It's insane how it's been nearly 9 years since the last DK game considering how well every main series game has sold and how foundational the character is to the Nintendo brand.
Exactly the reason I was so bummed Nintendo did diddly squat for our big buddy DK’s 40th last year. All I want from Nintendo is a new DKC!!! 😭🙏 I feel like it’s years, every Nintendo Direct I’m like “maybe this’ll be the one 🤞🍌🦍” 😹
@@DeltaOdyssey I'm pretty skeptical whenever people claim a game gets made just for an anniversary cuz there are a hundred other higher priority considerations to be made before greenlighting a project. Plus all series have an anniversary every 5 years, so each sequel has a 1/5 chance of landing on one, it's just a common coincidence.
@@braydengraves4655 That's not exactly a problem, Kirby games include all kinds of things that would leave first-time players scratching their heads. Whenever I've had a moment like that, it would make me curious and interested. Things like that can get people invested, especially if they liked the game enough to get to the end and see things like that.
I think its the lack of a distinct personality that really kills the guy in my eyes. I could stand the redundant moves and lackluster battle if the guy gave me a reason to care about him, but he's just kinda... there? Like, imagine if he was the kind of character that only respects strength and wants to be the strongest, it's how he came to lead the Snowmads and its why he leads them to conquer surrounding islands. You could play with that throughout the fight, animate him as if he's not really trying, using DK more as an example to the Snowmads of what happens to those that challenge him. But as he gets injured as the fight progresses he gets into the fight, excited to have a proper rival, and at the end he goes a bit feral out of fear of losing his position. And when he IS defeated, don't have him blast off like Team Rocket, have him accept the loss with honor because strength is all he values, and now he's finally found someone who is stronger! Like, have him GIFT his horn to DK as a sign of respect, a "You beat me, you can have your island back and I'll leave." That'd be so much better, allow the character to grow into an antagonistic role separate from K. Rool, maybe even allow him to develop into a sort of competitive rival for DK in future installments. References and homages aren't enough for anything, you gotta develop *some* kind of base to build off of first!
This is exactly the kind of personality I imagined him having, even down to giving Dk the horn at the end as a sign of respect. It’s like he can be so much more than just a generic end boss for TF.
I would've greatly preferred that. There could've been a stinger hinting at K. Rool and the Kremlings coming back (maybe K. Rool pressganged the Snowmads and now he's taking matters into his own hands), and the next game could feature both the Kremlings and the Snowmads as antagonists (with the Kremlings being ruthless as ever while the Snowmads are more sympathetic and display redeeming traits).
But he actually does have personality, though? Actually look at him and take note of how he literally cusses at the Kongs, man's slinging cusses in a family game and doesn't give a damn!
I was so convinced that the final boss of Tropical Freeze (or at least one of the phases) was going to be a fight against the big ice dragon that froze over DK Island. That expectation colored my impression of the final boss in a negative way...
There's your super-phase. Launch up into the sky, have a rocket-barrel segment dodging the dragon's attacks, then land on his back and give Frederik the business while the dragon careens around the previous islands. Each time you attack the big walrus, he gets more and more mad, hopping up and down on the dragon's back until it shatters, dumping you back into the volcano where Frederik gives DK his horn as a show of respect before leaving.
Yeees, the intro depicted the ice dragon as Fredrick's scary pet or something, something you will have to fight alongside him, but in battle, THAT ice dragon is really nowhere to be seen, while the smaller ones are just ammo, decorated cannonballs at best
But like, when you think about it though Fredrik didn't really fail in any specific way. If you go back to DKC, K.Rool's debut, he has a single appearance, which is his boss fight. K.Rool is a footnote in his debut game the same way Fredrik is, and even less of one with no intro cutscene where he explicitly steals the banana horde the same way Fredrik takes DK Isle and blasts the Kongs to the mangroves. Most of K.Rool's notoriety comes from his repeat appearances and the fact he's an established portion of DK's franchise. If anything, Fredrick's only failings were 1) being the antagonist during a time players were desperately hoping for the return of K.Rool 2) being a pretty clear homage to K.Rool both thematically and mechanically, begging the question why he wasn't just K.Rool 3) some pacing issues in the latter half of the game that make him feel like he comes out of nowhere despite the fact he doesn't. His boss fight also doesn't *feel* like a final boss which probably has to do with Tiki Tong influencing expectations He did everything right and he's a letdown because of context.
Ehhhh even then I still think he's lacking a flourish. If you just take the original K. Rool fight into consideration, it's hard for the era (if pretty simplistic overall in a modern context), but then he has the Kredits jape. If you fall for it, you'll remember him forever. If you don't, it's still very funny and puts you in an awkward position. In the same time at Fredrik's fight, he just advances to his third phase, which is "likely kill you with lava geysers once and make you start the long fight over". It's the same effect as Kredits, but with none of the character, no sense that this is his last stand or a cheap shot. The pacing of the fight is just... off, both solely comparing it to DKC1 K. Rool and removing K. Rool from its context.
Don't forget, people also love DKC1 K. Rool because of the awesome song and because he's the finale of a great game. There's also the credits fakeout and how his design is so much more unique and memorable.
I'm glad that Lord Fredrik was his own original character instead of K. Rool in disguise, because that would have robbed the Snowmads of their identity. But in the end, he does just end up feeling like a derivative of K. Rool, and that's kind of sad, because I really love the idea of DK having an ever expanding rogues gallery of villains. K. Rool will always be his archnemesis, but I don't want that to be his only nemesis.
I like this take. Mario fighting bowser gets so boring after a while and the same would be true of DK vs K. Rool after so long. I still want the kremlings back but I definitely agree with having DK fight multiple different villains and armies over the years to keep it fresh!
I don't think it robs the Snowmads of their identity, it just ties that identity to K. Rool's story and shows he has the cunning, charisma, and ability to rally an army even if he's banished from the Kremlings or something.
I mean it makes sense why K. Rool wasn’t the main bad guy in disguise, K. Rool is a crocodile and he wouldn’t want anything to do with the cold. I see Fredrick and K. Rool as (Pardon the Pun) polar opposites of each of each other, K. Rool is loud over the top, awful to his Minions, and focuses his conquest squarely onto his grudge with the Kongs, Fredrick (from little screen time) is much more composed, focused, actually is possibly caring towards his minions (I mean he has generals compared to K. Rool being the only leader) and he has eyes on not just of DK isle, but other islands as well. I really wish they went into this idea, make him the “Anti K. Rool” without making him a hero, make him and the snowmads a true neutral force compared to the more black and white conflict the Kongs and Kremlings have, someone who looks for the best for his tribe, but doesn’t care about the others that he drives away. Yea I think a lot about this monkey franchise sometimes. Join me on my next Ted talk on how Tiny should’ve been more than just Dixie Kong Lite.
You forget that K.Rool had his castle high atop his home island where it was constantly exposed to freezing winds (hence, the partially frozen castle and the ice-themed level or 2). Cold is no issue for him. Regarding generals, I'm pretty sure K.Rool enlisted the help of non-Kremling species to act as such (Queen Zinger, Giant Necky, etc). Though his cruelty towards his own Kremlings is unquestionable.
@@ultraspinalki11 I just assume in DKC2 it’s area’s the Kremlings don’t really hang out a lot in, considering the rest of the island is pretty tropical, with swamps, Lava caverns, and jungles. As for the whole army thing, DK64 shows that two of the games bosses are absolutely terrified to confront K. Rool on their failures, heck Snide isn’t even a kremling and even he knows K. Rool’s a horrible boss.
Before seeing Fredrik in full and only seeing his sillohuette, I thought he was some sort of terrifying dark yeti or something due to the fur coat making it look like he actually had fun, a giant frost beast. Making him just a bigger version of a common enemy without many traits to differentiate himself like K. Rool had doesn't make him scary at all, it just makes him boring.
I think it would've been cool if the ice dragon from the latter two phases acted as a separate enemy. Rather than being a mere hazard to avoid for the few seconds one is on screen. Maybe it could even be a dual boss sort of thing, where you have to use their attacks against each other to defeat them. Imagine: Fredrick Is in the background, and blows his horn to summon the Ice Dragon. It flies down onto the stage, and begins using its own version of attacks from previous bosses in the game. Meanwhile, Fredrick keeps doing what he did in phase 1, and then you have to juggle between 2 bosses for the next 2 phases. After you hit Fredrick with one of his penguins, he jumps back into the foreground. The dragon stands tall on one end of the stage, and Fredrick stands strong on the other, with DK stuck in the middle. Fredrick uses his charging attack, and you choose not to jump on him, which causes him to barrel uninterrupted right into the dragon. The dragon jumps into the background and begins charging an ice beam. It will then try to hit where you're about to go, and you have to trick it into leading its shots into hitting Fredrick, freezing him in place, and allowing you to get a few free jumps on him, or push him into the lava for extra damage. It's likely all of their attacks could be used to counter each other like this. As you beat them, their attack patterns get quicker and more erratic, with the Dragon showing visible cracks all over. If you beat the Dragon first, then it will explode into a bunch of ice along with Fredrick's horn, and he becomes almost a joke boss without its power. If you beat Fredrick first, then the Dragon steals the horn and flies away, no longer attacking the Kongs now that they've freed it. This idea is coming from someone who did not play the game, so so sorry if it wouldn't make sense in its context.
My head cannon is he was meant to be K. Rool at some point, but Retro realized that a cold blooded reptile that couldn't survive in arctic conditions being charge of the artic themed villans didn't make very much sense
Screw that logic, its ice magic! They coulda made it work, its a video game about animals with human-like intelligence and a gorilla that punches the moon out of orbit just to shrek some supernatural tiki spirits. Makes me sad they didn't have K. Rool come back. It would have been perfect if done properly. :(
This raises a question for Lord Fredrik. "When most of what you're known for is just copying someone else, then what's so special about YOU?" If he had been given more unique attacks and maybe a cutscene or two mid-game to help flesh him out more, he might have done a little better for himself. As it stands though, despite being the leader of the Snowmads, he doesn't really do anything to earn that title when compared to others from his group, or even previous villains from the DK series.
I wouldn’t be shocked if Fredrick being K.Rool in disguise was the initial plan, their body types are near identical, but Nintendo’s then hesitance on anything Kremling related got in the way.
The devs were never really forbidden from using the Kremlings I think, in an interview they said Nintendo just gave them the freedom to create brand new enemies for the Kongs, which lead to the creation of the Tiki Tak Tribe and the Snowmads
@@dustymcwari4468 Miyamoto and Tanabe said "make sure there are no crocodiles in there" (their words from an interview). They literally put a ban on Kremlings and meddled with things just like they did with Paper Mario.
@@KingdomHeartsBrawler okay I found it, and yeah you’re correct, he did say it along the line of wanting everything brand new Though times have changed, that obsession to streamline all series is fortunately fading more and more, K. Rool’s name is even in Odyssey along with the Kong’s, and the ballot proved people REALLY love K. Rool and want him back along with the kremlings, so hopefully they return on the next DKC game
So like, Fredrik would fly off, and then the dragon would show up trying to blow them away again, but say this time, DK/other characters would be able to do something.
Whenever Donkey Kong next graces us with a game, I would be very, very surprised to see Lord Frederik return. I expect he'll retire, but I'll always wonder what would have happened if he got as many chances as K. Rool or others. So many of these Nintendo series give us the same big bads when there's room for more to play and be developed. What would happen if Frederik got to be refined and redeployed for a new adventure? What if Link faced off with Vaati as often as Ganon? What if Wart jumped in for another round against Mario? I love our classic villains, but I'd love to see new blood get a chance too and not be tossed aside because their first attempt didn't shine as bright as our old favorites.
Oh, I absolutely agree with you. I think the kirby series is pretty good with this for the most part, like having kabula show up in robobot, or paintra in triple deluxe, but those aren't the most common occurences, and it's not like the friends other than the 4 from return to dreamland get that many chances in the spotlight outside of big anniversary games.
Though the problem with Fredrick isn't that he isn't K. Rool, but the fact he tries too much to be like K. Rool for no reason, with not much stuff of his own besides adding extra things and ice to K. Rool's attacks He shows a lot of premise to be a brand new dangerous foe with mighty powers the Kongs have never faced before during the intro of the game, but his fight just ends up being Lord K. Roolfrick Though it would be cool that there was a connection between the two, they’re super alike, maybe they fought before, and there’s where Fredrick learned the K. Rool style or something xd
@@dustymcwari4468I think part of the point is that if Lord Fredrik was in more game then he wouldn't be just K Rool's replacement while he's in Smash Bros, he could end up having much more character
@@ocarinatales1331 hopefully he does, at least if they continue refusing to add the Kremlings, because as it is, Fredrick just feels like K. Rool at home The ice dragon he used to cover the island in snow and ice was so cool, for them to only use baby versions of said dragons that were just reskinned cannonballs in the actual battle, that was disappointing as heck x,d
I thought Lord Fredrick was awesome in design. And climbing your way up a frozen DK Island and seeing what it looks like compared to Returns was awesome. I had this intense feeling of wanting revenge because at that point Returns was the only DKC game I’ve ever beaten and so far everything about TF just blew returns out of the water. I felt like I was taking back my island and seeing the island I learned to love in Returns destroyed really set up a grand mood for a fantastic finale! Then I got to Fredrick. It was just as imposing as I thought he would be. His design giving this feeling of a major threat. That if the Kongs don’t win here then there was no way the island will be restored. Then the fight started. And I was immediately disappointed. At this point I have never done a K. Rool fight except for DK64 so I didn’t make any comparisons to the Krock king, but I didn’t make comparisons to extremely generic boss fights. Fredrick didn’t feel like epic send off to the end of a more than worthy game. He felt like he could’ve been a boss in a world 4 or 5. Like something close to the end but not quite there. It was just extremely disappointing and I hope the next DKC, if it happens, does a way better job for the final boss.
While I do understand all of your points in regards to Fredrik, in terms of the boss fight itself, it’s honestly a bit better to see what a video called “Every Donkey Kong Boss Ranked From Worst to Best” by “Villainous Warlord” to see some counter arguments for this, as I myself am not gonna say it in one comment.
Honestly I loved Fredrik. I never even noticed that his attacks were inspired by K Rool's previous boss fights. To me, Fredrik's boss fight was easily the toughest boss in the entire game, and it took me forever to beat him when I first played the game. He didn't pull anything fancy like the other characters, yet his boss was still the most difficult for me. Now I'm sure other people didn't struggle as much as me, but it helped paint him as this foreboding, tough-as-nails leader of the snowmads. You get to that intro cutscene and you find yourself in the heart of the Snowmad's new home base, and what do you find? Not some dramatic evildoer, or hulking behemoth. You just find this huge intimidating walrus. And he proves himself as leader of the Snowmads by putting up a terrifying fight over deadly lava. He never needed to have a big personality to me. Because he was just the intimidating leader who does what he needs to do, and beats down anyone who opposes him. He takes pride in doing evil and sits back and enjoys the spoils of his efforts. Caring about nothing but the conquest of the snowmads. Terrorizing and destroying DK Island by plunging it into a frigid winter that causes everything to crumble. The intimidation of Fredrik is the total hellscape that he turned DK Island into. And I think that's awesome. And when I finally beat that boss fight, even though it was anticlimactic, I really felt that punch that launched him through the Viking ship. I laughed at his screams in terror as he got his work torn to shreds by Donkey Kong. And felt relieved when he smashed into the water, destroying an entire fleet of his ships. Yeah it's a bit of a shame he didn't have more unique moves, but I enjoyed him despite his simplistic personality.
Same kind of experience, I remember him because he was so simple and…for lack of a better word, boring. He isn’t a Brutish baffoon like bowser, or an insane loon like k rool, he’s just a conqueror who will simply wipe out anyone in his path Granted even that description felt a bit of an exaggeration, but still
It's interesting to see this kind of take, because I always thought Lord Fredrik's fight being a giant homage to all the K. Rool fights was such a cool thing to experience. Even if it wasn't too difficult, I really enjoyed the call backs
I like Fredrick and the Snowmads, I do, but I think they’re cursed with always being in the Kremling’s shadow. Donkey Kong doesn’t get mainline games often enough to play around with new enemies more than one or two games in a row without people wondering where the Kremlings went, so no matter how much potential a foe like the Snowmads could have for the series, people will always compare them harshly with their crocodilian counterparts.
The Shake King is very much Wario from the past, the whole fight is a huge callback to Super Mario Land 2, from the fact he's an usurper, you need to collect medals to unlock his lair, how he starts at his throne laughing, how he's very much a huge more twisted Wario like how Wario himself is to Mario, he's got a fireball attack, the bouncing volt attack is very reminiscent of the Wario balls at Wario's Castle, and how the final phase has him being able to hover in the air, the battle takes place in multiple rooms, and while Wario didn't use magic in his SML fight, he used to display some magical powers in his earlier appearances, all while also adding other stuff to further reflect Wario like the head charge he got in later games, the shake punch, the ability to steal your money by violently shaking you, and his viking helmet is very reminicent to the Bull Helmet from the first Wario Land It's a fight of antihero Wario vs villain Wario
i honestly think they should've just made Fredrik way bigger than he was, make him Loom over the kongs even more, make him bigger than the rest of the bosses. he would've been a lot more intimidating making you feel like your just barely dodging his attacks
Kind of semi-tangentially related to your point, but I always felt like Tropical Freeze should have done the thing Returns does and end each boss fight with a short cutscene, followed by you having to run up to the defeated boss to deliver the final beatdown. I kinda get why they got rid of that, since in Returns that was done to establish the tiki being forced out of the boss they were controlling and to give you a chance to finish things off by beating them up instead (while Tropical Freeze's bosses weren't being controlled by anything in the first place), but transitioning instantaneously from the final hit to the final beatdown in Tropical Freeze always felt super awkward and abrupt to me. Would have definitely given them a bit more of a chance to flesh out Fredrik's character at the very least.
Personally, I think Bashmaster should’ve been the leader of the Snowmads instead of Lord Fredrik. He had an overall cooler design and… well he's a friggen polar bear with a spiked mallet, you tell me that isn’t the coolest design for a boss you’ve seen.
I hate this guys fight. Him dodging your throws is frustrating and the tiny hitbox on his head means the fight can drag on for several minutes and god forbid you die in the last phase going through it all again
The Snowmads could get their own spin-off. Either have them go the way of Wario and semi-redeem them into fun anti-heroes, or they could even be interesting Villain Protagonists. Man, a Strategy RPG with them could be interesting.
I mean, the way I saw it, Lord Frederick being so similar to K. Rool was maybe a sign that Retro was building up towards his return. Hell, they apparently wanted to add him as a secret boss in the Switch port (with Nintendo saying "no," because they were gonna put him in Smash Bros.). But now, Retro is working on Metroid again, and Donkey Kong is now back in-house at Nintendo EPD. If the Retro series were to continue, I'd have been certain that K. Rool was a no-brainer for the next game. But with the new team in charge of the Donkey Kong brand, I'm back to just hoping for the Kremlings to return
Well at the very least, the era before Returns was more kind to the Kremlings to the point they made brand new characters in Barrel Blast and I'm sure the smash demand for K Rool and his eventual inclusion wouldn't slow that down. If Retro isn't in charge of the next DK (not that i don't want them to do it), I think K Rool and Kremlings chances are high. Hopefully the Barrel Blast original Kremlings can make their mai series debuts too, to show off the rivalries with Kongs outside a racing format, actually show off the more of their personalities and roles in K Rool's army (like Kalypso is very strong, athletic and a Big Sis leader type to the Kremlings while also owning their favorite hangout spot in night club for example), and by extension give even more unique interactions for the Kongs as well. Of course K Rool will be back with his loveable self too and be the star. But let's hope a new DK gets brought to light soon in the first place lol
@@MagillanicaLouM I absolutely love that idea, and I think Kludge specifically could be a great inclusion going forward, but we also have to keep in mind that the most predictable thing about Nintendo is their unpredictability
@@blusterkong1996 I like Kludge a lot. That design LOOKS like a boss character. It would be a shame for it to be wasted on what is essentially a “Waluigi position” (and unlike the Mario series, we don’t have the luxury of multiple spin-offs to the point we barely get to see main characters).
I will say that in defense of him being shrouded in mystery for seemingly no reason, I remember back in the old Super Nintendo manuals for DKC 1 and 2, both King K. Rool and Kaptain K. Rool were only black silhouettes to add some mystique to the final boss. To me it felt like it was bringing back that energy
I personally agree with your takes on Lord Fredrik's boss fight, when i first played through Donkey Kong County Tropical Freeze i was loving every second of it, but when I fought Lord Fredirk all i had to say was “that's all? All of the other bosses had fun personallys, great attacks that keeps me on my toes while being fun as heck to dodge, etc, all of this build up for this?” I still think that DKCTF is still amazing but i wished it could’ve gone down in a huge bang after all that buildup. Side note: i hope you could make a video on the Tiki's from Donkey Kong Country Returns, not trying to say this in a demanding way, just think that it would be interesting to talk about sadly underwhelming bad guys of the DKCR.
K Rool should've been available in a similar vein to DKC2's Lost World boss. A post-Frederick true puppet-master villain at the end of a gauntlet of levels that are only accessible once certain criteria are met.
I'm gonna be honest, I prefer Tiki Tong over this guy. The cutscenes involving him before and after certainly stuck out in my mind way more then anything this guy did.
This is a very fair review. I didn't even noticed those were K. Rool patterns (well, I have only played Returns and TF, so haha), but you do bring a good point with him having little screentime (that's what he probably needed the most, really.). Still, I appreciate seeing videos about TF, it still feels the game is madly undertalked!
I personally think its kinda bizarre having the final battle of an ice themed game be battled in a lava-filled room. Like, in general the whole lava arena thing is way overdone... but it also thematically makes no sense. Why would the ice-themed arctic villain set up base over a volcanic lava cauldron? Wouldn't freezing cold ice water make more sense?
They could’ve at least done so many cool things with his ice horn. Give himself Dragon wings, have dragon claws strike at, and manipulate the platforms. In fact why stop at just Dragons? Have him recreate ice versions of the other bosses, and command them to attack along with him
Nintendo basically has this weird double standard when it comes to characters. Yoshi's Island is only allowed to have infant Bowser as the main antagonist, and no one else… but when asked about the Kremlings for DKC, they clam up and say "haha do we really need them for DKC?" It's weird and kinda hypocritical. That being said, I like Lord Fredrik. I'm of Scandinavian origin, so I actually love the design of Fredrik and the Snowmads. Do I wish more was done and find the confrontation with him a bit underwhelming? Absolutely! I think he just needs to be given more chances rather than just being tossed aside. Also, he reminds me of the walrus boss from Diddy Kong Racing. :x
So essentualy Retro couldnt end with them getting out of the Massive Shadow that Rare casted there is a darn good reason why he's (and subsequently Banjo-Kazooie) in smash and not Fredrik
Despite Tiki Tong being easier than Fredrik, for me It's sill was way exciting to fight Tiki Tong. Tiki Tong is "i'm super evil" just like Fredrik, however: - He fools the player in one of his attacks. (sadly doesn't take advantage to do harder attack, but whatever). - He twists the battle in second phase, unlike Fredrik. - There's even epic cutscene in the beggining of the fight and before that you have to use rocket barrel to reach baddie's lair.
Yeah! And he's foreshadowed through the main Tikis much like how K. Rool was with his kremlings in the first DKC game. The Kremlings showing off K. Rool's abilities and the Tikis using his boss theme.
I played Tropical Freeze before the originals so it stuck in my mind like a really cool antagonist and boss fight instead of a re elaboration of old concepts.
He's the definition of what mom thinks about when you ask her to see K. Rool before telling you we have K. Rool at home. He could've been so much more than almost 100% a K. Rool wannabe
I wish Bashmaster was the final boss in Tropical Freeze, because it will make sense that that popsicle incident with Kongs will make him think he conquer DK Isle just to make factory. But then again, it was the Kongs fault for making him drop it to begin with.
If you ask me, it’s similar to Fredrick. The tikis are cool, it was fun to learn why they took the bananas. But Tiki Tong’s boss fight straight up sucked.
I always loved the Tikis. There was never a human/animal tribe backing or worshipping the Tikis...The Tikis WERE the tribe! It was also really cool to see instruments possess animals around the island, giving personality to every Tiki even though the fights are technically against cartoonish animals. Tiki Tong especially blew me away as a kid. You can say "it should've been K. Rool," but a fight against a completely overconfident ruler who, in his vanity, decided that ALL of his best minions were worth getting a pair of wooden hands? I think that's pretty cool! ...Also hope they bring back Tiki Tong and the Tiki Take Tribe as the Wario gang of Donkey Kong. Imagine Tiki Tong getting his own games!
@@pepperonipizza8200 yeah, the tikis were dope with the whole music instrument theme and their ability to control various creatures with their music, too bad the final boss is just another floating head big hands boss with no much else going on
This video made me wonder how the Tiki God and his minions from DKCR would stack up as a boss fight. I remember it being hard as a kid but I never really thought it was that interesting.. although that could be my fuzzy memory.
TBH, all they really needed to do with him was to just make him _look_ more intimidating. The Kong boss fights from Jungle Beat have less weight from a story perspective, but are all much more memorable due to how scary they are (and you beating the tar out of them too). Maybe give Freddy the glowing eyes the entire time, give him some viking-themed tattoos, have him be noticeably ripped in spite of his shape akin to Wario, make his walrus tusks longer and sharper, give him another weapon besides his horn (maybe some cool berserker short swords), even just give him a meaner looking helmet. Or they could design the final fight to have him just lurking in the shadows the entire time, and you need to manipulate the environment or attack him in the background, only for the final hit to bring him into the light and it turns out it's like a Lord Farquaad or Wizard of Oz situation where he's just very unthreatening and they play it as a joke.
OK, but can we talk about the power flex of Lord Fredrik setting up his domain on the crater of a volcano? Man's so alpha, he took dominance over the polar (haha) opposite of his main element, and that nerve alone (as well as the magical power to create and control ice dragons) makes me love him as a big bad. Oh, and have you SEEN the silly little jigs he rarely pulls off if you miss your shot at throwing an enemy at him? He's clearly trying to make DK and friends look even more like monkeys than they already are! As a boss, I do wish there was more to Fredrik's fight though, because on its own, it still feels like it's building up to something. Remember how Tiki Tong had us ride a rocket barrel to reach him? *What if the reverse happens with Fredrik, where after the initial fight, Fredrik has had enough and summons the giant ice dragon from the opening of the game to ride upon, so we'd have to shoot him down while we ride on, thanks to Funky Kong's help probably, a newly-weaponized rocket barrel.* That'd be a pretty cool climax to the battle, I think! Having the final battle be an upgrade to a previously familiar gameplay style which now allows us to fight back, especially after how hard all those previous rocket barrels were before! Also, anyone else find it interesting that the Snowmads recognize DK by his hut? Almost as if DK's accomplishments travel fast across the sea, and the Snowmads didn't want to take chances against DK and co when they were out colonizing and conquering... that or someone sent for Fredrik to defeat him...
I feel what ruins the Snowmads... is the missed opportunity for lore expansion: so DK Isle originally had a snowy mountain now replaced with a volcano in which the Tiki Tribe was sealed until DKCR happend. What if the Snowmads trapped them in there? Since it's a volcanic island, they must return every now and then to keep them sealed under the ice. But, of course, the Tiki aren't the only inhabitants of DK Isle, the Kongs are also, and the Snowmads have peculiar reactions to them (see how the Penguin sees their hut and he gasp in horror): what if this wasn't their first battle against them, what if a young Cranky stopped them from "invading" the island, interrupting this seal ritual and later provoking the events of DKCR? Or even a small thing like Fredrik reacting to DK like he remembers him until he notice Cranky and he's like "Oh, so you DID get old, I thought it was strange". This clearly isn't their first visit to DK Isle and IT SHOWS but nothing more.
I really do love Lord Fredrik. Although he, let alone any character, will never replace K. Rool in my heart, I do think Lord Fredrik has the potential to be one of the best Nintendo villains. Was his boss fight a letdown? I loved it, but I can understand why others might feel disappointed. I would love to see a sequel to Tropical Freeze that goes more into fleshing out Lord Fredrik as a greedy viking that takes what he wants when he wants. This is a weird comparison, but I feel like if we got to know more of Lord Fredrik, he'd be like if Garfield was a conqueror. In my headcanon, Fredrik is a grumpy, relaxed, smug warrior. He could be a bit similar to Soda Popinski in that way. As someone who is Nordic, the idea of a Viking Villain in one of my all-time favorite franchises really excites me. Lord Fredrik deserves to get another chance at becoming one of the GOAT Nintendo Villains. I love the Snowmads in general, they're such a unique spin on typical baddies.
That's what I really hope for Fredrik, too - it's wide open what you can do with him, how you can characterize him. Does he lean on his strength and sloth and reliance on the ice dragon, or is he a prideful but ultimately noble competitor? I don't decry Fredrik to say NAH NEVER BRING HIM BACK, K ROOL ONLY, but to lament that his first outing lacks the oomph that any of K Rool's country performances had from a character perspective in game. They could give him a GREAT fight if they use him again, but this one's just too close to the king for me to really get anything out of it that I don't get more from, say, Bashmaster or Skowl.
The "but draaaayyyyygons" line has lived rent-free in my head for several months now. 😂Also the name "Trishula" sounds like something a Yiddish grandmother would call their granddaughter.
You know what was missing? IF this was a K. Rool fight, you just know that all of his attacks being from the previous Country games meant that by the time you've reached where the Lord Fredrik fight ended, it would have been a fake out as you entered the final phase with *NEW* attacks! What I'm getting at is, Lord Fredrik's fight ends a phase too early,.. I mean they had that *BIG* Ice Dragon freezing the Island only to degrade it to a lowly small projectile?! Just imagine if there was a final phase that has you fight the B I G Ice Dragon that froze DK Island from the beginning, using parts of attacks from the other bosses but at the logical next level of difficulty, using what you have learned from over the course of the game at its climax! Lord Fredrik unfortunately feels either being one phase too short, or as if he should've been the 'final boss' before the *actual* final boss!
Lord Fredrick's moves could be made MUCH more unique, such as: - His Iceball Hail attack could have variants where they come in from the sides and drop in the same places, but are slightly harder to dodge, - His Frigid Stomp attack could have sank the arena's fragments for longer, - His Dragon Horn attack could have instead swept across the arena before making the ground slippery (and could have had a lava variant where 3 of them make 3 fragments hot), - And his other variant of the Dragon Horn attack (where he's on the same plane as you) could have been similar to Bashmaster, where you could hop on them to reach something that'd damage Fredrick. Simple (or maybe Advanced) changes like that wouldn't have affected his moves too much, but possibly would've differed them despite the resemblance of K. Rool's attacks.
As more of a Mario guy I don't get the hate. Some of the best Mario games are spin-offs that take a break from Bowser. Granted the DKC one-off villains aren't as interesting as say Cackleta, Count Bleck or Smithy but they aren't bad enough to justify the hatred they get. I would rather get a string of new guys than have K.Rool ground to dust by being the status quo villain.
I love Lord Fredrik, personally. I'm as big of a fan of King K. Rool as they can come. But he's a serious step up from Tiki Tong, who I found to be generic and bland as hell. Fredrik was a great compromise. New yet familiar. I hope to see K. Rool return to DK as well, but Fredrik offered his own uniqueness. For instance, you associate villains with darkness or fire. Fredrik was snow/ice with a white cape. I loved the ice dragon-summoning, weather-changing horn. It's a cool weapon that's different enough from K. Rool's blunderbuss. I feel Fredrik also does "throwing his weight around" better than K. Rool does. He's more obese, and thus fits the heavyweight bruiser type better, IMO. K. Rool is more like a tank. While I love K. Rool, I hope we haven't seen the last of Lord Fredrik. He's the reason I'm interested in walruses in general, too. If they keep making DK spinoffs one day, I want to see Fredrik in them. Alongside K. Rool.
Frederick sort of gave me an elemental warlock kind of personality. Have him be threatening the world with eternal cold as he cannot stand the heat and the fight in the volcano dome as an ultimate sign of his dominating hubris. As the fight goes on and the heat of the lava weakens him (have him fall into the lava like bashmaster fell into the punch, a great parallel as bashmaster is roughly the second in command for the snomads) you get to see a villain desperate for power and conquest through ice and snow, the reason the snomads exist, to find a home they can dwell. hence an entire island being used to make frozen fruit popsicles. Gotta keep cool and keep the scurvy away
Since fans still want Dedede boss fights and the whole mind control thing is done to death(and I don't want Dedede to be bad again), there should be a character like this to fill that role.
As someone who only played the newer Country games, until recently anyways, I did feel underwhelmed with the boss in premise. It brings itself up with difficulty (as I felt anyhow. I was fairly young when I got the game) and it's cool premise of ice attacks in a volcano. It's a cool boss, but I think he should have been like a jock, trying to rival DK in strength, and gloating every time he seemingly shows he is.
Freddy's design is just plain boring too. He just looks like another one of the basic Walrus goons. Same build, same coloration, same overall aesthetic. He's not even as interesting due to his blank eyes keeping him from being very expressive. K. Rool may be an obese alligator like some of his krew, but you'd never get him konfused with Klump. He's got too much visual flair, too much style, too much raw, dramatic stage presence that dominates every scene he's in.
He Even Gets Launched Similarly to how K. Rool Gets Launched off of the Island in DK64. Only, This Time, He Gets Beat Up before he gets sent flying into water. After K. Rool gets Sent flying, He lands somewhere to get beat up for a while before getting Thrown again.
I don't really mind that this guy isn't K.Rool. I think the main thing that kills this boss for me is just the amount of time he wastes, especially once you get to phase 2 and 3 of the fight. Unless you perfectly hit him 3 times during his charge attack, you have to go through all of his other attacks before you get another shot. You have to wait for him to do his jumps, wait for him to shoot his ice dragons, wait for him to shoot his penguin balls, wait for him to stand still so you can hit him. There's just so much waiting that is incredibly difficult, if not impossible to cut short. And most attacks aren't incredibly engaging either.
Honestly, the final boss was a letdown. I was expecting something a little more grand (and intuitive), but we got… well, you know. His reveal wasn’t that grand, there was no surprise about it, he’s exactly what you’re expecting him to be, so showing him in shadow at the beginning of the game was pretty much pointless. Also, I was especially expecting Fredrik to use the ice dragon horn much more in the final boss than he actually did, merely covering the floor in ice with descending ice dragons. Pretty lame, using what’s probably your ultimate weapon just to bring about annoying game mechanics.
Great analysis video! One way I think Lord Frederick failed as a final boss is his lack of expression. That kind of happens when you have eyes like that. Maybe they should have gave him normal eyes like the polar bear boss. Frederick also has a lack of character too.
I think Fredrik could have been cool if he triggered a Kong-Kremling team up. Maybe not playing as K.Rool, but a continuous presence in the game to have a sort shaky alliance with DK, filled with witty back and forth between Rool and Kranky. It would hype up Fredrik too, this guy so powerful he kicks out the old final boss! That’s cool! And maybe you could finish with a snazzy cutscene of DK and K.Rool uppercutting Fredrik off of THEIR island
Length, mostly. I consider these pretty standard Designing For episodes out of the context of DK December, whereas a lot of the others I feel need the context of the month to really shine and stand out.
I feel like Fredrik, along with the Snowmads in general were an attempt on Nintendo's part to fully replace the Kremlings in the series. Given that both the Retro DKC titles had a distinct lack of them I think Nintendo wanted to remove any semblance of the Kremlings as they were entirely Rare's creation, unfortunately they had become so essential to the series that replacing them with a bunch of random tikis didn't fly so the next best option was retooling them from crocodilian pirates to Arctic animal vikings. I don't think it's any coincidence that Fredrik is just walrus K. Rool and honestly, from a marketing perspective I get it! The problem is that, to quote Rare on their decision to put the Kremlings into Donkey Kong Country in the first place, they just fit! They are a great parallel to the Kongs and gamers (particularly Americans) get very attached and sentimental towards things, especially if it's nostalgic. Given K. Rool's return in Smash Bros. though, I'm curious if Nintendo has dropped the desire to replace the Kremlings entirely and opted to bring them back... Though I won't hold my breath.
The more I think about it, Bashmaster should have been the final boss, with a few of Fredrick’s cool attacks, like the mega ground pound, and Fredrick could have been the world 5 boss minus the snowman summoning.
Ngl, I actually wanna see Wizpig come back. I mean, think about it: •You could have another collab with Rare and bring back characters (albeit with them, probably aged up and/or missing from the cast, but can still help in other ways) • This can also be a play around with some game mechanics, like having to do both 2D AND 3D kart races (if that's even possible, if they can do it, then that would be amazing), the choice between the kart, hovercraft, and plane, along with some newer options (I have no idea what they would be, but probably also the barrel blast mechanic as well) •Oh idk, HAVE THE ANIMAL BUDDIES AND OTHER KONGS RETURN????? Rant(?) aside, I would actually like to see the concepts of the animal buddies be worked into the game because we were absolutely robbed of them here.
I feel like everyone hates on Lord Fredrik too much. He really isn’t a bad character, he was just a consequence of everyone longing for K. Rool’s return after a long absence, alongside a lack of buildup throughout the game. In my opinion, he is wonderfully characterized in his boss fight as a fatass who really throws his weight around in a way K. Rool never did (except for in Smash for some reason)
Yeah. Which makes him unique in my eyes. He's even fatter than K. Rool and uses it. I like how he blocks you with his gut if you roll into him lol. K. Rool is obese too but it was never a recurring theme with him.
The walrus from Alice in Wonderland that you used jokingly is one of the most terrifying characters from any Disney film, much more disturbing of a character than either K.Rool or Fredrik.
Personally, I wasn’t expecting K. Rool. I’d find it weird for them to create and design all of these snowmads, give them their own style and character designs, their own bosses, just for it to be K. Rool in the end. That, in my opinion, wouldn’t have worked, and would’ve felt very out of the blue.
People just hate Fredrik because of how obsessed they were with getting K. Rool to return/come into Smash at the time. If K. Rool was the villain of returns nobody would bat an eye, and if he was the character featured in the boss battle with no changes, none of these sensationalist videos dunking on the fight would exist and the boss would be universally praised. I do appreciate that designing for at least went more in depth with this than the usual people who just got angry that it's a fat animal king who isn't K. Rool, at least. I feel like the only person who put out a video praising him.
I do really like this idea, I feel it would be interesting to have Fredrick be a more neutral force, but will do whatever it takes to save his tribe, even putting aside his animosity with the Kongs just to save the other snowmads.
You know I like this idea better than the obligatory “team up with your main rival to stop a bigger threat” that everyone does. Fredrik having a sympathetic edge would be something that would differentiate him from being just K. Rool but a walrus.
The thing that bugs me the most about Fredrik is how he almost feels upstaged by his own goons; the rest of the game's bosses show way more personality than he does. To Retro's credit, though, the penultimate boss is a giant hammer-wielding polar bear named Bashmaster who seemingly only fights us because we messed with his popsicle; *you* try surpassing a winning concept like that.
The best outcome should have been: you defeat Fredrik and dispell the ice on DK Island, but while that happens, something else does. Basically, if K. Rool was captured by Fredrik in an ice block and beating him frees the Kremlin, having now to fight a pissed K. Rool on a defrosting DK Island.
I still don't understand why they bothered with this in the first place, it had to be flat out stubbornness to insist on making original baddies after the Tikis flopped. Yeah the Snowmads were a lot more like the Kremlings but the fact that they had to mimic the Kremlings to make more memorable baddies should tell them something. Don't fix what aint broken.
I like K Rool and the kremlings too but people just like to nitpick the tikis and the snowmads to death for not being them. That comparison section made me roll my eyes into the back of my skull lmao
there was so much nostalgia and throwbacks in atmosphere and , graphics and music to the old games, that's what made me think last boss had to be K.Rool, but yeah, it just wasn't was this guy. PSYCHE
I think nostalgia and out of game appearances go a long way towards fleshing out K Rools chracter. All of these complaints could really work for him too in his DKC appearances
It's insane how it's been nearly 9 years since the last DK game considering how well every main series game has sold and how foundational the character is to the Nintendo brand.
Exactly the reason I was so bummed Nintendo did diddly squat for our big buddy DK’s 40th last year. All I want from Nintendo is a new DKC!!! 😭🙏 I feel like it’s years, every Nintendo Direct I’m like “maybe this’ll be the one 🤞🍌🦍” 😹
@@the.bloodless.one1312 A new DKC would be dope but I feel that more than anything DK desserves another shot at a 3D platformer.
@@the.bloodless.one1312They did that for Samus as well if I’m not mistaken
@@rynemcgriffin1752 Didn't Metroid get dread for their anniversary?
@@DeltaOdyssey I'm pretty skeptical whenever people claim a game gets made just for an anniversary cuz there are a hundred other higher priority considerations to be made before greenlighting a project. Plus all series have an anniversary every 5 years, so each sequel has a 1/5 chance of landing on one, it's just a common coincidence.
I remember so many theory before the game came out that the guy was just a decoy and K Rool was going to be the real final boss.
The problem with that is that any first time DK players would probably just end up scratching their heads.
They were gonna bring him back as a secret boss for the switch port actually.
@@braydengraves4655 That's not exactly a problem, Kirby games include all kinds of things that would leave first-time players scratching their heads. Whenever I've had a moment like that, it would make me curious and interested. Things like that can get people invested, especially if they liked the game enough to get to the end and see things like that.
@@pengo2418 really?! How would've it played out if it made it to the final game? Why was it scrapped?
I think its the lack of a distinct personality that really kills the guy in my eyes. I could stand the redundant moves and lackluster battle if the guy gave me a reason to care about him, but he's just kinda... there?
Like, imagine if he was the kind of character that only respects strength and wants to be the strongest, it's how he came to lead the Snowmads and its why he leads them to conquer surrounding islands. You could play with that throughout the fight, animate him as if he's not really trying, using DK more as an example to the Snowmads of what happens to those that challenge him. But as he gets injured as the fight progresses he gets into the fight, excited to have a proper rival, and at the end he goes a bit feral out of fear of losing his position. And when he IS defeated, don't have him blast off like Team Rocket, have him accept the loss with honor because strength is all he values, and now he's finally found someone who is stronger! Like, have him GIFT his horn to DK as a sign of respect, a "You beat me, you can have your island back and I'll leave." That'd be so much better, allow the character to grow into an antagonistic role separate from K. Rool, maybe even allow him to develop into a sort of competitive rival for DK in future installments.
References and homages aren't enough for anything, you gotta develop *some* kind of base to build off of first!
This is exactly the kind of personality I imagined him having, even down to giving Dk the horn at the end as a sign of respect. It’s like he can be so much more than just a generic end boss for TF.
I would’ve LOVED this
I would've greatly preferred that. There could've been a stinger hinting at K. Rool and the Kremlings coming back (maybe K. Rool pressganged the Snowmads and now he's taking matters into his own hands), and the next game could feature both the Kremlings and the Snowmads as antagonists (with the Kremlings being ruthless as ever while the Snowmads are more sympathetic and display redeeming traits).
**New Head-Canon unlocked!**
But he actually does have personality, though? Actually look at him and take note of how he literally cusses at the Kongs, man's slinging cusses in a family game and doesn't give a damn!
I was so convinced that the final boss of Tropical Freeze (or at least one of the phases) was going to be a fight against the big ice dragon that froze over DK Island. That expectation colored my impression of the final boss in a negative way...
There's your super-phase. Launch up into the sky, have a rocket-barrel segment dodging the dragon's attacks, then land on his back and give Frederik the business while the dragon careens around the previous islands. Each time you attack the big walrus, he gets more and more mad, hopping up and down on the dragon's back until it shatters, dumping you back into the volcano where Frederik gives DK his horn as a show of respect before leaving.
Yeees, the intro depicted the ice dragon as Fredrick's scary pet or something, something you will have to fight alongside him, but in battle, THAT ice dragon is really nowhere to be seen, while the smaller ones are just ammo, decorated cannonballs at best
But like, when you think about it though Fredrik didn't really fail in any specific way. If you go back to DKC, K.Rool's debut, he has a single appearance, which is his boss fight. K.Rool is a footnote in his debut game the same way Fredrik is, and even less of one with no intro cutscene where he explicitly steals the banana horde the same way Fredrik takes DK Isle and blasts the Kongs to the mangroves. Most of K.Rool's notoriety comes from his repeat appearances and the fact he's an established portion of DK's franchise. If anything, Fredrick's only failings were
1) being the antagonist during a time players were desperately hoping for the return of K.Rool
2) being a pretty clear homage to K.Rool both thematically and mechanically, begging the question why he wasn't just K.Rool
3) some pacing issues in the latter half of the game that make him feel like he comes out of nowhere despite the fact he doesn't. His boss fight also doesn't *feel* like a final boss which probably has to do with Tiki Tong influencing expectations
He did everything right and he's a letdown because of context.
Ehhhh even then I still think he's lacking a flourish. If you just take the original K. Rool fight into consideration, it's hard for the era (if pretty simplistic overall in a modern context), but then he has the Kredits jape. If you fall for it, you'll remember him forever. If you don't, it's still very funny and puts you in an awkward position. In the same time at Fredrik's fight, he just advances to his third phase, which is "likely kill you with lava geysers once and make you start the long fight over". It's the same effect as Kredits, but with none of the character, no sense that this is his last stand or a cheap shot. The pacing of the fight is just... off, both solely comparing it to DKC1 K. Rool and removing K. Rool from its context.
Don't forget, people also love DKC1 K. Rool because of the awesome song and because he's the finale of a great game. There's also the credits fakeout and how his design is so much more unique and memorable.
I'm glad that Lord Fredrik was his own original character instead of K. Rool in disguise, because that would have robbed the Snowmads of their identity.
But in the end, he does just end up feeling like a derivative of K. Rool, and that's kind of sad, because I really love the idea of DK having an ever expanding rogues gallery of villains.
K. Rool will always be his archnemesis, but I don't want that to be his only nemesis.
I like this take.
Mario fighting bowser gets so boring after a while and the same would be true of DK vs K. Rool after so long. I still want the kremlings back but I definitely agree with having DK fight multiple different villains and armies over the years to keep it fresh!
It also would have been weird to have a reptile in charge of a group of animals that thrive in low temperatures.
The problem is, Fredrick ISN'T his own character; he's mediocre walrus K. Rool.
A new nemesis needs to be distinct.
@@somejerk5662Retro Studios added Frederick to the game because Kensuke Tanabe forbade them from adding the Kremlings to the game
I don't think it robs the Snowmads of their identity, it just ties that identity to K. Rool's story and shows he has the cunning, charisma, and ability to rally an army even if he's banished from the Kremlings or something.
I mean it makes sense why K. Rool wasn’t the main bad guy in disguise, K. Rool is a crocodile and he wouldn’t want anything to do with the cold.
I see Fredrick and K. Rool as (Pardon the Pun) polar opposites of each of each other, K. Rool is loud over the top, awful to his Minions, and focuses his conquest squarely onto his grudge with the Kongs, Fredrick (from little screen time) is much more composed, focused, actually is possibly caring towards his minions (I mean he has generals compared to K. Rool being the only leader) and he has eyes on not just of DK isle, but other islands as well. I really wish they went into this idea, make him the “Anti K. Rool” without making him a hero, make him and the snowmads a true neutral force compared to the more black and white conflict the Kongs and Kremlings have, someone who looks for the best for his tribe, but doesn’t care about the others that he drives away.
Yea I think a lot about this monkey franchise sometimes. Join me on my next Ted talk on how Tiny should’ve been more than just Dixie Kong Lite.
You forget that K.Rool had his castle high atop his home island where it was constantly exposed to freezing winds (hence, the partially frozen castle and the ice-themed level or 2). Cold is no issue for him.
Regarding generals, I'm pretty sure K.Rool enlisted the help of non-Kremling species to act as such (Queen Zinger, Giant Necky, etc). Though his cruelty towards his own Kremlings is unquestionable.
This is an amazing idea.
@@ultraspinalki11 I just assume in DKC2 it’s area’s the Kremlings don’t really hang out a lot in, considering the rest of the island is pretty tropical, with swamps, Lava caverns, and jungles. As for the whole army thing, DK64 shows that two of the games bosses are absolutely terrified to confront K. Rool on their failures, heck Snide isn’t even a kremling and even he knows K. Rool’s a horrible boss.
now make a discord server for it :troll:
That's why he'd be wearing a fur coat!
Before seeing Fredrik in full and only seeing his sillohuette, I thought he was some sort of terrifying dark yeti or something due to the fur coat making it look like he actually had fun, a giant frost beast. Making him just a bigger version of a common enemy without many traits to differentiate himself like K. Rool had doesn't make him scary at all, it just makes him boring.
I think it would've been cool if the ice dragon from the latter two phases acted as a separate enemy. Rather than being a mere hazard to avoid for the few seconds one is on screen. Maybe it could even be a dual boss sort of thing, where you have to use their attacks against each other to defeat them.
Imagine: Fredrick Is in the background, and blows his horn to summon the Ice Dragon. It flies down onto the stage, and begins using its own version of attacks from previous bosses in the game. Meanwhile, Fredrick keeps doing what he did in phase 1, and then you have to juggle between 2 bosses for the next 2 phases. After you hit Fredrick with one of his penguins, he jumps back into the foreground. The dragon stands tall on one end of the stage, and Fredrick stands strong on the other, with DK stuck in the middle. Fredrick uses his charging attack, and you choose not to jump on him, which causes him to barrel uninterrupted right into the dragon. The dragon jumps into the background and begins charging an ice beam. It will then try to hit where you're about to go, and you have to trick it into leading its shots into hitting Fredrick, freezing him in place, and allowing you to get a few free jumps on him, or push him into the lava for extra damage. It's likely all of their attacks could be used to counter each other like this. As you beat them, their attack patterns get quicker and more erratic, with the Dragon showing visible cracks all over. If you beat the Dragon first, then it will explode into a bunch of ice along with Fredrick's horn, and he becomes almost a joke boss without its power. If you beat Fredrick first, then the Dragon steals the horn and flies away, no longer attacking the Kongs now that they've freed it.
This idea is coming from someone who did not play the game, so so sorry if it wouldn't make sense in its context.
That is so good I wish they could have done that
My head cannon is he was meant to be K. Rool at some point, but Retro realized that a cold blooded reptile that couldn't survive in arctic conditions being charge of the artic themed villans didn't make very much sense
Screw that logic, its ice magic! They coulda made it work, its a video game about animals with human-like intelligence and a gorilla that punches the moon out of orbit just to shrek some supernatural tiki spirits. Makes me sad they didn't have K. Rool come back. It would have been perfect if done properly. :(
The little tip toe dance he does is pretty funny though.
@@Chadmiral I knew I wasn't hallucinating lmao
This raises a question for Lord Fredrik. "When most of what you're known for is just copying someone else, then what's so special about YOU?" If he had been given more unique attacks and maybe a cutscene or two mid-game to help flesh him out more, he might have done a little better for himself. As it stands though, despite being the leader of the Snowmads, he doesn't really do anything to earn that title when compared to others from his group, or even previous villains from the DK series.
I wouldn’t be shocked if Fredrick being K.Rool in disguise was the initial plan, their body types are near identical, but Nintendo’s then hesitance on anything Kremling related got in the way.
The devs were never really forbidden from using the Kremlings I think, in an interview they said Nintendo just gave them the freedom to create brand new enemies for the Kongs, which lead to the creation of the Tiki Tak Tribe and the Snowmads
@@dustymcwari4468 Miyamoto and Tanabe said "make sure there are no crocodiles in there" (their words from an interview). They literally put a ban on Kremlings and meddled with things just like they did with Paper Mario.
@@KingdomHeartsBrawler okay I found it, and yeah you’re correct, he did say it along the line of wanting everything brand new
Though times have changed, that obsession to streamline all series is fortunately fading more and more, K. Rool’s name is even in Odyssey along with the Kong’s, and the ballot proved people REALLY love K. Rool and want him back along with the kremlings, so hopefully they return on the next DKC game
What if Fredrik was a fake-out boss? You beat him, the Kongs start to celebrate and suddenly the dragon flies in to be the real final boss.
That would be so awesome and unexpected
So like, Fredrik would fly off, and then the dragon would show up trying to blow them away again, but say this time, DK/other characters would be able to do something.
@@mamboo0743 not really unexpected, the intro pointed at the existence of some massive dragon, so it would be like "aren't u forgetting something?"
Should've been Eddy the Yeti
Whenever Donkey Kong next graces us with a game, I would be very, very surprised to see Lord Frederik return. I expect he'll retire, but I'll always wonder what would have happened if he got as many chances as K. Rool or others. So many of these Nintendo series give us the same big bads when there's room for more to play and be developed. What would happen if Frederik got to be refined and redeployed for a new adventure? What if Link faced off with Vaati as often as Ganon? What if Wart jumped in for another round against Mario? I love our classic villains, but I'd love to see new blood get a chance too and not be tossed aside because their first attempt didn't shine as bright as our old favorites.
Oh, I absolutely agree with you. I think the kirby series is pretty good with this for the most part, like having kabula show up in robobot, or paintra in triple deluxe, but those aren't the most common occurences, and it's not like the friends other than the 4 from return to dreamland get that many chances in the spotlight outside of big anniversary games.
Though the problem with Fredrick isn't that he isn't K. Rool, but the fact he tries too much to be like K. Rool for no reason, with not much stuff of his own besides adding extra things and ice to K. Rool's attacks
He shows a lot of premise to be a brand new dangerous foe with mighty powers the Kongs have never faced before during the intro of the game, but his fight just ends up being Lord K. Roolfrick
Though it would be cool that there was a connection between the two, they’re super alike, maybe they fought before, and there’s where Fredrick learned the K. Rool style or something xd
Would love for the Tiki Tak Tribe to show up again; they were great!
@@dustymcwari4468I think part of the point is that if Lord Fredrik was in more game then he wouldn't be just K Rool's replacement while he's in Smash Bros, he could end up having much more character
@@ocarinatales1331 hopefully he does, at least if they continue refusing to add the Kremlings, because as it is, Fredrick just feels like K. Rool at home
The ice dragon he used to cover the island in snow and ice was so cool, for them to only use baby versions of said dragons that were just reskinned cannonballs in the actual battle, that was disappointing as heck x,d
I thought Lord Fredrick was awesome in design. And climbing your way up a frozen DK Island and seeing what it looks like compared to Returns was awesome. I had this intense feeling of wanting revenge because at that point Returns was the only DKC game I’ve ever beaten and so far everything about TF just blew returns out of the water. I felt like I was taking back my island and seeing the island I learned to love in Returns destroyed really set up a grand mood for a fantastic finale!
Then I got to Fredrick. It was just as imposing as I thought he would be. His design giving this feeling of a major threat. That if the Kongs don’t win here then there was no way the island will be restored. Then the fight started. And I was immediately disappointed. At this point I have never done a K. Rool fight except for DK64 so I didn’t make any comparisons to the Krock king, but I didn’t make comparisons to extremely generic boss fights. Fredrick didn’t feel like epic send off to the end of a more than worthy game. He felt like he could’ve been a boss in a world 4 or 5. Like something close to the end but not quite there. It was just extremely disappointing and I hope the next DKC, if it happens, does a way better job for the final boss.
While I do understand all of your points in regards to Fredrik, in terms of the boss fight itself, it’s honestly a bit better to see what a video called “Every Donkey Kong Boss Ranked From Worst to Best” by “Villainous Warlord” to see some counter arguments for this, as I myself am not gonna say it in one comment.
Honestly I loved Fredrik. I never even noticed that his attacks were inspired by K Rool's previous boss fights.
To me, Fredrik's boss fight was easily the toughest boss in the entire game, and it took me forever to beat him when I first played the game.
He didn't pull anything fancy like the other characters, yet his boss was still the most difficult for me.
Now I'm sure other people didn't struggle as much as me, but it helped paint him as this foreboding, tough-as-nails leader of the snowmads.
You get to that intro cutscene and you find yourself in the heart of the Snowmad's new home base, and what do you find? Not some dramatic evildoer, or hulking behemoth. You just find this huge intimidating walrus. And he proves himself as leader of the Snowmads by putting up a terrifying fight over deadly lava.
He never needed to have a big personality to me. Because he was just the intimidating leader who does what he needs to do, and beats down anyone who opposes him. He takes pride in doing evil and sits back and enjoys the spoils of his efforts. Caring about nothing but the conquest of the snowmads. Terrorizing and destroying DK Island by plunging it into a frigid winter that causes everything to crumble.
The intimidation of Fredrik is the total hellscape that he turned DK Island into.
And I think that's awesome. And when I finally beat that boss fight, even though it was anticlimactic, I really felt that punch that launched him through the Viking ship. I laughed at his screams in terror as he got his work torn to shreds by Donkey Kong. And felt relieved when he smashed into the water, destroying an entire fleet of his ships.
Yeah it's a bit of a shame he didn't have more unique moves, but I enjoyed him despite his simplistic personality.
Same kind of experience, I remember him because he was so simple and…for lack of a better word, boring. He isn’t a Brutish baffoon like bowser, or an insane loon like k rool, he’s just a conqueror who will simply wipe out anyone in his path
Granted even that description felt a bit of an exaggeration, but still
It's interesting to see this kind of take, because I always thought Lord Fredrik's fight being a giant homage to all the K. Rool fights was such a cool thing to experience. Even if it wasn't too difficult, I really enjoyed the call backs
I like Fredrick and the Snowmads, I do, but I think they’re cursed with always being in the Kremling’s shadow. Donkey Kong doesn’t get mainline games often enough to play around with new enemies more than one or two games in a row without people wondering where the Kremlings went, so no matter how much potential a foe like the Snowmads could have for the series, people will always compare them harshly with their crocodilian counterparts.
Yeah, agreed. Fredrik is great. But he suffered because fans wanted Rool too much from him being absent for a long time after all.
Shake King fared better than this guy.
If Lord Fredrik was listed as an SSB leak people would undoubteldy ask if he's from Fire Emblem.
Nintendo fans would think a final fantasy character is from fire emblem
@@Limit02 Unless they're from 7, the iconic pair who made it in.
The Shake King is very much Wario from the past, the whole fight is a huge callback to Super Mario Land 2, from the fact he's an usurper, you need to collect medals to unlock his lair, how he starts at his throne laughing, how he's very much a huge more twisted Wario like how Wario himself is to Mario, he's got a fireball attack, the bouncing volt attack is very reminiscent of the Wario balls at Wario's Castle, and how the final phase has him being able to hover in the air, the battle takes place in multiple rooms, and while Wario didn't use magic in his SML fight, he used to display some magical powers in his earlier appearances, all while also adding other stuff to further reflect Wario like the head charge he got in later games, the shake punch, the ability to steal your money by violently shaking you, and his viking helmet is very reminicent to the Bull Helmet from the first Wario Land
It's a fight of antihero Wario vs villain Wario
i honestly think they should've just made Fredrik way bigger than he was, make him Loom over the kongs even more, make him bigger than the rest of the bosses. he would've been a lot more intimidating making you feel like your just barely dodging his attacks
Kind of semi-tangentially related to your point, but I always felt like Tropical Freeze should have done the thing Returns does and end each boss fight with a short cutscene, followed by you having to run up to the defeated boss to deliver the final beatdown. I kinda get why they got rid of that, since in Returns that was done to establish the tiki being forced out of the boss they were controlling and to give you a chance to finish things off by beating them up instead (while Tropical Freeze's bosses weren't being controlled by anything in the first place), but transitioning instantaneously from the final hit to the final beatdown in Tropical Freeze always felt super awkward and abrupt to me. Would have definitely given them a bit more of a chance to flesh out Fredrik's character at the very least.
Personally, I think Bashmaster should’ve been the leader of the Snowmads instead of Lord Fredrik. He had an overall cooler design and… well he's a friggen polar bear with a spiked mallet, you tell me that isn’t the coolest design for a boss you’ve seen.
And it would make more sense since polar bears are among the most popular Arctic animals
I hate this guys fight. Him dodging your throws is frustrating and the tiny hitbox on his head means the fight can drag on for several minutes and god forbid you die in the last phase going through it all again
It’s the final
Boss, what do you expect? I feel you too, it looks easy but when you’re actually playing it it’s just as hard as K Rool
@@alexc8726 true but it isn't fun at all really. Probably the least fun out of all tropical freezes bosses except for maybe puffer fish imo
@@mrpiranhas5405 you got a point. Of all the bosses the Pufferfish was the hardest one probably. The final boss was hard but not too hard.
The Snowmads could get their own spin-off. Either have them go the way of Wario and semi-redeem them into fun anti-heroes, or they could even be interesting Villain Protagonists.
Man, a Strategy RPG with them could be interesting.
I would pay for that.
Good ideas all around.
I mean, the way I saw it, Lord Frederick being so similar to K. Rool was maybe a sign that Retro was building up towards his return. Hell, they apparently wanted to add him as a secret boss in the Switch port (with Nintendo saying "no," because they were gonna put him in Smash Bros.). But now, Retro is working on Metroid again, and Donkey Kong is now back in-house at Nintendo EPD. If the Retro series were to continue, I'd have been certain that K. Rool was a no-brainer for the next game. But with the new team in charge of the Donkey Kong brand, I'm back to just hoping for the Kremlings to return
Well at the very least, the era before Returns was more kind to the Kremlings to the point they made brand new characters in Barrel Blast and I'm sure the smash demand for K Rool and his eventual inclusion wouldn't slow that down. If Retro isn't in charge of the next DK (not that i don't want them to do it), I think K Rool and Kremlings chances are high. Hopefully the Barrel Blast original Kremlings can make their mai series debuts too, to show off the rivalries with Kongs outside a racing format, actually show off the more of their personalities and roles in K Rool's army (like Kalypso is very strong, athletic and a Big Sis leader type to the Kremlings while also owning their favorite hangout spot in night club for example), and by extension give even more unique interactions for the Kongs as well. Of course K Rool will be back with his loveable self too and be the star. But let's hope a new DK gets brought to light soon in the first place lol
@@MagillanicaLouM I absolutely love that idea, and I think Kludge specifically could be a great inclusion going forward, but we also have to keep in mind that the most predictable thing about Nintendo is their unpredictability
@@blusterkong1996 yeah it'd be great to see them all. And right, who can ever truly know with Nintendo but here's hoping
@@blusterkong1996 I like Kludge a lot. That design LOOKS like a boss character. It would be a shame for it to be wasted on what is essentially a “Waluigi position” (and unlike the Mario series, we don’t have the luxury of multiple spin-offs to the point we barely get to see main characters).
They wanted to added K. Rool as a bonus boss? Source?
I will say that in defense of him being shrouded in mystery for seemingly no reason, I remember back in the old Super Nintendo manuals for DKC 1 and 2, both King K. Rool and Kaptain K. Rool were only black silhouettes to add some mystique to the final boss. To me it felt like it was bringing back that energy
I personally agree with your takes on Lord Fredrik's boss fight, when i first played through Donkey Kong County Tropical Freeze i was loving every second of it, but when I fought Lord Fredirk all i had to say was “that's all? All of the other bosses had fun personallys, great attacks that keeps me on my toes while being fun as heck to dodge, etc, all of this build up for this?”
I still think that DKCTF is still amazing but i wished it could’ve gone down in a huge bang after all that buildup.
Side note: i hope you could make a video on the Tiki's from Donkey Kong Country Returns, not trying to say this in a demanding way, just think that it would be interesting to talk about sadly underwhelming bad guys of the DKCR.
Would have been cool if they said Fredrick was following in K Rools footsteps to take down DK
K Rool should've been available in a similar vein to DKC2's Lost World boss. A post-Frederick true puppet-master villain at the end of a gauntlet of levels that are only accessible once certain criteria are met.
I'm gonna be honest, I prefer Tiki Tong over this guy. The cutscenes involving him before and after certainly stuck out in my mind way more then anything this guy did.
This is a very fair review. I didn't even noticed those were K. Rool patterns (well, I have only played Returns and TF, so haha), but you do bring a good point with him having little screentime (that's what he probably needed the most, really.). Still, I appreciate seeing videos about TF, it still feels the game is madly undertalked!
He should’ve been a yeti or maybe a woolly mammoth
The snowmad are polar animals, so no himalayan yeti or ice age wooly mammoth.
Naw, a Walrus really suits him well. I think a Mammoth would fit better as a Snowmad tank of sorts
@@victzegopterix2I believe he's talking about the snow esthetic with the Snowmads, but I get your point either way.
I personally think its kinda bizarre having the final battle of an ice themed game be battled in a lava-filled room. Like, in general the whole lava arena thing is way overdone... but it also thematically makes no sense. Why would the ice-themed arctic villain set up base over a volcanic lava cauldron? Wouldn't freezing cold ice water make more sense?
They could’ve at least done so many cool things with his ice horn. Give himself Dragon wings, have dragon claws strike at, and manipulate the platforms. In fact why stop at just Dragons? Have him recreate ice versions of the other bosses, and command them to attack along with him
If this dude was a mammoth with cut tusks that’d be way cooler than a walrus
Nintendo basically has this weird double standard when it comes to characters. Yoshi's Island is only allowed to have infant Bowser as the main antagonist, and no one else… but when asked about the Kremlings for DKC, they clam up and say "haha do we really need them for DKC?" It's weird and kinda hypocritical.
That being said, I like Lord Fredrik. I'm of Scandinavian origin, so I actually love the design of Fredrik and the Snowmads. Do I wish more was done and find the confrontation with him a bit underwhelming? Absolutely! I think he just needs to be given more chances rather than just being tossed aside.
Also, he reminds me of the walrus boss from Diddy Kong Racing. :x
So essentualy Retro couldnt end with them getting out of the Massive Shadow that Rare casted there is a darn good reason why he's (and subsequently Banjo-Kazooie) in smash and not Fredrik
Despite Tiki Tong being easier than Fredrik, for me It's sill was way exciting to fight Tiki Tong.
Tiki Tong is "i'm super evil" just like Fredrik, however:
- He fools the player in one of his attacks. (sadly doesn't take advantage to do harder attack, but whatever).
- He twists the battle in second phase, unlike Fredrik.
- There's even epic cutscene in the beggining of the fight and before that you have to use rocket barrel to reach baddie's lair.
Yeah! And he's foreshadowed through the main Tikis much like how K. Rool was with his kremlings in the first DKC game.
The Kremlings showing off K. Rool's abilities and the Tikis using his boss theme.
Except Tiki Tong is yet again just a head and hands
I played Tropical Freeze before the originals so it stuck in my mind like a really cool antagonist and boss fight instead of a re elaboration of old concepts.
I guess that technically means Tropical Freeze was meant for new players entirely?
He's the definition of what mom thinks about when you ask her to see K. Rool before telling you we have K. Rool at home. He could've been so much more than almost 100% a K. Rool wannabe
I wish Bashmaster was the final boss in Tropical Freeze, because it will make sense that that popsicle incident with Kongs will make him think he conquer DK Isle just to make factory.
But then again, it was the Kongs fault for making him drop it to begin with.
I honestly couldn’t agree more as much as I do enjoy his boss fight. I’m curious to see what your thoughts on Tiki Tong from DKC Returns are though.
If you ask me, it’s similar to Fredrick. The tikis are cool, it was fun to learn why they took the bananas.
But Tiki Tong’s boss fight straight up sucked.
I always loved the Tikis. There was never a human/animal tribe backing or worshipping the Tikis...The Tikis WERE the tribe!
It was also really cool to see instruments possess animals around the island, giving personality to every Tiki even though the fights are technically against cartoonish animals.
Tiki Tong especially blew me away as a kid. You can say "it should've been K. Rool," but a fight against a completely overconfident ruler who, in his vanity, decided that ALL of his best minions were worth getting a pair of wooden hands? I think that's pretty cool!
...Also hope they bring back Tiki Tong and the Tiki Take Tribe as the Wario gang of Donkey Kong. Imagine Tiki Tong getting his own games!
@@pepperonipizza8200 yeah, the tikis were dope with the whole music instrument theme and their ability to control various creatures with their music, too bad the final boss is just another floating head big hands boss with no much else going on
This video made me wonder how the Tiki God and his minions from DKCR would stack up as a boss fight. I remember it being hard as a kid but I never really thought it was that interesting.. although that could be my fuzzy memory.
TBH, all they really needed to do with him was to just make him _look_ more intimidating. The Kong boss fights from Jungle Beat have less weight from a story perspective, but are all much more memorable due to how scary they are (and you beating the tar out of them too). Maybe give Freddy the glowing eyes the entire time, give him some viking-themed tattoos, have him be noticeably ripped in spite of his shape akin to Wario, make his walrus tusks longer and sharper, give him another weapon besides his horn (maybe some cool berserker short swords), even just give him a meaner looking helmet. Or they could design the final fight to have him just lurking in the shadows the entire time, and you need to manipulate the environment or attack him in the background, only for the final hit to bring him into the light and it turns out it's like a Lord Farquaad or Wizard of Oz situation where he's just very unthreatening and they play it as a joke.
We do not tolerate DKC1 K.rool slander here. That boss fight is legendary, I can't believe you described it as "less than stellar"
I think it’s kinda funny how the music during his fight is so loud that you can barely even hear him blowing into his horn
I wish he was K Rool for the pun of Vi-King K Rool
OK, but can we talk about the power flex of Lord Fredrik setting up his domain on the crater of a volcano? Man's so alpha, he took dominance over the polar (haha) opposite of his main element, and that nerve alone (as well as the magical power to create and control ice dragons) makes me love him as a big bad. Oh, and have you SEEN the silly little jigs he rarely pulls off if you miss your shot at throwing an enemy at him? He's clearly trying to make DK and friends look even more like monkeys than they already are!
As a boss, I do wish there was more to Fredrik's fight though, because on its own, it still feels like it's building up to something. Remember how Tiki Tong had us ride a rocket barrel to reach him? *What if the reverse happens with Fredrik, where after the initial fight, Fredrik has had enough and summons the giant ice dragon from the opening of the game to ride upon, so we'd have to shoot him down while we ride on, thanks to Funky Kong's help probably, a newly-weaponized rocket barrel.* That'd be a pretty cool climax to the battle, I think! Having the final battle be an upgrade to a previously familiar gameplay style which now allows us to fight back, especially after how hard all those previous rocket barrels were before!
Also, anyone else find it interesting that the Snowmads recognize DK by his hut? Almost as if DK's accomplishments travel fast across the sea, and the Snowmads didn't want to take chances against DK and co when they were out colonizing and conquering... that or someone sent for Fredrik to defeat him...
I feel what ruins the Snowmads... is the missed opportunity for lore expansion: so DK Isle originally had a snowy mountain now replaced with a volcano in which the Tiki Tribe was sealed until DKCR happend. What if the Snowmads trapped them in there? Since it's a volcanic island, they must return every now and then to keep them sealed under the ice. But, of course, the Tiki aren't the only inhabitants of DK Isle, the Kongs are also, and the Snowmads have peculiar reactions to them (see how the Penguin sees their hut and he gasp in horror): what if this wasn't their first battle against them, what if a young Cranky stopped them from "invading" the island, interrupting this seal ritual and later provoking the events of DKCR? Or even a small thing like Fredrik reacting to DK like he remembers him until he notice Cranky and he's like "Oh, so you DID get old, I thought it was strange". This clearly isn't their first visit to DK Isle and IT SHOWS but nothing more.
4:15 Was not expecting a yu-gi-oh Ice Barrier reference. Nice!
I really do love Lord Fredrik. Although he, let alone any character, will never replace K. Rool in my heart, I do think Lord Fredrik has the potential to be one of the best Nintendo villains.
Was his boss fight a letdown? I loved it, but I can understand why others might feel disappointed.
I would love to see a sequel to Tropical Freeze that goes more into fleshing out Lord Fredrik as a greedy viking that takes what he wants when he wants. This is a weird comparison, but I feel like if we got to know more of Lord Fredrik, he'd be like if Garfield was a conqueror. In my headcanon, Fredrik is a grumpy, relaxed, smug warrior. He could be a bit similar to Soda Popinski in that way. As someone who is Nordic, the idea of a Viking Villain in one of my all-time favorite franchises really excites me. Lord Fredrik deserves to get another chance at becoming one of the GOAT Nintendo Villains. I love the Snowmads in general, they're such a unique spin on typical baddies.
That's what I really hope for Fredrik, too - it's wide open what you can do with him, how you can characterize him. Does he lean on his strength and sloth and reliance on the ice dragon, or is he a prideful but ultimately noble competitor? I don't decry Fredrik to say NAH NEVER BRING HIM BACK, K ROOL ONLY, but to lament that his first outing lacks the oomph that any of K Rool's country performances had from a character perspective in game. They could give him a GREAT fight if they use him again, but this one's just too close to the king for me to really get anything out of it that I don't get more from, say, Bashmaster or Skowl.
I'm still upset the final boss wasn't a yeti... He should have been a yeti...
The "but draaaayyyyygons" line has lived rent-free in my head for several months now. 😂Also the name "Trishula" sounds like something a Yiddish grandmother would call their granddaughter.
You know what was missing? IF this was a K. Rool fight, you just know that all of his attacks being from the previous Country games meant that by the time you've reached where the Lord Fredrik fight ended, it would have been a fake out as you entered the final phase with *NEW* attacks!
What I'm getting at is, Lord Fredrik's fight ends a phase too early,.. I mean they had that *BIG* Ice Dragon freezing the Island only to degrade it to a lowly small projectile?! Just imagine if there was a final phase that has you fight the B I G Ice Dragon that froze DK Island from the beginning, using parts of attacks from the other bosses but at the logical next level of difficulty, using what you have learned from over the course of the game at its climax!
Lord Fredrik unfortunately feels either being one phase too short, or as if he should've been the 'final boss' before the *actual* final boss!
I love Lord Fredrick and his Snowmad boss's designs, but I can't deny that his design and the plot is a bit too similar to K. Rool's usual schtick.
Lord Fredrick's moves could be made MUCH more unique, such as:
- His Iceball Hail attack could have variants where they come in from the sides and drop in the same places, but are slightly harder to dodge,
- His Frigid Stomp attack could have sank the arena's fragments for longer,
- His Dragon Horn attack could have instead swept across the arena before making the ground slippery (and could have had a lava variant where 3 of them make 3 fragments hot),
- And his other variant of the Dragon Horn attack (where he's on the same plane as you) could have been similar to Bashmaster, where you could hop on them to reach something that'd damage Fredrick.
Simple (or maybe Advanced) changes like that wouldn't have affected his moves too much, but possibly would've differed them despite the resemblance of K. Rool's attacks.
Love the Magman reference. Also, good job on finding more ways to talk about K. Rool, LOL.
I thought he was ok, but we've been long overdue for a Kremling return
Then again we've been long overdue for a new Donkey Kong game
00:23 You didn't have to call me out like that lol
I thought that he was gonna be a yeti when I first saw that silhouette and I'm still disappointed that's not what they did with him.
As more of a Mario guy I don't get the hate. Some of the best Mario games are spin-offs that take a break from Bowser. Granted the DKC one-off villains aren't as interesting as say Cackleta, Count Bleck or Smithy but they aren't bad enough to justify the hatred they get. I would rather get a string of new guys than have K.Rool ground to dust by being the status quo villain.
I love Lord Fredrik, personally. I'm as big of a fan of King K. Rool as they can come. But he's a serious step up from Tiki Tong, who I found to be generic and bland as hell.
Fredrik was a great compromise. New yet familiar. I hope to see K. Rool return to DK as well, but Fredrik offered his own uniqueness. For instance, you associate villains with darkness or fire. Fredrik was snow/ice with a white cape. I loved the ice dragon-summoning, weather-changing horn. It's a cool weapon that's different enough from K. Rool's blunderbuss.
I feel Fredrik also does "throwing his weight around" better than K. Rool does. He's more obese, and thus fits the heavyweight bruiser type better, IMO. K. Rool is more like a tank. While I love K. Rool, I hope we haven't seen the last of Lord Fredrik. He's the reason I'm interested in walruses in general, too.
If they keep making DK spinoffs one day, I want to see Fredrik in them. Alongside K. Rool.
Frederick sort of gave me an elemental warlock kind of personality. Have him be threatening the world with eternal cold as he cannot stand the heat and the fight in the volcano dome as an ultimate sign of his dominating hubris. As the fight goes on and the heat of the lava weakens him (have him fall into the lava like bashmaster fell into the punch, a great parallel as bashmaster is roughly the second in command for the snomads) you get to see a villain desperate for power and conquest through ice and snow, the reason the snomads exist, to find a home they can dwell. hence an entire island being used to make frozen fruit popsicles. Gotta keep cool and keep the scurvy away
Since fans still want Dedede boss fights and the whole mind control thing is done to death(and I don't want Dedede to be bad again), there should be a character like this to fill that role.
I think Lord Fredrick, if he isn’t King K. Rool in disguise, should’ve been a yeti or a woolly mammoth
Lord fredrick fails the squint test when put sislde by side with K. Rool
As someone who only played the newer Country games, until recently anyways, I did feel underwhelmed with the boss in premise. It brings itself up with difficulty (as I felt anyhow. I was fairly young when I got the game) and it's cool premise of ice attacks in a volcano. It's a cool boss, but I think he should have been like a jock, trying to rival DK in strength, and gloating every time he seemingly shows he is.
Freddy's design is just plain boring too. He just looks like another one of the basic Walrus goons. Same build, same coloration, same overall aesthetic. He's not even as interesting due to his blank eyes keeping him from being very expressive. K. Rool may be an obese alligator like some of his krew, but you'd never get him konfused with Klump. He's got too much visual flair, too much style, too much raw, dramatic stage presence that dominates every scene he's in.
You should do a design for about certain weird episodes and songs in dkc. Like Nobodys hero.
The pufferfish edit made me laugh harder than it should have for some reason.
He Even Gets Launched Similarly to how K. Rool Gets Launched off of the Island in DK64. Only, This Time, He Gets Beat Up before he gets sent flying into water. After K. Rool gets Sent flying, He lands somewhere to get beat up for a while before getting Thrown again.
Gotta say, the editing on this one is *fantastic!* I didn't know how good this game was, but I'll have to try it sometime 😁
6:50-6:56
This man really just used audio from PlayStation All-Stars.
That does it. He’s in the Top 10 Creators of the Year for me.
Freddy felt more like a world boss than a final boss, but…
Volcano Dome is a mad underrated theme and is definitely final boss tier
I don't really mind that this guy isn't K.Rool. I think the main thing that kills this boss for me is just the amount of time he wastes, especially once you get to phase 2 and 3 of the fight. Unless you perfectly hit him 3 times during his charge attack, you have to go through all of his other attacks before you get another shot. You have to wait for him to do his jumps, wait for him to shoot his ice dragons, wait for him to shoot his penguin balls, wait for him to stand still so you can hit him. There's just so much waiting that is incredibly difficult, if not impossible to cut short. And most attacks aren't incredibly engaging either.
Honestly, the final boss was a letdown. I was expecting something a little more grand (and intuitive), but we got… well, you know. His reveal wasn’t that grand, there was no surprise about it, he’s exactly what you’re expecting him to be, so showing him in shadow at the beginning of the game was pretty much pointless. Also, I was especially expecting Fredrik to use the ice dragon horn much more in the final boss than he actually did, merely covering the floor in ice with descending ice dragons. Pretty lame, using what’s probably your ultimate weapon just to bring about annoying game mechanics.
Hey mom can we have King K. Rool?
Mom: We have King K. Rool at home.
King K. Rool at home:
Great analysis video!
One way I think Lord Frederick failed as a final boss is his lack of expression. That kind of happens when you have eyes like that. Maybe they should have gave him normal eyes like the polar bear boss. Frederick also has a lack of character too.
I think Fredrik could have been cool if he triggered a Kong-Kremling team up. Maybe not playing as K.Rool, but a continuous presence in the game to have a sort shaky alliance with DK, filled with witty back and forth between Rool and Kranky. It would hype up Fredrik too, this guy so powerful he kicks out the old final boss! That’s cool! And maybe you could finish with a snazzy cutscene of DK and K.Rool uppercutting Fredrik off of THEIR island
I wonder why this video used the intro, but not the rest
Length, mostly. I consider these pretty standard Designing For episodes out of the context of DK December, whereas a lot of the others I feel need the context of the month to really shine and stand out.
I feel like Fredrik, along with the Snowmads in general were an attempt on Nintendo's part to fully replace the Kremlings in the series. Given that both the Retro DKC titles had a distinct lack of them I think Nintendo wanted to remove any semblance of the Kremlings as they were entirely Rare's creation, unfortunately they had become so essential to the series that replacing them with a bunch of random tikis didn't fly so the next best option was retooling them from crocodilian pirates to Arctic animal vikings. I don't think it's any coincidence that Fredrik is just walrus K. Rool and honestly, from a marketing perspective I get it! The problem is that, to quote Rare on their decision to put the Kremlings into Donkey Kong Country in the first place, they just fit! They are a great parallel to the Kongs and gamers (particularly Americans) get very attached and sentimental towards things, especially if it's nostalgic. Given K. Rool's return in Smash Bros. though, I'm curious if Nintendo has dropped the desire to replace the Kremlings entirely and opted to bring them back... Though I won't hold my breath.
I appreciate your alliteration in the title, it's a shame that we didn't get k rool which is something that would been interesting.
The more I think about it, Bashmaster should have been the final boss, with a few of Fredrick’s cool attacks, like the mega ground pound, and Fredrick could have been the world 5 boss minus the snowman summoning.
Ngl, I actually wanna see Wizpig come back. I mean, think about it:
•You could have another collab with Rare and bring back characters (albeit with them, probably aged up and/or missing from the cast, but can still help in other ways)
• This can also be a play around with some game mechanics, like having to do both 2D AND 3D kart races (if that's even possible, if they can do it, then that would be amazing), the choice between the kart, hovercraft, and plane, along with some newer options (I have no idea what they would be, but probably also the barrel blast mechanic as well)
•Oh idk, HAVE THE ANIMAL BUDDIES AND OTHER KONGS RETURN????? Rant(?) aside, I would actually like to see the concepts of the animal buddies be worked into the game because we were absolutely robbed of them here.
I feel like everyone hates on Lord Fredrik too much. He really isn’t a bad character, he was just a consequence of everyone longing for K. Rool’s return after a long absence, alongside a lack of buildup throughout the game. In my opinion, he is wonderfully characterized in his boss fight as a fatass who really throws his weight around in a way K. Rool never did (except for in Smash for some reason)
Yeah. Which makes him unique in my eyes. He's even fatter than K. Rool and uses it. I like how he blocks you with his gut if you roll into him lol.
K. Rool is obese too but it was never a recurring theme with him.
Great to see Trishula in a somewhat unexpected place, but it's missing its iconic theme music.
*DOO DO DO DOOO
The walrus from Alice in Wonderland that you used jokingly is one of the most terrifying characters from any Disney film, much more disturbing of a character than either K.Rool or Fredrik.
Personally, I wasn’t expecting K. Rool. I’d find it weird for them to create and design all of these snowmads, give them their own style and character designs, their own bosses, just for it to be K. Rool in the end. That, in my opinion, wouldn’t have worked, and would’ve felt very out of the blue.
People just hate Fredrik because of how obsessed they were with getting K. Rool to return/come into Smash at the time. If K. Rool was the villain of returns nobody would bat an eye, and if he was the character featured in the boss battle with no changes, none of these sensationalist videos dunking on the fight would exist and the boss would be universally praised.
I do appreciate that designing for at least went more in depth with this than the usual people who just got angry that it's a fat animal king who isn't K. Rool, at least. I feel like the only person who put out a video praising him.
It’d be cool if we see K. Rool return and he’d enslave the Tiki Tak Tribe and Snowmads possibly with Frederik teaming up with the Kongs.
I do really like this idea, I feel it would be interesting to have Fredrick be a more neutral force, but will do whatever it takes to save his tribe, even putting aside his animosity with the Kongs just to save the other snowmads.
You know I like this idea better than the obligatory “team up with your main rival to stop a bigger threat” that everyone does. Fredrik having a sympathetic edge would be something that would differentiate him from being just K. Rool but a walrus.
To be honest Lord Fredrick is my 4th favorite boss in every video games ever
I'm surprised nobody's modded the game to replace Lord Frederik with Viking King K. Rool.
The thing that bugs me the most about Fredrik is how he almost feels upstaged by his own goons; the rest of the game's bosses show way more personality than he does. To Retro's credit, though, the penultimate boss is a giant hammer-wielding polar bear named Bashmaster who seemingly only fights us because we messed with his popsicle; *you* try surpassing a winning concept like that.
The best outcome should have been: you defeat Fredrik and dispell the ice on DK Island, but while that happens, something else does. Basically, if K. Rool was captured by Fredrik in an ice block and beating him frees the Kremlin, having now to fight a pissed K. Rool on a defrosting DK Island.
"A horribly insecure villain"
Same
Lord Frederick was a good boss, but I wish he had more personality than what we have
I still don't understand why they bothered with this in the first place, it had to be flat out stubbornness to insist on making original baddies after the Tikis flopped. Yeah the Snowmads were a lot more like the Kremlings but the fact that they had to mimic the Kremlings to make more memorable baddies should tell them something. Don't fix what aint broken.
I like K Rool and the kremlings too but people just like to nitpick the tikis and the snowmads to death for not being them. That comparison section made me roll my eyes into the back of my skull lmao
Literally most people like the snowmads, dude. Even if they were just the kremlings: arctic edition
The Tikis were boring and lacked personality. The snowmads were cool (no pun intended). But I still don’t like Fredrick
there was so much nostalgia and throwbacks in atmosphere and , graphics and music to the old games, that's what made me think last boss had to be K.Rool, but yeah, it just wasn't was this guy. PSYCHE
I think nostalgia and out of game appearances go a long way towards fleshing out K Rools chracter. All of these complaints could really work for him too in his DKC appearances