Donkey Kong 64

[A Black Falcon]

I think we all know I love this game.  I still consider it one of the best 3d platformers ever made and I'm sticking to that.  It's high on my list of the best in the genre.  Top ten certainly, maybe higher.  On the subject of the mod which lets you switch characters though, I have never used it but my big problem with it conceptually is that having to get back to those points with the other characters' powers is a major element of the game, and getting rid of that would gut huge elements of the game entirely out of existence!  Sure it'd make the game a lot shorter, but it'd also make it less interesting and, I would say, worse.  Sure, sometimes it's just 'walk down this corridor with everyone', but a lot of the time each characters' abilities are necessary to get back to that point and I'd never think that the game would be removed by getting rid of all of that in favor of just being able to get everything outright.  No way.

As for criticism though, I do have one: the four player splitscreen third person shooter style versus battle mode is... not great.  It's serviceable at best and isn't really worth playing over the many better shooters on the system.