Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze Release Date Announced

Be ready to go bananas and start monkeying around when Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze is finally let of the out the barrel this month.New details tell us how we'll go ape on the Wii U.

Donkey, Diddy and Dixie Kong have a new partner now that Cranky Kong has been confirmed to be the newest playable character in Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze! For those who might not remember, Cranky Kong is said to be the elderly version of the original Donkey Kong from the Donkey Kong arcade game.

As always, Donkey Kong isn't alone in his quest to take back DK Island as three of his family members have been confirmed as playable teammates. Diddy Kong brings back his Peanut Popgun and Barrel Jet, Dixie Kong has her infamous Helicopter Spin from DKC 3 to traverse long jumps and, for the first time in DKC history, Cranky Kong will be playable. Cranky will be able to bounce on his cane to help the Kongs cross spiky pitfalls, much like Scrooge McDuck in Ducktales: Remastered.

With regard to new features, bananas now have a viable use with the Kong POW move, which will decimate the landscape whenever you hit a 100 banana total. The Banana Coins that you will find, especially from using the POW attack, can be used to upgrade your gorillas and help take back the Kongo. Tropical Freeze also features Online Leaderboards, a Time Attack Mode and Hard Mode, which forces you to only use one Kong at a time and has a lot more enemies.

You can check out all of the new features when the DK crew barrel their way onto the Wii U on Feb. 21.