With 11 days left to go until the release of Donkey Kong Country Returns in the US, we got a bit of media overload with two new videos from Gametrailers and Nintendo’s official Japanese Returns site.

First, Gametrailers, with a YouTube link to make viewing easier:

-It looks like the spirit of the bramble levels from Donkey Kong Country 2 live on, even for a little bit, in one of the temple levels.
-The factory silhouette levels have electric drones hopping around.
-Donkey Kong is riding through these fire creatures flying around in circular motions.
-One of the levels is named “King of Cling” (three guesses after what DKU game it’s named after), which is really cool of Retro to do.
-The map is a bit familiar to the maps in New Super Mario Bros. and its Wii sequel by way of red and blue dots on the levels. Not something completely horrible, but worth noting, anyway.
-What’s perhaps the most interesting thing is that the video gives us a glimpse at Super Kong, who is essentially one of DK’s models from Super Smash Bros. Brawl, but with a blue tie instead of a red one. In short, I fucking called it.

Nintendo’s official Japanese DKCR site has, besides new renders, another trailer, and here’s a YouTube link to, again, make it easier:

The video starts with footage we’ve mostly seen until the 21-second mark, where DK and Diddy are on board of a pirate ship that’s being blasted by another pirate ship. Around 30 seconds, we see DK avoiding a well-placed sequence of fireballs rising up and down (which gives off another Mario vibe). The sequence immediately after that has DK ground pounding a switch to lower the structures in front of him and to his side. Interestingly enough, those structures look a lot like Cranky Kong during his DK Arcade days. Muncher Marathon can be seen in motion for a few seconds. Aside from that, there isn’t much. The trailer reveals a release date of December 9 for those living in Japan.

With that, go into the forums to discuss these trailers, and let us know of anything you find interesting!