Donkey Kong Country Returns



"Now, get out there and show those little drum guys what for. Yes, I said "what for". I'm old. Get over it."

- Cranky Kong

Donkey Kong Country Returns is a 2010 Platform Game produced by Nintendo and Retro Studios (of Metroid Prime fame); it's the first entry in the series since Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble in 1996 and the first in the series canon since Donkey Kong 64 in 1999. The plot this time concerns the Tiki Tak Tribe, a group of evil Tikis that have hypnotized the animals of DK Island, forcing them to steal Donkey Kong's treasured hoard of bananas for their own nefarious plans. Along with his best friend and second banana Diddy Kong, the big guy sets out to get them back.

The game features many popular series landmarks, such as pirate ships, mine cart rides, and of course, plenty of lush wilderness to get lost in, as well as the goal of collecting scattered bananas and golden K-O-N-G letters. A co-op mode has been implemented, but gone are King K. Rool and any underwater stages, as stated here.

The game is the first in the series to be made with no cooperation from Rare, for obvious reasons.

So once again, after 11 years, it's on like the eponymous ape.

"Cranky Kong: "See you later, alligator! Heh, heh..." Cranky Kong: "You need to get to the top of the island by yourself? Too bad we don't know anyone with a plane!" Cranky Kong: "Back in my day, I could get through the whole island without getting hit once!""
 * Alliteration / Alliterative Name: About 90% of the level names, with names like 'Muncher Marathon', 'Temple Topple' and 'Damp Dungeon'
 * Advancing Wall of Doom: Level 5-8, Muncher Marathon, has one made out of a rampaging horde of baby spiders.
 * There's also one made of lava at the end of level 8-2 (Hot Rocket), although it serves as more of a visual distraction than anything else since the Rocket Barrel makes it an Auto-Scrolling Level.
 * Amazing Technicolor Battlefield/Design Student's Orgasm: The inside of Tiki Tong's lair.
 * Appease the Volcano God: The Tikis  has shades of this.
 * Art Evolution: The original Donkey Kong Country trilogy featured a realistic art style and cartoony characters with realistic fur and textures. This game goes for more of a "painted cartoon" look and adds cartoony effects and animations to top it off. The fact that the series changed hands (formerly Rare, currently Retro) has something to do with it.
 * The evolution began already with the Gamecube games: First with the new characters from Donkey Kong Jungle Beat, then with the original characters in the Paon games (mostly noticeable in Donkey Kong Barrel Blast).
 * Artifact Title: "Life in the Mines Returns," which is not used in any mine level in this game.
 * Art Shift: Levels like "Sunset Shore" and "Foggy Fumes" feature black silhouettes against the colored backdrops; The golden-red hues of Sunset Shore in particular are spectacular.
 * Aside Glance: DK does this in the game's opening cinematic.
 * Assist Character: Squawks the parrot hangs around at Cranky's shop until you pay for him, after which he'll help you seek out the puzzle pieces.
 * Auto-Scrolling Level: Any Mine Cart or Rocket Barrel segment.
 * Badass: Donkey Kong, as in
 * Diddy applies like
 * Balloonacy: Cranky's shop is suspended in the air via balloons.
 * Bamboo Technology: In keeping with Donkey Kong tradition. Notably, Diddy Kong has his jetpack and Peanut Popgun.
 * Bat Out of Hell: The Squeeklies. 4-5 (Crowded Cavern) focuses on them the most, including a huge one with sonic beams.
 * Beat the Curse Out of Him: All bosses, except for  and possibly Colonel Cluck. They're ordinary animals possessed by the Tiki leaders. Once Donkey and Diddy defeat the bosses, the animals are freed and the Tikis float out of them in a stupor (and get a pounding of their own).
 * Better Than a Bare Bulb: Cranky's new style of humour is repeatedly headbutting the fourth wall, rather than out-and-out demolishing it.
 * Big Bad: Tiki Tong, leader of the Tiki Tak Tribe.
 * Big Red Button: One is hidden in each of three later factory levels. You must find and activate all three to open the rocket level that leads to the boss.
 * Lampshaded directly by Cranky Kong.
 * The Ruins level "Button Bash" is full of them.
 * Blatant Lies: "Peaceful Pier". It's anything but peaceful due to the Rocket Barrel, sharks, and a pirate ship firing cannonballs of death at you.
 * Well the 'pier' was peaceful, it's just the open ocean past it that isn't.
 * Blow You Away: the Kongs can use their breath to blow certain things such as plants, windmills, lanterns, etc. to find collectibles and such. It's even needed against certain enemies in order to defeat them.
 * Boss Only Level: Every boss, like in the original trilogy.
 * Brainwashed and Crazy: The bosses (save for the Final Boss) are creatures brainwashed by the Tikis into attacking Donkey and Diddy.
 * Brutal Bonus Level: The temples.
 * Butt Monkey: The first Tiki boss you fight is beaten twice by Donkey Kong. Also, you can beat it endlessly just entering again and again in the first level.
 * The Tikis in general can be considered this. They tend to be the weaker enemies in the game, have to be bounced off to get KONG letters and puzzle pieces, one gets a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown at the end of every world, and even when one of then is the final boss, He's notably more predictable and easier than the other bosses.
 * Call Back: Done very subtly by Cranky.


 * Another one is hidden in the background in Foggy Fumes; there is an area that looks like the same building under construction in the first Donkey Kong.
 * "Peaceful Pier" has an area during the rocket barrel sequence where a crosshair follows you, then stops so the crabs on the ship can fire an anchor at you; this is likely a reference to the "Krack-Shot Kroc" level in DKC3.
 * You beat the first phase of Colonel Pluck's robot by punching the bottom of the cockpit, which is appropriately egg-shaped. Defeating a boss by smashing the bottom of the egg? Where have I seen that before?
 * One of the first levels is called "King of Cling", a reference to Donkey Kong: King of Swing.
 * In the ruins, there are Kremling-like statues in the background.
 * Cap: 99 lives and 999 Banana Coins.
 * Captain Color Beard: Captain Greenbeard.
 * Cartoon Bomb: Thrown by a couple of bosses and.
 * Check Point: A pig runs a stand with a check on it somewhere in the middle of the level. Take a wild guess what it is.
 * Also,
 * Chicken Walker: A literal one in the form of Colonel Pluck's Stompybot 3000.
 * Collection Sidequest: The KONG letters and puzzle pieces.
 * Colony Drop:
 * Continuing Is Painful: Just like in the original games, it can suck a lot to go through any segment without already having the second Kong, especially if there happens to be no DK Barrels between your current checkpoint and the end of the level.  Thankfully, this doesn't become an issue in multi-player.
 * This is how the temple levels are. No check point and no DK Barrels. Unless you wanna go to another level and get Diddy there, if you die you'll be forced to navigate with just Donkey and his two hearts.
 * Convection, Schmonvection: World 8. Walking around and jumping over lava flows? Volcanic ash blowing in the wind, like snow? Big deal. As long as you don't fall in the lava or touch the flaming enemies (one of which you can duck under and be completely unharmed, even though it was just inches above you!), you're fine.
 * Say nothing to the fact that in at least one level, there are moving platforms that dip into the lava and rise back out. You can burn yourself if you jump on them too soon, but this danger period passes quickly and DK often ends up standing on a rock that is still glowing red. Cranky said it best: "We apes have no need for the laws of physics!"
 * Cool Airship: DK runs after a galleon / zeppelin mix, seen hauling his stash of bananas in a big net that hangs from the bottom. A masked Tiki enemy is seen dancing on the deck.
 * Cool Guns: Diddy is armed with his Peanut Popgun.
 * Co-Op Multiplayer: Word of God says that this feature was used to set it apart from DK's previous outing, Donkey Kong Jungle Beat. However, it almost didn't exist due to New Super Mario Bros. Wii.
 * Corridor Cubbyhole Run: Slammin' Steel and Boulder Roller both have segments involving this.
 * Damn You, Muscle Memory!: Due to motion-controls instead of a button press, rolling may very well become this.
 * In the original trilogy, rolling/cartwheeling/ponytail spinning into an enemy would give you a burst of momentum, allowing you to easily take out whole rows of enemies with just one attack. In Donkey Kong Country Returns, the roll goes farther, faster, but does not have this property unless you got Diddy in single-player mode. In the very first level, almost right away, you'll encounter three basic enemies in a row. If you try to roll through them all like in the old days, your roll will end just in time for you to slam into the third enemy and get hurt.
 * Which was probably completely intentional on the part of the developers, to break veterans of that habit early before they got too dependent on the roll and suffered even more down the line.
 * Dance Battler: The Scurvy Crew; they put their claws up in a dance that protects them from being Goomba Stomped. Fortunately, it leaves them vulnerable to a rolling attack.
 * Dark Reprise: The background music for "Muncher Marathon" is a fiendish remix of the forest's normal music.
 * Dem Bones: The cliff is full of alive and hostile reptilian-like skeletons, some of them also spit fire (perhaps Kremling skeletons??)
 * They more resemble miniature Parasauralophus.
 * Demoted to Extra: Whereas in the original DKC a single player could freely switch between DK and Diddy to play as either one, here Diddy is effectively just a powerup that grants DK two extra hits and a jetpack for mid-air jumps (and you'll need it). Diddy is only truly playable in two-player co-op, and only by Player 2.
 * A strange, non-character example: the second and third Donkey Kong Country games featured plenty of hidden areas where you earned a Kremcoin or Bonus Coin by beating all the enemies. In here, there's exactly one such area, in Poppin' Planks. One.
 * The Dev Team Thinks of Everything: Inter-level continuity in this game is very good; every large area begins its first level with scenery containing the last vestiges of the previous area: 3-1 begins on the coast before moving inland into the ruins, 4-1 begins in the ruins before entering the caves, 5-1 begins in the caves before being launched up and into the forest canopy. There are also smaller examples: 3-2 begins with the Kongs entering the inside of the ruins, where they mostly remain for the remainder of world 3. Mid-way through World 2 and progressing through a few levels, clouds begin to build, finally culminating in raging storms during the last part of the second-to-last level, and the titular feature of the last one.
 * There are actually three versions of the final cutscene FMV: One for each Kong by themselves, and one if you manage to beat the Final Boss with both Kongs in your possession.
 * Rambi stays in place when you dismount, but if an enemy wanders close he'll knock the enemy out on his own.
 * Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Not so much
 * Difficulty Spike: The game's challenge feels just like its SNES/GBC predecessors for the first few stages. The gloves comes off once you reach 1-5 where obstacles start one-shotting you ...
 * A second spike comes in World 4, which is practically nothing but Mine Cart and Rocket Barrel levels. Including the boss.
 * Double Unlock: Opening World 9.
 * The Dragon: All of the Tiki bosses may count, but Colonel Pluck takes the cake since he is the one
 * Drill Tank: you encounter a Drill Train in a few levels in World 4, operated by moles.
 * Electric Jellyfish: Appears in the beach levels.
 * Elite Mook: Tiki Tank, a kind of Tiki mook that must be stunned with a Ground Pound before any kind of attack (barring Rambi's charge) can beat it.
 * Escape Sequence: The end of Crumble Canyon, in which you have to outrun a giant flaming Tiki ball (which one-hit-kills you) while maneuvering through a series of obstacles.
 * Arguably, Stormy Shore, as the giant octopus will eventually smash the platforms you're on if you don't move fast enough.
 * Crowded Cavern could also qualify; even though you can't control your speed to outrun the giant bat, you still have to dodge his attacks as he chases you to the end of the level.
 * Everything Trying to Kill You: As if the Mine cart levels weren't bad enough, the Rocket Barrel levels crank this right on Up to Eleven without apology.
 * Everything's Even Worse with Sharks: Grinning, leaping sharks attempt to bite DK and Diddy as they jump from one platform to the next in coastal areas, as seen in this video.
 * Everything's Squishier with Cephalopods: some levels have squids being fired at you. One level has an octopus in the background attacking you with its arms.
 * Exposition Fairy: Tutorial Pig.
 * Expy: pretty much follows the exact same shtick as other Nintendo bosses such as
 * Savory Stu vs. the Koopa Clown Car, especially as used in New Super Mario Bros Wii.
 * Colonel Cluck is a rather obvious expy of Dr Eggman, right down to the attack pattern in the second phase.
 * The Faceless:
 * Feathered Fiend: Savory Stu and Colonel Pluck, although both of them were hypnotized. Fittingly enough, the latter's level is even called "Feather Fiend".
 * Flunky Boss: The Mole Train.
 * Foreshadowing: The name and theme of "Crumble Canyon.".
 * Funny Background Event: The zebra, elephant, giraffe (and squirrel) from the opening cutscene pop up a few times in the backdrops of various stages, most notably in "Blowhole Bound" where they are floating in a dinghy in the background.
 * Giant Enemy Crab: The Scurvy Crew is a trio of giant crab pirates.
 * For bonus points, the way to defeat them is to flip them over, then attack their weak points (For Massive Damage).
 * Giant Hands of Doom:
 * Giant Mook: there are two giant Tiki enemies (one on the ground, the other flying) that require 3 stomps on the head, or just a single Rolling Attack.
 * The Goomba: Awk, a pathetic-looking blue parrot, fills this position. There's also a pink parrot, Rawk, that can run faster than the blue counterpart, but it still dies after just one hit. Neither of them can fly for some reason...
 * Tiki Goons fill this role as well.
 * Goomba Springboard: Rather than just holding the jump button, you have to press it the moment you hit the enemy from above. This is a survival requirement in some of the harder levels where said enemies are the only thing between you and a Bottomless Pit.
 * It's at its worst in Platform Panic, where you HAVE to get the extra height quite a lot. Then sometimes they throw in a puzzle where if you get the extra height, you hit a spiked ceiling and lose a heart. After a long stream of high jumps, this flies straight into Damn You, Muscle Memory! territory.
 * Gotta Catch Them All: The puzzle pieces, K-O-N-G letters, and.
 * Groin Attack: This is how you defeat Colonel Pluck's Stompybot 3000- wait for the hatch to open first.
 * Ground Pound: Subverted; instead of jumping and making a hard landing, DK slams his hands onto the ground.
 * Guide Dang It: The puzzle pieces. Squawks will start chattering when you approach where one is hidden, but this won't necessarily tell you where the piece is hidden or how to reveal it -- that's up to you.
 * There are two particularly egregious examples. One is in the ruins; there is a puzzle piece hidden off the bottom of the stage in a place you would never know to even look, as there is no hint it is down there. The other is near the end of the game, where he squawks around a small platform just above the lava. It seems like a puzzle piece would spawn there, but in actuality it is simply a platform to allow you to access the real puzzle piece - namely, behind a breakable wall in a bonus room, in an area where the last (and only) barrel is a great distance behind. If it were not for squawks, these would be nearly impossible to find.
 * Human Cannonball
 * High Speed Battle: The Mole Train boss battle in World 4 takes place atop its own mine carts as it speeds down the track.
 * Idle Animation: In a move more epic than anything from Donkey Kong 64, Donkey Kong looks around, sits on the ground, pulls out a Nintendo DS, and plays while Diddy watches over his shoulder. After a while he gets bored and tosses it casually over his shoulder. This may or may not have been inspired by a famous incident (Retro Studios took note of it on their website) wherein a kid dropped his DS in the gorilla pen at the zoo and the gorillas played it.
 * Interface Spoiler: While the game is good at hiding, it slips up at World 6:
 * Invincible Minor Minion: The flaming Tiki Buzzes, Tiki Zings (only beatable with Rambi), and flaming Tiki Zings (unbeatable, even with Rambi).
 * It is possible to actually blow out the flaming Tiki Buzzes and make them vulnerable, but only in a select few spots in the game where they fly close to the ground.
 * Invulnerable Knuckles: Averted in the final cutscene with DK, but it's pretty forgivable why.
 * It Runs on Nonsensoleum:
 * Jet Pack: Diddy Kong has one.
 * Jungle Japes: World 1, natch.
 * Justified Extra Lives: Previously, the balloons were just there for you to collect and gain extra lives. Now, they carry you back into the stage upon the event of dying. In co-op, if one Kong dies and the other remains active long enough, one of the balloons will carry in a DK Barrel for you to break and bring the first Kong back into action. If both Kongs are dead, two extra lives are given up in order to bring them back.
 * Law of One Hundred: 100 bananas, one extra life.
 * Leitmotif: Each boss Tiki's instrument that they're themed off of is added into their boss music and hypnosis music.
 * Letting the Air Out of the Band: Happens when you defeat Mole Miner Max as his body collides with the train and said train slows to a stop.
 * Loads and Loads of Loading: Every time you start or finish a level you have to wait for DK to strut across the screen twice to a bass sequence that quickly borders on Most Annoying Sound territory for that reason. There are animations at the beginning of each bonus level that you can't skip, and animations at the beginning of levels that thankfully you can.
 * Meaningless Lives: While the game is pretty difficult, this is a classic example of a game with meaningless lives. Most of the difficult stages have bonus rounds near the start of them, allowing you to gain infinite extra lives - and indeed, dying in them often will gain you stocks as the bonus round has 1-2 extra life balloons in it AND bananas, and coins (which can be used to buy extra lives, as well as other items) are plentiful, and all the more so when you start dying repeatedly on the harder stages later in the game, thus collecting the same banana coins over and over again.
 * This game provides a similar thing in Meaningless DK Barrels. Some levels provide you with DK Barrels right before long stretches of Blast Barrels, Rocket Barrels, and Mine Kart that go on until the end of the level. These areas are One-Hit Kill, and the other benefits from having Diddy (his rockets for example) are a non-factor, rendering him completely useless.
 * Mad Bomber: Stu, natch. The only move he has that isn't bomb-related is swooping at you. Then again, he was Brainwashed and Crazy....
 * Magic Music: The high-ranking Tikis play themselves as instruments to hypnotize the island's animals.
 * Malevolent Architecture: and HOW. The  levels, especially.
 * Man-Eating Plant: Two kinds of them, seen for the first time in the Donkey Kong Country series. They're even called "Chomps".
 * Mecha-Mooks: common in the factory world.
 * Medium Awareness: After a bonus game, DK and Diddy will take a look at the item totals as they line up along the bottom of the screen.
 * Megaton Punch: To defeat the final boss, DK
 * Mercy Mode: Similar to New Super Mario Bros Wii, after dying enough times trying to complete a single level, Tutorial Pig will appear and offer the "Super Guide", which calls in a Palette Swapped white DK to play the level for you. The game clearly warns you that Super Kong will only complete the level -- you don't get to keep any of the items he collects in the process.
 * Which means that in order to unlock the Golden Temple level, you must beat the hidden Kong Temple stages by yourself, because that's the only way to collect the orbs at the end of each temple level.
 * Mini-Mecha: Colonel Pluck's "Stompybot 3000".
 * Mobile Shrubbery: A type of Mook that only appears in the silhouette levels is almost entirely shrouded in shrubbery. Only its eyes and spindly legs are visible.
 * Mole Miner: Mole Guards in minecart sections and World 4. Mole Miner Max is the boss of World 4.
 * Musical Gameplay: The factory level "Music Madness". The obstacles in this level are synced with the music.
 * Musical Spoiler: The early Minecart Madness and Rocket Ride levels have a lead-in to the actual mine cart or rocket music before you jump into the vehicle for the first time (if you recognize it, that is). Later levels seems to abandon this altogether.
 * Nintendo Hard: Much harder than the previous games, in fact. This trope is specifically mentioned in the GameSpy review.
 * The unlockable Temple levels border on Platform Hell, even the World 1 temple (which is aptly named "Platform Panic"). However, the very worst levels in the game tend to be the rocket levels, which (like the minecart levels) will kill you if you touch anything, but unlike the minecart stages have few to no breaks from the carts and as the rocket is not running on rails gives you many more chances to die.... especially with how touchy the rocket controls are.
 * No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: After each boss, you get to unleash a completely one-sided flurry of Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs on the Tiki controlling the boss before uppercutting them into the sky. Their Oh Crap expressions right beforehand are priceless.
 * No Name Given: Other than Tiki Tong, the boss Tikis have no names.
 * No OSHA Compliance: The Factory levels.
 * No Sell: The Tikis hypnotize the animals to do their bidding; one of them tries it on Donkey Kong, and learns the very hard way that DK is immune to it.
 * Nostalgia Level: 1-1 (Jungle Hijinxs) is the most obvious, down to DK starting the game off in his treetop hut above his banana hoard cave.
 * Ominous Latin Chanting: Contained in the music throughout World 8.
 * One-Hit-Point Wonder: Both DK and Diddy actually have two hitpoints apiece, but when you're riding a mine cart or Rocket Barrel, colliding with anything is invariably lethal as it destroys the cart/rocket.
 * Also played straight in, which challenges you to complete levels with only DK and only one Heart.
 * Physics Goof: The giant fan platforms with one broken blade in Foggy Fumes somehow stay perfectly balanced no matter their position or even when switched on.
 * Pirates: The Scurvy Crew are a trio of Type 1, Giant Enemy Crab pirates. The red captain is named Greenbeard, has a Hook Hand, an Eyepatch of Power and a Nice Hat, the blue one has a cutlass in place of a claw, and the yellow one has a fork in place of a claw.
 * Platform Battle: Mangoruby (falling off nets no real penalty beyond wasting time needed to hit all the switches), and the Mole Train especially (see High Speed Battle).
 * Powerup Mount: Rambi the rhinoceros.
 * Puzzle Boss: Mangoruby can't be struck directly; you must activate all the switches in the room first before you can attack.
 * Raymanian Limbs:
 * Rearrange the Song: Half of the game's soundtrack contains remixes of songs from the original DKC. This includes the title screen, World Map, jungle, forest, ruins, factory and mine cart levels....
 * Recursive Ammo / Spread Shot: Thugly, the boss of world 6, launches a fire ball that splits into three, one of which will split into three again (and may do so yet again). Good luck trying to dodge this one.
 * Reptiles Are Abhorrent: Cling Cobra, Mangoruby, and the Dinosaur Skeletons.
 * Respawning Enemies: All the normal mooks in the game will respawn to their original positions after being defeated, if you move a few screens away and come back. Useful for Goomba Springboard situations.
 * Revenge of the Sequel
 * Ribcage Ridge: World 6 is a trek through cliffs covered in gigantic fossils. That try to kill you.
 * Rise to the Challenge: Courtesy of nice hot videogame lava ("Red Red Rising", "Perilous Passage"). The last half of "Muncher Marathon" proceeds in a vertical format as well.
 * Roar Before Beating: Mugly and Thugly, every time they Turn Red.
 * Rocket Ride: the Rocket Barrel, which is easily cited for having the game's most difficult stages.
 * Rule of Three:
 * Both Mugly and Thugly progress through three stages as you fight them (turning red on the third). In addition, in each phase they have to be hit three times.
 * The second boss is the Scurvy Crew, consisting of three pirate crabs. Because there's three of them, three Tikis are needed to hypnotize them.
 * Saharan Shipwreck: Level 6-7 "Tippy Shippy". Somehow a fleet of pirate ships managed to get stuck up there.
 * Secret Level: Each world features a Temple level which is unlocked by.
 * Segmented Serpent: Mangoruby. You destroy his segments in groups of two, rather than one at a time.
 * Shaped Like Itself: The UK advert (voiced by Brian Blessed, invites you to "Join this hairy wrecking-ball as he tears through your living room, like an ape tearing through your living room!"
 * Shockwave Stomp: Mugly, Thugly, and Tiki Tong all have one.
 * Shout-Out: In 7-1 (Foggy Fumes), Mr. Game and Watch can be seen in the background with a hammer.
 * Just to the right of the Jumpman scaffolding in the same level is the silhouette of Crocomire's skull.
 * Sound Test: Defeating bosses unlocks that world's soundtrack for you to listen to at your leisure.
 * Sphere Factor: Diddy Kong can run atop of Donkey Kong as the latter is rolling in order to do so continuously.
 * Two of the minecart levels also feature this, one level having the cart rolling around the inside of rails bent into a circular shape (like a hamster ball), and another with the cart rolling on top of a gigantic dinosaur(?) egg.
 * Stalactite Spite: The crystals in 4-3 (Bombs Away), although most of them simply shift position instead of outright falling. The next level, 4-4 (Mole Patrol), plays this straight, again with crystals.
 * Stealth Pun: The main enemies of the Factory levels, Buckbot and Buckbomb, are mechanical poultry fashioned after the boss of the area, Colonel Pluck, who commands a giant mech of his own. In short,
 * Stop Helping Me!: Once it appears, the only way to get rid of Tutorial Pig's offer to use the Super Guide is to beat the level.
 * Super Drowning Skills: Unlike in the previous Donkey Kong Country games, deep water is essentially just another Bottomless Pit here.
 * Suspicious Videogame Generosity: All of those extra lives this game seems to throw at you? You're going to need them.
 * If you see a DK barrel in a level, chances are you're going to have to do some serious platform-hopping real soon.
 * Tactical Suicide Boss: The Scurvy Crew, Stu, and Thugly.
 * Temporary Platform: Mostly of the "crumbling" varieties, and some levels (like World 1's secret level, "Platform Panic") are built entirely around them. One level in World 3 has a grid of platforms that appear and disappear at regular intervals (not unlike the infamous platforms of Mega Man fame), but thankfully you have safe ground to land on underneath.
 * Throw a Barrel At It: It is Donkey Kong Country.
 * Time Trial: To get an idea on how this already Nintendo Hard game deals with time trials, you can net the best medal in the first level of the game by beating it within 53 seconds. Mercifully, time trial mode has no bearing on 100% game completion whatsoever.
 * Took a Level In Badass: Rambi the Rhino was already a heavy, steamrolling character in the original games. Here, he can break through blocks much larger than himself, and is not ony immune to Spikes of Doom; he actually destroys them on impact. The only thing that can harm him this go around is fire.
 * Trash the Set: After a boss is defeated, his lair is shown as destroyed with a DK flag among the rubble on the map screen from that point forward.
 * Turns Red: Happens to the bosses as they either get faster or new attacks when low on health. Literally played straight with Mugly and Thugly, who actually turn red.
 * A Twinkle in the Sky: The Tikis do this when you punch them after beating a boss.
 * Two Point Five D: A sidescrolling game rendered entirely in 3-dimensional graphics. Some levels feature additional layers in the background (or foreground) that the player traverses between using barrel cannons.
 * Video Game Settings
 * Band Land: one of the last levels of World 7 has hammers pounding on drums. Listening to the BGM is important to get in rhythm when the hammer is about to strike.
 * Blackout Basement: Aside from one moment during the battle against the Mole Train, most levels actually have consistent (though not necessarily bright) lighting.
 * Death Mountain / Prehistoria: World 6
 * Eternal Engine: World 7 includes factory levels, including one in silhouette with platforms obscured by smog. See here.
 * Floating Continent:
 * Gang Plank Galleon: An interesting variation. Our heroes run through a ship as it's being attacked by a giant octopus, forcing them to dodge its tentacles and floating pieces of debris.
 * There are also a level that takes place on several ships that are attacking you/each other with cannon balls. Additionally, there are a few smaller areas within levels where you get rocketed onto a ship on the background.
 * Jungle Japes: The first world, naturally.
 * Lethal Lava Land: World 8, which somehow manages to outdo the one in New Super Mario Bros Wii.
 * Level Ate:
 * Minecart Madness: One of the many series trademarks; World 4 consists almost entirely of them. The antics that actually occur during said levels make the original series's Minecart Madness look boring by comparison.
 * Palmtree Panic: World 2.
 * Ship Level: mostly World 2.
 * Temple of Doom: The hidden Temple stages, and World 3 is a milder version.
 * The Lost Woods: World 5 is "Forest" World, although it is fairly close to being a jungle.
 * Under the Sea: Unlike all three previous installments in the series, this game does not have any.
 * Underground Level: mostly overlaps with Minecart Madness. The entirety of World 4.
 * Warmup Boss: Mugly.
 * Whack a Monster: The Mole Train boss, obviously being based off Whack-A-Mole.
 * You Have Failed Me: Averted with the boss Tikis;
 * Your Princess Is in Another Castle: After clearing the penultimate level in World 6, the pathway to the boss stage crumbles, causing you to detour through two stages which didn't exist on the map previously.
 * Your Princess Is in Another Castle: After clearing the penultimate level in World 6, the pathway to the boss stage crumbles, causing you to detour through two stages which didn't exist on the map previously.