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 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.
5/10 incredibly mediocre
I struggle to give this game a concrete star rating. I could easily complain about a lot of this game's pacing and design...But dang it, Rare knew how to present Donkey Kong. I could easily understand why some would find it archaic and boring, with the constant Kong switching back and forth. Levels are huge and you'll be walking across the same ground over and over again with really slow movespeed. Not a whole lot of platforming. Bosses are good but two of them get reused. Challenge ranges from nonexistent to absolutely obnoxious.
Realistically, it's very flawed, way moreso than the 2 Banjos on 64. But, I like the sound it makes when you pick up banana. There are a lot of bananas. Ergo, I like this game. Every single little corner of this game is packed with charm and personality and every sound along with the masterful score by Grant Kirkhope drives me forward. Can't even pause the game and press "save" without something unique to this game happening. Gonna tell me the game that opens with the DK rap ISN'T inherently lovable at all times?
Despite the legitimate design issues, it's got a lot of fun bonus barrel minigames or challenges using character abilities that are a nice change of pace. These are where the gameplay is actually engaging. It has a bad rep for having so many collectables but I never really understood this complaint. Like, ammo to use your items, coins to buy stuff, hidden fairies to increase inventory limits, and everything else feeding into a golden banana count of 200 (only 100 of which are needed to beat the game). Nothing really too excessive or annoying to deal with there imo. The atmosphere is genuinely weirdly good in this game in a way that holds up to this day. Some areas are still a bit uncomfortable and scary, love it. Of course aided again by Grant Kirkhope's genious. Despite a few reused bosses I really like all the fights.
Call it a guilty pleasure or nostalgia or anything you want, but I think this game is a testimate to how much a good soundtrack, sound effects, and aesthetic design, can really carry an experience. If you can stomach some pacing issues between challenge rooms, there's a lot to love here.
DKC Returns review up next!
Realistically, it's very flawed, way moreso than the 2 Banjos on 64. But, I like the sound it makes when you pick up banana. There are a lot of bananas. Ergo, I like this game. Every single little corner of this game is packed with charm and personality and every sound along with the masterful score by Grant Kirkhope drives me forward. Can't even pause the game and press "save" without something unique to this game happening. Gonna tell me the game that opens with the DK rap ISN'T inherently lovable at all times?
Despite the legitimate design issues, it's got a lot of fun bonus barrel minigames or challenges using character abilities that are a nice change of pace. These are where the gameplay is actually engaging. It has a bad rep for having so many collectables but I never really understood this complaint. Like, ammo to use your items, coins to buy stuff, hidden fairies to increase inventory limits, and everything else feeding into a golden banana count of 200 (only 100 of which are needed to beat the game). Nothing really too excessive or annoying to deal with there imo. The atmosphere is genuinely weirdly good in this game in a way that holds up to this day. Some areas are still a bit uncomfortable and scary, love it. Of course aided again by Grant Kirkhope's genious. Despite a few reused bosses I really like all the fights.
Call it a guilty pleasure or nostalgia or anything you want, but I think this game is a testimate to how much a good soundtrack, sound effects, and aesthetic design, can really carry an experience. If you can stomach some pacing issues between challenge rooms, there's a lot to love here.
DKC Returns review up next!
Want to know how much I've hated timed video game levels my entire life? Look no further than my childhood experience with Dk64.
I had 100%'d everything up to that point in the game. Literally collected everything. 9-year-old me gets to the final level in the game, sees the timer, and says "Nah" and never plays Donkey Kong 64 ever again.
I had 100%'d everything up to that point in the game. Literally collected everything. 9-year-old me gets to the final level in the game, sees the timer, and says "Nah" and never plays Donkey Kong 64 ever again.
While at the time the sheer scope of the game impressed the hell out of me, over time I have soured on this game. The levels are huge, but also full of a lot of repetition, and the character swapping gets annoying fast, especially since most of the character differences are on the superficial side. To top it all off the basic gameplay is pretty bland, making it a bit of a slog. Still, I don't hate it. It can be mildly fun to this day to collect a bit here or there.
trash fire
If you don't 100% it's good
i can confirm that you need to dedicate your life to this game to get to the credits
i am typing this from my grave
i am typing this from my grave
The greatest misstep of this game wasn't that it was too big; it was that it forgot to make the objectives fun. Want me to collect 100 bananas for every kong per level? Fine, that just consists of me running around and exploring the level. But then the game throws in golden bananas to the mix and it already starts to fall apart. It really sucks that so many of these golden bananas boil down to standing on pads and pressing a button combination to get The Thing, or some insanely annoying challenge that ends up with the gamer doing the gamer rage. No, I am NOT projecting, thank you very much.
Banjo-Kazooie and Tooie both realized that you can throw a ton of stuff at the players to collect as long as every one of those things is fun to collect. Often they would just throw in one or two jiggies somewhere in the level for the player to just come across, as to reward exploration, and that worked out just fine. The rest would be collected via minigames or interacting with the level in unique ways with your moveset. Say what you want about Tooie but that game NEVER forgot that your moveset was massive and made sure you got proper use out of it, even if it was biased towards your newer moves. This one seems to have forgotten what to do with its golden bananas, either letting the player off the hook too easily with the before-mentioned face pads or going full on monkey CBT.
Also can we talk about the level design? What the hell are these levels? They look nice and all but they're all tunnels linked to hub areas, and then you're given teleport pads to quickly get around. Very reminiscent of a molecule in terms of structure (idk why I made this connection, but I feel like a genius rn ngl), it ends up making every level feel very cramped and confusing to explore. In Tooie the levels were massive, sure, but getting lost is difficult when you can enter first person view and suddenly see the other end of the level, if you're high up that is. I'm guessing the molecule-esque map design was because of pushing the hardware enough as is, but it really hampered the game.
Weird thing to throw in here at the end but anyone else feel like this is one of Grant Kirkhope's best works? It sounds like he's channeling David Wise's style from the DKC games here, creating something more ambient rather than groovy. Listen to the textures of tracks like Frantic Factory or Crystal Caves for instance - absolutely gorgeous tracks that communicate so much with so little, at least in comparison to his past work. It's very restrained, in the best way possible, esp considering this is a game about monkeys collecting bananas and shooting innocent animals.
Banjo-Kazooie and Tooie both realized that you can throw a ton of stuff at the players to collect as long as every one of those things is fun to collect. Often they would just throw in one or two jiggies somewhere in the level for the player to just come across, as to reward exploration, and that worked out just fine. The rest would be collected via minigames or interacting with the level in unique ways with your moveset. Say what you want about Tooie but that game NEVER forgot that your moveset was massive and made sure you got proper use out of it, even if it was biased towards your newer moves. This one seems to have forgotten what to do with its golden bananas, either letting the player off the hook too easily with the before-mentioned face pads or going full on monkey CBT.
Also can we talk about the level design? What the hell are these levels? They look nice and all but they're all tunnels linked to hub areas, and then you're given teleport pads to quickly get around. Very reminiscent of a molecule in terms of structure (idk why I made this connection, but I feel like a genius rn ngl), it ends up making every level feel very cramped and confusing to explore. In Tooie the levels were massive, sure, but getting lost is difficult when you can enter first person view and suddenly see the other end of the level, if you're high up that is. I'm guessing the molecule-esque map design was because of pushing the hardware enough as is, but it really hampered the game.
Weird thing to throw in here at the end but anyone else feel like this is one of Grant Kirkhope's best works? It sounds like he's channeling David Wise's style from the DKC games here, creating something more ambient rather than groovy. Listen to the textures of tracks like Frantic Factory or Crystal Caves for instance - absolutely gorgeous tracks that communicate so much with so little, at least in comparison to his past work. It's very restrained, in the best way possible, esp considering this is a game about monkeys collecting bananas and shooting innocent animals.
f
Definitely not worth all the hate, but also a little too monotonous for it's own good. If you're familiar with collectathons as an idea then this will be a breeze for you, though the over-reliance on minigames and the general lack of difficulty/risk in the overall level design creeps up into making this hard to enjoy. The visuals are pretty insane though. Seeing lighting effects used and abused to liberally on an N64 game is awesome, and as always, the Rare sound team doesn't disappoint, though it's admittedly not near their strongest OST from the era.
This game is just pretty middling, but it's chill enough to have captivated me to complete it. Definitely worth a play if you wanna see what all the fuss is all about.
This game is just pretty middling, but it's chill enough to have captivated me to complete it. Definitely worth a play if you wanna see what all the fuss is all about.
I tried to play this game but had to stop before it made me want to kill myself
My opinion of this game upon replaying it years later might have been less favorable had I not used the swap anywhere mod. I highly recommend anyone that has any desire to play this game and has the means to apply the patch to look into it. You will save an ungodly amount of time from removing the need to backtrack to the character swap barrels dotted around the levels every time you need to collect a few bananas.
this game ain't nearly as bad as some people will try and tell you it is, i get the impression someone just said "yeah this game is endless and bloated" and people took that at face value without actually playing the game for themselves - sure it's got quite a lot of fat and even the developers of the game have said if they could go back they'd do things slightly differently, but that's ok, that doesn't mean the game is unplayable today, far from it.
donkey kong 64 is actually a pretty fun 3D platformer and it certainly didn't "kill the collecathon" genre, those existed on 6th generation consoles too lol. gaming simply shifted away from those and this so happens to be one of the later games in that genre.
so, should you play it if you haven't before? well, it's not as good as any of the original DKC games in my opinion but it slightly takes the edge on DKCR. if you don't care about DKC games, then let me compare it to another game that is very similar to DK64, banjo-kazooie. that game is basically the same game but with a smaller scope, with only 1 playable character, banjo-kazooie is definitely more digestible but i actually found myself way more burned out by the end of banjo-kazooie than i did with DK64. DK64 in my opinion, has waaaay more fun and memorable levels, whilst being designed almost identically to banjo-kazooie in structure and layout, the atmosphere of DK64 is unmatched, it is potentially my favorite atmosphere captured on the N64, supported by the fact the game famously uses vertex/dynamic lighting which really provides a pretty look for a game on one of the ugliest systems ever. (sorry)
despite the praise, the collectables ARE overwhelming, even if you're not going for 101%. i didn't go for 101% and ended my playthrough with 129 bananas, 25 hours, and 61% overall completion, that's quite a lot just to beat the game, and the requirement of the nintendo coin and the rareware coin was just pushing it man, i don't wanna have to beat 2 arcade games, 1 of them twice, just to beat the main game i'm tryna play, that ain't fun; but yeah, the bananas are placed poorly, everyone knows that, and it's not exactly fun to backtrack and stuff, even if people do greatly over-exaggerate just how much backtracking is required - i mean, seriously, there are tag barrels around every corner - the collectables still aren't excusable and underneath all of those collectables is a way better game.
the level-designs/themes are by far the strongest part of this game for me, and the characters and whatnot are all really fun too, lanky being my favorite. if i were to rank the levels from most favorite to least favorite, i'd do:
-frantic factory (such a fun concept)
-crystal caves
-jungle japes
-creepy castle
-fungi forest
-angry aztec (i just hate desert themes, dude)
-gloomy galleon (only thing worse than deserts is water...)
i guess DK isles and hideout helm count as their own levels, but i just wanted to count the main levels with collectables. DK isles and hideout helm are good in their own right though, i guess (although DK isles is probably my least favorite hub world in any N64 game).
overall, a pretty good with some big flaws, but still nowhere near as large as people like to make them out to be. play DK64 if you enjoy 3D-platformers. also the music's phenomenal, grant killed it once again. :)
donkey kong 64 is actually a pretty fun 3D platformer and it certainly didn't "kill the collecathon" genre, those existed on 6th generation consoles too lol. gaming simply shifted away from those and this so happens to be one of the later games in that genre.
so, should you play it if you haven't before? well, it's not as good as any of the original DKC games in my opinion but it slightly takes the edge on DKCR. if you don't care about DKC games, then let me compare it to another game that is very similar to DK64, banjo-kazooie. that game is basically the same game but with a smaller scope, with only 1 playable character, banjo-kazooie is definitely more digestible but i actually found myself way more burned out by the end of banjo-kazooie than i did with DK64. DK64 in my opinion, has waaaay more fun and memorable levels, whilst being designed almost identically to banjo-kazooie in structure and layout, the atmosphere of DK64 is unmatched, it is potentially my favorite atmosphere captured on the N64, supported by the fact the game famously uses vertex/dynamic lighting which really provides a pretty look for a game on one of the ugliest systems ever. (sorry)
despite the praise, the collectables ARE overwhelming, even if you're not going for 101%. i didn't go for 101% and ended my playthrough with 129 bananas, 25 hours, and 61% overall completion, that's quite a lot just to beat the game, and the requirement of the nintendo coin and the rareware coin was just pushing it man, i don't wanna have to beat 2 arcade games, 1 of them twice, just to beat the main game i'm tryna play, that ain't fun; but yeah, the bananas are placed poorly, everyone knows that, and it's not exactly fun to backtrack and stuff, even if people do greatly over-exaggerate just how much backtracking is required - i mean, seriously, there are tag barrels around every corner - the collectables still aren't excusable and underneath all of those collectables is a way better game.
the level-designs/themes are by far the strongest part of this game for me, and the characters and whatnot are all really fun too, lanky being my favorite. if i were to rank the levels from most favorite to least favorite, i'd do:
-frantic factory (such a fun concept)
-crystal caves
-jungle japes
-creepy castle
-fungi forest
-angry aztec (i just hate desert themes, dude)
-gloomy galleon (only thing worse than deserts is water...)
i guess DK isles and hideout helm count as their own levels, but i just wanted to count the main levels with collectables. DK isles and hideout helm are good in their own right though, i guess (although DK isles is probably my least favorite hub world in any N64 game).
overall, a pretty good with some big flaws, but still nowhere near as large as people like to make them out to be. play DK64 if you enjoy 3D-platformers. also the music's phenomenal, grant killed it once again. :)
why do people like this game you have to do each area 5 times over
this is it
the best collectathon platformer
doesn't get any better than this
the best collectathon platformer
doesn't get any better than this
This game was a necessary evil in order to let people know that you need to limit collectables in a collectathon
The people are right there are too many collectibles, swap barrels are tedious, and there are way to many repeated mini-games. In fact, I've heard Beaver Bother is a common torture method at Guantanamo. However, for me, it is not enough to sour all the good that DK64 has going for it. The worlds are a lot of fun to explore, and they have the signature Rare Nintendo 64 charm. The characters, cutscenes, and bosses are full of life. DK isle is the GOAT N64 hub world, and the final boss fight and ending goes crazy. I recognize that this game's got so many flaws, but, for someone like me who loves 3D platformers with collectibles and the Kongs, I still love this game.
to rare this game is like when a drug addict finally looks in a mirror and says "what the hell am i doing"
This happened to my buddy Mike
Finally, he's here for you. It's the last member of the DK Crew. This kong's so strong it isn't funny. Can make a Kremlin 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.
De início parecia divertido e depois parecia que não acabava mais. Que jogo imenso, mano.
Sobrecarregaram o game com tanta coisa que ele fica cansativo pra cacete em pouco tempo. Não tive nem coragem de tentar fazer 101%.
Sobrecarregaram o game com tanta coisa que ele fica cansativo pra cacete em pouco tempo. Não tive nem coragem de tentar fazer 101%.
coconut gun
this is the first game i've ever played, and upon replaying it so many years later i...really don't understand why it gets so much shit
it's larger in scale than banjo-kazooie and also slightly worse than it, but despite the size of the levels and the amount of collectables, it's very easy to find everything you need to just by looking for the golden bananas, which are also pretty easy to find because of how they're split up by kong
if you want an actually mediocre rare game on the N64 play banjo-tooie instead, because DK64 is perfectly serviceable
it's larger in scale than banjo-kazooie and also slightly worse than it, but despite the size of the levels and the amount of collectables, it's very easy to find everything you need to just by looking for the golden bananas, which are also pretty easy to find because of how they're split up by kong
if you want an actually mediocre rare game on the N64 play banjo-tooie instead, because DK64 is perfectly serviceable
This game has been getting way too much hate as of late. It definitely has problems, but I loved it so much I 100% it. I also had way more fun playing this game than Banjo-Kazooie lol
idk if anyone's ever really beaten this. it's like you get to the end but noo you need this and this and find a blueprint somewhere and give it to this guy and fuck you
first game I ever played. to be honest my main memory of this game was my older brother singing the DK rap but replacing the lyrics with my name until I cried
While there is a lot of charm in Rare's characters, this along with Banjo-Tooie became a victim of its own scope. Switching between Kongs and having so many different collectibles gated behind them becomes a chore quickly.
Too many fond memories and fun had with DK64 to rate it any lower, even now knowing how buggy and flawed it was. Loved unlocking all the Kongs and upgrading them as the game went on, and I couldn't get enough of collecting stuff. Outside of Gloomy Galleon(water world go figure), there wasn't any other world that I hated going through. The final segment in K. Rool's Keep and the final fight were highlights as well.