"Day-O!"

Donkey Kong 64 (1999), Rareware - R005 - 08.31.2007

Out of all the important things that might be said about the 3D platforming genre, the most intriguing is by far how strangely it has evolved throughout the years. Now, I'll be honest: I have no idea what that means, I just know it's there. It could be a sign of players' gradual lack of patience as time passes, or that they demand a more rewarding experience through tax-free playtime; the ultimate fact is - and you have no idea how painful it is to type the following - that platformers simply aren't about timing jumps anymore.

For an easy comparison, take the big Nintendo 64 entries: in Super Mario 64 (1996), we had a bunch of shiny objects that essentially symbolized all the freedom that the game offered. It may not be so clear, but Power Stars weren't items, they were goals -- and the brilliant catch is that you were the one who chose the goals you wanted to accomplish. You were given a Power Star as a prize, for completing a task that usually involved grabbing ledges and praying that the next jump would make past the dodgy camera angle. Collection in Super Mario 64 was a mere disguise, a luxury, a thought interestingly fueled by how you may belly-dash your way through the whole game without a single Coin. Stages were abstract and strange-looking, but absolutely impeccable when looking at 'em with big critical platformer eyes: Rainbow Ride, for instance, was nothing but a series of carefully positioned floating blocks. Banjo-Kazooie (1998) expanded the successful concept and made raw collection a necessity, but still managed to balance things and provide a decent amount of creative maneuvering to do. Focus was on a beautiful treasure hunt with many memorable times; a natural waltz personified by Grunty's witty rhymes!

In came Donkey Kong 64. 1999, pseudo-Millennium right around the corner and Nintendo gamers were in love with their corporate idol for wonderful next-gen retellings of Zelda, F-Zero and Star Fox. Rare, on the other hand... well, it was the same hand, after all: GoldenEye, Banjo and Donkey Kong Country couldn't have made the hype more apparent. While the 3D platforming formula was simple and obvious enough to guarantee public approval, the Gimme More Syndrome made a few victims at Rare's headquarters, and the result was - for better or worse - one of the biggest videogames in history. The old saying points that size doesn't matter, but the creators of that overused way of life never seem to mention that size will always, always trigger some kind of reaction. Donkey Kong 64 marks the first time when a videogame can only be finished after collecting 1799 items. It sounds like a horrible exaggeration, but that's actually the exact amount of major items needed to reach the final battle.

Basically, DK64 is the mainstream precursor of an odd platformer breed that many call 'collect-a-thons'. By that, it is implied that your very existence in their world happens to satisfy ancient gods represented by two- and three-digit counters. Your worst enemy doesn't breathe or even damage your character: instead, it lurks, points and laughs whenever you pause the game and take a look at your current progression. If videogames are a good way to escape Math problems, this is a terrible choice. Every single item comes with a number-slash-another-number that you'll inevitably have to almost complete. Let's get something straight: collect-a-thons can be awesome if designed and balanced properly, as Banjo's first sequel would eventually prove. Even better, collecting can be a fun aspect in any genre. Mario himself started with a looping x100 counter that granted him extra lives in 1985. The problem here is that Donkey Kong 64 gets lost in its own concept, trying too hard to do too much.

King K. Rool, recurring villain from the Country series, crashes his Kremlin-shaped island/boat right in front of the Kongs' DK-shaped island/shrine. Unimportant events lead to the kidnapping of four members of the Kong family plus the DK banana hoard. The DK Isle is at risk, and it's up to Donkey himself - finally playable again since 1994 - to rescue his family and win back his Kong pride. One of the game's shining features is that Kong members will not only be rescued, but also join Donkey in his adventure. And Rare did a good job at making each Kong look and sound unique: Diddy is the same old Bart-Simpson-with-a-tail from Country, Lanky is a circus freak with elastic arms and bizarre voicework ("Ooplah!"), Tiny is a younger Dixie Kong replacement and Chunky is an adorable figure who doesn't seem to get along with his physique. All characters are beautifully animated, and animation consequently reflects each personality. For instance, Tiny doesn't walk, she skips and hops like a happy child. Highlighting Chunky in the character select screen makes him so scared to the point of recommending Tiny to the job. The abilities they gain are also in perfect synchronization with their personal traits: Donkey is the old-school hero that has access to barrel-blasting challenges, Diddy yells rock'n'roll while flying with aid of a wooden jetpack, Lanky uses his arms to travel at a freakishly high speed and inflates himself, Chunky becomes chunky and Tiny becomes tiny. Some of those abilities are amazing to use, even if they pale when dealing with the game's primitive physics and faulty collision detection. Unfortunately, what could have turned into a brilliant feature was tossed into gameplay with no passion whatsoever, like that gory dentist appointment you just couldn't avoid.

The gimmick to hold players' attention is simple: each character has a crapload of items to collect, but you can't collect anything that belongs to a Kong while you're leading another one. The standard golden artifact to retrieve this time is the Golden Banana, a tasty Power Star/Jiggy cousin. Like Mario and Banjo, Donkey and his buddies will accomplish a variety of tasks in order to claim the golden prize. Now for the interesting bit: DK64 does its best to make Golden Bananas seem as important as Stars or Jiggies, but the thing is that the most important items in the game are in fact the "Coin" equivalents, the colored Bananas. If you thought finding 100 Musical Notes per world in Banjo-Kazooie was a challenge, you don't even want to imagine what it's like to search for DK64's 500 Bananas per level. Each Kong has a hundred color-coded Bananas scattered all over the place (some as bunches, some in 10-unit balloons), and you must have a lot of 'em because the area boss is guarded by two hungry animals who operate the giant gate. For the first gate, only 10% of the Bananas from that level are needed, but as you advance... you know the deal. To put it simply, you might constantly find yourself searching for colored Bananas instead of solving problems to claim Golden Bananas, which is a bit off. More: questionable item placement and inexcusably lazy level design are sure to make things less exciting for the player. If Banjo-Tooie is the World War II of collect-a-thons, DK64 is the same -- though you must call one of your comrades whenever you need to shoot a target, since his weapon is the only one that hurts it and your military training apparently didn't focus much on spreading basic knowledge. Every single time you exit a tunnel, you'll bump into a new trail of colored Bananas that the Kong you're controlling obviously cannot collect. But that's okay. You backtrack to a character switch barrel, collect those Bananas and... aw, dammit! A gate! And a switch! You need Chunky's pineapple bazooka for that one, and the sadistic part is that behind the gate is a trail of Bananas that Chunky naturally won't be able to collect! So, you take a deep breath and repeat the process about eight hundred times until you reach the final area. This is Donkey Kong 64 in a nutshell, or a banana peel, whatever floats your banana boat.

My impression is that DK64 could easily benefit as a whole with a multi-scenario road, as seen in Mega Man & Bass and Resident Evil: a number of characters with different abilities going through the same adventure separately and facing exclusive challenges. While the whole Kong family trend was respectfully portrayed, it seems that the game could have been much more entertaining if each character had their own campaign, teasing us with areas and situations we wouldn't be able to fully experience until we unlocked or chose another character. A single DK64 playthrough is tiring and ridiculously long for the simple fact that we must solve everything five times. And it's often the exact same thing five times. There's a particularly funny instance in Gloomy Galleon - the water level - where we need to use Musical Pads placed on a cactus to open four minor areas in a sunken ship. Musical Pads are switches activated by Kong instruments, and logically each Kong has a different instrument. The routine goes like this: switch to character, swim to cactus, play song, swim to the ship - which is located relatively far - under a time limit, solve puzzle or collect stuff, switch to character, swim to cactus... It doesn't take much to realize that basic objective layout was lost at some point, and that their only concern was to pollute those areas with tiny collectables so we'd spend a long time backtracking for mandatory items. When a game is long because there are many items, events and good sense of continuity, that's fine. When a game is long because we have to repeat tasks with minor variety, it's low and unfair. DK64 is paced like an obstacle race where obstacles are too high to be jumped past: you're prevented from advancing during the entire game, in every way possible (Diddy's jetpack, for instance, is always limited to a scripted area even though you could clearly visit other nearby places using the gadget). This is all meant to lock the player and force him to sit until things start picking up, and I can't stress enough that there's an obvious difference between 'replay value' and 'playtime'.

The Gimme More Syndrome has also affected the areas that surround or float above DK Isle. Allegedly, the new Expansion Pak for the Nintendo 64 (free with DK64 copies) was necessary to render and store the huge environments seen in the game. And it's true, the sheer size of DK64's levels is insane. The ironically tiny detail to take note of is that they don't have a lot of content, they're simply... large. Most areas in the game feel a lot more stretched out than inhabited: you see and understand that the place is gigantic, but there's not a lot to do or live while you explore it. The DK Isle hub is a sad example of this, just as the frightening amount of empty dull tunnels connecting specific "sections" in DK64's areas. In the end, the Expansion Pak hype means that you'll cross an unnecessarily long path to a shack with those already slow characters when the important elements would have been the same without the add-on. Thank goodness for Bananaports, which take us from point A to B instantly within a level, but the annoyance stands. Regardless, you'll visit familiar Country locations such as Jungle Japes (the jungle archetype from DKC1), Angry Aztec (abandoned temples and ruins), Glimmer Galleon (generic cove with some references to DKC) and Crystal Caves (pretty much a carbon copy of DKC2's ice caves). Though mostly lifeless and a pain to navigate, some of them can be pretty creative. Frantic Factory holds what maybe is the only big section fully dedicated to platforming in the game, the Production Room. And it's fantastic. Fungi Forest is certainly the most popular son, a stylish village in which day and night are controlled by the player; coincidence or not, it is believed that the level was originally designed for Banjo-Kazooie. Then there's Creepy Castle, an oddly friendly level with a kick-ass boss fight, and the wonderful final destination, Hideout Helm.

Given how enormous those areas are, you'll definitely want to escape the tedious runnin' from time to time, and that's where DK64's mini-games kick in. Mostly used as closing challenges to grant Golden Bananas, they're normally a welcome break from the usual uninspired switch-shooting Bananarama found up until then. Like Banjo-Tooie, DK64 sometimes depends too much on mini-games, but they're fun to play and very challenging overall. Barrel-blasting and mine cart racing are fan favorites, being so easy to get into and addictive that they should have been used more often. There's even a clever homage to the old times with the original Donkey Kong arcade game available at Frantic Factory (you may input your name if you get a hi-score!) and the Rare rarity Jetpac. Ranging from pure nonsense (bug-splatting) to plain stupid (Beaver Bother), the mini-games will hit more often than miss.

Along with those, Donkey Kong 64 has many inspired moments and gameplay elements that, in my view, should be just enough to invite the player for new runs. The Frantic Factory and Glimmer Galleon boss fights are great, and the final battle against K. Rool (well, who else?) is the only event in the entire adventure where the Kongs' powers are used creatively. There's also plenty of strategy to be done and a lot of freedom when it comes to the Bananas and Golden Bananas you wish to collect. If you have enough Bananas in a level, you may choose to ignore everything else there and proceed to the boss fight. Not only that, a mere 100 Goldies are needed to infiltrate Hideout Helm. Speaking of which, the Hideout is a blast, and one of the game's side-quests is directly connected to how difficult this level will be. The other worthy side-quest is a cute photography exercise that'll increase your special ability gauge and unlock nice extras, like a replay mode in the same fashion as the one in Banjo-Tooie. Last, the rest of the Kong family is as present and lovable as ever, with Wrinkly appearing live from the beyond offering tips, Cranky being cranky but also selling abilities, Funky selling weapons and weapon upgrades, and Candy being too hot for the DK Crew (she sells some stuff, too, but I bet only Tiny paid any attention to her speech). The money system suits the game well when required, there's a couple of multiplayer games and the animal cameos/transformations succeed, even if only as throwbacks to the Country series.

Technically, DK64's visuals don't let down. The game's new lighting system adds some depth to environmental interaction and, well, it's a sweet effect. Textures are as detailed as Banjo-Tooie's, but DK doesn't punish the player with lagging as often as the bear journey. The only minor gripe is a common one in N64 games: most items are 2D sprites and not full 3D models, which makes them difficult to collect at times. Furthermore, sound and music in this game are so fitting that I came to appreciate parts I dislike - such as Angry Aztec - just because of what's heard in the place. When Chunky enters a barrel to become huge, his steps shake the floor around him. Like the Banjo series, music will change depending on where the player is located, and a new addition to this delightful feature is an urgent variation of the level theme played during boss fights. This eventually carried over to Banjo-Tooie. Most tracks in the game are brilliant. Fungi Forest's versatile day and night tunes are simply perfect.

Admittedly, most of the analysis may have sounded overly negative when you take a look at the score, but 7/10 is painfully low for a series that deserves perfection. Of course, DK64 is superior to most underwhelming Mario 64 clones, and it can be an enjoyable game if you're patient enough to tolerate certain design flaws. Following the Country series, atmosphere is friendly and light, with humorous tidbits everywhere -- including Coyote Latin naming for acquired moves and yes, the infamous D.K. Rap that players have yet to decide whether to love or hate for its cheesiness. Despite showing potential for a breathtaking label, Donkey Kong 64 is a game that unfortunately falls into the 'decent' category, and that's not nearly enough for such a promising, ambitious title with so many top-notch predecessors. DK64 invents the collect-a-thon sub-genre and presents an adventure that focuses even less on platforming than the usual treasure hunt. Since playing the game really does feel like work, I can only agree with the calypso folk(s) and shout "Daylight come and me wanna go home." at the end of every sitting. Pity.

Plus
- It's a Donkey Kong adventure by Rare;
- Donkey Kong finally playable after five years;
- Five characters with unique abilities;
- Fun mini-games and side-quests;
- The rap song?

Minus
- Quantity does not equal quality;
- Not enough platforming;
- Mini-game frenzy might take away from the adventure theme; </Ctrl+V>
- Cheap item placement and mostly lazy level design;
- The final Beaver Bother mini-game;
- The rap song?

Similar Titles
- Banjo-Tooie ][ Pretty much the best collect-a-thon game available out there.
- Jak and Dexter: The Precursor Legacy ][ Same old in a different package.
- Wario World ][ Small and modest, but pretty fun.

Seven out of ten.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 08/31/07

Game Release: Donkey Kong 64 (US, 10/31/99)