Donkey Country Returns HD (16th January 2025)

[Julius]

Hey hey we're the monkeys 

 

[Dcubed]

Unexpected, but very much appreciated.

Hopefully people finally start giving this game the respect it deserves, now that it's free from its SD resolution.  DKCR is the superior Retro DK game, with better level design and pacing than Tropical Freeze, and it's about time it gets the respect it deserves.

Including the 3DS exclusive levels is also a nice bonus.

Edited June 18 by Dcubed

[Glen-i]

1 hour ago, Dcubed said:

Hopefully people finally start giving this game the respect it deserves, now that it's free from its SD resolution.  DKCR is the superior Retro DK game, with better level design and pacing than Tropical Freeze, and it's about time it gets the respect it deserves

I'd love to see if anyone here agrees with you.

Because I certainly don't. Not with that Final Boss BS.

[nekunando]

You better believe I'm playing this with split Joy-Con and motion controls 🔥

The game feels horrible on 3DS!

[EEVILMURRAY]

I'm not sure if I've gotten too used to PS5 graphics, but this doesn't seem as HD as other titles that have those letters attached to them.

Edited June 18 by EEVILMURRAY

[Dcubed]

This HD port is being made by Forever Entertainment (Same devs behind the Panzer Dragoon and House of the Dead Remakes)

https://twitter.com/mmucharzewski/status/1803099712574177343

Feeling a bit nervous about this one now... They had better not be porting it into the Unity engine... (would explain why the cutscenes now appear to be capped at 30FPS), or else you're getting some janky ass scrolling and lengthy load times...

Quote

You better believe I'm playing this with split Joy-Con and motion controls 🔥

The game feels horrible on 3DS!

While I do agree personally (you can tell that DKCR and DKCTF's gameplay physics are built around the Wiimote & Nunchuck combo, because these games never feel quite right with button controls), it's possible that with Retro not handling port duties here, this HD version might not have the original control scheme at all... as I suspect that they're directly porting the 3DS version over in this case (in order to have the new Monster Games-made Cloud world levels), and Forever Entertainment likely know that motion controls are not popular amongst the mouth-breathing "gamer" crowd, nor are Forever Entertainment known for caring about maintaining artistic integrity with their remakes...

Edited June 19 by Dcubed

[Dcubed]

I have lost all faith in this port...

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2024/06/estimated-file-sizes-for-donkey-kong-country-returns-hd-and-mario-and-luigi-brothership-revealed

Quote

Donkey Country Country Returns is coming in at 9.0GB, while Mario & Luigi: Brothership is slightly larger at 10.0GB. We're admittedly slightly surprised at the size of the former since Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze was considerably smaller in size at 6.6GB.

For reference, the original Wii version is just 3.3GB.  There's no good reason why the file size should've ballooned so much when it appears to be using mostly the same assets from the Wii version.  It just smacks of a poorly optimised port, which means that it's pretty unlikely that anything is going to improve before release.  The game is probably done and just sitting in Nintendo's vault until January.

Fuck Forever Entertainment.  You ruined Panzer Dragoon, you ruined HOTD and you're about to ruin DKCR now.  Shocking that Nintendo would allow these jokers to touch their games when there are so many better options out there!

[darksnowman]

On 24/06/2024 at 2:39 PM, Dcubed said:

I have lost all faith in this port...

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2024/06/estimated-file-sizes-for-donkey-kong-country-returns-hd-and-mario-and-luigi-brothership-revealed

For reference, the original Wii version is just 3.3GB.  There's no good reason why the file size should've ballooned so much when it appears to be using mostly the same assets from the Wii version.  It just smacks of a poorly optimised port, which means that it's pretty unlikely that anything is going to improve before release.  The game is probably done and just sitting in Nintendo's vault until January.

Fuck Forever Entertainment.  You ruined Panzer Dragoon, you ruined HOTD and you're about to ruin DKCR now.  Shocking that Nintendo would allow these jokers to touch their games when there are so many better options out there!

I was also perplexed by the download size for Panzer Dragoon: Remake. But let's not kid ourselves that this is the only company poorly optimising/ compressing their stuff. See also: Capcom. e.g. Resident Evil is like 15GB off the eShop and Monster Hunter Stories (3DS remaster) is listed at almost 11GB—though nice to see it's £25! There was an NBA game on Game Trial once that was ginormous as well. So it happens. Shin'en is an exception rather than the rule.

Nintendo has some big games too (Zelda, Smash Bros Ultimate (!), Fire Emblem Engage (!?)). Skyward Sword is like 3GB+ larger on Switch than it was on Wii iirc.

Also, note that these pre-release file sizes are, as stated at the article's source, at this point estimations. I recall there's been at least one case of a Nintendo game's file size being revised down prior to launch but since I don't buy "normal" games digitally I'm not keeping tabs to know how often this occurs. It's entirely possible DKCRHD and M&L:B will come out closer to Nintendo's 5GB average (new Zelda is down for 6GB, similar to Link's Awakening, and Luigi's Mansion 2 HD's a compact ~3GB)... if not, I hope you'll put aside your vendetta against this particular company and denounce both. 

[Julius]

On 6/24/2024 at 2:39 PM, Dcubed said:

I have lost all faith in this port...

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2024/06/estimated-file-sizes-for-donkey-kong-country-returns-hd-and-mario-and-luigi-brothership-revealed

Kind of crazy part is, just having watched this video, I don't think they actually mentioned one of the most egregious parts of the trailer visually -- you can straight up see the border of an alpha texture. 

Spotted by Digital Foundry in last week's Direct Special (linked to specific point in video)

Crazy. 

On 6/24/2024 at 2:39 PM, Dcubed said:

For reference, the original Wii version is just 3.3GB.  There's no good reason why the file size should've ballooned so much when it appears to be using mostly the same assets from the Wii version.  It just smacks of a poorly optimised port, which means that it's pretty unlikely that anything is going to improve before release.  The game is probably done and just sitting in Nintendo's vault until January.

I hate that my reaction to this is just to point at the Battlefront Classic Collection put out by Aspyr earlier this year, which weighed in at over 60 GB! 

It's great and all that these legacy titles are able to stick around with these various ports and remasters, but man, the fact that so many of them are phoned in with ballooned file sizes due to terrible optimisation, or the prices they come out for, is a bit gutting. 

Hopefully Nintendo take note of the reception and make sure the finished game is delivered at a higher bar of quality than it seems to be currently meeting. 

[WackerJr]

On 18/06/2024 at 10:12 PM, nekunando said:

You better believe I'm playing this with split Joy-Con and motion controls 🔥

The game feels horrible on 3DS!

I've had this on 3DS for a while and was planning to finally play it when I go on holiday in a couple of weeks... Suddenly I don't feel quite so excited about that! (Playing the game that is, not the holiday!)

 

[Cube]

The inflated file sizes for ports like this (and Battlefront) always give me the impression that they've just ran every single texture though an AI upscaler rather than focusing on the ones that really need it and doing them properly.

With the way the camera is and the original art style, you can't really tell that the textures are bigger (even in HD), but it's an easy way to "enhance" a game. I reckon the other graphical issues are because the port is based on the 3DS version, not the original.

[Dcubed]

1 hour ago, Cube said:

The inflated file sizes for ports like this (and Battlefront) always give me the impression that they've just ran every single texture though an AI upscaler rather than focusing on the ones that really need it and doing them properly.

That's exactly what I'm expecting it to be.  No good reason why this game should be almost double the size of Tropical Freeze, and it's exactly the kind of corner cutting I'd expect from Forever Entertainment.

Quote

With the way the camera is and the original art style, you can't really tell that the textures are bigger (even in HD), but it's an easy way to "enhance" a game. I reckon the other graphical issues are because the port is based on the 3DS version, not the original.

Nah, the Gamexplain video handidly debunks that.  It's just incompetence on Forever Entertainment's part.

Edited Saturday at 09:11 AM by Dcubed

[Hero-of-Time]

I wonder what the reasoning was behind choosing Forever Entertainment? They haven't exactly got a great track record and there are other porting studios that easily could have been used.

[Jonnas]

41 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

I wonder what the reasoning was behind choosing Forever Entertainment? They haven't exactly got a great track record and there are other porting studios that easily could have been used.

Maybe they commissioned them to do the port a long time ago (before their poor reputation was obvious), and have been sitting on the finished port ever since?

[Cube]

Or they felt like they needed another Switch game due to the next console taking a bit longer and went for a quick and cheap option.

[darksnowman]

These are Nintendo games so the buck stops with the Big N.

DKCRHD is up on the UK site now with a download size of "9000.00 MB (estimated)" and M&L:B "10240.00 MB (estimated)". If the latter is indeed being handled by ILCA, well, Pokémon Diamond/ Pearl was ~7GB which there was no need for them to be. It's just a lack of care.