Nuts & Bolts was the hero we didn't want nor did we deserve. Listen to my insane ramblings for a bit; Nuts and Bolts is a better game than Banjo-Tooie in virtually every way and is an admirable follow-up to Banjo-Kazooie if you give it an honest chance.

It's a game that on the surface is wildly different than its predecessors, but the fundamental gameplay loop is the same. Nuts & Bolts has all the charming whimsical weirdness of its prequels, with a beautiful presentation of strange cartoony worlds accompanied by fantastic music. The game made me laugh out loud at some of its sharp writing, and the game even takes a mocking stab at its roots in the opening, claiming that people don't want collectathons anymore. This is either a proud declaration of intent or a scathing indictment of its past.

The funny thing is that people hyper-fixate on the vehicle-building portion of the game as if it's the problem. And make no bones about it, it's certainly a different approach. But it's a different tool to answer the same question the previous games asked, which is how much nonsensical minigames can we make people do and how much shit can they collect before they get tired of it? Because in Nuts & Bolts, you're still serving the same means of the last two games, but instead of learning new moves from Bottles or doing some asinine minigame from Tooie, you're building vehicles to do that same thing you've been doing in previous games. Which might not be everyone's cup of tea, sure, but it's still the same mission-statement the last two games had; do some wacky shit to collect some trinkets. But now said wacky shit involves making penis vehicles with jet engines in the balls and a laser cannon in the shaft, and then blowing shit up, which I think is probably in the spirit of what Rare was expecting of its players.

Judging the three games, B-K gets further and further away from its platforming roots with each successive game and replacing it with weird minigames and exploration. Tooie tries to have its cake and eat it too, and as a result is a bloated mess of a game with too many collectable trinkets, and big empty worlds to explore supplemented by the occasional minigame. At the very least Nuts & Bolts knows what it is, and it perfects what Tooie tried going for by making it a fun adventure game with a variety of silly shit to do.

If a game like Tears of the Kingdom can somehow tack on a building mechanic nobody asked for and be judged less harshly for it, I think Nuts & Bolts deserves to be revisited and exonerated at some point. It was still clearly a labor of love for Rare and also a daring deviation from expectations. I still adore it, arguably as much as the original game.

A terrible sequel to a beloved franchise but not a terrible game. It's a product of Rare not listening to criticism and what fans want. I don't make a habit of reviewing games I never beaten. I did play this game enough to know what I'm talking about. But I'm telling a story of why Yooka-Laylee is the way it is and why many Rareware's fall from grace.

We last left off with Banjo-Tooie(Go check out my N64 review for more details on that.) To sum up, for near a decade people made 2 main complaints about DK64 and Tooie. Worlds are too big. The game is tedious.

Fast forward to Microsoft buying Rare and the famous Banjo is Back trailer. It teases Banjo learning new moves. Traditional Banjo style gameplay. Fast forward to 2008 when the game comes out. It's a vehicle platformer no one asked for or wanted.

Why did this happen? Rare had 2 plans prior to vehicle platformer that would have been amazing. A remake of Banjo-Kazooie except things are slightly off and start to change. The duo start noticing something is off. Great idea. The second idea was, Grunty chasing BK around all game annoying them as they play a traditionally collectathon. Also great!

So what happened? Rare happened. This has never been Microsoft's fault. It has been well documented that while making stages for what was a traditional Banjo game, Rare realized they were too big. It would be tedious. So here we are, Rare didn't listen again to criticisms of their last 2 collectathons. So now they have to solve the problem of traversing this world. "Vehicle Platformer solves our problems!" And thus, Nuts n Bolts became what it is.

It is hard for me to believe Rare is that incompetent to not know what fans expect from a Banjo sequel. They knew people expected a collectathon platformer where they learn new moves to traverse the world. It is beyond me why they thought vehicle platformer was a good idea. They even knew fans would hate it as they tried to minimize the blowback by saying, play it before you complain. So here is another case of Rare not listening to fans.

Let's talk more about the game itself and why it's not a bad game like many claim. It's building mechanics are great. It has a robust physics engine that feels mostly great. It can be fun to build your own monstrosity of a vehicle to solve one puzzle. It is satisfying. The game looks good too.

The hub world is also really neat. It's the most the games feels like traditional Banjo. A lot of it is done on foot. The music as usual is very good as well.

The problem here is that it's not Banjo. Even Grant Kurkope, the composer for all Banjo music said, "Nuts n Bolts isn't a bad game. It just should never have been a Banjo game." There are so many times, you just want to get out of your vehicle and just solve stuff on foot as you did in all other Banjo games. That expectation and urge to do that would not be there if this didn't have a Banjo skin on it.

Another way Rare shows utter contempt for Banjo fans is by actively taunting them. A character called Lord of Games aka LOG actively makes fun of the players by mentioning collectathons and platforms as things no one wants to play anymore. LOG does this a lot. It's a bad look. Rare knowing that they made something that fans of Banjo would not like or expect from the series and actively pushing their buttons. Actively telling them their nostalgia is bad. And then wondering, why do they hate us and this game so much?

I will say, I don't hate the art style. It works. Is it my favorite, no. Do I hate it, no. They wanted to modernize it. That's fine. It makes sense. We are no longer on the N64. It's a good middle ground.

Stop n Swap comes to it's final conclusion here. It unlocks some building materals for your vehicles. Cool? I guess. It's just disappointing that 10 years of Stop n Swap and it literally being revived amounted up to, some custom parts in a vehicle platformer no one asked for or wanted.

The story is cute, but yet again, LOG ruins it. The stages are neat. Some are infuriating to get around. One being very cramped and vertical. So any slight mistake with the loose controls will send you falling down and failing the challenge.
Banjo Land is a pleasure though as it takes old assets from BK 1 and 2. That was a great trip back into nostalgia. But yet again, our nostalgia is bad, right LOG!? Even though you made a whole level based on nostalgia.

There is only so many types of challenges you can do with vehicles. So the game gets repeatitive. And if you are bad at being creative with building vehicles it just get frustrating. Things get harder and harder yet you have to change up your vehicle for each challenge. Make it better than ever before. And that is the major flaw of the gameplay loop. It's all based on your ability to make good vehicles. If you are not able to do that, then it isn't fun.

This isn't a bad game. It just should never have been a Banjo game. It proves that Rare just didn't listen criticism and didn't care about what fans wanted. And then this will lead directly into Yooka-Laylee and the problems it has.

The biggest crime of Nuts & Bolts isn’t anything to do with Nuts & Bolts, but more that there wasn’t a Banjo-Threeie prior to its release. Even though it was clear that it was not a platformer, a lot of reviewers held this against the game instead of reviewing it based on what the game actually is.

Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts is about building vehicles and contraptions to complete challenges. Building the vehicles is a lot of fun and is designed to be easy to work. Slap some stuff together and it’ll probably move. There is some physics involved, but unless you massively weigh down one side, your vehicle likely won’t topple over.

You start off with wheels and engines, and add other parts like propellers (for water and air usage), floaters, wings, weapons and all sorts of other gadgets like springs, detachers and a self destruct. There’s a good mix of parts which are useful for challenges, some that are just for fun and some which are just to add a bit of visual flair (like the objects gained from “Stop ‘n’ Swop” (which involves collecting items in Banjo-Kazooie).

This means all sorts of vehicles can be made, and you can create some unique ideas to try and “cheat” the challenges. There are some Jinjo challenges which require you to hit a certain speed. My vehicle of choice for this was a seat with a spring on it. For some challenges you’ll modify your vehicle a bit after each attempt (one thing to note is doing this is now much better due to the incredibly short load times on the Xbox Series).

Each level consists of 5 or 6 acts, each with multiple challenges. Notes hidden in the level are just one set, so you can collect them in any act. Banjo characters will have different costumes in each level and “act out” other roles -the Banjo humour is very much alive and well.

The hub world, Showdown Town, takes a different approach. Here you just have the standard trolley, which gets upgraded as you defeat bosses. Navigating Showdown Town is more of a vehicle platformer, and has you hunting for crates containing more parts.

Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts gets overlooked because of what it’s not, but it’s definitely worth a look.

Tried my best to get into it but it just didnt do it for me, Banjo Kazooie and Tooie hold a very special place in my heart and I had to see what their next adventure entailed but sadly this just isnt it

Looking at this as a continuation of a long dormant franchise(8 years the time of release and now going on 16! years since this game came out) it's pretty insulting, going from the gold standard in 3d platforming to a Lego-style car creation sandbox just didnt work especially considering there was little to no vehicle sections aside from a minecart in the previous Banjo games, I guess Banjo Pilot was used for inspiration? LOL Physics in this game just don't work

Now judging the game on it's own merits, I found it boring at it's best and tedious/frusterating at it's worst, nothing beats the feeling of spending 20-30 mins creating the perfect vehicle just to have it get smoked in the following mission. I did give this game a try a total of about 4 diffrent times and always ended up dropping it

I enjoyed the levels provided, the level in which you are inside a game system is a highlight and it is good to see our favorite characters come back, but most of the new characters are either annoying or unmemorable and the character design is very hit or miss, thank God they used Banjo's old design in Smash Bros

Hopefully we will see the bear and bird make the triumphent return they deserve outside of the driver's seat next time

2/10

An alright sandbox vehicle building game that was kinda ahead of it's time, doomed to fail by the developers' overconfidence that the gameplay was just so good that people would forgive the tacked-on use of the Banjo-Kazooie IP, as well as just trying to sell a game like this to the Xbox audience that's allergic to all colourful whimsical kiddy things, we all know how that went for Blinx, right?

The biggest praise i can give for this game is that it's better than most of JonTron's content since Flex Tape, which is basically just glorified reaction videos. Nuts-&-Boltsbros won in the end

When the topic of Nuts and Bolts comes up, I can't help but wonder if an entire generation was fooled into thinking this game was the devil, all because an overreactive e-celeb exaggerated its flaws to the point of drowning out any proper discussion. There's obviously the original teaser misleading people, and fans desperately expecting a Banjo-Threeie, but was the hate truly deserved?

The plot of N&B is about God himself intervening in a potential Banjo-Threeie situation, and declaring that his funny car game would be a better way to settle our duo's bitter rivalry with the witch. Can't exactly say no to God, so this is our lot in life now. Everyone is here, even if they've all been repurposed for various roles in LOG's game.

A good place to start is probably presentation, seeing as the new art style frequently causes people to recoil in terror at first sight. I wouldn't say I prefer it over the original's more outwardly cartoonish look, but I wouldn't call it bad, it even grew on me after a while. It's a good middle ground, carrying over the somewhat blocky look of N64 models. Everything looks like it's been manufactured or scrounged together, which does fit the scrappy tone of making funny vehicles. Even the more "organic" areas like Nutty Acres have giant gears on the outer walls, and metal clouds dangling from wires high above. The real showstopper in this game is Grant Kirkhope and his compositions. The whimsical melodies of the N64 games have been enhanced into these enchanting pieces done by a full orchestra. This style of music fits the bear and bird like a backpack and a pair of pants.

Even when vehicle construction is thrown into the mix, Banjo and Kazooie can't seem to escape their collectathon roots. Funnily enough, the area that does it best is the hub, Showdown Town. You gotta use your trolley to escort crates back to Mumbo's shop to redeem valuable parts, bring Jiggies back to the town square to "bank" them, and take globes out to their pedestals in order to open up new stages. As you defeat Gruntilda in each stage, a new ability gets added to your cart, and the hub opens up little by little. The levels themselves take on a structure akin to SM64 or Sunshine. They're split up into "acts", with each act containing a certain collection of missions. Like the aforementioned 3D Mario games, each act usually contains a slightly tweaked level layout, or continuity with the previous acts' missions.

So, each level is a big empty hub with a handful of NPCs that dole out challenges. Without going into the nitty-gritty, each challenge uses these massive hubs for a surprising variety of tasks. I'd describe mission types in more detail, but I think my blueprint list (in reverse-chronological order) speaks for itself. Same for the workshop; it's surprisingly versatile, and if you can imagine a fucked up contraption, chances are there's a way to make it. That's this game's strongest appeal: Seeing a challenge, and having a twisted spark of inspiration, and personally creating an abomination that somehow gets the job done. This is also why LOG is a shitty game designer! A decent amount of challenges lock you into "LOG's choice" vehicles, which wholly misses the point of making your own funny machines to solve problems. If a mission dictates a "LOG's choice" machine, it will either be pathetically easy or obnoxiously hard and unfun. There is no in-between.

The writing in N&B is as smarmy and quippy as ever, but there's also a ton of self-loathing, commentary on the direction the industry is headed in, and jabs at Rareware's legacy as a studio. It puts a damper on the game's mood, but it's really engaging in the sense that it gives you the idea that something went horribly wrong during Rare's time at Microsoft. Either that, or Rare just saw the writing on the wall and believed that there wasn't going to be a good place for them in the industry going forward. Grabbed by the Ghoulies is frequently the butt of a joke, and the "Logbox 720" stage has several Rare game discs with messages printed on them that are easy to miss. The Tooie disc asks "did you like it more or less?" Viva Piñata is deemed to have earned the award of "best game no-one played". Even Rare feels the need to ask, "will Nuts and Bolts be remembered in a decade?"

While I was still getting my thoughts together on this game, a coworker asked me if he should get Nuts & Bolts. In that moment, I realized just how narrow this game's demographic is. It's still a good game if you just like slapping maddening machines together, but the game definitely expects a certain amount of familiarity and investment in Rare's legacy as well. If you're into Rare, you probably already know what this game's deal is. If you're not, I don't know if it's asking too much to educate yourself on a single studio's entire history before playing. Even without that background, it's still a fun game. Underrated and overhated, that's the mantra I'm going with on this one.

Anyone who praised Tears of the Kingdom because it focused on building funny vehicles needs to apologize to Nuts & Bolts.

-JonTron
-Tears of The Kingdom's prequel, when you think about it.
-Humba's redesign was the only good one.
-The game is fine. Overhated, but not particularly great.

There, got all the things I wanted to say about Nuts & Bolts out of the way. Knowing that Microsoft was the one that wanted Banjo-Threeie, only for Rare to not feel like doing it is kinda funny.

One of the most unfairly despized games ever made. I get it, I grew up waiting for a Banjo Threeie and was beyond hyped to see the initial reveal trailer, not expecting it to turn out to be a car game. But I genuinely believe this game still follows up on the spirit of the BK franchise. From the personality present in the writing, worlds, characters, and another excellent Grant Kirkhope soundtrack...To the overall high quality of the game in its polish, graphics, and ambition. Banjo was not just slapped on mindlessly for brand recognition, this was always a BK game at its heart.

There's nothing genuinely wrong with the game, and it being a Banjo game isn't even a problem. If there were traditional Banjo games released before and after this, I guarantee this game's rep would be better. But unfortunately the higher ups in the industry somehow got the idea that 3D platformers are unwanted. And that misguided belief is where the distain for this game comes from. Believe me I was very disgruntled and disappointed with the direction the industry took in that era, and what this game stands for is rather depressing. But it's not fair to write off just how good this game is due to that baggage.

The cars themselves work extremely well, and are very well integrated into the game. And just as important, the vehicle creator is incredibly intuitive. I've yet to see a game made before or after this with a more user friendly vehicle creator, let alone one this expansive. There's a lot of variety in what you can make, and the missions themselves generally encourage being as creative as possible. Or at the very least offer a nice sense of risk vs reward with your car designs. For people who don't want to spend the time creating their own cars, you can use your notes to buy pre-built blueprints which can then be edited if you wish.

Which brings up the collectathon aspects that are still present. I love exploring the hub world looking for crates to turn in to Mumbo which gives you new vehicle parts. Notes are still scattered around levels, and are quite fun to find in the hub world especially. Jinjos are still around for bonus optional challenges though given its still got the collectathon formula, technically most of the game is optional. If you don't want to do a mission you can always just do a different one. I like the extra trophies you get if you excell in a mission, doing better than it asked to simply win the Jiggy. 4 of these trophies = 1 jiggy. There's even some hidden jiggys you can find by exploring the hub. I wish each main level had at least one of these hidden jiggy's. The hub world is definitely my favorite level as odd as that may sound. It feels the most fully realized as a real place, and the only one that encourages on-foot gameplay. Whereas the actual levels themselves are for the most part simply designed for vehicle challenges. The hub even brings back some move-based progression. For example when you beat the first boss you gain access to wheels that let you drive up steep slopes. Pretty reminiscent of learning talon trot to reach the next floor of Grunty's Lair in the original game.

And the story even follows up on the originals nicely. It's cool seeing what all the characters are up to. After beating Klungo in Tooie he says he's quitting being a bad guy and going to become a game developer. Well in this game you can find him and he'll have you play the game he's made. It's got MSpaint graphics and more levels open up as you progress through the main game. Super charming.

Not every mission is a winner, there's a couple slow races especially early on. And sometimes it makes you use a pre-built car that's just tied to the mission, which doesn't tie into the appeal of making your own cars. Though sometimes provides a challenge in making you drive an awkward car, your mileage may vary on whether that's annoying or not. Other times it makes for a unique mission that's a welcome change of pace. And while I love the soundtrack and how ambitious a lot of the music is, I'd have liked more variety in the actual mission music. Sometimes a mission feels like it warrants a song that's more than just the same as an average race. But thankfully most of the game does lean into its strengths. And honestly, a Banjo game being more mission based isn't even completely out of left field. Tooie was already MUCH bigger than the first game, and featured a lot more missions and minigames from NPC's over pure platforming and exploration. It would be disingenuous to imply this game ISN'T a dramatic departure sure, but I also don't find this game unrecognizable as a Banjo-Kazooie game.

I really think people who are getting a kick out of Tears of the Kingdom's vehicle freedom should give this game a try, it's quite literally a game built entirely around that level of freedom and more I'd argue. Stuff like an early mission wanting you to defend an NPC as he goes out jogging. You can try to actually take care of the enemies, which can be somewhat difficult at this point in the game. But I've also seen people make a helicopter with a protective cage and landing the cage around the NPC as he takes a breather, so enemies can't touch him. The speedrun builds a car that captures the NPC, and flies him to the end of his route. Idk if Zelda fans would vibe with all the races but this game was quite ahead of its time as far as physics-based, player creativity driven gameplay. And some of the bosses feel like those master Kohga battles except you can't just walk behind him and slap him with an arrow, stunning him. Grunty will make her own vehicles using pieces you don't have access to until you beat that fight, and you have to find a way to dismantle her car. Would have liked a few more of these boss type missions, sometimes it's just a race and that's not quite as fun for a boss. But it still makes you do some problem solving considering she's using car parts you don't have yet. The graphics were also ahead of its time, being one of the select few games of its generation that doesn't look horrendously ugly/bland.

Also playing this on modern Xbox systems is amazing. On the 360 loading into the hub could take at LEAST 30-40 seconds. But on the Series consoles, load times are often so fast the loading screen can't even fully start. Meaning they somehow got this game to have load times on par with the N64 games.

Just like the other Banjo games, this is among Rare's best work. A very unique experience that stands out from the crowd.