Banjo-Kazooie

"My shoddy attempt at a definitive review of this utterly wonderful game (best platformer on N64 for me)"

I have noted, to my eternal frustration, that after reading dozens, possibly hundreds of reviews for Banjo-Kazooie, no one seems to have summed its flawlessness up in so many words. Others do agree with me that the game is essentially perfect (and of course, lots of people don’t think so—but I’m not concerned about that), yet I have never seen anyone articulate exactly why the game is as great as it is. I will try to do so.

To make things simple for those who’ve never played before, I will begin by talking about the practical portion of the game. Banjo (a good-hearted, if not quite Mensa material, “honey bear”) has lost his sister Tooty to the evil witch Gruntilda, who has kidnapped Tooty to steal Tooty’s beauty and transfer it to herself. Luckily, Banjo’s eternal partner, Kazooie (a red-feathered “breegull” who is the more offensive, quick-moving counterpart to Banjo’s solid base…and who resides in Banjo’s backpack by the way) is willing to lend a wing in getting Tooty back. The two characters of the title are bound together throughout the game and make up the two necessary complements to the character you control throughout. To get to Gruntilda, you must enter her various worlds stationed throughout her lair (a la the worlds in Super Mario 64). That’s not a particularly easy task. To get higher in the lair, you must collect the musical notes scattered throughout the worlds. To open new worlds (by completing their unfinished portraits, which have jigsaw-shaped pieces missing), you need the Jiggies located in previous worlds. To fly, you better get some red feathers. For various kinds of miscellaneous tasks, pick up eggs. For handy invincibility, grab gold feathers. If you’re up to much looking around, there are even extra honeycomb pieces (your life bar is a set of honeycomb segments) that can enhance the amount of energy you can hold. So, you must go into each world, collect the things in it, and then progress onward to tougher (though often more intriguing) worlds to capture their collectibles on the way to facing Gruntilda herself…

Having dealt with the practicalities of the game, let me begin my more in-depth analysis by first discussing level design (basically the backbone of any platform/adventure game). First, I bow down to the authority of all things B-K: Chief of Ideas Gregg “Grunty” Mayles. The idea that this name is not very recognized at all in the video game industry puzzles me pretty intensely. He has designed games that are recognized as Top-10-games-on-a-system material on every system he has designed for (Battletoads on NES, Donkey Kong Country 2 on SNES, and Banjo-Kazooie on Nintendo 64). He has made games that outshine, in gameplay and imagination at the very least, Shigeru Miyamoto’s by miles (with the possible exception of Ocarina of Time).

Gregg Mayles (fairly obviously) has a twisted imagination revolving around having protagonists who are sentient animals smacking around other, slightly-less-sentient animals (though in 2 games, our heroes eventually take on a human female as the last boss—Gruntilda, obviously, in Banjo-Kazooie and the Dark Queen in Battletoads). The important thing though, is that his twisted imagination doesn’t just spin odd tales of animals gleefully whacking other animals. It spins odd tales of animals gleefully whacking other animals with amazing attention to detail and a huge amount of devotion to crafting a clever set of puzzles and constant new scenarios for our heroes to tackle. The level design of Battletoads was flawless, always bringing in new elements (riding vehicles, vertical and horizontal scrolling cleverly interacting, etc.); the level design in DKC 2 was madly clever (wind effects—both horizontal and vertical, traveling through beehives where sticky honey made you adjust for jumps and oncoming enemies, riding roller coasters at frantic speeds, sometimes in haunted mansions, etc.); the level design in Banjo-Kazooie is, to me, a pretty close approximation of perfection in 3-D platforming/collect-o-thon.

So having introduced our big designer and his sense of style, what is this fantastic level design actually like? Let us start with the sense of exploration and wonderment. In Banjo-Kazooie, I believe you will find the perfect amount of linearity mixed with pure freedom. Within any given level, you are mostly free to choose your wandering path and gather the notes, Jinjos, and Jiggies (this game’s version of Mario 64’s coins, red coins, and stars, respectively). Overcoming Mario’s weakness of having to re-enter the level for each star, B-K rather allows you to go on collecting and exploring in a given level after any given Jiggy. It is possible (almost always) to collect every Jiggy and note on your first trip through a given world. Not only that, but you will discover new, sometimes funny, always interesting characters, situations, or methods of attacking a problem that will leave you begging for more long after each level is finished. The levels are expansive without being daunting and have a cohesiveness and sense of style and humor that outshines almost any platform game before or since (Conker’s Bad Fur Day being an entirely different scenario, but I may critique that game another day). Not only that, but there’s a kind of awe as you look around each world. See that giant snowman in a level called Freezeezy Peak? The one about 500 times your size? His scale makes you believe that he’s just window dressing, an amazing set piece, but no. You’ll climb his scarf, get atop his hat, jump into his pipe, run along his nose, and even clamber onto the broom he holds as a prop. And surely, the final level’s design, which changes in four different incarnations (one for each season) will leave even the most jaded platform game player wondering at the imagination of the people involved. Only after extensive play does a world yield up all of its treasures. Even expert players will be challenged by the ingenuity of both the puzzles themselves and the placement of especially valuable objects in hard-to-reach locations. The game takes areas you would never think as a place to hide something and uses them such that only the dedicated player finds it all.

That said, this overwhelming freedom is tempered by the necessity of collecting many of the objects within a given world before going further into the overworld (Gruntilda’s Lair) and exploring new worlds thereby. I find this linearity rather enhancing to the gameplay, actually. Just when you may be getting tired of exploring a level, newer and higher rooms in the overworld beckon you on to find bigger, better (harder) worlds and frankly, even entering a new room in the Lair for the first time is an exciting moment. The restriction (generally) to one world at a time makes one feel like one is continually progressing. Rather than a player feeling like they’re limited in options or bound to a world, the gamer feels content to explore that world and feels a sense of accomplishment in having completed it, almost hearkening back to the sense of beating a tough 2-D level (see Super Mario 3 or DKC 2 for more on that).

The overworld is unlike anything you’ve ever seen before. The different rooms in it with their ever-changing environments, ambience, and music leave Mario 64’s castle blushing. The place is a hodge-podge with every area different and more suited to the world entrance it is nearest. Wander toward a world entrance with the beach as its theme, and the overworld’s music changes to a kind of sea shanty while still holding the same melody. Move toward a haunted house, and the same tune becomes made up of organs creepily enticing you to head inside. In the end, the overworld is almost its own actual world, with secrets and Jiggies of its own, and an unbelievable and utterly original climax that leaves your jaw dropped and your sense of having completed something wonderful fulfilled (unlike the, to me, disappointing final boss fight that Mario 64 offers).

The atmosphere in the game is truly original and unmatched by any other offering out there. I believe I will use the overworld’s tune as a metaphor for how the game feels. The tune starts off with a couple of easy xylophone taps (or their MIDI approximation) followed by Gruntilda’s light, far-away, yet dangerous cackle. Then it settles into a pleasant variation on “The Teddy Bear Picnic.” Yet somehow the music seems foreboding and has an air of “things aren’t as they seem.” In the light ease of its tune, there is also danger and a sense of the unexpected. To add to that, the deep brass in portions of the overworld theme are actually quite amusing to the ear and add a tickle in the sense of danger, exploring, and fun that also pervades the overworld theme. The same is true of the game. One explores, with caution, the various places in the game, and there’s always a sense of fun and ease and humor, but underneath it all, the danger is quite real and even the child-like surroundings can’t hide the very real difficulty that certain portions of the game possess.

The tasks and goals you accomplish also lend to the atmosphere. You bring gifts to needy children, battle a giant gorilla for his gold, and raise a bird from hatchling to full-fledged eagle, plus hundreds of other things, each as entertaining and original as the last. The oddity of these apparently juvenile, otherworldly escapades belies the difficulty that some of these tasks entail. All you had to do was stomp that switch to get that Jiggy, right? Nope, now you must hurry toward it, avoiding life-threatening danger and being careful with your jumps, to get hold of it before a timer runs out. The scenarios are always wacky, and almost always require ingenuity and coordination (and even imagination) to overcome. Again, there’s the sense of a light-hearted romp that reveals itself, at its core, to be a difficult task.

There’s one more element I’d like to discuss as far as atmosphere is concerned. Despite the game’s lack of real character development, it does offer Gruntilda (or Grunty as you’ll fondly come to think of her) who has a presence as a villain that leaves most platform bosses in the dust (I won’t go into the metaphysical discussion needed to comment upon Grunty’s greatness compared with other game types’ bosses—say Ganon or Mother Brain). The true greatness in her character is in her constant appearances throughout the game. There are idols (of varying types—a giant portrait of her, a huge carved stone depiction of her head, a massive scarecorw) of Grunty throughout the overworld (and in the “true” worlds themselves) which constantly remind you of what the object of your search is. Not only that, but Gruntilda actually talks to you (in the limited speech she is capable of) throughout the game. She throws random insults or taunts or threats in rhyming couplets as you go through the Lair; she even has a few words to say in most of the “true” worlds you explore. You are always reminded that she is there. As funny as Gruntilda is, you come to think of the overworld as pervaded by her, by a sense of atmosphere that she created, and you are a-feared of, yet charged by, the thought that she is waiting at the end of your quest.

To get down to more gritty, anti-ephemeral, real matters, let me discuss graphics. Consider the blocky, square, often dull environments (or characters) of MANY games on the Nintendo 64. Get ready to leave those elements behind because Banjo-Kazooie shines in every department here. There is no fog, and despite the large level size, you can look from a high point and see landmarks all around any given world. I have played through the game more than a dozen (perhaps twenty?) times and I recall ever having about four instances of very temporary slowdown. To accomplish this, the game “fades in” certain more high-polygon elements (like notes or other collectibles) as soon as you get close enough to them that they’ll factor into your gameplay. The textures are beautiful. Go up to a given wall and look at it and you’ll hardly ever notice a seam in the game’s fabric. The little details added throughout and the amount of care taken on the environments and the characters leaves one slightly breathless when one considers the scope this had to be done on. To top that off, the graphics DEFINITELY make each new environment its own place. There are industrial, icky levels, pristine, sunny levels and all manner of environments in between. No complaints. Given this game’s age (it turns 5 in June of 2003), everything is wonderful.

Now the sound in Banjo-Kazooie is another VERY key element in making this game the original and marvelous work that it is. The dynamic aspect of the music I mentioned earlier in the overworld…well, that aspect crosses over to the entire game. Wander around the beach world, and you’ll find perhaps ten tunes in it. There’s the standard theme, the more threatening theme as you approach the boss, the underwater theme (featuring the standard melody, but somehow muted and aquatic), the seagulls’ plaintive cry at the top of the level (uninterrupted by music) and many more. Simply, every environment has beautiful music which is a key element to the game’s tone and atmosphere and sense of joy. The “fade in” done as you move from section to section is flawless. One theme winds down its instrumentation, and the new theme’s instrumentation takes over exactly where the old one left off, note for note. This is all handled without even a hiccup in gameplay and seems truly amazing in a cartridge game considering that format’s limits. It is worth noting, also, that NEVER is a piece of music unsuited to the area. Each theme becomes an almost concrete aspect of a given locale. Jingle bells litter the theme to Freezeezy Peak, a swamp level has frog croaks as instrumentation, and as mentioned before, the overworld theme is key as an element of the game. A refrain that will be stuck in your head forever (despite that refrain’s brevity) is the banjo bit that plays every time you get a new Jiggy. Banjo dances appropriately goofily, of course, followed by Kazooie’s practical storage of the current Jiggy. This game’s music is perfect.

As far as sound effects and dialogue are concerned, they are less impressive, yet do lend toward the game’s sense of play and fun. Rather than have actual voice-overs, the characters have a few seconds worth of babble that they use for all of their talking. The actual words come up in handy windows at the upper and lower portions of the screen (for when two characters are talking). Each character’s “voice” is distinctive and memorable (which is a very good thing as you’ll come to find out) and many of them are actually pretty funny on the first listen. Sound effects are pretty good. There are interesting squelch and bang and whoosh and clang and splash noises when appropriate, and again, without these noises, the game would not be what it is. What else is there to say except this: I guarantee this game’s sound will make you enjoy yourself more and add to your feeling that you are playing a nearly perfect game.

Control is rock solid. Where flight is often confusing or difficult to handle in most games (even in flight simulators), in here it is a breeze. You turn at a quite steady rate, and ascend by pressing the A button (using red feathers in the process). In fact, control of this process is so steady that you are even asked to use yourself as a missile to solve various puzzles. Just press the B button in mid-flight and you’ll thrust yourself forward to smash into the nearest thing in your path. That said, even this process is simple, as any spot covered by your body is the spot which you will thrust toward (and smash with enough proximity). Few other games have such steady control as to ask you to perform tasks in as complicated an action as flying. Jumping, running, swimming, the camera…each is a treat, almost fun to do in and of itself. Everything is tight, and you can stop on a dime with ease no matter what you’re doing at the time. You’ll end up using each move in a way you hadn’t quite expected, and the number of moves coupled with the things to do and places to go guarantees you’ll almost never be bored or frustrated. The key element of course being that you will have yourself and not the game to blame when you mess up. I particularly enjoy the intelligence of the camera. In most 3-D games, there is almost no doubt that the camera will screw up a key moment in your game. That’s not the case here. You have every chance to orient the camera just as you want it, and the few moments where the camera loses sight of you prove not to be key moments. Plus, even when the camera’s view is fixed (such as inside one given room), that element usually provides a type of challenge or incentive to explore (looking into corners that the camera doesn’t immediately focus on, for instance). Almost everything works as you want it to. I cannot laud the programmers enough for their care with this. It makes the game as great as it is.

All of this notwithstanding, the game does have weaknesses. The plot is a bit dumb. Although there’s a twist on the damsel-in-distress motif, there’s no real crop-up of unexpected elements till right near the end, but that end will leave you flabbergasted and smiling (one exception to the lack of breaking new ground is having Kazooie, ostensibly a female, as one half—and the intelligent half, at that—of the lead role, a worthy breakthrough for women everywhere…though I suppose that’s debatable given her character). The weakness that needs the most frank consideration, however, is the game’s originality. The truth is you have played a game like this before and it was very good. It’s called Super Mario 64 (you may have noticed comparisons throughout this review). Banjo-Kazooie’s overworld, its breakup into various worlds, even the sense of climbing toward reaching the final boss, all of this and more can be cited as pilfering of what Mario established in his 64 incarnation. So yes, you’ll play and your sense of wonder won’t be quite what it could have been. You’ll know someone besides the game’s creator laid the groundwork for this beautiful project. In the end, all I can really say is “so what?” If you don’t think the atmosphere, fun, graphics, sound, control, gameplay and general quality of this game outrank Mario every step of the way…well, I guess there’s not much I can do about that, except to say that I think you’re wrong. Every element here is more real and fun and better envisioned than the Mario elements. Every world is a greater treat to the imagination. Tasks are seemingly easier to accomplish in Banjo-Kazooie (as opposed to Mario) via better control. Yet they are actually more difficult, and therefore more satisfying to complete, because of better gameplay and design. The “flaws” that this game has are “flaws” that other games wish they had if they could aspire to be the great game that Banjo-Kazooie is.

All in all, I have never met a straight-up 3-D platformer that I liked more on any system (Conker’s Bad Fur Day may be a better game, but it’s not really a straight-up platformer to me). Go on, it’s probably $10 or less in your nearest bargain bin. If ever you wanted quite a few hours of fun exploration and immersion in a different world, then look no further. Banjo-Kazooie is truly a herald of Rareware’s greatness and a true delight to play.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 04/09/03, Updated 04/09/03