Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze: Top 10 Facts You Need to Know

For owners of the Wii U, 2014 seems to be the year that will make them all happy. Plenty of awesome Nintendo 1st-party releases will be arriving on the system, which brings us to the February 21, 2014 release of Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze. Fans loved the old-school platforming adventure that was present in the Wii exclsuive, Donkey Kong Country Returns.

There’s plenty of new and familiar mechanics to look forward to in this new Donkey Kong release. New playable characters, islands and many more elements that make Donkey Kong…well, Donkey Kong will show up in this new Wii U entry.

Here’s everything you need to know about Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze.

1. The Plot Revolves Around a Group of Viking Animals

The main plot begins when Donkey Kong and his loyal sidekicks are celebrating his birthday. Out of nowhere, a snowflake randomly blows in the wind and extinguishes the birthday candle. The group looks into the distance and spots a group of Viking animals (Snowmads) making their way on ships towards Donkey Kong Island. The leader of the Snowmads unleashes a fierce icy gust of wind and blows the Kongs off to a much farther island location. Now, Donkey Kong and his crew are now forced to make their way back home and get rid of the tropical freeze on Donkey Kong Island.

2. There Will Be Two New Characters to Play As

Everyone knows the main star of the game, Donkey Kong, is one of the playable characters in the game. Fans also known that Diddy Kong will make his return to Donkey Kong’s side. The two new characters who will be aiding Donkey and Diddy include Dixie Kong and Cranky Kong. The second player can use either one of these three characters, plus each character comes with their own special abilities. Diddy Kong has a barrel jetpack he can use to cross long gaps and Dixie can spin her ponytail in order to slowly ascend through the air. Funky Kong will return to the game as the shopkeeper, which means Cranky Kong won’t be selling players any items this time around. As for Cranky Kong, he comes with an ability that old school gamers may recognize…

3. Cranky Kong Will Bring Some New Moves to This Adventure

Cranky Kong is adopting an ability that fans of NES’ DuckTales video game will no doubt find familiar. Cranky can utilize his cane and bounce across any dangerous surfaces (spiky thorns), jump to higher platforms and take out any enemies the other Kongs can’t defeat. Check out the reveal video above to see just how useful Cranky Kong can be.

4. There Will Be Six Islands and Six to Seven Levels Per Island

This sequel will feature six separate islands that will also feature six to seven levels each. NintendoEverything.com posted up some details they got on these islands/stages from an issue of Game Informer:

– World 1: Lost Mangroves (rainforest, vine grabbing, zip-lining)
– World 2: Autumn Heights (Bavarian-like mountain, mine carts, hot-air balloons, giant owls, jagged cliff faces)
– World 3: Bright Savannah (tall grass, orange/brown colors, like an African safari, dodge brush fire and penguins with spears)
– World 4: Sea Breeze Cove (blue harbors, sandy inlets, lots of swimming, dodge electric seaweed and manage air supply)
– World 5: Juicy Jungle (tropical forest that produces a rare fruit, home to an elaborate processing plant, jump off jellies to reach new heights)
– World 6: DK Island (Donkey Kong’s tree house has been frosted over, has homages to levels from Donkey Kong Country Returns)

5. A New Move Called the Kong-Pow is Being Introduced

A new in-game move mechanics called the Kong-Pow is making its debut in this release. The Wikipedia page for the game explained what Kong-Pow can do and what each Kong can do with this move:

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)