Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge

"A disappointing title, too short, shallow gameplay..."

Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge is a title that falls short of some of the great platformers and action games that the GBA has to offer.

The game in some parts is good but has some serious flaws in areas which let the whole game down.

Story - 2/10

As you can tell by the title the super villain of the series Gruntilda the witch is back and looking for revenge. *Sigh*, your typical protagonist's friend/relative gets kidnapped and you have to get them back and along the way face numerous challenges.

When people who make games think up story lines, what exactly goes through their heads when they do stuff like this is beyond me, is it so hard to think up an original story line or an original enemy...

Audio/SFX - 6/10

The sound isn't too bad but the music can get very annoying after awhile and when people talk in the game it is very annoying hearing the same sound being looped as their voice. Could be much better though.

Graphics - 8/10

Graphics are good for a GBA game. Quite a bit of detail has been put in and things generally look nice. The attacks are done well and look good as well as the levels in general. Graphics I say would be above average for this system and are probably the best part of this game with the whole package looking nice.

Controls - 5/10

Controls aren't that crash hot. It often becomes hard and cumbersome to remember and perform the teams various attacks and maneuvers. It is also frustrating at times getting around levels with the GBA's controls. This was pretty un-avoidable but it doesn't mean that it should be overlooked, bad controls are bad controls.

Format - 8/10

No real problems here easy simple menus, no fuss getting around, don't really use the menus that much...

Gameplay - 3/10

This is where the game is lacking in my opinion. The sole purpose of the game is to collect items, and occasionally have a boss fight. It gets pretty boring and frustrating just searching around the various levels for miscellaneous items and jigsaw pieces, sometimes attacking is a refreshing change but even that isn't much fun.

There are a couple of other activities that you can do such as slides and shooting galleries and other bits and pieces but they aren't very amusing are often easy and are simple.

The game is also very short which is never a good sign. A beginner game player could take this game out in a couple of days easily.

Atmosphere - 4/10

I don't really like it, creates too much of a little kiddy type of climate. Dialogue doesn't help this one bit either, often involving very lame humor or rhyming words.

Re-Playability - 3/10

There is a rating at the end of the game depending how fast you completed and how many items you got but it is boring and un-rewarding to attain a rating of 5 jiggys (jigsaw pieces).

Play-Time:

2 and a half to 5 hours. Very short game, easy to beat.

Other:

Not a fan of the characters in this game, Banjo seems slow and stupid and kazooie is an angry, aggressive juvenile.

Pros:

Another banjo-kazooie title
Can be pretty fun sometimes
Good if you are a fan of the series

Cons:

Very short
Gameplay is severely lacking (unless you like endless collecting)
Little kiddy type of atmosphere about the game
Much better games out there for the GBA that put this title to shame.

Rent/Buy

Rent, you will most probably beat it in that time, it really isn't worth the money to buy this title, no offense to the developers of this game (it's a hard job).

Overall - 5/10

A disappointment indeed, if you want a good game of this nature get Mario and Luigi: superstar saga, much better executed game.

Disclaimer: Reviews are opinions, if you don't like mine, write your own...

This review is the intellection property of me Richard Ingham and can be found at GameFaqs.com, I'm not too fussed if you want to post it somewhere but give me a heads up first.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 04/24/04