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.

I don't have enough to say here for a proper review or rating, but I think it'd be nice to document a couple of my experiences here in case I forget them one day. Perhaps if you read this you'll be able to synthesize parts of my experience into your own and feel more concretely however you do about this game.

Pokémon Crater was the first Pokémon game of any kind that I played, most likely around 2005 or 2006 or so. I'd watched some of the TV show through thrift store VHS tapes and collected the trading cards as hand-me-downs from cousins and friends but hadn't really gotten to play any of the games. The first real one I played was a copy of Crystal a cousin of mine owned, but that wouldn't be until a little later than this.

I first heard about Crater from Andrew, a kid on the bus who I was friends with through my brother. I wound up playing it for the first time at a Best Buy at one of their sample laptops (a Mac, I presume) while my father was there to browse their wares and buy something (maybe an appliance?). I was there for quite a while so I got to play the game for a fair bit before we left. I picked Cyndaquil to start with, and I remember playing against a number of the Hoenn gym leaders before challenging a couple Johto ones and maybe a Kanto one. It was a nice long session, at least by my young standards.

After that I didn't play it again due to no consistent family computer internet access for a while till I randomly went to a local coffee shop my father frequented. They had a mini internet café there and with his permission I went on and played the game again. I believe I picked the same pokémon on a new account (if I even made one...) and more or less did the same thing again, though I remember going a bit further than the previous time. I want to say I challenged at least one Frontier Brain or Elite Four member.

And then... I can't remember any specific instances of playing it again. I know for a fact I played it at least one more time at that café later on, as well as on the family laptop on one of the few times where I was allowed to use it to browse the web (and wasn't playing RuneScape or AdventureQuest or Club Penguin). Weirdly I didn't ever go on there at school despite my second elementary school giving us plenty of opportunities to play games when we were done with our computer classwork -- I think I just used Club Penguin more there cause most of my classmates were on that so it was more of a fun social thing.

Still, I always loved Crater so it's a bit odd I didn't hop on more. I guess the same could be said about a lot of sites. My internet access was quite limited for a while, though, and by the time I got my own little netbook (a turquoise Toshiba NB505, very cute) I guess I'd forgotten about a lot of that stuff. I think a lot about how I never got to play much of the offerings on Bionicle.com cause a lot of the stuff I'd wanted to play was no longer available like MNOG 1.

Ah, but that's a big digression. Back to Crater...

I think every few years I'd hop on it for a couple hours and then leave, never retaining the same account. Despite keeping accounts for sites like Global Pokédex Plus/GPX+ and Pokémon Showdown and even flash game sites back then, I never seemed to pin one down for Crater. Weird. Anyway, after middle school I pretty much never touched it again until the year I graduated from college. I decided to visit it, and finding that it'd gone through several name and site changes until it was now Pokémon Vortex Battle Arena, I was intrigued. It turned out it pretty much played the same as it always had, though, and in a way it was even cooler that way. I made an account that I keep to this day and every once in a long while I'll hop back in to actually make progress. Maybe I should go back to it sometime.

This game is adorable and if/when it goes down one day I'll be really really sad. Even though I've resolved not to really keep up with Pokémon much in general, this is one of those warmhearted and sincere projects that I can't help but follow quietly when I can as opposed to more high-profile media -- official or otherwise. It's really impressive how long the people behind this have kept it going for. I cherish this game even if I never got to play it too often when I was younger. It's hard to explain but it brings a sense of comfort thinking about it. Not nostalgia per se, but I suppose a sense of relaxation booting up something that you haven't touched in many years. It's almost like a time capsule, and certainly one I appreciate very much for existing.