Last year, Nintendo revealed that Team Ninja would be handling the development of Metroid: Other M. It was an announcement as exciting as it was bizarre, mostly because it was a surprise that a developer like Team Ninja would be working on a franchise like Metroid. What would Team Ninja bring to the storied franchise? Would Metroid become a more action oriented game like Ninja Gaiden? Would Samus be portrayed as a chatty lady who just can't keep the wind from blowing up her skirt? It was a strange fit that only hinted at the directions the franchise would take.
Today, however, Nintendo may have managed to top last year's awesome/bizarre developer pairing. At their E3 Press Conference today, Nintendo announced that Texas-developer Retro Studios, the team behind the Metroid Prime games, was working on a brand new Donkey Kong 2D platformer. Donkey Kong Country Returns will once again let you jump down the monkey hole to let you play as both Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong as you travel through bizarre worlds and collect bananas. The game will allow the DK crew to jump between various planes of the environment at different points in the level, so you may encounter a point in the level where you move from the foreground into the background (like a more restrictive Little Big Planet). The game is rendered with polygonal graphics (post-rendered graphics! No longer pre-rendered! Take that, Super Nintendo!) but plays like the old 2D Donkey Kong Country games. Donkey Kong Country Returns will be released this holiday session.
