At the beginning of this month, in its Nintendo Direct broadcast, Nintendo of Europe casually announced something I had been waiting for in forlorn hope ever since the original Wii hit the market – the (immediate) release of Donkey Kong 64 on the Wii U virtual console. I don’t know how, but Nintendo’s much-discussed rights conflict with famed British developer Rare that had previously prohibited the game’s re-release has now been sorted out, and you can download the famous ape’s 3D adventure if you so please for $13 AUD. So despite my ever-growing pile of other games to play, I blacked out somewhat that fateful day, and now I write this article having lost another 20 hours to what was once my first-ever home console videogame.
I downed King K.Rool just yesterday, in fact.
My sense of nostalgia may be strong with this one, but a lot has changed in 16 years, and the game isn’t quite as perfect as I may have remembered it. The game has quite a few flaws, actually. What’s more, over the last several years a new critical narrative has built up around the game, accusing it of killing the so-called “collect-a-thon” genre of 3D platformers (think Super Mario 64, Banjo Kazooie, Gex etc) with its needlessly over-the-top bounty of colour-coded things to collect. This line of thought has devolved for some into the act of labelling DK64 a bad game. Does it really deserve this moniker? As we appear to be on the cusp of a 3D collect-a-thon renaissance in gaming, with Conker’s Big Reunion beginning in a matter of days and the impending release of both Playtonic’s “Project Ukelele” and Gears for Breakfast’s A Hat in Time, now is as good a time as ever to try to answer that question.
Vagrant Rant 