CLASSIC GAMING
Banjo-Kazooie
Developer:  Rareware
Publisher:  Rareware
Genre:  Platformer
Year:  1998
System:  Nintendo 64

We all pretty much consider Mario as the king of platforming games.  There is nobody who is greater than him for his simplistic formula which has only ever expanded in scope and grandeur with the same blueprint for better or for worse.  But now and again some company will manage to make a platformer that somehow just manages to be equal to Mario if only for a passing moment.  One such company to do so and become for a while good friends with Nintendo, was Rareware, with their original platformer away from the Donkey Kong Country series.
Which may I add will be added to the Xbox Live Arcade scene in celebration (which may or may not be premature) of the third game in its series.


Story - Banjo-Kazooie is a practical fairytale about Banjo the resourceful but slow-witted bear and Kazooie the hot-headed tomboyish bird, who must recuse Banjo's younger sister Tootie, kidnapped by the evil rhyming witch Gruntilda for an experiment into making herself beautiful.  With the help of several colourful characters such as Bottles the Mole ready to teach new moves to the duo, Mumbo Jumbo the witch doctor with his spells of transformation and a wide range of enemies and allies throughout the worlds in Grunty's Lair, the two must strive for the top of the lair and defeat Gruntilda.

Graphics - The graphics are a charming pastiche of bright colours like that of a saturday morning cartoon and there is rarely any moment where you'll stumble in the darkness of a level, but it won't be so bright that you'll be blinded (unless of course you can't stand saturday morning cartoon colours).  Everyone in the game is cute but not sickeningly so with parts of Grunty's Lair (and uh Grunty herself) looking childishly gross.  It has the classic Nintendo 64 kid's game feel and handles it's 3D a little less pointy than Super Mario 64.


Gameplay - While the basic platforming element of Mario is there of collecting items, the gameplay is more variable in reaching them.  There are two things to collect in the game.  Notes and Jiggies.  Notes are like the coins of the game with 100 in each world, but instead of giving you an extra life, they allow you a better chance of opening any doors ahead which requires you to have a certain number of notes before progressing.
Jiggies are golden jigsaw puzzle pieces, and are the same as Mario's stars.  Throughout the lair are various paintings of worlds to visit, and filling in the painting with any Jiggies you find in the various worlds (which while are more numerous, are smaller than the worlds of Mario 64) allows you to access that world.  Simple enough right?  Sounds like the kind of game that like Mario you can just shoot through under a minimum right?  Well not entirely because of both the note doors AND the jigsaw puzzle pieces and since you have to USE the Jiggies instead of regaining them back when finishing the painting, it's a little trickier and deciding which world to go to will be a little more difficult for speed runners.
And then there is Mumbo Jumbo, whom you must collect skull-shaped tokens in order to change into a creature, something that you will need to get one or two Jiggies in a level.


But what differentiates Banjo-Kazooie from Mario is their abilities.  Mario has a range of jumps and a simple punch-punch-kick action.  But Banjo-Kazooie utilise a whole range of powers and attacks, all of which are taught by Bottles the Mole in the various worlds.  There's the attacks such as the Beak Barge, the Ratatat or the Egg Blaster, and powerup abilities such as the Wading Boots for dangerous waters or the power of Flight on certain pads.  All of these powers make for a much more diverse experience than Mario could offer, which makes this game surprisingly just as good if not better than Super Mario 64.

Music/Sound - The music, while not as memorable as Mario 64, does not disappoint with a dumbed-down orchestra feel like you'd get in any cartoon of a great scope from the tuba melodies of Clanker's Cavern to the Egyptian-style Gobi's Desert, but the more noticeable thing about the music in the game is it's change when in water, just like that of Mario 64 and more smoothly as well, an almost unnoticeable change in music when in water and it only plays the bass strings of whatever level's music is playing.  The music turns more interesting when in various areas of Gruntilda's Lair as the closer you get to one level, the more the music turns into a similar melody of that level's music.


Banjo-Kazooie was one of the worthiest opponents against the great plumber in his domain of the platforming genre, and even though we all suspected there would not be enough Banjo-Kazooie games made to endanger Mario's position at all, he was certainly given a run for some of his money with such an original refreshingly new game in a game genre that quite frankly was looking all the same.  Not that everyone minds such a thing if the same is well-made.

Fun and Innovation - 4
Replayability - 3
Gameplay - 5
Presentation - 4

this great game is coming to the xbox live arcade here in a couple weeks :D