@PogueSquadron

Does Super Mario World feel inconsistent to you? There are only 1 or 2 exits that I know of that you discover going left, under or over a wall.

Those secrets stayed with me this whole time, after years. But will I remember the location of puzzle piece #3 in stage 1-3 of DKCR?

@anon_mastermind

Did you really feel blowing away dandelion seeds was as fresh the 10th time as it was the first time? I kind of doubt it.

I dunno, to me, finding hidden stuff in games needs to be rewarding. It's all about feeling good about having figured out something, and admiring the cleverness of the person who hid something there. But when there are as many as 9 puzzle pieces in a stage, then it doesn't feel so rewarding anymore, it feels like busywork

Especially when the only way you'll find some of them is by bashing every cactus in a level you find. You know there could be something hidden in them because, hell, in the very first stage, you found something in a background element you could bash. In that first level, it was interesting: you learned something. In the 50 levels that follow? Yeah, you're past learning, it's now routine. It's boring.

Don't get me wrong, I really love the game. But I think there is a lot of room for improvement.

@Brick
Get all KONG letters in the entire world for 1 extra stage.

Every KONG in World 1 is 1-K. So on and so forth.

@Pandareus
As I recall, the further you progress in DKCR, the less jiggies are hidden behind dandelions and pound-spots. That's the feeling I got while playing.

I agree that 9 puzzle pieces is a bit much, I like it when there are 5 or 6 per stage. NSMB Wii does do it better, though. There are only 3 coins per stage, and you can tell whereabouts you've missed a piece based on their appearance order in the top-left of the screen.

I've been working through mirror mode but man, the bosses are annoying. At least the levels have checkpoints, trying to make it through some of these bosses without getting hit once... frustrating. Fights that feel short when you're playing them normally feel awful long when one hit will kill you.

I think I'm just going to skip the bosses and focus on finishing the stages. You don't really get anything substantial for completing mirror mode anyway, do you?

Just wanted to chime in that last night, I heard my brother in the other room yell, "NO! Fuck you PIG!" and I knew he was talking about the Super Guide, lol.

I'm still slowly working my way through this game. I'm in world 6 I think, and holy balls this game gets hard!

Good gravy this game is tough! I'm just up to the fourth area (finish 1-K and 2-K as well) and I'm having a tough time with some of these levels.

@Simbabbad

I was gonna start prefacing my posts in this thread with "Dear Journal...".

@anon_mastermind

Maybe there are fewer and fewer puzzle pieces hidden in flowers or background elements that you have to blow at/pound, but the damage has been done: you're not going to stop stopping at every flower or background element later in the game, because there is always the chance that there IS a puzzle piece there.

That's why I didn't even bother trying to collect all of the puzzle pieces. I learned early on that I had more fun not blowing things unless I had to blow things.

Um. That sounded a bit dirty.

I probably wouldn't have bothered anyway though. They seem like a more annoying / less reward version of the KONG pieces.

@Pandareus
Yeah you're right. Overall there are some cleverly hidden jiggies but there shouldnt have been any behind the flowers and background elements. If it were just banana coins and bananas behind these, it would be easy for you to avoid them unless you needed the bananas/coins, then you can slow it down a bit and grab everything.

I was getting a bit pissed off with DKCR's difficulty and the whole puzzle piece thing, so I stopped playing for a while. I needed a palate cleanser (and what cleans palates better than steaming crap? But now I'm back on the DKCR horse, and boy do I appreciate the good controls, the level design and the general non-suckiness of the game now!

But again, I can't help but whine a bit.

The bosses. I gotta give Retro props for not doing the whole "Nintendo rule of 3" thing again, and for making their bosses challenging, but do you guys actually find them very fun? I'm not feeling it. And the Factory boss, that robot chicken really pissed me off. I couldn't really decipher the pattern... until I did.

So there was a pattern, which is good in a game like this, and it was a complex one, which in theory is a good thing, except that the few dozen lives I've lost looking for it were frustrating.

I'm glad I'm not a game designer tasked with creating a good boss battle in a 2D platformer because really, I have no idea if it's even possible. From where I'm standing as a gamer, either they are too simple and repetitive to be memorable and considered good, or they are overly complicated, drawn out and frustrating.

Also, HOW the HELL did you guys get so good at platformers? nate38 unlocked the super guide for the first time in world 8, really? Is this a joke? Because I'm not laughing here. Triforcebun not only speed-ran (sped-ran? speed-runned?) every level in the game, he got shiny gold medals for it? Really?

Some people made a fuss about my scores in Pac-Man CE DX and Marvel Pinball, but really, there is nothing to those: you simply dumbly play over and over again until you get lucky. But breezing through DKCR? My god, you people are monsters! I'm not good enough to even consider speed-running the first Volcano level, let alone get a medal for it, let alone a gold one, let alone a shiny one!

Then you got DrFinkelstein making it through The Lost Levels when I've never beaten the original Super Mario Bros, and Simba, Xbob and Secret_Tunnel speed-running hundreds of Super Meat Boy levels... what the hell? How can you guys be so good?

@Simbabbad

It's way too late for me to be that guy.

Panda's Journal.
January 23, 2010

Today, a banana hoard was stolen in DK Island.

@GelatinousEncore

Actually:

Panda's Journal.
January 23, 2010

Today, I recovered my banana hoard, plus I unlocked !rorrim edom

Man, tough game, though the second half of world 7 and world 8 went faster since I finally allowed myself to move on if I didn't find every puzzle piece.

Anyway,

@Pandareus
I thought the bosses were fun, especially the mine cart boss. The only one that wasn't great was the crab boss.

As with many games, your abilitiy should improve the more you play DKCR. The better feel you get for controlling DK, the faster you can run through stages and the less obstacles cause a problem. I don't think anyone breezed through DKCR, even nate was humbled on world 8. And TB seems to be the completionist type, and I'd like to know how long it took him to shiny-gold the whole game. Dr Fink and I made it through the Lost Levels, but only thanks to the save feature of All Stars.
Don't sell yourself short, your bread and butter seems to be the arcadey downloadable type of game. Anyways, congrats on unlocking the mirror mode. I haven't given that mode much of a go myself, I'm taking a breather from DKCR for a while.

I just wanted to say that I checked the dandelions in the game, and some are indeed slightly orange-tinted! It seems to depend on the lighting of each level.

@anon_mastermind
If I had to guess, I'd say I spent around 40-50 hours on the game, getting every possible thing. The Shiny Golds alone probably took abouuuut...hm, 25-30 hours?

@TriforceBun
@anon_mastermind
@Simbabbad

So what you guys are saying is: "We won't tell you where we got our super powers".

Fine. I see how it is.

I'm still amazed that Nate saw the super guide for the first time in world 8! Insane!

@Pandareus

They are probably not telling the truth...Ha,ha...

Seriously, I don't believe it was until world 8, when Nate saw the super guide for the first time. I call shenanigans on that.

Been playing through this game again with my wife recently. I have come to the conclusion that DKCR is pretty much one of the most wonderful and fantastic games ever made. Replaying it has been almost as magical as the first time.

@Orbital74
I wanna replay it too, along with every game ever made I've liked, but the mirror mode and impossible time trials have left a HORRIBLE taste in my mouth.