Why so much hate for Donkey Kong 64?

Okay, I get that Donkey Kong 64 wasn’t a whole lot like Donkey Kong Country, but from the perspective of someone who played Donkey Kong 64 FIRST, what was so bad about it?

It could just be my memory, but I seem to remember Donkey Kong Country wasn’t all that popular either? I actually kind of enjoyed it myself, though Snow Barrel Blast was a real swine of a level…

Couldn’t say about DK 64 – never played it, I’m afraid.

Where are you seeing hate for this game?
I love the old DKC games, but I also love DK64. In fact, I think it’s the best 3D platformer ever made. Any discussion I’ve ever seen about it involves praise and asking for a successor.

It could just be my memory, but I seem to remember Donkey Kong Country wasn’t all that popular either? I actually kind of enjoyed it myself, though Snow Barrel Blast was a real swine of a level…

Couldn’t say about DK 64 – never played it, I’m afraid.
your memory is wrong.
DKC revolutionized the snes. people everywhere talked about how awesome it looks, and how great the gameplay is.

DK 64 on the other hand…. is just a re-skinned banjo kazooie done WRONG

No, my memory isn’t wrong. The game wasn’t received well in Britain – the critics over here never liked it much. I was fine with it though, don’t get me wrong. But I remember at the time that there wasn’t much love for that game out there. I always thought it was unfair. The game was no Super Mario World, but it was good.

The YMMV page puts it well – the original game was either viewed as a classic or an overrated Mario clone. That is exactly how I remember the reactions to the game being at the time.

who gives two shits about britain.

it caused a real uproar here in the americas (and japan). for several weeks i could not find a single copy of the game.

Nice attitude you’ve got there. Suddenly it all becomes clear why America is seriously thinking of electing a clown like Donald Trump. Hell, why shouldn’t I dismiss the entire nation’s people without any cause – it seems to work just fine for him and you. Prat.

Good to know that you’re someone whose opinions its safe to ignore.

SARCASM: some people just dont get it.
also, lol and cute at thinking i live in the US.

So you’re an ignorant, bigoted fool from somewhere else. Glad we cleared that up.

My point stands. I know what I heard said about this game when it came out, I know what was written about it and I know what the people I gamed with thought about it. It was overwhelmingly negative. If that wasn’t what was said in your neck of the woods, then fair enough. But that doesn’t make my experience any less true. And as you will see by taking even the smallest look online, my experience was hardly unique. It *was* and still is a divisive game.

But again, I am not actually one of those who disliked it. I didn’t love it, but I didn’t think it was bad either. So I think we’ve exhausted all the different things to say here on this subject.

its called being a black humored comedian.
just because a minority of gamers dont like a game that the rest of the world does, doesnt mean the game is bad, it means the minority has bad taste.
in this case, the minority is the uk.
i HATE the character of DK, but i love the DKC games. diddy�s kong quest is my favorite.

Okay, I feel like I should state somethings so people know my stance. I never owned a Super NES growing up, and I didn’t play Banjo-Kazooie until it got released on XBLA. I DID, however, play DK64 (it was my first 3D platformer), and I loved every minute of it… up until King K. Rool. Sure, it had TONS of flaws, but if you can look past that, you’ll see a truly ambitious title.

Old game, very early 3D physics and controls, camera issues, All the stuff to collect divided in 5 different characters feel like a chore after a while, minigames more often than not are mediocre at best. It’s very much a dated game, not that it’s necessarily bad. It was great on it’s time, but it feels very unpolished for today’s standard. It’s not the kind of thing just about everyone can enjoy nowadays.

RPGs and 2D platforms aged very well since their core gameplay has changed much with the years, to the point where many say Sonic and Mario franchises had better engines and physics 20 years ago. Yet 3D games have improved a lot in concept, engine and execution. Us who grew up with early 3D platforms have no issue, but anyone who has first tried the GC/PS2 era 3D games and go back to games like DK64 or even Mario 64 will have issues merely moving around. Hell I replayed DK 64 like half a year ago and I still wondered how the hell was I so comfortable with the controls and the camera when I was only 5 or 6 years old.

tl;dr – kids are spoiled with today’s standards, man.

I enjoyed playing the old donkey kong games nor do i hate dk64 the only thing i have against it is…(i’m sure people will bash on me for this 🙁 but im prepaird) the fact that Dixie Kong was replace by Tiny. If this game is taking place after country 3 why isn’t Dixie in.

…the Diddy jetpack-flying controls in certain point of the game are goddess-awful. In original N64 game at least. Otherwise, DK64 is a great game with excellent ideas.

For me DK64 was just too much collect-a-thoning. I like that sort of gameplay but DK64 went overboard with it. Also the controls felt very clunky in part due to the game’s low frame-rate. I much prefer the other Rare N64 platform games. They felt more streamlined with tighter gameplay.

DK64 is simply what happens when the developers don’t limit themselves when building games and it shows, it tries to insert too much into the gameplay and it suffers horribly because it and the less said about the glitches the better. Easily the weakest of Rareware’s output in the N64 era.

DK64 is simply what happens when the developers don’t limit themselves when building games and it shows, it tries to insert too much into the gameplay and it suffers horribly because it and the less said about the glitches the better. Easily the weakest of Rareware’s output in the N64 era.
Well, as much as I love DK64, I’ll agree that it’s one of Rare’s weaker N64 games. However, to say it’s THE weakest is unfair. I personally don’t mind the vastness of the content, and I haven’t noticed a single glitch in the game (Except for the secret test room glitch.),

For me DK64 was just too much collect-a-thoning. I like that sort of gameplay but DK64 went overboard with it. Also the controls felt very clunky in part due to the game’s low frame-rate. I much prefer the other Rare N64 platform games. They felt more streamlined with tighter gameplay.
Well, the thing I LOVE about Donkey Kong 64 was the HUGE amount of collectables in the game. Sure, some of them were tedious, but it greatly helped replay value of the game. I must’ve logged 200 hours into this game in the 00’s alone. However, they DID kind of go overboard, and there aren’t a lot of things to unlock to promote 100%.

…the Diddy jetpack-flying controls in certain point of the game are goddess-awful. In original N64 game at least. Otherwise, DK64 is a great game with excellent ideas.
THIS IS TRUE. I tried ONCE AGAIN to defeat King K. Rool, and I was one hit away on Diddy’s segment, ALL BECAUSE OF THE DAMN JETPACK.

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I enjoyed playing the old donkey kong games nor do i hate dk64 the only thing i have against it is…(i’m sure people will bash on me for this 🙁 but im prepaird) the fact that Dixie Kong was replace by Tiny. If this game is taking place after country 3 why isn’t Dixie in.

Maybe she needed a break? I mean, she was the main character for the past two games, so it’s not unreasonable that she went on a vacation.

I would welcome a new 3D DK game that’s for sure. The genre is barren. Yooka Laylee is hopefully a big success and starts a rebirth. Retro Studios did great with the new DKC games. Give them a shot at 3D DK!

There’s not much wrong with it to really draw out people’s hate and deserve to be called a bad game. What it did was make decisions that weren’t all that popular with people. I like the game, but I freely admit it took things a bit far with using Banjo’s 100 notes and 10 jiggies per stage, and expanding that to 100 bananas and 5 golden bananas per kong on every stage. In fact, when you compare it to Banjo Kazooie directly, Banjo comes out as the better game. DK64 is still a fun game, but it’s kinda bogged down in its collectathon-ness. If you can enjoy it regardless, great. If you can’t, there’s the problem.

Color-coded Bananas.

Like, here’s the thing- the game is good. For some people, it could even be great. But the thing is, you had revisit each island four more times to get the color-coded bananas scattered across each island. Forcibly revisiting every location in the game would utterly kill any momentum the game had going. So when people think back to DK64, the first thing that probably comes to mind is the opening song… and the second is the utter SLOG that is the collectathon.

It’s been a while since I played it and I was a lot younger, but I remember never knowing where the hell to go in that game. Donkey Kong Country though was a completely different type of game, a very streamlined and fast paced platformer. I think Super NES games have just aged better than N64 games in people’s eyes.