Banjo-Kazooie was a sport that revolutionised platforming on the N64: Uncommon’s off-the-wall-humour, inventive degree design, and stylish controls made it the top of platforming on Nintendo’s console. Followers of the unique will probably bear in mind the developer’s lavish in-game guarantees concerning the sequel, Banjo-Tooie, together with the power to swap gadgets with the unique Banjo (therefore the hidden ‘Cease ‘N’ Swap’ gadgets). And whereas these goals by no means materialised due to issues from Nintendo, we had been nonetheless left with a fairly spectacular sequel.
Beginning out at Banjo’s residence on Spiral Mountain, Tooie begins a few years after the occasions of the primary outing. Banjo and co. are all protected and comfortable enjoying playing cards in his home, Grunty continues to be wedged firmly beneath a boulder, Klungo continues to be despairing over his mistress’ destiny, and issues couldn’t be higher. Which, after all, simply means issues are sure to worsen. Grunty’s grotesque sisters Daz and Damo Mingella and Blobbelda promptly arrive on the scene; two ugly sisters whose noisy entrance via a rock face in a monstrous digging contraption heralds an awesome tragedy within the bear and hen’s lives.
Upon arrival, the witches whip out the spell guide and liberate Grunty from her worm-ridden enclosure, discovering that two years beneath a rock has diminished our favorite rhyming hag to skeletal kind. Reunited, the trio assault Banjo’s residence, killing Bottles in a spell of malevolent magnitude earlier than escaping within the digger.
With this shock begin to the sport, Banjo and Kazooie got down to search revenge on skeletal Grunty and her siblings, following them to beforehand uncharted places. Whereas they’re monitoring down the sisters, nonetheless, the grotesque, er, threesome are plotting to make use of a contraption referred to as the Massive-O-Blaster to suck the lifeforce from the whole world and thus restore Grunty to her former, fleshy glory. Beginning with King Jinjaling, the depraved witches set the clock ticking on the world’s vitality, and solely Banjo and Kazooie stand between them and victory. Unbearlievable!
From the outset, identical to the story, all the things in Tooie appears grandiose, bigger than life, and barely overwhelming in comparison with its humble predecessor. Arriving within the Jinjo village for the primary time alerts the sheer magnitude of this sport: there’s lots to do and discover right here, and that is simply the primary a part of the hub world – and there are numerous different elements to the Isle O’ Hags that might swallow Spiral Mountain in a single gulp.
Getting into a degree in Banjo-Tooie is a bit prefer it was in Kazooie. Every world’s dimension is sort of a shock (sorry, Grunty’s rhymes are fairly contagious, apologies to all who discover this outrageous!)…
Ahem. As an alternative of getting ranges that may be accomplished in a single sitting, Tooie’s phases have been particularly designed to tie in with one another via tunnels and different means with a extra ‘open-world’ strategy. You’ll be able to’t 100% end a degree till you are a lot of the manner via the sport and have entry to the linked areas and later-game skills.
That is puzzling at first, as it isn’t clear that hopping between ranges is required – you will be questioning how you can get some Jiggies, solely to seek out a number of hours later that you simply achieve entry to them by way of one other degree. However this design to attach all the degrees collectively is befitting of the sport’s expansive strategy and good gas on your typical completionist – relying in your talent and familiarity with the geography, there’s round 20 hours of content material right here, and whereas it can get overwhelming, it is nonetheless totally fulfilling. Because the 12 months 2000, we have all turn into far more used to navigating huge, open-world areas, too.
The degrees themselves are richly designed: from the circus to a prehistoric land; from the ocean depths to a run-down mine, the settings are numerous and atmospheric – and actually exhibit the ’64 at its peak. You will marvel on the selection and really feel enchanted by this quirky fairytale. The core loop of the unique continues to be there: you get a number of Jiggies; a brand new world opens up; repeat till witch is defeated and you have collected completely all the things. After all, Tooie is all about accumulating musical notes and all method of different strange objects, however now there may be much more of it. Gone are the times of finishing a degree in 5 or ten minutes; Banjo-Tooie massively expands the canvas, and some cracks begin to seem.
A few of these cracks are attributable to a trait not typically exhibited by sequels: our heroes retain all their strikes from the primary outing, which is fairly useful. Or is it? It is ironic that as a result of Uncommon opted to maintain the primary sport’s strikes from the beginning – one thing which many individuals get irked about not occurring in sequels – the crew put itself in a little bit of a pickle. No new strikes would imply little selection, however an expanded moveset would get cumbersome.
With Bottles’ lack of a corporeal kind, the intrepid adventurers look in direction of Jamjars – the deceased mole’s tough-stuff brother – to show them new strikes. Foremost amongst them is having the ability to break up the duo up: Banjo and Kazooie can enterprise via ranges on their very own, with an entire host of latest skills – Kazooie even learns to hatch eggs! The gameplay is drastically modified when the duo break up, and you must assume outdoors the field (effectively, backpack in our feathery buddy’s case).
Nonetheless, splitting up and getting misplaced shouldn’t be enjoyable and, given the scope of the degrees, it’s typically unclear what you truly must do. Jamjars’ different additions, equivalent to utilizing Kazooie as a gun FPS-style (in contained environments – you’ll be able to’t simply undergo the whole sport in first-person mode), the invoice drill, spring sneakers, and the brand new egg sorts vary from enjoyable to just a bit an excessive amount of to handle, particularly when the strikes from the primary sport are all nonetheless there. Biking via 5 forms of eggs is not notably eggciting.
After which now we have the introduction of Mumbo Jumbo as a playable character. Primarily, all he’s used for is to seek out the particular Mumbo pads and activate them, after which you come back to his hut. Sadly, controlling the poor shaman provides comparatively little worth.
Nonetheless, Tooie balances problem with practically all of the management precision of its predecessor: it is solely fractionally much less fluid on the subject of the brand new strikes, which nonetheless places it manner above most different video games. Transformations are again (you truly get to play because the washer this time, and a dinosaur!) but it surely’s Humba Wumba who works her magic and transforms the bear and hen – poor Mumbo actually will get a uncooked deal.
Stage bosses additionally come into the fray for the primary time, starting from an enormous patchwork-balloon dinosaur to an previous, grumpy lump of coal, and a pterodactyl. These additions add much more humour and depth than the primary outing. Perhaps extra depth than we would have liked, however solely simply.
However is being too massive actually a serious flaw? Not in our opinion – and positively not after years of open-world expertise. Performed on authentic {hardware}, the sport’s actual flaw is its notoriously unreliable — effectively, reliably poor — body charge. As with Uncommon’s different late-cycle N64 releases, it stretches the console to breaking level – after which stretches some extra. The Xbox and Uncommon Replay re-releases resolved this situation, and it performs a lot smoother by way of Nintendo Change On-line, too. Simply one thing to pay attention to in the event you’re plugging in an authentic cart.
The one different factor to barely dim this sensible fairytale journey is the backseat place taken by villain Gruntilda. Now not does she tease and provoke you together with her couplets; she simply appears to be there on the finish to dish out a superb beating.
General, Banjo-Tooie is a incredible sport stuffed with all the variability and creativeness you’d count on from Uncommon’s glory days, though the vastness of the sport makes it exhausting to squeeze each single drop of enjoyable from it. With the choice for four-player GoldenEye-style deathmatches, issues can get hilarious with a number of buddies round, too, even when it is comparatively short-lived.
Conclusion
Banjo-Tooie is an excellent time. The degrees are fantastically crafted, the humour is ever-present, and plenty of care has gone into creating an journey of epic proportions. It stands above most different platformers on the market, but it surely does fall wanting perfection just because it overreaches. The worlds are barely too massive, there are a number of extra strikes than obligatory, and enjoying as Mumbo Jumbo, sadly, added little of worth. Nonetheless, do not let this detract from the truth that Banjo-Tooie is without doubt one of the gems in Nintendo’s platforming historical past: with wealthy degree design, sensible gameplay, and the identical appeal which made the unique so particular, this one is effectively price getting maintain of.
