After all the waiting around I did for it, I have to make my initial statement of: "It's awesome!". It was definitely worth waiting for, and it'll tide me over the next couple of weeks before the next big game I am after: Marvel vs Capcom 3; arrives.
Oh, and just to warn you now, this does contain some minor spoilers that may ruin the epicness of the game's opening sequence. So you have been warned.
The game opens with a nice little cutscene which gives the overall background to the story. There's this huge volcano that suddenly decides to erupt, where creatures from the Tiki Tak tribe spew out from. They then proceed to hypnotise the island's wildlife to steal all the bananas. There's a funny moment when they try to hypnotise Donkey Kong, but they fail; and the cutscene leads directly onto the first level.
I was impressed by this approach, and I just find it works really well to getting you into the game.
The things that jump out at you first are the lovely backgrounds and awesome music. I never played the original Country games, so after hearing the Donkey Kong music in Smash Bros. it was nice to actually give that music some proper meaning.
The graphical style is well-chosen and is really colourful and lively, and really brings each level to life.
So, you begin moving Doneky Kong, and the controls feel perfect. There are two control schemes for this game; using the Wii Remote and Nunchuk, or using the Wii remote horizontally. With the game being a platformer, I opted for the NSMBWii style horizontal option.
The usual stuff is in there, move using the D-pad and jump with 2; with 1 being the button to grab things and run. Shaking the wii remote pulls off Donkey Kong's ground pound move, which stuns nearby enemies. I was expecting this to feel clunk, but it actually feels really natural, even when doing it for the first time.
Holding the 1 button and shaking the Wii remote gives you a blow move which can be used on certain objects. There's these plants with propeller things on them that when blown give bananas and sometimes a puzzle piece.
Holding right or left and shaking performs the roll move, which isn't as bad as it sounds. In fact, I find it rather helpful if you're rushing through a level and you want a way of taking enemies out quickly. You can just roll through them and kill them all. Awesome stuff.
Of course, rushing through a level is only the goal in time attack mode; normally when progressing through a level you have to explore to find the collectible items: the four KONG letters, the x amount of puzzle pieces you are required to find, and the more frequently occurring banana coins, which can be used to buy items from a shop owned by Cranky Kong.
The KONG letters are easy enough to get, but to get all the puzzle pieces you have to explore a level carefully, as a lot of them are pretty well hidden,
Diddy Kong also makes an appearance. After breaking him out of the DK barrels, her rides on Donkey Kongs back and adds some extra jumping distance with his jetpack. I think he does other things as well, but I haven't dicovered them yet.
Where Diddy Kong really comes into play is the inclusion of a 2 player co-op mode, which is fun if you've got the required two people to play it. It's a nice inclusion, where player two can control Diddy Kong with his peanut popgun and player one controls Donkey Kong in the usual way.
So far I'm pretty impressed with Retro Studios' modern re-imagining of the classic Donkey Kong Country titles, and I'm looking forward to continuing on.
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