Donkey Kong 64 was one of the several noteworthy games that remained in my backlog for over 10 years. Because of that, I would say this game and a handful of others that I have and haven't reviewed yet were all a part of the key reason I made my Backloggd account. In my previous playthrough, I made it all the way up to the final world in K. Rool's lair where you were the amount of time you had to beat it depended on the amount of blueprints you collected. By the time I wanted to tackle it, I somehow forgot how to do all of the kongs' moves. Ultimately, it lead to me dropping the game. I did try to start over from scratch a few times, but I never was able to commit until I decided to beat it this year. I enjoyed it, but compared to Rare's other collect-a-thons, this one probably has the most issues.
It plays like all of Rare's other platformers where your purpose in playing is to collect a plethora of different items spread across 8 different worlds, but some of the collectibles have slightly different functions compared to Banjo-Kazooie. The golden bananas are just like your jiggys or stars, but the different colored bananas scattered around the level serve as a means to access the boss for each world which also plays a necessary role in getting to the next world alongside the golden bananas since you get a key for defeating each boss. It all sounds pretty simple, but the problem is that you aren't just playing as one character like Mario or Banjo. In Donkey Kong 64, you play 5 different characters including DK, Diddy, Tiny, Lanky, and Chunky Kong. In most cases, it's pretty cool to have a roster that big in a platformer. However, the approach Rare took in adding more characters is what is this game's biggest flaw, bloat.
Each and every kong have their own colored bananas to collect and objectives to do. The placement of a lot of where these collectibles are located will lead to a copious amount of backtracking. Another big issue that also amplifies the backtracking problem is that most of the worlds are just too big. It's fairly easy to get lost and even with teleportation pads, getting to some locations can still be rather time-consuming. Speaking of time-consuming, getting 100% in this game requires double the amount of golden bananas needed to regularly beat the game. Given how much you have to backtrack for the colored bananas and numerous golden bananas I would never do it since I'm not a madman. I salute those bold enough to 100% this game.
Personally, I still enjoyed the game a lot despite it being very flawed and straight-up inferior in comparison to Rare's other platformers. Their ambitions with this title were pretty expansive, but ultimately they bit off a little more than they could chew in some areas. If you're a diehard collect-a-thon fan and willing to put up with the repetitive parts of the game I'd still recommend it. If DK64 seems like too much, then I'd stick to something shorter and better-paced like Banjo-Kazooie.
It plays like all of Rare's other platformers where your purpose in playing is to collect a plethora of different items spread across 8 different worlds, but some of the collectibles have slightly different functions compared to Banjo-Kazooie. The golden bananas are just like your jiggys or stars, but the different colored bananas scattered around the level serve as a means to access the boss for each world which also plays a necessary role in getting to the next world alongside the golden bananas since you get a key for defeating each boss. It all sounds pretty simple, but the problem is that you aren't just playing as one character like Mario or Banjo. In Donkey Kong 64, you play 5 different characters including DK, Diddy, Tiny, Lanky, and Chunky Kong. In most cases, it's pretty cool to have a roster that big in a platformer. However, the approach Rare took in adding more characters is what is this game's biggest flaw, bloat.
Each and every kong have their own colored bananas to collect and objectives to do. The placement of a lot of where these collectibles are located will lead to a copious amount of backtracking. Another big issue that also amplifies the backtracking problem is that most of the worlds are just too big. It's fairly easy to get lost and even with teleportation pads, getting to some locations can still be rather time-consuming. Speaking of time-consuming, getting 100% in this game requires double the amount of golden bananas needed to regularly beat the game. Given how much you have to backtrack for the colored bananas and numerous golden bananas I would never do it since I'm not a madman. I salute those bold enough to 100% this game.
Personally, I still enjoyed the game a lot despite it being very flawed and straight-up inferior in comparison to Rare's other platformers. Their ambitions with this title were pretty expansive, but ultimately they bit off a little more than they could chew in some areas. If you're a diehard collect-a-thon fan and willing to put up with the repetitive parts of the game I'd still recommend it. If DK64 seems like too much, then I'd stick to something shorter and better-paced like Banjo-Kazooie.
You can only play as 5 apes, not 64 as the title suggests. Would be a lot better if the game wasn't a backtracking slog
chunkys Dead
Would've been an easy 5 stars but DK Rap has no chill when talking about my boy Lanky Kong. 3½ stars.
I have 100%-ed this game on three different occasions (2001, 2008 and 2015). As a kid over two decades ago, I was enamored with everything about this game. Every single music track stuck with me, courtesy of the incredible Grant Kirkhope. The level designs were so unique and thought-out that I could still remember where everything was years later. The characters are endearing and, during my 2015 playground, it was my son's turn to become obsessed with Chunky and Tiny Kong.
This game mostly holds up, but assigning 100 bananas and tons of coins to specific Kongs does lead to some serious backtracking. Creepy Castle does the best job with colored bananas by mainly using them as paths to objectives, instead of scattered randomly through the level. Some of the barrel minigames are pretty brutal (I'm looking at you, Beaver Bother) but all in all, the game is a success, and the shortcomings don't cheapen the experience for me.
More 3D DK when?!?
This game mostly holds up, but assigning 100 bananas and tons of coins to specific Kongs does lead to some serious backtracking. Creepy Castle does the best job with colored bananas by mainly using them as paths to objectives, instead of scattered randomly through the level. Some of the barrel minigames are pretty brutal (I'm looking at you, Beaver Bother) but all in all, the game is a success, and the shortcomings don't cheapen the experience for me.
More 3D DK when?!?
i 101%ed this game both as a child and while unemployed and depressed at age 25, and i think it made things worse. it's messy and all-over-the-place, and not in the good way like Banjo-Tooie.
It's time for me to face the music.
I decided to replay this game for the first time in almost a decade, successfully aiming to get a true 101% completion, colored bananas and all. This game really means a lot to me; it's the first game I remember really getting into, I have a ton of vivid childhood memories of going through it at various ages and learning more and more about it, it's partially responsible for making me a furry, and I've always been ready to come up to bat to defend it from the naysayers. Sure, it's dated, but it's still good, right? ... right?
It's really hard to tackle the many issues this game has, so to get it out of the way, I'll talk about the good. As to be expected from Rare, it's incredibly charming. All the characters are so vivid and full of personality, from idle animations to falling screams to their weapon choices, everything really sticks with you and makes you smile throughout the entire game. The art style is very fun, managing to create such colorful and varied scenery with the N64's limited ability. Although, hands down, the best aspect of this game might be its sound design. Grant Kirkhope is one of the true gaming composing legends, and he once again proves it in this game. All the sound effects are so memorable and playful, and the music consistently goes crazy hard, especially the boss themes. The gameplay, while repetitive, does have some really fun moments; I love all the minecart sequences, some of the puzzles are really clever, and in general the levels are surprisingly atmospheric and rich for such a silly game. However, cracks are going to show if you stay in these levels for long periods.
There are three major complaints I see towards this game: #1 is that there's too many collectibles, #2 is that it's too segmented, and #3 is that it relies on mini-games too much. I would like to actually defend the first point, I think the amount of collectibles works perfectly from a level-to-level basis and really never feels like it's overbearing, unless including all colored bananas. 5 Golden Bananas for each Kong (which is really 4 + finding an enemy), 5 Banana Medals, 2 Banana Fairies, and a Battle Crown. Sure, it sounds like a lot when you write it down like that, but it flows fine in-game and doesn't leave too many sloggish moments. However, complaint #2 is not something I can defend at all. The game is too segmented. Full stop.
Having a game be linear and segmented is not necessarily a bad thing, e.g. Ocarina of Time, but the problem in DK64 arises from the unbelievable level of backtracking that you have to do if you plan on collecting everything. There are numerous levels where teleport pads are used just to bring one Kong to a room they otherwise could not have gotten to just to shoot a balloon and gain 10 bananas. It doesn't feel fun or satisfying, it just leads to a slow trek back to a Tag Barrel to swap for the one Kong you need, teleporting to the room, shooting, and walking all the way back to continue with the level. There are also a lot of occasions of one room having to be entered and exited with multiple different Kongs, which while seeming clever at first, just leads to a very repetitive and stale experience where you go in and out and in and out and in and out of the same room with very little difference. You're not seeing 5 different rooms, you're seeing 1 room 5 times, and it gets grating. Luckily, there is a romhack that mitigates some of these issues, allowing you to swap Kongs at almost any moment, which significantly cuts down the backtracking. You would think that would be a major solution, and I will definitely admit that it helps a lot, but it still doesn't solve everything, specifically...
Complaint #3, too many mini-games. Yes, yes, yes, and yes. I don't remember the exact number, but I believe the total amount of Golden Bananas obtained solely through Bonus Barrels is over 25, if not over 30. That's not a small amount, especially when you consider that some mini-games are only used once, which means the rest are repeated over and over. Some are fine (Kremling Kosh), some are tedious (Stealthy Snoop), and some make you want to crush your controller in your hands (Minecart Mayhem). Overall, it's a lot more negative than positive, and you just keep seeing them, all the way to the literal end of the game, you will see mini-games. But the thing that really bothers me, the thing that really pushed me over the edge and made me realize a huge flaw in the design, is how the mini-games are used. Occasionally, it's something as simple as hitting a switch and then going into a Bonus Barrel; it's basic, sure, but that's all it needs to be. Other times, a Bonus Barrel is used as a supplement for a regular Golden Banana for solving a puzzle. Really think about this: they're giving you the opportunity to gain a Golden Banana, rather than just giving you the Banana. It sucks away so much of the enjoyment of figuring something out, having your "a-ha!", and feeling the satisfaction of hearing the success sound effect, just to see a Bonus Barrel pop up. If I wasn't going for 100%, I would've absolutely skipped most of them.
That's actually something I felt during a lot of this playthrough, and I feel an accurate summation of the game's flawed design. There is some great stuff in here, and the layouts of the levels themselves is pretty consistently good, but so much of it is bogged down by how tedious and grindy 100%'ing it is. Normally that wouldn't be an issue, but it's a collect-a-thon game, a genre that actively encourages you to go out of your way and search every nook and cranny to get every possible thing you can. Unfortunately, doing that here leads to an actively worse experience than if you were to just play the game "normally" and be willing to give up when a Banana just gets too frustrating to unlock, if you're okay with not having every number be maxed out, every slot filled. That's the biggest takeaway I can give for this game: it's a collect-a-thon where the best possible way to play is to not collect everything.
Do I still like this game? Yes, I do. It still means a lot to me and I really can't even say it's terrible, but it is horribly flawed and its dated design will most likely only continue to age worse and worse as time goes on. Who knows, maybe there will be a collect-a-thon revival in a few years and people will come back to love this. Would be cool. For now, though, it remains as a massive guilty pleasure for my inner kid, while the adult on the outside is suffering headaches from doubling back for the 5th time looking for the last green banana bunch.
I decided to replay this game for the first time in almost a decade, successfully aiming to get a true 101% completion, colored bananas and all. This game really means a lot to me; it's the first game I remember really getting into, I have a ton of vivid childhood memories of going through it at various ages and learning more and more about it, it's partially responsible for making me a furry, and I've always been ready to come up to bat to defend it from the naysayers. Sure, it's dated, but it's still good, right? ... right?
It's really hard to tackle the many issues this game has, so to get it out of the way, I'll talk about the good. As to be expected from Rare, it's incredibly charming. All the characters are so vivid and full of personality, from idle animations to falling screams to their weapon choices, everything really sticks with you and makes you smile throughout the entire game. The art style is very fun, managing to create such colorful and varied scenery with the N64's limited ability. Although, hands down, the best aspect of this game might be its sound design. Grant Kirkhope is one of the true gaming composing legends, and he once again proves it in this game. All the sound effects are so memorable and playful, and the music consistently goes crazy hard, especially the boss themes. The gameplay, while repetitive, does have some really fun moments; I love all the minecart sequences, some of the puzzles are really clever, and in general the levels are surprisingly atmospheric and rich for such a silly game. However, cracks are going to show if you stay in these levels for long periods.
There are three major complaints I see towards this game: #1 is that there's too many collectibles, #2 is that it's too segmented, and #3 is that it relies on mini-games too much. I would like to actually defend the first point, I think the amount of collectibles works perfectly from a level-to-level basis and really never feels like it's overbearing, unless including all colored bananas. 5 Golden Bananas for each Kong (which is really 4 + finding an enemy), 5 Banana Medals, 2 Banana Fairies, and a Battle Crown. Sure, it sounds like a lot when you write it down like that, but it flows fine in-game and doesn't leave too many sloggish moments. However, complaint #2 is not something I can defend at all. The game is too segmented. Full stop.
Having a game be linear and segmented is not necessarily a bad thing, e.g. Ocarina of Time, but the problem in DK64 arises from the unbelievable level of backtracking that you have to do if you plan on collecting everything. There are numerous levels where teleport pads are used just to bring one Kong to a room they otherwise could not have gotten to just to shoot a balloon and gain 10 bananas. It doesn't feel fun or satisfying, it just leads to a slow trek back to a Tag Barrel to swap for the one Kong you need, teleporting to the room, shooting, and walking all the way back to continue with the level. There are also a lot of occasions of one room having to be entered and exited with multiple different Kongs, which while seeming clever at first, just leads to a very repetitive and stale experience where you go in and out and in and out and in and out of the same room with very little difference. You're not seeing 5 different rooms, you're seeing 1 room 5 times, and it gets grating. Luckily, there is a romhack that mitigates some of these issues, allowing you to swap Kongs at almost any moment, which significantly cuts down the backtracking. You would think that would be a major solution, and I will definitely admit that it helps a lot, but it still doesn't solve everything, specifically...
Complaint #3, too many mini-games. Yes, yes, yes, and yes. I don't remember the exact number, but I believe the total amount of Golden Bananas obtained solely through Bonus Barrels is over 25, if not over 30. That's not a small amount, especially when you consider that some mini-games are only used once, which means the rest are repeated over and over. Some are fine (Kremling Kosh), some are tedious (Stealthy Snoop), and some make you want to crush your controller in your hands (Minecart Mayhem). Overall, it's a lot more negative than positive, and you just keep seeing them, all the way to the literal end of the game, you will see mini-games. But the thing that really bothers me, the thing that really pushed me over the edge and made me realize a huge flaw in the design, is how the mini-games are used. Occasionally, it's something as simple as hitting a switch and then going into a Bonus Barrel; it's basic, sure, but that's all it needs to be. Other times, a Bonus Barrel is used as a supplement for a regular Golden Banana for solving a puzzle. Really think about this: they're giving you the opportunity to gain a Golden Banana, rather than just giving you the Banana. It sucks away so much of the enjoyment of figuring something out, having your "a-ha!", and feeling the satisfaction of hearing the success sound effect, just to see a Bonus Barrel pop up. If I wasn't going for 100%, I would've absolutely skipped most of them.
That's actually something I felt during a lot of this playthrough, and I feel an accurate summation of the game's flawed design. There is some great stuff in here, and the layouts of the levels themselves is pretty consistently good, but so much of it is bogged down by how tedious and grindy 100%'ing it is. Normally that wouldn't be an issue, but it's a collect-a-thon game, a genre that actively encourages you to go out of your way and search every nook and cranny to get every possible thing you can. Unfortunately, doing that here leads to an actively worse experience than if you were to just play the game "normally" and be willing to give up when a Banana just gets too frustrating to unlock, if you're okay with not having every number be maxed out, every slot filled. That's the biggest takeaway I can give for this game: it's a collect-a-thon where the best possible way to play is to not collect everything.
Do I still like this game? Yes, I do. It still means a lot to me and I really can't even say it's terrible, but it is horribly flawed and its dated design will most likely only continue to age worse and worse as time goes on. Who knows, maybe there will be a collect-a-thon revival in a few years and people will come back to love this. Would be cool. For now, though, it remains as a massive guilty pleasure for my inner kid, while the adult on the outside is suffering headaches from doubling back for the 5th time looking for the last green banana bunch.
not as bad as people make it out to be but uh. woof man this is not how you design a collectathon platformer
also that beetle can eat my shorts
also that beetle can eat my shorts
More like CLUNKY KONG 64 (still fun tho)
This is the N64iest N64 game you could ever hope to play and I refuse to rate it any lower.
"It's bloated"
"It's too long"
"Fate/stay night is a good videogame"
Keep talking, we are not listening. This game is good because you will die before you see all the content in it
"It's too long"
"Fate/stay night is a good videogame"
Keep talking, we are not listening. This game is good because you will die before you see all the content in it
A very lovable game that did its darndest to make me not like it, and I will oblige.
As an artifact of gaming culture and meme-ery, this game is incredible. It oozes a goofy charm and character distinct to Rareware of the 90s. Not to mention that it brought into existence the legendary DK Rap. From that angle, this is a 'chef's kiss' masterpiece.
But, even though I grew up with an N64, I never actually played it back then and am coming into this fresh. My experience was akin to playing fetch with a very happy dog that generates gallons of saliva after every catch. The first couple of throws were simple fun, then it quickly turned into a messy repetitive chore but I feel bad stopping because the dumb dog's got that face.
I think at its core my issue is exactly what anyone familiar with the game would expect. Massive amounts of backtracking and repetitive switching between the Kongs.
There isn't much in the way of platforming obstacle challenges in the game, so in my mind what's "supposed" to be the main appeal of the game is checklist pleasure of the collectathon. And yet, this game feels like it's designed with every intention of blue balling your collecting efforts at every corner.
Room has to be unlocked with Chunky. Walk in. Collectibles are for Tiny and Diddy.
There is one coin you don't need for Chunky.
The switch barrel is two screens back.
You unlocked a quick travel portal.
You've already gotten everything relevant on either side.
Oh hey, there's a few bananas on this remote section of the map for Diddy. I'll bet there's a Golden Banana or some—
It's just 5 regular bananas and a long quiet march back.
I could not, for the life of me, find a "flow" to the levels. It was like having to escort a 3 year old on an Easter Egg hunt, watching them pass by obvious eggs because they "have to grab the green ones first," then they change their mind half way through and want the red ones. Except the game has turned me into that 3 year old.
These analogies are getting rather odd, but that's just the language of the heart.
This is just the design as well. I'm forgiving of technical issues and control jank because of the platform and the time, but the prior frustrations made me much less tolerable. Though I will say the controls felt far more responsive than Banjo-Kazooie. The camera not so much. Felt like it was purpose built to smack into every collidable object on the screen and was never at the right angle.
And oh man, some of those mini-games....
Oddly enough, I actually enjoyed the two part finale of Hideout Helm and the King K. Rool fight. I was freely abusing the powers granted by playing on an emulator at that point, but since that's pretty much how most people would be playing it these days, might as well mark that as a win. 😅
In any case, as far as a recommendation, if you're a die-hard N64 or collectathon fan, you probably need to visit this game as a pilgrimige. Everyone else is probably best enjoying from a distance.
As an artifact of gaming culture and meme-ery, this game is incredible. It oozes a goofy charm and character distinct to Rareware of the 90s. Not to mention that it brought into existence the legendary DK Rap. From that angle, this is a 'chef's kiss' masterpiece.
But, even though I grew up with an N64, I never actually played it back then and am coming into this fresh. My experience was akin to playing fetch with a very happy dog that generates gallons of saliva after every catch. The first couple of throws were simple fun, then it quickly turned into a messy repetitive chore but I feel bad stopping because the dumb dog's got that face.
I think at its core my issue is exactly what anyone familiar with the game would expect. Massive amounts of backtracking and repetitive switching between the Kongs.
There isn't much in the way of platforming obstacle challenges in the game, so in my mind what's "supposed" to be the main appeal of the game is checklist pleasure of the collectathon. And yet, this game feels like it's designed with every intention of blue balling your collecting efforts at every corner.
Room has to be unlocked with Chunky. Walk in. Collectibles are for Tiny and Diddy.
There is one coin you don't need for Chunky.
The switch barrel is two screens back.
You unlocked a quick travel portal.
You've already gotten everything relevant on either side.
Oh hey, there's a few bananas on this remote section of the map for Diddy. I'll bet there's a Golden Banana or some—
It's just 5 regular bananas and a long quiet march back.
I could not, for the life of me, find a "flow" to the levels. It was like having to escort a 3 year old on an Easter Egg hunt, watching them pass by obvious eggs because they "have to grab the green ones first," then they change their mind half way through and want the red ones. Except the game has turned me into that 3 year old.
These analogies are getting rather odd, but that's just the language of the heart.
This is just the design as well. I'm forgiving of technical issues and control jank because of the platform and the time, but the prior frustrations made me much less tolerable. Though I will say the controls felt far more responsive than Banjo-Kazooie. The camera not so much. Felt like it was purpose built to smack into every collidable object on the screen and was never at the right angle.
And oh man, some of those mini-games....
Oddly enough, I actually enjoyed the two part finale of Hideout Helm and the King K. Rool fight. I was freely abusing the powers granted by playing on an emulator at that point, but since that's pretty much how most people would be playing it these days, might as well mark that as a win. 😅
In any case, as far as a recommendation, if you're a die-hard N64 or collectathon fan, you probably need to visit this game as a pilgrimige. Everyone else is probably best enjoying from a distance.
I want to start by defending Donkey Kong 64 against one accusation that is completly ridicoulous imo.
It is not responsible for the death of the 3D platform genre. 3D platformers were in a very good place during the PS2 era. If you're talking about the specific Collectathon subgenre, then again, this isn't DK64's fault. Collecthathons were designed how they were because the early 3D platforms couldnt allow for huge worlds, so creating small worlds dense with collectibles was the solution to that problem, once that problem went away, there was no need to continue that trend, as this was never really the ideal scenario. Beyond that, for DK64 to have actually influenced the industry in such a negative way, it would have had to have been poorly received, and unlike what it might seem today, DK64 was one of Nintendo's biggest hit of that generation, comercially and critically.
All that being said, Donkey Kong 64 is a good game that had very noble aspirations, that being becoming the biggest, most content rich 3D platformer on the 64. As such, it did what was thought best, and it filled its world with an absurd amount of collectibles. This was the best they could have done at the time, but this means DK64 has very poorly aged.
The 5 different characters are a great idea in theory, they allow you to see the world with a different moveset and therefore, find new and interesting stuff to do. Some say that the problem is backtracking, but I disagree that a game of this style with multiple characters is wrong to have backtracking. No the actual problem is that the characters are almost the same. Their movesets dont feel different enough beyond one traversal option and barred codes. This coupled with the fact that most of the time, backtracking isnt done in a way to interact with more of the world, but rather just to pick up what you couldnt otherwise with the appropriate Kong. You're not exploring, you're doing busywork.
I want to make clear, I think there's something unfair about how reviewers always seem to 100% this game specifically when they wouldnt do so otherwise. Every game, including the best ones, are a chore to 100%. But thats the thing. My playthrough was a minimalist one, I got 102 Golden Bananas, only got as much colored bananas as I needded. I got 4 battle arenas. And yet I am still exhausted and I dont want to go back to this game.
So what is good about the game? Well......the game itself? Like under all of that, you still got a pretty damn good exploration-platformer. But.....it's not as good as Banjo Kazooie. Like, even beyond the absolutely shitty way it handles its content. Banjo Kazooie is a more tightly designed game, with more memorable levels, better humour, better soundtrack etc. So it will unfortunately live in its shadow.
So.....good game, yeah.....but it has a lot going against it, despite me understanding why the game is how it is and respecting the dev's aspiration, I can't pretend its super compelling to play today.
It is not responsible for the death of the 3D platform genre. 3D platformers were in a very good place during the PS2 era. If you're talking about the specific Collectathon subgenre, then again, this isn't DK64's fault. Collecthathons were designed how they were because the early 3D platforms couldnt allow for huge worlds, so creating small worlds dense with collectibles was the solution to that problem, once that problem went away, there was no need to continue that trend, as this was never really the ideal scenario. Beyond that, for DK64 to have actually influenced the industry in such a negative way, it would have had to have been poorly received, and unlike what it might seem today, DK64 was one of Nintendo's biggest hit of that generation, comercially and critically.
All that being said, Donkey Kong 64 is a good game that had very noble aspirations, that being becoming the biggest, most content rich 3D platformer on the 64. As such, it did what was thought best, and it filled its world with an absurd amount of collectibles. This was the best they could have done at the time, but this means DK64 has very poorly aged.
The 5 different characters are a great idea in theory, they allow you to see the world with a different moveset and therefore, find new and interesting stuff to do. Some say that the problem is backtracking, but I disagree that a game of this style with multiple characters is wrong to have backtracking. No the actual problem is that the characters are almost the same. Their movesets dont feel different enough beyond one traversal option and barred codes. This coupled with the fact that most of the time, backtracking isnt done in a way to interact with more of the world, but rather just to pick up what you couldnt otherwise with the appropriate Kong. You're not exploring, you're doing busywork.
I want to make clear, I think there's something unfair about how reviewers always seem to 100% this game specifically when they wouldnt do so otherwise. Every game, including the best ones, are a chore to 100%. But thats the thing. My playthrough was a minimalist one, I got 102 Golden Bananas, only got as much colored bananas as I needded. I got 4 battle arenas. And yet I am still exhausted and I dont want to go back to this game.
So what is good about the game? Well......the game itself? Like under all of that, you still got a pretty damn good exploration-platformer. But.....it's not as good as Banjo Kazooie. Like, even beyond the absolutely shitty way it handles its content. Banjo Kazooie is a more tightly designed game, with more memorable levels, better humour, better soundtrack etc. So it will unfortunately live in its shadow.
So.....good game, yeah.....but it has a lot going against it, despite me understanding why the game is how it is and respecting the dev's aspiration, I can't pretend its super compelling to play today.
Hunter S. Thompson once wrote about the "high-water mark," the peak of momentum "where the wave finally broke and rolled back."
Donkey Kong 64 is the high-water mark of the collectathon platformer genre, where the form was pushed to its extreme and left nowhere else to go. Intimidating on paper, dizzying in execution, and when all is said and done, tiring. This was enough.
Donkey Kong 64 is the high-water mark of the collectathon platformer genre, where the form was pushed to its extreme and left nowhere else to go. Intimidating on paper, dizzying in execution, and when all is said and done, tiring. This was enough.
i want to preface this review by saying, i used the tag anywhere mod. i know there's a separate entry on the site for that mod but i wanna talk about it here sorry! i'll mention the mod throughout the review i'm sure but i wanted the main mention to be here because i wanna talk about the game as it was intended to be played, not with a mod that greatly fixes the biggest problem with it.
i wanna start out with what i liked/at least didn't entirely hate here because there's a lot! first of all, god i love DK and everything about the franchise. it's such a fun aesthetic and i just adore these characters with my whole heart. there's so much charm oozing out of everything in this game, i prefer the general look and feel over rares other collectathons easily. the atmosphere here is fucking phenomenal and i wasn't expecting it to be that great. it's for sure the cause of some performance bumps but it's just so damn good for an n64 game. it's especially great in the boss fights.
i also generally liked the controls here! every kong felt unique but still fun to control, and i was never really dreading having to use any kong. i will say, banjo feels better and that mainly comes down to how slippery everyone feels. this game way more than the banjo games tries to get you to do tight platforming and it's incredibly difficult because of how slippery each kong feels. they all had moves and attacks that made a lot of sense to be specific to them and made them feel special, although i will say every air attack was god awful. coming from banjo i tried to use them so often and the hit detection on them is so terrible. in general though i found them fun to control and liked using the various moves/abilities of each kong.
the OST obviously is great here, it's filled with classic donkey kong tracks and theyr'e all amazing. grant kirkhope and david wise are some of my all time favorite video game composers the things they've done in their respective donkey kong/rare games are nothing short of amazing.
the worlds are all great here too, i don't think any of them hit the heights of peak banjo world design, but none of them are bad by any means. the hub world is probably the weakest, and while i still liked it i found it to be too big and open for its own good. it's really the only place i felt the kongs felt slow, because the rest of the worlds are tightly packed enough. every world had a fun theme, and were filled with mostly cool/interesting things to do in them. i almost never found myself confused/lost on a missing collectable everything is conveyed well and the worlds aren't so overwhelming (cough cough banjo-tooie) that i felt annoyed looking around for some missing bananas. i do wish you teamed up as the kongs a bit more, the final level does it really well! with the kong swapping mechanic being the way that it is though it's probably for the best you don't.
one of the biggest surprises from this game for me, was how solid these bosses were! i mentioned it before, but the atmosphere of these bosses was so wonderful. the bosses genuinely felt massive and intimidating and the atmosphere of the bosses rooms were major factor in that. every boss felt so grand and intense, tinys boss in particular genuinely felt creepy! the design was so cool and the environment you fought him in was so good. the 5th and especially 6th bosses are reused, which is a bummer but i think they change it up enough to feel interesting. at least the 5th one, refighting the fire dragon as chunky and going huge to punch the shit out of him was super badass. refighting the armadillo as DK was a bit less fun but still not terrible. they all had some solid challenge to them, and almost every concept was interesting. lankys boat boss is another standout. the k rool fight at the end especially felt really cool! the k rool boss having you cycle through all 5 kongs for each phase felt super cool and rewarding, and i loved the boxing theme for it.
i also just wanted to mention, even though it's really small, i liked the QoL stuff this game had. it's weird how banjo felt like it digressed in this regard but being able to restart mini games from the pause menu, or press "exit level" at any point in the level and keep your progress was really nice and felt very modern.
now, unfortunately for the negative. holy shit i know it's been beaten into the ground but it's truly baffling how the kong swapping mechanic functions the way that it does. i played with the swap anywhere mod, but in the back of my mind i was constantly thinking about how fucking terrible and obnoxious it would be to have to deal with using kong barrels. for the record i played a short bit of the game a while ago without the mod, and it was so annoying i quit and it only got worse further in the game! there are so many collectables that genuinely feel like fuck yous in the way they're placed. this game feels so designed around being able to insta swap, i don't know if that was ever a concept thrown around but this game needed to not be released until that idea was thought of and executed on holy shit. it's less of an issue if you're just going for any%, and while i think that's fair to say and i generally don't like using "but 100%!!!" as an argument, but i think in collectathons the idea of 100%ing the game is so inherently built around the idea of doing that. if you do the bare minimum golden bananas required to beat this game you skip out on 50% of the golden bananas that exist. that's a whole lot of the game! compared that to something like crash 4, which i feel has absurd and obnoxious 100% requirements, i can more easily forgive that since you're not missing out on such a large chunk of the game by not doing it. i continued to be baffled at how anyone would put themselves through 100%ing this game without the mod, and how they shipped this game with the swap mechanic being the way it was. there's so many solutions here, let every kong pick up any color of banana. u can keep specific golden bananas locked to the specific kong if you need their abilities to get it but the coins and bananas being locked to them as well is just fucking insane. the obvious best solution is use the tag anywhere mod, which makes the game a 100x better experience. i know i'm beating a dead horse talking about how bad this is, but it's honestly one of the more baffling game design decisions i've experienced and it hurts so much more because underneath that it's a game i very honestly adore.
aside from the kong swapping bullshit, i do have a couple other more minor complaints i wanted to mention. i was originally going to put the bonus games in my positive section, because i did genuinely enjoy them for the most part but they run out of unique bonus rooms by like the second/third world so you're just replaying the same bonus rooms all the time. this wouldn't be so bad if there were just less of them, or if some of the bonus games weren't terrible like the push beavers into a hole one. i kind of include the minecart levels/various races in the bonus level category but they are a different thing. i generally liked these, but some of the later game ones were just bullshit instead of satisfyingly difficult. which is weird because i find this game strikes that balance really well generally but things like the donkey kong arcade game and the 2nd race with that bunny in fungi forest are just kind of bullshit and unfun. i did love the boat race, and the 2 tiny car races though! the slides were also super fun. i'm a sucker for randomly swapping gameplay like that, as long as it isn't egregiously stupid/frustrating and while most weren't, there were a few here that were terrible.
the performance was pretty rough too. i don't wanna say too much definitively since i emulated the game, so i don't know how much better/worse it was. but the entirety of creepy castle lags on the outside like the entire time and i felt like it should be mentioned a little bit.
i also didn't love how there wasn't really any indication for which kongs could get upgrades at the various tents. some are obvious, like when u first get a kong you know they can get their gun/at least 1 potion from cranky but otherwise you have to go in individually with each kong to check. some sign outside saying what upgrades where there or even them mentioning "hey i got nothing left for you, but send in your pal <kong> i got something for them!" would have been nice.
this complaint is extremely small, but i will say my brain doesn't love that when you feed the pigs bananas to access a boss room, you lose the bananas on your count in the level. the total obviously doesn't go down but running around a level with 75 diddy bananas in the top left even though i've collected all 100 kind of frustrated me the few times it happened. that's a very nitpicky thing but something that did bother me enough to want to mention it lol. i fixed this issue by just saving the bosses for absolute last but still bothered me.
donkey kong 64 is a phenomenal game if you're using the tag anywhere mod. i had a fucking amazing time here, i loved it as much if not more than kazooie! that being said, i wanna be a bit more objective and rate this based on how the actual game is and it's an incredibly frustrating and tedious experience. i still think it's fun and worthwhile, just significantly worse. it's insane how much a simple dpad kong swap mechanic makes this a wildly better video game but it really does. if you're interested in the game please play it via the swap anywhere mod it's an incredibly more fun experience. if this game got a banjo XBLA esque remaster where they officially had a swap mechanic similar to the mod i really think this game would be looked on extremely fondly. love u DK, hope you get another shot at 3d someday.
i wanna start out with what i liked/at least didn't entirely hate here because there's a lot! first of all, god i love DK and everything about the franchise. it's such a fun aesthetic and i just adore these characters with my whole heart. there's so much charm oozing out of everything in this game, i prefer the general look and feel over rares other collectathons easily. the atmosphere here is fucking phenomenal and i wasn't expecting it to be that great. it's for sure the cause of some performance bumps but it's just so damn good for an n64 game. it's especially great in the boss fights.
i also generally liked the controls here! every kong felt unique but still fun to control, and i was never really dreading having to use any kong. i will say, banjo feels better and that mainly comes down to how slippery everyone feels. this game way more than the banjo games tries to get you to do tight platforming and it's incredibly difficult because of how slippery each kong feels. they all had moves and attacks that made a lot of sense to be specific to them and made them feel special, although i will say every air attack was god awful. coming from banjo i tried to use them so often and the hit detection on them is so terrible. in general though i found them fun to control and liked using the various moves/abilities of each kong.
the OST obviously is great here, it's filled with classic donkey kong tracks and theyr'e all amazing. grant kirkhope and david wise are some of my all time favorite video game composers the things they've done in their respective donkey kong/rare games are nothing short of amazing.
the worlds are all great here too, i don't think any of them hit the heights of peak banjo world design, but none of them are bad by any means. the hub world is probably the weakest, and while i still liked it i found it to be too big and open for its own good. it's really the only place i felt the kongs felt slow, because the rest of the worlds are tightly packed enough. every world had a fun theme, and were filled with mostly cool/interesting things to do in them. i almost never found myself confused/lost on a missing collectable everything is conveyed well and the worlds aren't so overwhelming (cough cough banjo-tooie) that i felt annoyed looking around for some missing bananas. i do wish you teamed up as the kongs a bit more, the final level does it really well! with the kong swapping mechanic being the way that it is though it's probably for the best you don't.
one of the biggest surprises from this game for me, was how solid these bosses were! i mentioned it before, but the atmosphere of these bosses was so wonderful. the bosses genuinely felt massive and intimidating and the atmosphere of the bosses rooms were major factor in that. every boss felt so grand and intense, tinys boss in particular genuinely felt creepy! the design was so cool and the environment you fought him in was so good. the 5th and especially 6th bosses are reused, which is a bummer but i think they change it up enough to feel interesting. at least the 5th one, refighting the fire dragon as chunky and going huge to punch the shit out of him was super badass. refighting the armadillo as DK was a bit less fun but still not terrible. they all had some solid challenge to them, and almost every concept was interesting. lankys boat boss is another standout. the k rool fight at the end especially felt really cool! the k rool boss having you cycle through all 5 kongs for each phase felt super cool and rewarding, and i loved the boxing theme for it.
i also just wanted to mention, even though it's really small, i liked the QoL stuff this game had. it's weird how banjo felt like it digressed in this regard but being able to restart mini games from the pause menu, or press "exit level" at any point in the level and keep your progress was really nice and felt very modern.
now, unfortunately for the negative. holy shit i know it's been beaten into the ground but it's truly baffling how the kong swapping mechanic functions the way that it does. i played with the swap anywhere mod, but in the back of my mind i was constantly thinking about how fucking terrible and obnoxious it would be to have to deal with using kong barrels. for the record i played a short bit of the game a while ago without the mod, and it was so annoying i quit and it only got worse further in the game! there are so many collectables that genuinely feel like fuck yous in the way they're placed. this game feels so designed around being able to insta swap, i don't know if that was ever a concept thrown around but this game needed to not be released until that idea was thought of and executed on holy shit. it's less of an issue if you're just going for any%, and while i think that's fair to say and i generally don't like using "but 100%!!!" as an argument, but i think in collectathons the idea of 100%ing the game is so inherently built around the idea of doing that. if you do the bare minimum golden bananas required to beat this game you skip out on 50% of the golden bananas that exist. that's a whole lot of the game! compared that to something like crash 4, which i feel has absurd and obnoxious 100% requirements, i can more easily forgive that since you're not missing out on such a large chunk of the game by not doing it. i continued to be baffled at how anyone would put themselves through 100%ing this game without the mod, and how they shipped this game with the swap mechanic being the way it was. there's so many solutions here, let every kong pick up any color of banana. u can keep specific golden bananas locked to the specific kong if you need their abilities to get it but the coins and bananas being locked to them as well is just fucking insane. the obvious best solution is use the tag anywhere mod, which makes the game a 100x better experience. i know i'm beating a dead horse talking about how bad this is, but it's honestly one of the more baffling game design decisions i've experienced and it hurts so much more because underneath that it's a game i very honestly adore.
aside from the kong swapping bullshit, i do have a couple other more minor complaints i wanted to mention. i was originally going to put the bonus games in my positive section, because i did genuinely enjoy them for the most part but they run out of unique bonus rooms by like the second/third world so you're just replaying the same bonus rooms all the time. this wouldn't be so bad if there were just less of them, or if some of the bonus games weren't terrible like the push beavers into a hole one. i kind of include the minecart levels/various races in the bonus level category but they are a different thing. i generally liked these, but some of the later game ones were just bullshit instead of satisfyingly difficult. which is weird because i find this game strikes that balance really well generally but things like the donkey kong arcade game and the 2nd race with that bunny in fungi forest are just kind of bullshit and unfun. i did love the boat race, and the 2 tiny car races though! the slides were also super fun. i'm a sucker for randomly swapping gameplay like that, as long as it isn't egregiously stupid/frustrating and while most weren't, there were a few here that were terrible.
the performance was pretty rough too. i don't wanna say too much definitively since i emulated the game, so i don't know how much better/worse it was. but the entirety of creepy castle lags on the outside like the entire time and i felt like it should be mentioned a little bit.
i also didn't love how there wasn't really any indication for which kongs could get upgrades at the various tents. some are obvious, like when u first get a kong you know they can get their gun/at least 1 potion from cranky but otherwise you have to go in individually with each kong to check. some sign outside saying what upgrades where there or even them mentioning "hey i got nothing left for you, but send in your pal <kong> i got something for them!" would have been nice.
this complaint is extremely small, but i will say my brain doesn't love that when you feed the pigs bananas to access a boss room, you lose the bananas on your count in the level. the total obviously doesn't go down but running around a level with 75 diddy bananas in the top left even though i've collected all 100 kind of frustrated me the few times it happened. that's a very nitpicky thing but something that did bother me enough to want to mention it lol. i fixed this issue by just saving the bosses for absolute last but still bothered me.
donkey kong 64 is a phenomenal game if you're using the tag anywhere mod. i had a fucking amazing time here, i loved it as much if not more than kazooie! that being said, i wanna be a bit more objective and rate this based on how the actual game is and it's an incredibly frustrating and tedious experience. i still think it's fun and worthwhile, just significantly worse. it's insane how much a simple dpad kong swap mechanic makes this a wildly better video game but it really does. if you're interested in the game please play it via the swap anywhere mod it's an incredibly more fun experience. if this game got a banjo XBLA esque remaster where they officially had a swap mechanic similar to the mod i really think this game would be looked on extremely fondly. love u DK, hope you get another shot at 3d someday.
Oh bananas...
It was Christmas 1999 when I got my Nintnedo 64, the second home console I ever owned. I was no stranger to the system, in fact I was the last person on my block to get one, but my mom was up to her eyeballs in student loan debt while trying to raise two kids, we weren't exactly a household that could afford to keep current on technology. My ceaseless begging finally wore her down, and she pinched every penny should could just to make me happy. Jungle green with a copy of Donkey Kong 64 and a (MANDATORY) expansion pak. I was thrilled, to say the least.
I got the console all set up on the living room TV, my mom watching as I powered it on and the DK Rap started up... "C'mon Cranky, kick it to the fridge!" I felt fucking mortified. The only other time I was so embarrassed about a piece of media that I didn't even want my own mother to know I was experiencing it was when she rented me Batman & Robin. But, alright, whatever. It's just a corny intro song, and I'm like, 12. Big deal.
Then Candy Kong came on the screen. God damnit. Son of a bitch.
Because money was so tight, Donkey Kong 64 was one of only two N64 games I actually owned at the time the console was being actively supported (the other being Pokemon Stadium.) That meant I played a whole lot of Donkey Kong, and I didn't even particularly enjoy it. I still played plenty of other games for the system, mostly on rental, at my friend's house, or when visiting my grandpa, but the few games I actually owned and could experience at my own leisure were of course the ones that got the most play. Obviously I've kept the cart with me all these years, as well as my jungle green N64, cherishing them as reminders of what my mom had to sacrifice so her spoiled brat of a son could enjoy his stupid monkey game, but it had been about twenty years since I played this game last. Who knows, maybe I'd like it more?
Not really, but I did do a couple things to make this playthrough more tolerable than the last: not going for 100% completion and listening to a whole lot of Art Bell in the background while I played. Fungi Forest is infinitely more enjoyable when you only need to go there for two or three golden bananas, and listening to Art talk about Mel's Hole provides enough of a distraction to keep yourself grounded. That's especially important, as attentively playing this game will activate you, give you the mind of a killer.
Rare reached their apotheosis with collectathons in DK64, and not only is there just too damn much stuff to collect, it's all strewn about haphazardly. Levels are designed in completely illogical ways, so much so that even one of them (Frantic Factory) is straight-up non-euclidean. There's no flow to them, you're never able to fall into a satisfying rhythm, some would say they have no style, no grace. In the middle of an area designed for Chunky Kong you might have like, five red bananas in a corner that only Diddy can pick up, so you have to run all the way to a hotswap barrel and go back as Diddy so you won't forget about them later, then run back and swap over to Chunky again so you can finish what you were doing. It's inconvenient, but take that one example and blow it up over the course of the entire game with all its different collectables (the keys, the coins, the golden bananas, the regular bananas...) and you have a mess. Buried beneath all the slop is a game that could've been more focused, allowing players to swap characters on the fly, with far fewer tools and pads and switches and gates to manage, making for a much more streamlined experience. In the late 90s, Rare was simply incapable of making such a game, evidently knowing only how to pile more crap on.
The nicest thing I can say about Donkey Kong 64 is that only 100 of the 201 golden bananas are required to beat the game. I have not factored in how many keys and coins you need, I refuse to do the monkey math on that. When you're gunning for the credits and nothing but, it's a much more enjoyable experience because you can cherry pick what parts you actually want to play. You don't have to do the slide races if you don't want to, nobody is forcing you to play all of Donkey Kong 64. Not really much of a compliment though when the most positive quality of a game is being able to play less of it. But as I was cruising through Creepy Castle, Art Bell keeping me calm and collected, I thought "this isn't so bad. I'll be done soon and then I can play a good video game."
Caller: "Art, why don't you have somebody-- I know you're connected with somebody that's got radar available. Radar would be the way to go to find out the depth."
Art: "How about a cop's radar?"
Caller: "I'm not sure they'll return an echo off of that. It's possible."
Mel: "It'd tell you how fast the hole is going, wouldn't it?"
If you're from a younger generation that didn't grow up with this game - a Zoomer or whatever future generation finds this review in like 2040 - and your familiarity with DK64 is the elements that have been memed to death, like the DK Rap, or Grant Kirkhope's "oh-kay" and "ohh ba-na-na," then heed my warning: None of those things are good enough to justify experiencing this game first-hand, they can all be enjoyed in a vacuum. This is my "just say no to drugs" speech. You might think Lanky Kong is a funny looking freak, but he's not worth experiencing 20 hours at minimum of one of the worst games from a major Nintendo partner ever released for any of their consoles. Oh sure, you might think it's funny every now and then when you see something you recognize, but I guarantee you that most of your time is going to be spent running around looking for five different colors of bananas feeling like you've just had your entire frontal lobe removed. Drooling all over yourself mumbling about Banana Faries... is that how you want your family to find you?
I'd like to take a copy of this game and throw it down Mel's hole. Maybe it'll come back as something better... Or maybe something worse.
It was Christmas 1999 when I got my Nintnedo 64, the second home console I ever owned. I was no stranger to the system, in fact I was the last person on my block to get one, but my mom was up to her eyeballs in student loan debt while trying to raise two kids, we weren't exactly a household that could afford to keep current on technology. My ceaseless begging finally wore her down, and she pinched every penny should could just to make me happy. Jungle green with a copy of Donkey Kong 64 and a (MANDATORY) expansion pak. I was thrilled, to say the least.
I got the console all set up on the living room TV, my mom watching as I powered it on and the DK Rap started up... "C'mon Cranky, kick it to the fridge!" I felt fucking mortified. The only other time I was so embarrassed about a piece of media that I didn't even want my own mother to know I was experiencing it was when she rented me Batman & Robin. But, alright, whatever. It's just a corny intro song, and I'm like, 12. Big deal.
Then Candy Kong came on the screen. God damnit. Son of a bitch.
Because money was so tight, Donkey Kong 64 was one of only two N64 games I actually owned at the time the console was being actively supported (the other being Pokemon Stadium.) That meant I played a whole lot of Donkey Kong, and I didn't even particularly enjoy it. I still played plenty of other games for the system, mostly on rental, at my friend's house, or when visiting my grandpa, but the few games I actually owned and could experience at my own leisure were of course the ones that got the most play. Obviously I've kept the cart with me all these years, as well as my jungle green N64, cherishing them as reminders of what my mom had to sacrifice so her spoiled brat of a son could enjoy his stupid monkey game, but it had been about twenty years since I played this game last. Who knows, maybe I'd like it more?
Not really, but I did do a couple things to make this playthrough more tolerable than the last: not going for 100% completion and listening to a whole lot of Art Bell in the background while I played. Fungi Forest is infinitely more enjoyable when you only need to go there for two or three golden bananas, and listening to Art talk about Mel's Hole provides enough of a distraction to keep yourself grounded. That's especially important, as attentively playing this game will activate you, give you the mind of a killer.
Rare reached their apotheosis with collectathons in DK64, and not only is there just too damn much stuff to collect, it's all strewn about haphazardly. Levels are designed in completely illogical ways, so much so that even one of them (Frantic Factory) is straight-up non-euclidean. There's no flow to them, you're never able to fall into a satisfying rhythm, some would say they have no style, no grace. In the middle of an area designed for Chunky Kong you might have like, five red bananas in a corner that only Diddy can pick up, so you have to run all the way to a hotswap barrel and go back as Diddy so you won't forget about them later, then run back and swap over to Chunky again so you can finish what you were doing. It's inconvenient, but take that one example and blow it up over the course of the entire game with all its different collectables (the keys, the coins, the golden bananas, the regular bananas...) and you have a mess. Buried beneath all the slop is a game that could've been more focused, allowing players to swap characters on the fly, with far fewer tools and pads and switches and gates to manage, making for a much more streamlined experience. In the late 90s, Rare was simply incapable of making such a game, evidently knowing only how to pile more crap on.
The nicest thing I can say about Donkey Kong 64 is that only 100 of the 201 golden bananas are required to beat the game. I have not factored in how many keys and coins you need, I refuse to do the monkey math on that. When you're gunning for the credits and nothing but, it's a much more enjoyable experience because you can cherry pick what parts you actually want to play. You don't have to do the slide races if you don't want to, nobody is forcing you to play all of Donkey Kong 64. Not really much of a compliment though when the most positive quality of a game is being able to play less of it. But as I was cruising through Creepy Castle, Art Bell keeping me calm and collected, I thought "this isn't so bad. I'll be done soon and then I can play a good video game."
Caller: "Art, why don't you have somebody-- I know you're connected with somebody that's got radar available. Radar would be the way to go to find out the depth."
Art: "How about a cop's radar?"
Caller: "I'm not sure they'll return an echo off of that. It's possible."
Mel: "It'd tell you how fast the hole is going, wouldn't it?"
If you're from a younger generation that didn't grow up with this game - a Zoomer or whatever future generation finds this review in like 2040 - and your familiarity with DK64 is the elements that have been memed to death, like the DK Rap, or Grant Kirkhope's "oh-kay" and "ohh ba-na-na," then heed my warning: None of those things are good enough to justify experiencing this game first-hand, they can all be enjoyed in a vacuum. This is my "just say no to drugs" speech. You might think Lanky Kong is a funny looking freak, but he's not worth experiencing 20 hours at minimum of one of the worst games from a major Nintendo partner ever released for any of their consoles. Oh sure, you might think it's funny every now and then when you see something you recognize, but I guarantee you that most of your time is going to be spent running around looking for five different colors of bananas feeling like you've just had your entire frontal lobe removed. Drooling all over yourself mumbling about Banana Faries... is that how you want your family to find you?
I'd like to take a copy of this game and throw it down Mel's hole. Maybe it'll come back as something better... Or maybe something worse.
The closest a game has come to feeling like one of those "haunted game cartridges" except it is haunted by the ghost of Lanky Kong
Rare: You know how people like video games because they're fun?
Nintendo: Yeah?
Rare: What if we made them not like that?
Nintendo: Yeah?
Rare: What if we made them not like that?
This game is very poorly designed. The progression and the mini games make this a very tedious collectathon experience. It almost feels like the developers were playing a practical joke with its game design. One of the mini games is broken to the point of being nearly impossible and it is repeated at least four times. To top it off there is a very easy to activate softlock that can gate 101% completion from you at the very end of the game. This all makes it hard to recommend to people. It's like a full time job of a video game.
To me this game design actually holds value. It makes for a game that's so over the top that it turns around and becomes compelling. You enter these giant collectathon sandboxes and it's so overwhelming, but slowly working out the ins and outs of the levels and achieving that 100% felt really satisfying in a way banjo never really got for me. A lot of people rightfully criticize the way it handles playable characters, but I think that limitation of having to find them was another step in this big puzzle of navigating the labrynthine collectathon loop the levels present. DK64 was always pushing me and testing me in all these ways that kept me engaged the entire time. I don't think there will ever be another game like it. Like what game has five variations of most of the collectibles in a level? It's just so insane to me and I find it endearing.
This is all held together by phenomenal presentation. I think this game values and understands the vibes of Donkey Kong Country more than people have you believe. Banjo is full of whimsy and a cozy feel to it. DK64 has a heavier emphasis on atmosphere, with the later levels going for moody foreboding stuff that you would see in the country games, it's great, and I think it compliments the daunting collectathon challenge it presents. I feel the same way about the music and I think it's easily Grant Kirkhopes best score. It's a surprisingly varied soundtrack and I often felt that it was going for the same kind of natural ambience David Wise goes for in the country games. I really don't understand the complaint that it just sounds like Banjo, they are definitely going for different things.
I wasn't sure I wanted to give this game as high of a rating as I did, but what cemented it for me was Hideout Helm and the final fight with K. Rool. It's an incredible finale and it's almost worth all the crap the game puts you through. Hideout Helm is a tight timed gauntlet that puts your knowledge of all the Kongs to the test with this incredible track that really puts the pressure on. And the K. Rool fight is this incredibly ambitious 5 round minimum boxing match where you have to use each kong's unique abilities to take him down. Legit one of my favorite bosses of all time, it's a masterwork in puzzle focused boss design.
I think one of the reasons I loved this game as much as I did was because it felt like a culmination of rareware at Nintendo. For better and worse it's this swan song collectathon where they just put all their eggs in a basket and went crazy with it. The fact you play Donkey Kong arcade and Rarewares Jetpac for mandatory progression only cements this idea. It's a celebratory experience that you have to really work at to get it's bombastic payoff. I don't think it's a game I'd casually play, but it was a challenge I set for myself that I found really fruitful at the end of the day.
To me this game design actually holds value. It makes for a game that's so over the top that it turns around and becomes compelling. You enter these giant collectathon sandboxes and it's so overwhelming, but slowly working out the ins and outs of the levels and achieving that 100% felt really satisfying in a way banjo never really got for me. A lot of people rightfully criticize the way it handles playable characters, but I think that limitation of having to find them was another step in this big puzzle of navigating the labrynthine collectathon loop the levels present. DK64 was always pushing me and testing me in all these ways that kept me engaged the entire time. I don't think there will ever be another game like it. Like what game has five variations of most of the collectibles in a level? It's just so insane to me and I find it endearing.
This is all held together by phenomenal presentation. I think this game values and understands the vibes of Donkey Kong Country more than people have you believe. Banjo is full of whimsy and a cozy feel to it. DK64 has a heavier emphasis on atmosphere, with the later levels going for moody foreboding stuff that you would see in the country games, it's great, and I think it compliments the daunting collectathon challenge it presents. I feel the same way about the music and I think it's easily Grant Kirkhopes best score. It's a surprisingly varied soundtrack and I often felt that it was going for the same kind of natural ambience David Wise goes for in the country games. I really don't understand the complaint that it just sounds like Banjo, they are definitely going for different things.
I wasn't sure I wanted to give this game as high of a rating as I did, but what cemented it for me was Hideout Helm and the final fight with K. Rool. It's an incredible finale and it's almost worth all the crap the game puts you through. Hideout Helm is a tight timed gauntlet that puts your knowledge of all the Kongs to the test with this incredible track that really puts the pressure on. And the K. Rool fight is this incredibly ambitious 5 round minimum boxing match where you have to use each kong's unique abilities to take him down. Legit one of my favorite bosses of all time, it's a masterwork in puzzle focused boss design.
I think one of the reasons I loved this game as much as I did was because it felt like a culmination of rareware at Nintendo. For better and worse it's this swan song collectathon where they just put all their eggs in a basket and went crazy with it. The fact you play Donkey Kong arcade and Rarewares Jetpac for mandatory progression only cements this idea. It's a celebratory experience that you have to really work at to get it's bombastic payoff. I don't think it's a game I'd casually play, but it was a challenge I set for myself that I found really fruitful at the end of the day.
cloud strife and donkey kong
Here, here, here we go!
So they're finally here, performing for you,
If you know the words, you can join in too,
Put your hands together, if you want to clap,
As we take you through, this monkey rap!
Huh!
D.K., Donkey Kong!!
He's the leader of the bunch, you know him well,
He's finally back to kick some tail,
His Coconut Gun can fire in spurts,
If he shoots ya, it's gonna hurt,
He's bigger, faster, and stronger too,
He's the first member of the D.K. crew!
Huh!
D.K., Donkey Kong!
D.K., Donkey Kong is here!
This Kong's got style, so listen up dudes,
She can shrink in size, to suit her mood,
She's quick and nimble when she needs to be,
She can float through the air and climb up trees!
If you choose her, you'll not choose wrong,
With a skip and a hop, she's one cool Kong!
Huh!
D.K., Donkey Kong!
He has no style, he has no grace,
Th-th-th-this Kong has a funny face,
He can handstand when he needs to,
And stretch his arms out, just for you,
Inflate himself just like a balloon,
This crazy Kong just digs this tune!
Huh!
D.K., Donkey Kong!
D.K., Donkey Kong is here!
He's back again and about time too,
And this time he's in the mood,
He can fly real high with his jetpack on,
With his pistols out, he's one tough Kong!
He'll make you smile when he plays his tune,
But Kremlings beware 'cause he's after you!
Huh!
D.K., Donkey Kong!
Huh!
Finally, he's here for you,
It's the last member of the D.K. crew!
This Kong's so strong, it isn't funny,
Can make a Kremling cry out for mummy,
Can pick up a boulder with relative ease,
Makes crushing rocks seem such a breeze,
He may move slow, he can't jump high,
But this Kong's one hell of a guy! (Replaced with "heck" in later versions of the song.)
Huh!
C'mon Cranky, take it to the fridge!
W-w-w-walnuts. peanuts. pineapple smells.
Grapes. melons. oranges and coconut shells!
Ahh yeah!
Walnuts, peanuts, pineapple smells,
Grapes, melons, oranges and coconut shells!
Ahh yeah!
So they're finally here, performing for you,
If you know the words, you can join in too,
Put your hands together, if you want to clap,
As we take you through, this monkey rap!
Huh!
D.K., Donkey Kong!!
He's the leader of the bunch, you know him well,
He's finally back to kick some tail,
His Coconut Gun can fire in spurts,
If he shoots ya, it's gonna hurt,
He's bigger, faster, and stronger too,
He's the first member of the D.K. crew!
Huh!
D.K., Donkey Kong!
D.K., Donkey Kong is here!
This Kong's got style, so listen up dudes,
She can shrink in size, to suit her mood,
She's quick and nimble when she needs to be,
She can float through the air and climb up trees!
If you choose her, you'll not choose wrong,
With a skip and a hop, she's one cool Kong!
Huh!
D.K., Donkey Kong!
He has no style, he has no grace,
Th-th-th-this Kong has a funny face,
He can handstand when he needs to,
And stretch his arms out, just for you,
Inflate himself just like a balloon,
This crazy Kong just digs this tune!
Huh!
D.K., Donkey Kong!
D.K., Donkey Kong is here!
He's back again and about time too,
And this time he's in the mood,
He can fly real high with his jetpack on,
With his pistols out, he's one tough Kong!
He'll make you smile when he plays his tune,
But Kremlings beware 'cause he's after you!
Huh!
D.K., Donkey Kong!
Huh!
Finally, he's here for you,
It's the last member of the D.K. crew!
This Kong's so strong, it isn't funny,
Can make a Kremling cry out for mummy,
Can pick up a boulder with relative ease,
Makes crushing rocks seem such a breeze,
He may move slow, he can't jump high,
But this Kong's one hell of a guy! (Replaced with "heck" in later versions of the song.)
Huh!
C'mon Cranky, take it to the fridge!
W-w-w-walnuts. peanuts. pineapple smells.
Grapes. melons. oranges and coconut shells!
Ahh yeah!
Walnuts, peanuts, pineapple smells,
Grapes, melons, oranges and coconut shells!
Ahh yeah!
Donkey Kong 64 is well known as a veritable disaster, and as such this might be the most redundant review I will ever write. That said, journaling is cathartic, and this is the only way I can think of to exorcise the demons currently plaguing me. In the case of DK64, that's a lot of doin', so let's "jump" right in.
The first problem to rear its head occurs right in the tutorial and first minutes in the game: the imprecision of the controls and platforming. Rare was smart to give each kong a mid-air attack that grants some hovering, as course correction for every meaningful jump is necessary. Two things exacerbate this issue: the camera and the game's hitboxes. The former ensures that whatever the player's target is will never actually be visible to them when they need it most, and the latter makes touching barrels and collectibles are frustrating affair.
For a platformer, Donkey Kong 64 just feels very unsatisfying to grapple with. Movement isn't smooth. Jumps are fraught with peril for all the wrong reasons. Combat is extremely basic and plagued with the issue that it's impossible to call out the attack you want on demand. (Want to do a running attack? Enjoy randomly stopping dead in your tracks a quarter of the time.)
Perhaps the problem with the basic control of the game is why Rare decided to largely center it around a variety of "fun" minigames. Each of these takes the player out of the level and shoves them into a dystopian barrel world. It's actually quite an impressive degree of immersion-shattering that I've yet to see replicated. These minigames range from trivial, to frustrating, to bugged. Not a single one of them is a worthwhile experience, and the fact that they make up so much of the game's runtime is embarrassing.
The existence of the minigames has the knock-on effect of trivializing level design. Instead of building unique objectives into the landscape of the level, as other platformers do, Donkey Kong 64 is content to build countless little houses each with five little doors that each house a fun little minigame. This schema is returned to again and again, all the way up to the absolute nadir of the game's level design, Crystal Cave, that features two of them in close proximity to one another. Add in the fact that one of the kongs' objectives each stage is to kill a basic enemy and you wind up with quite the uninspired objective list.
The true objective of the game, though, is the mental calculus of routing an efficient path through the levels to minimize one's time with the game. The true joy of Donkey Kong 64 is that this efficient path does not exist. All levels essentially have to be traversed five times, as the developers were keen to put kong-specific collectibles in dead-end rooms that serve no purpose other than reward a different kong for finishing a minigame or some other bullshit. The mental burden is on the player, then, to make the best of a bad situation.
Put another way, Donkey Kong 64 is the ultimate Traveling Salesman Problem Simulator, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy that at least a little bit.
It's very clear that Donkey Kong 64's grasp falls short of its reach. They wanted eight unique levels, but couldn't find compelling designs for all of them. They wanted 200 bananas to mog Mario 64 but couldn't think of unique objectives. They wanted to include unlockable powerups but most of them fall in the bucket of "You can now ground pound a different colored switch." They wanted boss fights but half of them are recycled. They wanted five kongs but they play identically.
It's tough to categorize Donkey Kong 64 as anything but a total failure with so many unrealized goals. I don't think that's a particularly saucy opinion, but then again who needed a review of Donkey Kong 64 in the year 2023?
The first problem to rear its head occurs right in the tutorial and first minutes in the game: the imprecision of the controls and platforming. Rare was smart to give each kong a mid-air attack that grants some hovering, as course correction for every meaningful jump is necessary. Two things exacerbate this issue: the camera and the game's hitboxes. The former ensures that whatever the player's target is will never actually be visible to them when they need it most, and the latter makes touching barrels and collectibles are frustrating affair.
For a platformer, Donkey Kong 64 just feels very unsatisfying to grapple with. Movement isn't smooth. Jumps are fraught with peril for all the wrong reasons. Combat is extremely basic and plagued with the issue that it's impossible to call out the attack you want on demand. (Want to do a running attack? Enjoy randomly stopping dead in your tracks a quarter of the time.)
Perhaps the problem with the basic control of the game is why Rare decided to largely center it around a variety of "fun" minigames. Each of these takes the player out of the level and shoves them into a dystopian barrel world. It's actually quite an impressive degree of immersion-shattering that I've yet to see replicated. These minigames range from trivial, to frustrating, to bugged. Not a single one of them is a worthwhile experience, and the fact that they make up so much of the game's runtime is embarrassing.
The existence of the minigames has the knock-on effect of trivializing level design. Instead of building unique objectives into the landscape of the level, as other platformers do, Donkey Kong 64 is content to build countless little houses each with five little doors that each house a fun little minigame. This schema is returned to again and again, all the way up to the absolute nadir of the game's level design, Crystal Cave, that features two of them in close proximity to one another. Add in the fact that one of the kongs' objectives each stage is to kill a basic enemy and you wind up with quite the uninspired objective list.
The true objective of the game, though, is the mental calculus of routing an efficient path through the levels to minimize one's time with the game. The true joy of Donkey Kong 64 is that this efficient path does not exist. All levels essentially have to be traversed five times, as the developers were keen to put kong-specific collectibles in dead-end rooms that serve no purpose other than reward a different kong for finishing a minigame or some other bullshit. The mental burden is on the player, then, to make the best of a bad situation.
Put another way, Donkey Kong 64 is the ultimate Traveling Salesman Problem Simulator, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy that at least a little bit.
It's very clear that Donkey Kong 64's grasp falls short of its reach. They wanted eight unique levels, but couldn't find compelling designs for all of them. They wanted 200 bananas to mog Mario 64 but couldn't think of unique objectives. They wanted to include unlockable powerups but most of them fall in the bucket of "You can now ground pound a different colored switch." They wanted boss fights but half of them are recycled. They wanted five kongs but they play identically.
It's tough to categorize Donkey Kong 64 as anything but a total failure with so many unrealized goals. I don't think that's a particularly saucy opinion, but then again who needed a review of Donkey Kong 64 in the year 2023?
Avancei bastante no próprio N64, e depois zerei no emulador, acho que faltou o dedo do técnico nesse jogo, a trilha sonora é boa, mas parece demais com Banjo, parece que esse jogo não tem nenhuma OST própria, depois de um tempo fica repetitivo e chato demais ficar catando milhões de bananas com personagens que não precisavam estar no jogo, é um jogo bem meh infelizmente, é grande demais pra um plataformer de N64.
Genre: Platformer Collect-a-Thon
Released: November 22nd, 1999
Platform: Nintendo 64 (original), Wii U
Developer: Rare
Publisher: Nintendo
Language: English, but available in French, German, Spanish and Japanese with first party translations.
Length: 20-30 hours, but 35+ for the 101% completion (don’t do that, I beg you). I rolled credits a little after 21 hours. I will never go back.
Difficulty: Easy-Medium, but extraordinarily frustrating. You will finish it, it’s just a question of how much you are willing to take.
Do I Need To Play Anything First: No, this is a stand alone game. There are nods to the Super Nintendo and Arcade games, but no previous games are needed.
Accessibility Options: None. There are subtitles built into the game, but the player is extremely limited in what they can change. Fast responses are required, two handed play is required, full sight is required. Some collectibles and enemy attacks are primarily based on audio cues. If played via an emulator on a PC game speed can be controlled, but you may need a co-player to finish this game.
How Did You Play It: On original N64 hardware via a flashcart with a modified copy of the game that allowed me to change characters whenever I wanted to. The Mod is called DK64 - Tag Anywhere.
Is It Good: No. It’s terrible. Which is why it’s great. But bad. It’s really bad.
Just finished Donkey Kong 64 because I hate myself.
Why Donkey Kong 64 was actually the worst Nintendo Game of the 90’s
How and Why DK64 is so awful.
Bad Game Design – Donkey Kong 64
These are just the top headlines, message boards, or other modern internet musings when discussing Donkey Kong 64, the famous (or infamous) Rare developed yellow cartridge ‘collect-a-thon’ released in 1999. Stating that DK64 in not that great a game is not a particularly scalding opinion. It’s a bloated, poorly optimized, often boring, tedious, and obtusely designed game so bizarre in some of its design choices it boggled my mind. Given its notorious reputation on the internet, one could be forgiven for assuming the game was equally reviled upon its release.
“Donkey Kong 64 deserves the fanfare of being the most eagerly-awaited game since Zelda.”
“This is Rare's War and Peace, it's that simple.”
“I can ill refute the fact that the game is still remarkable. Had this title come from any other game developer in the world I'd be doing back flips raving about how great it is.”
“It's one of those Rare games that makes you remember why you liked video games so much in the first place.”
These quotes are not from some alternate mirror universe, but reviews when DK64 was originally released (although calling DK64 the ‘War and Peace’ of the gaming world is very funny to me). DK64 was critically acclaimed upon its release, praised for its graphics, art, gameplay and length.
I can certainly confirm this positive sentiment since I was a child when the game came out, and I thought DK64 was the coolest thing ever. I remember playing the demo display at McDonalds with a limp sticked, sticky N64 controller and feeling like the game was filled with endless sights and adventures. I remember going to a friend’s house who showed me a later level in the and my being astonished by just how. Much. Stuff. There was to do, to see, to collect, to play.
The game was also gorgeous, with lush jungles and creepy castles, advanced lighting effects (I remember lights moving around Donkey Kong being particularly impressive), all in a seamless world that without any obvious loading screens. But beyond its technical prowess DK64 has an strong artistic identity that is so cohesive and well executed you can still feel it’s influences today.
You can find DK64 sound effects in tiktok videos, people are STILL parodying the DK Rap, the music is loving layered in the background of youtube game discussion videos, and for such a ‘hated’ game Donkey Kong 64 has such a pernicious relevance decades later it is obviously clearly so much more than just an awful Nintendo 64 game from the 90’s.
Donkey Kong 64 is more then a game to be judged on its mechanical gameplay. Because the gameplay is bad. Just… So bad.
But DK64 is not about the gameplay, in fact: the gameplay does not matter at all.
The gameplay was not the focus of this games development, it was not the focus of the critics praise of the game, and is not why people are still playing it today.
Let’s get the gameplay discussion out of the way. In Donkey Kong 64, your goal is simple: collect enough bananas so you can feed Scoff the blue hippopotamus so he gets fat and jumps on a lever to bounce up Troff the pink pig high enough to turn a key to unlock a door so you can fight a boss to get a bigger golden key which then you can use to unlock the cage trapping K. Lumsy the giant green lizard who is locked behind 8 locks so you need to collect enough bigger golden bananas so you can show them to B. Locker to get more bananas to feed Scoff the blue hippopotamus.
…Also please remember to pick up enough weapon blueprints so you have enough time in the final level, banana coins (so you can unlock guns, abilities, musical instruments, and inventory space), a Nintendo coin, a Rare coin, and at least 4 battle crowns. Or you won’t be able to do the last level.
It’s a convoluted mess, and this design philosophy permeates nearly every aspect of the game. Levels are massive, sprawling confusing mazes. There is a car racing minigame, a mine cart minigame, a hide and seek mini game, a beaver herding mini game (which I HATED), a fly swatting mini game, and dozens more. There are two fully emulated OTHER GAMES in Donkey Kong 64 which are mandatory to play. There is an optional photography mechanic. And 3,821 collectibles to acquire.
It's staggering in its scope and suffers deeply for it. Because nearly every mechanic feels like a first draft, and incomplete idea thrown in just to make the game longer and bigger. The minigames are repeated, the bosses are repeated, the platforming is floaty and unresponsive, the levels are filled with almost identical hallways, and there are huge areas of open space with nothing to do. Most damningly a great deal of the actual collecting (arguably the point of the game) is boring and as insulting simple as walk to one place, hit a switch, walk to another, get banana.
And the crown jewel is the fact that essentially every collectable item in the game is tied to a unique Kong. There are five playable characters in the game, and each can only collect their own specific item colour.
See a red banana but are playing as Donkey Kong? You need to walk back to a barrel, swap to Diddy Kong, and walk back. This character switching becomes so extreme I though the designers were playing a joke on me. I would often have to change Kong’s more than three times just to walk down a hallway, a process that required walking all the way back to a barrel each time.
Donkey Kong 64 does so many things, but none of them well. Platforming? Acceptable at best, but a nauseating, stuttering, inaccurate mess at worst. Shooting? Barely fleshed out and clunky. Mini games? Simple, repetitive, and often infuriating (RE: herding beaver). Level Design? Occasionally brilliant, but mostly empty, boring and meandering.
Collecting, the main point the game? Dull, confusing and repetitive.
Even the developers wished they had done differently. In a Games Rader interview from 2019 the games creative director George Andrea states “There's a lot I would do differently. We would scale things down, make things look sharper, and focus on fewer things. I would have unified the banana system. That would have made it much easier for players to play through. I'd also promote more swapping between characters at regular intervals, but just having a consistent banana count, rather than multiple colours, would have improved things.”
So if even the directors lament DK64’s obtuse and unfocused design, and the gameplay lacks any real strong mechanics, why are people still playing this game? Why are there still discussion boards, YouTube videos, memes, and articles still written. Simply bad games are forgotten, and despite some grievous faults DK64 is not unplayable.
I think it’s because DK64 thrives on everything other than being, well, an interactive game. And it is exclusively because of those very flaws that DK64 remains part of the cultural zeitgeist today.
DK64 oozes charm and personality, and carries itself with such a confident artistic vision it easily differentiates itself from the games of its time and those of today. The moment the clear deep “OK!” Donkey Kong exclaims on first powering the game on, the game begins tunneling a space for itself in your brain.
Monkey chirps, cries, and hoots fill the soundscape both as digenetic environmental sounds and becoming musical instruments themselves, which blend seamlessly with the soundtrack. Then the game starts to rap at you, with lyrics such as “his coconut gun can fire in spurts, if he shoots ya it’s gonna hurt!”. It’s so joyful, fully embracing its bizarre and ridiculous nature without a hint of sarcasm.
DK64 powerfully establishes in its first 15 seconds its here to have a great time. Each tune the game throws at you bounces between is an intoxicating mix of jazz, animal sounds, tribal drums, and silly ear worms you can’t help but smile whenever you hear it. The soundtrack deserves all the praise it has received over the years, both on its competent musical composition but also how it affirms the identity of Donkey Kong 64.
Every piece of art, animation, and music feed each other into forming the wacky, colourful and strange ambiance that is uniquely its own. While having five different Kongs mechanically hurts the game, the Kongs themselves are incredibly well designed and presented. The majority of the cast made both their first and last appearance in DK64, yet are still fondly remembered and easily identifiable decades later.
The Kongs strong and clear personalities, no frame of animation or sound effect is wasted as an opportunity to demonstrate character. Just looking at Tiny Kong’s care free walk cycle is enough for one to understand who she is as a character. Or how Chunky Kong bashfully tries to point you to anyone else but him if you try to select him in the menu. Or just hearing Lanky’s hoots and hollers let you know the he has no style, and no grace.
Every pixel and sound bite are squeezed into creating a masterclass in presentation. It is an excellent example of how videos are so much more than their mechanical parts. Donkey Kong 64 is an incredible experience and holds a shared mind space so unique because there is nothing like it. It is charming, funny, strange, and utterly memorable.
Much is said about the graphics, sound, and score (which are exceptional) but I was most impressed with the animation. Not from a gameplay perspective (which again… sucks), but how flowing and expressive every piece is. Characters squash and stretch, scurry, skitter and scramble with such strong performances its impressive even compared to modern games.
The second part is the shared cultural story and experience playing Donkey Kong 64 occupies. Complaining about Donkey Kong 64 is fun. It’s fun to tell our friends how infuriating finding that last banana was, or how we almost gave up when the game asked us to complete the arcade game for a SECOND TIME!
My friends tell me about they time they tried to collect every banana in every level, despite there being no reason or in game reward to do such a terrible thing. Or how people proudly post they got the infamous 101% completion rating. Was it fun? No, they say, but I did it.
People climb Everest because it’s there.
A few house cleaning notes before closing. I played a modified Donkey Kong 64 on a Nintendo 64 via a flash cart. This mod is called ‘Donkey Kong 64 – Tag Anywhere’ and allows you to change to any Kong at any point in the game without needing to backtrack to a barrel. I HIGHLY recommend this modification, and I do not feel it distracts from the ‘vanilla’ experience in any meaningful way. Some will argue that the games backtracking and obtuseness is part of the games charm, to which I would reply ‘don’t worry, the game is still incredibly annoying with the mod’. I would even go further and suggest for first time players to play with the mod on an emulator so you can use save states, but that may be too far for some.
I do not recommend Donkey Kong 64. I did not like playing this game, and had to force myself to continue.
But I loved complaining about it with my friends who had finished it. I loved sharing screenshots and asking for hints. I loved the atmosphere, the characters, and the music.
And I am so very glad I finally finished this game, so many years later.
Please, save yourself some pain and don’t play Donkey Kong 64.
But when you do play it, make sure to write about how terrible it is on the internet.
Follow me at The Pile for more reviews (including books and films)
https://thepile.substack.com/
Released: November 22nd, 1999
Platform: Nintendo 64 (original), Wii U
Developer: Rare
Publisher: Nintendo
Language: English, but available in French, German, Spanish and Japanese with first party translations.
Length: 20-30 hours, but 35+ for the 101% completion (don’t do that, I beg you). I rolled credits a little after 21 hours. I will never go back.
Difficulty: Easy-Medium, but extraordinarily frustrating. You will finish it, it’s just a question of how much you are willing to take.
Do I Need To Play Anything First: No, this is a stand alone game. There are nods to the Super Nintendo and Arcade games, but no previous games are needed.
Accessibility Options: None. There are subtitles built into the game, but the player is extremely limited in what they can change. Fast responses are required, two handed play is required, full sight is required. Some collectibles and enemy attacks are primarily based on audio cues. If played via an emulator on a PC game speed can be controlled, but you may need a co-player to finish this game.
How Did You Play It: On original N64 hardware via a flashcart with a modified copy of the game that allowed me to change characters whenever I wanted to. The Mod is called DK64 - Tag Anywhere.
Is It Good: No. It’s terrible. Which is why it’s great. But bad. It’s really bad.
Just finished Donkey Kong 64 because I hate myself.
Why Donkey Kong 64 was actually the worst Nintendo Game of the 90’s
How and Why DK64 is so awful.
Bad Game Design – Donkey Kong 64
These are just the top headlines, message boards, or other modern internet musings when discussing Donkey Kong 64, the famous (or infamous) Rare developed yellow cartridge ‘collect-a-thon’ released in 1999. Stating that DK64 in not that great a game is not a particularly scalding opinion. It’s a bloated, poorly optimized, often boring, tedious, and obtusely designed game so bizarre in some of its design choices it boggled my mind. Given its notorious reputation on the internet, one could be forgiven for assuming the game was equally reviled upon its release.
“Donkey Kong 64 deserves the fanfare of being the most eagerly-awaited game since Zelda.”
“This is Rare's War and Peace, it's that simple.”
“I can ill refute the fact that the game is still remarkable. Had this title come from any other game developer in the world I'd be doing back flips raving about how great it is.”
“It's one of those Rare games that makes you remember why you liked video games so much in the first place.”
These quotes are not from some alternate mirror universe, but reviews when DK64 was originally released (although calling DK64 the ‘War and Peace’ of the gaming world is very funny to me). DK64 was critically acclaimed upon its release, praised for its graphics, art, gameplay and length.
I can certainly confirm this positive sentiment since I was a child when the game came out, and I thought DK64 was the coolest thing ever. I remember playing the demo display at McDonalds with a limp sticked, sticky N64 controller and feeling like the game was filled with endless sights and adventures. I remember going to a friend’s house who showed me a later level in the and my being astonished by just how. Much. Stuff. There was to do, to see, to collect, to play.
The game was also gorgeous, with lush jungles and creepy castles, advanced lighting effects (I remember lights moving around Donkey Kong being particularly impressive), all in a seamless world that without any obvious loading screens. But beyond its technical prowess DK64 has an strong artistic identity that is so cohesive and well executed you can still feel it’s influences today.
You can find DK64 sound effects in tiktok videos, people are STILL parodying the DK Rap, the music is loving layered in the background of youtube game discussion videos, and for such a ‘hated’ game Donkey Kong 64 has such a pernicious relevance decades later it is obviously clearly so much more than just an awful Nintendo 64 game from the 90’s.
Donkey Kong 64 is more then a game to be judged on its mechanical gameplay. Because the gameplay is bad. Just… So bad.
But DK64 is not about the gameplay, in fact: the gameplay does not matter at all.
The gameplay was not the focus of this games development, it was not the focus of the critics praise of the game, and is not why people are still playing it today.
Let’s get the gameplay discussion out of the way. In Donkey Kong 64, your goal is simple: collect enough bananas so you can feed Scoff the blue hippopotamus so he gets fat and jumps on a lever to bounce up Troff the pink pig high enough to turn a key to unlock a door so you can fight a boss to get a bigger golden key which then you can use to unlock the cage trapping K. Lumsy the giant green lizard who is locked behind 8 locks so you need to collect enough bigger golden bananas so you can show them to B. Locker to get more bananas to feed Scoff the blue hippopotamus.
…Also please remember to pick up enough weapon blueprints so you have enough time in the final level, banana coins (so you can unlock guns, abilities, musical instruments, and inventory space), a Nintendo coin, a Rare coin, and at least 4 battle crowns. Or you won’t be able to do the last level.
It’s a convoluted mess, and this design philosophy permeates nearly every aspect of the game. Levels are massive, sprawling confusing mazes. There is a car racing minigame, a mine cart minigame, a hide and seek mini game, a beaver herding mini game (which I HATED), a fly swatting mini game, and dozens more. There are two fully emulated OTHER GAMES in Donkey Kong 64 which are mandatory to play. There is an optional photography mechanic. And 3,821 collectibles to acquire.
It's staggering in its scope and suffers deeply for it. Because nearly every mechanic feels like a first draft, and incomplete idea thrown in just to make the game longer and bigger. The minigames are repeated, the bosses are repeated, the platforming is floaty and unresponsive, the levels are filled with almost identical hallways, and there are huge areas of open space with nothing to do. Most damningly a great deal of the actual collecting (arguably the point of the game) is boring and as insulting simple as walk to one place, hit a switch, walk to another, get banana.
And the crown jewel is the fact that essentially every collectable item in the game is tied to a unique Kong. There are five playable characters in the game, and each can only collect their own specific item colour.
See a red banana but are playing as Donkey Kong? You need to walk back to a barrel, swap to Diddy Kong, and walk back. This character switching becomes so extreme I though the designers were playing a joke on me. I would often have to change Kong’s more than three times just to walk down a hallway, a process that required walking all the way back to a barrel each time.
Donkey Kong 64 does so many things, but none of them well. Platforming? Acceptable at best, but a nauseating, stuttering, inaccurate mess at worst. Shooting? Barely fleshed out and clunky. Mini games? Simple, repetitive, and often infuriating (RE: herding beaver). Level Design? Occasionally brilliant, but mostly empty, boring and meandering.
Collecting, the main point the game? Dull, confusing and repetitive.
Even the developers wished they had done differently. In a Games Rader interview from 2019 the games creative director George Andrea states “There's a lot I would do differently. We would scale things down, make things look sharper, and focus on fewer things. I would have unified the banana system. That would have made it much easier for players to play through. I'd also promote more swapping between characters at regular intervals, but just having a consistent banana count, rather than multiple colours, would have improved things.”
So if even the directors lament DK64’s obtuse and unfocused design, and the gameplay lacks any real strong mechanics, why are people still playing this game? Why are there still discussion boards, YouTube videos, memes, and articles still written. Simply bad games are forgotten, and despite some grievous faults DK64 is not unplayable.
I think it’s because DK64 thrives on everything other than being, well, an interactive game. And it is exclusively because of those very flaws that DK64 remains part of the cultural zeitgeist today.
DK64 oozes charm and personality, and carries itself with such a confident artistic vision it easily differentiates itself from the games of its time and those of today. The moment the clear deep “OK!” Donkey Kong exclaims on first powering the game on, the game begins tunneling a space for itself in your brain.
Monkey chirps, cries, and hoots fill the soundscape both as digenetic environmental sounds and becoming musical instruments themselves, which blend seamlessly with the soundtrack. Then the game starts to rap at you, with lyrics such as “his coconut gun can fire in spurts, if he shoots ya it’s gonna hurt!”. It’s so joyful, fully embracing its bizarre and ridiculous nature without a hint of sarcasm.
DK64 powerfully establishes in its first 15 seconds its here to have a great time. Each tune the game throws at you bounces between is an intoxicating mix of jazz, animal sounds, tribal drums, and silly ear worms you can’t help but smile whenever you hear it. The soundtrack deserves all the praise it has received over the years, both on its competent musical composition but also how it affirms the identity of Donkey Kong 64.
Every piece of art, animation, and music feed each other into forming the wacky, colourful and strange ambiance that is uniquely its own. While having five different Kongs mechanically hurts the game, the Kongs themselves are incredibly well designed and presented. The majority of the cast made both their first and last appearance in DK64, yet are still fondly remembered and easily identifiable decades later.
The Kongs strong and clear personalities, no frame of animation or sound effect is wasted as an opportunity to demonstrate character. Just looking at Tiny Kong’s care free walk cycle is enough for one to understand who she is as a character. Or how Chunky Kong bashfully tries to point you to anyone else but him if you try to select him in the menu. Or just hearing Lanky’s hoots and hollers let you know the he has no style, and no grace.
Every pixel and sound bite are squeezed into creating a masterclass in presentation. It is an excellent example of how videos are so much more than their mechanical parts. Donkey Kong 64 is an incredible experience and holds a shared mind space so unique because there is nothing like it. It is charming, funny, strange, and utterly memorable.
Much is said about the graphics, sound, and score (which are exceptional) but I was most impressed with the animation. Not from a gameplay perspective (which again… sucks), but how flowing and expressive every piece is. Characters squash and stretch, scurry, skitter and scramble with such strong performances its impressive even compared to modern games.
The second part is the shared cultural story and experience playing Donkey Kong 64 occupies. Complaining about Donkey Kong 64 is fun. It’s fun to tell our friends how infuriating finding that last banana was, or how we almost gave up when the game asked us to complete the arcade game for a SECOND TIME!
My friends tell me about they time they tried to collect every banana in every level, despite there being no reason or in game reward to do such a terrible thing. Or how people proudly post they got the infamous 101% completion rating. Was it fun? No, they say, but I did it.
People climb Everest because it’s there.
A few house cleaning notes before closing. I played a modified Donkey Kong 64 on a Nintendo 64 via a flash cart. This mod is called ‘Donkey Kong 64 – Tag Anywhere’ and allows you to change to any Kong at any point in the game without needing to backtrack to a barrel. I HIGHLY recommend this modification, and I do not feel it distracts from the ‘vanilla’ experience in any meaningful way. Some will argue that the games backtracking and obtuseness is part of the games charm, to which I would reply ‘don’t worry, the game is still incredibly annoying with the mod’. I would even go further and suggest for first time players to play with the mod on an emulator so you can use save states, but that may be too far for some.
I do not recommend Donkey Kong 64. I did not like playing this game, and had to force myself to continue.
But I loved complaining about it with my friends who had finished it. I loved sharing screenshots and asking for hints. I loved the atmosphere, the characters, and the music.
And I am so very glad I finally finished this game, so many years later.
Please, save yourself some pain and don’t play Donkey Kong 64.
But when you do play it, make sure to write about how terrible it is on the internet.
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I do not know how to feel about this game. At all. I fully completed it and I still have no idea how to feel about it. It's an absolutely bloated mess that frequently has collectibles scattered about in seemingly random fashion. The list of things to pick up is absolutely never-ending, by the time any of its contemporaries would have finished you'll probably only be 1/3 of the way done with this game. There are challenges scattered about that will make you absolutely tear your hair out (Rabbit race, anyone? Also anything that makes you use Diddy's jetpack under a time limit. That thing controls like trying to swim through mayonnaise) and sometimes the game just makes you walk back and forth switching Kongs to get through one gate. You'll run into hallways that lead you down them with Tiny only to make you swap to DK to hit a switch.
However, despite all that, I find myself.... absolutely loving my time with the game? I love the sheer amount of things to pick up. The game is positively bursting at the seams with personality, watching the animations of any Kong is an absolute joy. The music and visuals are also some of the best on the system, this game truly pushes the N64 as far as it can and it remains one of my favorite looking games on the system. The abilities each Kong has are super fun, stuff like Lanky running on his hands or Chunky growing absolutely massive are so cool and I find them really enjoyable. The boss fights are also awesome, even if a couple bosses are reused it's fun to fight them with different Kongs/abilities. The scale of the game is honestly great, it feels like a truly massive adventure and having K. Rool's ship constantly looming in the hub world really gives things a sense of urgency. Overall I feel like the game's strengths outweigh its weaknesses but it's still an absolute mess at points and definitely hasn't aged as well as Rare's other offerings from the time period. I'd still recommend it if you like Collectathons but just be fully prepared to deal with the game's quirks.
Also, this isn't really related to my final score, but you can absolutely destroy this game with glitches if you want. You won't encounter said glitches unintentionally which is nice, but you can entirely ruin the intended order of things if you really want to which I think is neat.
overall game sucks dick. i love it with my whole heart
However, despite all that, I find myself.... absolutely loving my time with the game? I love the sheer amount of things to pick up. The game is positively bursting at the seams with personality, watching the animations of any Kong is an absolute joy. The music and visuals are also some of the best on the system, this game truly pushes the N64 as far as it can and it remains one of my favorite looking games on the system. The abilities each Kong has are super fun, stuff like Lanky running on his hands or Chunky growing absolutely massive are so cool and I find them really enjoyable. The boss fights are also awesome, even if a couple bosses are reused it's fun to fight them with different Kongs/abilities. The scale of the game is honestly great, it feels like a truly massive adventure and having K. Rool's ship constantly looming in the hub world really gives things a sense of urgency. Overall I feel like the game's strengths outweigh its weaknesses but it's still an absolute mess at points and definitely hasn't aged as well as Rare's other offerings from the time period. I'd still recommend it if you like Collectathons but just be fully prepared to deal with the game's quirks.
Also, this isn't really related to my final score, but you can absolutely destroy this game with glitches if you want. You won't encounter said glitches unintentionally which is nice, but you can entirely ruin the intended order of things if you really want to which I think is neat.
overall game sucks dick. i love it with my whole heart
This game is stuffed with way too many collectibles, confusing level design and has so many flaws in its (game) design that it sometimes beggars belief.
It can be said with certainity that this game aged really poorly.
But still... it's also funny, charming, has some really cool levels and is always engrossing in its creativity.
Maybe I do have a softer (not totally soft) spot for this because I grew up with it.
It can be said with certainity that this game aged really poorly.
But still... it's also funny, charming, has some really cool levels and is always engrossing in its creativity.
Maybe I do have a softer (not totally soft) spot for this because I grew up with it.
Heavily flawed, but it's a very fun game if you're not going for 101%. The mini-games bog the pacing down, and the different coloured bananas add unnecessary tedium. Every character on their own is fun to play though, the worlds are all pretty fun to explore (with reservations for Gloomy Galleon), and it's a very charming game.
Donkey Kong 64 feels like a video game you would dream about: I mean this in the most literal sense. This is not a "dream" video game in the way that people have "dream homes", this is a video game that is as surreal and nonsensical as the subconscious mind. I'm sure this sense is brought on not only by the content of the game itself, but also by the fact that I'm old enough to remember seeing the game in a store demo kiosk when I was very young, but never actually played it until now.
Donkey Kong 64 has a lot of collectables, that much is certainly true, but that doesn't get to the heart of it. In terms of gameplay, there really isn't much other than the collection itself. What are Donkey Kong 64's core mechanics? You can jump, you can shoot, you can punch, but none of these things have any style or grace; none of them are what the game is "built around". The central mechanic is "walking around and finding stuff".
Donkey Kong 64's level design is completely directionless. The hub world is oddly naturalistic, with multiple levels inside of unmarked gateways; when I collected my first golden banana after talking to K. Lumsy, I didn't even realize that the empty void behind that banana was the entrance to the first main stage. When you go through a warp and into a level, the camera's initial position is not a view of the stage from behind your character, but instead looks back at the gate you came from. The levels themselves are painfully constricted, artificial canyons and tunnels littered with objects and shops seemingly at random.
Progression is nonsensical in both structure and pretense. To progress, you need to collect both standard bananas and their giant golden counterparts; this is obviously a holdover from Banjo Kazooie, wherein the player had to collect both notes and golden jigsaw puzzle pieces to proceed to later areas of the game. In Banjo, you would collect notes to open new areas of the large non-linear hub world, and "jiggies" to enter the levels themselves. DK64's levels have a linear order, so keeping these separate collectables doesn't really meaningfully shape the progression in any way.
The pretense for why you have to do this is even more baffling: you have to collect bananas to feed to a hippo so that he becomes fat enough to weigh down a pressure plate that raises a pig into the air so that he can unlock the boss door (the key is already in the lock, he just can't reach it). When you beat the boss, you get one of several keys to the cage containing a large kremling named K. Lumsy; each time you open one of K. Lumsy's locks, he gets excited and jumps around, and the shockwave from this opens the vestibule of the next level. In order to actually enter the level proper, you need to have the sufficient amount of golden bananas to make a talking signpost get out of your way.
Controlling the characters is joyless. Character and camera control are both weirdly imprecise; nobody should be allowed to complain about Super Mario 64's camera or controls when its contemporaries got away with things like this. When talking with a friend of mine he asked if I noticed that you couldn't jump on enemies, which is interesting both because you CAN jump on most enemies (though none of the characters' jump arcs are high enough for it to feel natural), and because I hadn't even tried to do so on account of how strange the game's hitboxes immediately felt after trying a few attacks. The Beetle Race is the point where I realized this game is just flat out bad, there's no way that section of the game was play-tested, or at the very least any feedback from testing was ignored.
The aesthetic is awful. The settings are bland, the characters are ugly, the music is stupid at best and often barely even present. It is genuinely shameful that this is what followed Donkey Kong Country, and almost as bad that this game's presentation has influenced the DK games since. Why don't the kongs sound like monkeys anymore? Why do they just sound like people doing silly voices now?
The memes surrounding the DK rap are probably better than anything about the game itself.
Donkey Kong 64 has a lot of collectables, that much is certainly true, but that doesn't get to the heart of it. In terms of gameplay, there really isn't much other than the collection itself. What are Donkey Kong 64's core mechanics? You can jump, you can shoot, you can punch, but none of these things have any style or grace; none of them are what the game is "built around". The central mechanic is "walking around and finding stuff".
Donkey Kong 64's level design is completely directionless. The hub world is oddly naturalistic, with multiple levels inside of unmarked gateways; when I collected my first golden banana after talking to K. Lumsy, I didn't even realize that the empty void behind that banana was the entrance to the first main stage. When you go through a warp and into a level, the camera's initial position is not a view of the stage from behind your character, but instead looks back at the gate you came from. The levels themselves are painfully constricted, artificial canyons and tunnels littered with objects and shops seemingly at random.
Progression is nonsensical in both structure and pretense. To progress, you need to collect both standard bananas and their giant golden counterparts; this is obviously a holdover from Banjo Kazooie, wherein the player had to collect both notes and golden jigsaw puzzle pieces to proceed to later areas of the game. In Banjo, you would collect notes to open new areas of the large non-linear hub world, and "jiggies" to enter the levels themselves. DK64's levels have a linear order, so keeping these separate collectables doesn't really meaningfully shape the progression in any way.
The pretense for why you have to do this is even more baffling: you have to collect bananas to feed to a hippo so that he becomes fat enough to weigh down a pressure plate that raises a pig into the air so that he can unlock the boss door (the key is already in the lock, he just can't reach it). When you beat the boss, you get one of several keys to the cage containing a large kremling named K. Lumsy; each time you open one of K. Lumsy's locks, he gets excited and jumps around, and the shockwave from this opens the vestibule of the next level. In order to actually enter the level proper, you need to have the sufficient amount of golden bananas to make a talking signpost get out of your way.
Controlling the characters is joyless. Character and camera control are both weirdly imprecise; nobody should be allowed to complain about Super Mario 64's camera or controls when its contemporaries got away with things like this. When talking with a friend of mine he asked if I noticed that you couldn't jump on enemies, which is interesting both because you CAN jump on most enemies (though none of the characters' jump arcs are high enough for it to feel natural), and because I hadn't even tried to do so on account of how strange the game's hitboxes immediately felt after trying a few attacks. The Beetle Race is the point where I realized this game is just flat out bad, there's no way that section of the game was play-tested, or at the very least any feedback from testing was ignored.
The aesthetic is awful. The settings are bland, the characters are ugly, the music is stupid at best and often barely even present. It is genuinely shameful that this is what followed Donkey Kong Country, and almost as bad that this game's presentation has influenced the DK games since. Why don't the kongs sound like monkeys anymore? Why do they just sound like people doing silly voices now?
The memes surrounding the DK rap are probably better than anything about the game itself.
This may come off as faint praise, but planning a route through a level to minimize the number of tag barrel visits is a lot of fun.
Fungi Forest, for example, can be completed in just 6 tags by starting with Tiny, then switching to Chunky > Lanky > Diddy > Tiny again > DK. It helps that I can explore the levels with my mind's eye so nothing escapes me.
When you know where everything is off by heart, DK64 becomes a zen experience where I can let my mind wander and bask in the joy of collecting.
Fungi Forest, for example, can be completed in just 6 tags by starting with Tiny, then switching to Chunky > Lanky > Diddy > Tiny again > DK. It helps that I can explore the levels with my mind's eye so nothing escapes me.
When you know where everything is off by heart, DK64 becomes a zen experience where I can let my mind wander and bask in the joy of collecting.