Which do you think are better; Rare's SNES trilogy, or Donkey Kong Country Returns and Tropical Freeze by Retro, and why?

Depends.I feel like Rare take is more consistent in quality, but Tropical Freeze is better than all Country games, with the exception of Double Trouble.

If it wasn't for DKC2 I'd say Retro.

I only played the first DKC from Rare, so to me Retro’s games are easily my favorites. I remember feeling the hitboxes in the original seemed a bit off sometimes and the controls of the new games are very refined imo.

Rare by far. Those were cutting edge games that owned the sales charts in their time.

Retro’s games were retro-revivals, nowhere near cutting edge or spectacular. More or less the equivalent of New Super Mario Bros for the DKC series... except nowhere near as successful. A proper DKC game in 2010 would have been something more like a Super Mario Galaxy., not New Super Mario Bros.

TF is the best DKC game while DKCR was a decent revival, Rare's trilogy is more consistent but Retro's has the better design and execution which shows fully in TF and if I were to play a DKC game now days it would be TF over the prior games.

Anyone not enough to have played the originals in the 90's should not be able to vote.

Tropical Freeze > any of the others, with the original Rare DKC a fairly close second. Returns, however, was not all that great for me and was too severely hampered by the abysmal control choice of having to shake the Wii remote to roll.

I find it surprising how many people choose DKC 2 as the best of the original trilogy. It was just so uninspired and "me too" compared to the awesome original IMO.

Tropical Freeze by far is the best one out there. Take nothing away from the amazing job Rare did but Retro has taken it to a whole other level.

Plus, anyone remember DK64? Yuck.

Uninspired is one of the last words I'd use to describe DKC2. I thought it's Pirate-themed adventure on enemy turf set it markedly apart from DKC1. From the inside of giant beehives, to haunted forests, to icy caverns, to an active volcano, to pirate ships, to carnival rides, it felt chock full of variety and character.

DK64 isn't a DKC game, so it's not included in the poll.