Though I have beaten this game before, I've never done a 101% run like this. HbomberGuy's marathon charity stream of a 101% run last week inspired me to pick the game back up (once again) and try (once again) to do a full completion after giving up on it a couple years ago. I ended up clocking in a 16 hours and 37 minutes (which would actually put me at #62 out of 65 speedruns of 101% if I were to submit it to Speedrun.com somehow XD). For some reason the resale shop in my hometown had a CIB copy of the Japanese version for just two bucks more than a loose American copy, so I picked that one up, but it's functionally identical save for some bug fixes (making it technically the best version to play on a mechanical level, though only slightly). This was really one of the last unfinished projects of a game from my youth, so I'm really happy that I was finally able to plow through those last few horrible golden bananas and do this XD
Granted, I did get 201 golden bananas, but you only actually need 100 to beat the game. The game is well known to be a collectathon to end all collectathons, and it succeeds (for better or worse). DK64 usually has its Tag Barrels and the constant swapping between kongs to backtrack through areas for more collectables cited as one of its greatest issues with pacing and design, but I would say another big part of that is how inconsistent the difficulty is. The beetle races are some of the hardest bananas in the game to get, and there's one in world 2 (out of 8 ), and mini-games like Beaver Bother are almost comically broken and difficult compared to others like Teetering Turtle Trouble which you'd have to nearly try to lose at.
That said, you only actually need every other golden banana in the game, which is a far lower ratio than in Mario 64 or in Banjo (though not by that much, admittedly), so you can really pick and choose which ones you wanna go for and which ones you can't be bothered with. A bit like Xenoblade Chronicles, trying to complete the entire game is something that doesn't really offer much reward compared to just completing it normally, and will disrupt the pacing to the point where you're really going to hamper your enjoyment of the game compared to just going for a normal playthrough to see the credits roll.
That said, I do still really like this game. It has a lot of nostalgia for me, from the characters' designs and their characters displayed through tiny, silent interactions with the environment (like how Chunky will turn around in the minecart stages to wave hello at you) to how fucking EXCELLENT the music is. I was surprised at the time at just how long it took to hit me that this game has some really damn good music in.
Verdict: Recommended. If you like N64 platformers, this is definitely one to give a go if you're hungering for more after the Banjo games and Mario 64. It has far too many problems with its pacing, difficulty curve, and framerate (and good god does this game have some framerate difficulties) for me to ever say that it's better than either Banjo game or Mario 64, but it's still a good enough game to stand far above the worst members of its genre whom it also shares a console with.
Granted, I did get 201 golden bananas, but you only actually need 100 to beat the game. The game is well known to be a collectathon to end all collectathons, and it succeeds (for better or worse). DK64 usually has its Tag Barrels and the constant swapping between kongs to backtrack through areas for more collectables cited as one of its greatest issues with pacing and design, but I would say another big part of that is how inconsistent the difficulty is. The beetle races are some of the hardest bananas in the game to get, and there's one in world 2 (out of 8 ), and mini-games like Beaver Bother are almost comically broken and difficult compared to others like Teetering Turtle Trouble which you'd have to nearly try to lose at.
That said, you only actually need every other golden banana in the game, which is a far lower ratio than in Mario 64 or in Banjo (though not by that much, admittedly), so you can really pick and choose which ones you wanna go for and which ones you can't be bothered with. A bit like Xenoblade Chronicles, trying to complete the entire game is something that doesn't really offer much reward compared to just completing it normally, and will disrupt the pacing to the point where you're really going to hamper your enjoyment of the game compared to just going for a normal playthrough to see the credits roll.
That said, I do still really like this game. It has a lot of nostalgia for me, from the characters' designs and their characters displayed through tiny, silent interactions with the environment (like how Chunky will turn around in the minecart stages to wave hello at you) to how fucking EXCELLENT the music is. I was surprised at the time at just how long it took to hit me that this game has some really damn good music in.
Verdict: Recommended. If you like N64 platformers, this is definitely one to give a go if you're hungering for more after the Banjo games and Mario 64. It has far too many problems with its pacing, difficulty curve, and framerate (and good god does this game have some framerate difficulties) for me to ever say that it's better than either Banjo game or Mario 64, but it's still a good enough game to stand far above the worst members of its genre whom it also shares a console with.