I can't for the life of me get why people like this game. Mumbo's Mountain is reasonably enjoyable but from there it just keeps getting worse. I wanted to finish this game but by the time I got to Gobi Desert, even just turning it on started to piss me off.
The game has a ton of stuff to collect and nearly all of them are required to beat the game, to the point where you'll want to 100% the game out of convenience instead of because you actually wanted to. Not inherently bad, but with worlds this big, that often require multiple sweeps to get through, this becomes annoying really quickly. This is made even worse by the fact that Banjo moves at a snails pace, especially once Mumbo transformations get involved. The only option for faster traversal is the Talon Trot which locks you out of most of your move set and has start-up and ending animations that take forever.
The levels don't compliment Banjo's movement at all, often times having jumps that are barely too high to make even with the backflip and double jump. The extra moves Bottles teaches you all have the "create a problem so we can solve it with a stupid gimmick mentality" in every level after Mumbo's Mountain, locking a ton of collectibles behind some stupid pair of shoes that will only be unlocked once Bottles teaches you how to use them half-way across the map.
Another big problem has apparently been fixed in the Xbox 360 version, but considering the most modern ways to play this game are either NSO or Project 64 I think it's definitely worth talking about. One of the biggest buzzkills in video games is losing a significant chunk of save data. Even in games I actually like, if I lose a ton of save data, my playthrough usually ends there. So imagine how I felt when died with 4 Jinjos and 83 notes in Bubblegloop Swamp and realized I had to do it all over again. This is a bit more forgivable by the Jinjos, but there are 100 damn notes per stage. Why would anyone want to spend the next half hour retracing the steps they had already taken? Extra lives become absolutely pointless when a death is basically a game over anyway. Oh and quitting the game counts as dying too because why would they take into consideration that people have lives outside of bad video games. Remember how people like to complain about 100 coins levels in Super Mario 64? Why is it suddenly ok when this game the exact same thing? Wouldn't it be easier to stomach in Mario when the game is significantly faster, easier, has a better camera, actually has more than exactly 100 coins per level, and the stars are completely optional?
This game is absolutely carried by its charm and presentation, which are admittedly really good. That's the only reason I can see as to why people hold it in such high regard. If the game was a visual novel, I probably would've enjoyed it, but with Mario 64 coming out two years prior I can't help but wonder why people ever bothered with this game. And now people are telling me that the sequel isn't as good? Yeah, I'm just going to give up on this series and move on to the next game on my backlog. I have never been so excited to play Danganronpa Ultra Despair Girls.
The game has a ton of stuff to collect and nearly all of them are required to beat the game, to the point where you'll want to 100% the game out of convenience instead of because you actually wanted to. Not inherently bad, but with worlds this big, that often require multiple sweeps to get through, this becomes annoying really quickly. This is made even worse by the fact that Banjo moves at a snails pace, especially once Mumbo transformations get involved. The only option for faster traversal is the Talon Trot which locks you out of most of your move set and has start-up and ending animations that take forever.
The levels don't compliment Banjo's movement at all, often times having jumps that are barely too high to make even with the backflip and double jump. The extra moves Bottles teaches you all have the "create a problem so we can solve it with a stupid gimmick mentality" in every level after Mumbo's Mountain, locking a ton of collectibles behind some stupid pair of shoes that will only be unlocked once Bottles teaches you how to use them half-way across the map.
Another big problem has apparently been fixed in the Xbox 360 version, but considering the most modern ways to play this game are either NSO or Project 64 I think it's definitely worth talking about. One of the biggest buzzkills in video games is losing a significant chunk of save data. Even in games I actually like, if I lose a ton of save data, my playthrough usually ends there. So imagine how I felt when died with 4 Jinjos and 83 notes in Bubblegloop Swamp and realized I had to do it all over again. This is a bit more forgivable by the Jinjos, but there are 100 damn notes per stage. Why would anyone want to spend the next half hour retracing the steps they had already taken? Extra lives become absolutely pointless when a death is basically a game over anyway. Oh and quitting the game counts as dying too because why would they take into consideration that people have lives outside of bad video games. Remember how people like to complain about 100 coins levels in Super Mario 64? Why is it suddenly ok when this game the exact same thing? Wouldn't it be easier to stomach in Mario when the game is significantly faster, easier, has a better camera, actually has more than exactly 100 coins per level, and the stars are completely optional?
This game is absolutely carried by its charm and presentation, which are admittedly really good. That's the only reason I can see as to why people hold it in such high regard. If the game was a visual novel, I probably would've enjoyed it, but with Mario 64 coming out two years prior I can't help but wonder why people ever bothered with this game. And now people are telling me that the sequel isn't as good? Yeah, I'm just going to give up on this series and move on to the next game on my backlog. I have never been so excited to play Danganronpa Ultra Despair Girls.