Donkey Kong 64 (1999)

I have a love-hate relationship with this game. I liked it enough to get 101%, but I was complaining about it every step along the way.

• I like collecting things. Checking items off of a checklist feels good in the short-term, it makes you feel like you're making progress, no matter how little.
• I like how there is little to no punishment for dying. It kind of makes it feel like "what's the point to having health", but at the same time, at least I'm not forced to do entire levels over again or collect the same collectables I already got before.
• This game is chock full of mini games. It honestly feels like the mini games have more emphasis than platforming, which is a shame because I wanted to play a 3D platformer.
• This game is CLUNKY. Clunky controls, the worst camera I've ever experienced, and platforming that feels pretty awful. There's a reliance on button combos to access abilities and items, which feels necessary because of the lack of buttons to use them on the N64, but it doesn't feel intuitive because the combinations are arbitrary. Camera is absolutely horrendous, it gets in my way at every turn. The platforming itself does not feel good. It's hard to feel in control because I can't get characters to consistently grab ledges, long jumps feel slow and unrewarding, characters feel sluggish, basic jumps don't feel usable, and I feel like I have to slow down and high jump to get anywhere. When I need to climb steps, climb boxes, or make any progression, I HAVE to high jump.
• I love the checklist, but the game feels incredibly tedious. There are 5 characters, but do they actually add anything? The abilities feel more like keys than actually new moves since a large majority of them can only be used in designated areas. The characters largely do not feel distinct for 90% of the game. The characters feel more like keys and gateways themselves rather than distinct characters. It feels like an excuse to make you play the same levels 5 times since collectibles are character specific for no reason other than to split up the collectibles evenly. The tedium would have been greatly reduced if the game natively had tag anywhere. Better yet, they could have just had ONE playable character that unlocked all of the abilities since most abilities are only available in designated areas anyway. The backtracking you have to do in order to get collectibles you passed because you weren't playing a specific kong or because you didn't have that kong unlocked is crazy. I think adding more distinct locations that utilized each kong's abilities more would have made the game feel less padded with meaningless content. Or in the very least, they could have had more sections like the last level where each kong needed to work together to get through each area. I'll at least give them credit for not booting you out of the level after collecting a gold banana in the very least.
• There were no thoughts of accessibility when designing the game. I'm fortunate that I am not colorblind, deaf, or epileptic because this game would be a nightmare if I had either of those conditions.
• This game loves to add random timers. It feels like they couldn't think of interesting challenges, so they just threw a timer to add difficulty.

Overall, I had a good time. I don't think I'd recommend the game or re-visit it. If I want to enjoy a 3D platformer on N64, I'd go with SM64 because it feels better to control and feels less tedious.

I was so excited to play this game again, and I was supremely let down almost immediately. The controls and camera just suck so much. The camera makes even the most basic platforming difficult because it doesn't know how to stay in one place and it's difficult to control, and the controls are just generally janky (more on that in a minute). However, both of those things can be forgiven, considering this was Donkey Kong's first 3D outing, and the whole gaming industry was struggling with those same issues. But there are some things that can't be forgiven.

Let's do it at least some justice and start with the good things. Despite the crap controls, I was actually having fun at the beginning. The first two levels (Jungle Japes and Angry Aztec) are so nostalgic for me, and they hold up fairly well. They're both good introductions to the gameplay: not too difficult, but still containing a few secrets that you need to come back later to find. Frantic Factory still holds a special place in my heart; I'm not sure why, but I just love that level. Gloomy Galleon is fine, Fungi Forest is pretty good. Crystal Caves SUCKS. And then Creepy Castle is actually a lot of fun too. Overal, pretty decent level design.

This game is the ultimate collect-a-thon. There are bananas, golden bananas, banana medals rewarded for collecting bananas, banana fairies, blueprints, battle crowns, and non-optional boss keys and coins, not to be confused with the semi-optional coins that are collected and used to upgrade your characters. Your work is cut out for you!

A lot of people rip on the fact that the blueprints and bananas are all character-specific. For example, in order to get the blue bananas, you have to be Lanky Kong. If you see them when you're Cranky Kong, you have to find a barrel and switch characters. And there are five different characters. This means you'll be switching a LOT. Which can get annoying when you literally have to switch just to grab five bananas and then switch back, but for the most part I think it works. Most of the bananas are placed strategically to lead you to other character-specific finds. So, if you see a line of red bananas, you'll grab Diddy Kong and collect them, and then at the end of the line you'll find a button only Diddy can press. I think the game actually does a pretty good job with this.

Alright, let's get to the things the game does poorly. First of all, let's touch on those controls I mentioned. Again, some of it can be chalked up to the transition to 3D and the limitations of the N64. For example, it's really difficult to turn on the spot. If you're on a small platform and you want to turn around, you'll more likely just shuffle over and fall off. But other things seem so unnecessarily broken. Like barrels, for example. You jump in a LOT of barrels. Yet I consistently found them difficult to enter. They're always just out of reach of a normal jump, so you have to ground jump, and even then you're more than likely to jump right beside it because the window of precision seems to be extremely narrow.

One thing that really frustrates me is when platforming is only difficult because of terrible controls. This was often the case with winding paths because of the camera, but the worst offender was Diddy's jetpack. It literally seemed like they intentionally made it control horribly so it wasn't too easy. I mean, try turning in this thing and you're going to just spin in circles. In the final level, you have a time limit, and one room requires you to fly through a bunch of stars. And because the jetpack controls suck, it takes up half of your allotted time, giving you less time to do the various mini-games required to get through the level. It was horrible. I had the same gripe with Diddy’s section of the final boss.

Speaking of the final boss, let’s talk about that. First of all, I cannot BELIEVE they made me beat those two stupid arcade games in order to proceed to finish the game. I hate them both so much. They don’t even tell you where the Nintendo Coin is, so you’re just supposed to play the DK arcade game for fun and find out that it’s hiding the coin, I guess. The DK game also takes at least 35 seconds to reload every time you die, so that’s a lot of fun. Honestly, being forced to play the two arcade games just made me frustrated and ready to get the game over with. It’s also what brought the game from 3 stars to 2.

But anyway, the final boss wouldn’t actually be so bad if I wasn’t already fed up with the game. You use each of the five kongs to battle King K Rool in different ways, essentially using each of their strengths to take him out. Unfortunately, you have to start the whole thing over again if you die; no save points. And this kind of sucks. Especially since you really need at least one run of each section to get used to it and figure out the trick. And you can’t practice the last couple sections without going through the first ones, so it all just becomes quite repetitive and difficult. Honestly though, this isn’t the worst thing when it’s 1999 and you’re 6 years old. You don’t have any other games to play or anything useful to do, so you’ve got the time to sit there and try again and again. In 2018 when you’re 24, it’s a different story, so I admit that beating K Rool was one of three times I used save states. The other two were in that last level, which I justified because of the horrible jetpack thing, and the DK arcade game, which I also justified because I hate that game and I think it’s stupid that I was forced to beat it twice.

Overall, this game is still special to me, but it’s been seriously tainted. It simply doesn’t hold up well. Still, I can’t deny that I did have fun while playing it—about half of it, anyway. This is a pretty long review, but the fact that I have so much to say about it just shows how much I care about it. It also shows that, amidst all the negatives, this game did get some things right.

It should be noted that for anyone playing the Wii U version, at least one golden banana may be unattainable, as the game intentionally sped up “Krazy Kong Klamor” to make up for the limitations of the N64 (lag, slowdowns, and framerate issues). As the Wii U does not have these issues, the mini-game runs way too fast and is almost impossible.

I collected 136 golden bananas before proceeding to the final boss.