Donkey Kong Country Returns HD Review

Reviewed On: Nintendo Switch (OLED Model)
Price: $59.99 USD
Developer: Forever Entertainment (Original Game Was Developed By Retro Studios)
Publisher: Nintendo
Release Date: January 16th, 2025

We all believe that the Nintendo Switch is in its last year since Nintendo finally announced the Switch 2 with a new Mario Kart a week ago. This year for the Switch 1, I feel like we will be getting a bunch of ports and remasters that have been in the works for a while, along with a few other releases that may be cross-gen or final Switch 1 games. In 2024, we saw a bunch of this from things like Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD, Paper Mario Thousand Year Door, Mario+Luigi Brothership, and The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom. There have been a bunch of games announced for this year, and think there will be one or two more, but so far the lineup includes Xenoblade Chronicles X Definite Edition, Pokémon Legends Z-A, Metroid Prime 4, and a game that released last week; Donkey Kong Country Returns HD. I originally played the game on Wii, and that made me rage when I was younger! Nowadays, it didn’t make me rage as much, but there were some moments where I was annoyed with it. Is it worth playing in 2025, or is it something that you should skip? Well, read my review and find out my thoughts on this remaster!

The focus of any 2D or 3D platformer should absolutely be on the gameplay and making sure the controls are as tight as can be. This is indeed a remaster of the original Wii game, that was then ported to the 3DS, with a story that is probably as basic as possible. Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong have a stash of bananas that were stolen from them by an army of hypnotizing masks and your job is to go and take them back from your enemy by defeating their leader. I feel like it is a plot line that is as razor-thin as possibly can be, even more than some of the Mario games. Again though, I think of platformers for the fun factor, tight platforming, and less of a gripping story than you would find in many other games.

First, let me mention the difficulty options as it is a big part of this remaster. There are two modes in this version of the game; Original and Modern Mode. Back on the Wii, there was no modern mode, and I played it there (got 100% completion back then) and raged on a bunch of the levels. This time, I wanted to see what modern mode was like, and I am very happy that I played on this based on my experiences from this unfortunately lacking remaster. I will say my gaming skills have vastly improved since back then, but the game is still a bit of a challenge even on the new modern mode. It isn’t a baby mode, as I still died a bunch, raged a bit, and was annoyed on occasion.

One big difference between the two difficulty modes is that the original has two heart points by default while modern has three. This additional hit point is very helpful with some levels and fights, while other times I wish it wasn’t there. A second difference is you can only take 1 item into a level in the original mode, while in modern you can take up to 9. This seems too much and I wish it was capped at an even lower number than that, but it is always optional to use these item slots. The third and final big difference is the shop has new items available to purchase in modern mode, and cheaper prices for the items that are also in the original mode. Although I played on the new mode I didn’t like the fact that once you pick a mode at the beginning of the game, you can’t switch to the other one. Sometimes I wanted to give myself more challenge than it was on modern, but I couldn’t without restarting the game on a new save file, which I refused to do so I just took no items into levels most of the time.

***Secret Difficulty Mode! Not Fun… Captured on Switch!***

In terms of the actual gameplay, it is the same as it was back in the day. You go from level to level in a total of 8 different worlds. As Donkey Kong, you have access to a jump, the classic Donkey Kong slam beatdown attack that stuns enemies, and you also have a small roll. Using these moves, you have to complete puzzles, traverse through platforming sections, battle enemies, and more. In the levels, you can come across DK barrels and these have your pal Diddy Kong in there. When you have Diddy Kong with you, there is a small jetpack that you have, and the roll is now a continuous roll for as long as you want. On top of this, some levels have additional things like barrels to jump around in, a rhino pal to ride on, a mine cart (that isn’t always fun…), and a barrel rocket that is sometimes fun and sometimes absolutely painful.

***Absolute Pain… If you know… you know! Captured on Switch.***

Within each of the levels, there are also collectibles to find. There are puzzle pieces that are scattered throughout that are hidden behind secret areas, bonus parts, or hidden in plain sight. I recommend at least looking first as it is part of the fun of the exploration in the game to find areas you might not see right away. If you need help finding these, you can buy a parrot called Squawks from the shop and they will alert you if you are close to them. The other collectibles are the letters K.O.N.G. They are usually easier to find than most of the puzzle pieces, even if they are occasionally annoying to grab in some sections. If you grab all of the KONG letters in each of the levels in the world, you unlock the bonus level that will really test your platforming and timing skills. If you complete these levels, you get an orb and if you get all of the eight orbs available in the game, you will unlock the cloud world. This special world is a lot of fun and unlocks mirror mode, which is an even tougher challenge than the game already offers.

***K from KONG is in the Image. Captured on Switch.***

Some parts of the music are better than others, but as a collective whole, it does the job well enough. The overall boss battle themes are good because they connect with how intensive the battle is and the overall vibes of it. One of my favorite music pieces is The Mine Cart Boss, although I actually hate the fight itself. The music in the different levels matches the world that you are in from the metal grooves of the factory to the more calming sounds of the jungle. It sounds just like it did from back in the day, and that is a praise I am happy to award for the game.

The overall visuals of the game look nice, but nothing is all that shocking since it is a remastered port of a Wii game. The game looked fine back then on the old system, and it looks decently fine in HD as well on Switch. The OLED screen does make the colors of the world pop more than I thought and was the reason why I played most of the game in portable mode. The different worlds are all unique from the beaches, the caves, the factory, and more. The level designs are different enough from each other with there being many different kinds of mechanics but overall they are all similar in terms of the structure of what you need to complete. The game is a port and HD remaster, but it isn’t the prettiest remaster on Nintendo’s hybrid console that has come out of the first-party works.

Unfortunately, the game wasn’t that great when it came to the overall performance and technical stance of the title. I played 97% of the game in handheld mode (OLED screen makes a big difference for me here) and the game was kind of rough in terms of the framerate. Every few levels had dips in the performance with an occasional bigger dip. I know there were many issues plaguing first-party games last year (**cough cough Princess Peach Showtime cough cough**) but I never thought that a Wii port would have this happen when it played fine over there. There were no crashes for the game, which I always appreciate so that is at least a positive.

Besides performance issues, some issues boggle the experience a bit on top of poor frame rates. These include things like hitboxes being really out of whack where I am clearly not touching something, and yet I got hit and died. There are also issues with the invincibility frames. When you get hit, you have a small window where you are invincible and won’t be hurt; however, that doesn’t work 100% of the time. The final issue was input lag did occasionally occur in the title where I would tell Donkey Kong to do something, but it didn’t register until like one to two seconds later causing me a death or loss of a heart point. Overall, just some annoyances in the game that I think could have been fixed with some more QA and some more time in the oven.

Overall, there isn’t a huge amount to brag about the game besides it being a 2D Donkey Kong game in 2025. It being priced at $59.99 as a remaster does not help the case for the game either in my book, considering it is available on the Wii for pretty cheap nowadays and performs a tad better on there. It does add in a few new things here and there to make the game more approachable for people which is great! The new mode definitely feels too helpful at times and the fact there is no option to switch back and forth between the modes is kind of baffling to me. The performance and bugs plaguing the title bog it down from being great to okay. The hitboxes are weird, the invincibility frames don’t always work correctly, and there are a few issues when it comes to input delays. The story is basic, the visuals are cleaner on the OLED screen than on the Wii, the music is fine, and the core gameplay is mostly solid.

It works as a title that Nintendo needed to fill the gap in their lineup, but it definitely isn’t a must-play Switch port like some 2D platformer re-releases. I still enjoyed my time with the game and had a bunch of fun with it as it is a good game, but this is a far from great remaster. I hope a brand new 2D Donkey Kong game is still a possibility even after this remastered release of the Wii game. I really liked Tropical Freeze and want to see what Retro Studios can do with this wonderful IP in a brand-new title! Also Nintendo… please start crediting the original developers for their work on games in the credits.