>>71314137
They're completely upfront about why they did it. It's because Rareware DK's face cannot emote. Only his mouth moves, the rest of his face is locked into a single expression forever. Check out the webm, this is an animator trying to make DK look excited. The 3D Mario team likes expressive characters and they didn't want to make a game about a character whose only expression is "pissed off". Nu-DK looks pretty close to the original in the few scenes where they make him look mad.

>>713134565
>He's not cool anymore when he's making all these wacky expressions at the camera. What made DK cool was that he was the strong, silent type, like gary cooper.
Donkey Kong's Rareware design cannot emote. His brows are permanently locked in one position. He can only move his mouth, and sometimes his eyes will shift or pop out. I think it's obvious why the developers of mainline 3D Mario would find this unworkable and make some changes. I'm sorry you preferred it when DK looked pissed off 100% of the time, but it's not the 90s anymore. Your mascot doesn't need to have 'tude.