Don't agree on Donkey Kong. Jungle Beat was an awesome game, albiet very unusual - thanks to the control system. The game itself is fantastic.

DK64 was an abomination. I did play/finish it, but it almost drove me crazy. Talk about a collect-a-thon. Its BK's poor brother.

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I have another game to add to the list - and its a biggie... ZELDA.

As much as I enjoyed Twilight, it has almost completely LOST the essense that Zelda made famous, and was so much fun.

The core essence of Zelda - IMO - is all about exploration, item discovery, using items to open new branches, and becoming more powerful - so that you can actually ENTER new areas (without dying instantly).

Twilight lost this essence in several ways. Exploration was almost completely story driven, not item driven. Apart from (the now expected, and non-challenging) blowing up of rocks - it had almost no item driven exploration.

The places the game did have it, were not only built into the story - most of them were essential routes you had to follow to advance the story. The player is being led by the hand - there is minimal challenge relating to actually having to explore AND be creative.

Another whinge of mine - money. In all of the previous (console) Zelda titles, money becomes almost irrelevant (after a while). There is nothing useful to buy - why buy bombs when you can get them so easily? How about arrows? In all of Ocarinna, Wind Waker & Twilight - by the time I got near the end of the game, I couldn't care less about money. In Zelda 1 money is essential - you need to buy potions, and its useful to be able to buy bombs when needed. No freebies. In Twilight, not only could I score potions/healing at will - you barely need them... ever!

Which all leads to the difficulty level. When the game loses all difficulty, it becomes another type of game. You simply play it to see the story, and keep going until the end. This is one reason why length of the titles are so important (this is similar to the FF titles IMO, except they can be a LOT harder - esp. with bosses).

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My wish? Take the essence of Zelda 1 / 2, mix it with Link to the Past, and give me a REAL console version of Zelda (I don't even care if its a 2D title with a 3D engine...). It doesn't have to be long - but it DOES need to be hard. It does need a severe thinking process re: exploration and items - you need to use all of your items to advance regularly.

Add experience points (Zelda II), add magic points, learning of spells, lots of sword moves (that are not trivial to pull off!), difficult field enemies, important items that cost a LOT of money, etc.....................

(I've had my whinge - curious to know if anyone agrees me with, or if they think I am insane!).