Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze

Developer(s)	Retro Studios Monster Games
Publisher(s)	Nintendo
Director(s)	Risa Tabata
Producer(s)	Kensuke Tanabe
Composer(s)	David Wise Kenji Yamamoto
Series	Donkey Kong
Platform(s)	Wii U
Release date(s)	JP February 13, 2014 NA February 21, 2014 PAL February 21, 2014
Genre(s)	Platforming

Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, known in Japan as Donkey Kong: Tropical Freeze is an upcomingside-scrolling platform game developed by Retro Studios and published by Nintendo for the Wii U. The fifth installment in the series, and the first in high-definition, it follows Retro's 2010 game Donkey Kong Country Returns. Originally slated to be released in November 2013, it was delayed until December 6, then again until February, 2014. At the VGX Awards on December 7, 2013, the release date was confirmed for North America on February 21, 2014.

The game's story focuses on the Snomads, a group of Viking creatures, such as walruses, owls and penguins, that invade Donkey Kong Island,forcing Donkey Kong to go against them with the help of his friends Diddy Kong, Dixie Kong, and Cranky Kong. This is Dixie Kong's third appearance in the main series and the first since Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble!, released in 1996. This is also Cranky Kong's first appearance as a playable character in the series.

The game continues on from the side-scrolling platform gameplay of the Donkey Kong Country series and sees Donkey Kong and his friends travelling through six different islands in order to defeat the Snomads. Like the previous game, players primarily control Donkey Kong who is assisted by a companion, who either provide additional abilities to Donkey Kong, or can be controlled individually by a second player. Along with Diddy Kong, who returns with his barrel jetpack for crossing large gaps, two additional characters are added; Dixie Kong and Cranky Kong. Dixie has the ability to spin her ponytail into a propeller and slowly descend through the air, with an initial boost in height at the start, allowing her and Donkey Kong to fly up out-of-reach platforms or items. Cranky, in a similar mechanic to the DuckTales video game, can use his cane to bounce on dangerous surfaces such as spiky thorns and reach higher areas and defeat certain enemies the other Kongs cannot.In addition, Cranky's previous game role as the shopkeeper is taken over by Funky Kong.

Additional new mechanics include:

• Kong-Pow. By collecting bananas and filling up a Kong-POW meter, Donkey Kong and his partner can perform a Kong-POW move which defeats all on-screen enemies and replaces each of them with an item. Depending on which character is your partner, the defeated enemies will be converted to a different item (Diddy transforms enemies into life balloons, Dixie transforms enemies into golden hearts that allow for extra health, and Cranky turns enemies into banana coins.).
• The return of swimming sections, now with the players able to attack whilst swimming.
• The ability to pluck items and throw stunned enemies, a mechanic inspired by Super Mario Bros. 2.