted Bayou > Trunk Twister > Swinger Flinger > Big Top Bop with no backtracking. This is coming from a veteran player though, who's falling off 'cos of how bad the secret exits were implemented. All of them are at a branch near the end of a level, some (Rockin' Relics and Panicky Paddles) SE levels put their KONG letters/puzzle pieces past points-of-no-return after the secret exit. Many require a Kong buddy to overcome an obstacle, so if you lose Dixie in Panicky Paddles or Frozen Frenzy, you have to start the whole, long level over again. Lost Mangroves has the most painless integration of branching paths in TF, and as someone who wants to experience all this game's content every playthough, World 1 has the best pacing in that regard.

I really don't feel the same way as you about these levels, but I do really like your idea of having the first world separating the Kongs and having them work their way back to DK. Still one of the best platformers I ever played.

Sort-of a complicated idea that's being pushed here, where the opening of the game's "good-not-great" and as a whole it sits comparatively poorly in a largely excellent game. Sort-of a Muffin Problem, except it's less that Lost Mangroves is an inherently worse world than the bulk of the game's offerings and more that it doesn't work as well in the context of everything else Tropicana Febreze is going for. I'll agree with Tarvould and the Obsessively-Comprehensive Strawman Designing For Fan in saying that I think Mangrove Cove specifically is a BRILLIANT level in terms of how it teaches the player mechanics and how it's paced out (kind-of a go-to example of that, IMO), but I can see it being a stronger level as a vacuum example of how to learn a given game's mechanics versus an example of how to learn the FEEL of the ensuing game. Interesting stuff.

In Juicyy Jungle. You see one level where the snowmads are harvesting the fruit. Another where they juice it and it functions as the water level. Then they turn it into popsicles. No one cared about the internal flow of the cartoon penguins making popsicles but they were sure to put attention to detail in it.

What are you talking about? The water world is fantastic, Irate Eight, Amiss Abyss, High Tide Ride, and Deep Keep are some of the best levels in the game.

"Overly Loyal Strawman Viewer", that's a phrase that needs to be used more often. XD

I feel exactly the same way about this game. I never understood why I didn't enjoy these specific stages as much as the others until this video

Uh oh, in terms of our relationship I think this is the first time we went furniture shopping and we disagreed on which couch to get. I see the point you're trying to make, and I fully agree with the "too much water - water world" sentiment. Without Enguarde the water sucks more than it already did. That being said, I was almost never a fan of Water levels in any DK game unless I was transformed as Enguarde, and even then it was less fun than the rest. Which I think directly contradicts the "The level is still fun without your buddy." Enguarde makes those tolerable. But, I think Mangroves doesn't deserve some of the criticism here. Considering this is coming off of DKCR, I viewed Mangroves as showing me "See? All that terrible motion/blowing crap from the first game is gone! Here is what you can/should do now." Yes the level is a bit slower, and easy, but then you said that the Cranky level is too hard without Cranky. I view it as teaching the player that if you have a buddy, it's of course always in your best interest to keep them (I know, this is a very DUH common sense lesson, but so is every other thing the game teaches you). I will gladly take a short momentum breather over DKC2's over use of collision-less walls any day. I also kind of like the notion of the game going slowly at first as you learn, and then as you get better at the mechanics the game starts giving you levels to REALLY take advantage of your new skills. If you make the first level flow perfectly for even the noobiest of noobs, they will keep trying that strategy in later levels and get frustrated as they get stomped. Feeding them bite sized pieces I find is better, since you're giving them all the puzzle pieces one at a time to use in later levels. Once they're comfortable using all these pieces individually, then they can start putting together the puzzle of the PERFECT SPEED RUN BOSS-DUDE. I understand though as you said, that first impressions are very important and could turn new people away if you don't give em that GOOD stuff fast enough. But it's a platformer, they move fast. Typically someone won't give up that easily....right? Am I old? PS I hated Cranky and never used him if ever given the choice. Dixie FTW.

"WHAAAAAAT HOW DARE HE INSULT THE HONOR OF LOST MANGROVES!!?!!" 1:37 ...Aagh, fuck, take my like.

I love your videos and I seriously hope you get more of a following.

Something I've noticed a lot with modern platformers is that I generally don't remember a single level from them. There are exceptions from some Wii Platformers like New Super Mario Bros Wii and Donkey Kong Country Returns but generally I forget most levels. Another thing I've noticed with platformer games is that they are the most fun when you know the level in and out and can run through them fast.

The question is, does he also like the seventh world, Secret Seclusion, personally while the levels are solid I feel like they are anticlimactic for a secret final world and I wish they had more variety in the level themes, maybe have each level mix Golden Temple esc architecture with landmarks from each of the major worlds to make it a natural evolution of the Cloud world from DKCR 3DS.

Hmm. I have to say I actually really like world 4 cause the water controls and gameplay are awesome in this game. 5:07 I can confirm. I was shocked by how long it took me to get the shiny gold medal here. Althought 1-K and 1-B were my personnal hate levels in this world when it comes to time attack. 7:00 Idk, I thought it had charm to explore water sections in this level, and if you ignore the secrets, it doesn't slow you down nearly as much as 1-1. Overall, in my opinion there are two main problems with world 1. First, the world is too obviously tutorial like. You touched on that a little, but I'd like to elaborate:you have the diddy level, the dixie level, the cranky level, the minecart level, the liana level, the shadow level and a pretty generic boss to end it all(no, I'm not a fan of this guy, I think he's boring and takes too long). It's just feels so gamey compare to the natural flow of the rest of the game. My other problem is something you seem to disagree. I think the environnement in these stages, at least the four that happen in daytime, are really boring. I mean, the other worlds are juice factories, savana, autumn forest in the mountains, frozen dkcr world, mysterious underwater ruins... and then this one just puts you on a sunny beach. Great.

First time through I somehow missed the whole “Bermuda Triangle” theme of the first world. I guess my brain just edited out all the crashed ships and planes.

I love underwater levels

great and interesting vid, agree with you

I don't really understand what this video is saying. He is referring to the first world of the game being too "stop-n-go" focused for new players, but from the perspective of someone who has already beaten the game, and knows about the momentum-focused gameplay. New players arent going to care or know about that - they are just gonna be busy looking for secrets and exploring. you can absolutely blast ur way through the first few levels if you're skilled enough, and make use of the game's mechanics like pulling up one of those plugs twice as fast if u press B multiple times. This game rewards skilled players by making it faster to move through the levels

I actually kind of felt something similar to this. I'm a huge fan of the original trilogy, and when I tried out TF at first, I ended up putting the game down about halfway through the first world until a couple years later I picked it up again and loved it once I've played the later levels. I don't know how to describe the reason, but maybe this video summarises why I might have disregarded this game when I initially bought it.

I agree with you, maybe I don't find it any problem besides the fact that secret exits are actually very weirdly placed and most of them forces you to replay the level to get every other item, but an A is a fair score indeed, very enjoyable experience and on first try you probably will want to replay most levels just for fun

I get the feeling this guy likes Donkey Kong.

AOS is goated start to finish it provides context for the rest of the show not sure what it’s doing there 11:09

I got tropical freeze recently, and while it was a fun ride I didn't enjoy it as much as expected. I think this might be due to me having the wrong mindset about the game, which itself could partly be due to the first world. Through the whole game, I had always thought of it as a collectathon-platformer. This was because of 1: DK 64 exists (though I haven't played), 2: the abundance of collectibles, 3: My general completionist playstyle for platformers, and 4: world 1's slow pace. The start of the game did nothing to dissuade my initial view of how the game was supposed to go, and to me it seemed like it wanted me to take my time. Like the game was nudging me to go find all of the little things, like walls that you can kinda see a hole in or water that is no longer a death plane. After beating world 1 and the few worlds after it using that, I started feeling unnecessarily punished for trying to stick around some segments and search for collectibles, especially it took until 6-4 to find all of the puzzle pieces on my first go. During the later half of world 6, I started consciously thinking the levels were starting to be flat out poorly designed! The final Ramby part was GRUESOME, mainly due to the way charging doesn't continue after you land from a jump while almost every jump could only be done while charging. To quote my frustration during the later 3rd of the game "It keeps trying to push me to rush forward, while also punishing me for going too fast! What does it want from me?!" Almost the whole game felt like I was supposed to be doing to completely contradictory things at once: Look around to find secrets, and hurry up so you don't die. Before getting the game I knew it was supposed to be challenging, but I thought the level design would still allow for slowing down and searching for things without being in severe danger if I didn't hurry up. This was no Sonic or Celeste, this was Donkey Kong. The game series about a gorilla trying to reclaim his lost *collection* of objects, scattered all around the place. I knew going fast was possible, but I saw it more as accessibility for those who like that sort of self challenge, especially since funky was stated to be designed for speedrunning. Now if the Lost Mangrove had a different sort of flow to them, where it didn't keep you from running forward and pushing past all obstacles like a raging fruit starved ape, I may have taken the hint much earlier that I was supposed to do that. I didn't, so later levels that were filled with collapsing platforms and impending doom on the area just felt out of place in a game that I was trying to thoroughly weed through to find secrets. It was enjoyable when I did what I now know I was supposed to be doing all along, but the whole time I was thinking "I am probably missing so many puzzle pieces right now." Even going back through to find the ones I missed, it'll be difficult to get them just because I can't afford to take my time. (not to mention how stupid some of them are to discover but that's off topic) Half the time it feels like I'm forced to use Squaks because of how hidden they are in a place I don't have time to look around in. Whenever I pull him out I feel like I'm cheating, since knowing the area a puzzle piece is in removes all the challenge of getting it, but I'll never find them if the game won't let me be thorough. I hope you've enjoyed my wall of text and I basically already forgot what part of the video this was meant to be relevant to.

Busted Bayou is one of the best levels in the game, no cap.

B-b-b-but does it have a funny face?

8:01 what is the secret (besides the star)

Odd because I loved the slower pace of the first world as a whole. This video seems pretty nitpicky

I disagre, althought yes, the flow of game does change is the following worlds, it was very natural in my playthrought, also the level design of the 3 frist levels of this world is completely different to the rest, instead of the kongs revolving around the levels, here the levels revolve around the kongs, which was the best option for a tutorial world, and Sea Breeze Cove is also a excellent world, the only problem with it is that it suffers the a similar fate to those of the DKC Returns Cave world, a great ideia to combine this style of gameplay, but that disrupts the flow of the game, all of this worlds are amazing, and even if world 1 and 4 suffers some problems, the brilliant level design greatly oushines its problems ten times, all of this worlds are a 9+ out of ten

1:41 WHAT THE FUCK WHY IS LANKY DEAD

This is an oddly nitpicky video that doesn't even make sense to me, the first world introducing mechanics and characters with each stage being your nitpick? I don't think the flow is bad, nor is the specific flow you want required in order for it to be quality design. I wouldn't call it graceless either, it gives you time to learn the mechanics, which is... good? I wouldn't want them to push you along when it comes to that, so like, I'm glad they didn't do what you wanted? Weird vid, I mean, I have my nitpicks for all the DK games, especially DKC2, but this is a very strange vid to make at all. Wondering if your opinion on things have changed since making it.

text

I hate that thumbnail so much

5th view

They fucked up the new games when they zoomed the camera out. Doesn't even feel like DKC

Dude for real, if you need to say something extra, edit it in. Having to pause for things like in 1:02 are annoying specially when you talk about how you dislike pace breakers. I'm not every trying to mess with you, I love the videos, but this is something I can't let go. If I'm a minority, fine, don't listen to me. I respect democracy.