I haven't read the review except for the score and pros/cons list since I plan to buy the game anyway, so this question might be answered in the text: If this game didn't force motion controls, would it have gotten a 10?

I didn't explicitly say as much in the review, but that's a fair guess.

Some people obviously take to the NES-style controls differently. I have read other reviews that expressed a preference for them over the Remote and Nunchuk option. I'll have to see what works for me.

Anyway, thank you for reaffirming this game's overall greatness. I was going to get this anyway, of course, but still, it's always nice to hear. Although if the difficulty is as such, getting someone to play co-op with me might be out of the question. A lot of people I've played New Super Mario Bros. Wii have had a hard time, and that's clearly a more easygoing platformer.

Yep, NSMB Wii is a tough game for non-gamers. But will DKCR appeal to non-gamers more due to its aesthetic? Those adorable monkeys.

In terms of difficulty, where is it relative to SMB2J or Yoshi's Island DS?

Mario is a human, he's instantly approachable and even non-gamers know who Mario is (he's one of the most well known characters on the planet, in gaming he's second only to Pac-Man). I don't think an ape (don't call him a monkey!) has as much appeal.

Out of every piece of information and every review I've read, nobody says anything about bonus levels. Those were a huge part of the original three DKCs. Does DKCR have bonus levels too, or has the emphasis just been placed on collecting K-O-N-G letters and the like?

there are definitely bonus levels.  you unlock them by collecting the KONG letters in the levels

Right, I get that there are extra levels, but I'm talking about the little bonus levels. You know, like "find the coin" or "collect the stars". Those bonus levels.

There are tons of bonus levels as well... mostly they're like the "collect all of the bananas in X seconds using blast barrels."

I would say that this game isn't great for multiplayer with inexperienced players because of its difficulty -- stick to Kirby.  It's definitely in the SMB2J/YIDS realm in the later levels.

Did anyone notice that last month's Nintendo Power (that reviewed DKCR) came with an NES controller cling for the Wii Remote? I'm surprised they didn't do that way back for New SMBW given the sheer number of first-party software that's come out since that have NES controls.

I plan on either getting this game for my birfday or Christmas, and I'm super excited.

I've also got a birthday close to Christmas, basically I need to decide if I want this or GT5 first.

Aren't GT games mind-numbingly boring?

Don't know if this has been mentioned or not, but you still must seek out these hidden areas if you want to 100% the game, because you have to complete the challenges in order to receive puzzle pieces. There are about two hidden areas per level.

I've never played one, but that's always been my perception, too. I've never felt the least bit enticed to play one. Is it an acquired taste? I always thought instead of playing a driving sim you could, you know, go for a drive. I suppose the illusion of speed has something to do with it.

While I'm a Forza man myself, I do find them quite enjoyable. I still very fondly remember the first time I took the Veyron over 400kph. The thrill I felt was awesome.

I would really like to see Retro Studios take on Star Fox, so is the quality of this game good enough to warrant them develpment duties of another Star Fox?

Hmm...I dunno if Retro has the experience to do a Star Fox (though I'd be onboard if they did), but yeah this game is awesome.  They're more than welcome to do a DKCR 2 if they want.

I wouldn't have thought they had the experience to do Donkey Kong Country, but they managed to hit that one out of the park. I'd still rather they get to do their own IP, but if they're doing another Nintendo IP I certainly hope it's Star Fox.

Add me to the list of December birthdays. Unlike you guys though, those cheapskates never buy me birthday presents! I'm not sure if I'll be getting this game soon because I've got a pretty long list of Wii games I want, and I still need to finish up Donkey Kong Country 3 anyway.

Not for me, but I guess its fine if you go ahead and write them off like that.

I'm actually an early January birthday, and yes, I am well acquainted with the "combo gift." Most of the time it is just a regular gift hyped up to combo levels.

Hey man. I played GT3 and Tourist Trophy. I fell asleep at the wheel. Sorry.

Sim racing games are boring to me, the only reason I even played any of Forza Motorsport 2 (which was part of a combo pack I bought to get Marvel: Ultimate Alliance) was for the easier trophies like finish a lap without taking damage (which is easy when you drive like 10MPH and stay out of the way).

KDR, I would argue that Mario is slightly more well-known than Pac-Man nowadays.

brood, remember that technically Metroid Prime was Retro Studios' first game, I have no doubt they could make a great Star Fox game.

AFAIK the statistics actually show Pac-Man is more famous.

I am not feeling DKCR at all. I just spent about an hour getting angry at various levels in the second and third areas -- it gets absurdly difficult very quickly, and it's hard to believe that curve will continue to increase. Some of the jumps would be less frustrating if I could roll with confidence and precise timing, but others are just nasty with enemy placement, degrading platforms, etc. There is a fine line between challenge and annoyance, and DKCR is already crossing that line routinely. I want to keep playing and experience more of the level designs, but this is really not much fun.

"Super Meat Boy is the hardest game I've ever played. DKCR will be a jolly stroll after this" - Jonathan Metts

;)

Except for a few cases, I don't think the game is cheap in its design, especially when compared to most NES-era games. It is really frustrating that they chose not to make a proper control scheme available, especially for such a game (I was actually considering hacking up a controller to play this properly, but the Gecko patch will do).  The thing with DKCR that is a bit different than most platformers is that it actively forces you to keep moving in a high percentage of levels; you don't get much downtime.  This is particularly true in later levels, but I think the ingenuity actually increases later in the game.  There are certainly problem areas (such as those amazingly inventive world names, the blow mechanic, etc.), but I thought they hit the right level of challenge -- refreshing, really, and the attention to environmental integration is nearly unmatched.  I really started having fun in World 4 (I love minecart levels).

I am looking forward to more minecart, rocket, and Rambi levels. My breaking point of frustration came towards the end of World 2, when you have to move across that series of crumbling platforms with the sun enemies hovering left and right. It would be a fair challenge to time your jumps and avoid those enemies, except that you can't wait for the right moment because your platform is falling away. The pace of this section seems designed for a character that moves much faster than DK (you can't really use the roll here because of the enemies).

I was assuming that DKCR would be just as tightly designed and have super-tight controls like SMB. Technical aspects being equal, DKCR would indeed be a lot easier than SMB.

I only got this a few days ago for my birthday.  Been busy so I've only gotten through the first world thus far.  I like it but it is quite hard.  I don't think I did any levels in the first try and this is only the first world.  In the original DKC I didn't start having a tough time until the second world at least.  When you're busting out minecart levels in world 1, you're not fooling around.

So far the game has been fun and it's gorgeous.  I'm impressed with a Wii game's graphics.  This pretty much never happens.  It seems very much like Nintendo of Japan no longer even tries to make their games look nice, they're content with the bare minimum.  But Retro has some pride in those visuals and this game looks great!  Good Feel also makes pretty games.  And I've also noticed that Donkey Kong Country converts to 2.5D graphics a lot better than Mario does.  The old rendered graphics had a 3D look anyway so this looks like a natural progression of that.

The big con however is the controls.  Why am I ALWAYS right about that?  It's like every time Nintendo shows off some game at E3 with stupid waggle controls and I'm all "I don't know about this" and I am right every single time.  IT ALWAYS HURTS THE GAME!  STOP DOING THIS STUPID BROKEN CONTROLS BULLSHIT!  The rubes who are impressed by stupid motion controls suck too much to succeed at this game anyway!  They wouldn't get past the first barrel shooter level.  I don't even attempt to roll.  Early on I saw a group of enemies in a row, figured it would be an ideal time to roll through them, and died because it didn't recognize my shake so I stupidly walked right into them.  Ever do that with normal controls?  Ever play a game where you try to jump on an enemy, you push the button, and the guy just stands there while the enemy hits him?  Back in the days before waggle that was a sign of a horrible junk ass game.  You NEVER saw that kind of sloppy bullshit in a Nintendo game.  Nintendo games were tight.  And the most annoying thing is that in DKC the grab, run, roll and ground pound were all performed with the same button.  There was no reason to introduce a third button and thus be "forced" to use waggle in the first place.

I associate Nintendo with shit controls these days.  Every time it's like there is some good game hidden away behind a frustrating broken control scheme.  Can I even consider these to be good games?  I would never cut any slack for shit controls with any other developer.  Normally shit controls = shit game.  You can live with poor graphics, poor sound and poor story but controls are too important to gameplay.  A game with irresponsive controls is pretty much the same thing as a game full of bugs.

I typically never buy remakes of games I already own but I would gladly rebuy numerious first party Wii games if they supported the Classic Controller.  MegaByte, what is this Gecko patch you speak of?  Is it some sort of hack?  Map shake to a button and you fix like 90% of Nintendo's Wii titles.

The Gecko patch is something that you apply when loading the game through Gecko OS via the Homebrew Channel. It hacks the game to let you play the game with the Classic Controller, with the waggle mapped to a button. Nick DiMola posted more in-depth info about it in the DKCR thread in Console Discussion.

Yeah, I just remember laughing at the image of "jolly stroll."  For better or worse, I think they were trying to emulate the original's controls, which were slippery... I always figured it was intentionally so to try to give the feeling of controlling a lumbering ape (I always preferred playing with Diddy, which isn't possible in this game's single player).

Actually, I think there's a Gecko code that lets you do that as well. I remember seeing something about it while trying to figure out the CC code.

I don't know if anyone has mentioned this, but something I have found is that you can't chain your rolls together. In the originals you would keep rolling if you took out bad guys along the way. I try to do that in this game and I end up getting through the first 2 in a line and walk straight into the 3rd one. Or am I doing it wrong?

If you have Diddy, you can continuously roll.

I played some of the first world in Nintendo World Store last week and my interest in this game went from "must have" to "maybe I'll just borrow it from someone..."

The motion controls, more than any other motion controls I've been privy to, feel like crap. Mapping DK's roll to a motion didn't make much sense to me in the beginning, and now makes even less sense as I'm trying to be precise and collect items. I feel the only way I could enjoy this game is just by ignoring all of the collectibles. I also dislike the looseness of the characters.

Maybe I'm just generally predisposed to not like Donkey Kong Country games. I replayed DKC earlier this year and thought it was pretty awful in terms of just about everything.

I wonder how many people that are having problems with the motion control are trying to shake the remote horizontally instead of vertically.  I also found the motion controls to be abysmal early on, but found them manageable once I figured out that shaking vertically up-to-down worked 99.9% of the time.

I think one of the big problems is the relation of running and rolling motions.  You have to run for a split second before rolling, and that's not very intuitive, especially if you're used to the old games, and is exacerbated by the delay time (however slight) it takes for a motion to trigger action.  Basically, the game forces the player to compensate for it, and that is a big no-no.

The delay time was my problem. The roll would always happen when I shook the remote, but it would be about half a second later than I wanted it to be, which kept getting me killed.

I wonder how many "experienced" gamers here figured out in the first 30 SECONDS OF PLAY that the roll was triggered by a single, fair, downward tug.  DOWN.

Not a desperate "up and down" like a good Thursday night.  I just can't believe some of (most of) these comments.