It's always an impressive feat when a series's sacred cow is challenged. Donkey Kong Country 2 is one of the most beloved games on the SNES, held up as one of the greatest 2D platformers of all time. You'd think it'd be impossible to top, and admittedly for some, it still hasn't been. But in 2014, Tropical Freeze came out of compete nowhere and did just that. It's not just the best Donkey Kong game, it's one of the most masterful 2D platformers ever made.
Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze was an incredibly unassuming game when it came out, its announcement was met with enraged hatred from Metroid fans who wanted a new Prime game and pure apathy from everyone else. It was dismissed almost immediately as a waste of resources, people didn't even give it a chance. With the benefit of hindsight, I can easily say this was the dumbest Nintendo fans have acted since Wind Waker, but even putting aside the fan enragement, there wasn't much reason to expect Tropical Freeze to be anything particularly special. Returns was a really great time and a very well-made platformer, but it took a lot from the SNES original and didn't add much new to the table. How were we supposed to know that, with the shackles of past titles completely gone, Retro Studios had the potential to create something truly special.
Tropical Freeze may not seem like it changes much in terms of pure moment-to-moment gameplay compared to previous games, but it makes all the right tweaks to augment and improve upon DKC Returns' already tight and fluid gameplay. The Wiimote motion controls are completely excised, running is excised in favor of a stronger focus on momentum, and grabbing gets its own button. This is pretty important since there's a pretty big emphasis on grabbing onto objects in Tropical Freeze, including ziplines that almost function like rails in a Sonic game, ropes you can swing around on, and water fruits you can toss at fires to extinguish them. It's all very tactile and fun to interact with. But most importantly, swimming and water stages have returned. I've actually never loved swimming in the SNES games, but Tropical Freeze's swimming controls seemed to take more inspiration from the recent Rayman games and are all the better for it. They're faster, more precise, and makes for easily the best set of water stages in the series. On top of all that, easily the biggest addition is the fact that you can now choose to partner up with either Diddy, Dixie, or Cranky, each boasting their own unique abilities. It's a fun concept that not only allows for a larger cast than ever before, but lends the game a unique layer of strategy since you can try experimenting to find the best partner for each level (not that it affected me, I just use Dixie almost exclusively).
The level design is where Tropical Freeze really shines, though. Tropical Freeze's stages are some of the most dynamic, ambitious, and memorable platforming levels I've ever seen. It uses every trick in the book, from 2.5D plane hopping, to levels that fall apart around you, to jarring background shifts that really feel like each level is a lengthy journey. From climbing up a mountain, to platforming across a lively African festival, to fighting through a tornado, to evading a giant squid furiously chasing you down, to hopping across sliced pieces of fruit that are being processed through an intricate factory, there are so many memorable setpieces here. It's not all flash though, each level also introduces multiple gimmicks that get fully fleshed out by the end, like the falling leafs in Horn Top Hop or the bouncy jellies in Jelly Jamboree. It all adds up a stage roster filled with incredibly complex and layered levels, almost all of which are an utter blast to play. Even the boss fights are dynamic, all of them are these massive multi-phase encounters that keep escalating and escalating. Admittedly, they are a bit hit-or-miss, but the really good bosses in Tropical Freeze rank among the best in the series.
And of course, that's not even mentioning the Minecart and Rocket Barrel stages. When Returns released, one of the most notable improvements over the SNES games were just how much flashier and involved Retro Studios' minecart stages were, but their one-hit health system made them a bit too unforgiving. Tropical Freeze improved on this by bringing back the multiple hitpoints for these stages, which in turn allowed them to make them even more bonkers and memorable dynamic, tossing in so many moving parts, mind-blowing perspective shifts, and jaw-dropping setpieces. The rocket barrel stages will have you flying throw a rat-infested cavern dodging giant blocks of cheese, zooming through a village bursting through houses and evading giant fish, and facing off against a giant robot from a skewed 45-degree angle. The minecart stages are even better, from Trunk Twister which has you ride down the circumference of a giant tree and hop across collapsing planes, to High Tide Ride which goes full 3D and lets you hop between rails to the left and right of you, to one of my all-time favorite video game levels, Sawmill Thrill. Sawmill Thrill takes you on a hectic, frenetically-paced ride through the inside of a sawmill, dodging giant blades and hopping across sliced pieces of wood. Eventually, your minecart goes sawed into a boat which you proceed to ride across the water with an entirely unique set of mechanics, before re-entering the sawmill for one final chase as a giant sawblade lets loose and destroys the track as you hop across it. It's absolutely nuts, endlessly creative, and each section flows seamlessly from one part to the next, almost like it's telling a story.
And that's what really makes Tropical Freeze's level design so special, even beyond just the fun gameplay. The sheer amount of visual storytelling on display in Tropical Freeze is astonishing, though admittedly not surprising coming from the Metroid Prime developers. Nearly every world tells its own interconnected story through just the level design. World 2 has you climb up a mountain, with each level boasting a progressively vaster view of the ground beneath you. World 3 starts with you visiting African-inspired festival only to watch as the beautiful plains you just celebrated in get destroyed by a series of natural disasters. And World 5 has you work through a fruit factory as you get to see the fruit slowly get turned into popsicles bit by bit, one of which being sent directly to the boss. The sheer amount of hidden details in the visuals in Tropical Freeze are just astonishing, the production values in this game nothing short of breath-taking.
And of course, that brings us to the music. With Tropical Freeze, Retro Studios decided to bring back the composer of the first two DKC games, David Wise. And along with Retro Studios regular Kenji Yamamoto, Wise created what I believe to be his magnum opus. Tropical Freeze boasts a roughly 90-track soundtrack filled with melancholic, naturalistic, and dynamic music pieces. Many of the stages have music that adapts to the scenery, with the minecart and rocket barrel stages in particular being synched up to the soundtrack for the first time in the series to incredible effect. There's a lot of variety in the music, from tribal to folk to techno to rock, but they all sound unmistakably Wise. With such a massive soundtracks, there's a lot of highlights, but I have to give shoutouts to Busted Bayou, Big Top Bop, Alpine Incline, Frantic Fields, Scorch N Torch, Cannon Canyon, Irate Eight, and Frosty Fruits. Now, if you've played Tropical Freeze, you've probably noticed that there's a part of the game I've completely neglected. That is entirely on purpose. It's finally time to talk about Tropical Freeze's final world.
Just to give context, Tropical Freeze's main story involves an army of penguins taking over Donkey Kong Island and uses a cold wind to blow DK and his family far away to a very distant island. It's a neat premise since it lets the game take place in an entirely new set of locals, but it's especially brilliant after five worlds of fun and unique platforming, we finally return to DK Island... and it's completely frozen over. The final world of Tropical Freeze has eight main levels (plus a few secret levels), each combining the eight world themes of DKC Returns with this new frozen setting. You get to revisit all these recognizable locals, but they're frosted to the point of completely falling apart, leading to some of the most dynamic and perilous stages in the series. Nothing is safe, you can't go even a few seconds without hitting a platform that falls apart on you, and there's not one but two stages taking place during an avalanche (the first of which being the best Rocket Barrel in the series and the second of which being the best Silhouette Stage in the series). And all the while, your ears are being blessed with some of the best and most chill-inducing tracks David Wise has ever made, including Homecoming Hijinx, Seashore War, Aquaduct Assault, Blurry Flurry, Forest Folly, and Frozen Factory. It's a phenomenal final world that perfectly meshes fun, inventive, and challenging level design with the best visual storytelling and the music in the game. It's a perfect culmination and encapsulation of Tropical Freeze's best aspects, and barring the admittedly lackluster final boss, ranks among some of my favorite sequences in the entire medium. With how effectively DK Island brings together everything I had previously praised about Tropical Freeze, it only made sense that I saved it for last.
When Tropical Freeze was first announced, fans were furious. They wanted Retro Studios to make another Metroid game, or even go further and make something on par with Naughty Dog's output at the time. A 2D platformer just wasn't AAA enough for them, which funny because Tropical Freeze still feels like the highest-budget 2D platformer I've ever played. The pure fluidity of the movement, the dynamic and intricate Rube Goldberg-esque stage design, the heavy focus on details and visual storytelling, and that jawdropping soundtrack is something you could only get from some of the best in the industry working at the top of their game with completely free reign. There are some who will always prefer the Rare games and that's totally fair and understandable, but I think Tropical Freeze elevates the Donkey Kong Country series so much by existing.
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