For a 3D platformer, I would say it's definitely a good game, but it isn't Rare's finest 3D platformer. Donkey Kong 64 has everything it needed to become an instant classic like Banjo-Kazooie easily would, because it could have a sense of grandeur that none of the other 3D platformers had. Except that the latter quality is greatly marred by the sloppy execution that makes it more tedious and boring in the long run.
First of all, the game has an absurd amount of collectables, to the point that Guinness Book of World Record 2008 mentioned its insane feat!
Sheesh! That's a whole lot to collect!
Fortunately, to reach in the game's final level, you only need at least 100 golden bananas, enough regular bananas to fight a boss (60 in Jungle Japes, 120 for Angry Aztec, 200 for Frantic Factory, 250 for Gloomy Galleon, 300 for Fungi Forest, 350 for Crystal Caves and 400 for Creepy Castle, for a total of 1680 bananas), 15 banana medals, 4 battle crowns, 1 Nintendo coin and 1 Rareware coin. Collecting blueprints will only extend the time limit for the final level, which can extend up to 50 minutes! Generally, you want to aim to get at least 20 blueprints, so you'll have just enough time for anyone to beat the final level.
Jeez, that's still a lot of stuff to collect, might as well just collect everything you see to save yourself from the trouble of figuring out what to do.
Another flaw from the game is that most missions are repeated throughout the game for the sake of padding the length. For example, there is one building at Angry Aztec that involves one Kong entering their own maze to collect the golden banana and get out ASAP. Since there's 4 more Kongs in the game, you have to do it 4 more times to collect 4 more golden bananas. For reference, the platforming aspect isn't as sophisticated as Super Mario 64 and even Banjo-Kazooie actually boast, so you generally won't have much of hard time completing these except for a few missions that have a sudden significant difficulty spike for no particular reason at all (if not technical).
To make matter more annoying, there's a lot of backtracking due of the way most levels are designed, even with 5 Bananaports (teleporters for those who aren't aware of) scattered on each level. An average level will consist of one hub with sub-hubs attached on it, and the sub-hubs aren't connected to each other. If you're done with one sub-hub, you're pretty much forced to go back to the main hub to go on another sub-hub. There's no way to skip from sub-hub to sub-hub without resorting to Bananaports. And that's not accounting the amount of times one could get lost and ponders on where to go. Overall, the level design seems to be more bland and backtracking-prone compared to Banjo-Kazooie.
All of these flaws make Donkey Kong 64 so tedious to play it isn't ranked among the best 3D platforming classics on the likes of Super Mario 64. It's still worth playing the game, especially if you're a children or have quite a lot of patience to spare.
Source:
http://www.videogamesblogger.com/20...amers-edition-2008-shows-new-gaming-feats.htm
