{"id":131380,"date":"2023-01-23T10:15:00","date_gmt":"2023-01-23T10:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/#article-143918"},"modified":"2023-01-23T10:15:00","modified_gmt":"2023-01-23T10:15:00","slug":"enguarde-the-swordfish-almost-returned-in-donkey-kong-country-tropical-freeze","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2023\/01\/23\/enguarde-the-swordfish-almost-returned-in-donkey-kong-country-tropical-freeze\/","title":{"rendered":"Enguarde The Swordfish Almost Returned In Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"media_block\"><a href=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/9559d597affed\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/9559d597affed\/small.jpg\" class=\"media_thumbnail\"><\/a><\/div>\n<figure class=\"picture\"><a class=\"scanlines\" title=\"Enguarde the Swordfish Donkey Kong Country\" href=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/9559d597affed\/enguarde-the-swordfish-donkey-kong-country.large.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"lazy\" src=\"image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciIHZpZXdCb3g9IjAgMCA5MDAgNTA2Ij48L3N2Zz4=\" width=\"900\" height=\"506\" data-original=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/9559d597affed\/enguarde-the-swordfish-donkey-kong-country.900x.jpg\" alt=\"Enguarde the Swordfish Donkey Kong Country\"><\/a><figcaption class=\"caption\"><em class=\"credit\">Image: Nintendo Life<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Donkey Kong has had some fantastic animal companions over the years, and when <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/wiiu\/donkey_kong_country_tropical_freeze\">Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze<\/a> breezed onto the Wii U, and later Switch, it brought back with it a very small selection of animal companions. But in an interview published in the latest issue of <a class=\"external\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RetroGamer_Mag\/status\/1616123156846051334\">Retro Gamer<\/a> (via <a class=\"external\" href=\"https:\/\/nintendoeverything.com\/donkey-kong-country-tropical-freeze-almost-brought-back-enguarde\">Nintendo Everything<\/a>) creative director Vince Joly revealed the team at Retro Studios almost brought back a fan favourite \u2014 Enguarde the Swordfish.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/nintendo-switch\/donkey_kong_country_tropical_freeze\">Tropical Freeze<\/a> only brought back Squawks the Parrot and Rambi the Rhinoceros, with the Switch version also adding a brand new parrot in Tawks to the mix, and it was the team&#8217;s desire to keep the game close to the previous entry, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/wii\/donkey_kong_country_returns\">Donkey Kong Country Returns<\/a>, that stopped them from adding more in.<\/p>\n<p>Joly reflects on the thought process behind the decision:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>&#8220;\u201cWe were thinking that bringing back the familiarity that players experienced in Donkey Kong Country Returns would be a good way for us to further strengthen their love for these characters. We felt this was the right choice over adding different buddies in their stead&#8230;&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><\/blockquote>\n<p>Instead, more Kongs \u2014 and, most importantly, Funky Kong \u2014 were added into the mix alongside new gameplay mechanics. But that didn&#8217;t stop Joly and the team from considering one of our favourite companions. Joly admits to Retro Gamer:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>&#8220;&#8230;we would have loved to have introduced some new animal buddies. Like Enguarde, for instance, who did come close to being added.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>While the excerpts don&#8217;t go into more detail, they did help us reflect on our favourite Donkey Kong series buddies; Squitter the Spider, Rattly the Rattlesnake, Ellie the Elephant \u2014 we miss a lot of these! But especially Enguarde.<\/p>\n<p>Enguard hasn&#8217;t been seen in the Donkey Kong games since <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/wii\/donkey_kong_barrel_blast\">Donkey Kong Barrel Blast<\/a> on the Wii, so we think it&#8217;s high time for the Swordfish to swim back into the series spotlight. Maybe it was a bit too cold for him in Tropical Freeze&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><em>Would you like to have seen Enguarde in Tropical Freeze? Let us know in the comments!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Image: Nintendo Life Donkey Kong has had some fantastic animal companions over the years, and when Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze breezed onto the Wii U, and later Switch, it brought back with it a very small selection of animal companions. But in an interview published in the latest issue of Retro Gamer (via Nintendo [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-131380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nintendo-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131380\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}