This review contains spoilers
Um dos meus jogos favoritos de todos os tempos, provavelmente o meu favorito empatado com DKC 2. Fechando pela primeira vez sem save state noto poucos problemas, mas que podem incomodar bastante quem tá conhecendo o jogo, sendo o maior deles talvez o jogo não guardar as notas musicais que o jogador recolheu quando os personagens morrem ou saem do mundo. Pra mim foi um desafio divertido continuar vivo até pegar as 100 notas do primeiro ao penúltimo mundo, mas no último mundo, o Click Clock Wood, foi bem estressante devido ao level design extenso e a facilidade de cair de uma certa altura e morrer neste. O penúltimo mundo, Rusty Bucket Bay, também não é dos meus favoritos talvez pela temática, talvez pelo design, e me parece ser uma opinião popular entre os jogadores. Também tive dificuldade com a câmera e o controle dos personagens debaixo dágua em alguns poucos momentos, mas não sei se é um problema do jogo ou de se jogar com um teclado ao invés da forma como foi pensada com joystick.
Mas estas falhas são fáceis de compreender quando nos lembramos que saiu só dois anos depois de Super Mario 64, que inventou este subgênero de plataforma. Banjo Kazooie evolui o que o jogo do encanador italiano estabeleceu, seus méritos são muito maiores que suas falhas. É divertido, carismático, te faz querer explorar e fazer 100% de cada mundo e até do covil da Gruntilda que serve de hub (e vai por mim, vai ajudar muito pegar o máximo de peças de quebra cabeça e notas musicais). Ainda sobre os mundos gosto da maioria, principalmente Trasure Trove Cove, Freeezeezy Peak, Goby's Valley, Mad Monster Mansion e até o Click Clock Wood pode ser divertido se tu aprender como evitar as quedas ou cair sem morrer, além deste ser muito criativo. É desafiador, não imaginava que podia passar sequer pelo programa de auditório da Gruntilda antes da batalha final, em ambos senti que valeu muito a pena sentir o nervosismo e enfrentar os desafios. Este jogo me conquistou na adolescência, e jogando depois de alguns anos reafirmo que continua ótimo nos dias de hoje. Torço pra que estes personagens ganhem um jogo novo e bom para que mais pessoas conheçam e se se divirtam igual eu com o jogo original, enquanto isso ainda tenho Banjo Tooie para desbravar.
Mas estas falhas são fáceis de compreender quando nos lembramos que saiu só dois anos depois de Super Mario 64, que inventou este subgênero de plataforma. Banjo Kazooie evolui o que o jogo do encanador italiano estabeleceu, seus méritos são muito maiores que suas falhas. É divertido, carismático, te faz querer explorar e fazer 100% de cada mundo e até do covil da Gruntilda que serve de hub (e vai por mim, vai ajudar muito pegar o máximo de peças de quebra cabeça e notas musicais). Ainda sobre os mundos gosto da maioria, principalmente Trasure Trove Cove, Freeezeezy Peak, Goby's Valley, Mad Monster Mansion e até o Click Clock Wood pode ser divertido se tu aprender como evitar as quedas ou cair sem morrer, além deste ser muito criativo. É desafiador, não imaginava que podia passar sequer pelo programa de auditório da Gruntilda antes da batalha final, em ambos senti que valeu muito a pena sentir o nervosismo e enfrentar os desafios. Este jogo me conquistou na adolescência, e jogando depois de alguns anos reafirmo que continua ótimo nos dias de hoje. Torço pra que estes personagens ganhem um jogo novo e bom para que mais pessoas conheçam e se se divirtam igual eu com o jogo original, enquanto isso ainda tenho Banjo Tooie para desbravar.
I didn't went crazy on my first playthrough, but the second one was pure joy. Really great 3D collectathon platform alongside Mario 64 (obv) and Spyro.
Final boss fight can be a little bs if you don't upgrade your health at maximum, you are warned.
Final boss fight can be a little bs if you don't upgrade your health at maximum, you are warned.
I think it speaks volumes of Banjo-Kazooie's stellar soundtrack that Grant Kirkhope is sort of the darling face of classy old Rare now. It's definitely a deserved accolade- no matter how unorthodox it might be that a composer overshadows the rest of the dev team, don't see that too often.
Beyond great music and precise platforming, what really sets the bear-and-bird's outing apart from its contemporaries is that cheeky, irreverent English humour and charm. The kind of game that has you smiling the whole way through, unless you don't realize you have to break in through the windows in Rusty Bucket Bay. Slightly bullshit, but went straight back to smiling when I hear all the lovely sound design again. Jinjoooo.
Beyond great music and precise platforming, what really sets the bear-and-bird's outing apart from its contemporaries is that cheeky, irreverent English humour and charm. The kind of game that has you smiling the whole way through, unless you don't realize you have to break in through the windows in Rusty Bucket Bay. Slightly bullshit, but went straight back to smiling when I hear all the lovely sound design again. Jinjoooo.
With the highly competitive era of the N64 & PS1, where there seemed to be just about one masterpiece coming out every month. This game still managed to write itself in the history books as one of the titans of it's era. Rare creating a game that many see as close to the levels of quality as Mario 64. Although I must say, as much as I love the game I can't say I see that personally, but moving on.
The movement in the game is impeccable, It's not the precise and fluid buttery smooth movement from Mario, but still an an incredibly well made movement, with loads of options on your set on how to travel around the vast world in this game. Which only helps to create an even large incentive to explore and collect more items.
Banjo Kazooie in my view is one of the best Collect-a-Thons the genre has seen. Really only failing to be the best in it's era due, to the simple fact that Nintendo released one of the greatest games of all time during it. Even still, it still uphelds itself today as one of the golden standards of the Collect-a-Thon genre. And one that every game developer, large or indie. Should look on to when it comes to developing a fun collecting experience.
I won't speak much about the games soundtrack. Because listening to it simply speaks for itself.
Banjo Kazooie to me is incredibly close to being a perfect game. And from seeing my rambling here you might even wonder why it isn't. Simply put, the game is finally starting to show some age, with a recent short play test of the game. I found myself a little bored, not as glued to the screen as I found myself growing up. An issue that would likely be resolved had the game received as much love as Mario 64 has, with it's very impressive modding community keeping the game up even to modern standards with 1920x1080 support, and 60fps. And Ocarina of Time also getting similar love with ShipofHarkinian(which if you are interested in playing Ocarina tdpay, should absolutely be the way you do so!). Banjo however has not received the same support, the game continues to become more and more outdated. I'm not one to complain much about frames and resolution, but Banjo is starting to show its age, and its something we need to accept. Banjo likely will eventually get a remake. Until that day however. Banjo to me is a solid 9/10
The movement in the game is impeccable, It's not the precise and fluid buttery smooth movement from Mario, but still an an incredibly well made movement, with loads of options on your set on how to travel around the vast world in this game. Which only helps to create an even large incentive to explore and collect more items.
Banjo Kazooie in my view is one of the best Collect-a-Thons the genre has seen. Really only failing to be the best in it's era due, to the simple fact that Nintendo released one of the greatest games of all time during it. Even still, it still uphelds itself today as one of the golden standards of the Collect-a-Thon genre. And one that every game developer, large or indie. Should look on to when it comes to developing a fun collecting experience.
I won't speak much about the games soundtrack. Because listening to it simply speaks for itself.
Banjo Kazooie to me is incredibly close to being a perfect game. And from seeing my rambling here you might even wonder why it isn't. Simply put, the game is finally starting to show some age, with a recent short play test of the game. I found myself a little bored, not as glued to the screen as I found myself growing up. An issue that would likely be resolved had the game received as much love as Mario 64 has, with it's very impressive modding community keeping the game up even to modern standards with 1920x1080 support, and 60fps. And Ocarina of Time also getting similar love with ShipofHarkinian(which if you are interested in playing Ocarina tdpay, should absolutely be the way you do so!). Banjo however has not received the same support, the game continues to become more and more outdated. I'm not one to complain much about frames and resolution, but Banjo is starting to show its age, and its something we need to accept. Banjo likely will eventually get a remake. Until that day however. Banjo to me is a solid 9/10
Charming
El mejor plataformero 3D del Nintendo 64.
Me Mumbo, best shaman in all game.
Yeah, we'll see about that, bonehead.
Yeah, we'll see about that, bonehead.
The definition of the word “delightful”.
no inicio me incomodei com o quão lento o banjo se move, mas após me acostumar com isso eu não consegui encontrar falhas no jogo(tem os jinjos, odeio achar todos).
This game was the greatest thing ever back in the day. Sure the framerate dropped into single digits in a few places, sure Kazooie sounded like a retarded Pac-Man when you ran. The game was 100% charm and more fun than trying to put a backpack on a real bear then trying to stuff a huge bird into it, which is probably illegal.
dk64 but fun as hell
Played the xbla version via gamepass,
can see why this is seen as one of the best n64 games, a little dated in some of its design, but has a lot of charm
can see why this is seen as one of the best n64 games, a little dated in some of its design, but has a lot of charm
yeah, i would get the game over screen on purpose
Ahaha
BIG REVIEW ALERT
Finally, after I don't know how many hours, I've finished this game, and before I talk about my second experience with it, I'm going to be quite frank: the first time I played Banjo Kazooie? I HATED THE GAME, at the beginning everything was going well, until I got to the later stages and got really annoyed with the game's programming, so much so that I almost didn't want to get through everything because I just wanted to finish it straight away, I got through Grunty's final challenge, I saved Tootie, the credits came, and then I asked myself "whoa? that's it, isn't there going to be a final fight with Grunty?" and then there's the plot twist where Tootie says she needs the two idiots to face her and then I go to the arae which was supposed to be the preparation for facing her and I realize that I need more Notes to unlock and I hardly got any and that annoyed the hell out of me, giving me that feeling of "that's it? this is the game that everyone points out is better than Super Mario 64 and the most perfect game on the console? what the fuck is going on in these people's brains? and I hated the game, giving it a 3-star rating, but here we are in 2024, I'm used to the gags in old games and I decided to play Banjo Kazooie again for the second time because I missed it because the game was fun even though I died A LOT, and also to see if my opinion would change, and since I was already used to some things, I'd probably be more okay with it, so... I have to tell the truth about my second experience, which was AWFULLY good.
Seriously, by now I knew my way around some parts, I knew how to get past the boring and buggy parts, I knew how to use the skills better (except for the game which is pretty lame when it comes to attacking), I even enjoyed some stages more the second time around than I did the first, but even so, that doesn't mean I didn't get annoyed with some things, one of them being the camera, but hey, every camera from that era had problems, right, so it's one thing if you didn't know how to do something and that's what you had, it's another thing if you put in really bad camera angles, an example is when you have to catch a Jiggy inside a hole with a boat propeller, so far so good, but when you swim and the camera follows your character (it follows very closely, another problem) out of nowhere when you arrive the camera is at an uncomfortable angle making it difficult to find your character and you lose focus, and seriously, there are times when either the camera is at horrible angles, but that pleased the guys at Rare at the time, or when you need it most, it locks to the right or left, especially at the top of Tik Tok, making it difficult to walk in a straight line on the bridges, There's also the flying parts which can be cool or boring, and the gameplay is a bit slow, which is ok in the parts where you don't need to be desperate, but in parts like Grunty's fight it's a pain with this type of gameplay because the lady is not to be trifled with, in the end (which is worth it because the scene is very epic), for me one of the most epic scenes in video games) there's a scene where Banjo and the others are on the beach with a hot girl who's way too detailed for A CHILDREN'S GAME (which is nothing like a children's game) and I applaud Rare's modeler for that, the real thing is that the character models even for the time are beautiful even today, so Mumbo comes along and talks about pictures, but to see them you need all the Jiggies, and I only had about 97 out of 100, that's a good amount compared to the first experience, and for me it's also good that in the end I have other games to play in this life of my god (like replaying the GBA DKC, because just playing Banjo made me miss that series).
So I'd recommend Banjo Kazooie, then... I don't know, it's that phrase "it depends", like if you don't go in with expectations that you're going to play a great game and find it perfect; FORGET IT, if you just want to play this game because there are IDIOTS who treat it as a masterpiece, a perfect game (there is no such thing as perfection) and a round game, it's better to play Spyro 2, Rayman 2 or any ps2 Collecthaton (that's any good, alright? ), but if you're interested and already know what to expect from this review, go ahead, just don't think you're going to play one of the best N64 games, it's just a good game, be warned, but if you have an Xbox (not the classic one), you'll be able to enjoy what looks like a wonderful port of the original game that fixes a lot of the mistakes of the previous version, making me think that anyone who says this game "doesn't make mistakes" is someone who played that version and only played this version, and never even touched the original version (or if that's the case, they're just a nostalgic who doesn't replay games from their childhood and says it's a masterpiece by memory).
Many fanboys of this game will hate me for this review, but fuck it. Anyway, another extremely long review... I don't know how to finish it.
Finally, after I don't know how many hours, I've finished this game, and before I talk about my second experience with it, I'm going to be quite frank: the first time I played Banjo Kazooie? I HATED THE GAME, at the beginning everything was going well, until I got to the later stages and got really annoyed with the game's programming, so much so that I almost didn't want to get through everything because I just wanted to finish it straight away, I got through Grunty's final challenge, I saved Tootie, the credits came, and then I asked myself "whoa? that's it, isn't there going to be a final fight with Grunty?" and then there's the plot twist where Tootie says she needs the two idiots to face her and then I go to the arae which was supposed to be the preparation for facing her and I realize that I need more Notes to unlock and I hardly got any and that annoyed the hell out of me, giving me that feeling of "that's it? this is the game that everyone points out is better than Super Mario 64 and the most perfect game on the console? what the fuck is going on in these people's brains? and I hated the game, giving it a 3-star rating, but here we are in 2024, I'm used to the gags in old games and I decided to play Banjo Kazooie again for the second time because I missed it because the game was fun even though I died A LOT, and also to see if my opinion would change, and since I was already used to some things, I'd probably be more okay with it, so... I have to tell the truth about my second experience, which was AWFULLY good.
Seriously, by now I knew my way around some parts, I knew how to get past the boring and buggy parts, I knew how to use the skills better (except for the game which is pretty lame when it comes to attacking), I even enjoyed some stages more the second time around than I did the first, but even so, that doesn't mean I didn't get annoyed with some things, one of them being the camera, but hey, every camera from that era had problems, right, so it's one thing if you didn't know how to do something and that's what you had, it's another thing if you put in really bad camera angles, an example is when you have to catch a Jiggy inside a hole with a boat propeller, so far so good, but when you swim and the camera follows your character (it follows very closely, another problem) out of nowhere when you arrive the camera is at an uncomfortable angle making it difficult to find your character and you lose focus, and seriously, there are times when either the camera is at horrible angles, but that pleased the guys at Rare at the time, or when you need it most, it locks to the right or left, especially at the top of Tik Tok, making it difficult to walk in a straight line on the bridges, There's also the flying parts which can be cool or boring, and the gameplay is a bit slow, which is ok in the parts where you don't need to be desperate, but in parts like Grunty's fight it's a pain with this type of gameplay because the lady is not to be trifled with, in the end (which is worth it because the scene is very epic), for me one of the most epic scenes in video games) there's a scene where Banjo and the others are on the beach with a hot girl who's way too detailed for A CHILDREN'S GAME (which is nothing like a children's game) and I applaud Rare's modeler for that, the real thing is that the character models even for the time are beautiful even today, so Mumbo comes along and talks about pictures, but to see them you need all the Jiggies, and I only had about 97 out of 100, that's a good amount compared to the first experience, and for me it's also good that in the end I have other games to play in this life of my god (like replaying the GBA DKC, because just playing Banjo made me miss that series).
So I'd recommend Banjo Kazooie, then... I don't know, it's that phrase "it depends", like if you don't go in with expectations that you're going to play a great game and find it perfect; FORGET IT, if you just want to play this game because there are IDIOTS who treat it as a masterpiece, a perfect game (there is no such thing as perfection) and a round game, it's better to play Spyro 2, Rayman 2 or any ps2 Collecthaton (that's any good, alright? ), but if you're interested and already know what to expect from this review, go ahead, just don't think you're going to play one of the best N64 games, it's just a good game, be warned, but if you have an Xbox (not the classic one), you'll be able to enjoy what looks like a wonderful port of the original game that fixes a lot of the mistakes of the previous version, making me think that anyone who says this game "doesn't make mistakes" is someone who played that version and only played this version, and never even touched the original version (or if that's the case, they're just a nostalgic who doesn't replay games from their childhood and says it's a masterpiece by memory).
Many fanboys of this game will hate me for this review, but fuck it. Anyway, another extremely long review... I don't know how to finish it.
Alto plataformero, muy divertido, mecánicas divertidas controles algo toscos pero mejorable jejeje
My sister and I adored this game to the end. I remember we bought this on the off chance of it just looking kind of cool by the commercials? But we were still unsure. But us only being kids at the time, we were just dying of laughter, and having a blast collecting collectibles and honey combs, and exploring a wide variety of different seasoned maps. Banjo-Kazooie put Rare on the field, it was an instant classic. It quite possibly rivaled even Super Mario 64. Hell, I would say it’s actually better than Mario 64. It’s that’s good.
Its like Mario 64 if it was good
this was actually the first game I vividly remember playing and kinda set the standard for me when it came to collect-a-thons and 3D Platformers, incredibly straight forward gameplay and unique move set makes this a very easy game to recommend to anyone of any age to enjoy, the british humor is a nice touch as well, while its age does show its head if you're playing the XBLA versions you shouldnt have much issue as there are a few QOL features such as notes being saved on exiting and re-entering levels where as in the original N64 due to limitations exiting a level would reset non priority collectibles such as notes
TLDR: this was the first game I remember playing so I love it for that.
TLDR: this was the first game I remember playing so I love it for that.
J'ai jouer a se jeu mais j'ai peu de souvenir c'est une dinguerie
Looking back on the games I played over the course of my childhood, I've noticed that some of my most memorable gaming expirences came from Rare. Before I discovered Banjo-Kazooie, I played and beat the GBA port of Donkey Kong Country 2 and the DS remake of Diddy Kong Racing, but out of those two games I found Diddy Kong Racing DS to be much more interesting. I frequently looked up information online on how to unlock everything that the game had to offer. Apon doing so, I eventually discovered that there was a whole other version of the game that came before it with a few characters that weren't in the DS version. This is how I discovered the existence of Banjo. It wasn't until I connected my Xbox 360 to the internet for the first time a few years later that I would rediscover Banjo-Kazooie and download the demos of this game and its sequel Tooie. Not long after, I was able to purchase both of them and enjoy them to my heart's content. The Banjo-Kazooie games quickly became some of my all-time favorites, leading me into developing a fascination for the developers that made them. I've even attempted speedrunning this game on the 360 version multiple times with my best time being around 5 hours. Having just finished another playthrough of this masterpiece, I will say this is easily Rare's best collect-a-thon and one of the best 3d platformers ever made.
There are a lot of positive things to say about Banjo-Kazooie. The graphics are nice, the characters are funny & memorable, the worlds are enjoyable to explore, and the size of said worlds are just right. One big issue with some of the games that came after this one such as Donkey Kong 64 & Banjo-Tooie are that the worlds are just too damn big and require a lot of backtracking. WIth Banjo-Kazooie, all the objectives & goodies are scattered throughout the levels in a way that isn't intrusive. The only exception being one jiggy you'll have to backtrack for in the middle part of the game, but unless you're aiming for 100% completion it is totally optional.
As far as negatives go, the controls can be a little confusing. It could be since my last playthrough was a couple years ago, but I had some trouble remembering the imputs for a few moves or just accidently doing the wrong thing. It was never something I thought about until I played this version but that's probably because of the obtuse design of the controller. The other issue is something that the 360 version fixes which involves having to recollect the Jinjos and musical notes if you died. It can be very aggrivating to go through the process of getting them all again, especially if you die in any of the later worlds. However, the reason this issue exists is because of hardware limitations so its somewhat excusable.
Banjo-Kazooie is Rare's most iconic IP and rightfully so. Its tight level design, beautiful worlds, and memorable cast cement this game as the best 3d platformer on the N64. Between Banjo-Kazooie & Mario 64, I'd say the bear & bird duo gave the Italian plumber a run for his money.
There are a lot of positive things to say about Banjo-Kazooie. The graphics are nice, the characters are funny & memorable, the worlds are enjoyable to explore, and the size of said worlds are just right. One big issue with some of the games that came after this one such as Donkey Kong 64 & Banjo-Tooie are that the worlds are just too damn big and require a lot of backtracking. WIth Banjo-Kazooie, all the objectives & goodies are scattered throughout the levels in a way that isn't intrusive. The only exception being one jiggy you'll have to backtrack for in the middle part of the game, but unless you're aiming for 100% completion it is totally optional.
As far as negatives go, the controls can be a little confusing. It could be since my last playthrough was a couple years ago, but I had some trouble remembering the imputs for a few moves or just accidently doing the wrong thing. It was never something I thought about until I played this version but that's probably because of the obtuse design of the controller. The other issue is something that the 360 version fixes which involves having to recollect the Jinjos and musical notes if you died. It can be very aggrivating to go through the process of getting them all again, especially if you die in any of the later worlds. However, the reason this issue exists is because of hardware limitations so its somewhat excusable.
Banjo-Kazooie is Rare's most iconic IP and rightfully so. Its tight level design, beautiful worlds, and memorable cast cement this game as the best 3d platformer on the N64. Between Banjo-Kazooie & Mario 64, I'd say the bear & bird duo gave the Italian plumber a run for his money.
Não ironicamente 🤓☝️ Eu sou esse urso
I've always had a soft spot for Banjo-Kazooie, but I had more familiarity with its future ports. The original still has a great sense of style, good music, quirky humor, and so on, but it's a little rough to play thanks to a somewhat awkward control scheme and camera. Despite its place in history as a seminal collect-a-thon platformer, the game was at times more stressful than enjoyable, as many activities per level are reset on death, which just isn't very entertaining with how long stages become, how high the requirements are the beat the game, and how linear the stage progression is.
Absolutely phenomenal game, fun gameplay, creative levels, really charming
Dropped on click clock wood
I wanted to finish this before my xbox gamepass ran out, but yeah i can’t BEAR this game ‼️
I have no idea how people finished this game on n64 without looking up what to do, idk maybe i am just retarded or smthn
I wanted to finish this before my xbox gamepass ran out, but yeah i can’t BEAR this game ‼️
I have no idea how people finished this game on n64 without looking up what to do, idk maybe i am just retarded or smthn
For what I played, it was ok.
Not my favorite platformer / collect-a-thon.
Not my favorite platformer / collect-a-thon.
Great game!
EXISTEM JOGOS QUE REPRESENTAM GÊNEROS E ERAS INTEIRAS. BANJO KAZOOIE PRA MIM É A MAIS PERFEITA E POLIDA REPRESENTAÇÃO DOS PLATAFORMAS DE COLETAR TREQUINHOS PELO MAPA COM UMA TRILHA SONORA FODA E FASES ESBANJANDO CARISMA.
I don't think I can ever forgive Sakurai from omitting Gruntilda's final battle theme in Smash
Better than Maz 64 soooooooo ez. Review over.
__________
Okay, okay.
Wow. What a fantastic game - I have a new autistic obsession.
Banjo-Kazooie is a game I missed as a kid because I was in a Playstation family, and we never owned an N64. This is one game that makes me feel like I really missed out.
Banjo-Kazooie is a charming little game by a British development team called Rare that features a wholesome bear trying to stop his little sister, who wants to go on an adventure, getting used as fuel for Gruntilda's bimbofication machine.
Usually I can gush about games I like but I feel as if I can't contribute anything new to the conversation - this game has been praised to the high heavens and beyond and it's easy to see why.
If you're like me and you don't understand the collectathon youtuber hype, you might be a bit confused as to why this game is so popular when you play it. In fact, I can wager your experience might end up a little something like this:
Starting the game - Yeah its alright.
Early Midgame - Eh, i'm not understanding the hype.
Midgame - Okay, I can see why people like this.
Late Midgame - This game sucks, its frustrating and unfair. I'm going to stop playing (this is where I imagine the 6/10s come from for most people, as this is what I was going to rate it).
Lategame / 100% - Holy shit, this is peak gaming.
I think this has to do with a few things - this game is quite brutal at times. It's not afraid to hit you with the learning curve and it hits you hard - hell, at the midgame the beehives (where you heal yourself with honeycombs - it's so charming), will fight back when you break them. At first, this seems stupid, counterintuitive and annoying, but once I figured out how to deal with them (shoot them with an egg to break and then Talon Trot to collect all the pieces), I never got hit by a swarm of bees ever again.
Another huge outlier is the go-to of wall-enemies. By god, they are annoying, and their hitboxes are ruthless, knocking you off edges when you weren't even next to them. And even though theyre in the game from the second or third level, they really ramp it up when they start throwing like 20 into each level later in the game. It really makes you want to stop playing, getting knocked off over and over and killed by cheap hitboxes. That is, until you realise that they are easily killed by a jumping attack from Kazooie. When my wife accidentally done this at the end of the game, my jaw literally dropped and I said "bruh". I had been stopping at these things like traffic lights the entire game and you're meant to just jump into them and kill them right as they leave their tunnel. Bam, never got hit again from that point onward.
This game hugely rewards you for learning its nuance and I think that's something most games just don't do. The game is unforgiving and brutal but if you know how to deal with everything it throws at you you'll knock it out of the park every time, and that's a fantastic feeling when you get it down. Unfortunately, I think it's a hindrance to the enjoyability of the overall package, especially for a first time playthrough, that you can go so far into the game without working some of these things out (maybe its just me being stupid).
There are some genuine issues here though - the camera, my god is it shit. It might be the camera of all time. You start to remember where it happens by the time you 100% the game, but jesus christ, this game likes to hard troll you with the camera mega pivoting to the other side of you against a wall, or enemies being hidden just out of sight of the camera when you're doing a difficult platforming segment. It's a definite, HUGE downside to this game that absolutely warrants a remake.
Another thing that I think is counterintuitive is how poorly the lives system is handled. For some reason, you lose your 1-ups every time you Save & Quit the game - not that this will be an issue, since you'll die so constantly you won't ever get to see that until you've thrashed the game anyway, but I thought it was weird regardless. The bit that is annoying, is that you have 1-ups, but they only serve to save you the hassle of running back to the level. The game gives you ONE chance to get everything in it in one go, the first time you get there. This challenge makes it so unenjoyable in certain levels. You have to collect every note in one run of the level to get all of them, but you have to make sure you do it to a certain extent otherwise you won't be opening any doors. In hindsight, if I was to recommend this game to anyone, I would suggest making sure they get as many notes as possible FIRST before attempting any jiggie challenges to make sure they don't get cucked out of progress, and then come back and hit the jiggies and the jinjos after, if you didn't manage to get all the jinjos whilst collecting the notes. I've heard that the XBOX version of this game saves the notes you've collected but I don't know if I like this or not - I enjoy the challenge of collecting them all in one run, it's just frustrating if you're trying to do the jiggies aswell. If you were to solely focus on getting the notes, it's a lot more manageable and less frustrating.
Overall, this is a challenging, fun, only occasionally unfair, quintessential platformer. In fact, as of this review, I believe this is the best 3D platformer (especially of it's kind, the 3D open-ish world collectathon) to ever exist, and even if it is topped by another someday, it was certainly the best at its time and for a long, long time. The issues Banjo Kazooie has are great in strength but few in number, and the game is massively carried by its beautiful levels, art style, sprawling and fun to navigate hub world, and my god, the British sense of humour in this game has me chuckling even at dialogue i've seen before. If this gets the N.Sane Trilogy treatment with improvements this could easily be improved and tweaked to perfection.
Oh, and the final boss is peak. One of the best in gaming history, especially if we're talking about 3D Platformers - challenging, brutal, but fair and fun to master, as I feel all final bosses should be.
__________
Okay, okay.
Wow. What a fantastic game - I have a new autistic obsession.
Banjo-Kazooie is a game I missed as a kid because I was in a Playstation family, and we never owned an N64. This is one game that makes me feel like I really missed out.
Banjo-Kazooie is a charming little game by a British development team called Rare that features a wholesome bear trying to stop his little sister, who wants to go on an adventure, getting used as fuel for Gruntilda's bimbofication machine.
Usually I can gush about games I like but I feel as if I can't contribute anything new to the conversation - this game has been praised to the high heavens and beyond and it's easy to see why.
If you're like me and you don't understand the collectathon youtuber hype, you might be a bit confused as to why this game is so popular when you play it. In fact, I can wager your experience might end up a little something like this:
Starting the game - Yeah its alright.
Early Midgame - Eh, i'm not understanding the hype.
Midgame - Okay, I can see why people like this.
Late Midgame - This game sucks, its frustrating and unfair. I'm going to stop playing (this is where I imagine the 6/10s come from for most people, as this is what I was going to rate it).
Lategame / 100% - Holy shit, this is peak gaming.
I think this has to do with a few things - this game is quite brutal at times. It's not afraid to hit you with the learning curve and it hits you hard - hell, at the midgame the beehives (where you heal yourself with honeycombs - it's so charming), will fight back when you break them. At first, this seems stupid, counterintuitive and annoying, but once I figured out how to deal with them (shoot them with an egg to break and then Talon Trot to collect all the pieces), I never got hit by a swarm of bees ever again.
Another huge outlier is the go-to of wall-enemies. By god, they are annoying, and their hitboxes are ruthless, knocking you off edges when you weren't even next to them. And even though theyre in the game from the second or third level, they really ramp it up when they start throwing like 20 into each level later in the game. It really makes you want to stop playing, getting knocked off over and over and killed by cheap hitboxes. That is, until you realise that they are easily killed by a jumping attack from Kazooie. When my wife accidentally done this at the end of the game, my jaw literally dropped and I said "bruh". I had been stopping at these things like traffic lights the entire game and you're meant to just jump into them and kill them right as they leave their tunnel. Bam, never got hit again from that point onward.
This game hugely rewards you for learning its nuance and I think that's something most games just don't do. The game is unforgiving and brutal but if you know how to deal with everything it throws at you you'll knock it out of the park every time, and that's a fantastic feeling when you get it down. Unfortunately, I think it's a hindrance to the enjoyability of the overall package, especially for a first time playthrough, that you can go so far into the game without working some of these things out (maybe its just me being stupid).
There are some genuine issues here though - the camera, my god is it shit. It might be the camera of all time. You start to remember where it happens by the time you 100% the game, but jesus christ, this game likes to hard troll you with the camera mega pivoting to the other side of you against a wall, or enemies being hidden just out of sight of the camera when you're doing a difficult platforming segment. It's a definite, HUGE downside to this game that absolutely warrants a remake.
Another thing that I think is counterintuitive is how poorly the lives system is handled. For some reason, you lose your 1-ups every time you Save & Quit the game - not that this will be an issue, since you'll die so constantly you won't ever get to see that until you've thrashed the game anyway, but I thought it was weird regardless. The bit that is annoying, is that you have 1-ups, but they only serve to save you the hassle of running back to the level. The game gives you ONE chance to get everything in it in one go, the first time you get there. This challenge makes it so unenjoyable in certain levels. You have to collect every note in one run of the level to get all of them, but you have to make sure you do it to a certain extent otherwise you won't be opening any doors. In hindsight, if I was to recommend this game to anyone, I would suggest making sure they get as many notes as possible FIRST before attempting any jiggie challenges to make sure they don't get cucked out of progress, and then come back and hit the jiggies and the jinjos after, if you didn't manage to get all the jinjos whilst collecting the notes. I've heard that the XBOX version of this game saves the notes you've collected but I don't know if I like this or not - I enjoy the challenge of collecting them all in one run, it's just frustrating if you're trying to do the jiggies aswell. If you were to solely focus on getting the notes, it's a lot more manageable and less frustrating.
Overall, this is a challenging, fun, only occasionally unfair, quintessential platformer. In fact, as of this review, I believe this is the best 3D platformer (especially of it's kind, the 3D open-ish world collectathon) to ever exist, and even if it is topped by another someday, it was certainly the best at its time and for a long, long time. The issues Banjo Kazooie has are great in strength but few in number, and the game is massively carried by its beautiful levels, art style, sprawling and fun to navigate hub world, and my god, the British sense of humour in this game has me chuckling even at dialogue i've seen before. If this gets the N.Sane Trilogy treatment with improvements this could easily be improved and tweaked to perfection.
Oh, and the final boss is peak. One of the best in gaming history, especially if we're talking about 3D Platformers - challenging, brutal, but fair and fun to master, as I feel all final bosses should be.