(shouting)

Donkey Kong 64 - I heard a whistle, so something cartoony and stupid's gonna happen... Oh, something stupid is happening

this is the place where lps are being talked about. it's important to talk about games being played on the internet.
Post Reply
User avatar
Awoo
~wan~wan
Posts: 1522
Joined: 6 years ago
Pronouns: he/him/his
Location: your area

Donkey Kong 64 - I heard a whistle, so something cartoony and stupid's gonna happen... Oh, something stupid is happening

Post by Awoo »

Oh, man, is it finally time?
Released in 1999, Donkey Kong 64 is one of Rare's many 3D platforms on the Nintendo 64, along with other classics like Banjo Kazooie

Donkey Kong 64
Last edited by Awoo 3 years ago, edited 3 times in total.
ワンワン
Image Image
Image Image
Image Image
User avatar
Grounder
Posts: 5766
Joined: 10 years ago

Re: Donkey Kong 64 - They're finally here!

Post by Grounder »

wow poor framerate and flashing lights is not the best start
Why don't you eat me?

I am perfectly tasty...

AND I'LL STEAL YOUR SOUL! :twisted:

ImageImageImage
User avatar
Nimono
Posts: 745
Joined: 11 years ago

Re: Donkey Kong 64 - They're finally here!

Post by Nimono »

Grounder wrote: 3 years ago wow poor framerate and flashing lights is not the best start
well to be fair the game on an actual console has poor framerate too, and it's designed with that in mind, soooo expect lots of framerate drops over the entire game


also if you spam oranges you can slow the game down so much you can walk through some walls :D



raocow! Advice for you! But it's kinda spoilers, so I'll put it in a spoiler tag. Read now if you wish, or save it for closer to the end of the game:

In the final level, there's some special items you can collect, you'll know them when you see them. COLLECT THEM THE MOMENT YOU'RE ABLE, DO NOT WAIT. If you wait, they turn transparent and can't be collected ever again, locking you out of 101% completion.





honestly i'm nnnnnot looking forward to later in the game if raocow actually decides to get full completion percentage, hahaha...
User avatar
HatKid
If this ain't a flair, then I don't know what is
Posts: 416
Joined: 9 years ago
Pronouns: she/her
https://hatkid.talkhaus.com/

Re: Donkey Kong 64 - They're finally here!

Post by HatKid »

Oh no, not Dk64... To be honest, I've hardly played the game myself, but I've watched my brother play tons of it back in the day. I'm excited to see how things go in this LP. Hopefully well???????????
Image
User avatar
J. J. W. Mezun
Posts: 195
Joined: 7 years ago

Re: Donkey Kong 64 - They're finally here!

Post by J. J. W. Mezun »

The fastest way to move with DK is by ducking & pressing B to do rolls. Actually, strangely, DK o’ all characters is the fastest in this game.

This is 1 o’ those games I loved years ago & @ 1 point would play every year, but have since become less enchanted with its crustiness. Probably ’cause knowing where everything is now in a game ’bout exploration makes the exploration less interesting.

What annoys me ’bout this game, as well as many collectathons, is that I still stand by the collectathon aspects, e’en taken to the extent this game does, but the physics, controls, level design, & programming ( infamously, this game required the rumble pak to deal with a memory leak Rare couldn’t solve in time ) are creaky & there’s all the lame/broken minigames. But everyone thinks the game’s bad ’cause o’ the collectathon aspects. So it feels like collectathons always seem to be engaging in a form o’ self-destruction, insisting on putting non-collectathon elements in collectathons, pleasing no one. I would love to see ’nother game with DK64’s character gimmick, but, you know, done well, but there’s no chance that’s going to happen ’cause this game’s notoriety sort o’ killed the idea with most people.

( Tho, interestingly, DK64’s notoriety is purely hindsight, as if you look back to 1999, DK64 sold very well & received high reviews from most critics ).
Wenn alle stehen bleiben und anstarren
und sagen, <¿Warum musst du so sein?>,
schaue ich ihnen einfach in die Augen
und sage ihnen, dass ich von Fledermäusen aufgezogen wurde.
User avatar
Nimono
Posts: 745
Joined: 11 years ago

Re: Donkey Kong 64 - They're finally here!

Post by Nimono »

J. J. W. Mezun wrote: 3 years ago ( infamously, this game required the rumble pak to deal with a memory leak Rare couldn’t solve in time )
I've actually recently heard this is not the case, that the game was always designed to use the expansion pak, and the fact it patched up the memory leak (sorta) was a happy coincidence.


incidentally the memory leak is still there- it just takes like 20 or so hours now for the game to crash, which was kinda unrealistic back then. so if you play this on WiiU VC, when you're done, save the game and reset. XD
User avatar
Sugar
Posts: 1143
Joined: 14 years ago
Pronouns: fae/faer

Re: Donkey Kong 64 - They're finally here!

Post by Sugar »

Nimono wrote: 3 years ago raocow! Advice for you! But it's kinda spoilers, so I'll put it in a spoiler tag. Read now if you wish, or save it for closer to the end of the game:

In the final level, there's some special items you can collect, you'll know them when you see them. COLLECT THEM THE MOMENT YOU'RE ABLE, DO NOT WAIT. If you wait, they turn transparent and can't be collected ever again, locking you out of 101% completion.

For context to raocow, this is about a bug in Donkey Kong 64 that makes 101% completion impossible if you do certain thing wrong. It involves certain something in endgame. I don't think the description in spoiler tag provided by Nimono is spoilery myself - personally I wouldn't consider that to be a spoiler.
Last edited by Sugar 3 years ago, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
Nimono
Posts: 745
Joined: 11 years ago

Re: Donkey Kong 64 - They're finally here!

Post by Nimono »

I personally don't consider it a spoiler either with the bare-minimum info I gave, but I figured better safe than sorry, since it IS endgame stuff!


also no i'm toooootally not speaking out of experience with that bug what are you talking about <.<;
thatguyif
Posts: 1247
Joined: 9 years ago
Pronouns: We Are The 99%
Location: Over There

Re: Donkey Kong 64 - They're finally here!

Post by thatguyif »

J. J. W. Mezun wrote: 3 years ago ( Tho, interestingly, DK64’s notoriety is purely hindsight, as if you look back to 1999, DK64 sold very well & received high reviews from most critics ).
Eeeeeh, you can say that about a lot of games. It's pretty rare these days to find games (especially in the 32/64-bit era, but also much later than that) that actually "aged" well (or didn't suck outright that were saved by us not knowing better). A_Raving_Loon's streams of PSX-era JRPGs is proving particularly acute about that.

Anyway, here, have some DK64 music


Image
Image Image
Image Image
Image Image
User avatar
🦆 RedMageSusie
Dancing with the moonlit knight
Posts: 948
Joined: 15 years ago

Re: Donkey Kong 64 - They're finally here!

Post by RedMageSusie »

This is going to be the greatest LP of all time
Image
Image
Image
User avatar
FPzero
Resident SMW Central Admin
Posts: 635
Joined: 15 years ago

Re: Donkey Kong 64 - They're finally here!

Post by FPzero »

Minor additional controls advice:

-I think holding R while swimming allows you to corner more tightly. This is how it worked in both Banjo games, so I think it's present here as well.
-Press Z to drop from a ledge you're holding on to.
-Hold B while swimming on the surface of water to swim faster.
-You already discovered that holding R will center the camera behind DK. Pressing C-Down will also switch between three camera zoom settings.
-Also if you see that rotating corner camera, it just means the camera is in a fixed position and can't be adjusted.

DK64 has a pretty standard set of 3D platforming controls, especially if you played any of Rare's other 3D platformers. You'll get used to them in time, I'm sure.

Also if you're wondering why the opening cutscene's music seemed a bit off-sync, it's because apparently the game's music was written to the exact framerate the game would normally have on an N64. Because your emulator is capable of running the game and its cutscenes faster than N64 hardware could, the music desyncs.
User avatar
Taigiry
Posts: 160
Joined: 9 years ago

Re: Donkey Kong 64 - They're finally here!

Post by Taigiry »

While I so love DK64, part of me wishes Rare went for a more traditional platforming approach.
Nimono wrote: 3 years agowell to be fair the game on an actual console has poor framerate too, and it's designed with that in mind, soooo expect lots of framerate drops over the entire game
It's a bit of a mess still because the time limits, like you see in bonus stages for example, aren't tied to the game speed. So the game slows down, but not the timer. Normally not an issue, but it does make a certain banana impossible to get unless you know about that beforehand and how to get around it.

Though maybe playing on an emulator makes it less of an issue, that I don't know.
User avatar
Nimono
Posts: 745
Joined: 11 years ago

Re: Donkey Kong 64 - They're finally here!

Post by Nimono »

Taigiry wrote: 3 years ago It's a bit of a mess still because the time limits, like you see in bonus stages for example, aren't tied to the game speed. So the game slows down, but not the timer. Normally not an issue, but it does make a certain banana impossible to get unless you know about that beforehand and how to get around it.

Though maybe playing on an emulator makes it less of an issue, that I don't know.
Yeah, they balanced the game around having a low framerate. The only exception is

the Mechanical Fish

and that's caused by a certain endgame powerup slowing the game down miniscule amounts, but it adds up to extreme difficulty. Fun fact: disable the reticule, it disables the overlay, and thus returns the game to the speed it expects.

Weird.


Past that, the game running faster is actually a BAD thing, because, again, the entire game was balanced around framerate drops. You can see this in the WiiU VC port- they didn't accurately replicate the FPS, so it runs at a very good speed. Some parts of the game, like the later Beaver Bothers, become much easier due to this. And then Krazy Kong Klamour...is much harder in the later stages, because the game fading to black is tied to framerate. Now that it's super high, you HAVE to pause to be able to react and score points. Not ideal... Also I believe it makes the races harder, too. Not entirely sure on that.
User avatar
SAJewers
ASMBXT Level Wrangler/A2XT Project Coordinator /AAT Level Designer
Posts: 4200
Joined: 11 years ago
Location: Nova Scotia

Re: Donkey Kong 64 - They're finally here!

Post by SAJewers »

Nimono wrote: 3 years ago
Taigiry wrote: 3 years ago It's a bit of a mess still because the time limits, like you see in bonus stages for example, aren't tied to the game speed. So the game slows down, but not the timer. Normally not an issue, but it does make a certain banana impossible to get unless you know about that beforehand and how to get around it.

Though maybe playing on an emulator makes it less of an issue, that I don't know.
Yeah, they balanced the game around having a low framerate. The only exception is

the Mechanical Fish

and that's caused by a certain endgame powerup slowing the game down miniscule amounts, but it adds up to extreme difficulty. Fun fact: disable the reticule, it disables the overlay, and thus returns the game to the speed it expects.

Weird.


Past that, the game running faster is actually a BAD thing, because, again, the entire game was balanced around framerate drops. You can see this in the WiiU VC port- they didn't accurately replicate the FPS, so it runs at a very good speed. Some parts of the game, like the later Beaver Bothers, become much easier due to this. And then Krazy Kong Klamour...is much harder in the later stages, because the game fading to black is tied to framerate. Now that it's super high, you HAVE to pause to be able to react and score points. Not ideal... Also I believe it makes the races harder, too. Not entirely sure on that.
Well, if it's any consolation, someone on the spotzone went through the entire game and had no real issues at all outside of two minigames (both

Krazy Kong Klamour

)

anyway here's the mupen64plus-next github if someone wants to file an issue about the game running faster than on hardware
ImageImageImageImageImage | Image | Image
Sharenite | RetroAchievements | NameMC | IGDB
User avatar
PSI Ninja
Posts: 570
Joined: 9 years ago
https://psininja.talkhaus.com/

Re: Donkey Kong 64 - They're finally here!

Post by PSI Ninja »

Chunky accidentally smacking away Lanky in the intro always makes me laugh. This LP is going to be a good watch.

I managed to get 101% completion as a child, but

I was missing 10 bananas in Gloomy Galleon. I don't remember if it was for Lanky or Chunky, but it was definitely from a Banana Balloon I couldn't find. I kept combing over the level using the Versus Books guide (which made up its own names for some of the enemies and bosses), but with no luck. Although you only need to collect 75/100 bananas for the medal, it still bothers me a bit.



On another note, the generous autosaving is exactly what made it a pain for people to speedrun DK64 years ago, when segmented runs were still popular. This, coupled with the fact that you can't copy save files to other slots. Although this doesn't matter anymore since pretty much everyone in the speedrunning community does single-segment runs nowadays.
User avatar
Taigiry
Posts: 160
Joined: 9 years ago

Re: Donkey Kong 64 - They're finally here!

Post by Taigiry »

Nimono wrote: 3 years ago
Taigiry wrote: 3 years ago It's a bit of a mess still because the time limits, like you see in bonus stages for example, aren't tied to the game speed. So the game slows down, but not the timer. Normally not an issue, but it does make a certain banana impossible to get unless you know about that beforehand and how to get around it.

Though maybe playing on an emulator makes it less of an issue, that I don't know.
Yeah, they balanced the game around having a low framerate. The only exception is

the Mechanical Fish

and that's caused by a certain endgame powerup slowing the game down miniscule amounts, but it adds up to extreme difficulty. Fun fact: disable the reticule, it disables the overlay, and thus returns the game to the speed it expects.

Weird.


Past that, the game running faster is actually a BAD thing, because, again, the entire game was balanced around framerate drops. You can see this in the WiiU VC port- they didn't accurately replicate the FPS, so it runs at a very good speed. Some parts of the game, like the later Beaver Bothers, become much easier due to this. And then Krazy Kong Klamour...is much harder in the later stages, because the game fading to black is tied to framerate. Now that it's super high, you HAVE to pause to be able to react and score points. Not ideal... Also I believe it makes the races harder, too. Not entirely sure on that.

That fish is exactly what I'm talking about. It was one of the last bananas I had to get back in the day, because I kept avoiding the water world and just couldn't get it. It got to the point where I had to look it up and afterwards it went from impossible to laughably easy. Kinda infuriating it could happen though.

User avatar
Paragraph
Posts: 1142
Joined: 14 years ago

Re: Donkey Kong 64 - They're finally here!

Post by Paragraph »

I played this when I was at my height of Rare collectathon enjoyment, and still couldn't finish my first attempt. Eventually, I returned to finish it but damn is it a CHUNK of game.

I don't think it's as hilariously bad as people say it is on hindsight, but it is definitely an excessive game, with all that entails. Nobody during production of this asked "should we really...?", they just put in more and more minigames, mechanics, and monkeys.

It has some amazing segments still and collecting's fun so there's a lot of fun in the game (if we're getting technical), but after you play the fifth repetition of a boring minigame (but now with a higher timer and amount of things you have to do!!!), you start wondering very hard why you (beaver) bother.
User avatar
cheez8
Food Nut
Posts: 285
Joined: 15 years ago

Re: Donkey Kong 64 - They're finally here!

Post by cheez8 »

OOOKAY

This is one of the games I played at such a young age that my cousins and I just spent hours goofing around in the hub world without pursuing a single objective. I love it dearly. Also in hindsight it has so many failings, like, hot damn what even happened with this game.

This is going to be a fantastic LP.
Image
Image
Image
Image
I don't really get it but okay
User avatar
The Doctor
Posts: 320
Joined: 14 years ago

Re: Donkey Kong 64 - They're finally here!

Post by The Doctor »

I bought this game the day it was released, went for 101%, and loved every second of it. I haven't and will never replay this game because I know I'll be bored to tears with it today. I'm going to keep those happy memories from when I was a kid alive.
User avatar
Fapnoob
Posts: 74
Joined: 15 years ago

Re: Donkey Kong 64 - They're finally here!

Post by Fapnoob »

Just a heads up assuming this is a emulator run.
Last time i tried to play this on a emulator it had a game breaking glitch where climbing up any objects would randomly make you exit the level and go back to the hubworld.
User avatar
FourteenthOrder
(zeal on discord)
Posts: 696
Joined: 9 years ago
Pronouns: she/her

Re: Donkey Kong 64 - They're finally here!

Post by FourteenthOrder »

I tested the whole game on the emulator setup raocow is using a few weeks ago and the lack of lag was the only notable difference from console. Emulators historically have a hard time with this game but it's playable pretty well nowadays, at least! N64 emulation has been making some big leaps the past few years.
Image
Image
Image
User avatar
J. J. W. Mezun
Posts: 195
Joined: 7 years ago

Re: Donkey Kong 64 - They're finally here!

Post by J. J. W. Mezun »

Nimono wrote: 3 years ago I've actually recently heard this is not the case, that the game was always designed to use the expansion pak, and the fact it patched up the memory leak (sorta) was a happy coincidence.
Yeah, I just read an article mentioning it not long after writing that comment. What’s weird is that both the original claim & the correction were both by Rare devs, tho I don’t know if the one who made the original claim worked on DK64 ( I only know they worked on Conker’s Bad Fur Day ).
Nimono wrote: 3 years ago incidentally the memory leak is still there- it just takes like 20 or so hours now for the game to crash, which was kinda unrealistic back then. so if you play this on WiiU VC, when you're done, save the game and reset. XD
¿Does the game still crash on VC? I thought I remember reading that it didn’t. I’m pretty certain I did a 101% run on VC & don’t remember the game e’er crashing.

Incidentally, reading ’bout the development o’ this game & how ’twas originally going to be mo’ linear, only for them to rehaul much o’ the game partway into development, leads me to believe that this game was probably rushed for Christmas release, which ’splains some o’ the jankiness. In particular, I get the sense that the devs were much less sure what they wanted to do with this game than, say, Banjo-Kazooie, which is probably why it’s so all o’er the place.
Wenn alle stehen bleiben und anstarren
und sagen, <¿Warum musst du so sein?>,
schaue ich ihnen einfach in die Augen
und sage ihnen, dass ich von Fledermäusen aufgezogen wurde.
User avatar
Duker
I post u2be tags I guess
Posts: 272
Joined: 13 years ago
Location: The Comment Section

Re: Donkey Kong 64 - They're finally here!

Post by Duker »

J. J. W. Mezun wrote: 3 years ago¿Does the game still crash on VC? I thought I remember reading that it didn’t. I’m pretty certain I did a 101% run on VC & don’t remember the game e’er crashing.
Did you use exclusively savestates? Otherwise it's not expected to affect anyone, it takes quite a while and only if you never restart.

(why would you ""shorten"" ever to e'er?? same amount of characters but much more annoying to read...)
fart.
User avatar
Nimono
Posts: 745
Joined: 11 years ago

Re: Donkey Kong 64 - They're finally here!

Post by Nimono »

J. J. W. Mezun wrote: 3 years ago ¿Does the game still crash on VC? I thought I remember reading that it didn’t. I’m pretty certain I did a 101% run on VC & don’t remember the game e’er crashing.
I speak from experience. I played it the same way I played any other WiiU VC game: never resetting. I grabbed the Banana for Chunky that's on the spinny crusher thing in the big tall factory room, and then the game shortly crashed, and I realized what was up. Resetting will fix it, but you can't go without resets on the VC version or it eventually crashes!
User avatar
Crow
famous knife crow thumbnail responsibility holder
Posts: 3414
Joined: 10 years ago
First name: Crow
Pronouns: she/they/it
Location: chaos garden

Re: Donkey Kong 64 - Cranky's Moonshine

Post by Crow »

Beautifully straightforward title gimmick that I suspect is going to lead to some incredibly convoluted titles down the line.
i've honestly never played a video game in my life
Image
Image
Image
Post Reply