I'm mostly looking for the opinion of people who have played both.

Just curious.

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Yeah, it's a shame, TF is refined to near perfection but just didn't do anything drastically different so it sits in the history books as being the (ever-so-slightly) lesser game.

The kids of 2018 will check Metacritic to see which one to download onto their amazing NX, they opt for Returns (of course) and soon learn their mighty ape avatar, the famous Donkey Kong, the HULK of platforming... has to stop to blow on the pretty flowers every few screens. They all pack in gaming and become muscle-bound flower arrangers. And actually, they each live very fulfilled lives, and somehow manage to enrich the lives of those around them - but I diresss.

Tropical Freeze RUUULES!

I seem to recall Tropical Freeze getting docked for being balls-hard. A lot of reviewers are pansies these days.

DKCR brought back and set the standard but DKC:TF took it and refined it to a glossy shine.

Tropical Freeze, and it isn't even close. DKCR was great, but Tropical Freeze was so much tighter, more challenging, and less gimmicky (I'm looking at you, forced motion controls). DKCR3D took those away, but Tropical Freeze is still a much better game.

Yeah TF's reviews and sales are sort of a real goddamn shame.

@Zero Yeah, in the context of reviews it does seem that being "more of the same" impacted some of the review scores. This is something typical for Nintendo games, and maybe happens to other games too.

And like @Cubed777 said, I think some reviewers also found it more difficult than Returns. I actually felt it was a little easier, though that could just be because of the abilities of the two new Kongs, and also because I was used to the formula.

Plus, I think some reviews were also trying to justify it as a reason to buy a Wii U and didn't quite live up to that, whereas Returns didn't have the burden of selling Wii systems.

Both are amazing and are probably my two favorite 2D platformers ever, but I tend to lean towards Returns as I think it has the more ambitious level design of the two. And I don't think anything in Tropical Freeze quite reaches the same heights of Worlds 5-7 in Returns. TF just didn't knock my socks off in the same way that Returns did.

I’ll cop to not giving TF much of a chance because it was so much like Returns. I should go back to it.

I think I might have liked the Wii version of Jungle Beat better than Returns.