A better Version than the first which isn't surprising this was the magnum opus for Rare so it makes sense that they would make such a good game
uhhhhhhhhh
Go check out my Banjo-Tooie N64 review to get my full thoughts on the game. I will share the part of my review that specifically talks about the 360 version here though.
How does the Xbox 360 version improve on Tooie? Not much to be honest. It improves some controls. Stop n Swap lives on in this version. You get some player icons/profile pictures and a wallpaper for your 360. It looks better. I believe you could select a boss rush mode and play all the mini games from the menu. It also improves the controls the the first person mode.
I do love this game. It is not better than the first game, but not a bad sequel.
How does the Xbox 360 version improve on Tooie? Not much to be honest. It improves some controls. Stop n Swap lives on in this version. You get some player icons/profile pictures and a wallpaper for your 360. It looks better. I believe you could select a boss rush mode and play all the mini games from the menu. It also improves the controls the the first person mode.
I do love this game. It is not better than the first game, but not a bad sequel.
A slight improvement over the original... though that's not saying much as I didn't enjoy the first game. Platforming and gameplay is roughly the same, though it does feel a bit tighter- but that could be chalked up to the Xbox 360. Whatever the case may be, Banjo-Tooie still just isn't for me.
Nunca lo jugué en su día a pesar de que el 1 es de mis favoritos, y es una sensación extraña porque parece lo mismo... pero no. Es un mundo más denso, interconectado, más cerca de una aventura gráfica que de un plataformas.
Los diálogos son ORO
Los diálogos son ORO
Got super confused with this games route. Shame really! But I can appreciate it.
It's just too big and too much.
“Just you wait until Banjo-Threeie” LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Huge levels to get lost in (though that might be a downside for you, as it seems to be for a lot of people), classic Rare writing and great soundtrack. Maybe not as satisfying to replay overall as Banjo-Kazooie, but it will definitely keep you busy for a lot longer.
This completion would not be possible without the help of the great Bernie Beans.
There’s an old saying that I think is perfectly apt to apply to this game: “bigger” does not always equal “better”
I did enjoy my time with the original Banjo Kazooie; nothing outstanding or amazing or anything, but as I said before, not all games NEED to be spectacular mindblowing experiences. Some games can just be simple pick up and play games that you can have fun and vibe with and nothing more, like a decent 7/10. I definitely had issues with it but for the most part I did have fun, though I was very curious about what the sequel held in store, whatever that might be. I didn’t really know what to expect going in
I will say though right off the bat the game is definitely funnier than the original. The writing is a bit snappier and more self aware than the previous game, there’s a lot of gags present throughout that honestly caught me off guard (the poor ice cube folk). The story picks up directly where the last game left off, and the opening act is surprisingly kind of dismal for a Banjo game, traversing through a now destroyed Spiral Mountain. After you entire the Isle o Hags, the game’s tone changes back to where it usually is.
The basic gist of Banjo Tooie is to…basically do exactly what the 1st game did, but expand and make literally EVERYTHING so unnecessarily bigger. The worlds you travel through are enormous compared to Banjo 1, and not just that, but they’re all interconnected via not only a train station, but also secret areas in specific worlds that lead into other worlds. And that’s not it either, all of the hubs worlds that hold these levels are ALSO super massive and interconnected and can be traversed through quickly by several different portals. If nothing else, I can commend Tooie on the sheer ambition alone, especially on a system as limited as the N64. Thankfully I don’t have to play this game on original hardware as I’ve heard the framerate issues were, quite frankly, abhorrent. I’ll also give credit for just giving all of the moves that Banjo & Kazooie learned in the first game right from the get go. There are very VERY subtle control improvements (specifically in regards to swimming and flying) but it’s not really noticeable at all, the game overall feels the same as 1, which leads into my main problem:
Simply put these worlds are far too expansive and empty and generally aren’t fun to traverse around. The first Banjo built these different worlds with Banjo’s limited speed and movement in mind and it worked. The worlds in Banjo 1 were full of stuff to do, but they were also tight and focused, they didn’t really feel like you were just sorta meandering around doing nothing of substance (the later levels got slightly worse with this I find but in general this wasn’t much of a problem). With Tooie, every single world feels tedious to traverse through with how big they all are, and a lot of the time spent in these worlds are spent wandering around figuring out what to do next. I guess to help alleviate this issue, every level comes packed with portal pads to warp to different parts of the map where other portals are at, which does help but I don’t feel it’s enough. There’s just so much back and forth across these portals and across the level itself, at one point you gain the ability to split Banjo & Kazooie to solve specific puzzles, access different areas and collect different Jiggies, but ultimately this compounds the back and forth issue even MORE. Needing to go to one area, do something with one character, and switching back to the other to either play catch up or to do something else, I’m sorry but this is just multiple extra steps that never needed to be added in the first place. On top of all of this you also gain new additional abilities to take advantage of courtesy of Jamjars. Rather than using notes to unlock other areas of the hub worlds, you use them primarily to obtain new moves and I’m…mixed on a lot of them. There are some neat additions, you get different eggs to solve puzzles and provide different combat options, a drill dive attack, and different powerups that have different perks. However I’d say a vast majority of moves you require are gimmicky and are too situational to be fun. Going back to the issues I have with splitting Banjo & Kazooie up, there are also brand new moves you can give to either Banjo or Kazooie individually, and a lot of these are pretty mundane and are purely contextual (Kazooie gets a move where she sits down and hatches eggs and nothing else, Banjo can put stuff inside his backpack where he can carry around and solve puzzles with, and he can go inside his backpack to enter specific areas and nothing else). Even worse, oftentimes when you discover a Jamjars bunker as Banjo & Kazooie together, the game goes “OOPS, too bad this move is only for Banjo, try again!” and you need to backtrack allllll the way to a separation pad, separate the 2, come back to that spot with the single required character, learn the move, and then leave that area. All of this further accentuates and adds onto the back and forth tedium that Tooie displays front and center. Some new abilities just flat out suck, there’s one that allows you to shoot eggs in first person mode, which sounds fine but the aiming on control sticks is so finicky and jittery that it’s actively unpleasant to use. The game will sometimes mimic a first person shooter where Banjo cocks Kazooie like a gun which is admittedly a very funny tribute visually but these sections just aren’t that fun to play because of this issue. Even the final boss requires aiming at specific areas in first person mode WHILE avoiding projectiles, it’s a mess, doubly so for the nauseating challenges and bosses involving shooting in first person mode while flying.
And I’m STILL not done here, you can once again gain help from Mumbo Jumbo but now it involves 2 different processes. The traditional transformation gimmick is back but this time you need the assistance of Humba Wumba, a completely different character often in a completely different location from Mumbo himself. By visiting Mumbo you gain the ability to temporarily play as him in the select stage in order to go to (once again) contextual Mumbo pads and make something happen within the level to help with puzzle solving. Mumbo himself isn’t very fun to play with seeing as how his attack halts him in place and he has no movement abilities at all. Both of these characters require 1 Glowbo each in order to access, yet another pair of collectables per stage in a game already filled to the brim with collectibles. Granted they aren’t hard to locate at all but again, it feels like pure filler in an already filler-filled game.
Unfortunately Tooie quickly became a game I started playing out of curiosity, to a game I only finished out of pure obligation. I was exhausted by the end, while the first Banjo game took me around 12 hours or so to finish, Tooie took me over 27 HOURS to finish, not even 100% (though I did nearly get all of the achievements). I can tell you right now, most of that 27 hours wasn’t enjoyment. Tooie is an ambitious game overall that I can commend for what they tried to do, but it simply isn’t fun to play. A form of sincere simplicity from the first game is completely lost as the sequel is utterly bloated with all this empty space, backtracking, and extra “stuff” to do, most of which isn’t even fun. I would like to see another crack at the typical Banjo formula some day in the style of what Crash 4 did, but Tooie is frankly too expansive for its own good.
I did enjoy my time with the original Banjo Kazooie; nothing outstanding or amazing or anything, but as I said before, not all games NEED to be spectacular mindblowing experiences. Some games can just be simple pick up and play games that you can have fun and vibe with and nothing more, like a decent 7/10. I definitely had issues with it but for the most part I did have fun, though I was very curious about what the sequel held in store, whatever that might be. I didn’t really know what to expect going in
I will say though right off the bat the game is definitely funnier than the original. The writing is a bit snappier and more self aware than the previous game, there’s a lot of gags present throughout that honestly caught me off guard (the poor ice cube folk). The story picks up directly where the last game left off, and the opening act is surprisingly kind of dismal for a Banjo game, traversing through a now destroyed Spiral Mountain. After you entire the Isle o Hags, the game’s tone changes back to where it usually is.
The basic gist of Banjo Tooie is to…basically do exactly what the 1st game did, but expand and make literally EVERYTHING so unnecessarily bigger. The worlds you travel through are enormous compared to Banjo 1, and not just that, but they’re all interconnected via not only a train station, but also secret areas in specific worlds that lead into other worlds. And that’s not it either, all of the hubs worlds that hold these levels are ALSO super massive and interconnected and can be traversed through quickly by several different portals. If nothing else, I can commend Tooie on the sheer ambition alone, especially on a system as limited as the N64. Thankfully I don’t have to play this game on original hardware as I’ve heard the framerate issues were, quite frankly, abhorrent. I’ll also give credit for just giving all of the moves that Banjo & Kazooie learned in the first game right from the get go. There are very VERY subtle control improvements (specifically in regards to swimming and flying) but it’s not really noticeable at all, the game overall feels the same as 1, which leads into my main problem:
Simply put these worlds are far too expansive and empty and generally aren’t fun to traverse around. The first Banjo built these different worlds with Banjo’s limited speed and movement in mind and it worked. The worlds in Banjo 1 were full of stuff to do, but they were also tight and focused, they didn’t really feel like you were just sorta meandering around doing nothing of substance (the later levels got slightly worse with this I find but in general this wasn’t much of a problem). With Tooie, every single world feels tedious to traverse through with how big they all are, and a lot of the time spent in these worlds are spent wandering around figuring out what to do next. I guess to help alleviate this issue, every level comes packed with portal pads to warp to different parts of the map where other portals are at, which does help but I don’t feel it’s enough. There’s just so much back and forth across these portals and across the level itself, at one point you gain the ability to split Banjo & Kazooie to solve specific puzzles, access different areas and collect different Jiggies, but ultimately this compounds the back and forth issue even MORE. Needing to go to one area, do something with one character, and switching back to the other to either play catch up or to do something else, I’m sorry but this is just multiple extra steps that never needed to be added in the first place. On top of all of this you also gain new additional abilities to take advantage of courtesy of Jamjars. Rather than using notes to unlock other areas of the hub worlds, you use them primarily to obtain new moves and I’m…mixed on a lot of them. There are some neat additions, you get different eggs to solve puzzles and provide different combat options, a drill dive attack, and different powerups that have different perks. However I’d say a vast majority of moves you require are gimmicky and are too situational to be fun. Going back to the issues I have with splitting Banjo & Kazooie up, there are also brand new moves you can give to either Banjo or Kazooie individually, and a lot of these are pretty mundane and are purely contextual (Kazooie gets a move where she sits down and hatches eggs and nothing else, Banjo can put stuff inside his backpack where he can carry around and solve puzzles with, and he can go inside his backpack to enter specific areas and nothing else). Even worse, oftentimes when you discover a Jamjars bunker as Banjo & Kazooie together, the game goes “OOPS, too bad this move is only for Banjo, try again!” and you need to backtrack allllll the way to a separation pad, separate the 2, come back to that spot with the single required character, learn the move, and then leave that area. All of this further accentuates and adds onto the back and forth tedium that Tooie displays front and center. Some new abilities just flat out suck, there’s one that allows you to shoot eggs in first person mode, which sounds fine but the aiming on control sticks is so finicky and jittery that it’s actively unpleasant to use. The game will sometimes mimic a first person shooter where Banjo cocks Kazooie like a gun which is admittedly a very funny tribute visually but these sections just aren’t that fun to play because of this issue. Even the final boss requires aiming at specific areas in first person mode WHILE avoiding projectiles, it’s a mess, doubly so for the nauseating challenges and bosses involving shooting in first person mode while flying.
And I’m STILL not done here, you can once again gain help from Mumbo Jumbo but now it involves 2 different processes. The traditional transformation gimmick is back but this time you need the assistance of Humba Wumba, a completely different character often in a completely different location from Mumbo himself. By visiting Mumbo you gain the ability to temporarily play as him in the select stage in order to go to (once again) contextual Mumbo pads and make something happen within the level to help with puzzle solving. Mumbo himself isn’t very fun to play with seeing as how his attack halts him in place and he has no movement abilities at all. Both of these characters require 1 Glowbo each in order to access, yet another pair of collectables per stage in a game already filled to the brim with collectibles. Granted they aren’t hard to locate at all but again, it feels like pure filler in an already filler-filled game.
Unfortunately Tooie quickly became a game I started playing out of curiosity, to a game I only finished out of pure obligation. I was exhausted by the end, while the first Banjo game took me around 12 hours or so to finish, Tooie took me over 27 HOURS to finish, not even 100% (though I did nearly get all of the achievements). I can tell you right now, most of that 27 hours wasn’t enjoyment. Tooie is an ambitious game overall that I can commend for what they tried to do, but it simply isn’t fun to play. A form of sincere simplicity from the first game is completely lost as the sequel is utterly bloated with all this empty space, backtracking, and extra “stuff” to do, most of which isn’t even fun. I would like to see another crack at the typical Banjo formula some day in the style of what Crash 4 did, but Tooie is frankly too expansive for its own good.
(I wasn't aware that the remaster was considered a separate release from the original version on this site)
Banjo-Tooie, while not quite as good as the first game, is still a really good game and a rather fun time, so long as you aren't going for total 100% completion.
The remaster might have a few flaws, but it's preferable in the gameplay department thanks to its more consistent performance compared to how frequently the N64 version had frame drops.
Banjo-Tooie, while not quite as good as the first game, is still a really good game and a rather fun time, so long as you aren't going for total 100% completion.
The remaster might have a few flaws, but it's preferable in the gameplay department thanks to its more consistent performance compared to how frequently the N64 version had frame drops.
One of the greats.
A sharper, more polished version an already great game. While this version has more caveats than B-K's Live Arcade port due to how you can't invert aiming controls without inverting swimming controls forcing you to switch the option manually every shooter segment, it's still the best version of one of my favorite games. It's got a higher resolution, sharp visuals, leaderboards, and you can play the shooter sections with two sticks. It's the best version of a meaty game full of good shit. <3
It’s pretty good.
Grunty Industries is like SMT if it was good
Not as good as the first one, but it still has that classic Rare charm and the levels actually manage to be more atmospheric, in my opinion.
I don't think I've been filtered faster by a game in my entire life. This game starts to stray from the few things I enjoyed from BK real fast, in pursuit of simply being BIGGER. Characters can't help but flap their lips with no end in sight, and the camera dramatically pans like I'm visiting the Eyewitness Museum every time I do one little thing. There's what feels like three times the amount of ground to cover, with no new movement techniques to compensate. Even with the game granting you all your abilities from BK at the start (a nice bit of continuity), I feel like there's nothing to actually use them on, so the game keeps piling on even further moves to compensate. Ooooooor, they'll just let you play as Mumbo, because there CLEARLY wasn't enough to engage with already. Sometimes the game gives up on pretending it's a platformer and just becomes a first-person shooter. I am constantly getting lost in these massive, labrynthian areas, even with the multiple warp pads.
It's really overwhelming, and I'm not having fun. I think it's best I leave it at that before I further trample all over the childhoods of the people who think this is an uber-masterpiece.
It's really overwhelming, and I'm not having fun. I think it's best I leave it at that before I further trample all over the childhoods of the people who think this is an uber-masterpiece.
This was a childhood favorite of mine, and I'm over the moon at how well it holds up in 2023. The first person controls are rough (stick sensitivity feels bizarre), but with that caveat aside, it's definitely the better way to play it. Banjo-Tooie is a remarkable experience that was ahead of its time. The interconnected worlds and gradual progression as you unlock abilities feels amazing even having done it several times across 20+ years. My favorite game of the N64 era by a wide margin, and certainly the only one I'd happily replay today.
Better than the original cause it fixes the lag. Still a slog to 100% but the humor and charm do a lot of leg work and are why I can still think back to this game with some fondness.
I like some of the new moves they introduced, I like the split up mechanic, but this game is too big for its own good
even just watching someone else play this game was enough to give me logistical hives. can we tone it down guys im trying to relax over here.
Played through the Rare Replay collection.
While the original game is still a favorite of mine, Banjo-Tooie is the textbook definition of "tedious." The constant backtracking makes it really hard to want to go back to it, and it feels like the large connected world doesn't do the original's levels justice. Shame, but I feel like Banjo-Kazooie is the biggest one-hit wonder franchise in gaming in my opinion.
While the original game is still a favorite of mine, Banjo-Tooie is the textbook definition of "tedious." The constant backtracking makes it really hard to want to go back to it, and it feels like the large connected world doesn't do the original's levels justice. Shame, but I feel like Banjo-Kazooie is the biggest one-hit wonder franchise in gaming in my opinion.
Backtracking. You can't do this right now. Backtracking. You can't do this right now. Backtracking. You can't do this right now. Backtracking. You can't do this right now. Backtracking. You can't do this right now. Backtracking. You can't do this right now. Backtracking. You can't do this right now. Backtracking. You can't do this right now. Backtracking. You can't do this right now. Backtracking. You can't do this right now. Backtracking. You can't do this right now. Backtracking. You can't do this right now. Backtracking. You can't do this right now. Backtracking. You can't do this right now. Backtracking. You can't do this right now. Backtracking. You can't do this right now. Backtracking. You can't do this right now. Backtracking. You can't do this right now. Backtracking. You can't do this right now. Backtracking. You can't do this right now. Backtracking. You can't do this right now. Backtracking. You can't do this right now. Backtracking. You can't do this right now. Backtracking. You can't do this right now.
Although the game was way worse than I remember as a kid, I still think it's a very solid title, and is still better than the first game IMO.
Sure, the game's still littered with tedium - transformations are still useless, Mumbo barely does anything (and he's kinda bad to control in these big worlds) and the worlds definitely are too big (mostly Terrydactyland and Grunty Industries idk what they were smoking with those two), but I think the highs heavily outweigh the lows.
The worlds are so fun to explore, just the amount of sheer content in all of these is baffling, considering that this game was released on the Nintendo 64. I also love how they're all interconnected so it's (kinda) easier to travel from one world to the next.
The game's comedy is cynical and witty, a style that I definitely enjoyed, and it was funny looking over jokes that I never understood as a kid.
The controls also feel way more fluid than Banjo-Kazooie's thanks to an updated moveset. Not saying that BK's was bad, but Tooie definitely improves on the formula with a lot of tweaks that make swimming, flying, and even traversing on land way cooler.
The bosses in this game are also so cool, they're so interesting and they definitely add to the coolness of these worlds, definitely a major highlight.
I could go on about what I love and hate about this game, but overall it's a solid game that tries to one-up Kazooie in every way. In a lot of places, it does, and lot it doesn't, but despite this, this is one that I fully enjoyed, and one I would fully recommend to anyone. I'd probably give it a 10/10 if the jiggy backtracking wasn't needed so often.
Sure, the game's still littered with tedium - transformations are still useless, Mumbo barely does anything (and he's kinda bad to control in these big worlds) and the worlds definitely are too big (mostly Terrydactyland and Grunty Industries idk what they were smoking with those two), but I think the highs heavily outweigh the lows.
The worlds are so fun to explore, just the amount of sheer content in all of these is baffling, considering that this game was released on the Nintendo 64. I also love how they're all interconnected so it's (kinda) easier to travel from one world to the next.
The game's comedy is cynical and witty, a style that I definitely enjoyed, and it was funny looking over jokes that I never understood as a kid.
The controls also feel way more fluid than Banjo-Kazooie's thanks to an updated moveset. Not saying that BK's was bad, but Tooie definitely improves on the formula with a lot of tweaks that make swimming, flying, and even traversing on land way cooler.
The bosses in this game are also so cool, they're so interesting and they definitely add to the coolness of these worlds, definitely a major highlight.
I could go on about what I love and hate about this game, but overall it's a solid game that tries to one-up Kazooie in every way. In a lot of places, it does, and lot it doesn't, but despite this, this is one that I fully enjoyed, and one I would fully recommend to anyone. I'd probably give it a 10/10 if the jiggy backtracking wasn't needed so often.
i'll start with the good here, and there's a good bit! i think this game looks phenomenal for the era, i know it chugged on n64 but with the update keeping the performance solid it just looks so great for the console. the music and sound design still is phenomenal but i'll say not a lot music stood out as much as the original game. still great, but not quite on the same level. the writing stood out as really funny here! the bit at the start where (SPOILERS) bottles dies and then you go to his house and his wife/kids talk about how much they love him and can't wait for him to get home while banjo is too scared to tell them about what happened was one of the funniest things i've ever seen in a game. it just kept getting worse and it was hilarious. there were a lot of genuinely funny moments here, the first one was good about this too but it stood out as extra funny here. i could do with a little less fourth wall breaks (something that i know is really bad in nuts and bolts lol) but it was still funny. the biggest plus by far is everything i complained about controls wise was fixed here in this game! you leave talon trot quicker, you can jump attack out of it, everything just feels even better! it still has that unique weight and feel of banjo that i liked but everything is faster and you're locked out of moves significantly less. on top of that, the movesets banjo and kazooie get when they're separated are so fun!! the double jump with banjo led to some fun sequence breaking that i loved, and genuinely make kazooie a little less slippery and build a game around her she was so fucking fun to control solo in this game! that was by far the best thing in this game, the control updates to the main characters and even the transformations generally feel better here. speaking of transformations, i liked a good bit of the little mini games here! i'm kind of a sucker for weird completely out of nowhere mini games and this game has a good bit of it that's fun and silly. some were terrible (any first person maze was bad and jesus christ the mary canary rematch was so absurdly difficult for no reason and so bad) but most were fun to do and i was excited to see them! there's some solid worlds here too, hailfire peaks is genuinely a top 3 world in both games but i'm also a huge sucker for a fire/ice motif. witchyworld, cloud cuckooland, and jolly roger's lagoon were all great too. jolly roger's is so visually interesting and impressive, it's not the most fun to navigate but i'm such a sucker for the ocean aesthetic and it's so gorgeous that i loved it anyways. bosses also were way more prevalent and they were generally charming and fun. the grunty fight was significantly less fun but otherwise the bosses felt like bigger deals and generally were more fun to battle. some were annoying but i appreciated the effort regardless.
negative wise, man are these worlds way too big LOL. there's such an absurd amount of back tracking and going between worlds you have to do, and while it's admittedly pretty cool to find ways the world connect (albeit in small rooms with single jiggies for the most part) there's so many jiggies that go between multiple worlds and they're pretty exhausting. the worst example for me was the lost dinosaur. you have to free her from her prison in witchyworld, find the train station, summon the train to witchyworld, then she has to get on that train, you then have to run all the way back to the dinosaur world and send the train there. the coolest part is that's just 1 third of that specific jiggy mission!!! it's absurd! on top of that you have 2 different character swaps now, you control mumbo jumbo now (who is very boring to control and just does a couple lame spells) and get transformed by humba wumba which usually is alright to control but the worlds are so massive that you probably have to go back and forth between her tent way too many times a level because you find something else you need to do. the washing machine was the worst here, you need to clean 6 bunnies outfits all throughout the entire level + press a switch, that also requires a mumbo spell to help you press it. it's exhausting sometimes. it really weighs some of the worlds down. cloud cuckooland found a solid middle ground here, not many connections to other worlds and it's all relatively self contained. it helps you have all the powerups you need in that world, which is another lame thing. there's a lot of jiggies you need to return to with new powerups, that works in a metroidvania but in here it just is kind of frustrating. kazooie was very good about this, only 1 powerup was in a later world, everything else you could get every collectable within that level. i much prefer that system. regardless, every level generally has this problem and it's pretty exhausting. and as much as i like how each character controls individually, there's a lot of moves you get for the individual character, but you can only get them while you're separated which is really annoying to! so many times i'd walk up to an upgrade silo, and get told i needed to ditch one of the characters. why?? just teach it to me but let me know it only works for a specific character, it's not like it was ever really a puzzle to get to the upgrade individually it was mostly just running back to an old room to separate and then come back and get the upgrade. sorry this was a bit rambly but it was pretty frustrating and by far the biggest issue i had with this game. the only other negative really is i generally preferred the more cheery and happy colors and tone of banjo-kazooie. i'm fine with this game being a bit darker but it's just a preference for me.
i heard some mixed things about this one going into it, and realistically it's like a 3.75 but instead of rounding down i decided to round up because i find these games soooo damn charming and silly. this was still a really good time and i don't regret playing it, but the worlds were just way too massive and required so much backtracking. if you just could turn into your humba wumba transformation at will and have mumbo jumbo show up at his switches without having to run to him and run back, genuinely this game is 10x better. levels would still be a bit too big but it'd be way more tolerable. good game, just too ambitious for its own good! really desperately wish we got the banjo threeie that was teased at the end here. could have been something very special.
btw i made a world tier list from both games and this is it hehe: https://imgur.com/gallery/XkH9weQ
negative wise, man are these worlds way too big LOL. there's such an absurd amount of back tracking and going between worlds you have to do, and while it's admittedly pretty cool to find ways the world connect (albeit in small rooms with single jiggies for the most part) there's so many jiggies that go between multiple worlds and they're pretty exhausting. the worst example for me was the lost dinosaur. you have to free her from her prison in witchyworld, find the train station, summon the train to witchyworld, then she has to get on that train, you then have to run all the way back to the dinosaur world and send the train there. the coolest part is that's just 1 third of that specific jiggy mission!!! it's absurd! on top of that you have 2 different character swaps now, you control mumbo jumbo now (who is very boring to control and just does a couple lame spells) and get transformed by humba wumba which usually is alright to control but the worlds are so massive that you probably have to go back and forth between her tent way too many times a level because you find something else you need to do. the washing machine was the worst here, you need to clean 6 bunnies outfits all throughout the entire level + press a switch, that also requires a mumbo spell to help you press it. it's exhausting sometimes. it really weighs some of the worlds down. cloud cuckooland found a solid middle ground here, not many connections to other worlds and it's all relatively self contained. it helps you have all the powerups you need in that world, which is another lame thing. there's a lot of jiggies you need to return to with new powerups, that works in a metroidvania but in here it just is kind of frustrating. kazooie was very good about this, only 1 powerup was in a later world, everything else you could get every collectable within that level. i much prefer that system. regardless, every level generally has this problem and it's pretty exhausting. and as much as i like how each character controls individually, there's a lot of moves you get for the individual character, but you can only get them while you're separated which is really annoying to! so many times i'd walk up to an upgrade silo, and get told i needed to ditch one of the characters. why?? just teach it to me but let me know it only works for a specific character, it's not like it was ever really a puzzle to get to the upgrade individually it was mostly just running back to an old room to separate and then come back and get the upgrade. sorry this was a bit rambly but it was pretty frustrating and by far the biggest issue i had with this game. the only other negative really is i generally preferred the more cheery and happy colors and tone of banjo-kazooie. i'm fine with this game being a bit darker but it's just a preference for me.
i heard some mixed things about this one going into it, and realistically it's like a 3.75 but instead of rounding down i decided to round up because i find these games soooo damn charming and silly. this was still a really good time and i don't regret playing it, but the worlds were just way too massive and required so much backtracking. if you just could turn into your humba wumba transformation at will and have mumbo jumbo show up at his switches without having to run to him and run back, genuinely this game is 10x better. levels would still be a bit too big but it'd be way more tolerable. good game, just too ambitious for its own good! really desperately wish we got the banjo threeie that was teased at the end here. could have been something very special.
btw i made a world tier list from both games and this is it hehe: https://imgur.com/gallery/XkH9weQ
As much as I like this game, I can admit it isn't as good as the original and definitely has some flaws. While I enjoy having bigger worlds, they feel a little too bloated at times which can be annoying and time-consuming to traverse through if you do not take advantage of the teleportation pads. There is also a lot of backtracking which is a good way of making it different from the first game, but I prefer to keep jiggies confined to just one visit of each world similar to how the first game mostly handled it. Despite the bloat & backtracking, it is still a game I very much enjoy and recommend if you get the chance to play it.
I did not want to engage with this game at all. It was kinda tedious changing forms in Banjo 1, and now you also have mumbo segments. Just way too much stuff that I do not care for.
I grew up with Banjo-Kazooie. For some reason, I had a problem with Tooie because it seemed too different from its predecessor. I called BK my favorite game from 1999 to 2014. Then I finally decided to play Tooie, and I 100%-ed it.
It was incredible.
Everything BK can do, Tooie can do better. The only issue is the framerate, as (like other Rare games) Tooie pushed the 64 to its limits, and that leads to some performance issues. But if you play Banjo-Tooie on Xbox, it plays like a dream, though it's really funny how they didn't change Jamjars's rhymes to match the new buttons. For example:
On N64, he said "First hold Z then press down-C, protected in liquids you will be!"
On Xbox, he says "First hold LT or RT then press Right Stick Down, protected in liquids you will be!"
WHACK THE BEAR!
It was incredible.
Everything BK can do, Tooie can do better. The only issue is the framerate, as (like other Rare games) Tooie pushed the 64 to its limits, and that leads to some performance issues. But if you play Banjo-Tooie on Xbox, it plays like a dream, though it's really funny how they didn't change Jamjars's rhymes to match the new buttons. For example:
On N64, he said "First hold Z then press down-C, protected in liquids you will be!"
On Xbox, he says "First hold LT or RT then press Right Stick Down, protected in liquids you will be!"
WHACK THE BEAR!