What's the difficulty like? I need it to be challenging. I'm talking typical old-school Nintendo cheap.

I wrote a little about it here: http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=6069418

I don't think the loading times are too bad, but they ARE considerably longer than Returns... though the longer levels make up for it. Levels are much longer than in Returns, so while you'll wait a little bit longer than what you did in Returns to start a level, you have much more play time in each level before you finish and go back to the map and select another stage, then you have to load again. It's not nearly as bad as I've heard many people say.

Only thing that isn't too good about the loading screens is that they lag (or freezes? You know what I mean I think) a whole lot while DK and his buddy runs around. That wasn't present in Returns where the loading screens was completely 60 fps silky smooth. But then, the loading screens in Tropical Freeze has much more going on, the backgrounds looks much better now that there are more layers and stuff. Not just a stripe in the middle of the screen.

All in all, I've not complained in the slightest at the loading times. They are longer than in Returns, but you won't see any Lego City loadings here.

Thanks! Good to hear. Less than a week and i can try it on my own :)

If you've played DKC Returns, then I can say it's like that. I die a lot in the levels, but I never get a game over though. When I arrived at the third island I had around 60 lives though... May sound easy but suddenly there's levels where you lose ten lives, and the bonus stages in DKCR often made me lose 30-40 lives in one try. You get a lot of lives, but the challenges in the levels often makes you fall down if you haven't attempted that point in a stage yet.

On a mine cart level in the second island I died over ten times on the same spot after a checkpoint, until I finally mastered a jump (the way you have to do it is really clever but not difficult to understand.. just difficult to do). So all in all, much more difficult than Mario, but you'll eventually manage it. I've not gotten farther than finishing the boss in the second island, and in Returns the stages became progressively harder.

I felt when I started on the second island that it suddenly became much harder, and I'm certain the difficulty curve won't stop there. :)

EDIT: The bosses are much longer and harder than in Returns too.

Don't get me wrong because DKC is one of my favorite Nintendo franchises (above even Zelda), and I'm sure DKC: TF will be great and I'm there day one ... but I think Retro's talent to be fully showcased needs a full 3D title.

You can sort see with the 3D pseudo-view in DKC that they want to bust out. Maybe Nintendo could make another team for the DKC series, like the NST group.

Good shit kekrot. I loved DKCR and that games difficulty was perfect. Looks like this game alone is gonna justify my recent Wii U purchase. Good classic hardcore Nintendo! I've been asking for this for years and it looks like the wii u is living up the Nintendo name. I couldn't be more happier with the future of gaming right now.

Looks like a great title but surely Retro are working on more than just this????

That's what I hoped when I learned at E3 that Retro was making this. But I'm really doubting it now that I see the immense detail put into this game. It couldn't be made by a smaller group when you see for example all those polygons... everywhere. In DKC Returns, which took three years to make, most backgrounds were just single images, but here everything is made of all those little details, models and everything.

Also it's been known for a while that David Wise, composer hired for this game, has been working with Retro on this game for years now. So unless they have grown to also have another team in-house, this is the only game we'll see from Retro for years to come.

There's just so much love put into Tropical Freeze that I couldn't imagine that they have also made another game while making this. But if I'm wrong, then Retro are legends. I wouldn't mind at all to see another game from them soon. For now, Tropical Freeze will at least take me through the Wii U drought.

The fur is beautiful as you may imagine ;)

I had two friends visiting tonight, and one of them said that the fur was maybe too overdone, like it looked like DK had put on an extra fur coat or something... But it looks fantastic nonetheless.

That's probably just conditioner!