Kill them. Kill them all.
Until the release of the technically fantastic, utterly huge, and gloriously lovely to look at Donkey Kong 64 for the Nintendo 64, I was a big fan of Rare’s stuff. Or at least, I thought I was.
I mean, I did really, really, enjoy Banjo Kazooie. So much so that I almost completed it many times (the end boss proving too much), and even got the XBLA remake – finally 100%ing it. But looking back at their other titles, I’m not sure I was that big a fan.
Donkey Kong Country was a horrible, fantastic looking, impossible platformer. Its two sequels were too. All three I had some fun with, before realising they weren’t really very good and were more flash than actually enjoyable. The Donkey Kong Land Game Boy games were even worse, being just as rubbish but also impossible to see on the low-res, blurry GB LCD display. Mmm, smeary.
Even Banjo Tooie, the follow-up to Banjo Kazooie was pants. Yeah, it was more of the same, literally following on from the first game, but with a larger, more irritating to navigate main “hub” – which the game’s design forced you to traipse all over after almost every jiggy was obtained. Lots of pointless backtracking over the same areas over and over and over again does not a fun game make, so every attempt to play it just resulted in frustration, boredom, or a complete loss as to what needed to be done next.
Donkey Kong 64 then. To all intents and purposes, it’s Banjo Kazooie again with more characters and different levels. It all starts off fun, collecting bananas and reaching level goals, but then new characters are unlocked and you find you have to redo the levels again, albeit sometimes differently, collecting different bananas. And the next character? Same level, more bananas. And again. And again. AND AGAIN. 100 for each character in each level. Seven levels, five apes. 3500 bananas to collect. “Fun”.
You can even see the bananas each character can collect when playing as other characters. But can you pick them up? No. It isn’t just bananas either. There are also character-specific Golden Bananas and coins. Then there’s boss keys, ammo (different for each ape), Crystal Coconuts, special coins and banana medals. Joy.
It became a slog. Levels went from amazing and exciting the first time round to dull and oh-so-bloody-tedious on the third run through, let alone the fourth or fifth. And that’s assuming you don’t have to redo the level yet more times because you missed stuff. Oh, the merriment of trudging through the jungle for the nth time and spotting some missed bananas, only to realise you’re the wrong Kong and have to go back in as the right one and do it all again to get to them. Even the masochists can’t enjoy that, surely?
Most of all, I hate Donkey Kong 64 for what it marked the start of – a terrible downturn in the playability (not the technical quality) of Rare games. Starfox Adventures. Grabbed by the Ghoulies. The GBA Sabre Wulf game that wasn’t anything to do with Sabre Wulf. Kameo, Perfect Dark Zero, Banjo Kazooie Nuts & Bolts – all far from the glorious days of old. I’ll give you two exceptions – Viva Pinata and its sequel – but even they are less game and more gardening/zoo simulators.
And what of Rare now? Creating Xbox 360 avatar clothes, aren’t they? Horrific.
Sometimes there are things that just need to escape my head.
