Banjo-Kazooie (1998)

I finally played this game on Xbox 360 for the first time after hearing about it for years. The game surprisingly holds up very well in most aspects. Characters and dialogue are very goofy and charming, the banter between them is great and the sounds they make when talking were especially funny and never got old for me :-). Banjo & Kazooie control nicely and both have fun traversal mechanics and attacks and thanks to that the core gameplay is engaging throughout the entire game.

The game features varied levels that were all mostly great aside from 1 very frustrating (the infamous Rusty Bucket Bay) and 1 just OK (Gobi's Valley) and were packed with engaging content that rewarded curiosity and exploration. The remastered version on Xbox 360 still looks nice with vastly sharper UI elements and overall higher resolution than N64 version.

The soundtrack is probably the best part of this game. Grant Kirkhope is a genius. He managed to squeeze so much personality and dynamism into a very limited storage size for an N64 game which is very very impressive. Almost the entirety of the soundtrack is memorable and fits the tone perfectly. I ended up collecting 100% of collectables available in the game and beat all the main worlds but unfortunately the game has one huge flaw.

Good times came to a screeching halt when I arrived at the Furnace Fun bullshit quiz. The game for any sane and rational person basically ends here and the final boss fight is inaccessible. Some designer on the team somehow thought it's a good idea to require the player to have some insane arcane knowledge about the game's specific rooms/enemies/objects in specific locations. I played through this game in 4 days straight and I couldn't even get past 1/4 of the quiz board. Absolute showstopper. I bet maybe 1 out of 10 000 kids beat this game back in 1998 which is shameful. Devs that designed this area and the person who let it ship in the final game in this state all deserve a boot in the face for being gatekeeping jerks. This area alone brings the whole game down from 4.5* to 4* as it's impossible to fully complete the game (unless you are OK with grinding, taking notes and studying for hours just so you even have the slightest chance). It's easily one of the worst final areas in a game I have ever seen.

I had lots of fun playing through 95% of the game's content and would recommend it to anyone who likes collectathon platformers such as Super Mario 64 or Super Mario Odyssey.

Platform: Xbox 360

Playtime: 15 hours

The latest virtual console adventure taken with my other half @joystickler. (I also just realized I never logged that we played through Ocarina of Time after Shining Force II. That's been the only one we've played together so far that I had mostly completed on my own previously/as a kid.)

I did rent this game from Blockbuster several times as a youngin'. But for those who know my gaming preferences even a little, it will come as no surprise that I never finished it. I'm not big into platformers to begin with, but I definitely prefer the action/adventure 3D ones like this, Ty the Tasmanian Tiger, Jak and Daxter, 3D Mario games, etc. It's not so much that I don't enjoy them as it is that I get tired of playing them within an hour and just want to get back to my JRPGs.

That said, this is one of the N64 games that has always stuck with me. Every so often I'll think about the pre-Animal Crossing garbled voices, launching eggs, a lot of the music, Kazooie's ee-er-ee-er running sound, and of course, "Ga-huck!"

Experiencing it as a viewer/commentator was a better option for me. I've now seen the whole game, collected everything by proxy, and lived through that honestly kinda bullshit Grunthilda fight.

I grew up with a N64 but never played Banjo (other than multiplayer in Tooie at a friend's house). I was always put up off a bit by the visual aesthetic, it's not really up my alley but I finally sat down to play it and it's fantastic. I definitely like Mario 64 more, but this game is so much fun, I ended up 100% clearing it.

My main issue is that I kept getting lost in the hub world. The shortcut pots were sometimes helpful, but you still have to remember where they are and where they go. I imagine kids had a particularly difficult time with this.

I played Diddy Kong Racing right before this and am starting to really develop a deep appreciation for Rare. I'm interested to see what I think of Donkey Kong 64 as an adult. BK had the right amount of stuff to collect but I know DK64 is more in-depth.

Not much to say about this game that hasn't already been said. The characters are lovable, the level designs are fantastic, and the platforming is ultimately really solid. As with most 3D platformers from this era the camera can be really annoying, especially if it's caught on a wall while you're lining up a jump.

Ultimately I really liked this game but don't think I loved it enough to justify a 5-star rating. Is Banjo-Tooie worth experiencing if you enjoyed this one?

Dropped after dying for the 40th time at Rusty Bucket Bay, but I consider myself having played enough to have formed an opinion that most likely would not have been swayed by the final two levels.

Banjo Kazooie is an amazing concept ruined by horrid execution. The levels are bursting with creativity, with so many unique ideas for puzzle piece challenges. Concepts are rarely reused, and the worlds are small enough to be concentrated but big enough to feel like play areas to explore.

Unfortunately, the controls are some of the most awful I have experienced in a 3D platformer. Banjo is clunky, imprecise in his jumps, the input commands for his special moves always takes me out of the flow and more than everything he is soooooooo sloooooooooow.

I also did not like how high the requirements were in terms of puzzle pieces and music notes required to progress further at the end point of the game. Had it been lower, I probably would have liked the game more, since I wouldn't have felt forced to engage with the puzzle pieces I felt were too time consuming or dreadful.

And Kazooie farts eggs. If any sort of media feels the necessity to include farts or poop jokes, that automatically disqualify it from any grade higher than 2/5.

I will admit, I was not a huge fan of the Nintendo 64. I liked it, but compared to the NES and the SNES, I just didn't enjoy it as much. I think many of the games on the console have not aged well. Mario 64 I played again recently and thought it was good, but not great. Ocarina of Time I tried for a few hours before putting it away. Goldeneye I find almost unplayable anymore.

One game I never played when I originally had an N64 was Banjo-Kazooie. I heard good things about it, and when it came to the Nintendo Switch Online service, I decided to give it a go. And boy, am I glad I did.

This game is platforming perfection. The right amount of challenge, the right amount of secrets, with some of the most imaginative levels I've seen in a game. I read in an interview that the game creators were influenced by Saturday morning cartoons and Disney movies, and that is evident throughout the game. The sound effects sound like they come directly from cartoons. The writing is hilarious and it totally fits the 90s "attitude era" that was big in pop culture around the time the game was originally released.

The sheer variety is what I love most. Every level has new tasks to complete, and it relies on the gamer to use the wide range of moves to solve puzzles.

I'm very happy to get the chance to play this game. It truly remains one of Rare's best titles of all time, and a sad reminder of the greatness they had when they worked closely with Nintendo.

It's charming, that much is certain. Banjo-Kazooie certainly oozes childlike aura as you go through each of the carefully crafted areas, but believe me that's all it's good for and it goes on to last 10ish hours.

The platforming is incredibly simple, with most of it geared towards checklist collection design that I've never really gelled with at all. It's not engaging enough for me to be fine with its 'comfy' gameplay structure which leads to a mentality that uncovers all the cracks in its design. I don't personally think collectathon gameplay is inherently bad but I certainly think that basing on it alone ends with situations where you either have the mental chemistry to be delighted whenever you finish getting a bunch of trinkets or you find yourself like me, blank staring in a screen looking for where the fun is supposed to be.

Some miscellaneous stuff: The music also isn't very good either, memorable tunes for certain but not pleasant and use the same motif awfully for such a ridiculous amount. The final boss is actually good, challenging and also interesting. The board game is awful which is a real shame because I like the concept of remembering areas in your head and being tested on that, but it comes down to a bunch of useless fun fact information rather than genuine area knowledge.

Overall, Banjo-Kazooie is a skip unless you are already a fan of this genre, in which case you'll have probably played it already. (4/10)

Put simply, this game is pure joy.

(Played this in 2019/20)

Say goodbye to your QoL improvements und welcome this unique and fascinating masterpiece.

You really feel that the developers loved their little baby. It is so full of passion and inspiration. Every world, every "Quest", every character, every single little animation is so full of life and uniqueness. From the flickering little bucket (which just needs some eggs to plug its hole). To the giant metal fish who got toothaches (because he is rusting).

Everything in this crazy world makes sense, everything is connected and everything is good as it is. Nothing here is bloated, like you are used to in some modern games. No to big, not to small, not to long, not to short but simply complete. And it is soooo full life, I can't describe it. Be it the rhymes of the villainess, the lovely teasing between kazooie and banjo or almost every other aspect of the game.

And what I like most of it is the fact, that this game surprises you from your first to your last moment with it. You really feel the spirit of this early 3D platformer era, where they didn't exploit a concept/formula that works and repeat it over and over again. No what you get is pure pleasure and diversity (gameplay and otherwise).

Just watch this short 4 minute video to see what i mean

If you like 3D platformers and want a game that just makes you happy and wholesome, this is the one. You will not find anything comparable (except its even better successor). Banjo Kazooie really is one of a kind and EASILY stand beside (maybe even above) other genre representatives of the time like Mario 64 or Rayman 3.

And if you dont like 3D platformers.... just dont play it (but you WILL miss something)

Banjo-Kazooie is absolutely amazing to watch and listen to. The character designs and environments are stunning, and the soundtrack is incredibly catchy. However, this presentation is bogged down by the poor gameplay. Many of the problems I had with that game are probably just due to me not being used to Nintendo 64 games; I felt the physics were clunky, objects were difficult to separate from textures. and the hub world was easy to get lost in.

My biggest grievance with the game is the notes system; each world has 100 notes to collect, but if you die once, you start back at 0 for that world. This is a pain when notes are required to progress through the game; I felt forced into a completionist role for a game I wanted to play casually. When I saw that I'd need over 800 notes to get the game's true ending, I gave up on trying to reach it; I was burnt out from repeatedly traversing worlds for notes, and I had no desire to continue any further. This game's worlds are a joy to explore, but I wanted to explore at my own pace, not be forced to check every nook and cranny.