Donkey Kong Country Returns

Here's the thing about DKC Returns -- it's too hard. To be clear, it's almost exactly as hard as the Donkey Kong Country games for SNES were, and in fact Returns follows the formula of its '90s forebears pretty closely. I remember those games fondly, spending entire days replaying the same level (usually involving mine carts) to proceed further into the jungle. But now we live in an era of tweets. Without reasonable checkpointing, DKC Returns feels intensely behind the times.

I've played co-op on a few occasions, and it's a genuinely fun game, the baffling remote-shaking control notwithstanding. There's just no way I have the patience to try and retry and re-re-re-re-retry a difficult level because there are a dozen instant-death moments between the start and the halfway point, and then another dozen from there to the end.

The Super Guide isn't a solution either, at least, it doesn't feel like one; as a mostly timing- and reflex-driven game, being "shown" what to do is rarely helpful, and skipping levels removes all sense of accomplishment, which is really the whole point of this kind of game.

DKC Returns isn't bad, and in fact should be a real delight to a dedicated-enough player. Maybe I'm just gettin' too old for this shit.

Progress: Gave Up -- Got up to the third world or so