Memories of Banjo Kazooie
One morning in the Nintendo 64 era during the early days of 3D gaming, an up and coming company called RARE decided to create an adventure platformer based around a banjo-playing bear and his wise-cracking, kazoo-playing bird. Banjo-Kazooie was born. This article is a throwback to a time when platformers were king.
Released in 1998, Banjo-Kazooie has long since been one of the more memorable titles of the N64. This dynamic duo was so well known they felt like true Nintendo characters. They are characters that one could expect enough love from to somehow appear in the Super Smash Brothers series (Banjo did square off against Diddy Kong in racing). I sure as heck did and suddenly my childhood memories were of a bird riding a bear.
When you look past the memorable characters and story, there’s amazing music that’s catchy and close-but-not-quite to the level of other amazing cartoony tunes such as Mario Bros. World 1-1 or Zelda’s Overworld tune. Beyond that the gameplay is excellent. The game can keep a perfectionist playing hours on end trying to collect all of the musical notes, jingles, and voodoo skulls. The level designs are imaginative and really do breathe life into a massive world experience. The design of each world is similar to Mario 64 but instead of jumping into paintings you jump into jigsaw puzzles, treasure chests and whatnot. The plot involved Banjo discovering his sister, Tooty, had been snatched by the cruel witch Grunty in order to transfer Tooty’s beauty to her disgusting face. Upon learning this, Banjo sets off with Kazooie to save his sister. With the help of Bottles the mole and Mumbo Jumbo the voodoo man (who can turn the duo into different animals or appliances) their journey became captivating and interesting. I’m going to take a pause and say these are some of the most amazing characters in video gaming history. Why? Because they stick!
Oh Mumbo Jumbo you handsome devil.
This game did have a sequel: Banjo Tooie, which delivered and added more puzzles, more challenges, and more epic adventures. Released in 2000, 2 years after the first installment in the series, Banjo Tooie boasted an array of new abilities, worlds, and characters. The Jingles, Mumbo and Grunty the Witch all returned along with newers characters like King Jingaling and Grunty’s sisters: Mingella and Blobbelda. The story this time around revolved around the evil sisters restoring Grunty (from her defeated state in the first game) and preventing the havoc the witches would then cause. The game continued and kept the wonder and magic of the original game. Needless to say, Banjo Tooie received many positive reviews.
But long after completing that final moment with Grunty the Witch (aka the final boss), I along with many other fans of the series because thirsty awaiting the next Banjo and Kazooie game. Due to an acquisition of Rare by Microsoft, a new Banjo Kazooie was nowhere to be found.
Luckily, Microsoft had no need to compete with Nintendo on a handheld market and soon we saw Banjo Kazooie: Grunty’s Revenge on the Gameboy Advance in 2003. In true Banjo Kazooie spirit, Grunty’s Revenge stayed with the series’ platforming roots, allowing players to traverse different worlds (this time through time and space!), collect tons of collectables and learn a new storm of moves just in time to finish off Grunty again.
It was a good Banjo Kazooie 2.5 but it never felt like a true sequel. Where was Banjo Threeie? Would it be coming to the Xbox? Our hopes were met with the release of this trailer:
AND HALLELUJAH!! The next Banjo Kazooie game looked promising. Can’t say I appreciated the new art-style though. They looked better as 64-bit polygons. But the music kept me pumped. When would we see our platforming heroes return to their former glory?
… and that’s when gamers everywhere learned that the Rare of today is no longer the same Rare of the N64 generation.
Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts was release for the XBox 360 in 2008 and featured vehicles, something not seen as “normal” in the wacky series. The majority of amazing platforming adventures were taken out. A tune up in graphics was a hit or miss and did not do much to save the game. Fans of the series were in shock at how different it was. The game ultimately got a split view in its reception. Though some critics gave this game a high score, the majority all said the same thing: “Stay to your platforming roots!”
The game flopped in comparison to its predecessors on the N64. So where does that leave the franchise now? Will we ever see the release of Banjo Threeie? Probably not, but one can dream… or at least… reminisce on the good old days.
