Well, it has almost been a full year on my blog, meaning we are coming up to my blog’s first birthday. Something that is just as good as that is that I am one review away from doing 100 reviews. For the 99th and 100th review, I decided to do two games from Rare. The first one will be a sequel to the famous Donkey Kong series, Donkey Kong 64 for the, well, you guessed it, the Nintendo 64.
Basically, the Kongs’ are enjoying their life on their island, as a few miles away, the evil K. Krool is moving towards the island in his new battleship that’s shaped like himself. He accidentally crashes into the island, and his ultimate weapon has been demolished. K. Krool, then decides to repair his weapon and cause the Kongs some Hell by taking all their golden bananas and the rest of Donkey’s friends. It is up to Donkey Kong to team up with his friends and stop K. Krool once and for all, or until the next game comes out…
The game play is very much like Banjo Kazooie or Conker’s Bad Furday where you go through a huge world filled with weird levels and huge bosses. At first, you control Donkey Kong as you have your array of punches and butt pounds. You also have special weapons, like a gun (Donkey Kong’s coconut gun for example). A unique weapon you get is a musical instrument that can wipe out everyone in a certain range. During the game, you will be collecting multiple other Kongs, like Diddy Kong, Lanky Kong, Chunky Kong, and Tiny Kong. They each have their own special powers and weapons which you will need to get all 25 golden banana’s in each huge level. You also have to fight a boss at the end of each level, with mostly a different Kong for each.
The graphics are very impressive for the Nintendo 64. They make it possible because you are required to have a Nintendo 64 expansion pack to even play the game. The music is also fun to listen to, since it is basically a different remake for each level, though they do it well enough that you might not notice it the first time around. All the characters are creative and fun to use. It’s always exciting wondering what ability you will learn next. I also like all the little bits of humor that are put into the game. This is defiantly one of the better plat-forming games on the Nintendo 64.
Though there are always some faults with every game. The first one is the camera control. It isn’t the worst thing ever, but they could have made it better. The second is the array of bosses. You end up fighting two of them twice. In a Donkey Kong game, there is always a different boss in each level, but it’s like they ran out of time and they couldn’t add it into the game. The music, even though catchy, isn’t that big. Since it’s only one song, remixed multiple times. They could have made it better, since past games like Donkey Kong Country have multiple soundtracks and are fun to listen to. The final thing I have to gripe about is the unneeded tedious difficulty in some areas. It’s very annoying, and makes the game somewhat unplayable. In the past Donkey Kong games, I could easily just get a level I couldn’t get past, and then play it again. The challenges in some areas of Donkey Kong 64 are annoying enough not to pick it up again.
All and all, this is one of the best games for the Nintendo 64. I would recommend buying it, or picking it up for a try. Out of the Donkey Kong plat-forming games, this one is in my opinion the black sheep, though I do enjoy it, and I will play it from time to time. I think Rare could have done a little more work on it, like their last game for the Nintendo 64. Stay tuned for the next review for the second Rare game I will be reviewing.
This game gets an 8.2 out of 10.
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