My fiancée and I have been playing a lot of Kirby’s Epic Yarn lately, and holy crap, Donkey Kong Country Returns is pretty much the exact opposite of that. Whereas Kirby has cute enemies made out of yarn and buttons, Sims-style home decorating, Winnie the Pooh-style narration, and a completely overwhelming amount of cuteness, Donkey Kong has FIRE AND DEATH AND DESTRUCTION and gigantic CRUSHING bongo drums and chicken-controlled deathbots! Plus, in Donkey Kong Country Returns, I’m pretty sure you actually can die, unlike in Kirby, where you’re invariably rescued by literal guardian angels from any sort of doom.
My point? I’m not sure, other than I think it’s interesting that these two co-op side-scrollers based on classic Nintendo properties, released around the same time as one another, and (presumably) targeted at the same audience, can be so stylistically disparate. It’s kind of like the difference in tone between the first paragraph of this post and the second.
Anyway, here’s the latest burninating trailer for DK.