I didn't play the DLC, only the main game, but god it was fun and good.

The story is about a king that wants to conquer other nations to get 4 crystals and one his lieutenant, Cecil, starts to ask questions about the king motivations which cost him his grades in the army.

This is why the story is so good : It is not just a story of fights, battles, war like an action movie. It is a story about Cecil's journey to redemption. Of course, the Crystals are the McGuffins of the game, but not as much as in FF1.

Speaking of FF1, there's a major difference in the job system : You don't choose your characters nor their jobs. The only character that'll stay in the team is Cecil and the 4 others (yes 4, not 3) will vary in numbers. Sometimes you'll be alone, sometimes you'll be five, four, etc. It depends and you can choose their position in the fights so the mages take less damage. And you know what? Even if some characters appears and disapears, they are still balanced and in the end, you can choose either of them to make your dream team. Which is pretty good because in the original game, you finish the game with an imposed team.

And believe me, it won't be easy to choose because all the characters have a good development (the twins my god... the twins is one of the most heartbreaking part of the game).

It is also the first game to incorpores the Summons in America (we didn't get FF3 before the remake on Nintendo DS) and it is really good because the exploration of the map is rewarded with new summons! In FF1, you had the upgrade of your characters, but even without this mechanic in FF4, the summons compensate for this.

Why then it is not a Five Stars? Because of the end... the end sucks. SPOILERS UPCOMING, stop reading there if you don't want to know.

The main antagonist is Golbez during the whole game till the end... Golbez controlled Kain using is jealousy towards Cecil, he controlled the king using his ambitions and in the end, you discover that Cecil ancestors comes from the Moon and that the real enemy which didn't exist before the end... Zeromus controlled Golbez and that Golbez is Cecil brother... W T F ! Golbez was such a good antagonist, well developed... Zeromus is the Kaguya of this game. Those who saw Naruto's end know what I mean.

There's gonna be two review there cause I did both games (post game included)

FF 1 (4.5 stars) : I finished this game many times and I also did a challenge in which I kept the basic classes and rolled a dice to choose the four characters (I ended with 3 thieves and 1 warrior... lol).

This game is still good and it adds the possibility to save on the world map instead of only the inn. The game is just enough hard and with a little farming, it is possible to beat the game without needing to farm the level 99. Good balance here.

The story is basic, four heroes, four cristals, thanks a lot but it was normal in 80's so it is forgivable. This version adds 4 more dungeons that are harder, but still fun. Also, it is not so hard to know where you need to go cause NPCs are gonna tell you everything you need to know. If you explore, you'll be rewarded by finding the way to upgarde your characters, but remember that stats are doubled at every level up. The sooner you find them, the better your stats will be.

The final boss is THE Flaw. It comes from nowhere and the final plotwist is just incoherent. Also, there's a technique to kill it easily, but if you don't know it, you can just die out of nowhere and you better have the level 99 with every character.

SPOILER : Don't read the next paragraph and skip to FF2 below if you don't want to know the technique ...

You just need one fighter and with the Booster and Rage magic of the other characters in your team, you can reach 16k damage within 4-5 turns and kill the Final Boss.




FF2 (1 stars) : This game is Star Wars. Basically. The idea of a rebellion story is pretty cool with the Emperor to kill, etc, but it lack originality.

And damn the level up system is hard and completly unbalanced. The more you use a stat, the more it'll level up and it creates only unbalanced characters and it takes forever to level up correctly to advance in the game.

Also, nothing tells you where to go and tough luck if you go somewhere you're not supposed to cause you'll just die against strong ennemies and go back to the last save. This mechanic discourages exploration that was so fun in FF1 and went with rewards.

SPOILERS upcoming : Don't read what comes next cause it will be full of spoilers in every paragraph.

In the beginning, you start with four characters that falls into an ambush and dies. They are saved by the rebellion but one of the characters is missing. The character becomes Dark Vador (sorry the Dark Knight) and is the main antagonist until you discover the Emperor. In the end, Vador decides to join the rebels and kill the Emperor... to replace him. Like WTF dude. But Dark Vador sucks.

Because of the farming you did in the adventure to advance and bypass strong ennemies that pop everywhere, in the end, your fourth character has low stats everywhere and you need to do another round of farming AGAIN. It's frustrating.

In the game, you'll meet many characters that will join your team and be your fourth character, but they'll all die eventually to protect the team. Fortunately, in the post game adventure, you'll control four of them and have a new team to beat the white version of the Emperor and get the real ending. This adventure is short but will need ANOTHER farming session.

Oh wait I'll go back to the main game to explain correctly. So, the Emperor is the real enemy. Once you're ready, you go in a last dungeon with portal everywhere and you kill him. This final boss has like 15k HP but man, if you don't use the cheating technique, you'll have a hard time killing it even if you maxed the stats of your characters. The secret to one-shot the boss is the Blood Sword which appears to be useless when you get it and try it... but on the final boss it does massive damage. If you sold it before, you're as good as dead.

That final boss is the dark version of the emperor, but it is divided in two parts. The white version is killed in the underground world by the characters that I mentionned earlier at the same time.

Why it is split? Because Vador killed him in the game, took over the army, but the Emperor came back from hell (like they had seen Star Wars 9 30 years before it came out). But when he died, the Emperor's soul split in two. It is not explained why it split since it does not happen in the original game. The only thing we know is that the Emperor became lord of Hell after Vador killed him.

The story s, the gameplay s and at least the music is good.

I really love this game. I finished 100% many times, but even the nostalgia can't correct the little flaws of the game.

Good points are : Music (DK Rap 4ever), sounds effects and a really nice hub world in which it is fun to explore with the 5 Kongs who have their own gameplay. The 8 worlds are original and pretty fun and there is many collectibles (more than in Banjo Kazooie) that makes the exploration more fun and worth it.

The collectibles are all useful and you do not need to collect almost everything to beat the game like in Banjo Kazooie, which is a lot less frustrating for someone who wants to beat the game and see the final boss which is one of the best (and surprising) final boss I have beaten.

There are still flaws though and one of them is 2 collectible. Every world gives you a key when you beat the boss, but if you want the last one, you need to coin. A Rareware coin and a Nintendo Coin. The first one is easy to find and you will probably find it before reaching the end of the game... if you play Jetpac ... yes Cranky gives it to you if you score 5000 points in his minigame, but you have to get it. The best way to get it is to stay in the first level of the Jetpac and wait for it to appear. It takes time and many players will not find it without solution. The Nintendo coin is worse because you have to play the old DK Arcade game in the World 3... twice.

Most players will reach the last key and will have to go back just to find them and NOTHING in the game tells you where to find them. At least these games are not that hard.

Next flaw to me : Many things are repetitive. Two bosses appears twice with just one more step in the fight... big lack of originality. Also, the minigames and the road to reach some Golden Bananas lack of originality. In the hub world (Dk Isle), every kong has 5 golden bananas. One is a mini-game, one needs the music instrument, one needs to shoot with the firearms, one is just randomly put somewhere and one is the blueprint. This structure is in every world, but the number of minigames increase to make it like a "progress"

Many people will say that DK 64 is a just a game of mini-games and it's true there's a lot of them, but if you're not a completionnist like me, it won't be a problem cause you only need 100 golden bananas to enter the last world. The blueprints you collected in game gives you more time to finish this last world, but 20 to 30 minutes is plenty enough and every blueprint also gives a golden banana. It's not like Banjo Kazooie in which you almost need every collectibles in the game. If some minigames are hard, you don't need to do them and you'll just need to find enough colored bananas with each Kongs in every world to open the boss door.

The other sidequests like the banana fairies and the are easy to complete. You only need 4 crown and you don't need any fairies (even if it makes the game easier).

The game is pretty good for someone who just like collect-a-thon or for a completionnist. It takes 12 to 13 hours to beat the game at 100%, but if you hate repetive game, you'll hate it for sure and combined to the other frustrations, it'll be worse.

This game became of my favorite game. It is hard, but not impossible. It takes less than 3 seconds to try again when you die and it makes it a lot less frustrating than any other 2D platform games.

Even if you die a lot of time, the game talks about perseverance, guilt and depression and it has a good story which you can relate to your own playthrough (even if you die, if you really want something, you will not abandon and you will get it with efforts and hard work). I also did the B and C Sides and the Chapter 9 with the Moon Berry.

I think everyone should play this game and try not to abandon because they find it hard. It is hard, but you learn fast how to go through every obstacles if you keep trying.

My discover of 2022.

I played this mod but in Banjo Kazooie Jiggies of Time. There's a Secret World in the game that you can find as long as you have enough notes. It is in fact a secret level that comes from a mod that was released in 2019 in which there was notes and a Golden Banana (Jiggie) to collect. In both case, it is the exact same thing except that there's a Giant Blue Egg at the end of the level + a Jiggie in Jiggies of Time.

In any case, it's good as a secret world, but has a mod himself, absolutely not. It takes like 5 minutes top to beat it, it is easy, but also frustrating because there's a big perspective problem because the level is in 2D... but also in 3D? If you played it you'll understand what I'm saying.

Just my favorite game ever. I know it's nostalgia, but still, the game has important qualities that makes it better than it's sequel Banjo Tooie (and A LOT better than Nut's N Bolts).

Every world has a central location that really helps through the exploration, makes it easier to collect every items and not to get lost in the world.

The hub is not too big and with the teleport cauldron it does not take a long time to go back to where you were in the last session.

Music, sounds effects, dialogues are awesome and I like that the characters break the fourth wall sometimes.

The thing negative and objective that I could say is that the game is empty. There's nothing to do except collect things and there are collect-a-thon that will do better (like DK 64 or Banjo Tooie for exemple). There's also no bosses except Grunty herself and the Giant Boom Box. It would have been fun to have more.

And finally the last part that is biggest problem : On N64, saves exists. Losing data is a big problem and on N64, when you die, you lose all the notes you've collected, but also the Jinjos you found, but not the Mumbo Token nor the Jiggies. Why is it not possible to save the notes you've already collected? Those who did Rusty Bucket Bay knows how painful it is. They corrected this on the Xbox Arcade version and in DK64 and Banjo Tooie, but even on N64 it was unforgivable.

Last thing : If you want to complete the game, you need at least 94 Jiggies and 810 notes. If you want to unlock everything, you need 98 Jiggies and 882 notes. The 100% is 100 Jiggies and 900 Notes. Basically, you have to do 100% of the game to make sure you reach Gruntilda.