Yeah, I'm sure they have "no plans" for a DKCR sequel, just as they have "no plans" for a Wii successor.  I'd be pretty surprised if we didn't see the announcement of a DKCR sequel by at least next years' E3, if not this year's E3.

Nintendo confirmed long ago that they were working on the Wii successor, I think you meant that they haven't announced a release date.

Man i'm late. I actually hope we don't see a new DK for a while. This was a great comeback and I absolutely don't want to see another one on the Wii.

I agree, I don't wanna see another DKCR on the Wii...now the 3DS on the other hand....

I can do without yet another console franchise jumping to the handhelds, thanks (especially because we usually don't see the reverse).  I would be fine if Retro waited until the Wii's successor to release the sequel, though.

Too bad, I was hoping we'd see a new trilogy like the one that happened on the SNES, that would have been pretty awesome. They may not have anything planned at this point in time, but the game has sold well enough that it won't be the last we see of it.

But imagine those background hopping, barrel blasting, and other such scenes (remember the tsunami into the screen stage?).....IN 333DDDDD :Q ! But I get the port overload concern  ;) .

Since this was brought up, I might as well as post my thoughts on the subject matter.

I got DKC Returns a while back and I must say, Retro did an AMAZING job with the level design. It is masterful and at times brilliantly beautiful and clever. Rare only wishes it could be this inventive with their games.

That being said... HOLY HELL IS IT HARD! I am barely on world four and the difficulty began to significantly ramp up. I find this to be both a good and a bad thing. Good because it allows for some tricky yet engaging levels that surprise you time and time again. Even when you get halfway through the level something pop ups and ruins your perfect run. It's bad, however, because (at least in my case) it makes the game more frustrating to play, even with the super guide feature. I realize the original games were just as challenging, but DKC Returns outdoes them all.

Funny enough, I thought the game would make a fantastic 3DS title due to its clever use of foreground and background elements and things popping out at you. There was a clever stage puzzle that I thought was beyond small which involved you placing your character in a way that the screen lined up some rocks in order to form a banana and unlock a puzzle. The game could use the illusion of 3D for some weird and even silly puzzles.

Haven't had a chance to play DKCR but I doubt it is harder then the original trilogy those were some really tough games, though they were games you could complete with enough practice after dieing 50,000 times. If I get DKCR I would like to use the homebrew patch because I do not want to play a game that is artificially made more challenging by waggle.

Also in regards to this news, they say that about any franchise they develop. Nintendo announced when something is in development when it is actually pretty far along. The only games they may say otherwise is Zelda or Mario

Trust me when I say that as a kid I beat all three games fully, lost levels included, and so far I think DKC Returns beats them all in difficulty.

In the original games, the challenge mainly came from the barrel blasters, well placed enemies, and surviving platforms. In DKC Returns there is that alongside random stage events even more enemies on screen. Note that the game is even more generous with the balloons, and note that Diddy Kong can hover jump and each character has two hearts, meaning that you can die two times. I think this was smart of Retro as it allowed them to make challenging levels while giving the player reasons to keep on playing despite the climbing difficulty.

Lol well I've found games I could beat as a kid that I thought were easy, or just "challenging" massacre me now. I tried to play the original DKC games and got my butt kicked in them on VC.

Yep, this 100% sums up my feelings as well.  Even though the game has great levels, a lot of them in the later half of the game become too hard for their own good.  Just way too many cheap moments that make some of the later levels more of a chore then actually fun.  This makes the Mirror Mode total cheap ass bullsh!t, since you can't use Diddy and die after only one hit.  I actually beat every level on Mirror Mode and let me tell you it was not worth it at all for all the frustration it caused. 

Pap64 is telling the truth though.  DKCR makes the SNES Donkey Kong Country's look like Yoshi's Story in comparison.  The game is hard as f*ck on just the normal mode and then there's the Mirror Mode which manages to make Lost Levels SMB2 Japan look easy.  That's how hard this game is.

I don't know what a direct, immediate sequel could accomplish other than minor tweaks like fixing the damn controls. I'd rather see Retro go back to making 3D games, maybe even something original, or at least revive a different classic franchise.

The same could be said of Metroid Prime, except maybe the part about the controls.

I hope they dont jump right into a second DKC game. I want them to do something else next, maybe their own IP.

Eh, I don't think the game was all that hard. Definitely not as hard as Mario Bros. 2 JP. It was refreshing to find a game where the final boss actually took a number of tries to beat. And, after playing through the game on mirror mode, "normal" feels like a cakewalk. (One of the hardest things ever was beating Jagged Jewels on Mirror). Also, I don't think it was cheap at any point, I just think the designers went to great lengths to keep you off rhythm.

I agree with the sentiment that we don't need another sequel. They pretty much squeezed the stone dry on level design with this go-round. All they could do with a sequel is add more personality (the bongos got nothing on the Kremlings), add more interactivity to the map a la DKC3, and introduce a full-on lost world. That, and toss in more animal friends and underwater levels.

Did anyone check out the unlockable concept art? It seemed from those stills that Retro had a water world planned, as well as a more extensive Golden Temple world that looked awesome.

Honestly I think they'd be better off by making a new 2D Mario instead, this time with real imagination added. NSMBW sold like hotcakes despite being fairly weak compared to SMW and SMB3. DKCR had imagination going but the brand will probably keep it from selling as well as NSMBW. Add the creativity of DKCR to the brand power of Super Mario Bros and you've got a winner.

Retro Studios should work on the next Starfox game, but make it a Wii 2 launch title. Once they are finished, they can then proceed to newer IPs for the system.

I agree. My sister and I got through the game together without much issue, and although there are a few pretty challenging levels, on the whole it is easier than the SNES trilogy. Most of the hidden stages were tough (especially with two players) and the mine cart and rocket barrel levels are more difficult than the mine cart stages in the SNES game, but that's simply because you can't afford a hit like you could in the SNES games, so the difficulty of those stages feels slightly artificial. But that's about it.

I have played this game only in short bursts, but from what I have experienced it seems as if this game is so simple that it becomes extremly hard. Of course I have only played the first couple of levels or so at Gamestop and do not wish to tarnish anyone's experience, but it just seems like this game appears to be easier than it is and thus pulls you into its difficulty. A lot of the times when you die it is because of something that should have been easily avoidable.

If they do make a sequel then I want to be able to control Diddy Kong. I always liked in the original that you could switch between the two and they both had unique gameplay styles. I still like the rocket pack idea of this game, of course, but I just did not like Diddy being relegated to be DK's back pack and not his side kick. Perhaps a waggle of the Wiimote can switch between them on the fly?

I think the reason people say DKC Returns is "easier" than the SNES is because it was cleverly designed to be more "forgiving" than the SNES titles.


In the SNES titles, both characters could only take one hit, meaning you had two lives. Then you had the balloons which were sparse and somewhat rare unless you knew how to scour the levels and collect those bananas and KONG letters.


The Wii game has the following features and enhancements:
- Both DK and Diddy have two hearts each, meaning that they can take two hits before they are defeated
- Not only are the balloons plentiful you can buy and horde them by visiting Cranky Kong's shop
- Diddy has a hover jump which makes platforming easier
- In the event that you can't beat a level there's the super guide feature that beats the level for you


With all those features in place, the game is indeed "easier" than the SNES games. However, the designers at Retro were clever as instead of dumbing down the levels in order to follow along the features that make the game easier the levels themselves got more challenging, meaning that there is a lot more stuff to avoid, more reflex based jumps, cleverly placed enemies and random events that throw you off.


If you compare the games you will see that a lot more things are happening on screen than on the SNES games, which contribute to the challenge of the title, and thus why I think its a hard game.

So would a sequel be called "Donkey Kong Country Returns Returns"? ;)

If this would free up Retro to do something completely original that would be nice.  They're incredibly talented but it doesn't feel like they have a real identity because they're just handling the franchises someone else already made famous.

I find DKCR to be harder than the SNES DKC titles because the difficulty ramps up higher.  In the original games it's usually around the third world where it starts to becomes a real challenge.  DKCR practically starts off hard.  DKC felt much harder at the time then it is because I was a kid when it came out.  Kids clearly have more perseverance when it comes to replaying a game they keep dying on and are more willing to dedicate time to improving their skills but I find myself to have much better "first time playing this game" skills as an adult.  As a kid I probably wouldn't even get past world 1 in DKCR.

This is very true.  I think I was 10 when I played the first Donkey Kong Country and the game took me over 2 weeks just to beat.  And I was playing it for at least a couple hours every day.  A few months ago I bought the first Donkey Kong Country on the Virtual Console and beat it in about 3-4 hours.  Yeah the game got challenging toward the end but nothing ever got close to what DKCR throws at you in it's second half.  This caused me to go and replay DKC2 as well which was also much easier then I remembered.


This is why when I say DKCR is much harder then the SNES games can honestly say it's much harder because I've been able to compare both types of games within a close timeframe and play them both at my current skill level.  If I was to play DKCR at the same age I was when I played the original DKC, it would have taken me 2 weeks just to make it to World 3 and I probably would have stopped playing at World 4 since all the mine cart and rocket levels in that World require way more precision and reflexes then any of the levels in the original DKC that my 10 year old self never would have been able to handle.

That's true, but since I played through with two players then I was using Donkey Kong by himself, and still could only afford one hit and didn't have the safety of Diddy Kong's jet pack. Even with that, I still found the game as a whole to be slightly easier than the SNES games. Though we did put most of our banana tokens towards extra lives, since my sister needed them.

While that's true, whether or not that means it's more difficult depends on the player. Some people have a harder time following a game when there's a lot of stuff happening on screen; there were some times when my sister lost sight of her character. But after years of playing games like Super Smash Brothers and Mario Kart Wii, I'm used to chaos, so the amount of movement on screen didn't phase me.

I never played any of the Donkey Kong Country games when I was younger, the very first time I played all three was last year to prepare for Donkey Kong Country Returns. I had a harder time completing them than I did DKCR, and it isn't because DKCR hands out more lives (I didn't have much trouble finding them in the SNES games). The only two parts of DKCR I think are more difficult are the mine cart stages and the mirror mode.