For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played Donkey Kong Country Returns HD on Nintendo Switch.
I don't think i've ever played a Donkey Kong game before, if i did it might've been something on Gameboy Color, so i was personally interested in trying this demo out to see if i would enjoy the game. i've heard people talk positively about this game, and others in the series, for a long time but even when i had the consoles these games were out on i've never tried them before.
It's a short demo that lets us play three distinct levels from the first area in the game. I was expecting a little more of a tutorial from the game though. there's a critter that seems to act like a tutorial guide that appears randomly in a stage or in front of it as you play. but it was weird what they did and didn't tell us. the first stage ended up not being much fun as i was experimenting with the controls and how things worked rather than experiencing the stage itself. tho there was a moment where we seemingly killed some sentient statues.
the second stage was visually distinct, putting us and the stage into silhouette whilst the background was a nice looking sunset. it looked nice and was interesting to play, but there was little to no context behind the stage as we had skipped a few from the first one. there were some new enemies that i found oddly difficult to avoid and new mechanics that weren't telegraphed that well but were easy to work out.
the final stage is a mine cart stage. these are typically quite fun to play but for some reason when i played it there wasn't much sense of speed. other than some tricky jumps, it was surprisingly average and didn't seem to add much to the experience.
Overall, it's great that there's a demo for Donkey Kong Country Returns HD. this is a game, a series that i've not played before so i was of course curious about it and thought about getting it. now there's a demo, i was able to try before buying. but after playing the demo, i don't feel like Donkey Kong Country Returns HD is for me. i didn't really have much fun with it. the story didn't make much sense, the controls weren't great, the platforming wasn't that satisfying, and overall i didn't enjoy my time with it.
