Official DKC Returns Hype Thread!

[kingkoopa]

Well, since I've already beaten the game, these aren't really spoilers to me. But you should really put stuff like that into a spoiler tag next time. What does the spoiler tag look like you ask? ... I forget but it said in somewhere in the M&L3 topic on handheld boards.

[SMBBQ]

It's not so much spoilers as, well, a good joke. The ending made me laugh, and people won't find it as funny when they know what will happen ahead of time.

[Artemendo]

This game genuinely suprised me by doing this... one particular boss battle takes place on a conveyor belt. But it's NOT MOVING! A conveyor belt, standing still, in a video game?! In my whole gaming life, I haven't seen that happen. It's breaking paradigms. I hope other games follow suit and maybe, in the far-off future, we will have games where you can simply destroy a door if you have a strong weapon rather than getting the key, or something.

[kingkoopa]

Isn't that how Metroid works?

[Artemendo]

Haha, Metroid simply masks it by having the weapon itself be the key. Rather than defeating a boss and getting a key, you defeat a boss and get a weapon upgrade that allows you to go into exactly the doors that you need to progress the story.
Now having the possibility to either get a key or simply use 100 bombs on a door in Zelda, for example, now THAT would be revolutionary.

In fact, the two very first Zeldas had something like this, in the form of key-buying and fairy-turning, that could have you bypass puzzles, but there were never many actual puzzles in the dungeons of those ones besides "find which block you can push". In the newer Zeldas the designers find their puzzles and design so precious that the very thought of letting you skip them makes their blood boil.

[Koopalmier]

I hope other games follow suit and maybe, in the far-off future, we will have games where you can simply destroy a door if you have a strong weapon rather than getting the key, or something.

Well, you can destroy doors by using the roll attack in DKCR...

[Artemendo]

Those are doors on a graphical level, but not on a gameplay level. They're just obstacled to be rolled into. What I mean is something that is a locked door, in gameplay, something that is supposed to be opened by solving a puzzle or finding a key far away from it, being bypassable by attacking it hard or long enough.

[Le Mario Bro]

Like, you find a key for a door and it breaks, gets eaten, falls into a bottomless pit, or something like that and you need to attack the door as an alternate method?

[Artemendo]

No! Why does everyone refuse to understand what I mean? Is it really that revolutionary a concept? I mean that it would be great if the game had a closed door, complete with a puzzle to get the key, BUT ALSO, OPTIONALLY, the HIDDEN POSSIBILITY to unload a ton of ammo into the door and simply break the lock, skipping the puzzle. I am just saying this would be cool. But no designer would do it because they're all terribly defensive of their work and can't fathom letting anyone skip it.

[cheat-master30]

Dec 5, 2010 17:46:53 GMT -5 Artemendo said:

No! Why does everyone refuse to understand what I mean? Is it really that revolutionary a concept? I mean that it would be great if the game had a closed door, complete with a puzzle to get the key, BUT ALSO, OPTIONALLY, the HIDDEN POSSIBILITY to unload a ton of ammo into the door and simply break the lock, skipping the puzzle. I am just saying this would be cool. But no designer would do it because they're all terribly defensive of their work and can't fathom letting anyone skip it.

Agreed entirely. Heck, why not allow this kind of freedom in other areas?

Why not allow people to skip ahead by winning the boss battles you're meant to lose in some games? Okay, Chrono Trigger I think allowed that, but I don't think many games since have.

Heck, why not allow people to use their items and abilities to bypass the puzzles more? The worst case isn't the locked doors but the absolute stupidity of being 'out of bounds' in the Mario Galaxy games. Is that anything but designers being too stubborn to allow people to choose how they want to get through a level?

But back to discussion about the game... what was your favourite music in this? Me personally, I like most of the mine cart themes, the final boss theme, the Fear Factory remixes and the theme for the factory world's boss.

[Le Mario Bro]

Okay, I get it now. But I don't think it's all that ethical to sequence break like that.

After all, the developers do indeed work hard to put those puzzles in place, and to skip right past them without so much as a backward glance is rather rude.

After all, if you put all your heart and soul, time and effort, blood sweat and tears, and all that other crap into something, wouldn't you want people to pay attention to it, not just skip it over?

[SMBBQ]

Tree Top Rock Returns was a great tune in this game, but my favorite is probably the Tiki theme. It's so hypnotizing...

[Artemendo]

Dec 5, 2010 18:01:06 GMT -5 cheat-master30 said:

Why not allow people to skip ahead by winning the boss battles you're meant to lose in some games? Okay, Chrono Trigger I think allowed that, but I don't think many games since have.

Oh yes, I would have loved that! That would be so rewarding for hardcore players instead of the normal "prize" you get for doing that, which is the game freezing up OR the boss dying in battle only for this to get disregarded in the cutscene.

Oh, and mariobro364, I totally was planning to do that if I ever made a video game - particularly, a version with text, that is, have two modes - one where you can really follow the story with the characters talking pages and pages of text, and another "I Hate Reading" mode where everything is replaced by exactly one short line that just announces the gameplay that has to be done, like "I am the chapter boss. Let's battle!" instead of the whole evil speech.
Because seriously, most video game players DO hate reading and don't care at all about the story no matter how witty your writing.

The Tiki theme is great, and by extension the final boss theme.

[Le Mario Bro]

Hey, different strokes for different folks, I guess...

Like, with me, actual gameplay can be a big waste of time because it doesn't help to continue the plot. Especially in games that allow you to level up.

I swear, I can't even begin to tell you how long I had to level grind in Soul Silver before finally taking on Pryce...

Edit: Oh wait I'm not supposed to talk about Pokemon anymore.

[Artemendo]

Oh, by the way, here's one thing I noticed - not sure if it's the game or just my particular console doing it, but wherever the game is on the Island map, the DVD reading sounds coming from the console are drumming a beat, a reasonably complex one, too. Could someone go to the map screen, turn down the volume, and listen to their actual Wii console whether it's also doing that? If it's a feature, it's pretty interesting.

[SMBBQ]

Well, I've noticed something like that too, Arte.

Anyway, my favorite worlds are Factory and Cliff. How 'bout everyone else?

[Artemendo]

Thank you, smbmaster. I wish someone else would listen to their console, too.

My favourites are the Factory (amazing backgrounds, especially the fact that they placed it in the middle of the jungle, which is visible in Slammin' Steel and Lift-Off Launch) and the Ruins. Cliff has some great backgrounds, too, like Tippy Shippy and Clifftop Climb having Thugly's Highrise visible in the background. While the game isn't as otherworldly in its graphics and dreamy in its music as the SNES DKC games, I think the variety in the levels really makes up for it. The dynamicness really is way beyond NSMBWii's simple tileset levels, and after 25 years of 2D Marios using tilesets, I wish they'd do something like DKCR did next.

[Koopalmier]

I love how everything in the game is related to the background. I mean, platforms aren't just floating things, they are actually part of the area. Even floating objects such as barrels seem to be part of the structure.

[SMBBQ]

Another bit I loved: In Crumble Canyon, the whole area was falling apart, so when you beat the level, the bridge to the boss collapsed on the mapscreen. That's really a great way to tie in the overworld and the levels.

[cheat-master30]

Dec 11, 2010 4:19:08 GMT -5 Koopalmier said:

I love how everything in the game is related to the background. I mean, platforms aren't just floating things, they are actually part of the area. Even floating objects such as barrels seem to be part of the structure.

To be fair, that's always been a good part of the Donkey Kong Country series, it's always been a more 'natural' looking series, with no floating objects and nonsensical landscape features. That's what Jungle Beat got completely wrong, and what makes much of the spirit of the series.