Donkey Kong Country Returns for Wii: Controls, Co-op and Reviews

Donkey Kong Country Returns is a 2010 side-scrolling platformer for the Wii, made by Retro Studios and published by Nintendo. Metacritic prints a score of 87 out of 100.

Overview

A volcanic eruption wakes Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong, and the Tiki Tak Tribe, a group of Tiki-like creatures playing hypnotic music, makes the island’s animals steal the Kongs’ banana hoard. Donkey Kong is resistant to the music, so he and Diddy cross nine worlds to win the bananas back, fighting a Tiki leader at the end of each. The villains replace the Kremlings of the Super Nintendo trilogy.

It was the first game in the series made without Rare, whose purchase by Microsoft in 2002 had left the franchise without a home. The idea began at Retro after Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, when its chief Michael Kelbaugh, who had once tested the original games, told producer Kensuke Tanabe the studio wanted a Donkey Kong project. Shigeru Miyamoto later voiced interest in a revival, and Wikipedia reports that Nintendo had been hearing requests from North American fans.

How it plays

Mine carts, vines, barrel cannons, KONG letters and puzzle pieces return. New are silhouette levels, in which characters and foreground turn into dark shapes. Alone, the player controls Donkey Kong with Diddy riding on his back; the jetpack gives extra jump distance. In two-player mode the second person controls Diddy, and a floating DK Barrel brings back whoever has fallen.

Controls come in two forms. The standard one uses the Wii Remote with the Nunchuk, and the second holds the remote sideways like a classic pad. Both use motion for the Ground Pound, and the blowing mechanic came from a suggestion by Miyamoto after he noticed a Diddy animation looked like blowing.

Release and credits

Retro kept the project secret. IGN’s Matt Casamassina had to sign a non-disclosure agreement when he visited in 2009, and Nintendo of America’s Reggie Fils-Aimé announced the game at E3 in June 2010. It reached North America on 21 November 2010, sixteen years after the original Donkey Kong Country, Australia on 2 December, Europe on 3 December and Japan on 9 December. Metacritic gives an E rating.

Kenji Yamamoto composed most of the music, largely rearranging tracks by David Wise and Eveline Novakovic, because Miyamoto and Satoru Iwata did not want the old themes changed. Wise had left Rare in 2009 and, by his own later account, contacted Retro too late to contribute.

Reception

Metacritic lists 87 out of 100 across 77 reviews. IGN’s Craig Harris gave it an Editor’s Choice award and called it an old-school throwback, and Game Informer’s Dan Ryckert said it was one of the best platformers he had played. Good Game’s presenters rated it 9 and 8.5.

Opinions split on controls and difficulty. X-Play faulted the motion controls and the co-op, and GamesRadar called the difficulty frustrating and often unclear. Wikipedia counts more than 6.53 million copies sold.

Can you still play it?

The Wii disc runs on a Wii, and on a Wii U through Wii Mode, which wants a Sensor Bar for most software. Pick a region-matched disc.

A download of the Wii version arrived on the Wii U eShop in January 2015 in Japan, Europe and Australia, and in North America from September 2016. The Wii U eShop closed worldwide on 27 March 2023, so that route is shut; the disc, and the 3DS remake of 24 May 2013, are the physical options. The Wii Shop Channel closure of January 2019 does not affect this disc.