Personally I've always thought Banjo Tooie was the pinnacle, but I've never really played DK64. There is a hack which allows you swap between the kongs anywhere which is supposed to make it a lot better.
Tooie is a lot of busy work with not a lot to show for it. Like multiple steps for a Jiggie that would have been singular in the original, with almost no fanfare for even getting it beyond throwaway (those little jingle celebrations when you get the big plot token go a long way to making them feel worth something). It was great at showing how interconnected they could make the worlds, but by the second half it just felt like a slog.
I enjoy the first half a lot, until you get to "oh you need to come back here through a shortcut unlocked 3 levels later to do 1/3 parts of this Jiggie's quest!" and then it spirals down. Anytime I feel the desire to play it again, I just do Kazooie and enjoy it more.
The Tag Anywhere mod for DK64 actively ruins any challenge or thought the game has in the name of QoL ease. Most bananas (colored or golden) are deliberately placed to be challenging for X Kong to reach, and not so for Y Kong, so half the goal is "how do I get fucking Chunky here." When you can swap on the fly you just negate most of that, and you just as soon not even have multiple characters.
There are certainly spots where its meaningless busywork to run back to swap for something, not a perfect system. But even they knew that, its why the colored bananas (the big complaint people always have about it) only require 75/100 to be considered "complete." And only the final level needs a hair more than that to unlock the boss.
I don't fault people for playing with the mod, but for a first time playthrough its absolutely ruining.
Personally I've always thought Banjo Tooie was the pinnacle, but I've never really played DK64. There is a hack which allows you swap between the kongs anywhere which is supposed to make it a lot better.
Tooie is a lot of busy work with not a lot to show for it. Like multiple steps for a Jiggie that would have been singular in the original, with almost no fanfare for even getting it beyond throwaway (those little jingle celebrations when you get the big plot token go a long way to making them feel worth something). It was great at showing how interconnected they could make the worlds, but by the second half it just felt like a slog.
I enjoy the first half a lot, until you get to "oh you need to come back here through a shortcut unlocked 3 levels later to do 1/3 parts of this Jiggie's quest!" and then it spirals down. Anytime I feel the desire to play it again, I just do Kazooie and enjoy it more.
The Tag Anywhere mod for DK64 actively ruins any challenge or thought the game has in the name of QoL ease. Most bananas (colored or golden) are deliberately placed to be challenging for X Kong to reach, and not so for Y Kong, so half the goal is "how do I get fucking Chunky here." When you can swap on the fly you just negate most of that, and you just as soon not even have multiple characters.
There are certainly spots where its meaningless busywork to run back to swap for something, not a perfect system. But even they knew that, its why the colored bananas (the big complaint people always have about it) only require 75/100 to be considered "complete." And only the final level needs a hair more than that to unlock the boss.
I don't fault people for playing with the mod, but for a first time playthrough its absolutely ruining.