How Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze is improved on Switch
Nintendo's strategy of remastering and re-releasing its first party Wii U back catalogue continues to pay off handsomely, with Retro Studios' Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze making the transition across to Switch with some excellent results. It's a game well worth resurrecting - with its potent mix of fantastic controls, great level design and a memorable David Wise soundtrack, it's a personal favourite I've continued to play years on from its initial release - but how does it stack up on Switch and what enhancements and refinements have been made?
Well, it turns out that this is a rather straightforward port with a few minor tweaks and changes designed to take advantage of the Switch's more capable hardware. It's a more polished, streamlined experience all around, with the stand-out improvement coming from rendering resolution, where the Wii U's native 720p is increased to full 1080p when playing docked on Switch.
The visual design works well at 720p and the bump to 1080p allows smaller details to shine but it might surprise you how subtle the jump in pixel count can appear in many scenes. Textures are certainly sharper on Switch, but the fixed perspective helps minimise image noise and aliasing on the Wii U. As for portable mode, our pixel counts reveal a resolution in the area of 1152x648.
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