With Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze now on sale in Europe and North America, Nintendo of America celebrated the big launch by having 'Cranky Kong' takeover its official Twitter account. The elderly ape — the original Donkey Kong from the arcade according to lore — has been promoted for his entertaining character, bemoaning the youth of today and similar themes. Nintendo and Retro Studios are clearly rather chuffed with the cane-wielding mascot's inclusion in the game.

With an emphasis on comedy and parody, Cranky's takeover of NoA's 614,000+ followers included quite a lot of tweets. Who knows, perhaps the bearded and grumpy ape will continue leading the account for a while, but at the time of writing seems to have finished and headed back to his tropical island hut. It's full of mock memes, wisecracks at modern games and gamers in general, as well as general slices of comedy in relatively few characters.

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We're going to go on the assumption that anyone reading this far is aware that Cranky Kong isn't a real-life bearded ape with a cane, so we're interested in what you think of this as a marketing stunt from the big N in North America. Is this just the kind of humorous, self-referential social media marketing that the company should use more, or are you cringing yourself into spasms and chewing off your own knuckles? For our money it's certainly welcome that Nintendo is infusing personality into some of its marketing efforts, but check out Cranky's efforts (minus retweets) below and let us know what you think in the comments.