History VideoGame / DonkeyKong64

* AdaptationalBadass: Klumps went from low-level {{Mooks}} in ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry'' whose only differentiating quality from the average [[TheGoomba Kritter]] was being immune to Diddy's jump attack to EliteMooks who are immune to most forms of damage and can throw deadly orange grenades.
* AdaptationalDumbass: Donkey Kong's thoughts are rendered in HulkSpeak here despite him being shown to be capable of normal speech in all previous games. [[AnthropomorphicZigZag Particularly strange as he is given much more human-like animations and movements in this game]].

* TookALevelInBadass: Funky Kong, the AMMO store owner. SurferDude turned badass. [[spoiler:At the end, while Candy Kong distracts K. Rool, Funky kicks his ass [[LiteralAsskicking (literally)]] by shooting a giant boot out of a gun.]]

* CashGate: B. Locker, who hates his job of keeping you out of the levels until you have enough golden bananas.

* NoFairCheating: Using any Gameshark code in this game will cause DK to spasm uncontrollably throughout the game. Even in the opening. Also, your cartridge will be permanently damaged if you save. To such a level that ''you cannot pick up any items and you drop dead from taking a single hit.''

** An infamous rumor is that right after the game had gone gold and final testing was being done on consumer consoles, a devastating memory leak was discovered that crashed the game after 20 minutes or so or normal play. Claims were that this leak was fixed by shoving the Expansion Pak in, and that this is the only reason it's required. However, this story is apocryphal. The Expansion Pak was used for the dynamic lighting. No memory leak - after 20 minutes, 4 hours, or any other amount of time, has ever been reliably documented. One of the main developers for the game has explicitly confirmed this in multiple interviews. There ''was'' a critical bug near the end of development, but it was patched. The Expansion Pak being included with the game had nothing to do with any bug, Rare had been told by Nintendo to use it very early into development.

Following years of fan speculation that the game may never see a re-release due to rights issues regarding the ''VideoGame/{{Jetpac}}'' minigame, and possibly the original source code, the game became available on the Platform//{{Wii U}}'s Platform/VirtualConsole service in April 2015.

* AnimatedOuttakes: Your reward for HundredPercentCompletion is a video of the characters [[HopelessAuditionees auditioning]] for the next entry in the series on the then-upcoming "[[Platform//NintendoGameCube Dolphin]]". [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZihf09JkLU (Or you can look it up on YouTube.)]]

** The secret 201st Golden Banana, hidden in a room next to the Banana Fairy Queen's throne room, has a Rareware sticker on it. (The other 200 Golden Bananas spread throughout the game instead have stickers with the Platform//Nintendo64 logo on them.)

** DK has a poster of a dolphin in his bedroom. "Dolphin" was the much-publicized working title of the Platform//NintendoGameCube.

* HopelessAuditionees: The 101% ending is a series of characters from this game auditioning for a role in a Platform//NintendoGameCube game. Cranky Kong never gives the okay to anyone, and occasionally calls "next!" before a character can get a few seconds into their performance.

''Donkey Kong 64'' is a [[PlatformGame 3D platformer]] produced by Creator/{{Rare}} and Creator/{{Nintendo}} for the UsefulNotes/Nintendo64, released in 1999. It is the fourth main game in the ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry'' series, and the last ''Franchise/DonkeyKong'' game that Rare made before parting ways with Nintendo to join [[Creator/XboxGameStudios Microsoft]]. In it, Donkey Kong and a team of his friends; Diddy Kong, Lanky Kong, Tiny Kong, and Chunky Kong, must stop King K. Rool and his Kremlings from activating the Blast-o-Matic, a gigantic laser cannon with the power to destroy Donkey Kong Island.

Following years of fan speculation that the game may never see a re-release due to rights issues regarding the ''VideoGame/{{Jetpac}}'' minigame, and possibly the original source code, the game became available on the UsefulNotes/{{Wii U}}'s UsefulNotes/VirtualConsole service in April 2015.

* AnimatedOuttakes: Your reward for HundredPercentCompletion is a video of the characters [[HopelessAuditionees auditioning]] for the next entry in the series on the then-upcoming "[[UsefulNotes/NintendoGameCube Dolphin]]". [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZihf09JkLU (Or you can look it up on YouTube.)]]

** The secret 201st Golden Banana, hidden in a room next to the Banana Fairy Queen's throne room, has a Rareware sticker on it. (The other 200 Golden Bananas spread throughout the game instead have stickers with the UsefulNotes/Nintendo64 logo on them.)

** DK has a poster of a dolphin in his bedroom. "Dolphin" was the much-publicized working title of the UsefulNotes/NintendoGameCube.

* HopelessAuditionees: The 101% ending is a series of characters from this game auditioning for a role in a UsefulNotes/NintendoGameCube game. Cranky Kong never gives the okay to anyone, and occasionally calls "next!" before a character can get a few seconds into their performance.

* ObviousBeta: Largely averted, but it does have a few cracks:
** You can swim through walls, dive under islands, and walk around in voids without any cheating device if you manipulate the first-person view. Beaver Bother's mechanics are also quite unpolished.
** Especially notorious is Hunky Chunky, who can clip through almost anything.

* {{Leitmotif}}: Every level has one, including the HubLevel. The majority of the music within subareas of worlds (including [[BossRemix the themes of the bosses]]) is just arrangements of the music played in the main part of the level.

* As [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkQN5IY3zkE this YouTube video shows]], [[spoiler:if you collect no blueprints at all during the game, Hideout Helm is impossible to beat without glitches. 11 minutes is possible to make with near-perfect play, but even then, the person who made that video only had about 7 seconds left on the clock when they completed it.]]

* UnwinnableByInsanity: As [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkQN5IY3zkE this YouTube video shows]], [[spoiler:if you collect no blueprints at all during the game, Hideout Helm is impossible to beat without glitches. 11 minutes is possible to make with near-perfect play, but even then, the person who made that video only had about 7 seconds left on the clock when they completed it.]]

* BackgroundBoss: The castle boss is a wooden mockup of K.Rool held behind the castle's parapets. The only way to attack it is by launching your Kongs out of a barrel cannon.

** The final boss battle is [[spoiler:a boxing match]] stated to be "brought to you this evening by Rare and Nintendo in association with K.Rool Enterprises."

** In the DK Rap, Lanky Kong's verse begins with the lines "He has no style, he has no grace; this Kong has a funny face," referencing a similar set of lines from the Music/{{Madonna}} song [[Music/ImBreathless "Vogue"]]:

** The fifth phase, [[AttackOfThe50FootWhatever Chunky Kong]] grows into a giant, and K. Rool [[BullfightBoss tries to charge at Chunky]], only to get countered repeteadly by [[PunchedAcrossTheRoom haymakers]].

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

-->"Tough luck kid. I've been told to keep my mouth shut, as they want to keep all the good stuff for a money-making strategy guide. I'm sure some of it will appear on the newfangled 'internet' thing as well, so I suggest you take a look-see there. You could also ask your friends, assuming of course you've got any. If all else fails, you'll just have to play better."

-->'''K. Rool:''' ''(Head-shaking FacePalm)'' I'm surrounded by fools!

* {{Foreshadowing}}: When you first meet Snide, he says that the blueprints "[[spoiler:might just buy you some valuable time]]." They end up doing just that [[spoiler:in Hideout Helm; each blueprint you turn in stalls the Blast-o-Matic for a minute, giving you extra time to shut it down for good]].

** [[spoiler:The first blueprint you get is even more valuable than at first glance, because you cannot complete Hideout Helm with just the basic 10 minutes without glitches. The best you can do with that is to barely get Diddy’s games started.]]

* CameraScrew: Basically any time you need to make a precise jump (Frantic Factory and Creepy Castle come to mind), expect to spend ten seconds lining up the camera.

** An infamous rumor is that right after the game had gone gold and final testing was being done on consumer consoles, a devastating memory leak was discovered that crashed the game after 20 minutes or so or normal play. Claims were that this leak was fixed by shoving the Expansion Pak in, and that this is the only reason it's required. However, this story is apocryphal. The Expansion Pak was used for the dynamic lighting. No memory leak - after 20 minutes, 4 hours, or any other amount of time, has ever been reliably documented. One of the main developers for the game has explicitly confirmed this in multiple interviews. There *was* a critical bug near the end of development, but it was patched. Rare had been told to use the Expansion Pak very early into development and had nothing to do with any bug.

* EleventhHourRanger: [[spoiler:Candy, Funky, and K. Lumsy join in on the FinalBoss after Chunky's section, with Candy distracting K. Rool, Funky literally kicking his ass with a boot bazooka, and K. Lumsy getting some well-deserved vengeance after K. Rool falls into K. Lumsy's prison]].

* AMoltenDateWithDeath: Dogadon is defeated this way twice by Diddy and Chunky, both using explosive barrels to knock him into the lava pit below. However, the same can also happen to the Kongs too, especially Chunky if he does not defeat him in time before the platform completely sinks into the lava, resulting in instant death. Most other lava pits in the game will instantly kill the player if they fall in and respawn them at the beginning of the room they're in, unless DK's [[NighInvulnerability Strong Kong]] ability is active.

* PermanentlyMissableContent: Generally averted, but Hideout Helm's Banana Medals (which must be manually picked up after completing each section of disabling the Blast-o-Matic) will disappear once you finish Hideout Helm. Failure to pick them up also makes getting 101% completion impossible, so be wary.