My favorite is Country 2, it was superb. Tropical Freeze was great for a modern one too.

I think I'm still on the first half of Bananza but it won't end up surpassing those or even Country 1 and 3, maybe not even Returns which I never played but hear good things about. It's a good game, the Bananza abilities are fun so far, breaking things can be fun sometimes, specially early on, entering a new stage starts fine but they REALLY exagerated with the collectables so there is rarely ever any semblance of reward by finding a banana or a fossil, 95% of the time there is not even anything to solve to get to it, it's just there and I feel "oh, another one here, ok". Was that not the case it could be top 3 material behind the 2 I mentioned first.

I think I’ll actually vote for Donkey Kong 94 for the GameBoy. It took the arcade game and just expanded on it in the most incredible ways imaginable. The game is so packed with creativity and the controls are super tight. Tropical Freeze is close behind though.

DKC 2 & 3 and Tropical Freeze, are clearly the best ones ever made.
It has to be one of the 3.

I voted on DKC2. I love the soundtrack so much. TF is such an amazing game too. TF has the best water levels in any game ever, ever, ever!!!

It's interesting how the vast majority of votes on this one tend to cluster around 2, TF, and Bananza.

Not that others aren't great, but that those three are just so stellar that they tend to hog the spotlight.

It's sometimes easiest to remember gaming moments that scared me when I was younger. I used to be terrified of Bowser because of the final battle in Super Mario World, because here Bowser was bigger than in the Super Mario Bros. trilogy, he had surrounded himself with thunder and sinister sounding rock music. Although the Koopa Clown Car's silly design, and Bowser's silly "OW!!" face when hit by Mechakoopas, take the edge off the scariness.

And @curl-6 yeah, those three really are just that good.

Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze is still my favorite out of the bunch. Followed by Bananza and DKC2.

DKCTP was nothing short of a perfect experience for me. Especially the level design, art direction and the score by David Wise.

I'll go with the first DKC, purely on vibes. It was one of my fav games growing up and unlike the Mario series, DK never really had another game that matched the standards set by the first few DKC games, which at the time actually shook the whole industry.

I loved DK64 but it is flawed, and Bananza is fantastic, but feels like a tad derivative to Odyssey. And yes I know the mechanics are completely different but I've played a loooot of Odyssey, and the games have so much in common, from the shops, the secret levels, overall game design, and text bubbles... the vibes are too similar. Playing the game made me really think about why I loved DK so much, and one of the main reasons was how distinct it felt from the Mario games.

Overall , the orignal DKCs - and especially the first one for me - had so much gravitas. The graphics, music, level design, character design and overall feeling the game gave me was magical. It was different than anything I played and I don't believe another DK game has matched the frankly impossible standards that they set, which were so high that the whole gaming industry stood up and took notice.

Bananza with its amazing mechanics has something to build on. However, I feel it needs to distinguish itself from Mario. Unfortunately with it being in the Mario universe, and with it now being under EPD, it doesn't seem like that will happen anytime soon. I still think they will be enjoyable and probably great pieces of software, but in that scenario it will always play second fiddle to Mario. The original DKC games matched whatever Mario did and then some with its own personality and that's what makes them 30 years on still fan favourites.

Side note: I do need to play Tropical Freeze through to understand what the hype is all about, so maybe that might change my mind a bit.

I've always found Mario less interesting than Donkey Kong. Maybe it's because DK's an ape while Mario is human, which didn't stand out very much even in the 90s.