Are Ken and Tabernacles still here? Have they played it? Probably none of the rest of you. I could have posted it on some subreddit or something instead, but FFVII fans are, as far as I can tell nowadays, rabidly obsessed with the story in a way that’s impossible for me anymore.

I remember kids at school going nuts over this game, and at first I was confused because it was on a system that I’d never heard of. People I played games with had N64.

How old were you in 1997, and how fixated on gaming were you back then? The PS1 had been around since 1995 and the N64 since 1996…and the PS1 was already winning by a wide margin because everyone was mad at Nintendo for going with cartridges instead of CDs.

Anyway, interesting to see what you said about Sephiroth killing Aeris, because the one thing I specifically remember people talking about was how they hated Aeris and how Sephiroth was awesome for killer her because she was the worst character in the game.

On the first message board I ever seriously posted on for a long period of time (the one that had that Legion guy on it) the people who I conversed with about FF7 totally hated Aeris and indeed thought she was the worst character in the game. I bothered to get her level 4 limit break this time, which I had not done in either 1998 or 2003, and it’s a really weird, obscure, difficult-to-figure-out sidequest that you have to do in order to get it for her, and then it’s a waste of time to even do it because she dies halfway through the game.

DK Country 1 - I’ve seen you bash this one for the level design, and I guess it is pretty straightforward, but I still love the aesthetics of this game and the way the characters handle. Like the other games, I also have a ton of nostalgia for it. There are really only a few hard parts. Snow Barrel Blast is the hardest level, but there’s a >shortcut. TBH, I totally forgot about the shortcut and then found it by accident.
This is the only game I didn’t 100%, because there’s no reward for it and it doesn’t really feel like much of an objective. The bonus areas are just places to get extra >lives, which the game gives out like candy on Halloween anyway.

I don’t know how much I would like the original DKC if I were to play it again today, something I confess I don’t have much desire to do. I don’t have my DKC1 cartridge anymore, but I was able to replace DKC2. I seriously doubt I would go back to thinking DKC1 was one of my five-star games, can I even still list all of those?…but DKC2 still is. I certainly thought DKC1 was a big masterpiece in 1994, but I was 12.
Due to the graphics (which are, admittedly, still pretty wonderful and certainly the most high-tech graphics to ever make it onto a 16 bit console) it was the biggest console-gaming event of 1994, the best selling console game that year that I know of and acclaimed to the heavens by every crummy video game magazine back then. (I say “console gaming” of course because PC gaming in 1994, as you may remember, was DOOM DOOM DOOM DOOM DOOM DOOM DOOM DOOM DOOM DOOM DOOM DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!!! …though DOOM was released in December 1993.) Retroactively, history has probably been kinder to Final Fantasy VI, Super Metroid and maybe Mortal Kombat II, or possibly Sonic The Hedgehog 3, who knows, maybe some NBA Jam fans out there want to go with that?
I wouldn’t say DKC1 has crappy level design but it’s a far easier game than its sequel, which is why I might not love it so much if I were to play it today. I do like compulsively trying to find every single hidden secret in a platform game, and I definitely did that with DKC1, but who knows if I’d like doing that today. Obviously there’s nothing innately rewarding besides that compulsion, I probably never died more than 10 times playing DKC1 so finding zillions of 1-ups or coins or whatever, like pffft.

DK Country 2 - This is the masterpiece. They took what was great about the first one and took it to a new level. I will now say that Diddy and Dixie are my two favorite >characters to play as, whereas I would have hesitated on Diddy in the past. This one also has the best group of animal friends.

Yeah, this one holds up completely. I don’t know if I could even come up with 100 games for a list, but DKC2 would likely finish just outside the top 25.

Only a few levels were really hard. I remembered K. Rool’s Keep being a tough area, but I mostly breezed through it. For whatever reason (maybe I was just tired) I had a ton >of trouble on that bossfight with the bee. And the park of Animal Antics when you play as Squwaks and the wind is blowing is brutal.

I do remember the parrot bit in that level being hard, not sure off the top of my head what the rest of the levels are like, isn’t one black ice? A lava level, too?
Toxic Tower is still pretty deadly stuff, I know that much off the top of my head. I have found everything in the game, but of course I’d do that anyway. Hey, I could dig it out and play it again, see how well I do. The one hidden thing I had the most trouble finding, and caved in and looked up the answer, concerns following a barrel shot out of a gun, and floating to the left past an arrow made of bananas, until the barrel hits a wall and opens up a bonus level. I think it’s in some swamp level or something?
Of course, thinking about the deadlier challenges in any game developed by Rare (Diddy’s Kong Quest, GoldenEye 007, Battletoads, Blast Corps) just makes DKC1 look worse by comparison.
You know, Miyamoto badmouthed DKC1, saying that the graphics were an excuse for weak gameplay or something like that, I don’t remmeber the precise quote but it’s unusual, it’s the only time I’ve ever heard that eternally-grinning guy say anything negative about anything.

DKC3 - Didn’t play this, had moved on from console games by the time it came out. That’s amusingly Capcom-esque of Nintendo to put that game out that late in the SNES’ lifespan. You say there were story/adventure elements added? No me gusta.

I also never played Donkey Kong 64, and I remember people groaning pretty hard when that one was announced, Nintendo was being kept alive by Pokemon by that point.

But hey, you know what’s REALLY a five star game? The 1994 Game Boy DK game!!! It’s got a hundred levels and it rules!! I played it on Super Game Boy, remember that? It’d be towards the bottom of a list of five-star games if I could make one (if you want me to try and make a list, I will.) Go play it right now, it’s fucking great.