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.
thealexmott
2 months ago