Hard, shmard.  The game is endlessly fun.  Even when you die, you wanna try again.  I swear it never gets old.  As for "cheap deaths", look back at all the old platformers like Mega Man (disappearing/reappearing blocks... remember those?).  You aren't supposed to waltz through and beat it on your first life.  You're supposed to learn and have the reaction time, memory, and dexterity to pull it off (especially in the time trials).  Perfection is the goal in side scrolling platformers, and speed runs is where it's at.  DKCR is challenging, not "hard".  Go back and play Ghosts n' Goblins if you wanna see "hard".  You'll beg for mercy.  DKCR is just about perfect by my view.   

If you can get Super Meat Boy, its a much easier platformer.

Memorization is key in platformers.... at least in the old school games. Megaman, Contra, Castlevania, Ninja Gaiden, Battletoads.... all of them you have to learn the game to master it.

I was looking for old games at Amazon, and one reviewer said something that grabbed my attention

"Old school games were made to beat you"

And it's true! One would die constantly until knowing what to do, at the same time our skills in that game improved. Nowadays games are so easy that is really boring, I can remember many levels from old games, but I can't remember from New Super Mario Wii because they were so easy I could pass them in the first try (until later levels)

With that said, I didn't find the DK Country games hard at all, I agree this one is harder

Only skill needed in platformers is remembering the levels...

Well I think it is jussst right. 

I'm glad retro did not include a stat of your gameovers...

I tend to agree that its a designer choice to make it that way, and there could have been better ways.

But You cant please everyone, people playing DKC are either new to the franchise or played the older parts, so You got to fiond the golden path between two camps...

This is why I quite like the 'Super Guide', by allowing the new people to complete the game no matter the difficulty.  The developer can increase the difficulty to challenge the long time fans of the series/genre.

Just compare the difficulty of NSMB on the DS and NSMBWii

Lulz just lulz, I think I told you on your wall that this game was much harder than NSMB Wii.

Either way I never once felt the game was cheap and I beat it in less than a week.  But man oh man was it a nice challenge, even then I never once used super guide, it becomes a pain if you only have DK though so I usually run and get Diddy if I ever lose him in a stage.

Anyway, it's not too hard it's a lot easier than a lot of platformers like say Super Mario Bros 3, and some of the later stages are on par with the later stages of Super Mario World like the P balloon level and Cheese Bridge.  That's just pure platforming challenge and it's what DKCR delivers on in spades.

I am actually enjoying a good challenge. End of this year we got a pretty easy platformer (KEY) and a harder one (DKCR). Depending on the day and what i feel like I can enjoy a easygoing game or a harder one. I find it rather nice.

Too hard.....