I really don't like how much I've had to reprimand Donkey Kong 64 for its faults so far, doubly so because of all the time I spent playing it as a kid. I loved this game to death, probably because of my naivety. Not only was I new to gaming, but I never cared about the aesthetics that come together to make an excellent game, or whether or not the stories were coherent in the slightest, I just cared about playing a game where I beat up bad guys and got rewarded for it. Oh how I wish I was still so naive. I may have been more scatterbrained in my early days, but my inability to pay attention to fickle details allowed me to enjoy games more. Now, I find fault in every form of media I turn to and I can't accept faults due to my obsessive compulsiveness. It truly blows.

But hey, if there's any level in Donkey Kong 64 that can bring me out of this sulking mood, it's Creepy Castle.

As similar to Whomp Fortress as it is, Creepy Castle has to be my favorite level in the game for a multitude of factors.

First of all, it only has one racing segment, which actually controls decently and requires sharp reflexes and skill, unlike half the other races in the game which often rely solely on blind luck.

Second, the level is massive and open. There are a ton of side paths, sure, but Creepy Castle is unique from the rest because it never feels like your being railroaded through specific sections of the level through corridors (except maybe in some indoor sections), unlike, well, every other freaking level in the game. This is just about as close as Donkey Kong 64 gets to a large-scale Banjo-Kazooie level. Then again, all of Banjo-Tooie's levels pretty much accomplished the same feat, but it's good to know that they put some effort into the level design for a change.

Third, this level is arduous in terms of difficulty, but unlike most of the other levels in the game it hardly ever resorts to cheap tactics to provide that difficulty. Most of the Golden Bananas in this level are obtained through puzzle solving or pure platforming skills, and the only ones that don't often involve playing a buggy minigame or two.

Now let's get into the specifics of this level, mainly certain Golden Bananas I had trouble with or other aspects that stood out in my eyes.

First things first, and I've been dying to get this out of my head since I started writing this entry, I love this level's mine cart ride. Whereas the first two rides were on-rails duck-and-dodge obstacle courses, this time around you can jump between two tracks, and at multiple points on the ride you literally fight off a demon. Well, maybe not fight him off, but partway through the ride, a huge, floating, demonic crocodile apparition appears and starts swiping at you. Not only is this a refreshing (and frightening) change of pace from the first two mine cart sections, but it's also easier, since you only need 25 coins to get the Golden Banana at the end.

Not all of Creepy Castle is a bundle of roses, however. There were a few sections that quite annoyed me when I attempted them, and the one that immediately springs to mind is the platforming section with Tiny where you have to jump between a group of hands that rise and fall out of a vat of instantly-fatal acid. You have to glide between them using the hair twirl technique, but the fingers on the statues keep getting in the way of my timed jumps, which makes it difficult to analyze a safe pattern to the Golden Banana at the edge of the room.

...weird, those are really the only two Golden Bananas that I remember distinctly. Some others involve going through a maze as Lanky in a similar fashion to Sandybutt's Tomb from the first Banjo-Kazooie, and there's also one where, if I recall correctly, you have to navigate a hostile library as Donkey Kong using his invincibility barrels, much like the haunted library from Super Mario 64.

In fact... that's why this level is so great in hindsight... it lifts challenges from other good games. Well, mostly. The above-mentioned mine cart ride was pretty cool, but other than that, this level isn't terribly original. Well, I'll give them credit where credit is due, at least they didn't attempt to ruin it with more artificial difficulty.

Oh, and the level's boss is awesome.

Don't be fooled, guys. This isn't actually K.Rool. Rather, you get to fight a large, cardboard cut-out version of King K.Rool. It's just as goofy as it sounds.

The fight is actually really difficult, too, all things considered. He may just be a cheap imitation of K.Rool, but that doesn't stop him from being able to fire fricking laser beams at you. There are four blast cannons on the center island, each pointing towards one of the castle walls. To damage King Kut-Out, you have to enter one of these cannons just as he pokes his head out from behind the wall the cannon is facing towards. Time it wrong, and you lose a Kong (hey, that rhymes), and if you miss with all 5, you lose the battle. It gets harder and harder to avoid accidentally doing this as the fight goes on, since King Kut-Out never stays still for a second when you've hit him enough times, and he even creates a fake hologram version of himself just to trip you up. Still, if your coordination skills are up to snuff, King Kut-Out is a pushover, but he's still a legitimately fun boss to fight and a fitting one to go out on.

Well, now I just feel like a jerk. That was a pitiful amount of writing for what I consider to be the game's shining moment. I think now would be a good time to gloss over the minigames that this game is practically plagued with. In order according to the game's official Wiki page:

• Speedy Swing Sortie: Nothing much to say about this one. If you had trouble swinging on vines in the tutorial stage, you'll probably have a hard time with this one, because it's exactly the same thing as that. Very original.
• Mad Maze Maul: God, I love the music in this minigame. In this challenge, you have to traverse a maze and defeat all the goons inside before reaching the finish line. It can get aggravating wandering left and right for the sole enemy you left behind, but the music more than makes up for it, in my opinion.
• Splish Splash Salvage: Another lazily-copied tutorial minigame, this one has you swimming around collecting coins this time. You'd have to be rather screwed in the head to have any trouble with this one, although the swimming controls are somewhat stiff.
• Minecart Mayhem (pictured below): This one's a doozy. To win, you have to switch tracks constantly to avoid the TNT barrels charging after you. Often times you will end up trapped between the barrels on a corner, and in that case there's nothing you can do but restart and hope the next path you take is a little more successful. Very annoying.

• Stealthy Snoop: Same thing as Mad Maze Maul, except this time you're avoiding the guards with flashlights and simply trying to get to the exit. Thankfully, it's the only forced stealth section in the game, and it isn't too grating if you know what you're doing.

• Teetering Turtle Trouble (pictured on the right): Oddly enough, this is the only section of Donkey Kong 64 where the snake enemies from the first game are shown, let alone turtles. Six snakes are practicing a balancing act by spinning turtle shells on their tails, but can't keep up the act without food, so, of course, the most reliable course of action would be to fire watermelons at their faces at a high velocity. I find it funny when the snakes yelp out 'Help!' when they get low on energy; it sounds so cheesy.

• Big Bug Bash: Ooh, I hate this one. In this minigame, you inexplicably turn into a flyswatter and have to, well, swat the flies. Except these flies never sit still, like they're hyped up on caffeine or something. There's really no correct way to beat this one other than to mash the A button repeatedly and hope to God that you hit enough bugs to win.

• Kremling Kosh (pictured on the left): The game's glorified 'Whack-A-Mole' minigame. Simply shoot the crocs that pop out of the barrels to score points. Red ones are worth more but are much harder to hit because they pop back into the barrels too fast. You almost have to guess where those guys will pop out if you want the bonus points, but it's easy enough to win even without hitting one of them.

• Peril Path Panic: If you've played Banjo-Kazooie, this is pretty much the minigame where you have to protect the Twinklies from getting devoured by the monsters in the floorboards, except swap the Twinklies and the monsters for banana fairies and crocodiles. I hardly ever have trouble with this one, except the noise the fairies make when they get eaten is kinda disturbing.

• Beaver Bother: Oh dear lord, this one is the worst of the lot hands down. You play as a Klaptrap who has to scare a bunch of beavers into the pit in the center of the ring. What makes this minigame so goddamn aggravating is that the beavers actually tend to get hung on the edges of the hole, as if there was some form of reverse magnetism emanating from the hole. The only surefire way to get the beavers to fall in is to approach them from the side and scare them, and even that takes a lot of trial and error. I've spent so many bloody hours trying to complete them, especially the ones that have you heard twenty beavers into the hole. To give you a mental picture, there are only four beavers in play at once, and you're given thirty seconds. Yeah, not fun.
• Batty Barrel Bandit: This one is a slot machine minigame. Thankfully, it isn't luck-based; you just have to stop each reel on the Golden Banana individually by pressing the A button. The game will make you do it 3 or 4 times, but it gives you a lot of time to do it, so it's one of the more tolerable minigames.
• Stash Snatch: Ugh... ANOTHER maze minigame. The only thing that's different about this one is that you're collecting coins this time around. Next.
• Searchlight Seek: This is pretty much the less frustrating version of the flyswatter minigame. You are a spotlight with a crosshair shining down onto the ground, and you have to find and nail the Klaptraps hiding in the darkness. Fortunately, there isn't a whole lot of ground to cover, so you won't have to search that hard, but it can be frustrating at times, especially because the Klaptraps move around all the time.

• Busy Barrel Barrage (pictured to the right): In this minigame, you're ambushed by Kremlings, but unbeknownst to them, you have an infinite supply of ammo and an itchy trigger finger. You can't move, but shooting the shit out of everything that comes at you sure is satisfying, doubly so for when you do Chunky's version, since his pineapples down them in one shot.

• Krazy Kong Klamour (pictured to the left): Another shooting gallery minigame, although this time the Kongs are in your way and the lights flicker on and off. Shooting the Golden Banana gets you closer to your goal, but accidentally nail a Kong and you lose a point. Sometimes it's hard to tell whether or not I accidentally hit a Kong because they make so much damn noise during this minigame.

Well, those are all the minigames. I hate to cut it short again, but pretty soon we'll be edging our way towards the game's final boss and ending, and then maybe I'll end up doing my own little review on the game's page, I dunno. Until that time, take care, everyone.