Conker's Bad Fur Day was awarded the 2001 BAFTA Interactive Entertainment Award for sound. When he's scared, he looks it, and when he's pissed off players will actually be able to see his teeth showing in a frown.' Reviewers noted occasional drops in the frame rate, but most agreed it did not interfere with the gameplay. He remarked that 'Conker himself is equipped with an in-game facial animation system that realistically portrays his different moods as he travels the lands. Shane Satterfield of GameSpot went so far as to say that the game 'makes other Nintendo 64 games look like 16-bit software.' IGN's Matt Casamassina praised the detailed 3D worlds, 'fantastic' texture work, and cute character designs. Critics noted that the game featured a number of technical effects that were uncommon at the time, especially for a Nintendo 64 game, such as dynamic shadowing, colored lighting, large areas with a long draw distance, no distance fog, detailed facial animations, lip syncing, and individually rendered fingers on some characters. Many publications and websites declared the graphics were the best on the Nintendo 64.

On Metacritic, the game has an average score of 92 out of 100, which is considered 'universal acclaim'. Conker's Bad Fur Day received very positive reviews from video game critics.

Conkers bad fur day