This is your standard spoiler warning. If you don't want a game spoiled then keep moving! Just going to go ahead and slap a length warning on here as well. Any time I team up with KoD it's gonna be long cause we talk a lot about games so if you want a condensed version, scroll to the conclusion.
Ghost here, glad you could drop by!
What makes a game last? What gives a game this feeling of "the best thing ever?" You hear people talk about how projects are doomed to failure before they even get their hands on a copy yet praise others at the same time under these same conditions. Is there a common denominator to making a game that people love and are still playing years after its release?
Today I'll be examining Skyrim and taking a look at what has made people keep playing this game 3 years later.
What? That's bull! Last week you talked about Yooka-Laylee and now you're going to piggy back off that and talk about something way out in left field? If you want to talk about a great game that people are still playing years later then you should follow up your Yooka-Laylee discussion with Banjo-Kazooie... not trying to tell you how to run your blog or anything but it just makes sense.
Why? Skyrim is a more recent game that I still see actively talking about especially with the Steam debacle having recently gone down. I watch a Youtube series that weekly looks at new mods and with tons of people still modding this game...
I'll get you that Lucina amiibo you were wanting
Today we'll be talking about Banjo Kazooie
After last week's ending that was kind of anti-climatic...
Yeah, I can't believe you talked me into this so easily. I just really want that Lucina amiibo. To begin with, I think we need to give some context here as to our experiences and history with this game because I feel we come from VERY different viewpoints and skill levels here.
Banjo-Kazooie has always been a game that is very special to me; a game from my childhood that I can always go back to and enjoy playing from start to finish. There's so much appeal to this game from the quirky dialog to the unforgettable cast of characters to even the challenge of doing a 100% complete of the game. It all has resonated with me well. It's a game that even years after I have finished a play through, every now and then, I feel the urge to go back and put myself to the test with brand new challenged i place on myself while playing such as doing a 100% Complete No Death run of the game. or trying to beat my fastest time. It's a fun yet challenging game that even now I can find something new in. If you want a game that won't lose its charm years later, then you should get on the nostalgia train and pick up Banjo-Kazooie!
I on the other hand didn't really grow up with the game. I spent most of my childhood playing RPGs, racers, or fighting games; games such as Pokemon, Star Wars Episode 1 Racer, and Super Smash Bros. Platformers are not my thing...at all. They never have been my forte and they never will be. It doesn't matter if they are 2D or 3D, they just rarely appeal to me because I find them excruciatingly difficult based on the level of perfection you are expected to perform while playing. This is why you'll almost never see me talk about any of these types of games. Since Banjo-Kazooie is a 3D platformer and an early example of a 3D platformer at that, the appeal for me is significantly less. I had never played it to completion till about a month before the writing of this review. I'm so terrible at platformers that, though I own the game and a function N64 console, I chose to play this game on my computer with a keyboard just so I could utilize cheat codes and see the game to completion.
WAIT... you used a keyboard??!!!
STORY
Back in the days of the Nintendo 64, we didn't have games that had complex stories or anything too "out there." The story for Banjo-Kazoiie is no exception as it's VERY straightforward. The whole plot is that this ugly witch, Gruntilda is jealous of how beautiful Tooty, Banjo's younger sister, is and wants to be the most beautiful in the land. So, the evil witch bearnaps the cute little Tooty and takes the bear back to her lair with the intentions of using a machine to suck the beauty out of Tooty. By doing this it will make Gruntilda beautiful and Tooty ugly. It's up to our heroes, Banjo the bear and Kazooie the bird, to travel to Gruntilda's mountain lair to rescue Tooty. Along the way they learn new moves from Bottles the mole as they go through nine worlds of tricks and traps all while collecting notes and jigsaw puzzles to help them progress forward. This, of course, all leads to the climatic final battle with Grunty at the top of her mountain lair to save Tooty!That's... it? You mean to sit here and tell me that this game that so many fanboys gush over and praise nonstop is about three minutes worth of plot and several hours worth of faffing about collecting random objects in order to open a few doors to save your sister from turning ugly in a Snow White knock-off?
YEP, that's it! You know honestly, the lack of a lengthy story can be quite a good thing. To go back and play something with such a simple plot is actually a refreshing change of pace from the games being created today that have too many storylines going on like the Skyrim that you were going to review. This isn't something like Call of Duty where they hold your hand through the story either. They give you the basics and expect you to adapt your own thoughts and details into the game meaning the only limitation is your imagination about the scenarios you find yourself in. it's very similar to Super Mario 64; something that has a simple plot of collecting stars to save Peach who's trapped in the walls of her own castle. See? There's a simple plot, nothing too complicated, and people love it to no end calling it one of the best games ever released. We don't need some massive story that will consume hundreds of hours of our life. Sometimes a nice short game that will only take ten to twenty hours is the perfect thing that we need.
OH... well isn't that fantastic. So you're saying Banjo-Kazooie is a lot like Super Mario 64? There are literally only a very few things you could say that would turn me away faster than that. Mario 64 was clunky, had an abominable camera, Mario's movements were sometimes difficult to control, the whole thing seemed very arbitrary in how you moved around the world or discovered things, and it just wasn't astounding in my non-platformer opinion. People only like Super Mario 64 because it was a change from how video games of the past were being done. If you're trying to make Banjo-Kazooie sound better by comparing it to Super Mario 64 then this is going to be a rough review because I very much dislike Mario 64.
You... Don't like Mario 64??!!
CONTROLS
Woah woah woah, KoD... I'm going to stop you right there. You're going to convince me of the merits of this game and the first thing out of the gate are the controls? PLEASE! There's no way you are going to convince me that this is a good game based on the controls. The camera and controls of this game are some of the worst I've come across in awhile.
...says the person who played the entirety of this game WITH A KEYBOARD BY CHOICE. I know I keep bringing it up, but holy crap! No wonder you struggled through this game or why you say that the camera controls are horrible. To play on a keyboard even with cheats on is no easy feat. I feel as though because you played on a keyboard you simply couldn't get a feel for how well crafted the camera controls actually are for this revolutionary step into 3D gaming.
Yeah, yeah, I realize that complaining about the difficulty of controls when I chose to play with a keyboard is as ridiculous as complaining about the difficulty of eating if I chose to place the food in my armpit. I knew this going in which is why I took the liberty of testing out the controls on the actual N64 and playing through the first world just to see if they were as clunky as they were using the keyboard. Turns out... they were! The only thing that was made better by using the actual N64 controller was performing a walking and aiming in a diagonal line. Everything else was pretty much as bad as it was on the keyboard.
To start off with I feel as though the comparison to Super Mario 64 is definitely a good one when it comes to camera control because I'm fairly convinced that they just hired the same Latiku from Mario 64 to come and shoot this game and once again he brought his booze and love of staring at random objects while in his intoxicated state instead of focusing on the action that needs attention.
"I...I can.. I can do*hic* DO THE DO MAN!!! Oh maaaaan, look at this grass!"
Seriously, the camera just doesn't follow you the way that a camera should. It jerks around harshly when you attempt to adjust it and often times is in a terrible angle to where you're just jumping blindly and hoping to land on something. For a game that involves a LOT of platforming you need to be able to see where you're going and where you're about to land rather than shouting "Jesus take the wheel" and then plummet to your death. It (and Mario 64) is one of the worst cameras I've seen because it flat doesn't work the way it should. Don't even get me started on the swimming controls in this game. Imagine placing a hippo the the unfortunate ability to NOT hold it's breath in deep water with a malfunctioning jet pack... that's how swimming in this game feels. It's so clunky I'd rather navigate a tour bus through a drain pipe.
If I could intervene... I never really had a problem with swimming. I found the controls to be really smooth and cooperative. You press B to swim fast and A to slowly wade around the water. Let's not forget that you can hold R to make sharp turns. The camera is usually good about staying behind your character in the water, but I will admit you CAN swim right past your target if you aren't fully used to the controls.
Now, I will admit that the camera controls weren't the greatest in this game but for the day and age this game came out, I believe the camera controls are still pretty impressive especially for a system that didn't have a second analog stick yet. At the time of the Playstation and Nintendo 64 launch there was no such thing as a second analog stick that we have taken for granted with our modern games. A second analog stick would have greatly increased the power of the camera but it just simply didn't exist back then. You've also got to remember that back in the day when the N64 was the new system, video games were still experimenting with ways to bring the old 2D SNES style into the new 3D style. Everything at the time Banjo-Kazooie was being developed and released was still fairly experimental. For what they were able to do at the time, I believe they nailed what it's like to capture the feeling of being able to run around with no restrictions in the world... but i digress. Going back to the controls in Banjo-Kazooie, again I simply must bring up the fact that because you used a keyboard you couldn't really experience how fluently the controls functions. While yes, you may have played the first level on the actual N64, by calling it quits on using the controls after the first level you weren't allowing yourself the opportunity to play with the controls Nintendo intended you to play with in the later levels. You weren't allowing yourself the chance to adapt to the controls, because when you get the hang of how they work, I believe you'll agree they work well for what's needed; it may not do everything you want but it does everything you need. That said, I will still admit the controls on the camera are far from perfect.Well... guess I can't really fault a game too much because the technology wasn't invented yet for the company it was with. I still stand by the fact that the controls aren't that good because in my opinion they aren't; however I suppose they might be acceptable based on what they have to work with at the time and how experimental the game was. I only ran across a couple of times where the controls were actively working against me playing the game, namely the final battle.
MOVES/MECHANICS
Let's stop for a second to talk about the moves in this game shall we? I feel that Banjo and Kazooie get a LOT of awesome moves... well to be more specific I should say that KAZOOIE gets a lot of awesome moves while Banjo hardly does anything at all. For the most part, Kazooie does pretty much everything and is the true star of the game. Let's take a look at some of "their" moves.
For the sake of length I will mostly be covering the special moves that Bottles teaches you after the basics. When you hop on a Spring Jump Pad, Kazooie stretches out her long legs and jumps super high into the air like a spring. However, this move can only be performed when standing on one of the pads and nowhere else. When crouching with the Z button, Kazooie can do a wide variety of moves. By pressing C-Up when crouching she can fire an egg out of her mouth; alternatively by pressing C-Down she shoots one out of her butt. When crouching and pressing C-Right, Kazooie shields Banjo with her wings and makes them invincible for as long as they have golden feathers to power the move. By pressing C-Left while crouching, Kazooie will carry Banjo in her Talon Trot mode where she can move quickly and walk up steep slopes. Throughout the worlds you can also get temporary power ups like the Wading Boots which let you walk through dangerous water, and the Running Shoes that allow you to run super fast! There are two more abilities that the par get that are, in my opinion, the best in the game! When you stand on Flying Pads, the duo take to the sky and fly around consuming red feathers. While in flight mode they can perform a Beak Bomb attack shooting at enemies like a missile.
Banjo gets no special moves of his own... nor does he really do anything other than three slaps and walking around when not in Talon Trot mode. Kazooie does basically everything.
[Insert choking chicken joke here]
Yeah, Kazooie is the real MVP in this game to be perfectly honest. Even though she does most of the work, does she have to make so much noise while she's doing it? HOLY CRAP! Seriously, every single thing that Kazooie does involves a comedic and annoying noise. Egg Laying? Let's make a farting noise! Egg Shooting? Let's make it sound like she's throwing up! Beak Buster? Let's make a sound like a broken telephone! Talon Trot? Let's make the sound Pacman would make if he was a pigeon.
It NEVER stops. In some worlds there are whole sections where you need to use the Talon Trot because of the speed or grip needed to get around. You then are subject to a non-stop few minutes of "bawka-bawka-bawka-bawka-bawka-bawka-bawka-bawka-bawka-bawka-bawka-bawka-bawka-bawka-bawka-bawka-bawka-bawka-bawka-bawka-bawka-bawka-bawka-bawka-bawka." It drives you insane all the noise noise noise noise noise!
One last thing that kills me is the fact that you can't grab ledges in this game. Miss your landing spot by half an inch? Well TOO BAD! You can't grab on to anything and pull yourself up. It's either absolute perfection or going back and trying again till you get perfection. This is such an elementary thing to add that it blows my mind why they didn't do something so simple.
Actually they fixed that in Banjo-Tooie
Those ri... wait what?
Yeah, Banjo-Kazooie was created so early in the 3D platforming genre's life-cycle that it may not have been known that ledge grabbing would be so essential at the time since most if not all 2D platformers didn't utilize ledge grabbing. The developers realized this was a problem and included it in the sequel since it was an aid to gameplay.
Oh... well umm... OK fine, I can't fault the game for that too much either then since it was early in the creation of 3D platformers as a genre. I guess all of my complaints, while I still feel are valid, are severely lessened by the fact that the technology and ideas just weren't there yet when this came out. Probably at the time, people wouldn't have complained and would have thought all of this was breathtaking and fluid, but since I didn't play this game until much later in life I'm so used to games which built upon the failures and successes of games like this that I found a reason to complain. Being too hard on this game for being a pioneer rather than a polished product of time is a bit too douchy even for me so... yeah.
I...have to say that this was a really awesome part of the game. Granted, Majora's Mask did the whole transformation thing slightly better with the transformations being the souls of other people helping you save the world, but this game did come before that so... You've won this round, game!
Characters
Ghost, I know something you can't argue against and that's the quality of the characters. There are some truly wonderful characters in this game.
It's too bad that only two of them have any actual... you know... character to them in all reality. Don't ever underestimate my ability to nitpick, good sir.
Banjo the Honey Bear is one of the main protagonists of the game alongside Kazooie... hence the name of the game. He's usually really well mannered and easy going. This bear usually refers to people a lot of the time as Mr. or Mrs. He generally likes to help people out despite the fact that Kazooie does most of the manual labor. Other than there there really isn't too much else noteworthy about Banjo in this game. In Banjo-Tooie however that's a whole other story... but that's for another time.
Tooty
When it comes to characters in this game there really isn't that much to say about most of them character-wise anyway. Tooty is one of these examples. She's the younger sister of Banjo who seems very outgoing and loves to go adventuring, however she's not that brave and ummmm.....that's it. What? You expected me to say more about Tooty, a character that gets maybe 4 minutes of screen time total? Sorry that's all I've got. MOVING ON!
There's also not a heck of a lot to say about Mumbo Jumbo. You find him multiple times sitting in his little skull shaped hut (or one time in a graveyard) and he transforms you into the random things mentioned earlier. Though these random things DO have their uses in the world, if you really think about it, Mumbo is a bit rubbish at his job. A full imagination of awesome things that he COULD transform you into so that you could defeat everything in your path including Gruntilda and he chooses things like a pumpkin. Really? There is some personality to him as he sometimes pokes fun of your transformation or comments on the heat of the summer but nothing else really stands out about him.
BottlesBottles is one of the more interesting characters in the game. No, it's not because he's actually an interesting character, but rather he's just an odd inclusion when you really pay attention to him. He's just your standard nerd with a fair amount of knowledge who teaches Kazooie how to perform her special moves but... he's a mole. Why would he have the knowledge on how a bird should lay an egg as an attack? Why would he know how to teach her to fly?
The more creepy part is that if you look at his portrait in Banjo's room, he starts talking to you about playing a puzzle mini game. It just sort of happens out of nowhere. Does this mole have some sort of secret video surveillance of Banjo's house? Are he and Mr. Resetti from Animal Crossing starting a Nintendo branch of the NSA? And then there's this...
What is it with the games I review and freaking Nazism?
Well now that we've gotten Goofy's useless bear cousin, Snow White Bear, the potentially racist shaman, and the internet creeper out of the way let's get to the two with real character.
KazooieKazooie is honestly a special character for many reasons. Yes she won't stop making noises but she does 99% of the work here and she has actual character to her. She's got quite a bit of that good old fashioned 90's attitude. She's constantly tossing out one-liners at everything that comes her way making fun of everyone and everything in the process. There's rarely a bit of dialog in this game that she doesn't utilize the opportunity to run her beak. She knows her importance to the game as well and isn't afraid to voice that knowledge when they discuss producing a sequel during the ending scene of the game. Mumbo reveals that the game would be called Banjo-Tooie... to which she responds that it better be called Banjo-Kazooie-Tooie!
Technically she asks why it isn't called Banjo-Kazooie-Tooie to which she follows up saying "I better be in the game too"
I see my nitpicking has rubbed off on someone eh? Kazooie is also a rather impatient bird as she pecks Banjo on the head if he stands still for longer than a few seconds. Yes, a lot of characters from the 90's were just generalized attitude and can be easily forgotten but Kazooie just isn't a generic one of a group. It's the tiny little things that make her a memorable character. She's like Sonic the Hedgehog, Raphael from TMNT, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer all rolled into one legitimately awesome bird!
It's kind of odd to say this but the stereotypical evil witch character you can see all over the place in gaming and stories is one of the only ones with actual character to her. That witch is, of course, Gruntilda Winkybunion! It's quite notable that everything she says in this game is done in rhyme... and I mean EVERYTHING. As mentioned in the story portion, Gruntilda thinks very highly of herself but when her cauldron Dingpot says that Tooty is the most beautiful in all the land, Grunty gets jealous. She kidnaps Tooty and attempts to steal Tooty's beauty and make herself beautiful. She resides in her Mountain Lair which is pretty much the hub world of the entire game wherein holds all sorts of tricks, traps, and lands. Everything she says just seems to add more character to her in general. She's not exactly the most evil of villains in any sort of malicious way like most evil villains. She just has a severe focus on becoming beautiful by any means necessary.
To add character to her, Gruntilda's sister Brentilda appears throughout her sister's lair and will tell Banjo and Kazooie three facts about Grunty each time you meet her. These facts are completely randomized for each save file of the game... yet SOMEHOW both Ghost and I were exposed heavily to her little underwear fetish. I'm not even joking here. We got to hear things like "Grunty wears massive bloomers under that repulsive dress of hers, " "The only thing she's ever won was the dirtiest undies competition at school," and "Revolting Gruntilda's beadroom has dirty undies hanging from the ceiling." When you see some of the things that these facts include about Gruntilda, such as doing a strip tease, it will pretty much spell out that this is one DIRTY NASTY old witch.
Now for a few laughs, let's briefly talk about a few of the secondary character and enemies.
Conga - This is called "We wanted to get in some practice for Donkey Kong 64." WAIT... is this male gorilla wearing a bra and boots with nothing else?? I... I have no words for this.
I never noticed this before... maybe it's a tank top??
Big Clucker - MORE LIKE BIG F***ER! Seriously these guys appear in some of the worst places possible to mess you up in Click Clock Woods. They also do two honeycombs of damage instead of the usual one honeycomb that everything else does which is really bizarre. I swear they took off only one honeycomb when they hit me this one time but took away two honeycombs another time. It's even weirder because not even Gruntilda hits you for two units of health ever and she's the FINAL BOSS
Black Gruntling - I'll be perfectly honest, it took me seeing this guy several times before I realized he wasn't just some ugly gorilla they added in the late game despite the fact that there are other gruntlings with different colored robes walking around everywhere.
Nabnut- Or as I like to call him Numbnuts (I perfer Deeznuts, myself) You see Numbnuts in Click Clock Woods gorging himself on nuts and eating so much that he blows up like a balloon and starts farting on you. Once fall hits the woods, he's panicked that he doesn't have enough nuts for winter and asks you to find them. One of them is IN HIS LIVING ROOM... idiot!
Yum-Yum - A clam named Yum-Yum? All aboard the innuendo train!
So, what do you think about the game now? Sure you may have some gripes about the controls but these characters are pretty amazing. Not to mention that it's incredibly uncommon in the video game industry (especially at the time this was created) that the two characters with the most thought put in to them were both female.
I have to agree once again, man. These are some pretty great characters especially Kazooie and Gruntilda. I do have to say that even though there is very little to say about most of our other main cast, they were still memorable. I didn't have to look up on a wiki who all was in the main cast for us to write out comments about them because I remembered every single one of them. I'm holding off my final judgment till the end obviously, but these characters gave it several brownie points in my book.
LOCATIONS
If a storyline that's open to interpretation, great characters and some (in my opinion) decent controls for the time aren't enough of a reason for you to love the game. Let's talk about these great locations shall we?
You start at Banjo's Home in Spiral Mountain where you have to learn the basic moves from Bottles before you can enter Gruntilda's Lair. It's as basic as basic can be. Gruntilda's Lair on the other hand acts as a hub world full of hidden surprised and strange pathways to get through every world in the game. You'll be spending 95% of your game in Grunty's Lair or one of the worlds hidden within. Let's hit each of these worlds.
Mumbo's Mountain is a good entry level stage without a whole lot of weirdness to it (besides the gorilla in the bra.) There are some Stonehenge-looking ruins, a small village for Mumbo to live in, some palm trees for the monkeys, a gigantic termite mound, and a large bull. Past that there's not really much to say here. It's a good level to get your feet wet in.
Treasure Trove Cove
Treasure Trove Cove is your standard pirate adventure world complete with an actual pirate who's voice is an incredibly annoying constant belching. You also have a pirate ship and a search for golden treasure. It's truly a tropical island with a shark that won't stop following you, a lighthouse, crabs, a sandcastle and many other things. There is a fair amount of swimming in this world which should be blatantly obvious for an island world. Probably the most interesting parts are the giant hermit crab and the treasure hunt where you find various places around the island with a red X.
If I could stop this right here for a moment. It IS worth mentioning that the sand castle in this worlse is where you are going to keep going back to in order to input any and all in-game cheat codes that you might find. So that right there makes this world pretty special.
This world is what made me REALLY hate swimming in this game because there's a metric ton of it. It's basically a set of metal rooms filled with water that a large metal shark named Clanker lives in. You have to release Clanker from his underwater chains, climb around random pipes and grates, and even go inside Clanker himself. What is it with video games and going inside of aquatic creatures for one portion of the game??
What's a platforming game without a unique level that you don't see too very often in video games? This is that one more unique level. When you enter Bubblegloop Swamp, you find yourself in an area with all sorts of critters lurking about as well as the water being completely piranha infested. There's swamp water to get across, eating games to be played against an insanely difficult red crocodile named Mr. Vile (seriously screw this guy.. I wanted to punch my computer screen because of his shenanigans), memory games with singing turtles, time challenges, as well as feeding golden crocodiles. It's not exactly my favorite level in the game but it's pretty interesting all the same.
Freezeezy PeakWho out there doesn't love a good snowy area in their game; especially one themed around Christmas? The peak awaits you with all sorts of run things to do such as giving CPR to a polar bear named Boggy by body slamming him, racing Boggy twice, lighting up a Christmas tree, flying and beak bombing snowmen that keep tossing snowballs at you, and so much more. Just stay out of the freezing cold water and you'll be good. I do find it funny though that during the events of this world you give Boggy's children the Christmas Presents that Boggy was supposed to find. Only after you give him sudden CPR and race him twice does he even mention going to find those presents for his children.
If you have a game with multiple worlds or areas it's pretty much a law that you must do a sand-based level and here it is! For such a small world there's a LOT packed in there. I got lost in this world more often than not because all of the sand hills made everything look the same. There's a large dog-like sphinx, a pyramid maze that kills you instantly if you don't get out in time, a flying carpet, mummy hands that rise from the sane, and of course the camel Gobi himself who you constantly have to beat up to make him spit out water. It's a fun world despite the confusing nature.
Mad Monster MansionNow this is MY kind of world! I am Ghost after all. Mad Monster Mansion is, of course, a haunted mansion but there's a little more to it than that. There's a shed with a Ouija board, a rose hedge maze, a graveyard, and a creepy church haunted by Master Hand from Smash Bros' musical brother apparently. The Gothic yet lighthearted nature of this world made me want to spend as much time here as humanly possibly. Where else can you transform into a pumpkin and get flushed down a semi-clogged toilet and witness first-hand what was probably the inspiration for the Great Mighty Poo in Conker's Bad Fur Day.
You want a challenging world that will put your gaming skill to the test? Then set foot onto the Rusty Bucket! The ship, as well as the surrounding area, has so many things in it to keep you busy for quite a while. You can pay egg tolls to get around the water, you can jump from barrel to barrel in acid water, you can destroy a sentient box, you can blow the ship's whistles, you can rad the ships rooms, you can kill..er.. i mean SAVE yes SAVE a dolphin trapped under the anchor (seriously, the anchor goes straight through his torso as it's rising up... there's NO way he would have survived that)... it's fun times all around! Just stay out of the oily water as much as possible because it removes air twice as quickly even if you are floating on the top of the water and not even submerged. As anyone who plays this game with know, the engine room on board the ship is an absolute nightmare filled with spinning blades and a bottomless pit of death below. WAIT... if this is a ship then how is there a bottomless abyss? Well there's actually a funny explanation about that and... OOPS ran out of time for this section sorry!
Click Clock WoodsThis is by far the longest level in the entire game but it's almost the most fun to play. Click Clock Woods is divided into 4 seasons similar to the four seasons that we experience in the real world. Basically you start in spring, do everything you can in spring, find the switch to open up Summer, and head there, rinse and repeat for Summer, Fall, and Winter. In this gorgeous world you will be doing many tasks such as helping a beaver get into his home, raising a giant bird, helping a squirrel prepare for winter, growing a large flower, climbing a tree more times than you can count, fighting bees etc etc. I could go on and on about this level! Your greatest enemy here is gravity as this is a mostly vertical world.
So you've made it through all nine worlds and got to that last door huh? You think the game is almost over and all that's left is maybe a final boss? Think again. You've just stepped foot in Gruntilda's Game Show "Furnace Fun" where the only thing standing between you and saving Tooty is a bunch of squares over a pool of lava. In this quiz show you will be tested on how observant you were during the game. I'm not joking here that you REALLY need to have been observant to answer some of these questions. Questions range from facts about the game, which character has which voice, which song is played where, facts about Gruntilda, timed challenges, closeup pictures of where you have been, squares where if you get the question wrong you die instantly, and jokers which are random questions. If you know your game well enough and make your way across the game-board, Tooty will be all yours. You'll still have to fight Gruntilda later after a hilarious cutscene where our heroes completely forget that Grunty was getting away and have to run back to defeat her.
Well... what's your opinion now?
These worlds are pretty great. Many many video games have been released since this one with these similar types of worlds, but I don't feel like these worlds are "old hat" in any way. I feel like these are still fresh and exciting worlds even though these are a couple decades old. It really speaks to the passion and time poured into this game.
Lasting Appeal
I guess one last thing that we really need to touch on was the whole reason I chose Skyrim in the first place for this review. What is the lasting appeal? Skyrim has over one hundred hours of gameplay in the vanilla game alone not even including the downloadable content or any mods. There are things that people who have been playing it for these last three years are only now finding for themselves. With the avid modding community going strong and creating content weekly for the game I can fully see why Skyrim is still being played today and has reached so many people.
Seriously, how could you not love this?
So, why has this game done the same? The gameplay is outdated not only by the technology constraints but by the very next game in the series. There's no modding communities adding new content to this game it's just the same exact thing over and over. Why is this game considered one of the best and why would people still be playing it to day with so many other options to choose from?
To answer that fairly simply, this game is incredibly nostalgic for we 90's kids who were lucky enough to have a Nintendo 64. People love this game so much because a lot of us grew up with this game. For us the pure nostalgia alone has made this stand the test of time, but that's not all. It's far more than just nostalgia driving this game's lasting power. You don't need DLC, modding, massive open worlds, or 200+ hours of gameplay to have a wonderful gaming experience that people want to play and re-visit. Sometimes the simplest games with only a limited amount of content can turn out to be a game with the highest of replay value due to the effort and love poured into it. It's not a perfect game, in fact because it WASN'T a perfect game they announced a sequel to the game before Banjo-Kazooie was even released to fix they problems they had uncovered.
Not only does this game have high nostalgic factor and passion, but it's actually quite a challenging game for a 90's game. Those of us who played it back then worked so hard that first playthrough to figure out what to do and where to go. We worked so hard to try to 100% all the levels getting all 10 jiggies and all 100 notes of each of the 9 worlds. It wasn't easy because even knowing where everything is getting 100% completion of this game is fairly difficult. We obviously didn't have sites such as IGN or Youtube to spell everything out for us of how we could beat the game. It was all up to us to figure out how to progress forward. That experience of having to figure out the game all on our own adds to the memory of why Banjo-Kazooie is such an amazing game for us all. If you choose to do this game purely by your own skill and don't consult a guide then you can have that great experience too.
Despite the fact that Banjo-Kazooie is outdated technology by three consoles now, and has shown to be inferior to other games that have learned from their mistakes ten times over, Banjo-Kazooie is still a game that I personally could always go back to and frequently do. It may not be the one that brought most people to the 3D platforming party (Mario 64) and it may not have all of the features that it's sequel has, but it's the one that made us all stick around. It had me wanting to play it from start to finish without stopping even now 17 years later. The clear eccentric vision and passion put into this game keeps me begging for more and more of this wonderful game. How many other games can you honestly say that about? I'm not only talking current games, but games even from back then. Many many people keep coming back to this game with its certain something that stands among the ranks of other amazing games of the time like Ocarina of Time and Super Mario 64.To sum up my thoughts there is a massive following of fans who love the Banjo-Kazooie series to this day. There is such a strong following that there may very well be the possibility of our beloved bear and bird becoming DLC for Super Smash Bros WiiU/3DS, which I would personally love more than anything in the world. If you want to join the ranks of these fans and wish to play a game that fun, enjoyable, and quirky while still being challenging then Banjo-Kazooie is a title I recommend highly. I love this game, and I hope I've shown some of you how much of a gem we've gt here now that the review is coming to a close. I hope some of you will seek it out to play it.
Conclusion
There is a reason this review went the way it ultimately did. When KoD originally approached me about doing a Banjo-Kazooie review in exchange for helping me acquire a Lucina amiibo, I jumped straight into the game but I honestly really hated it to begin with. It was only through perseverance and some coercion by KoD that I ultimately saw the beauty of this game. Why is that?
Before I wrapped my head around this game I was going to honestly say that people shouldn't want to play this game because there are so many games out there that do what this game is trying to do that it's insurmountable. Want a 3D platformer? Play Super Mario Galaxy. Want a game full of collecting things? Play a Pokemon, Elder Scrolls, or Fallout game... there's lots of collecting there! Want a game with puzzles? Pick up Professor Layton. Want a Nintendo 64 classic? Play Ocarina of Time. Want a game with excellent transformations? Try out Majora's Mask. Want a game with unique worlds and quirky characters? Pick up Conker's Bad Fur Day. There are so many better options out there why would anyone play Banjo-Kazooie? Then it hit me like a Beak Buster to the head.
For example, I love Doctor Who. The show is one of my favorites of all time. I even love the classic series that began in 1963 which many modern viewers don't really care for as much. If you were to look at specific effects and acting choices from the classic series such as THESE....
Banjo-Kazooie is a fun game... sometimes a little too challenging for someone who is awful with 3D platformers, but fun. It has that certain unspoken charm and nature about it that screams of the quality and passion poured into every snippet of data in the game. It's a love that you feel and not rationalize. Honestly, the icing on the cake of enjoying this game came from something I didn't even notice till I began this review. It was the fact that I actually owned the game already despite having sour feelings towards it initially. I don't remember when I bought it and I don't even remember ever trying to play the game after I bought it either... it was just sort of there in my gaming cabinet waiting for me. The influence of this game, it's greatness, and it's fans surpassed even my own initial thought process of the game and for me that makes it a winner.
Thank you, KoD, for opening my eyes to something that's great which I have been neglecting all these years.
No problem, my work here is done! Ah, it's time to part... Ciao!
This is Ghost, fading into the darkness.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
If you want to check out what KoD is doing you can check out his Tumblr or Youtube Page.
If you want to see my other Video Game discussions and reviews, click here!
If you want to see my other Video Game discussions and reviews, click here!
No comments:
Post a Comment