Item container

The general term container designates a wide range of objects found in Donkey Kong Country Returns / 3D and Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze. These objects contain various items and can be seen in the immediate background of a level's path. The Kongs cannot directly interact with containers, but if the player presses the ground pound button in front of a container, it either opens up, breaks, or withers (depending on the container's nature) and yields the item inside. After getting emptied, containers become part of the decoration.

A container found on dry land will dispense the item inside if the Kongs do a Ground Pound in front of it. Underwater containers can be opened if swept across with a corkscrew move.

The appearance, nature, and even names of specific kinds of containers differ depending on the environment. They all function the same nevertheless. Containers are not to be confused with regular barrels or Buddy Barrels, since the latter two do not contain items. Item containers, as they are described in this article, form a different gameplay concept.

Donkey Kong Country Returns / 3D
In Donkey Kong Country Returns and its enhanced port, many sorts of containers are scattered on Donkey Kong Island. They usually variate from world to world. Below is a list of every type of container included in the game, each accompanied by a physical description.
 * Pods – also called yellow gourds or just gourds, these are plants whose flowers resemble swollen gourds, as their name implies. Common gourds are small and completely colored yellow. They oftenly surround relatives of bigger size, called large gourds , which display red spots and are pigmented with a brighter tint of yellow. Once their terrain is pounded, gourds gradually wilt by splurging their fluid, along with a precious item. Yellow gourds are preponderant in places with high vegetal living, with the Jungle and Forest being the most propitious places for them.
 * Treasure chests – objects which contain bananas, Banana Coins and more items the Kongs can interact with. They are only found in the second world of the game, the Beach; additionally, they are also present in Gushin' Geysers, a level exclusive to the enhanced port.
 * Cacti – two distinct species of cacti, as suggested by the Prima guide, appear in the game, each being characteristic to either the Cave or the Cliff areas. Cave cacti resemble swollen spores, with their bulbed stems being olive and showing brown spots. They have orifices on their top, from which bubble clusters continuously come out until the plant gets wilt by the character's shocks. Cliff cacti look more like actual cacti, each being short, green, and globular.
 *  – a very round object resembling a squash fruit, supported by a few sticks. It has a firecracker tucked within, which can be launched if the Kongs pound the ground in front of the squash. Shortly after letting it loose, the firecracker detonates, spreading a firework and leaving an item. Only one of its kind can be encountered in the first level of the Forest world.
 * Ruins/Key Temple containers – brown amphorae that lie on spiraled supports. They form the only kind of container in hidden temple levels, as well as the main kind in the Ruins world. After their terrain gets pounded, they fall off the supports and break on the floor. They are amongst the most common types of containers in the game.
 * Factory containers – objects that resemble upside down water dispensers, supported by metal frames. Upon receiving the pounding shock, the water bottles rise up in the air and blow up, leaving out the item inside.
 * Volcano containers – metal flasks, whose contents boil on some burning material. If the ground they stand on is pounded, their lids open up and reveal items. They are only found in the Volcano world.
 *  – stone sculptures, modelled after Toothberries or Acks. They are supported by plinths and most of them can be collapsed and destroyed just like the other containers of the game, uncovering items. Worth to be noted is that some Ack statues hide actual Acks and Toothberries, which quickly free themselves out of the sculptures upon the Kongs' arrival, without their intervention. Ack statues guard inside the ancient building where Itty Bitty Biters, the fifth level of the Ruins world, takes place.

Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze
Containers in Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze are even more diverse than the ones in the predecessor, despite many not being conventional to specific islands. Since Returns lacked underwater stages, Tropical Freeze marks the first time in the series when submerged containers can be found. Upon getting pounded, some item containers spew multiple bananas arranged to form a certain shape, and the players have an amount of time allotted to collect them all until the fruit vanish, in order to earn a more valuable item, such as a Banana Bunch, a Banana Coin, or even a Puzzle Piece. Containers, in general, include:
 * Plump Yellow Fruit – the previously-called "large gourds" from Donkey Kong Country Returns. As such, they retain the exact same appearance, but are named differently. Plump Yellow Fruit are the most common item containers in the game, found in many of the game's worlds.
 * Wooden Canisters with Metal Lids – cylindrical vases. They decorate the earlier levels of Autumn Heights.
 * Purple Fungi – spacey violet mushrooms with white spots. They display three different sized lobes stacked on each other. As very uncommon item containers, they are only found in the caves of Autumn Heights.
 * Giant Clams – pink bivalve mollusks and the first item containers to be ever encountered underwater. After getting deranged by a corkscrew move, they simply open up their mantle to uncover items.
 * Dilapidated Barrels – barrels wrecked ashore or sunken underwater, cut in halves to resemble and function as chests. The narrow aperture between the two parts of a dilapidated barrel reveals that it is full of sand, but upon pounding its terrain or sweeping it across with a corkscrew move, it opens up and produces an important item.
 *  – baskets containing fresh fish (looking like the ones utilised by Archies and Chum Chucker Charlies as weapons) and also items. After being shaken by a ground pound, a fish basket falls on the open terrain and scatters its fish, revealing the item inside.
 * Flower Bulbs – large purple flowers coiled in vines. They can only be encountered in Juicy Jungle.
 * Treasure Chests – containers that return from the past game, but in rarer instances. A slight design tweak has been made to them, as they now seem to contain precious jewelry and gold instead of being completely empty. A hidden treasure chest, for example, guards a secret Puzzle Piece on a cliff in Shoal Atoll, a level of Sea Breeze Cove. Frozen treasure chests are present in Seashore War, a stage of Donkey Kong Island set in the environment of the island's Beach world.
 * Purple Glass Vases – ornamental objects found only in hidden temple stages. They look like vials decorated with pairs of golden wings and having corks tucked inside their heads. They are placed on small metal stands, and fall down when their terrain is pounded. Afterwards, they shatter on the ground and reveal items.