It's all about conquering each of an initial eight lushly-coloured worlds, gathering bananas for health and hidden extras, and grabbing puzzle pieces or letter icons for bonuses. Graphically, it's about as pin sharp and colourful as we've seen on the Wii but the formulaic early gameplay does rely too much on nostalgia for its appeal. Occasionally, you may be shot into the screen to access a hidden area, but compared to the way Sonic Colours seamlessly blends 2D and 3D action, it is slightly underwhelming. However, once you get through a few levels – particularly to the fondly remembered mine-cart sections – level design improves significantly. Each new terrain (including factories, treetops and, of course, jungles) brings its own vivid detail and natural enemies, including the boss battles, which are as big, boldly coloured and as fiendishly unpredictable as they always seemed to be. It's also as rock hard to play as the original, although you can enlist Diddy Kong's help (by hitting a DK barrel) or ask a buddy to play him. But the main reason for the difficulty is having to restart every level from the beginning if you lose a life.
Personally, I find this a sneaky way of making the game seem artificially challenging, but there are plenty of fans for this less-forgiving approach, so it's horses for courses.Įqually divisive will be the interface – which can either be played using Wiimote and Nunchuck together or a sideways-held Wiimote. Both work well enough until you get to specific points that require shaking the controller while moving at speed (for instance stunning enemies or rolling across pits) where control definitely suffers. Practice makes perfect, of course, but I'd rather games were fair as well as tough. So no, it's not perfect and it probably won't catch the imagination in the same way that the original did.