Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze -- Punching Bosses in the Face!

I played a good couple of hours of Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze tonight, and it did not disappoint. It honestly feels like I've been starved waiting for a good platformer to come around and DK was here to save the day for me.

When I started the game play session I was sitting on stage 2-3. The first thing I noticed was, as soon as I logged in, the game said happily, hey! I see you're low on lives . . . how about we just give you 4 more because we're nice.  Thank you, game!

Only 12% completion!? Nice!

Now that's the way it should be . . . my son at one time must have paid good money to buy you, dear game, and it's only right that you don't let me suffer when I log on with a measly one life. I mean, if I die this level, you're just going to give me four more anyway.

After besting "Horn Top Hop" (which featured a lot of bellowing horns that floated you up into the air), the next level was "Sawmill Thrill."  That one took a lot of doing. Man, I love these minecart levels so much. It was an absolutely blast of a level that eventually had me jumping my cart over obstacles that were being thrown out as the level progressed and a giant Saw Blade chased me from behind.

Eventually the second world came to an end and once again I faced an unforgiving boss fight, This time against Skowl the Startling. Skowl is a giant owl who commands an army of owls that he rains down upon you.  The fight works in three phases: on the ground, up higher in the trees, and finally up in the clouds. It took me quite a while to figure out that I needed to pick up one of the owls he threw at me and chuck it back at him when he dive-bombed me.  Once I figured that out, it was just a matter of time till Donkey Kong punched him in the face and I could move on to the third world.

The third world is all about being in a Savannah Grasslands, and it is so cute. I mean, when the baobab trees started swaying to the music and you started swinging on large puppeteer giraffe necks . . . that was it. I was dead from cuteness overload. There's so much charm to the Grassland Groove level, I honestly cannot stand it. YOU'VE GONE TO FAR, NINTENDO! . . . and I love you for it.

World 3 didn't seem to pose as much of a problem as World 2 for some reason, which was fine with me. The Rhino mount made a return in the "Frantic Fields" level. The "Scorch and Torch" level featured a lot of burning trees and mechanics that involved not standing on one place too long. Twilight Terror featured vampires . . . just kidding . . . it featured a rocket that you had to keep in the air by continually tapping the jump button. 

Eventually I was facing off against the boss for World 3. Dubbed "Triple Trouble" on the World Map, this boss involved three devious Viking Monkeys that would swoop down at you . . . sometimes wielding hammers . . . sometimes exposing their butt to be stomped on. Again this fight had three phases to it where eventually the monkeys would throw spikey fruit bombs down at you until finally they'd throw a watermelon bomb instead, and you could throw that one back at them.  Again, I got to give the boss a satisfying punch in the face, and soon I was on to World 4.

World 4 seems to be all about the Underwater swimming just from looking at the map, and I do believe I see some scary kraken tentacles peeking up from the water. Oh boy, this one is gonna be fun!

Time to buy some blue balloons from Funky. I think I'll be holding my breath a lot here.

Thanks again to Angela ShadowGarden for the great game suggestion. I'm having a blast with this one!

Happy Dueling!