So many 3D platformers. Ok, this one is infamous for being the very hieght of the collectathon genre. The sheer amount of goobers to pick up, that are colour-coded no less so you have to pick the right one of 5 characters to even collect them, is a big source of frustration for a lot of people. But on my recent playthrough, I didn’t find that so bad. I just treated it as a leisurely relaxing process, going back and forth, switching up, piling up little tasks to complete one after the other.
I was helped immeasurably by having an open strategy guide next to me for the second half of the run. It prevented frustration and fruitless wandering. Plenty of maps and checklists. Without it the game really is a confusing mess, especially levels that get you lost easily, like… all of them. These huge areas with hubs, a lot of places look similar, doorways that arbitrarily lead to areas that you mix up.
But enough about game design. I want to talk about the character of the game. In style and structure it’s quite similar to the Banjo series, but there are important differences. I read that it was made by a different team to those games, which means that Rare had three 3D platformers developing simultaneously. Wacky. One thing that stood out to me that set them apart was the humour and personality. Banjo has a few little amusing animations, but really shone in its writing. On the other hand, DK64 had very dull writing but has tons of characterful animations and physical humour. It’s a distinction that leads in to the next point.
This game has not aged very well. From the downright embarrassingly 90s DK Rap that opens the game to the game design to the visuals. They wanted to show off the dynamic lighting system but the game just ends up too dark a lot of the time. They wanted to push the hardware but there’s a lot of lag as a result. They wanted it to be funny but it’s a little lame.
Still, there’s an undeniable charm to it. Having this world and especially the characters fleshed out so much. Just watching the Kongs’ antics in the tag barrel says so much about their personalities. And while a lot of the tasks are mindless or pointless, there’s satisfaction in hunting them down and performing them. The music is a highlight, Grant Kirkhope at his best.
It’s invaluable as a Donkey Kong game because of what it brings to the series. Having said that, its wackiness doesn’t fit too well with the Country games that preceded it, it’s not quite as grounded. Well they got a little crazy at times too. But, as a game it’s clearly not as good as either Banjo game, just my opinion of course. Having so many 3D platformers in such a short time was pretty mad, but it’s just cool to have 5 playable Kongs in their wild world. And I’m so glad I was able to finally get 101% after all these years. Ok Cranky, take it to the fridge!
While finishing up DK64, I started on the handheld follow-up/sequel/midquel/side-story to the Banjo series. It’s set between Kazooie and Tooie, but quickly travels decades into the past. A few aspects make this premise a bit screwy, but that’s the way with any prequel or time-travelly shenanigans.
It was very exciting to play this strange little game, because there’s a lot of new and fresh stuff in here which was a change after playing through both N64 games again. But they also reuse enough to keep it familiar. For example, the structure and moves are basically the same, the characters are just an extension of Tooie, complete with new mole tutor.
The funny thing about this though is that it’s not a 3D platformer, the GBA just couldn’t handle it. But it’s probably the closest thing, an isometric platformer. The gameplay is still 3D, but there’s a fixed camera so all the backgrounds and stuff are just premade and everything is sprites, obviously. This introduces some perspective-related issues, of course, as there’s no distinction between further south and higher up, for example. This can get to be a problem in the later levels that have a lot more hazards.
But it’s impressive that they basically reproduced the Banjo formula on a limited system, and did it pretty well (they even improved a couple of mechanics). Of course, I’ve always said that the Rare handheld team makes less polished products than the console teams, and that’s still true here. The minigames are pretty bad, the art is a bit crude in places (blame the GBA too if you like), and you can see the seams, if you get what I mean. And the Comic Sans! Apparently that team is in love with the world’s most hated font, although this was made at a time when it was pretty much ubiquitous. I think the hate came later.
The game’s really short too. Apparently it suffered some cuts in development, but what they have it a fairly neat package. I did finish it in 4 hours, though, and that’s with 100%. But the worlds they have (5 in total, plus the hub) are fun concepts. They’re also quite small, but I guess if you accept the compactness as a feature they play very well. There’s enough NPCs with dumb names to make the worlds feel alive, and a nice flow of new moves. The Mumbo transformations can also be used in any world now, which I think was cool.
Speaking of the worlds though, most of the archetypes seem to be combinations of previously used ideas. Spiller’s Harbor=Rusty Bucket Bay+Jolly Roger’s Lagoon. Breegull Beach=Treasure Trove Cove, essentially. Freezing Furnace=Hailfire Peaks+Grunty Industries. Bad Magic Bayou=Bubblegloop Swamp+Mad Monster Mansion. Cliff Farm is the only really new one, and it’s similar in some ways to Spiral Mountain anyway. Of course, they do new things with all of these, and it’s not such a bad thing when you think how it can inform you on how the Isle of Hags fits together. So that’s a fun exercise, especially with the time travel involved.
I’m running out of things to say somewhat. I guess because the game is so small. In a way, it didn’t outstay its welcome, because it did get quite hard towards the end, everything seemed to do so much damage to you. There was no real penalty for dying, thank goodness—unlike Banjo-Kazooie. It would have been a slog to do another world with even tougher enemies.
I just love how it revisited all the great Banjo elements, such as Grunty’s taunts, the collectibles, lovable weirdo NPCs, there was even quiz segments between phases of the final battle. A final note before we end, though: with the help of a mobile phone emulator, I tried the mobile port of this game (yes it was ported to cell phones, people… I give you the early 2000s). It’s pretty awful. Everything’s scaled back: short music then silence; boring, bare versions of levels; awkward movements and controls. It’s hilarious that it exists, but it’s badly done. It makes the GBA version look much better by comparison, in fact. So I’ll rate the GBA version 600 notes. Nah, that’s too much like a number. On a scale of blue to yellow Jinjos, this one is a pink.
Why, hello everyone! I’m enjoying my holidays and playing lots of video games. I found the time to finish Banjo-Tooie, right after doing Kazooie earlier. The Super Banjo cheat helped it go faster, and made the whole thing less frustrating. It was still annoying in parts, but I’ll get to that.
Banjo-Tooie is a good sequel. It expands on the original and follows on from it in most ways, and has a very different feel. It’s not retreading the same ground at all, really, apart from obviously the core mechanics. Everything builds upon Kazooie, starting with the plot which picks up two years after the previous game’s ending. Grunty is still under her boulder and Klungo is still trying to move it. B-K, Mumbo, and Bottles, now firm friends, are hanging out playing poker. Everything that happened happened and now their lives have moved on.
In terms of mechanics, it’s similar: our heroes still have all the moves they learned last game, and this one simply expands on what they can do as they progress. Of course, when we look at the list of moves they get we start to see why this approach has flaws: this game has 5 types of eggs, the ability to split up and for Banjo and Kazooie to get seprate abilities apart from each other, and Mumbo is now playable. My point is that the new moves and stuff add options, but as you go on the options become very numerous. It becomes an extremely varied and complicated game.
The worlds this time around are much bigger. And you can’t just run through and do everything in turn. Many items or areas are locked until you get abilities from later worlds, and there are now connections between the worlds. It’s a different approach, almost getting a bit Metroid Prime-like, but it gives a very different play experience to the first game’s “do a world in one sitting then never go back” style. This is not a bad thing, but the sheer size and complexity of these worlds can be daunting. I like being forced to revisit the worlds, as they have a lot of character, but if you don’t have a walkthrough it’s just so much aimless wandering.
I did use a walkthrough with this game, and the BK wiki. I remembered how much of a pain backtracking was if you didn’t have the prerequisites. I made it my mission to get the bare minimum Jiggies to unlock new worlds, prioritised new moves and actions that would affect other worlds, then backtracked later on. I liked this approach, there were less moments of feeling useless. Having guides was also very frustration-averting in the labyrinthine levels like Grunty Industries or, well, most of them really.
Having just come off the back of Kazooie (not literally), I readily noticed all the differences this game brought. Things are less shiny, and less permanent. Items disappear and enemies respawn. The text looks different, and characters and locations are more detailed. The biggest difference was the amount of slowdown. All that extra detail and massive worlds really makes the hardware chug at times. More often than you’d like, too.
It really is necessary to play these games in order though, not only because of the evolution of the mechanics but all the callbacks too. Many characters return and will refer to the previous adventure. It’s so great to see old faces in new places, and the dialogue is perhaps even better than the original (except for the loss of Grunty’s rhymes. At least that is referred to in-game, as her sisters demand she stop because it annoys them). Even older faces turn up too, in cameos that I totally didn’t get at the time. Captain Blackeye, from the project Dream that became Banjo-Kazooie, shows up, and Sabreman of Rare’s old MSX games is a significant character. I appreciate these much more now, and it really helps build the Rare Universe. Great stuff.
So I talked about the complexity of the mechanics. This game also succumbs to something DK64 fell much more foul of, that of introducing many “mini-games” and bits with totally different playstyles. It’s common in these 3D platformers to step outside their core gameplay—it’s overused in DK64 but perhaps not quite here. But apart from the one-off minigames, new abilities help you aim in first person to shoot eggs while swimming, flying, and even walking (while in specific shooting arenas). These arenas are interesting as they ape the gameplay of Rare’s bestselling Goldeneye quite closely. I find this cool too, and the way they make it fit in this world with holding birds like guns is amusing (it’s a multiplayer mode too). But when a minigame has unique controls and is very hard to do, the frustration is at maximum. I’m glad to say that happened only a few times in this game.
So I liked Tooie, it’s so important to the Banjo series. But, it’s still obvious that Kazooie is a much more tight, focused experience and a better game overall for it. Tooie is sprawling, messy, and flawed, but ambitious, evolutionary, and more varied. Things like real bosses and more involved tasks are a mixed blessing but overall much of what it tried to do worked well, and the bits that are more of the same are actually more of the same cool, fun, things.
So I liked playing Kazooie better, but this was still good. Now I have to slog through DK64. Hrm. See you in six months, I guess. No, actually, I have more updates to do. Also I will start on Grunty’s Revenge very soon, the midquel of the Banjo series on GBA. Never played that, so it should be interesting. Yay Banjo!
As you may remember, I picked up the Donkey Kong Country trilogy before it vanished from the Virtual Console. I played them back to back, which was a good way to compare their differences. I grew up with 2 and 3, and I still greatly prefer both to the first, especially now after my retrospective run through. Many people consider DKC1 the best, but as I’ve said I find it clunky and unpolished.
One of the biggest strengths of the series is atmosphere. All three do it very well, but each has a unique tone and character that is quite different from the other two. In the case of DKC3, the character designs are a little more wacky, but the environments are rich, beautiful and mysterious, although there are echoes of previous archetypes (not enough for it to seem stale or derivative though, everything is fresh). The impression is of traversing new territory (although all three achieve this). There is also a noticeable theme of nature vs. industrialisation, with the former represented by many level types and wildlife, and the latter by the Kremlings’ factories and pipes.
The music varies between lively, tranquil, and oppressive, similar to DKC2 in those variances but again with a completely different feel. Eveline Novakovic (nee Fischer) did the music, unlike the previous instalments which were scored by David Wise. This soundtrack proves the dominance of this series in great video game soundtracks (my opinion, of course).
An interesting side note to this, however: when the DKCs were being remade for GBA, at some point someone decided that instead of just inserting new, horrible mini games and new collectibles (DKC3 GBA has the former but not the latter, strangely), this one would get a more significant makeover. A whole new world with new levels was created, and the entire soundtrack removed and replaced by a brand new one composed by Wise. Thus DKC3 is one of the rare games (also Rare games) with two soundtracks. The new soundtrack radically alters the feel of many of the level archetypes (and includes remixes of DKC1’s Aquatic Ambience and Jungle Groove). On the whole I don’t like it as much, although to be fair it suffers from the GBA’s sound chip and speakers.
On that note, recently OverClocked Remix released the long-anticipated DKC3 remix album. It’s massive, and apparently very good, but I decided that before I listened to it I wasn’t familiar with the Advance soundtrack, so I should hear that first before I hear it remixed. I downloaded Cody’s rip from here, and while I played my SNES VC DKC3, I muted the TV and played the corresponding GBA level music through my phone. It was certainly a different experience, and I learned to appreciate a few tracks more than my initial impression. Some also got on my nerves, like the yodelling new Frosty Frolics.
So what about the game? Well, there’s a lot to say but I feel it’s been said better elsewhere. That elsewhere is probably lots of different threads on DKVine though, so I’ll summarise a few main points here.
More than the first two, the game uses gimmicks in new stages, which changes the gameplay feel from one that can be run through quickly with basic jumping or climbing mechanics to sometimes slower and more complex interactions. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it results in a different style that you need to know about. Series staple gimmicks of course return, such as swimming stages, dark levels, and mine carts (roller coasters in 2, toboggans in this one). The boss fights are also more interesting and strategic, with some quite unconventional methods needed. The animal buddies too are on the whole more complex, with tricky abilities rather than just making you stronger or better at jumping. So complexity is increasing through the series to here.
It’s also been said that in this game you can see the seeds of the 3D platformers that were becoming all the rage (and have since sadly quite died out). The more freely explorable open world map, the heavier emphasis on collectibles, the fetch quest items, the secret world and worlds that do not have to be completed in order, many NPCs like the Brothers Bear (also known as Mindless Idiots Who Ask For Your Help or MIWAFYHs). Of course, this game was being developed alongside Donkey Kong 64, as well as Banjo-Kazooie (and Super Mario 64, which Wrinkly Kong is playing on her own N64 at one point) so some design elements crept in. I think they enhance the game though, and make for a more compelling experience in a lot of ways. There are lessons they can teach each other.
The other consequence of this late development is that the game, when it came out, had to compete with the N64, much like Paper Mario as one of the last N64 games was competing with the Gamecube. This has contributed to its relative lack of popularity compared to DKC2 (awesome) and especially 1 (overrated). It has become a bit overlooked and is also criticised in the mainstream for “not having Donkey Kong”. I say, screw that guy! The new characters were heaps of fun and the gameplay was super solid, the atmosphere was absorbing, and there was loads more to do than in Donkey’s own game (DKC1). He isn’t needed, as far as I’m concerned, to make a game great.
Of course, the game is nowhere near as influential on the greater DK series. Kiddy never showed up again, although Ellie the elephant and the Banana Birds had cameos in the Donkey Konga games (Barnacle Bear is also apparently in the 3rd one, but I haven’t seen evidence of this apart from a promotional artwork). Barrel Blast, a haven for fan service if not particularly good apparently, featured toboggans, Kopter, and the purple parrot who is alternately known as Squeaks, Flapper or Quawks. The unreleased Diddy Kong Pilot also featured Buzzes alongside Zingers, which is cool. This also has the dubious honour of being the last Donkey Kong game in which Wrinkly Kong is alive. She dies soon after, despite being a fitness nut in this game, to become a ghost in DK64.
So, DKC3. Underappreciated, I see it as pretty much one of the last great 2D platformers before the “retro revival” stuff recently that gave us great stuff like DKCR and Rayman Origins. It also builds complexity on top of the very solid gameplay and physics of the DKC series up to that point. Besides this, the music, art, characters, etc are all top notch, typical of DKC, but with their own flavour that tells you this game was designed by a different team. (Sidenote: disappointing that almost all enemies are all-new, a discontinuity from 1 and 2 which shared enemies with new designs and roles). Another great game of my childhood that was lots of fun to revisit. I give it 5 bananas/Bear Coins/Bonus Coins/Banana Birds/DK Coins/extra life balloons.
So when Nintendo apparently decided to remove the DKC trilogy from the Wii Shop (WHYWHYWHY, they answered my emails with weaselly non-answers)(at least we got warning in this country, unlike USA), I bought them before they disappeared. Good decision. Especially for 2 and 3, the ones I actually owned on the SNES, my muscles practically remember the moves for every level. I have had very little trouble getting through anything so far. And it’s just so fun doing that, running through again like a boss.
Anyway I don’t know how much I can say about this game. It’s one of my favourites of all time, a common stance for many gamers. I can make lots of comparisons, how it’s so much better than DKC1 in lots of ways, how there is no comparison between it and the comparatively bland Super Mario World, how it and Yoshi’s Island took different branches that are both excellent.
I don’t need to say too much though. This game is so very special to me, and I mean ideally its quality will come through to anyone who picks it up, but my eyes are so heavily tinted towards it. I just don’t feel I can say much meaningful commentary, you know?
So as I played this game, it all came flooding back. I remembered where every secret was. I slightly misremembered the instant 75 Kremkoins cheat so had to look it up (I used it to open the Lost World so I didn’t have to get all the bonuses- hey I know I can do it!). The physics and mechanics just feel so right. My absolute familiarity with this game makes it feel like the epitome of videogames. Since I know it so well, it seems like the best because it feels right.
Some levels of course are still just hard. Bramble Blast, Screech’s Sprint and Animal Antics all spring to mind as ones I died many times on in this playthrough. When I did play this as a child, there were levels I’d avoid as they were hard or less fun (the two haunted forest levels also come to mind). On the other hand, Rattle Battle, Rickety Race, Castle Crush, these are all levels I loved to replay many times, so I know them the best. And yes, I got to Krocodile Kore both as a child and now.
In fact, I managed to beat the secret final boss on my first time, as Diddy, without getting hit! I am so proud of that. :D
So let’s talk about the non-mechanics things about this game that make it great. The atmosphere is utterly wonderful, each new environment is vibrant, iconic, and yet tense and moody. The music is, oh, so good. The character designs are full of personality and charm, and the mostly-consistent pirate theme of the Kremling Krew makes for a cohesive collective identity for your foes. Especially good are the returning enemies with updated costumes.
Also, the bosses are leaps and bounds ahead of the original (both designs and the battles themselves). Speaking of comparisons, I think Rare were brave to turn the tables and put Donkey Kong - THE Donkey Kong, mind you - as the kidnapped victim you need to rescue. This meant he was not playable, and not even seen until the end of the game. This apparently was the source of some controversy, at the time and later from idiots, especially at major gaming publications. I didn’t mind about that in the slightest (still don’t).
Diddy is just so much more relateable for a kid. Dixie too, although obviously she’s a girl and I’m a boy. But I loved both of them. For many years Diddy was my ultimate Video Game Hero (that’s the subplot of this game by the way, him proving himself).
Anyway it’s probably this game that started my love of the DKU, Nintendo, and even videogames in general. Pure platforming gold, with heart. I give it a flablillion bananas out of 10. Emulate it now! It’s less immoral than ever! Oh and the GBA remake is good too, although the overly bright colours, chirpified soundtrack and smaller screen make it a diminshed experience (and the new minigames are not good), but the extra collectibles added that extra element for me to make it worthwhile to play (the map screens are also new, but uglier)(oh and there’s one extra boss).
I don’t mean to be maudlin, but the time of most of these characters and series is over. This post though is celebrating the great stuff Rare used to make. We always have the games, the art, the music of the past to go back to when the present gaming landscape is disappointing. So Merry Christmas. God bless us, everyone.
I’d like to talk about these two games at once because my backlog is filling up, and I thought a comparison of these was apt. Why?
Well, two of my favourite games growing up were Donkey Kong Country 2 and Yoshi’s Island. Those probably stand out to me the most before we got our 64. These two games, then, are related to these, being the prequel and a sequel/spin-off respectively. Also, I never really played them at the time or at all until recently. The other way I can talk about them together is that they are both ground-breaking platformers that tried new things in the market at the time, but had differing levels of success.
There is a quote from Miyamoto at the time about DKC: “The success of this game proves that people will put up with mediocre gameplay if the graphics are good.” I’m paraphrasing, but the gist is that DKC was being hyped up a lot for its graphics (even though the gameplay and other aspects were great too), and I think old Miyamoto was bitter that it was outselling his project, Yoshi’s Island. I think both games have beautiful visual styles and great gameplay, although they are very different on both counts. Both were, in a way, responses to Super Mario World but they took the 2D platformer concept in very different directions.
I can tell this is going to be long. Bear with me, folks. DKC’s sequel refined further everything that made it great, and is superior in most ways. Yoshi’s Island on the other hand had a sequel the next generation which pushed even further away from the basic SMW style, off the wacky deep end. This is my opinion, of course.
So I guess the main thing I took away from these playthroughs is that sometimes you have to try new things, and sometimes they don’t work. DKC had a few mechanics that are dropped completely in the sequel, as they were awkward or not useful. That just may be my DKC2 familiarity talking, but I feel that the designers learned a lot from DKC to make the second one a much better game. Segue to YS, which introduces a buttload of things done differently to YI, and ends up even more awkward than DKC in comparison to my childhood favourites.
They are opposite ends. That’s not to say either is bad, they just frustrate me a lot more, especially when I can see what they’ve done wrong.
To give a bit more detail, there’s a lot to love in DKC. The atmosphere, the personality, the controls feel good. My main complaints are with the hit detection, the pointless bonuses, and the badly flow-breaking animal bonus levels. These are minor though, and the reason I tend to overlook it is I prefer the sequels, the new heights they reached, how they played with the formula, plus they have more internal consistency with each other than either has with DKC1. Each installment has its own different atmosphere that gives them unique feelings, which is a great thing and more than you can say for the Mario series (ok, no more cheap potshots). The music and backgrounds play a big part in this.
YS has less to recommend it on face value. It’s a little slow and wonky, the controls are a little weird and there are also a few hit detection issues here. Also, unlike its predecessor YI the music is less memorable and tends to reuse arrangements of the main theme for most areas (in this way it resembles YI’s true DS sequel). I find this boring, personally. The aesthetic is both overly cute but also a very interesting crafty style, with newspaper, cardboard, felt, etc backgrounds like Little Big Planet but low-res.
Unlike the more precise YI, the platforming and egg-throwing is more forgiving or loose, although if you miss a jump I found it very hard to recover. The game is quite short but it is built for multiple playthroughs, with each of the 6 worlds having 4 possible levels with one being played each go through. This gives it a lot of variety, and each run will be different. The structure is also unique, mostly left-to-right or down-to-up but some more complex structures with branching paths and the level ends when you eat 30 fruit, not reach a certain point or anything.
Speaking of structure, I guess I didn’t structure this review so well but I saw some commonality there. Basically I regard both these games as lesser installments in series that I adore, and therefore worth playing on the strength of their brethren alone. But I was pleased with each when I actually got to playing them, and with YS I appreciate its radically different style. I can look past DKC’s faults to see the germ of the great series it spawned, but its more abstract features that carry through are fantastic. I just think it’s popularly overrated. YS on the other hand is slightly underrated.
The Yoshi and DK series as wholes are way too big to include any of here, so maybe one day they’ll get the proper MiloScat treatment. I’m glad I’ve now experienced these as they’re so important and influential to the overall series, DKC in its design and music and YS in its contribution of sound effects to all subsequent Yoshi material, and the aesthetic that was adapted in many Mario sports games. But now I want to play the actual games I grew up with, so I’m gonna do that. Toodles.
There’s a few things in the backlog right now but I’m pushing this to the front because it’s DKR’s 15th anniversary! Link! DKVine sprang a surprise forum skin redesign, and I decided to get back to this little gem and push on a bit.
When I last set it down, I’d just figured out where Dragon Forest was, having finished the other 3 worlds, so it didn’t take long to get through that and a few tries to beat Wizpig’s foot race. This got me the credits, although there is another world and many more challenges that I’m doing now. But my rule is I can review a game when I see the credits, so here we are.
I first played DKR many years ago, maybe even 15, on my friend’s N64. The hovercrafts impressed me, if I recall, though I mainly played battle mode at that time and it didn’t stand out so much from Mario Kart 64, its main competitor and comparison. The interface did stand out though (better), and the bright colours and kiddy feel also set it apart. That’s what I remember at the time, but also for a long time I’ve had a bias against games I don’t own so that I don’t feel bad about not owning them. And I love most things I do own.
Anyway, I digress. What I didn’t realise was how important DKR was to the shared universe concept of the DKU, an idea I was not cognisant of. I made up my own shared universes in my head, with no regard for explicit crossovers and shared game worlds. I used to imagine space ships filled with different video game protagonists, with stockpiles of their respective collectibles; or Fox, Yoshi and Diddy (my 3 favourite characters at the time, due to DKC2, Yoshi’s Island and Lylat Wars) teaming up and having adventures.
Of course, officially sanctioned shared universes are exciting in their own way, especially as we grow older and lose our imaginations. Plus, DKR was widely regarded as one of the best mascot racers, and I love Rare. So I bought it, wanting to experience this classic and also the last Rare game on a Nintendo platform, and the only Rare DS game (the Viva Pinata DS port being the exception to both these statements…shh).
So yes, DKR is a great game. But DKRDS is a bad port of a good game. Firstly, the interface is just janky and off-putting. Having seen the credits now, the handheld team was apparently very small and it shows. The whole thing feels rushed or watered down. I guess the interface is the main sticking point, but there were arbitrary changes that didn’t improve the game too. The touch-screen challenges which are now a big part are just plain not that good. And they made Taj’s voice less hilariously stereotypical.
What it comes down to (generalising here) is the Rare handheld team makes much less polished games than the console team. That would broadly cover all the great, smooth console Rare games I’ve played versus the somewhat awkward handheld games (mainly just the Donkey Kong Lands and Country Advance remakes). That is a gross simplification, but it’s the way I think for whatever reason. I’m not going to give up on Rare games and I’d like Grunty’s Revenge, Sabre Wulf 2004 and Conker’s Pocket Tales to prove me wrong when I get around to them.
Well, I guess I’ve been influenced by a lot of people’s opinions on DKVine. I actually had a lot of fun with this game, and not having experienced the original too much, I’m not that fussed about what I’m missing, especially with the handheld convenience. Plus I like some of the things they added, like the vehicle customisation, currency for unlockables, the admittedly weak icon designer mode, a few extra tracks (on DK Island!) and most importantly Dixie Kong! She makes up for any flaws I’ve perceived. And much of the presentation is so charming, you can’t stay mad at it.
Sure, they removed Banjo and Conker. Sad. But it’s still a great game, and I am very glad it exists. Because emulating N64 is tricky, it’s not on the VC and my 64 is at my parents’ house. So I can play it! It’s good because it’s cute, it has loads of character, the racing takes real skill, the mechanics are interesting, and heck it gave birth to the DKU. Don’t listen to the haters, the DS port is not as bad as they say. But that’s just me talking, and I’ll love any video game. Especially if I’ve decided to buy it.
