They took out Slime Climb?

L

EDIT: It's still in, I just didn't see it for like, 20 hours of play

Having owned and played the two games this romhack was inspired by, I appreciate a lot of the little details, and some of the more well designed areas. However, a lot of the design winds up being more frustrating or boring than it should be, definitely winding up as an inferior project to vanilla Banjo-Kazooie. Still, the work put on display here is insane, and kudos to Kurko and the team for managing to make beloved Zelda areas look distinct to the Banjo-Kazooie style, and incorporating new platforming challenges to compensate for Zelda spots that wouldn't be that fun to jump around in. Much love to the soundtrack too, but really only when the tracks are re-orchestrating Zelda songs to make them sound like they belong in Banjo.

Definitely not worth all the hate, but also a little too monotonous for it's own good. If you're familiar with collectathons as an idea then this will be a breeze for you, though the over-reliance on minigames and the general lack of difficulty/risk in the overall level design creeps up into making this hard to enjoy. The visuals are pretty insane though. Seeing lighting effects used and abused to liberally on an N64 game is awesome, and as always, the Rare sound team doesn't disappoint, though it's admittedly not near their strongest OST from the era.
This game is just pretty middling, but it's chill enough to have captivated me to complete it. Definitely worth a play if you wanna see what all the fuss is all about.

In comparison to the first entry, this game definitely sacrifices level design in favor of creating a much more tangible and interesting world and levels. It's definitely an enjoyable and worthwhile experience to chill out and play, but the core gameplay winds up being a whole lot less engaging, with a non-zero percentage of game time being spent on using Mumbo or other forms simply to press buttons with very little in the way of challenge or engagement. The soundtrack makes up for basically every gripe I have though, definitely serving as a primary reason to keep pushing through to the end

The idea of creating your own vehicles and having them interact with the world with believable physics is pretty novel, and it's executed very well in Nuts and Bolts. The issue is the mission design wrapping this package up is so uninspired, cookie cutter and monotonous that it winds up being a slog to go through, even moreso for masochists like myself who try and go for full completion. There really winds up being no actual creativity in trying to complete these missions, besides thinking about how to jam every engine you have on for a race challenge, or load it up with 5 guns for a combat challenge. There are glimpses of fun and interesting design where you sometimes add parts to your vehicle as the mission goes on, or ones where you're forced to use a pre-made vehicle that very nicely compliment the mission, but they're way too far and few between.
Maybe the biggest issue with this game is being a Banjo-Kazooie game. I used to be of the opinion that, as a person who grew up with the franchise, it didn't piss me off that this bore the same name. I must not have noticed the sheer contempt the dialogue and writing in this game has for the former entries. So many written lines just trash the concept of collectathons, the sales figures of Kazooie and Tooie, and the overall concept of a set of mascot characters like the protagonists. It legitimately feels like the only people in the entire studio who were excited to be working on a Banjo game were the composers, with the vast majority of songs lovingly tying in melodies from the first two games. Regardless of how much slander I hear for this game, I won't hear any criticism of the OST; Kirkhope, Beanland and Clynick knocked it out of the park.
It's a shame this game comes out looking like it does, and fills me with a sense of loathing after playing it. The real smoking gun in this unfortunate game all condenses into one of the final lines spoken by the replacement antagonist, LOG, "...you may never get another game." Rare could have attempted to be a little less blunt, and told me to go fuck myself

-Edit: The DLC, L.O.G's Lost Challenges, did nothing to sway my opinion either positively or negatively. The last content that players will ever experience of this franchise officially is Klungo's fucking arcade game

As a longtime lover of Olli Olli 2 (and to a lesser extent, 1), I was initially a little concerned and intrigued when seeing the trailer for World for the first time. I think my cautious optimism served me right, because even though this game does a lot right, it also feels like it actively spits in the face of series die-hards like myself. To preface, if someone never had any experience with an OlliOlli game before, I would wholeheartedly recommend World. It's super packed with content, with every level feeling unique enough to earn it's place, and the amount of challenges to complete is rather insane. The addition of quarter-pipes and grabs makes a ton of sense and adds a lot of depth to level design, and additions like wall-rides help to really sell that sequel feeling. Another soundtrack of licensed songs is included, and while it definitely works, I don't think the energy is quite as great as with 2's soundtrack.

Onto why I feel burned. While this game does add a fair deal of new trick mechanics, some feel kind of out of place. Late-tricks are kinda unnecessary when grabs are already a thing you can do after a trick, and almost feel included to justify the existence of some challenges, which unnecessarily requires the player to start using a button that's never been a thing in these games. With some new trick types being added, it's weird to see things like grind-tweaks added, as grind switching is already a thing and essentially serves the same purpose, and revert manuals have been removed, which sucks as they'd be perfect for landing onto quarter-pipe slopes. Plus another big gripe (even though it was an issue from 1 to 2) is how a lot of the special tricks don't match up with 2's inputs at all.
The way I see the design approach is that they needed to move music skipping to the shoulders to allow the right stick for grabs and such, and since the shoulders are now taken up, trick modifiers can't be a thing anymore. But then you could ask, "well, why even have a skip music button altogether? Or why not just put it on something even more out of the way like the d-pad which isn't used at all in game???" The trick system in this game really feels a little 'one steps forward, two steps back' sorta deal, not to mention how terribly spammy one has to be to remain competitive on the leaderboards

I think this game's biggest sins is just having outright unreliable momentum mechanics, and a lot of challenges pertaining to keeping your momentum in check. Too many times a jump will feel perfect only for the player to completely miss the landing and need to restart the level. Some levels in the game are over 2 minutes in length for some of the riskier players, and having a full-combo run get trashed by one speed related mistake the player made earlier in their run can be frustrating as all hell. Also, while I appreciate a respect of players ability to take risks, requiring some jumps to be taken AFTER a grind rail ends feels so strange and poorly communicated. The timing can be finnicky and sometimes you'll think you earned a jump only to divebomb into a ravine.

Weird that I have so many things to bash on this game but still feel like it's worthy of a positive score. It's just a lot of fun to play from any angle, just goes against what my beliefs are when it comes to how to progress the franchise. This game is a challenge and it's harder challenges to complete really feel like a crash-course in advanced problem solving. Do yourself a favor, and if you're up for it, go try and 100% this game with no guides. It's a full-ass video game and well worth the price of entry. Let's just hope Roll7 returns to OlliOlli with a little more refinement of the core gameplay. I feel like they could have a new classic on their hands!