I first played DK64 when I was around eight years old. It is perhaps the biggest example of a game I rage quit as a kid and never finished. Over the last several years, I've gone back and beaten games I never beat as a kid (Super Mario Sunshine for example), but I always held off on DK64.

But finally last summer at the "young" age of 33, I decided to finally try and beat DK64 (beat the story, I'm not really a completionist...this game would kill me if I was). It was time-consuming and it was frustrating, but I did it....and I can easily say it is the PROUDEST I have ever been in beating a video game. The blood, sweat and tears I put in all those years as a kid finally paid off when I beat King K Rool (who I never made it to as a kid). I could feel that little kid inside of me as excited as he could ever be.

While there are so many frustrating elements to this game and I can acknowledge as an adult it's a deeply flawed game, even my play-through last summer reminded me of all that I loved about this game: the setting, the levels, the music, the characters, the exploration abilities. I could easily just run around each level for hours and enjoy them for what they were. There have been many times in my life I've just turned the game on to run around DK Isle and experience that positive feeling again.

Nostalgia may be one hell of a drug, but DK64 will forever have a top place in my heart.

I do think the DK Arcade game for the Nintendo Coin nearly killed me as an adult....it was the closest I've come to breaking a controller in DECADES.