When it comes to Donkey Kong some of my favorite games in the series like many others is the series on the Snes, They our some of the best platforming games ever and they can stand up today to any platformer. So now that Rare is dead (lets be honest) Retro has revived the series and they have done an absolutely fantastic job of doing so, and I would go as far as to say that they are nearly reciprocating the series to the golden years of Rare and making them close to identical if you ask me.
Story:As in any Nintendo game the story's simple A group of penguins have frozen DK isle. Dk has handle that $h%t lol so he goes after them to return his island to normal.
Presentation:DKCRTF is one of the best looking Donkey Kong games to date it looks absolutely fantastic and literally every single level in the game is absolutely different, i'm not magnifying this, every single level is completely different from one another and that makes this game a joy to play. The soundtrack has some original music and some remade music, first off the original music is pretty great, not as good as Rare's but definitely great in its own right. The remixes are fantastic I know what everybody is thinking when it comes to the remixes is Aquatic Ambiance in the game, and it is. After hearing this song in millions of remixes and the original over and over again I thought for sure I would think that Retros version of the song would just be humdrum, but it's not I absolutely love their version it's unconventional and has its own feel of what it should be like and I like that, I wouldn't say its as good as the original but it has it's own feel compared to the original making it great in my book, The presentation is fantastic.
Gameplay: The gameplay is your standard platformer, you've got DK who can take two hits and a choice of three characters, Dixie, Diddy, and Cranky, Dixie was my favorite she gives you a little boost with her hair and she is incredibly useful in the game. Diddy isn't as good as Dixie but I still didn't mind using him as he can be quite helpful with his jet pack. Cranky lets be honest was a waste he uses his cane to bounce similar to that of Scrooge Mcduck in Ducktales, this might be useful in a different type of platformer, but for this one it just dosen't work and its because most of the levels in this game need you to make specific jumps and cranky's ability proves useless to this. Quite a shame cause I liked the idea of Cranky being in this game. While most of the partners are useful Dk alone just doesn't cut it don't get me wrong he doesn't make the game bad, but hes very stiff and bulky and can be quite annoying when you are trying to get to a high platform. One think I love what Retro does with Donkey kong is all the elements they put into each level it's not just a basic platformer but a platformer that you must learn about in certain elements and not in a tedious way, it makes this game have so much depth to it. The boss battle will have you gritting your teeth they our some of the hardest boss battles ever in a DK game and in a completley fair way too, their was not one boss that I didn't like in this game every single one was challenging and a joy to fight against, the gameplay is on par with Rarewares, and that's saying a lot.and I'm also glad they toned down the rocket levels I was never a fan of them on the first one and they feel a lot more atmospheric in this one and much easier to control.
(Spoiler Alert) The final boss is a giant polar bear, This guy might be the toughest DK boss to date and probably one of the best, after beating him the penguins leave and DK isle returns back to its normal temperature.
Overall DKCRTF is one of the best DK games I have played in a long time and anyone that is a fan of DK need to play this game, this is one of the best games on the WII U.