We’re already three weeks into the new year and I have a prediction: Donkey Kong Country Returns HD will be the best Crash Bandicoot game I play in 2025.
Now I can picture you turning your head and cocking it to one side in disbelief but hear me out. DK Country Returns HD is just one example of the “adventure” platformer, the same Indiana Jones-esque platforming league that Crash Bandicoot occupies. Trade out jumping on boxes for pounding the ground with your fists and spinning into enemies for rolling and it all starts to feel familiar. The big rotating world map that covers an entire island? Got it. Running through jungles, beaches, and temples, eventually traversing complex industrial machinery? Bingo. You ride a rhino instead of a warthog (the animal that is), but running with or away from animals in thrilling chase sequences? All here. With that said, the original DK Country preceded Crash Bandicoot and subsequently influenced the creation of the franchise. So how appropriate it is that Returns paid it forward, in a way.
I remember 2010, the year Donkey Kong Country Returns hit the Wii. It was released around seminal retro revival platformers like New Super Mario Bros. Wii and Rayman Origins. It fit right in and, at the time, was one of the best examples of “What’s old is new again.” Here in 2025, the game has aged fairly well albeit with one caveat: Its Wii U Switch-ported sequel outshines it in every conceivable way. Even the most thrilling moments of Returns HD, as plentiful as they are, don’t come close to the highs of Tropical Freeze. The way that game stuffed multiple ideas, approaches, and unconventional platforming concepts into a single level is unmatched. Still, my adrenaline was pumping whether I was running from a wall of spiders, jumping from mine cart to mine cart as track fell away into rising lava and being shot from a barrel cannon into crumbling architecture in the background.
The game’s setpieces are still spectacular, but for every sweeping tidal wave or silhouette sunset, there’s the reminder that this game is well-treaded ground at this point. What was new for the franchise in 2010 is simply standard for DK Country nowadays. It’s similar to how we tired of the Mushroom Kingdom grassy hills after four different New Super Mario Bros. releases. It doesn’t help that Returns doesn’t even try to sell you on any form of imagination being attempted, what with world names as original as “Forest,” “Jungle,” and “Volcano.” Don’t let that discourage you from thinking the game isn’t a blast to swing through, however. It absolutely is.
There is still fun to be had in DK Country. Collecting all of K-O-N-G letters and puzzle pieces makes you comb every level for any possible secrets along the way, a credit to the genius game design. The platforming feels fantastic and hefty. Donkey Kong very much has a unique feeling to his running and jumping, aided by the HD rumble when he hits the ground. His sliding when switching directions grinds him to a sliding halt in a way that reminds me of Sonic and can be an obstacle when attempting the precision platforming Returns relies on. The seven to eight levels in each world range from a walk in the Jurassic Park to “NES hard,” sometimes in the worst way. Seriously, dying in one hit from a mine cart clipping the edge of the screen gets old. And don’t even get me started on the boss battles. The readability on the chicken in the robot suit is some of the worst I’ve seen in a 2D platformer boss, not whatsoever helped by its phases that drag out way too long. If a boss is difficult to predict, even after multiple attempts running through it, that’s an issue. You’re only given two hearts, or hit points, by default and they go FAST. Thankfully, there’s a new Modern difficulty option that grants you three hearts by default and using Cranky Kong’s shop in each world can grant you even more. The aforementioned mine cart one hit KO? Forget about it. You can buy a potion that grants you temporarily invulnerability in mine cart and barrel rocket stages. This difficulty option is one of the best additions to Returns HD which otherwise feels merciless in its original difficulty at times.
Nintendo’s Wii platformer trend of including same screen co-op and auto-beating a level for you if you die too many times are still here. Admittedly, the passing time makes these options feel unnecessary when Super Mario Bros. Wonder has perfected these ideas. Still, they’re welcome nonetheless. And thank GOODNESS for the death of wiggling the controller to pound the ground or roll forward. The new control scheme introduced in Returns HD apes Tropical Freeze’s Switch port, making this the definitive way to play Returns. Minor graphical grievances aside, of course. This being the Switch’s bowing out era means there are some hiccups in frame rate and even sound clipping. It’s nothing game-breaking, but loading screens and cutscenes occasionally suffer at the Switch’s hand. I played Returns HD in handheld with minor issues, otherwise maintaining 30 FPS. The nine new levels that comprise the Clouds World were also admittedly a letdown, recycling the theme of all eight previous worlds one by one leading to the game’s original finale that actually takes place in the clouds. Still, new content is welcome if you haven’t already experienced it on the 3DS port of Returns.
You may have noticed that I’ve been comparing Donkey Country Returns HD to Nintendo’s newer material. At the $60 price point Nintendo is charging for it that matches Tropical Freeze’s Switch port, Super Mario Bros. Wonder and all of Nintendo’s contemporary releases, I’m only being fair. I find it fascinating that Nintendo seems to only want to dig up Donkey Kong’s past nowadays while charging premium prices to do so. It is worth celebrating that every Donkey Kong Country game is now on Switch. I’ll agree with that. However Nintendo’s “premium” games now are of such a higher caliber that I’d love to see Donkey Kong polished with that same sheen. Tropical Freeze was such a tease for that. As it is, this port of Donkey Kong Country Returns is a serviceable, fun romp through DK Island to the Golden Temple. And probably the best Crash Bandicoot game I’ll play this year.
