Banjo-Kazooie

"A fun adventure game for the N64, but I still think the Zelda series is better"

Banjo Kazooie is the new 3-D action/adventure game for the Nintendo 64. Other people have gave up on this game, but I have stayed with it and played it loads of times. I think that this review is a fair reflection on this game, but let's get on with the review, see how you see!

Graphics: 9/10
The graphics are amazing. Everything from the witch, to the rocks are extremely detailed. There are little noticeable mistakes with the graphics, and they are the little glitches the game has. When you are in a position that the camera doesn't understand, you can see through your character. This has happened with every other game for the N64, but I thought that this was the new dimension of graphics. The graphics are great though, and I am proud to be someone who has played a game with such beautiful graphics.

Sound: 8/10
The sound isn't great in this game, but It's good enough to make you not scream. The music is about right for the setting and the type of game this is, but the sound effects are not nice. Banjo makes these horrible noises when he's 'trying' to speak. He can't even speak! Instead of speaking, the characters voices just make these stupid and annoying noises. And while they are doing that, their speech comes up in a speech bubble at the bottom of the screen. Everything else in the sound section is great. 8/10 Isn't a very good rating for the sound but because the great music and everything else in the game is great.

Gameplay: 10/10
The gameplay is bloody amazing for this game. You will go through many challenging areas and levels throughout the game, but some parts are quite easy. You will meet a lot of new characters in your journey to save your little baby sister. You will go from Treasure Islands, to Giant trees, to massive castles. You will find most of these levels quite hard, but if you put some time and effort into them, you'll find them a lot easier. You can do a lot of stuff with your characters like shoot eggs out of your but and fly for a short while. You will have to collect jigsaw pieces to solve puzzles, and to get jigsaw pieces, you'll need to do some cool missions.

Story: 7/10
The story is hilarious. You play Banjo, who is a made up animal. You have your own bird friend called Kazooie, who is Banjo's best friend, and helps Banjo a lot. Banjo's little sister has been kidnapped by the witch. The witch will only give Banjo's little sister back when Banjo can find a way to defeat the witch.

Controls: 10/10
I couldn't put the controls better myself. The controls fit your hand perfectly, no matter how big or small your hands are! With all of the cool moves you can do in this game, the controls just make these moves easier, so you can do them more often, so they look even better!

Replay Value: 9/10
This game is longer than most other Nintendo games. Because of its length, you probably won't play through the whole game again once you complete it, but you will play it again. It will take you quite a long time to complete it, so when you do, you probably won't want to complete it again. There are certain levels in the game that you will love, and will play it thousands of times after you beat it. Also, there are loads of other extra hidden things you can do in the game that you don't do while you are doing the levels.

Rent Or Buy:
Well, I started off playing this game at my friends house, and I enjoyed it very much. So after playing it a lot, I decided to rent it. After renting it, I bought it with my well earned money. I think that this game is really long, and you will not get very far if you rent it. You don't really get to explore the game as much. So what you should do is buy it, and keep the recite for about a month. If you like it, keep it, if not, give it back to the shop.

Overall: 8/10
Well, after a series of quite disappointing games from the Nintendo makers, we all expected a new, great game, and that's exactly what we got. I think that this one of the best Nintendo games ever. It's perfect in nearly every way. It does lose a couple of points however because its lack of concentration on some parts of the game. The sound is not very good at all, and the glitches with the graphics could be fixed up a bit. Overall, this is still one of my favorite games in history, and it might the one of the best games ever!

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 08/22/04