[zwegner]

I enjoyed DK64 as a kid, but after replaying it recently, IMO it doesn't hold up too well. The collecting isn't bad (though the character switching makes it much worse). My main issue is the core gameplay/controls. Moving around feels unresponsive and sluggish, the action animations are really long, and hitboxes can be unintuitive. Banjo-Kazooie is better, but still not very snappy control-wise.

Super Mario 64, OTOH, holds up remarkably well: the controls flow so much faster and easier. It just feels natural to move around, with much less frustration. The camera is the biggest negative there, but that's a tough problem to solve for 3D open-world platformers, so I cut them some slack.