DKC is more interesting than Metroid, Lylat Wars, and F-Zero. Seriously, Metroid Prime is like the most overrated game ever made by Nintendo. While it was good, it was essentially a lump of silver in a bunch of copper trinkets, rather than a large diamond on a pile of gold. It looked better than it actually was when compared to the games released around that time.

The problem is that Retro takes very long with these games, and they shouldn't. Rare pumped out three excellent DKC games in three years, and all three of them remain to this day some of the best platformers/action games ever made. They were also using experimental dev techniques at the time. In fact, I think there is a very good argument for DKC2 still holding the crown as best 2D platformer of all time.

Game development is a much more complex affair now than it was in the mid 90s.

Why are so many bamers against DKC? DKC during the SNES era were the most groundbreaking and fun games of their time. Sure, retro doesn't have the talent that Rare had, but dkcr was still good. Both history (DK franchise vs metroid franchise) and sales numbers would point toward there being far more dk fans than basically any other franchise of Nintendo's but Mario, Zelda and Pokemon, so why are the complainers here?

I beg to differ, I'd say they're just as talented.

To answer your question though, it's a vocal minority.

You're entitled to your opinion, but I strongly disagree. I think it's night and day.

During the SNES generaton RARE revolutionized the sidescrolling genre with DKC. Not only the graphics which were incredible, but the music and art direction as well which created an unparalelled atmosphere that Mario never had. N64 comes along and they blow the lid off the FPS genre, revolutionizing a new genre once again. Top 10-15 game of all time by most estimates. Banjo Kazooie was once again, incredible and same with Perfect Dark. IMO what made Rare so incredible was that they were the only game development studio that I felt was capable of beating Nintendo at their own game. DKC 2 arguably as good or better than Mario world. Banjo Kazooie almost certainly a better experience (though not as groundbreaking) than Mario 64.

Retro doesn't have that ability to create groundbreaking experiences that define a genre and console generation. They make great games, but they're not quite on Nintendo's first party level which RARE IMO was, and at times even ousthined. And DKCR was a very good game, but put side by side to rares SNES best, it really doesn't hold its own.

Of course much of that is opinion, but I thik the difference is significant. 

DKC: Tropical Freeze does not seem so much more complex that it should take over three times as long to complete an entry. It's not like they're experimenting on ways to push the hardware further than what anyone thought was possible, or pioneering new ground, all the while making games with top of the line platforming. Retro, has always been notoriously slow at game development. The studio has been around since 1998, 15 years, and have 4 games released.

Now a game like Monolithsoft's "X" is a much more complex game. If Monolithsoft can put out a game like "X" in ~3 to 3.5 years dev time, Retro should at least be well into their third DKC game, not just their second one.

I'd say Metroid Prime 1 and 3 and DKCR were very much on par with RARE's best. (DKC2, Banjo-Kazooie, Perfect Dark) Were they as impactful? No. But that doesn't mean they weren' as good.

You don't think a HD game with 3D modelling isn't much more complex than a 16-bit 2D game?.

The addition of 3D models doesn't make the game more complex. Actually, the original DKC was probably much more difficult to develop than the newer ones.

The original DKC is on a 16-bit machine, but it used experimental and revolutionary techniques to boost the graphics up to 24-bit graphics making them look a generation ahead of their time. Even in the following generation, there were not many games that had nicer graphics and detail than DKC.

The recent DKC games are using techniques that have been around for many years now. The dev tools have been shaped around all of this. In terms of the actual work required to create a game with those old techniques, it's much more straightforward than what was achieved with the original DKC games.

To put it into perspective, Monolithsoft is developing X, and it is WAAAAY bigger, WAAAY more complex, and WAAAY more impressive looking than DKCTF. They're doing it in about 3.5 to 4 years, roughly the same amount of time DKC is taking.