User:TheJoebro64/drafts/DKCR

Donkey Kong Country Returns is a 2010 platform game developed by Retro Studios and published by Nintendo for the Wii. It is the fourth Donkey Kong Country game and follows the gorilla Donkey Kong and his nephew Diddy Kong as they set out to recover their stolen banana hoard from the Tiki Tak Tribe. Gameplay, presented from a 2.5D perspective, is similar to previous Donkey Kong games. It features side-scrolling levels where the player jumps between platforms as they collect items, ride minecarts, defeat enemies and bosses, and find secrets. In multiplayer, players control Donkey and Diddy simultaneously and work cooperatively.

Following Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble! (1996), the Donkey Kong Country series went on a hiatus and its developer, Rare, was acquired by Nintendo's competitor Microsoft. Donkey Kong creator Shigeru Miyamoto expressed interest in a revival in 2008, and producer Kensuke Tanabe suggested that Retro Studios, known for the Metroid series, would be a suitable developer. Retro sought to retain and refine Donkey Kong Country game mechanics and art style, and added multiplayer gameplay to distinguish Returns from Donkey Kong Jungle Beat (2004). Kenji Yamamoto composed the soundtrack; because Rare was uninvolved, series composer David Wise was unable to contribute.

Donkey Kong Country Returns was released on November 21, 2010, the 16th anniversary of Donkey Kong Country release.

A port with additional content developed by Monster Games was released for the Nintendo 3DS in 2013. The Wii version was rereleased on the Wii U's eShop in 2015 and for the Nvidia Shield TV in China in 2019. A sequel, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, was released for the Wii U in 2014. Retrospectively, Returns is considered one of the best Wii games and one of the best Donkey Kong games.

Gameplay
Donkey Kong Country Returns is a side-scrolling platform game similar to previous Donkey Kong games. It is presented from a 2.5D perspective; although characters and environments are rendered in 3D, movement is restricted to a 2D plane. The story begins when a volcanic eruption on Donkey Kong Island unleashes the Tiki Tak Tribe, a group of evil tikis who replace the Kremlings as the main antagonists. The tribe uses music to hypnotize the island's animals into stealing the Kongs' banana hoard. The gorilla Donkey Kong is resistant to the tikis' music and sets out to defeat them and recover the hoard.

Donkey Kong, who serves as the primary player character, is controlled using the Wii Remote (with or without its Nunchuk accessory). Donkey Kong retains most of his abilities from Donkey Kong Country (1994): he can walk, run, jump, pick up and throw objects, slap the terrain to uncover items and initiate set pieces, and roll. He can also blow on objects like dandelions to find items. The single-player can break open barrels to gain assistance from Donkey Kong's nephew Diddy Kong, who rides on Donkey's back to increase the duration of the roll and use his jet pack to help Donkey jump farther. In multiplayer, two players—one controlling Donkey and the other controlling Diddy—work cooperatively.

The levels span nine worlds of the tropical island setting; level locales include jungles, ancient ruins, and factories. The player begins in a world map that contains paths leading from the selected world's entrance to its boss fight. Panels that lead to regular levels, where the player must reach the end while jumping between platforms and avoiding inanimate and enemy obstacles. The Kongs can weaken enemies with the terrain slap or by blowing and defeat them by jumping on them. The player traverses most levels on foot, occasionally clinging onto surfaces, swinging across vines, and being fired out of barrel-shaped cannons. Certain levels see the player riding a minecart or a rocket; in these levels, players will die if they are hit and must react to hazards quickly. In some levels, the characters and foreground environments only appear as silhouettes. Several feature the rideable Rambi the Rhino, who can plow through enemies and objects. Each world ends in a boss encounter with a large creature that the player must to proceed.

Donkey Kong collects various items scattered around levels, such as balloons, bananas, and coins. Collecting a balloon or 100 bananas earns the player an extra life. Donkey Kong starts each level with two hit points, which expands to four if he has Diddy with him. The player loses hit points if they come into contact with enemies or other hazards, and loses a life if they lose all hit points or fall down a bottomless pit. Losing all lives results in a game over, forcing the player to restart from their last save point. Like New Super Mario Bros. Wii (2009), Returns includes a "Super Guide" feature, which is meant to help players that are having difficulty completing a certain level. If the player dies eight times in a row, they will be given the option to allow Super Kong, a computer-controlled character, to take over and complete the level for them. However, Super Kong will not look for collectible items, nor will he show the player where they are. The player is not rewarded for any items that Super Kong collects.

Each level contains two special collectibles: letters spelling out K–O–N–G and puzzle pieces. Collecting all the K–O–N–G letters in a world unlocks a bonus level, and completing all the bonus levels unlocks the final world. After completing the final world, the player unlocks "Mirror Mode", which allows them to explore reversed versions of the normal levels, albeit with only one hit point. Meanwhile, puzzle pieces are hidden in the levels and in bonus stages, and collecting all in a level unlocks a piece of concept art or a diorama. From the world map, players can access a shop run by Cranky Kong, where they can use coins to buy power-ups that add more hit points, extra lives, assistance for finding puzzle pieces from Squawks the Parrot, and keys that unlock levels. A time trial mode becomes available once the player completes a level at least once. In this mode, the player works to complete levels as fast as possible and receives gold, silver, or bronze medals for completing them in certain times.

Conception
The idea for Donkey Kong Country Returns originated at Retro Studios following the completion of Metroid Prime 2: Echoes in 2004, when Retro president and CEO Michael Kelbaugh told Nintendo producer Kensuke Tanabe that Retro was interested in developing a Donkey Kong game. Kelbaugh had worked as a tester on the Donkey Kong Country series for the the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), which had been on a hiatus following Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble! (1996). Its developer, the British studio Rare, was acquired by Nintendo's competitor Microsoft in 2002. Retro was directed to develop Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (2007) instead, Tanabe noting that Nintendo depended on Retro to make games that could not be developed in Japan.

After the completion of Corruption, Retro began experimenting for potential projects, but in April 2008, three core staff—design director Mark Pacini, art director Todd Keller, and principal technology engineer Jack Matthews—left, and those experiments had to be discarded. Despite the hardship of staff departures, Kynan Pearson, a senior designer, said it provided an opportunity "to introduce new ways of thinking and operating". Tanabe was unsure what Retro's next project would be until Donkey Kong creator Shigeru Miyamoto, "totally by chance", expressed interest in a Donkey Kong Country revival. Miyamoto said that Nintendo had been receiving requests from the North American audience for a new Donkey Kong Country, and Tanabe suggested that Retro would be a suitable developer for such a project.

Retro staff flew to Nintendo's headquarters in Kyoto to meet with Miyamoto and Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, where they determined Returns' direction. Miyamoto told Retro, "Donkey Kong is my baby and you better get it right!" Iwata was confident in Retro's ability to develop the game, given that many staff were avid fans of the original Donkey Kong Country. He felt they dispelled any concerns that it was possible for a studio besides Rare to continue Donkey Kong Country. Iwata referred to the set of circumstances that led to Retro taking on Returns as goen ("fate"), so Retro chose F8 as the project's codename. Retro was excited to work on a series different from Metroid; senior designer Mike Wikan noted that Donkey Kong light tone was a contrast from Metroid somber one. Iwata said their passion for Donkey Kong Country "generated an energy that was poured into [Returns]."

When development began, Tanabe and assistant producer Risa Tabata discussed how they could distinguish Returns from the previous Donkey Kong game, Donkey Kong Jungle Beat (2004). Tanabe said that Miyamoto taught him to "think about what we can do that's new and hasn't appeared before or about what kind of inventive game mechanics we can include." Similar to the role he played during the development of Donkey Kong Country and Jungle Beat, Miyamoto supervised Retro and reviewed Returns' content throughout development. He wanted Retro to keep Donkey Kong Country unique visuals and feel in mind, and emphasized elements he felt should be retained from prior games. He also mandated which characters could return.

Design


Returns was designed for Donkey Kong Country fans, and the team spent the first week of development playing the SNES games to gather inspiration. Retro sought to carry memorable elements—such as side-scrolling gameplay, barrel cannons, and minecart sequences—while refining them to create a new experience, and continue the series' broad appeal and accessibility. Wikan and fellow senior designer Tom Ivey felt a lot of responsibility because they did not want to disappoint fans. Since Tabata had never played Donkey Kong Country, she saw herself as the one who conceived new ideas.

Unlike Rare's games, which allowed players to swap between the two Kongs at will, Retro designed Donkey and Diddy as a combined character. The staff worked with Miyamoto for hours to perfect Donkey Kong's movement and referred to him as "Yoda" for his input. Miyamoto suggested the blowing mechanic after playing a prototype and noticing that one of Diddy Kong's animations resembled blowing. The team was initially baffled by the suggestion, but found it added interactivity and whimsy. Because Miyamoto wanted players to move similarly to Donkey Kong when he slaps the terrain, Retro designed the game around the Wii Remote and Nunchuk. Retro introduced the option to play without the Nunchuk following the release of New Super Mario Bros. Wii, which allowed players to hold the Wii Remote horizontally like a Nintendo Entertainment System controller.

To track which levels were completed and which needed work, Retro staff used a whiteboard to record their progress. Pearson, who oversaw this system, said it "flowed well in that when a good idea came out, it served as motivation for coming up with an idea that was even more fun." Team members competed and asked each other for input, with Ivey noting everyone sought to surprise their coworkers. Ivey felt the team "did a good job recreating the thrilling elements in the earlier Donkey Kong Country games." Retro wanted every level to contain a memorable set piece, and the team felt they were able to incorporate more ideas than they were in the Metroid Prime series. They introduced surface-clinging to expand gameplay to walls and ceilings, and chose not to include underwater levels because they did not fit the pace.

Kelbaugh decided that Returns needed to be difficult to appease Donkey Kong Country fans since Retro's goal was "to pay homage to and make a better [Donkey Kong Country]," but still be fair enough for inexperienced players. Pearson and Wikan wanted it to challenge players in a way that would encourage them to learn from their mistakes and keep trying. They introduced Diddy's jetpack and pop gun to ease the difficulty for inexperienced players and distinguish him from previous games. Retro was aware that the difficulty would be tough for some players to manage, so the team integrated the Super Guide system from New Super Mario Bros. Wii. Kelbaugh knew the Metroid Prime and Donkey Kong Country series were popular among speedrunners and hardcore gamers, and the time trial mode was added late in development to appeal to them.

Tanabe felt that simultaneous multiplayer was one way Returns should differ from Jungle Beat, since previous Donkey Kong games only let players take turns. Miyamoto advised Tanabe to only focus on single-player gameplay before considering multiplayer, but Tanabe still told Retro to incorporate multiplayer early in development. To distinguish Returns' multiplayer from New Super Mario Bros. Wii and allow skilled gamers to play swiftly, Retro removed the collision detection between Donkey and Diddy. Retro refrained from lowering the difficulty for multiplayer, though the team did discuss making it easier to obtain lives and allowed Diddy to ride Donkey's back if one player was having trouble.

Art and programming
Retro wanted Returns to look "fun and whimsical" and discarded many initial designs for being too similar to Metroid darker aesthetic. Impactful visuals were a primary focus since the original Donkey Kong Country was famous for its graphics, though Kelbaugh and director Bryan Walker said developing the silhouette levels "taught us not to rely so much on graphics". Retro retained the previous Donkey Kong Country games' art style, but developed environments using polygons rather than the pre-rendering technique that Rare used to create the SNES trilogy. Tanabe noted that unlike the SNES games, which featured static backgrounds due to technical limitations, Retro could incorporate real time animation into Returns and allow characters and backgrounds to interact. Retro drew inspiration from Virtual Boy Wario Land (1995), which allows the player to jump between the background and the foreground.

Unlike most Western game developers, Retro spent a considerable amount of time developing prototypes. For Metroid Prime, Retro based the development on its design documents, but learned from Tanabe that it was more efficient to develop prototypes first and create design documents after the gameplay had been polished. Returns was developed using the Metroid Prime game engine, but required far more detail in polygons and textures. The team noted that while audiences often perceive side-scrolling games as simple and archaic, they are actually quite difficult to develop due to the amount of care that goes into each level. They tried to adapt the Prime games' Morph Ball virtual camera system to create the side-scrolling effect. However, the player character's movements were too fast and complicated for it, so a new camera system had to be developed.

Retro updated approximately two-thirds of its technology for Returns, including its renderers, animation tools, and collision detection systems. Kelbaugh and Walker estimated that every level required around three times the amount of detail that Metroid Prime 3: Corruption did, so the team had to "really ramp up our technology to support that." It took around six months to shift from the Prime development environment, and Kelbaugh and Walker said that the artists had to be retrained to design a Donkey Kong game. The player character has over 2,000 animations in single-player and 6,000 in multiplayer, far greater than Samus Aran's in the Metroid Prime games, and Retro drew inspiration from Jungle Beat to develop Donkey Kong's movements. To incorporate Super Guide, the programmers rewrote the engine to remove possible randomness arising from button inputs. Retro used Super Guide to playtest and find bugs.

Music
Kenji Yamamoto, who worked with Retro on the Metroid Prime series, composed most of Donkey Kong Country Returns' soundtrack, alongside Minako Hamano, Masaru Tajima, Shinji Ushiroda, and Daisuke Matsuoka. The soundtrack mostly comprises rearrangements of tracks from the original Donkey Kong Country, composed by David Wise and Eveline Novakovic. This was at the request of Miyamoto and Iwata, who did not want Retro to change the music. Iwata considered the soundtrack a large part of Donkey Kong Country appeal and told Tanabe to handle it with care during the first Returns meeting. Alongside rearrangements, Yamamoto composed new material to fit Returns' atmosphere. Due to the constant tweaking of the levels, he sometimes had to recompose his tracks.

Retro wanted Yamamoto to blend the classic Donkey Kong Country tracks with modern sound. He did not use a full orchestra, but focused on what Tanabe felt made Donkey Kong Country music iconic, such as piano arrangements and the bassline. Because Rare was uninvolved, Wise, Donkey Kong Country original composer, was unable to contribute. Wise left Rare in 2009 because he disagreed with the company's direction under Microsoft and got in contact with Kelbaugh. In 2019, Wise said that it was too late for him to contribute to Returns by the time he connected with Kelbaugh, but they stayed in contact in case Retro decided to develop a sequel. Wise felt Yamamoto "did a wonderful job" rearranging his past work, though he said he would have relied more on new compositions than past material.

Completion
The development did not begin smoothly; Tanabe described early development as "floundering around" and said that the team often disagreed as to what would be fun. One difficulty was making a game that reflected Nintendo's values. Designing the bosses proved particularly challenging, with Tanabe and Wikan singling out one, Mangoruby, as a "bitter struggle". A few months before E3 2010, Retro added more programmers to the boss group, which greatly accelerated development. The amount of effort it took to create the level playable for the E3 game demo made the team concerned that Returns would not be ready for its deadline, and the team still had to complete around 70 levels after E3.

E3 2010 proved to be a turning point for the development; Iwata observed that "the game rapidly bloomed once [Retro] entered the final stretch", with more ideas and elements introduced. Pearson attributed the turnaround to correspondence between Nintendo and Retro: "we had come to share a certain philosophy with regards to how to make the game's levels and had achieved a common understanding of what makes a level fun. We learned the tempo necessary for a fun level and the kinds of elements to put in." Towards the end of development, Tanabe had to take a week off due to lower back pain. Tabata filled in for him and stayed to help during the final stages. Tanabe said she was responsible for "the most demanding requests for changes". The team worked overnight during the final stages.

Context
Following Microsoft's acquisition of Rare, the Donkey Kong franchise's prominence faded. With no studio to develop major Donkey Kong platform games, Donkey Kong became relegated to spin-offs—such as the Donkey Konga and Mario vs. Donkey Kong series—and guest appearances in other Nintendo franchises. Jungle Beat, the only major Donkey Kong game since Rare's Donkey Kong 64 (1999), was a commercial disappointment despite positive reviews. Hardcore Gaming 101 wrote that Jungle Beat was seen as "merely an aside to the Donkey Kong platforming saga. Seething underneath the surface of every gamer who cut their teeth on 16-bit platformers was a longing for a return to form for the wayward gorilla and his adventures... Donkey Kong Country was a brand that had a growing sense of latent desire associated with it."

Donkey Kong Country Returns was kept a secret for much of its development. In August 2009, IGN reported that Retro was known to be working on a new Wii game but was going great lengths to conceal its identity, including restricting access to parts of its headquarters. When IGN interviewer Matt Casamassina visited Retro to discuss Metroid Prime: Trilogy (2009), he was required to sign a non-disclosure agreement stipulating that if he managed to learn what the new project was, he would be unable to discuss it. Reports that the project was Donkey Kong-related surfaced shortly before Nintendo's E3 conference in June 2010.

Marketing


Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aimé announced Donkey Kong Country Returns during his keynote address at E3 on June 15, 2010, when he introduced a trailer showcasing various levels and set pieces. Video game journalists considered Nintendo's E3 2010 showing its strongest in years and singled out Returns as one of the most significant announcements. They characterized the announcement as a surprise; a new Country game had been considered unlikely following Microsoft's acquisition of Rare. GameSpot said that the trailer sparked cheers from the crowd, with Hardcore Gaming 101 writing that Nintendo's use of the Country branding promised fans a return to form for the franchise.

Alongside Kirby's Epic Yarn, Metroid: Other M, and Wii Party, Nintendo positioned Returns to rejuvenate Wii sales in response to rising PlayStation 3 sales. It promoted the game with a series of trailers, which journalists said showcased a hardcore difficulty. One advertisement featured British comedians Ant & Dec searching for bananas in the jungle. Nintendo of America partnered with the produce distributor Chiquita to label its bananas with Donkey Kong stickers and host a contest in which customers could submit pictures of themselves dancing. Participants could win one of 31 prizes, including a Wii, a copy of Returns, and a trip to the Chichen Itza ruins in Cancún. Customers who preordered Returns through GameStop received a banana-shaped Wii Remote pouch.

On December 1, 2010, Nintendo Australia piled a five-meter (16.4 feet) stash of around 10,000 bananas, weighing two tons, at the Circular Quay in Sydney. Visitors could play Returns on an inflatable movie screen and take bananas from the stash; leftover bananas were donated to the food rescue charity OzHarvest. In the UK, Nintendo partnered with the video game retailer GAME for a promotion in which customers were asked to bring bunches of bananas to participating stores on December 3. The first 20 customers could exchange their bananas for a free copy of Returns. For another launch event, Nintendo hosted Japanese competitive eater Takeru Kobayashi, who ate 16 bananas in a minute.

Sales
Donkey Kong Country Returns was released in North America on November 21, 2010—the 16th anniversary of Donkey Kong Country release —in Europe on December 3, 2010, and in Japan on December 9, 2010. The game sold strongly: in its opening week in Japan, it sold 163,310 copies—56.63% of its initial shipment of 288,380 copies—and over 970,000 copies by December 2012. In North America, it debuted in sixth place on the NPD Group's sales charts, with sales of 430,470. Worldwide sales reached 4.21 million in less than a month.


 * https://www.gamespot.com/articles/donkey-kong-country-returns-sells-42-million/1100-6296945/
 * https://www.gamespot.com/articles/us-wii-sales-hit-35-million-games-hit-sales-milestones/1100-6303449/
 * https://www.gamespot.com/articles/xbox-360-led-january-consoles-black-ops-sells-750k-analyst/1100-6299929/

Reception
Donkey Kong Country Returns received "generally favorable reviews", according to the review aggregator website Metacritic.



Accolades
Donkey Kong Country Returns was the 58th highest-rated game on Metacritic in 2010


 * http://bestof.ign.com/2010/wii/best-retro-design.html
 * http://bestof.ign.com/2010/wii/most-challenging.html

Aftermath

 * 2008 and 2009 were seen as weak years for the Wii, Returns was one of several acclaimed 2010 Wii games that led to renewed optimism for the console
 * following Returns Retro co-developed Mario Kart 7

Rereleases
An Android version was released for the Nvidia Shield TV in China on July 4, 2019. This version features high-definition graphics and a more traditional control scheme similar to the 3DS version.


 * https://venturebeat.com/games/nintendo-explains-how-it-made-donkey-kong-country-returns-3d-easier/
 * https://www.siliconera.com/donkey-kong-country-returns-rolls-onto-the-nvidia-shield-tv-in-china/

Retrospective assessments

 * best Wii games
 * https://www.videogameschronicle.com/guide/the-30-best-wii-games/
 * https://www.gamespot.com/articles/best-wii-games/1100-6496263/
 * https://www.gamesradar.com/best-wii-games-all-time/
 * https://www.nintendolife.com/guides/best-nintendo-wii-games?page=5
 * https://www.ign.com/articles/best-wii-games
 * standing within the DK series
 * https://www.polygon.com/features/2018/5/10/17333228/donkey-kong-rankings #5
 * https://www.nintendolife.com/guides/best-donkey-kong-games-of-all-time?page=3 #3