The worst part about Donkey Kong 64 isn't the backtracking or the bloated collect-a-thon madness that every reviewer mentions. No, the worst part is how it absolutely ruined my summer of '99 because I couldn't put the bloody thing down.
I'd just gotten the Expansion Pak—that chunky red brick that made your N64 feel properly next-gen—and DK64 was bundled with it. Free game, right? Except nothing's free when it costs you three months of daylight and most of your social life. My mum kept asking if I was feeling alright because I'd gone pale as a ghost, hunched over that three-pronged controller like some sort of gaming gargoyle.
Rare had this way of making you feel clever and stupid at the same time. The character-switching mechanic seemed brilliant at first—five Kongs, each with their own abilities, their own colored bananas to collect. Donkey Kong could pull levers, Diddy could fly with his jetpack, Lanky could inflate like a balloon (still don't understand the physics there), Tiny could shrink, and Chunky could lift heavy things while making gorilla noises that my little brother found hilarious. The tag barrels were scattered around each world, and swapping between characters felt like you were assembling some sort of ape-based Avengers team.
But then you'd realize—properly realize, not just suspect—that you'd need to revisit every single area with every single Kong to hoover up their specific collectibles. And we're not talking about a few bananas here and there. We're talking 3,821 collectibles. I know this number by heart because it haunts me. Golden bananas, regular bananas, banana coins, Battle Crowns, Nintendo Coins, Blueprint pieces, Boss Keys, and those wretched Banana Medals that required you to collect 75 colored bananas per Kong per level.
My notebook from that summer looks like the work of a madman. Pages and pages of tallies, crude maps drawn in ballpoint pen, frustrated scribbles where I'd miscounted something. "Frantic Factory – Lanky – 47/75 YELLOW – CHECK UNDER CONVEYOR BELT AGAIN." That sort of thing. I'd developed my own shorthand for areas I'd already swept clean and started using different colored pens to track which Kong had been where. My dad found it once and asked if I was planning some sort of heist.
The thing is, when DK64 clicked, it really clicked. Those moments when you'd figure out exactly which Kong could access a previously unreachable area—that little mental lightbulb moment—felt genuinely rewarding. I remember spending ages in Jungle Japes trying to work out how to get Chunky up to that high platform, only to realize I needed to use Lanky's orangstand ability to reach a switch that would create a bridge for the big fella. It was like solving a puzzle box where every piece was a different colored monkey.
Crystal Caves nearly broke me. That level is gorgeous—all ice and sparkles and that lovely ambient soundtrack that sounds like winter in a jewelry box—but trying to navigate it with five different characters while keeping track of who could access what nearly gave me a nervous breakdown. I'd spend an hour methodically working through it with Donkey Kong, then realize I'd missed something obvious that only Diddy could reach. Back to the tag barrel, swap characters, retrace my steps. Repeat ad nauseam.
The boss battles were mental, though. Proper mental in the best possible way. Each world had multiple boss encounters, and they were all completely bonkers. Fighting a giant mechanical fish with Donkey Kong while dodging electrical attacks, or racing against a giant beetle while playing as Diddy—these weren't your typical platformer bosses. They felt like mini-games that someone had turbocharged with caffeine and rainbow colors. I still get phantom hand cramps thinking about the DK Rap rhythm section in Frantic Factory.
And speaking of the DK Rap—bloody hell, that opening sequence. It's burned into my brain like some sort of Nintendo-sponsored musical torture device. "D-K, Donkey Kong, he's the leader of the bunch, you know him well, he's finally back to kick some tail." I can recite the whole thing from memory, which is deeply embarrassing for a grown man with a mortgage. But there's something oddly endearing about how earnestly ridiculous it all is. Rare wasn't taking themselves too seriously, and somehow that made the whole experience more charming.
The mini-games were brilliant distractions from the main collecting madness. Donkey Kong's barrel-blast courses felt like 3D versions of the original arcade game, but with that lovely N64 smoothness. Diddy's jetpack races were pure adrenaline, especially when you'd nail a perfect flight path through those ring challenges. And don't get me started on the multiplayer modes—four-player battles where you could actually play as all the different Kongs was revolutionary stuff for late-90s me.
But let's be honest about the elephant in the room. Or the gorilla, I suppose. DK64 is too much game. There, I said it. It's an incredible technical achievement wrapped in gorgeous art direction, but it asks too much of the player. By the time you reach Hideout Helm—the final area that requires 101 Golden Bananas just to enter—you feel less like a player and more like an employee. A very dedicated, slightly obsessive employee with questionable priorities and an unhealthy relationship with anthropomorphic primates.
The tragedy is that underneath all that padding, there's a genuinely wonderful platformer trying to breathe. The camera work is mostly solid, the controls feel tight when you're not wrestling with the C-buttons, and each Kong has a distinct personality that comes through in their animations and abilities. Tiny Kong doing her little pirouette when she shrinks down, or Chunky's dopey victory dance—these characters have charm that goes beyond their mechanical functions.
I never did get 101% completion. Got to about 97% before I admitted defeat and moved on to whatever was next in my gaming queue. But I don't regret those summer months spent in Kong company, even if my tan never recovered. There's something to be said for a game that's so confident in its own absurdity that it includes a rap about monkey abilities and expects you to take it seriously. In 2025, with save states and walkthrough videos, maybe DK64 would feel more manageable. But back then, with just my notebook and stubborn determination, it felt like climbing Everest. Wearing a red tie.
