Donkey Kong Country Returns HD

Non I'm sure that radio stations can manage to broadcast their signal through the ether through the foliage of the jungle, but the most famous ape in video games doesn't need music to roll and defeat his enemies! To the sound of banana helmets, Donkey Kong Country Returns HD will return once again in grand style on the hybrid screens of the Nintendo Switch: save the date, as they say in these cases, because January 16, 2025 isn't that far away and neither are the dirt paths to explore in the jungle, the most fun there is!

Protagonist of this new iteration is the legendary Kong, a gorilla born as the antagonist of a certain mustached plumber and kidnapper of maidens (The gorilla, not the Italian plumber!), like his cinematic namesake, a skyscraper-climbing enthusiast and blonde starlets: with him we will see Diddy Kong again and the characters who made the series successful, but let’s take things in order.

The first version of this platform title saw the light in 2010 and quickly became a true killer app for the Wii console, the pixelated grandmother of today’s Switch, which as we know has risen to critical and public acclaim also because it is the ideal harbor to which to dock a myriad of reboots, remastered editions, and sequels of Nintendo’s intellectual properties that made the history of the Kyoto company. Donkey Kong Country, in particular, was a worldwide success back in the Super Nintendo era during the golden age of the videogame Nineties; consequently, a grand return for new-generation consoles was not only desirable, but also deserved with respect to a plethora of characters that are richly animated and tremendously fun to play!

As with many of Nintendo’s recovery operations, the title from Retro Studios presents itself to both new and old audiences with a shinier outfit and clean, improved graphics, while still offering the same content already seen on Wii and even on the little big 3DS, for which a version of the same game was released: as Kong and Diddy, we will have to reclaim possession of the supplies of the only fruit of love, wickedly stolen by the evil Tiki Tak tribe, a name with an onomatopoeia that recalls Guardiola’s Barcelona football team but which in reality has more to do with plans to conquer Donkey Kong’s jungle than with sliding tackles and last-minute goals.

From the screenshots released and the trailers admired during the Nintendo Direct, we were able to feast our eyes on the HD graphics and the smooth, colorful gameplay of the game: the increasing difficulty of the levels of the original title has remained unchanged, although Nintendo has already made it known that there will be the option to lower the challenge level for those who would rather suffer the shame inflicted by old-school pro gamers like me and other over-forties, let’s be honest.

As always, it will be possible to play in single player or in cooperative, and it is here that Returns shows its best side, unleashing somersaults, jumps, bonuses and secret areas like a winning poker hand at the gaming table: among the levels most loved by the writer, we will find the ruins and the forest, with its cute hippos to be kicked in the face, literally, and then the volcano that deliberately recalls the end-of-level fortresses of Super Mario, fire and flames and bananas, an explosive trio, there’s no denying it.

Donkey Kong Country Returns HD will roll onto our Switch very soon and we’re sure it will breathe new life into an epic series that no collection can be without, whether you’re Nintendo fans or not, believe me.