Before Rare hit the big time with the bear and bird, the company was most well-known for Donkey Kong. They already had a noteworthy library of games on the NES, and in the early 90's, Nintendo allowed Rare to create a game starring the monkey that had launched them into stardom. The end result was one of the greatest platforming games of all time: Donkey Kong Country. Not only did its mind-blowing 3D-style graphics showcase the visual technology of the Super Nintendo, but it was a return to form for its main character after years spent out of the spotlight. Donkey Kong Country became the third best-selling game of the console, spawned two sequels which received similar critical praise, and would also see a follow-up on the Nintendo 64 in 1999: Donkey Kong 64. This game transitioned away from the linear 2D platforming of the Country trilogy and focused on expansive worlds with lots of objects to collect, just like Rare had done a year prior with Banjo-Kazooie. Donkey Kong 64 would go on to sell over 2.3 million units by 2004, and to this day, many call it a fantastic game in Nintendo and Rare's libraries. Over time, however, Donkey Kong 64's reputation has fallen considerably, with many comparing it unfavorably to both of the Banjo games and the Donkey Kong Country trilogy. Even at its release, critics both praised and criticized the sheer amount of content in the game, and in recent years, many condemn it because of its unintuitive and unrewarding design. Some point to DK64 as the start of Rare's decline, while others have even called the game the beginning of the death of collectathons. Even today, the game is incredibly divisive, with some defending it as a platforming classic and others rejecting it as flawed, bloated, and broken. But are either of those trains of thought justified? I grew up with Donkey Kong 64, and as a kid, I adored it, but I have begun to look at it more critically 21 years later. So I'm going to analyze the game to pull out what it gets right while also acknowledging its problems, and determine whether or not the game is deserving of its wild reputation. This is Donkey Kong 64. After the release of Donkey Kong Country 3, Rare began development of a new Donkey Kong title for the N64 with a team led by George Andreas, who was an assistant game designer on Banjo-Kazooie. The game started out as a 2.5D platformer in the vein of Crash Bandicoot and was initially intended for the N64 Disk Drive. However, as you probably already know, the Disk Drive failed and Rare shifted development to the base Nintendo 64. Progress on the initial version of DK64 was not going smoothly, and after 18 months of development, the company decided to start over again. It's around this time that some of the Banjo-Kazooie staff began helping out, including designer Greg Mayles, artist Steve Mayles, programmer Chris Sutherland, artist Ed Bryan, and art director Kevin Bayliss. The team transformed the game into a full-on 3D platformer that would take inspiration from Banjo-Kazooie. One of the major hurdles for the team was creating 3D models that properly represented Donkey Kong and company, which was especially tricky since they had to follow up from the graphics of the Country trilogy. The models could never reach the same polygon count or detail as those used to create Donkey Kong Country's sprites, so they had to essentially assemble new models from scratch. As DK64 artist Mark Stevenson stated, real-time 3D graphics were still in their infancy and being able to view a model and animation from any angle put pressure on them to make it look as good as possible. Still, Banjo's success gave the designers inspiration to create a 3D collectathon that would massively expand on the formula. The developers came up with brand new abilities for Donkey and Diddy Kong, new characters to play as, and expansive worlds, some of which were scrapped ideas from Banjo-Kazooie. There was even allegedly a planned connection to Stop n' Swop, the cut feature from Banjo-Kazooie that would have allowed players to transfer items between games, though, of course, this ended up shelved. Even with some concepts and features getting the axe, Donkey Kong 64 was shaping up to be massive — on a much larger scale than Banjo-Kazooie. As the game was nearing completion, Nintendo began heavily promoting the game, investing $22 million dollars into advertising. Many adverts centered around the N64 Expansion Pak, an accessory that doubled the console's RAM from 4 MB to 8 MB. Donkey Kong 64 requires the Expansion Pak, and every copy of the game shipped with a Pak bundled in the box. Nintendo advertised the Pak as improving graphics, increasing the frame rate, and allowing them to fit all of the game's content. You may have heard that the Expansion Pak was actually included to stop a game-breaking bug that Rare couldn't fix, but that seemed to disappear when the Pak was in use. According to the story, Nintendo shipped the game with the Expansion Pak as a failsafe, which supposedly cost them and Rare a fortune. However, in an interview with Nintendo Life in 2019, Mark Stevenson clarified that the Expansion Pak was introduced early in development and the designers were tasked by management to come up with ways to use it. While it is true that Rare encountered a major bug late in development, it was eventually patched out and was not affected by the Expansion Pak. In addition, examining the game's memory shows that essential data, such as game code, is stored in the space provided by the Expansion Pak, indicating that the game was always developed with the Pak in mind. It's worth noting that the bug story originated from Conker's Bad Fur Day developer Chris Marlow who was working at Rare at the time of Donkey Kong 64's development, but was not involved in the project. My guess is that Chris either misheard or misinterpreted the bug story from other Rare staff and formed his version of the story based on that. Donkey Kong 64 became the top-selling game of the Holiday 1999 season, thanks partly to Nintendo pushing back many high-profile titles to 2000. It won several awards, including a few Game of the Year nominations, and was praised for its ambition, even if many reviewers noted how similar it was to Banjo-Kazooie. While it was initially an N64 exclusive, the game was ported to the Wii U Virtual Console in 2015, which was notable for eliminating the lag that persists throughout the N64 version. Donkey Kong 64 certainly has a chaotic legacy, with devotees and detractors of the game alike expressing their views, and I guess I'm gonna throw my voice in there as well. There's a lot to talk about with this game, so let's jump right in. Donkey Kong 64 begins with King K. Rool and his Kremling crew piloting their mobile command center towards DK Isles, the idyllic home of Donkey Kong and his family and friends. K. Rool's built a giant superweapon known as the Blast-o-Matic to destroy DK Isles, and to prevent Donkey Kong from meddling in his plans, K. Rool kidnaps his friends and steals his Golden Bananas to keep him busy. Now it's up to DK to rescue the captured Kongs, get his Golden Banana collection back, and stop K. Rool from destroying his home. Donkey Kong 64's story is appropriately simple, establishing the stakes right in the intro cutscene and then putting the plot on the backburner while the player progresses through the game. The only story you get after the game starts is in small cutscenes that play when you enter a world for the first time, as K. Rool's crew attempts to get the Blast-o-Matic up and running and stop the Kongs in their tracks. These cutscenes help establish the tone of the game and the narrative, and as you'd expect, it doesn't take itself too seriously. K. Rool himself is a surprisingly serious and menacing figure in this game, which contrasts with his bumbling, incompetent crew, leading to some entertaining exchanges. Unlike Banjo, where the strength of the story came from the writing and characters, Donkey Kong 64's story works because it mostly doesn't exist. This game is a platformer in its purest form, one that doesn't require a distinct narrative reason for the objectives you need to complete, and while the few story moments are enjoyable, the main focus is the gameplay — and more specifically, on collecting a whole bunch of stuff. If there's one thing Donkey Kong 64 is infamous for, it's for having a ridiculous number of collectables. The game holds the Guinness World Record for the highest number of collectable items in a video game with 3,821 items, although their record is inaccurate and should be even higher. In reality, the game has over 4,800 collectables, which may seem like an enormous number, and, well, it is. But this is counting all the items individually, so let's break down just what exactly you're collecting. In Donkey Kong 64, there are three main collectables: Golden Bananas, Boss Keys, and Colored Bananas. There are 200 Golden Bananas in the game, plus a secret 201st Golden Banana if you rescue all the Banana Fairies. You'll find 25 Golden Bananas in every level plus DK Isles, five per Kong. Boss Keys are, as you might guess, rewarded to you by defeating the boss in each level, and you need to earn all eight to proceed. But in order to enter the boss arenas, you need to collect a bunch of Colored Bananas and feed them to Troff and Scoff to open the boss door. Colored Bananas come either individually, in bunches of five, or in Banana Balloons worth 10, and collecting 75 Colored Bananas in a level as a certain Kong will net you a Banana Medal. When you have 15 Medals, Cranky will let you play Rare's classic game Jetpac which you'll have to do to grab the Rareware coin, and in Frantic Factory, you can find the original Donkey Kong arcade game and play that to get the Nintendo coin. You also need a few Battle Crowns, which can be won by finding pads that transport you to a Battle Arena and staying alive long enough. The Kongs will all gain new abilities by talking to Cranky, Funky, and Candy, but to buy them, you need to have enough Banana Coins, which are in no short supply around each world. Each level contains a Kasplat for each Kong who, when killed, drops a Blueprint, which you turn in to Snide, and he'll not only give you a Golden Banana, but you'll also have more time to turn off the Blast-o-Matic in Hideout Helm. And finally, there are 20 Banana Fairies who you need to take a picture of with the Banana Fairy Camera, which you get after talking to the Banana Fairy Queen. [sighs] Did you get all that? Now I'm not going to deny that there is a ton of content in this game, and yeah, if you look at it all at once, it does seem overwhelming. Even the developers have admitted this, as George Andreas has stated that he would scale back the scope of the game if he could restart development. He explained to GamesRadar in 2019 that Rare co-founder Tim Stamper told him to add more collectables because Banjo was so popular and it seemed that doubling down on that element would make DK64 better. But when people bring up the number of items, they're often talking about the total number in the game — not how many are required to finish it. Assuming you're not going for 100% (or, technically, 101%), then you'll be collecting a substantially lower amount of stuff — in fact, if you're just going for the bare minimum, you won't even need half of the collectables. You only need to grab 100 of the game's Golden Bananas, and it doesn't matter which ones so long as you have enough to enter each world. You will need all the Boss Keys, and thus need to collect a number of Colored Bananas that increases the farther along you are in the game. This is probably the only collectable that will give you trouble if you don't care about total completion, as you'll need to scour through every corner of the later levels to find enough Bananas to enter the boss room. The Nintendo and Rareware coins are easy enough to get, even if isn't made incredibly clear that you need them, you only need four of the game's 10 Battle Crowns, and you'll be drowning in Banana Coins by the end. Blueprints are optional, but because they increase the time limit in Hideout Helm and give you a Golden Banana, they're definitely worth going for. And Banana Fairies are entirely unnecessary unless you care about bonus content or completing the game 101%. Considering all that, I can't agree with the sentiment that this game is too big because not everyone is a completionist, and if you're just trying to beat the final boss as fast as possible, the journey to get there isn't too bad. I think a lot of people hear how many collectables Donkey Kong 64 has and get scared that they're in for an incredibly long adventure, but while the game no doubt has a ton of stuff to do, its reputation is a little misleading. As for your starting moveset, the Kongs each have their own jumps and attacks, and they can all swim, pick up barrels, and throw orange grenades, but the properties of each Kong are slightly different. DK and Chunky are heavier and slower, for example, while Diddy and Tiny are faster and not as bulky. The differences are minute, but they speak more to the different personalities of each Kong rather than creating new gameplay experiences. And some Kongs have their own techniques with their own uses, like DK's roll attack, Tiny's slide attack, and Diddy's double jump. But the Kongs all more or less handle the same, and most of the differences come from the moves and upgrades you learn along the way which, in theory, make the Kongs stronger. I say "in theory" because the moves you purchase throughout the game are, on the whole, incredibly underwhelming. In other collectathons, new moves act as extensions of your character, giving them more options for movement or enhanced offense or defense. They aren't just required to solve certain puzzles, they make your character feel like they've grown and have uses outside of collecting items. In Donkey Kong 64, most of the upgrades you pick up are situational and can only be used in specific areas where the game allows you to use them. Take the Simian Slam, for instance, which Cranky gives to every Kong and is upgraded twice throughout the game. It does hurt enemies, but the Kongs have so many better options for attacking that it's only real purpose is to activate switches on the ground. Cranky offers three other moves to each Kong, one tied to a Kong Barrel, one tied to a Kong Pad, and one that is independent of either of these items. The problem with the majority of these moves is that not only are they restricted to certain situations, but they barely feel like upgrades at all, instead just being a means to unlock specific gated items and areas. Of course the Barrel and Pad moves are guilty of this, but even the independent upgrades have this issue. DK's Gorilla Grab lets him activate specific levers and that's it, and Lanky's OrangStand allows you to climb steep slopes but doesn't give you any other movement benefits. Diddy's Chimpy Charge and Chunky's Primate Punch can be used as attacks, but they're both too slow to be effective, so they end up just being used for hitting switches and opening doors. The only one of these moves that's actually useful is Tiny's Pony Tail Twirl, which acts as a short hover that lets you gain more distance in the air. It gives the player added mobility and thus feels like an actual upgrade rather than just a check mark that says you can enter a designated place. The Barrel moves all require Crystal Coconuts to work, and they provide temporary buffs to the Kongs. Out of all the Barrel moves, only Diddy's Rocketbarrel Boost is any fun, as it features an entirely new control scheme that provides a new experience. Beyond that, Strong Kong makes DK invulnerable, OrangStand Sprint makes Lanky super fast, Mini-Monkey makes Tiny...er, tiny, and Hunky Chunky makes Chunky grow in size. These could have been interesting ways to change how your Kong behaves, but since they can only be activated by jumping into a Kong Barrel, which are often placed right next to where you need them, they're, again, just arbitrary keys to open up an area you need to get into. The Pad moves are the worst of the bunch, as Baboon Blast lets DK play these barrel shooting courses, Simian Spring gives Diddy a high jump, Baboon Balloon grants Lanky the power to float in the air, Monkeyport is a two-way teleporter for Tiny, and Gorilla Gone turns Chunky invisible. None of these moves are exciting in the slightest, only existing to justify the addition of more collectables otherwise locked to the player. Funky Kong gives the characters their own weapons that can be used not only to attack enemies from afar, but also to hit specific switches. These switches are unfortunately the best use you'll get out of these guns, because as far as attacks go, they aren't great. Some are more useful purely because they're so damaging, like DK's Coconut Gun and Chunky's Pineapple Launcher, and Diddy's Peanut Poppers are fast enough to counteract its weaker power, but Lanky's Grape Shooter and Tiny's Feather Bow are near useless in combat. That means you really only use them for activating switches, which just goes back to the same problem as before. Funky will also provide Kongs with a Sniper Scope that lets you shoot from farther distances, and Homing Ammo that, as you'd expect, homes in on enemies and switches. That sounds useful, but having your bullets flying towards other things just gets in the way when all you're doing is trying to hit one specific target. Candy Kong not only gives you additional health, but also provides an instrument to each Kong, which act as screen nukes and have their own pads that — you guessed it — let you perform specific tasks. Do you see the pattern here? Nearly every single move is only used for context-specific actions instead of adding new techniques to your arsenal. Rather than being real upgrades that compliment the initial moveset, the abilities are what I like to refer to as "ID cards." They grant you access to restricted areas and items, but when you disassociate them from that, they're just a bunch of plastic. The only other move is the Banana Fairy Queen's shockwave attack, which is incredibly damaging, but requires a Crystal Coconut to use. It's useful for dealing with Kasplats and it can unearth these dirt patches to give you a Rainbow Coin that gives five Banana Coins to each Kong, but otherwise, it isn't that much of an upgrade. Oh, and you can also find a crate that turns DK into Rambi, who can charge enemies and bust down objects, and a crate that turns Lanky into Engaurde, who can swim through rings and stab things with his bill. These crates only appear once each and you spend so little time with them that I really don't know why they bothered. But while the moves are a disappointment, they are not Donkey Kong 64's only problem, as the game has a number of design flaws — beginning with the nature of its objectives. Now, the basic rule of thumb with collectathons is performing challenges and receiving rewards, and Donkey Kong 64 is no exception. Every Golden Banana requires you to complete an objective to unlock, and those objectives naturally get harder as the game goes on. These challenges involve platforming as well as having the right moves and the right Kong to activate or collect them. That's no different than other collectathons in concept, but in practice, DK64 suffers from not having enough ideas to justify every collectable. While I don't think the number of items in the game is an issue, the design of the challenges needed to get them is a mixed bag, sometimes being inventive and other times being repetitive. Some Golden Bananas revolve solely around platforming, sometimes with a certain hazard or condition, and for the most part, these are fine, but the problem comes when the game requires the use of one of the Kong's moves. Since so many of the upgrades can only be activated with a specific world object, the solution to many of the challenges is right in front of you. You don't need to think about which ability you need to get an item because the game is telling you "hey, use this move" so often. But when a puzzle doesn't involve the same standard context-sensitive moves and objects, they can be legitimately creative. Using the Rocketbarrel Boost to light candles, playing the memory game in Frantic Factory, blasting targets with a cannon — there are good ideas here, but too often, the game is bogged down by its reliance on stock objects. Not to mention the times when you're doing the exact same tasks multiple times with different Kongs, which is just tedious. I can appreciate that the developers were told to make the game bigger, and it's not easy to come up with so many unique objectives, but while I understand the limitations, Donkey Kong 64 still suffers as a result. And this is a significant problem because like many collectathons of the time, there isn't much else to do in DK64 besides the main quest. Collecting Banana Fairies unlocks bonus content like replaying cutscenes, bosses, and the arcade games, cheats for infinite items, and bonus arenas featuring Rambi and Enguarde, which both feel pretty bare-bones. There's also two multiplayer modes that support up to four players, one of which is a deathmatch mode where you need to kill your opponents before they kill you that isn't very exciting. The other is this battle arena where you knock each other off by grabbing power-ups, which is kind of fun, but is over before you know it. You can also replay all the Bonus Barrel games if you collect all 50 blueprints, but as I'll explain in a bit, you won't want to do that. So there's not much to distract you from the main game, making the sometimes unrewarding quest design feel all the more lacking. But it isn't just the design of specific objectives that gets in the way, because there's a core aspect to Donkey Kong 64 that people often cite as its fatal flaw: that being how segregated the main collectables are. Every Golden Banana and Colored Banana is locked to a specific Kong, so if you aren't playing as the right character, you can't pick them up. For Golden Bananas, this very rarely becomes an issue, since in most cases, the Banana spawns right next to you or is automatically added to your total. But for Colored Bananas, this becomes a pain in the later stages since you need so many of them to open boss doors, and there are countless instances where you could be picking up Bananas if you were a different character. It necessitates backtracking if you want to collect everything, and likely you'll have to do some hunting just to get your Banana count up. I don't mind backtracking when it's done correctly, but in this game's case, I absolutely understand why people have a problem with it. Donkey Kong 64 doesn't require any backtracking to previous worlds save for one Golden Banana, but while exploring a level, you constantly come across items that you need to switch to another Kong to grab. You change characters by entering a Tag Barrel, of which there are a number placed in each world. Since you can only switch out Kongs at a Tag Barrel, people say this adds to the backtracking, but they're not really the problem, as they're plentiful enough in each world and are always easy to reach. It's more that the separation of Colored Bananas is an arbitrary way to add game time, padding out the time spent in each level just so you can find enough to finish the boss encounter. And on that note, the boss battles are alternatively interesting and unique or flat and boring — and occasionally, they're both. Army Dillo and Dogadon are basically the same fight, as you just dodge their attacks until you get an opening and throw a TNT barrel at them. They're not hard, just slow, and since you fight them twice, they stand out all the more as being repetitive, even if the rematches have more attacks. Puftoss is different, at least, but all you do here is drive around in a boat and pass through rings, which is as thrilling a boss fight as it sounds. The others are better, starting with Mad Jack, where you have to hover to different platforms to avoid his attacks and hit switches to damage him. King Kut Out is not a great fight, because you're just walking into cannons over and over again, but I love the concept: a bunch of Kremlings trying to scare the Kongs with a giant cardboard cut-out of K. Rool. And the final section of the game is great, with Hideout Helm requiring each Kong to do their own part as you climb through K. Rool's island, and the fight with K. Rool himself making use of every Kong's abilities. Each Kong gets their own round against K. Rool, and his tactics change each time, giving every part of the fight its own special feeling. It might go on a little bit long, but it's a nice wrap-up to a game with a constant rollercoaster of quality and satisfaction. The worst objectives by far are the bonus games, a Donkey Kong Country staple that was poorly translated into DK64. Especially in the later levels, instead of a Golden Banana, you might come across a Bonus Barrel that contains a minigame, and they're... not good. Most only have a 60-second time limit, and on the whole, they're mindless distractions that are either too easy, too frustrating, or downright broken. What's more upsetting about these minigames is how much of a downgrade they are from the Country bonus games. In those games, bonus areas were entirely optional but gave you useful rewards like bananas and extra lives, and they didn't introduce gameplay that you wouldn't normally encounter in the main game. Here, while some minigames feature the normal controls, others invent new gameplay styles that just aren't fleshed out enough. Plus, you only get a Golden Banana for each minigame, so they aren't a rewarding bonus, they're just more busywork. It wouldn't be so much of a problem if they weren't so prevalent, especially in later stages which seem to be full of them, but as it is, the Bonus Barrels feel tacked on and can ruin the fulfillment of completing an objective. When your reward for beating a puzzle is a Golden Banana, it's satisfying. When it's a Bonus Barrel, it's annoying. There are other minigames not found in Bonus Barrels, however, and these are a lot better and can actually be a lot of fun. Even though they bring in new gameplay mechanics, they're designed in ways that compliment the controls, and they take place in areas themed to each world, which makes them more interesting to look at. Speaking of the worlds, they're an aspect of DK64 that really shines. The levels are sprawling enough to make exploring them feel rewarding, especially since each corner of the level hides important collectables. It's impressive that despite holding a ton of items, the levels barely have any wasted space or sections that are too constrained with collectables. Even so, there are Warp Pads that let you travel between two different points, which can help cut down on backpedalling. And the worlds vary wildly in theme and aesthetics, giving each location its own unique flair and identity. But not only that, the design of each world is different, always switching up the environments you travel through to give them their own feel. Most of the levels mix open space and confined areas, giving you varying degrees of freedom of movement that requires you to be aware of how much space is around you. And just like Banjo-Kazooie, the levels are built so that areas contain distinguishing topography as well as unique landmarks. Jungle Japes and Gloomy Galleon are mostly large, open areas with some tighter segments connecting them, Crystal Caves features multiple layers that expand the level upwards in addition to outwards, Frantic Factory is mostly linear hallways that lead to rooms of varying size, etc. You might think this leads to the game feeling disjointed, as if the designers couldn't decide on a unified idea of world design, but I think it helps the stages create their own sense of character. One of the most fundamental and often overlooked aspects of collectathons is making the world feel alive, giving each place a unique texture and ambience through both its physical and aesthetic attributes. Donkey Kong 64 hits this out of the park with distinct worlds that aren't all necessarily well-designed, but all have plenty to admire. Well, almost all of them. I don't know if this is a controversial opinion, but I'm not a fan of DK Isles. For all my praise on how each of the game's levels felt like living, breathing entities, it's shocking how sterile DK Isles is by comparison. Travelling around isn't enjoyable because the area is so empty, and it's the only world that feels big for the wrong reasons. I do like how each world has its own themed entrance, though, complete with its own rendition of the DK Isles theme, which is a fantastic tune. That's not the only fantastic tune in the game, though, because Donkey Kong 64 has a great soundtrack. The music was created by Banjo and GoldenEye composer and Rare legend Grant Kirkhope, and his signature style is in full effect here. This soundtrack is an amalgamation of David Wise's work on Donkey Kong Country and Kirkhope's soundtrack for Banjo, creating music that is a little bit dark, but still has plenty of charm and energy to it. It may sound a lot like Banjo because it has a very similar soundfont, but the compositions feel more in line with the Country games. [MUSIC] Some songs have a slower tempo, going along at a relaxed pace, and may only feature one instrument at a time alongside ambient noises. This sometimes feels relaxing and other times feels unsettling, and they work brilliantly to set the mood of each level and area. [MUSIC] And when the songs pick up during boss battles and minigames, they're genuinely energetic and adrenaline-pumping. [MUSIC] It leads to a soundtrack that combines the best traits of Kirkhope's work with the unique identity of the Country series soundtracks, and it's consistently enjoyable throughout the game. And you can't talk about this game's music without mentioning the DK Rap. [He-he-here we go!] When you boot up the game, you're treated to a short intro featuring all the Kongs as a silly rap number plays in the background. The song has been memed to death since the game was released, and for some, is the best part of the whole experience. It's goofy and dumb and the lyrics are crap, and I absolutely love it. It isn't just filled with memorable lines, but it also does a decent job establishing the unique personalities and abilities of each Kong. Anyway, DK64 looks fantastic as well, considering the graphical capabilities of the N64 and that Rare was still learning what they could do with 3D. Textures are vividly detailed, and the color schemes for each world are appropriately radiant or muted depending on the required atmosphere. The lighting in particular really stands out to me, especially in rooms where light sources move around and create some really cool visual effects. I also really like the character models because while they are fairly simple, they also provide a lot of expressiveness and defining qualities that make each character distinguishable from one another. Not to mention the animations are perfectly suited for a game like this, with plenty of frantic, kinetic movements and squashing and stretching of model proportions to really sell the cartoony nature of the game. They're not just a joy to look at visually, but even 21 years later, they're still so charming and provide a lot of the game's personality. That's something I only just appreciated after playing the game for this video — how charming the game's aesthetics are. I always thought it looked and sounded nice, but it seemed too simple when compared to Banjo, but there's something to be said for that simplicity. Even if the game has noteworthy problems, I'm willing to look past some of them just because of how engrossing the world is to travel through. Something I can't look past, however, is the game's performance, because DK64 pushes the system way past its limits, especially when it comes to lag. I don't know if it's due to poor optimization, but the game constantly struggles to maintain a consistent framerate, with lag spikes happening all the time as objects and geometry load in. Some areas are worse than others, and a few can even slow the game down to a crawl, especially when visual effects like instruments or orange explosions are happening on screen. If the Expansion Pak really does improve the frame rate, as Nintendo claimed it did, then wow — I do not want to see how it would run otherwise. This only applies to the original N64 version, as the Wii U Virtual Console removes virtually all the lag from the game, making it run much smoother. This alone makes the Wii U port the definitive version to play, as long as you can get past the console's less-than-perfect emulation of N64 games. The port doesn't fix the camera, unfortunately, which, like so many other early 3D games, is not always cooperative. You've all heard the same complaints about free-roaming cameras in games of this era, and all I'll say is that here, it really only becomes a nuisance in tight spaces, getting stuck on objects and geometry. Thankfully, the camera is fixed in some areas, which does help a little bit, even if the angles chosen aren't always the best. And before I wrap this video up, I want to discuss another aspect of Donkey Kong 64 that has become more infamous over the years: the glitches. There's a common consensus that DK64 is a broken game because there are plenty of glitches that you can pull off. For example, if you do an air attack just before landing a jump as DK, you can do a Moonkick which will send you flying through the air. Also, if you jump at the wall in this room in Crystal Caves as it rotates, you can fall below the map and land out of bounds. If you go into first-person mode just as you fall off a ledge with a 90-degree angle, you can clip into the wall, which can be used to enter a boss fight as any Kong and skip having to collect any Colored Bananas. And if you want to skip the Golden Banana requirement for each world, you can simply position Lanky in the right spot and stretch his arms out to get past the B. Locker. You can run into this beehive with Hunky Chunky to clip out of bounds and land in a different part of the map, which lets you travel through the entire world in this state, which you're not supposed to be able to do. And my personal favorite, if you play your instrument right as you enter water, then this lovely noise plays. [CHUNKY PLAYS THE BLUES] Now that's just scratching the surface in terms of glitches, and it's caused a lot of people to say that the game is broken and that it doesn't work. But I have a problem with this, because not only is it an undeserved jab at the developers, but it also misrepresents the nature of these glitches. I'm not denying that there are a ton of glitches in the game, and yes, many are easy to pull off even without any practice, but there's a difference between a game being broken and a game being easy to break. If Donkey Kong 64 was as "broken" as people say it is, then you wouldn't be able to finish the game without experiencing tons of bugs and glitches. During my playthrough for this video, I only encountered one glitch accidentally — the clip in the rotating room — and even then, that's a known glitch and not something that I just discovered. You can maybe come across a few glitches accidentally, but for most of them, you need to intentionally attempt them to make them happen. When you have to perform a specific set of maneuvers that most players wouldn't think to do on their own, even if they're easy to pull off, they aren't necessarily indicative of how well the game is put together overall. Look at Ocarina of Time, for example, a game that has an astronomical amount of glitches but only a handful that could be encountered by a player who isn't attempting to find them. I would never call that game broken because you need to adopt a different mindset to pull off its glitches, and I view Donkey Kong 64 the same way. I think a lot of the sentiments around DK64 being broken comes from the speedrunning community, who, through years of effort, can now beat the game in under 25 minutes. That's an impressive feat, and I applaud them for their efforts, but they're also responsible for spreading the idea of DK64 being broken through constant inside jokes and I can't help but feel like they aren't fully thinking about what they're saying. I won't pull out any one person because it is a community-wide thing, and I am not condemning them for their viewpoint — I just don't agree with it. I realize that Donkey Kong 64 has a lot of problems, but being glitchy is, from my perspective as a non-speedrunner, not one of them. But that doesn't mean I can't see why people would see it as a problem, and that's been the challenge for me as I talk about this game; being able to take off my nostalgia goggles and look at the game critically. Donkey Kong 64 is important to many people who grew up with the N64, myself included, and I don't want to ignore that, but in order to properly evaluate this game, I also need to consider it objectively. Playing the game 21 years after it was released, it definitely has faults, both major and minor, that shouldn't — or can't — be overlooked. The constant segregation of items and the unfulfilling upgrades artificially inflate the game's running time, and unlike the Banjo games, you never feel any growth in terms of what you're able to do as a player. Add that with the terrible lag, the lackluster bonus content, and the repetitive nature of some of the goals, and I can absolutely say that objectively, the game doesn't hold up very well. It's a product of its time and its developer, ramping up the collectathon genre to the max without adjusting the game's design to scale with it. If you've never played Donkey Kong 64 before, it's more likely than not that you won't get into it if you pick it up because of how overwhelming it is, and I think that is a legitimate mark against the game. It might be why Rare and Nintendo never made another 3D Donkey Kong platformer, as later games went back to a 2D style, including a revival of the Country series with Donkey Kong Country Returns and Tropical Freeze. But even after listening to all the negative feedback it's received and unearthing problems in the game myself, I can't dislike Donkey Kong 64. I know I should probably view it harsher than I do because of everything it gets wrong, but I still find myself mesmerized by the game's charm, and the aesthetics and worlds are legitimately still enjoyable. And even if the game does drag its feet on occasion, when it does pick up, it just puts me in the mindset of being a kid again. I've got my gripes with the game, and yeah, I'll be the first to admit that it has flaws that could turn you away, but if I'm being honest, I still like it. This is probably my third or fourth full 101% playthrough of the game and, you know what? I wouldn't mind doing another one. I try to be objective for these videos, and sometimes, critically looking at a game causes me to reevaluate my feelings on it, but that's not the case here. Donkey Kong 64 is not perfect, and just looking at it on its own, it'd be difficult to call it "good," but whenever I play this game, my nostalgia for it always wins out. But maybe that's okay. We all have games that we love and cherish, even if they don't hold up if you disassociate it from your own personal feelings, and there's nothing wrong with liking a game that has fundamental design flaws. I feel that there's an unspoken rule that nostalgia is a bad thing or that looking at something through rose-tinted glasses is wrong, but I don't think that's true as long as you can acknowledge the shortcomings of something you're nostalgic for. You can recognize a game's faults and still enjoy it, and if a game means something special to you, the fact that others don't like it as much as you do doesn't have to change that. And just because I'm not blind to the problems Donkey Kong 64 has doesn't mean I have to forget all the fond memories I have of this game. I still remember listening to the DK Rap, getting scared at the voice yelling "GET OUT" in the temples, cowering at K. Rool's laugh when you entered a boss fight, and feeling the pressure of turning off the Blast-o-Matic on time. I'm not the only one with those memories, because the people who love this game look back on it fondly even as others criticize it, fairly or otherwise. Maybe this is a game that doesn't work if you don't have a nostalgic connection to it, and that's fine. Because as long as you can accept that not everyone can see through a game's problems, you don't always have to move past your nostalgia.
Great video! I love how in-depth you went into it. Donkey Kong 64 is one of my favorite games of all time! Definitely not a game for "everyone", but certainly the kind of game I personally like.
By the way, I enjoyed how you embraced your own take on the game and your subjectivity, and didn't focus too much on being objective all the time, not succumbing to the "general consensus". The most interesting thing to me about video games is how they mean different things for different people, and I think we should talk more about that. Anyone can do an analysis, but our personal experiences are unique. You definitely stood out!
Sorry for the tangent! Thank you for posting this here, and for taking your time to produce this great content. You just earned a new subscriber! :)
Keep it up!
Hey dude. Just subbed. Really great content! I didn't mind sitting through the whole thing to learn more about this game I love but everyone seems to crap on for some reason. Cheers!
One of the best game ever. I really love this game
Awesome video! This and Banjo are my favorite games ever, so happy to see someone who can highlight the good parts as well as the bad. Checked out your Banjo videos and those were great too! Just subbed and looking forward to what you have next!
I've been binging through the DKC games, the GBA ports, and the Land games during quarantine, so glad to see some good new DK content!