Funky's making me feel something. For 18 FREE meals with HelloFresh plus free shipping, use code SCMJ18 bit.ly/3TRS0zY

Cranky being the most popular with Speedrunners instead of Casual audiences really makes his whole character go full circle.

Tropical Freeze honestly has some of the most creative levels and worlds out there, especially the giant jungle fruit processing factory

Thanks to that Hello Fresh promo, I'm just imagining DK trying to go to a grocery store and going apeshit because he can't buy all the bananas.

What I always appreciate about both Returns and Tropical Freeze is how grounded the the levels are despite the fantastical geography. Most platformers usually have floating platforms sticking out, and while that's not a problem for me personally, I love how in the new DKC games, every part of the level feels connect to some sort of terrain. It's even better when you're playing through the more destructive levels where the environment shifts and changes how you expect to tackle the platforming.

Tropical Freeze lets you play as individual Kongs without DK in its hard mode. But I do believe to unlock hard mode, you have to beat all of the Secret Temple stages. It's great for replays though.

I absolutely adore Tropical Freeze, almost every level in that game is just bursting with creativity and the soundtrack is phenominal for what it is. It's pretty cool.

Fun fact: Tropical Freeze has a unlockable Hard Mode that lets you control the Partner Kongs with needing to play Multiplayer...but it forces you to do a no hit run with no checkpoints of stages (Aka your Hearts are at 1, and the checkpoints are gone). Also Funky Mode still lets 2P play as the Partner Kongs.

I hope you're doing well if you're reading this, Johnny. We appreciate you and your hard work

What in the world was going on in David Wise’s head when he decided “I know what boss music a giant seal with a Viking helmet needs: guitar-shredding metal!”, and why can’t I think of ideas as brilliant as that?

I love how the title card image has Donkey Kong jealous of Funky Kong getting the spotlight.

SomecallmeJohnny of Dec 15, 2022 during his double reviews of Donkey Kong Country Returns & Tropical Freeze: Fuck, I'm never getting another Metroid Prime game, you can even see Samus' Gunship abandoned in one of the Jungle Levels, I can read between the lines...Pricks. SomecallmeJohnny of June 18, 2024, after seeing the Nintendo Direct that show cases Metroid Prime 4: Beyond: AAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

David Wise returning to the DKC series as the music composer for Tropical Freeze was the smartest decision for the series after his long absence. Genius composer, I really feel his musical work for Star Fox Adventures is highly underrated.

What I found with Donkey Kong Country Returns is that, though DK is weighty...oftentimes the best strategy for precise platforming is to just...go for it. And trust your instincts. Don't try to hesitate or correct yourself after landing, just...go. It worked out so well most of the time when I figured it out,

HELL YEAH BABY. Tropical Freeze is the greatest platforming game I've ever played, and one of the best games I've ever played in general. I'm so happy Funky finally got a chance to shine in a game that's NOT a spinoff

5:58 the pairing of Cliff with the Home Alone 2 clips had me rolling.

If you're looking for something as a kind of alternative to "Donkey Kong Country", I highly recommend playing the indie game title "Kaze And The Wild Masks", since the gameplay is remarkably similar to that of the DKC games while also adding plenty of challenge despite it not being as long as the newer games in the series.

Tropical Freeze is probably the greatest 2D platformer I’ve ever played. Gave me a whole new appreciation for the genre after years of solid but underwhelming 2D Marios.

I sure hope there will be a new Donkey Kong game next year.

Bit disappointed that all that we got for Tropical Freeze was a brief six minute cliffnotes review. That game deserves way more than six minutes.

DKC Returns taught me of my hidden talent. You see, this game has a screen where you can unlock and then listen to the music from each level. My family found that I could turn away from the tv, close my eyes, they could pick any song, and I could name the level name it came from. I still carry this skill today, though not towards those songs in particular anymore unfortunately. Anything on my playlist, though, and you've got it in 2 seconds guaranteed. I'll always appreciate DKCR for enlightning me to my useless special talent.

I’m surprised Johnny didn’t mention the music during the rocket barrel. It’s so of the most bombastic and energetic music I’ve heard.

Another cool addition to Returns 3D is an entire extra world if you beat all the Temple Levels. In the Wii version, you just get 1 additional stage where in 3D, you get 8 brand new levels, each based off a different world plus the level from the original game at the end.

For years DKC2 was my favorite platformer ever but then I played Tropical Freeze and now I'm not so sure anymore. Seriously this game is crazy, the secret temples are insane and the music is godlike. I'm excited for a new DKC if it gets better than this

I'm not much of a (2D) platformer guy, usually, and I've never played the original trilogy for reference, only watched others play them, but I can say that I adore Tropical Freeze. It really, really impressed me, honestly. I think it controls like a dream (coming from someone who dislikes the feel of Super Mario Bros. games) and the levels are so wildly imaginitive, with super clean audio and visual presentation and holy moly, how did they cram so many unique (environmental) assets into this game??? Almost all the levels look and sound so distinct, I feel like you just don't get that with most platformers. Absolutely gets my personal recommendation and I'll gush about it every opportunity I get.

"Find Kiddie where the fuck did he go?" The Mario movie, believe it or not.

10:34 DIOnkey Kong is something I didn't know I needed.

I'm always glad to watch a Johnny video when I'm stuck inside playing video games because of a hellscape snowstorm, lmao.

In the return games when you have a companion such as diddy on dk you can roll infinitely. Don’t blame you for not knowing that as the game should’ve taught you. 8:25

20:02 “If found: That’d be nice.” LMAO

I’ve sunk well over 100 hours into both these games, some of my favorites from my childhood

World 3's boss has a clever design choice: its cauldron is filled with bombs, but because the skull icons on the bombs face upward in the cauldron it looks like the cauldron is filled with skulls. That's an insanely sneaky way to cheat around the game's rating.

Tropical Freeze is pretty much a perfect side-scroller. I love it so much, and I was never really a major DK fan before. I heard so many good things about it being a master class is platformer design and finally decided to give it a try, and holy crap was it amazing.

I grew up with returns (which I love) but tropical freeze is even better. Creative level themes and designs (each stage feels so organic as opposed to the blocky levels of a mario or kirby game), an amazing soundtrack by david wise, and just the right amount of difficulty. It's a tough game to beat but it's not too much. When it comes to 2D platformers I really think it's one of the best out there

The Retro duology is a good time but there are just a ton of little things from the Rare trilogy that just make me prefer those games overall I think. That 90s rendered visual style really makes those games look like no other even if that look is dated. The amount of creativity in Tropical Freeze's stages is absolutely incredible though. Great games even if they're not my absolute favorites. That Bramble Scramble remix is incredible and it's a crime that it was only used as a tiny prelude to a freaking rocket barrel stage.

Nothing better than seeing a new video to watch while eating

Who here after the Nintendo direct where Country Returns is comping to the switch?

4:35 The fact that you added Seth Rogan's laugh in this makes this even more perfect than it already is. Changing topic, I'm so excited for the Super Mario movie by Illumination especially because of Donkey Kong. Maybe it's just me, but I feel like DK's presence in that movie alone is a HUGE teaser for a Donkey Kong Country Animated movie. If the Mario movie ends up being successful enough, we may indeed end up with a DKC movie with Seth Rogan as the main star himself DK. I am very excited. Can't wait to see how the Super Mario Bros. Movie does and where do they go from there.

Tropical Freeze is not only one of the greatest platformers ever made, it's also one of the best games of all time. Damn shame it was stuck on the Wii U for so long, but once it got ported to Switch, it was open season for everyone!

Information for later. The Donkey Konga games have unique soundtracks to US, PAL, and JP. If you have access to them through whatever methods, you should check out the songs we missed out on.

Tropical Freeze was such a fantastic time back when I played it years ago. I honestly rank it above DKC1 and 3, but tied with 2. Grassland Grove is my favorite track in the game and the level itself is one of my favorites in the game. The level design, the music, the platforming, you could tell the devs really went all out for this game. Whoever makes the next Country game has a lot to live up to but I have faith that they'll do the next game justice.

The puzzle pieces are for art and dioramas. You only need the K O N G letters to unlock the extra world. To keep rolling as DK with a kong on your back; you need to keep mashing the roll button, or in the wii's case shaking.

I always find DK Returns decent platformer, but a solid return to the series. Tropical freeze tho? One of My favorite 2D Platformer there is

Johnny says he won't take the bongos out till he's covering all the bongo games... Johnny takes bongos out

Will say this. I'd be down for Lord Fredrik (Yes that's the name of the Snowmads leader) teaming up with K Rool in a possible third game. I'm a big fan of his design. Seriously love the anthropomorphic artic animal in viking garb (And I just realized they could pull a Crash Twinsanity by revealing the Kremlings have been frozen this entire time)

Another fun fact about the 3DS version of Returns: The secret world that you can access after collecting all of the Kong letters and colored orbs has an additional eight levels that are not present in the Wii version, with each new level being based on one of the eight worlds of the main game respectively. They are also rather difficult, and are immediately followed up by the one secret level the Wii version had.

That thumbnail for your review introduction screen with the Kongs… You can just see the amount of salt in Donkey Kong’s face 😂😂😂

For us who grew up with the Wii, the motion controls feel completely natural to use

I honestly love these games more than the original trilogy. DK himself feels more agile (just how quickly he can climb up the grassy terrain) and actually strong (despite us being told he was in other games I never actually felt it). And just with how much half the levels get absolutely wrecked as you make your way through it, it makes DK feel like an absolute wrecking ball with the simple objective of going forward no matter what gets in his way. Edit: Though I will admit that there’s a couple of major flaws in the games. The first of which being that the game never tells you how it’s odd way of bouncing off of multiple enemies works. That was something I had to figure out through trial and error, and until I did it was super frustrating _(especially_ in the bonus temple stages) to have the mechanic be so seemingly inconsistent when it wanted to work or not. The other flaw is _much_ worse, though is in a similar vein: having to press A (on Wii, and whatever the button was on Wii U/Switch) multiple times to get a rocket barrel started. While I now get it was purely to get it started, at the time it “taught” me that the way we were suppose to control it was by pressing the button multiple times instead of just holding the button to give it gas, with the speed of the button presses determining how high or low the barrel would go onscreen. That’s how I played the rocket barrel stages for all but like the last one or two, and it made those stages _10 times harder_ than they would have been if played properly. It wasn’t until one of the last ones (I think it was the one where that giant bat was chasing you through most of the stage), where I went from 90 something lives to an actual game over and restart and lost _even more_ lives to it, that I reached my wit’s end and was on the verge of giving up and so started doing long presses of the button in a defeated way…only to discover to my shock and delight/horror that that _worked._ I was delighted because it made the stage _so much easier,_ but was equally in horror that it took me _that long to figure out,_ after so many of these kind of stages and lives lost on this one particular one.

Honestly it's sad your wii isn't functioning well because the controls were really fun. Everything just made sense and running through levels was great. It was so easy to get DK's roll stops short unless you have Diddy to extend it, the mechnic to jump off enemies...just everything flowed so well.

16:24 I was just waiting for Johnny to acknowledge that. 18:10 There's your inner Sonic fan showing itself, Johnny.

I’m still in disbelief that for a man with your passion for the original trilogy you just did your first play through of these. Glad you enjoyed them!

Love that Funky Kong is front and center on the thumbnail and Donkey Kong just can't accept his inferiority.

I can't believe the video I've waited literally half a decade for finally came out on the _one_ day my internet was down...

Having a really bad today, so I truly needed this video. Thanks Johnny

Unsure if you’re already aware, but the other Kongs are playable in tropical freeze. iirc it’s hard mode only or time attack mode. All of them can throw a puny projectile that stuns small enemies

I've been playing DKC Tropical Freeze over the past few days, very solid game.

Man, I always like DKC before, but damn, these 2 games made DKC one of my favorite gaming series ever. I played the Wii version of Returns and still loved it

I originally played Returns on my Wii. But when I played it through again recently I used the Dolphin Emulator and used my Xbox controller. It is very easy to map the motion controls to any PC compatible game pads. The upscaled 1080p resolution and extra graphical enhancements of the emulator make the game look a lot better too. Any modern rig with a GTX 760 or better will run it fully enhanced without any issue.

Johnny vs DK Returns and Tropical Freeze. Now with the new Funky John mode.

If you play the hard mode in Tropical Freeze, you can play as Diddy, Dixy, and Cranky by themselves. I'm assuming you didn't do that since you said you wish you could play as the kongs on their own right? XD

To me, Tropical Freeze is the best 2D platformer I've ever played. I only just beaten the original dkc trilogy on my switch last year and I swear those games felt harder, but maybe it's just because I didn't grow up with those games lol

Contrasting the initial reveals of DKC Returns and Tropical Freeze is pretty sad… but hilarious at the same time.

So I don't don't blame anyone for not knowing this because as far as I know the game doesn't tell you about it but if you have diddy kong in returns you can roll Infinitely as long as you keep shaking the wii remote. Same thing in tropical freeze but it's a lot easier in that game because unless you're playing with a wii remote, you just have to mash a button instead of shaking the controller

16:50 aah, you see, John, DK and the gang can now ATTACK most things underwater, which means they gotta rewire their monkey systems back to needing oxygen, since the tradeoff for indefinitely holding your breath was not being able to attack underwater in the previous games. A common thing in primates. Nature is beautiful.

Looks like someone didn't pay attention because the second part of the credits has an amazing remix of Bramble Blast/StickerBrush Symphony

I never really warmed to the Rare games, but the Retro ones are great.

Thank you so much for the years of entertaining gaming videos, Johnny. I wish you a very merry Christmas.

If Bayonetta 3 is coming out by the end of the year, then absolutely MAKE SURE you grab the Picture Book and look for those keys. They only appear in postgame, and in a specific location in certain chapters. But it is worth it especially if you saw TGA this year.

I had a blast going through Tropical Freeze; way more than I did with Returns which was already a positive impression. Enjoyed how every level felt different and unique, how the 6th World's levels are basically the themes of each of Returns' worlds, the Snowmads being more entertaining than the Tikis, the online leaderboards, playing each individual Kong in Hard Mode (really shouldn't be locked there though), the soundtrack and graphics...I'm just glad it isn't trapped on the Wii U because it really is one of the best games on that platform imo.

Played it last year, this game is so amazing, I hope Nintendo makes another DK game soon

Donkey Kong Country Returns was my 1st dive into the DKC series as a whole. I have a bit of nostalgia for this game when it came out on the Nintendo Wii. I remember receiving it as a Christmas present alongside Sonic Colors and Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games (2010).

probably the worst thing about returns is that when your in 2 player mode when a player dies it takes a life, but whenever only one player is alive and they die it takes two lives even if it already took one for the other players initial death

Tropical freeze is my second favorite game in the dkc series with dkc2 still being my number one.

4:34 I JUST realised Johnny gave DK the Seth Rogan laugh. Nice edit.

If you want a better experience with Returns, there's a modded setup you can use with the Dolphin emulator that maps the motion controls to Classic Controller inputs making it practically indistinguishable from the 3DS version sans the extra levels, would very much recommend this as you get the good controls without sacrificing the framerate.

Little tip for those who have a modified Wii and a Classic Controller on hand, there exist some codes that map the Wii mote controls to the classic controller, and it makes the game much better. If you really want 60fps, that's the way to go if you ask me

For tropical freeze, if you 100%, you unlock hard mode, and in hard mode you can play as Diddy, dixey, and cranky by themselves in single player

the Home Alone 2 reference killed me that's one of my all time favorite scenes in a film

Johnny tropical freeze was already one of my favorite games I was skeptical or not too buy the Nintendo switch rerelease but ever since I’ve heard you say funky mode was a blast I thought I’d try and now I can saw tropical freeze is my favorite donkey Kong game 😊

Johnny you are a blessing on a stressful day. Thanks for doing what you do and I wish you and your loved ones a Happy Holidays.

Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze is one of the greatest games I have ever played. It's phenominal!

19:50 Oh man, I had nearly forgotten about Donkey Kong's infinite penis joke material.

Johnny you are an inspiration to us all Also I wish retro studios had made a third game, duologies always seem off to me

From what I've heard, there were plans to have the Kremling Krew in DKCR3, including K.Rool. but Tropical Freeze didn't do well enough to allow a third game to come along. which I myself put down to 'it's on the Wii U' but that's personal conjecture

I was in the audience at E3 when Reggies announced Returns. For a minute, my game journalist objectivity fell away and I promptly lost my shit lol.

For me these two games are top notch DK games ❤️👍🔥

Glad to have join you on this donkey kong run

Really glad to see you doing the Donkey Kong month together with Dunkey

By far the best 2d platformer i played in the last 15 years. Its also the only one i replayed multiple times. Not counting the other dkc games...

Ah, the DK from my generation. I loved these two, especially Tropical Freeze, and those soundtracks are fantastic listens. Nintendo, make Tropical Freeze's soundtrack available on CD, please and thank you!

Helping keep Donkey Kong December going, Good job Johnny👍

Haven't seen your content in a long time. So happy to see you in good shape Johnny. Seriously so happy for you.

Awesome review! I personally love both games, so I was excited to see you cover them!

just ran into your channel while watching Zelda LttP and OoT reviews and dont know how ive never crossed your channel before. its cool youre still going 10 years after those reviews and youve got a new subscriber.

Thanks for celebrating Donkey Kong December.

17:54 If he’s this good at platforming, imagine him as a LAWYER…

The music. THE MUSIC. David Wise, please mix like, every game ever.

Not gonna lie I might be only with this but Tropical Freeze is my favourite DKC game

I can't believe it was in this video of all places where I realised that in Banjo Kazooie smash reveal. DK has a picture of the Original Donkey Kong on his wall