Current Events > What do you think about Donkey Kong 64? *spoilers*

(+) Yeah! (+)

I think that it's a very good platformer, but far from true brilliance. That's B-K and SM64. It was really interesting, unlocking the characters and being able to do more in each world, but the game has serious problems. For starters, it's much too boring and linear at the beginning, when you only can play as one or two characters. Also, sometimes it takes too long to open up the different areas of a world. Too much emphasis on mini-games. Not quite enough levels, i.e. 8 worlds, and one was much too short. Overall, though, it was a very good game once you'd been playing for quite a while, and the lighting effects were pretty much revolutionary, and there was tons and tons of content, which was really pleasing.
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Having to collect collectibles on each world with 5 different characters was a pain.

Have some areas that can only be accessed by certain characters sure. But to literally have to do the same thing five times is boring.
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Best game ever, IMO.
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the_cajun88 posted...

Best game ever, IMO.

Really? Why?

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Sunhawk posted...

the_cajun88 posted...

Best game ever, IMO.

Really? Why?

Because I really like it?
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A horrifically flawed game that could have been so much better. dk 64 makes Jet force geminis collect-a-thon seem like nothing, somehow.

It was just too long, lost interest three quarters through.

It's a good game. Not amazing but good.
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Pretty much a padded out mess due to how the multiple characters work.

- Character specific collectibles exist in the middle of the levels for no good reason
- Plenty of character specific sections have no good reason to be specific to a certain character. They don't require any particular skills other than the ability to open a certain door.

You could either remove these aspects from the game OR make changing character something you can do anywhere on the map. As it stands it's terrible.
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Theres a reason the collect-a-thon genre is dead.
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The 5 character system was perhaps the central design element of the game. If you removed it, it wouldn't be DK64 anymore. I actually thought it worked quite well, although it was boring for the first few hours. And the characters were varied and interesting.
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Here's the main problem, already mostly pointed at. There's tons of collectables for a certain Kong where you probably just walked through with a different Kong. Or maybe you went all this long way and realize you need a different Kong, and then have to trek ALL the way back so you can go there with the right Kong. That's not quite normal backtracking, it's padding.

Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed the game as a kid but even then I recognized how tedius some parts were. Now I'm just able to explain myself better and have less patience for that stuff.
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I think at 201 golden bananas the game is just too long for most people to enjoy. Somewhere around 180 would have been perfect.
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Sunhawk posted...

The 5 character system was perhaps the central design element of the game. If you removed it, it wouldn't be DK64 anymore. I actually thought it worked quite well, although it was boring for the first few hours. And the characters were varied and interesting.

I wasn't suggesting removing the multiple characters. I was suggesting removing character specific sections and collectibles that have no reason to be character specific (which is most of them) or to simply allow the player to switch characters on the fly at any given moment.

Otherwise there's a ton of useless backtracking.
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really bad
barebones, nearly-nonexistent platforming and lots of shitty minigames

I had fun until I had to play the DK Arcade for the Nintendo coin and I never got past that point
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Donkey kong and all its iterations outside of diddy kong racing are garbage.
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I'm kinda meh on it

It has a lot of really funny bugs/glitches that are a blast to just mess around with though. if the game actually worked 100% properly I'd probably classify it as awful instead because all those things make it more fun
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it's bad
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It's a product of the time it came out.

Overall, I think it suffers from a lot of bad design ideas. At the time of release, this wasn't as big of a deal. But when you look at it with what we know today it just makes you shake your head and wonder WTF they were thinking.
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I've made, iunno, 3 or 4 good attempts at playing it, and I just can't be bothered. Collect-a-thon games are miserably boring to me.

Same reason I've never bothered with either Banjo game.
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Bad game.

I never beat it.

During that last part with the time limit, I got stuck somewhere with Diddy Kong. Never ended up trying again.
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I think it's a very good game. Never did come close to beating it though.
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The DK Rap was probably the worst song I'd ever heard. So things were off to a bad start. I got bored after an hour and never played it again. It felt like a less fun Banjo-Kazooie.
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Chicken posted...

Theres a reason the collect-a-thon genre is dead.

I dunno, there is still stuff like that in Uncharted, Tomb Raider, Arkham series, Farcry...
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CraziestCal posted...

Chicken posted...

Theres a reason the collect-a-thon genre is dead.

I dunno, there is still stuff like that in Uncharted, Tomb Raider, Arkham series, Farcry...

Yeah, but that isn't the entire point of the game.
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