12 ms·

The Making of Donkey Kong 64 (2019)

75 points by vector_spaces 5y ago

garrettjoecox 5y ago
I’m surprised to find out this game ever received any negative feedback, me and all of the people I know loved and praised this game from day 1, was ahead of it’s time.
- brink 5y ago
  I hear it was an insane collectathon; colored bananas that you could only pick up with specific characters. People complained that parts of the game were more tedious than fun. I never owned it, but I did play it at my friend's house whenever I got the opportunity. I loved it.
  - d1str0 5y ago
    There were 5 different banana colors, 100each per level, and i think 5 coins each per level. Then there were two banana fairies to photograph per level, and 5 golden bananas per kong per level. To beat the game you don’t need collect anywhere near all of them, and it felt reasonably balanced to actually beat the game.
  - amlib 5y ago
    I've been playing it on and off lately (on a real n64 no less) and I honestly think it's more of a level design problem than the actual collect a ton. I've really enjoyed some levels (the factory level is nice!), while I despised others, such as the water one with a sunken ship. I specially hate when levels over rely on kong changes just to unlock things. They make you do four or five round trips just to hit all switches and pads related to each kong. This just seems lazy... The factory level is nice because it has plenty of platforming (which in my opinion could use some more!) and they require each Kong platforming abilities to reach different places. That's the king of thing they should have focused more trough out the game. Miyamoto even said that climbing mountains is the thing that inspired SM64 levels, so I wished they had took that to hart in DK64.
    - omegaham 5y ago
      I thought that the best levels were the first three - Jungle Japes, Angry Aztec, and Frantic Factory. Fungi Forest and Crystal Caves are okay, but have way too much switching between characters. Gloomy Galleon and Creepy Castle are tedious grinds no matter how you slice it.
      - azalemeth 5y ago
        The one that really drove me mad was the mandatory coin you got by playing the original DK arcade game, in order to face King Kruel. I never beat that as a child -- it was just too hard -- and only finally saw the credits when I played through it again after finishing my PhD on the Wii U's emulator. The save states were very useful! I loved this game, and Banjo Kazooie / Banjo Tooie. So many happy memories.
        spywaregorilla 5y ago
        Indeed, those three original DK levels are perhaps the most memorable part of the game from my childhood on account of how difficult they were for me.
- gremIin 5y ago
  I'm surprised to hear your surprise. My friends and I found the multiplayer fun, but found the single player mode to be a huge letdown (way too much aimless collecting and the camera angles were frustrating to deal with).
  - d1str0 5y ago
    As kids we had the opposite opinion. Multiplayer was kinda bland but the single player was great.
  - foolfoolz 5y ago
    me and my friends were total opposite. this was a single player game only. the multiplayer felt tacked on and not as strong as smash, goldeneye, or even as hectic as bomberman64
- vlunkr 5y ago
  I definitely enjoyed the game as a kid, but I really don't see how it would be considered "ahead of it's time". IMO it marked the end of the collectathon subgenre. Banjo-Kazooie did essentially everything better than DK64.
Causality1 5y ago
DK 64 makes for an excellent revisit as long as you use the mod that lets you change characters without having to track down a change barrel.
- FillardMillmore 5y ago
  This is literally my biggest issue with the game. Man, in retrospect, playing it now, the change barrels were so obnoxious of a concept when they could've allowed the player to switch Kongs at any given time.
  - Causality1 5y ago
    They would've worked ok if Rare didn't put items only one Kong can get in areas you have to open with a different Kong. That was just idiotic. "Open this door, walk thirty seconds down the tunnel, see the wrong color banana, turn around, go change characters, come back, collect bananas, go change characters again to unlock the next area."
d1str0 5y ago
I’m 28 years old now and played this as a kid. I absolutely loved it. For me it was way more interesting than Mario 64 because it had 5 characters and a cohesive theme. Mario had many levels that all seemed like their own minigames where DK64 felt whole and like a single world. Last year during lockdown, I spent a lot of time visiting my mom and broke out the old N64. Starting fresh I finally beat DK64 completely through, something I never accomplished when I was young. Still today, DK64 is one of my favorite video games ever. The theming was top notch. The different musical styles and decorations are incredibly immersive, and as a kid, collectathons became extra competitive, not boring, especially if you had siblings.
- hypertele-Xii 5y ago
  > Mario had many levels that all seemed like their own minigames where DK64 felt whole and like a single world. You must be joking. DK64 is filled to the brim with disjointed, character-specific minigames, including multiple instances of Simon Says. Mario is far more integrated. Example: In Mario, the racing minigame is against a Koopa, across the whole level, using Mario's movement mechanics. In DK64, it's some strange talking car in a toy factory, never seen before in the entire series, and takes place on a dedicated, isolated track.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
atribecalledqst 5y ago
I remember being 10 and writing in to complain about the term "hell" from the DK Rap. Pretty sure I got a response apologizing for the language, and indeed "Hell" was replaced with "Heck" in later renditions (e.g. in Super Smash Bros Melee). There's another interview about DK64 floating around where somebody from Rare comments on all the complaints they received about it. Another interesting tidbit from this article... I didn't realize the Expansion Pak was used for lighting. From what I'd heard before, they added the Expansion Pak as a requirement because it stopped random crashes from occurring. But they never figured out why exactly it fixed them.
- megablast 5y ago
  Why did you complain?? I’m Confused.
  - SirHound 5y ago
    I’m assuming a strict religious (US?) upbringing. The guys at Rare had probably never given it a second thought.
    - atribecalledqst 5y ago
      Not religious, but young enough that I still worried about using swears. But yes, US. I generally thought "hell" was considered a low-grade swear everywhere in US but could be wrong.
  - sysihyk 5y ago
    To get free apology (and probably some more material compensation as well).
- mattlondon 5y ago
  What the hell is wrong with hell? Facetious of course, but genuinely curious why hell is a problem?
  - 5y ago
pjerem 5y ago
I have great memories of DK64. The theming stays unbeaten on its genre to this day thanks to the lightnings and cinematic. Kirkhope did a memorable OST that stays with you for decades (as this guy always does, tbh). I managed to finish the game as a kid and it felt like an achievement to me. I was never bothered by the collectathon aspect. I just liked to replay same levels multiple times with different kongs. But maybe as a kid I wasn’t playing for hours and I remember that for me the timespan to finish games such as DK64, Banjo-K/T or Mario 64 was accounted in _years_. Every completion of one of those games was a little event in my life. In this context, DK64 was a perfect shot for me : nearly infinite adventure before fighting against King K.Rool in a memorable boss fight with the inimitable style of Rareware boss fights (I have fond memories of beating Gruntilda - and its skeleton). I miss rareware. I’d love to see a new DK with the « darker and stranger » theme of DK64 .
BiteCode_dev 5y ago
It was a fun game, but I don't understand the comments stating it was so novel. It was basically a clone of banjo & kazooie themed using the already created awesome universe of DK from the super NES. Basically a patchwork of copies. Honestly, the very first one was a lot more innovative: - completely original licence, with terrific characters, world design and music composition - incredible graphisms pushing the limit of what the console could do - new gameplay mecanisms everywhere: dual play, animals, barrels... - humour a the center of platformer for the first time The 64 version just reused that. I have to assume this was amazing for the people that started the serie with this one, because while it was nice, it's probably the least remarkable of the whole serie. It's like when everybody told me how good Mass Effect was, the pinnacle of RPG. Then I played it and was stunned people enjoyed it so much. It was a far cry from even classic titles of 10 years before. Linear, bad UI, lacking combat system and a scenario ripping off Babylon 5. But then I realized: if this is your first big RPG, then yes, it makes sense. So if it was, indeed, your first DK and you haven't played D&K, then playing the rest may feel backward. And you enjoyed all the goodness in one big shot.
- 3np 5y ago
  I dunno. I may just have been the right age for it but loved DK64 as one of my top games of the era even after B&K and a couple of DKCs. There were still innovative parts, new takes and iterations and a new scale, the collectathon (loathed by some, enjoyed by 11yo me). I found the endgame and last boss fight particularly memorable. You do have a point but with very few exceptions every innovative game after the 80s is in some sense an iteration on existing concepts.
  - BiteCode_dev 5y ago
    Honestly, if the game made kids plenty of good memories, it was a great success. And maybe I was already too old when I finished it. Everything taste differently when you are under 12.
    - 3np 5y ago
      Indeed. Seeing, for example, how some otherwise balanced adults easily get sucked into sinking thousands of hours into incremental clickers while some find them incredibly boring and pointless tells me it just might be due to different "player styles" as well
zwegner 5y ago
I enjoyed DK64 as a kid, but after replaying it recently, IMO it doesn't hold up too well. The collecting isn't bad (though the character switching makes it much worse). My main issue is the core gameplay/controls. Moving around feels unresponsive and sluggish, the action animations are really long, and hitboxes can be unintuitive. Banjo-Kazooie is better, but still not very snappy control-wise. Super Mario 64, OTOH, holds up remarkably well: the controls flow so much faster and easier. It just feels natural to move around, with much less frustration. The camera is the biggest negative there, but that's a tough problem to solve for 3D open-world platformers, so I cut them some slack.
spywaregorilla 5y ago
The coconut gun story is so fantastic. A+

75 points by vector_spaces 5y ago

I’m surprised to find out this game ever received any negative feedback, me and all of the people I know loved and praised this game from day 1, was ahead of it’s time.

brink 5y ago
I hear it was an insane collectathon; colored bananas that you could only pick up with specific characters. People complained that parts of the game were more tedious than fun. I never owned it, but I did play it at my friend's house whenever I got the opportunity. I loved it.
- d1str0 5y ago
  There were 5 different banana colors, 100each per level, and i think 5 coins each per level. Then there were two banana fairies to photograph per level, and 5 golden bananas per kong per level. To beat the game you don’t need collect anywhere near all of them, and it felt reasonably balanced to actually beat the game.
- amlib 5y ago
  I've been playing it on and off lately (on a real n64 no less) and I honestly think it's more of a level design problem than the actual collect a ton. I've really enjoyed some levels (the factory level is nice!), while I despised others, such as the water one with a sunken ship. I specially hate when levels over rely on kong changes just to unlock things. They make you do four or five round trips just to hit all switches and pads related to each kong. This just seems lazy... The factory level is nice because it has plenty of platforming (which in my opinion could use some more!) and they require each Kong platforming abilities to reach different places. That's the king of thing they should have focused more trough out the game. Miyamoto even said that climbing mountains is the thing that inspired SM64 levels, so I wished they had took that to hart in DK64.
  - omegaham 5y ago
    I thought that the best levels were the first three - Jungle Japes, Angry Aztec, and Frantic Factory. Fungi Forest and Crystal Caves are okay, but have way too much switching between characters. Gloomy Galleon and Creepy Castle are tedious grinds no matter how you slice it.
    - azalemeth 5y ago
      The one that really drove me mad was the mandatory coin you got by playing the original DK arcade game, in order to face King Kruel. I never beat that as a child -- it was just too hard -- and only finally saw the credits when I played through it again after finishing my PhD on the Wii U's emulator. The save states were very useful! I loved this game, and Banjo Kazooie / Banjo Tooie. So many happy memories.
      - spywaregorilla 5y ago
        Indeed, those three original DK levels are perhaps the most memorable part of the game from my childhood on account of how difficult they were for me.
gremIin 5y ago
I'm surprised to hear your surprise. My friends and I found the multiplayer fun, but found the single player mode to be a huge letdown (way too much aimless collecting and the camera angles were frustrating to deal with).
- d1str0 5y ago
  As kids we had the opposite opinion. Multiplayer was kinda bland but the single player was great.
- foolfoolz 5y ago
  me and my friends were total opposite. this was a single player game only. the multiplayer felt tacked on and not as strong as smash, goldeneye, or even as hectic as bomberman64
vlunkr 5y ago
I definitely enjoyed the game as a kid, but I really don't see how it would be considered "ahead of it's time". IMO it marked the end of the collectathon subgenre. Banjo-Kazooie did essentially everything better than DK64.

Causality1 5y ago

DK 64 makes for an excellent revisit as long as you use the mod that lets you change characters without having to track down a change barrel.

FillardMillmore 5y ago
This is literally my biggest issue with the game. Man, in retrospect, playing it now, the change barrels were so obnoxious of a concept when they could've allowed the player to switch Kongs at any given time.
- Causality1 5y ago
  They would've worked ok if Rare didn't put items only one Kong can get in areas you have to open with a different Kong. That was just idiotic. "Open this door, walk thirty seconds down the tunnel, see the wrong color banana, turn around, go change characters, come back, collect bananas, go change characters again to unlock the next area."

d1str0 5y ago

I’m 28 years old now and played this as a kid. I absolutely loved it. For me it was way more interesting than Mario 64 because it had 5 characters and a cohesive theme. Mario had many levels that all seemed like their own minigames where DK64 felt whole and like a single world. Last year during lockdown, I spent a lot of time visiting my mom and broke out the old N64. Starting fresh I finally beat DK64 completely through, something I never accomplished when I was young. Still today, DK64 is one of my favorite video games ever. The theming was top notch. The different musical styles and decorations are incredibly immersive, and as a kid, collectathons became extra competitive, not boring, especially if you had siblings.

hypertele-Xii 5y ago
> Mario had many levels that all seemed like their own minigames where DK64 felt whole and like a single world. You must be joking. DK64 is filled to the brim with disjointed, character-specific minigames, including multiple instances of Simon Says. Mario is far more integrated. Example: In Mario, the racing minigame is against a Koopa, across the whole level, using Mario's movement mechanics. In DK64, it's some strange talking car in a toy factory, never seen before in the entire series, and takes place on a dedicated, isolated track.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

atribecalledqst 5y ago

I remember being 10 and writing in to complain about the term "hell" from the DK Rap. Pretty sure I got a response apologizing for the language, and indeed "Hell" was replaced with "Heck" in later renditions (e.g. in Super Smash Bros Melee). There's another interview about DK64 floating around where somebody from Rare comments on all the complaints they received about it. Another interesting tidbit from this article... I didn't realize the Expansion Pak was used for lighting. From what I'd heard before, they added the Expansion Pak as a requirement because it stopped random crashes from occurring. But they never figured out why exactly it fixed them.

megablast 5y ago
Why did you complain?? I’m Confused.
- SirHound 5y ago
  I’m assuming a strict religious (US?) upbringing. The guys at Rare had probably never given it a second thought.
  - atribecalledqst 5y ago
    Not religious, but young enough that I still worried about using swears. But yes, US. I generally thought "hell" was considered a low-grade swear everywhere in US but could be wrong.
- sysihyk 5y ago
  To get free apology (and probably some more material compensation as well).
mattlondon 5y ago
What the hell is wrong with hell? Facetious of course, but genuinely curious why hell is a problem?
- 5y ago

pjerem 5y ago

I have great memories of DK64. The theming stays unbeaten on its genre to this day thanks to the lightnings and cinematic. Kirkhope did a memorable OST that stays with you for decades (as this guy always does, tbh). I managed to finish the game as a kid and it felt like an achievement to me. I was never bothered by the collectathon aspect. I just liked to replay same levels multiple times with different kongs. But maybe as a kid I wasn’t playing for hours and I remember that for me the timespan to finish games such as DK64, Banjo-K/T or Mario 64 was accounted in _years_. Every completion of one of those games was a little event in my life. In this context, DK64 was a perfect shot for me : nearly infinite adventure before fighting against King K.Rool in a memorable boss fight with the inimitable style of Rareware boss fights (I have fond memories of beating Gruntilda - and its skeleton). I miss rareware. I’d love to see a new DK with the « darker and stranger » theme of DK64 .

BiteCode_dev 5y ago

It was a fun game, but I don't understand the comments stating it was so novel. It was basically a clone of banjo & kazooie themed using the already created awesome universe of DK from the super NES. Basically a patchwork of copies. Honestly, the very first one was a lot more innovative: - completely original licence, with terrific characters, world design and music composition - incredible graphisms pushing the limit of what the console could do - new gameplay mecanisms everywhere: dual play, animals, barrels... - humour a the center of platformer for the first time The 64 version just reused that. I have to assume this was amazing for the people that started the serie with this one, because while it was nice, it's probably the least remarkable of the whole serie. It's like when everybody told me how good Mass Effect was, the pinnacle of RPG. Then I played it and was stunned people enjoyed it so much. It was a far cry from even classic titles of 10 years before. Linear, bad UI, lacking combat system and a scenario ripping off Babylon 5. But then I realized: if this is your first big RPG, then yes, it makes sense. So if it was, indeed, your first DK and you haven't played D&K, then playing the rest may feel backward. And you enjoyed all the goodness in one big shot.

3np 5y ago
I dunno. I may just have been the right age for it but loved DK64 as one of my top games of the era even after B&K and a couple of DKCs. There were still innovative parts, new takes and iterations and a new scale, the collectathon (loathed by some, enjoyed by 11yo me). I found the endgame and last boss fight particularly memorable. You do have a point but with very few exceptions every innovative game after the 80s is in some sense an iteration on existing concepts.
- BiteCode_dev 5y ago
  Honestly, if the game made kids plenty of good memories, it was a great success. And maybe I was already too old when I finished it. Everything taste differently when you are under 12.
  - 3np 5y ago
    Indeed. Seeing, for example, how some otherwise balanced adults easily get sucked into sinking thousands of hours into incremental clickers while some find them incredibly boring and pointless tells me it just might be due to different "player styles" as well

zwegner 5y ago

I enjoyed DK64 as a kid, but after replaying it recently, IMO it doesn't hold up too well. The collecting isn't bad (though the character switching makes it much worse). My main issue is the core gameplay/controls. Moving around feels unresponsive and sluggish, the action animations are really long, and hitboxes can be unintuitive. Banjo-Kazooie is better, but still not very snappy control-wise. Super Mario 64, OTOH, holds up remarkably well: the controls flow so much faster and easier. It just feels natural to move around, with much less frustration. The camera is the biggest negative there, but that's a tough problem to solve for 3D open-world platformers, so I cut them some slack.

spywaregorilla 5y ago

The coconut gun story is so fantastic. A+