personally 1 in my opinon by far. I think the overworld map and individual areas/levels are etxremely well designed. DKC 2 has some repetitive areas and I'm not in love with all the pirate ship levels. (I know, not a popular opinion). I like DKC3 but I think it clearly was a bit of a step down compared to the previous two, most likely a rushed development cycle as it came out at the very end of the SNES life cycle
I did not like Donkey Kong Country Returns much at all compared to the originals, somehow it fels like a bit of the juice was missing, like the level designs and perspective... it seemed less, er, smooth to me? something about the structure of a great platforming level has to be more natural to progress through than a lot in that game. I don't like Diddy Kong having a jetpack at all either, ehhh.
Haven't played Tropical Freeze but I've heard good things
honestly I feel nothing in the platforming genre has matched the original DKC trilogy since they came out. They're extremely replayable
