Considering that lack of content was one of the big complaints about Emerald Rush considering the price, this being time-limited seems a bit ridiculous to me.

This is a neat idea, but making it time-limited seems strange to me.

Give us a year of "seasonal content" and just keep repeating it every year. Then at least some of it won't be "lost" because of Nintendo's weird release habits.

I’ve completed every challenge and earned every card and congratulations photo. Just waiting on my new avatars to show off! The NSO challenges aren’t too bad and can be cheesed easily with the rewind feature. Most of the Bananza challenges are easy but the last 4 or so are absolutely evil. I played most of the main game with only 3 hearts to give myself a challenge before getting frustrated and wimping out. But having to do the boss rush with only 3 hearts and no skill tree upgrades was a nightmare. You really gotta know the game in and out to succeed. Fun little freebie.

I must chime in and say the lack of content in Emerald Rush is false narrative by most everyone who didn’t actually play through it. You can get seriously lost in Emerald Rush. Granted I understand players would have preferred more new lands to explore beyond DK Isle but it utilizes existing stages so well in an entirely different way. I 1,000 Banana’d the main game in 80 hours. I racked up an additional 80 hours of pure Emerald Rush, never completing a difficulty more than once. Then with the timed events, earning Rattly, Engaurd, Chunky, etc I tacked on another 35 hours. The gameplay loop is extremely addicting. I totaled 195 hours before this new DK Challenge and now I sit at an even 200 hours on Bananza.

I also have to imagine these challenges will cycle through again at some point. Isn’t that what Nintendo usually does with its timed and themed events? This particular thing is probably a testing ground to pull it back, analyze and launch a new one again later. Though I suppose that’s not true for Tetris or F Zero 99. I guess it’s an incentive to get people engaged and dabble outside of their comfort zone if there is a time limit.