Episode 130 - Big Ice Bag - Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze

Podcast juice, huh? I have no idea what it is, dude, but it tastes
radical! Welcome back to the podcast and our final episode in
Ape-ril! We’re going to be discussing Donkey Kong Country: Tropical
Freeze. This is a sequel to Donkey Kong Country Returns which is
itself a spiritual follow up to the original series of games from
the SNES, which puts this in a fairly odd position as a part of the
franchise. A lot of the base elements of the game are tied to those
original titles as the new series tries to relate back to what made
those games so memorable, but then again the mechanics and designs
of DKCR are being iterated on to further polish the game and the
“tropical freeze” goes much further than a fresh coat of paint.
This sequel-to-a-successor status and strong thematic elements make
Tropical Freeze actually a very interesting standalone game,
despite it’s close ties to its predecessors. We’re going to be
talking about level design and the kind of platformer this strives
to be, the way its stages tell stories on both a micro and macro
level, and we discover the punchline to a joke about Cranky Kong
that started over twenty years ago. Thank you for joining us again
and for closing out this mon(key)th with us! What are your feelings
on Retro Studio’s take on the Donkey Kong franchise? Do you think
these games are great? Are they overhyped? What about, and this is
extremely important, what about Rambi? Do you…do you like Rambi?
Let us know in the comments, or over on our Discord server where we
talk about the games. Next time, we’re diving into our annual
tradition of Mystery May and talking about Disco Elysium, so we
hope you’ll join us then!