Donkey Kong 64

"It's all good...or is it?"

Home to one of the most fun opening sequences (The DK Crew Rap)featuring the famous line, ''C'mon, Cranky! Take it to the fridge!'' DK64 is a blast, but not without its in-game faults.

Graphics (System-Wise) 10/10

There's a reason this game using an expansion pack, the graphics are awesome. Lining of stages doesn't look as flat as banjo kazooie, giving the game a more ''real'' feeling. These Perfect-Dark worthy graphics deserve my praise!

Sound (System-Wise) 7/10

For the first time ever, I haven't lowered the score because of the sound effects, they're crisp and beautiful-sounding. Each character grunts and shouts and cheers when they find a golden banana. Every single enemy has its own voice and personality (The beavers have never been more cute). Now for the music. For every good world theme there is, there's 2 annoying ones to spoil it. For example, DK Island has a nice, cheery tune, but i can't stand the noise you get once you cross the sea to K.Rool's island. First of all, there's the big dude's cage, i forgot his name, and there's K.Rool's island itself, which is really a boat. Both have dismal, sad and UTTERLY ANNOYING themes. and you visit these areas quite often. Luckily, that DK island theme isn't the only good song, so this game gets a 7 instead of a 5 in the audio department.

Gameplay (Genre Wise) 8/10

If you've played Banjo Kazooie, you might as well go into this game THINKING it's a banjo kazooie game. Both control exactly the same, which isn't a problem, in addition, The camera in DK64 is much better than BK's, in my opinion. The one gripe I have is swimming, dreadful dreadful swimming. Swimming is the most tedious activity in this game and BK, and each of them have one level thats entirely based around, you guessed it, SWIMMING! ARGH! The fact is, when you're underwater, you can't defend yourself, unless you transform into enguarde, but then you can't collect any bananas or banana coins which is hidden at the bottom of the sea. You also swim extremely slowly, even when you're using the b-button, which is the faster was to swim, making all water levels mind-numbing and tedious. another thing is that you can only change into enguarde when you're Lanky Kong (Really a chimpanzee...guess those big arms make him the fastest swimmer or something...) which makes it a harrowing affair to become the blue sea wonder. You need to find the tag barrel to change into Lanky, then you need to find the Box to change into enguarde! ARGH!
Okay enough flaming the swimming, as i mentioned before, enguarde is back in style, the only thing that makes swimming the least bit enjoyable. But the problem is, he's only in one level. As for the other animals, Only Rambi the Rhino makes a return, in the first level. But even still, you only use him for about a minute tops. Thank God that they have their own minigames in the secrets area.
Each kong has different abilities, but they all control the same, with a few technical differences. Tiny's the fastest runner, Diddy's the highest jumper, Lanky is the fastest swimmer and has the longest reach in combat, Chunky hits the hardest and Donkey Kong is average in all aspects. All of the kongs except for Donkey have weaknesses as well. Tiny doesn't hit that hard, Diddy isn't much of a fighter, either, Lanky moves a little more slowly than diddy and doesn't jump as high as the monkey crew (Tiny and Diddy are monkeys) while Chunky is the slowest and can barely jump a foot. Some of their special abilities are big fun. Donkey Kong has a barrel-shooting minigame (For all those people who played the DKC series), Tiny can...shrink...Diddy has supercool jetpacks, though they're a bit hard to control, Lanky can turn himself into a balloon (Comic releif), chunky can make himself DAMN HUGE(you actually defeat a boss using this power) as well as several other things. Dixie's ponytail spin is back in the form of Tiny's pigtails, by the way.
Gameplay is solid but swimming downright stinks. 'nuff said.

Story (Genre-Wise) 5/10

These games always fall flat on the story, one fellow reviewer actually noted that this is much like banjo kazooie in this aspect. K.Rool/Grunty has stolen your Golden Bananas/Sister and you have to get them/her back by collecting regular bananas/musical notes and Golden Bananas/Golden Jiggies. Thanks to LegendaryFrog for this analogy. It's also similar to Mario 64 in some aspect but see LegendaryFrog's review for that.

Replayability (Genre-Wise) 7/10

There's a damn lot of Bananas out there to collect, as well as banana fairies, banana medals, and several other things hidden about the worlds. For each set number of Banana Fairies, you will unlock special features, such as the ability to fight bosses you've defeated, Animal Minigames, and the ability to use Krusha (who never made an apearance in the actual adventure game) in multiplayer mode. It isn't the best, but it's still good for an adventure game.

Multiplayer (System and Genre-Wise) 5/10

I'd love the multiplayer if my friends weren't wusses. I don't know what possessed Rare to put water into ALL the multiplayer stages but once a Kong goes underwater, s/he is almost completely invincible as long as they stay at the bottom and stay mobile. (Homing ammo only follows things so far and so well). I'll try sending a letter to Rare asking them what they were smoking when they decided to put Water in their multiplayer. Until then, stick to the water free, but criminally short, battle arena mode. Four player Battle Arena is a blast because there's no splitscreen! YEAH!

Overall 7/10

Blame this grade on water. My multiplayer experience was ruined by wussy little #$%@s who would hide in the water whenever they were out of homing ammo(You can only hold 10 shots). Battle Arena was big fun, because you can't hide in water, you just beg for mercy *grin*.
The game itself is quite awesome but once again, blame it on the water. The tasteless idea of swimming through an entire level made me gag in utter disgust and the lack of rad animal characters made me frown.
I seriously reccomend buying this if you can spring for the expansion pack and can stand long hours of swimming and have Multiplayer playing friends who don't wuss out every time you're beating them. As for people like me, consider a rental.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 08/14/03