I'll preface this review by saying that I played Banjo-Kazooie on the original N64 when I was a kid and on the Xbox, Switch, and emulator more recently. In short, an amazing early 3D platformer and one that deserves your time to this day. If Super Mario 64 was the birth of the genre, Banjo-Kazooie was the first evolution. The game breathed new life by satisfyingly combining platforming with exploration, puzzle solving, story/character interactions and an ABSOLUTELY BANGER SOUNDTRACK. SM64, the hallmark of the time, I would say is the better game in terms of strict platforming, but it doesn't hold a candle to Banjo-Kazooie when it comes to any of these other factors. This is a game which you can really tell was made with charm and style forefront in mind, from its quirky cast of characters (with their iconic, and frankly genius, dialogue audio) to its inspired and thematic level designs. In what other game can you get a game over screen where a green witch who only speaks in rhymes steals your kidnapped sister's beauty and transforms into a stereotypical hot woman? These sort of touches are what makes Banjo-Kazooie a gem among its peers which stands out even in the modern era. I could wax poetical on this game all day so I'll end it with this: Banjo got into Smash get fucked everyone who told me he wouldnt.

This is -the- lightning in a bottle video game of my lifetime. I'm not an MMORPG fan at my core, but my love of the Warcraft universe and the accessibility this game provided gave me a clear on-ramp to my most played game of all time.

Truth be told, I spent almost all of my time chronically leveling and re-leveling as opposed to throwing myself at the endgame hamster wheel that has characterized the game for the better half of two decades at this point, and not once did I ever feel I was missing out on anything. Vanilla WoW will always hit different.

literally everything about this game is good besides the level progression, and it's such a big problem that it almost ruins everything else. the levels themselves are fine but the way they're strung together isn't. they're interconnected but not in ways that are helpful, also the map is such a mess, idk how to describe it bc i dont even know how to read it, you start in A-1 and then get to A-2 until you're in B-1 so you're like oh they are connected alphabetically but then you're suddenly in F-1 from B-3 and it doesn't connect in any way to E-anything or G-anything and the map tells you that if you go left from B-2 you get to C-1 but really if you go left you STAY in B-2 and if you go RIGHT you reach C-1 so seriously just look at a complete map online and a walkthrough so you don't have to figure this shit out yourself and then the game becomes good because you get to play it like a regular mega man game. i'm not against a mega man metroidvania (i'd actually love to see another attempt) but this is possibly the worst attempt at metroidvania map design i've ever seen in my life. but also you can basically play as the guardians from the zero games and playing as harpuia is fucking sick

A short explanation from the man himself on why this game rules so hard: https://youtu.be/PBRt2D2YN44

I got my first gameboy with Pokemon Blue and Kirby's Dream Land for my 4th birthday. Along with a large collection that my older sister already had, these were my first games. As a little kid, I loved playing Kirby's Dream Land over and over on long car rides. A lot of my original gameboy games were too hard or janky for me to play. RPGs were easy because you just chose options, but other action adventure games were impossible for my slow baby hands. So, for me, Kirby's Dream Land gave me an accessible introduction into action games that other games did not provide.