Heya all!
I got a lot of interesting comments talking about the DK64 references in the Bananza Direct and the Wii U release of DK64 - so I thought I’d share a couple of thoughts about those with all of you!

So first - the DK64 release on the Wii U VC.
That one, is actually quite interesting because I remember back in the day people were unsure if DK64 would ever be released on the Wii U.
The reason?
Well, Nintendo did not port it onto the Wii.
The Wii already had featured plenty of N64 games - yet DK64 was never released.
People were already speculating in 2014 that Nintendo did not want to release the game because it was made by Rare and the fact that they released it actually caused a lot of hype back in the day!

The video script originally contained a bit about this release on the Wii U ( we would have speculated that they decided to release it onto the Wii U because the console was doing so terrible ) but I ended up cutting this fun baseless speculation - because it ended up not really mattering for the argument that the video is about.

The Wii U release happened over a decade ago and Nintendo may very well have changed their stance towards the DK brand since then (the same is true for the release of K. Rool in smash btw. - that happened seven years ago).

I think the point at which they really began to distance themselves from the Donkey Kong that Rare defined is likely around the time when development of Donkey Kong Bananza began.

But the claim that Nintendo is trying to distance themselves from the DK that Rare defined raises another really interesting question.
A question that a lot of you rightfully brought up in the comments: Why does Nintendo reference elements of DK64 in Bananza if they want to distance themselves from the Donkey Kong games of that era?

I think what they are doing is cherry picking certain elements of DK’s past that they like (like Diddy, or Cranky, or barrels, and so on) and recontextualize those to turn them into their own tropes.
A great example of this is the “Oh Banana” sound.
DK’s original “Oh Banana” is a very different sound in 64 then it is in Bananza.
In DK64 Donkey moans the banana giving off the feeling that finding the Banana is extremely pleasurable and causing DK to sound kind of dumb in the process.
( youtube.com/watch?v=S-Eyhq-D9yM )

The sound effect in Bananza however has a completely different vibe - it is much more upbeat and gives us the feeling that finding the Banana makes DK happy - instead of it causing him pleasure. ( youtube.com/watch?v=mIddsPkdX9U&t=106s )

What they are doing is taking certain elements from the past and spinning them into something new - while at the same time getting rid of other elements that they don’t like (like K. Rool as the antagonist).

So I think it is fair to speculate that the reason why Nintendo never released DK64 (and Diddy Kong racing btw.) on the Switch VC, is because there are certain elements in those games that they don’t want modern audiences to associate with the brand.

As to all those people asking me whether I really did not know that it is possible to shoot in Jetpac …
Well, yes!
I never figured out that this is possible in the game as a kid and somehow it never occurred to me in half a dozen playthroughs as an adult that this might be possible.
Realising this made me chuckle a lot.

Thank you all for your interesting comments and I’m really looking forward to finding out how all of this is going to play out once we actually get our hands on Bananza!

You were saying?

I love the line "Can pick up a boulder with relative ease"
Not with ease, but with relative ease. It's mildly difficult for him.

Slight correction: Banjo is trying to save his sister, not girlfriend.
Edit: apparently most people think Spiral Mountain is in Alabama...

It's hard to explain how much DK 64 is in Bananza without massive spoilers, but suffice to say they clearly don't want us to forget lol

19:52 "Children media usually doesn't contain different fart sounds/melon puns"

In the 90s? The era of Ren and Stimpy having a sentient fart and Animaniacs going "Helloooo nurse!" .
And not like more modern stuff, be it Adventure Time or Amazing World of Gumball is devoid of fart jokes and innuendo.

An interesting thing about the lag issue: Famously, in the opening cutscene of Banjo Tooie in its Xbox rerelease, the sound is completely out of sync, because there was so much going on causing massive lag on the N64 that wasn't an issue for the 360 to process, so you end up with the music stopping way before the custscene is over. I made a sax quartet cover of the music from that cutscene, which I lined up with the original laggy version, and in the process of transcribing it I discoverd that Grant Kirkhope had written so many tiny tempo changes in seemingly random places to compensate, most likely done on the fly so they could make it line up with the video as they were struggling to get it to run well. And there's something beautiful about that to me. The technical limitations of the game console forced the music to be less rigid and somehow more natural, as if it was a conductor was leading an orchestra based on his feelings instead of a machine reading a "perfectly" paced digital MIDI file. Absolute pain in the arse to record in real life, but well worth the experience.

I don't think they're ashamed at all. They're still using the DK rap in Bananza, and the Kong family showed up in the Mario movie.

It's not true that the Kremlings were never used after DK 64. They were the primary antagonists of DK King of Swing and Jungle Climber, as well as the GBA ports of the original trilogy (the ports were actually developed by Rare, btw). Brand new Kremlings were introduced in Donkey Kong Barrel Blast. Kremlings also appeared in Mario Strikers and Mario Super Sluggers.

Your jetpack footage makes me believe you didn't know at the time of recording, that you could shoot. No wonder it took you hours

Imagine if Nintendo just decides to release DK64 on NSO later this month or next month lol

There are many reasons as to why the idea that Nintendo "wants us to forget about DK64" is wrong, but adding to this:
Diddy's peanut popgun and jetpack became a really iconic part of his character, from Smash Brawl to Returns and Tropical Freeze.

Jetpack will be easier for you when you realize you can shoot the enemies.

The video really should have waited for Bananza's release, the finale of the game was basically just a huge love letter to Rare era DK, ESPECIALLY 64 during the final battle.

This video for sure got the "I get the feeling the video creator didn't grow up in the 90s "moments.

THEY REMEMBERED

This video gets some things wrong, but the most frustrating part is that you can really tell this video was made before all the recent Bananza news. The references to DK64 in Bananza make it abundantly clear Nintendo doesn't feel ashamed of the game, and even then, you have recent examples like K. Rool in Smash and the DK Rap in Illumination's Mario movie that suggest Nintendo doesn't want to erase Rare's influence on the IP or anything of that ilk. I think the reason DK64 hasn't been rereleased on NSO (yet) is as simple as the game being very difficult to emulate correctly, which you touch upon in the video.

One minute in and there are already already huge mistakes.

- Tiny appeared in DKC2 GBA and DKC3 GBA as a cameo and in Diddy Kong Racing DS, Donkey Kong Jet Race and Mario Super Sluggers as a playable character
- Lanky appeared less, as a cameo in DKC3 GBA and as a playable character in DK Jet Race
- Chunky only appeared as cameos but one of those was in the Mario Movie which I would count as a major appearance considering his only playable instance was in DK64.
- K. Rool appears in King of Swing and Jungle Climber as the antagonist and as a playable character in DK Jet Race, Mario Super Sluggers and smash Ultimate.
- DK 64 was released on the WiiU Virtual Console
- The DK Rap was very prominently featured in the Mario Movie, which only appeared in DK64 and as a remix in Bananza and Smash games afaik

Also Bananza has the "Oh Banana" as a reference to DK64. Why would they do any of that if they are ashamed of the game and completely wanted to erase DK64 from gamers' minds?

I don’t think Nintendo is trying to erase this game. I mean they put Diddy Kong’s jet pack and peanut guns in smash bros, as well as the Donkey Kong Rap, and King K. Rool is a playable character with boxing gloves from DK64. Not to mention Tiny Kong not only appeared again in the franchise, but she even grew older and became a teenager.

I think the only thing you brought up that might be the ACTUAL reason DK64 hasn't gotten a re-release or is coming to NSO is because of the emulation issue where decreasing the game's lag actually makes certain tasks nearly impossible. All the rest just doesn't really match up well. The kind of humor presented in DK64 is textbook humor and "coolness" aimed at kids in the 90s. The bad rap, the toilet humor, the inappropriate suggestive humor. That stuff was prevalent in the 90s in kids shows (at least in the states, but I'm pretty sure it was popular in Shonen anime as well). Banjo-Kazooie had all kinds of gross humor, too. Including the part in Mad Monster Mansion where you need to go down a toilet to get a jiggy. And while a bit sanitized, the DK Rap wouldn't be used in current content (it's in the DK Bananza Direct, even), if they wanted us to completely forget that game ever existed.

It really probably is just the lack of lag that is the issue they haven't found a solution for. And I'm not sure if they have the rights to remaster the game as of now, either.