15 Best Hidden Gem Video Games Of The Decade

11. Donkey Kong Country - Tropical Freeze (Wii U)

Nintendo metaphorically Wii'd themselves with the successor to their ludicrously popular wand-waggling hardware, launching a 2012 sequel which confused their greatly expanded but less industry-attuned consumer base as much as it convinced them.

Was the Wii U an add on? An upgrade? Or a brand new console? Nintendo themselves, returning to their typically PR inept days of the N64, struggled to clarify the situation. As a consequence, significantly fewer homes stashed the new kit under their TVs - meaning many of its best games went grossly underplayed.

One such title, rather appropriately corresponding with the Wii U's glacial uptake, was Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze. Retro Studio's stellar simian sequel to the Wii's Donkey Kong Country Returns didn't simply echo the admittedly outmoded ape adventures of the SNES, but served up a slice of hyper-designed platforming perfection, bursting at the banana skin with the sort of invention and variation Nintendo's own 2D revivals hadn't quite managed to conjure.

And yet, mixed reviews (Gamespot slapped it with an insulting 6/10) and the Wii U's criminal inability to leave shop shelves saw the game sell just over 200,000 copies in total. Nintendo, knowing they had a secret smash hit treasured in their vaults, recycled Tropical Freeze onto the Switch in 2018.

Within five days, the game had already outsold its Japanese Wii U performance, proving you can't keep a good ape down.

[Words by Benjamin A. Richardson]