Banjo-Kazooie was the game that revolutionized platforming on the N64: Rare’s quirky humor, creative level design, and sublime controls made it the pinnacle of platforming on Nintendo’s console. Fans of the original will probably remember the game developers’ generous promises about the sequel, Banjo-Tooie, including the ability to swap items with the original Banjo (hence the hidden ‘Stop ‘N’ Swap’ items). And while these dreams never materialized thanks to Nintendo’s concerns, we were still left with a pretty impressive sequel.
Beginning in Banjo’s home on Spiral Mountain, Tooie begins several years after the events of the first outing. Banjo and co. Everyone is safe and comfortable playing cards in their house, Grunty is still firmly stuck under a rock, Klungo is still despairing over the fate of his lover, and things couldn’t be better. Which, of course, only means that things are bound to get worse. Grunty’s Creepy Sisters Daz and Damo Mingella and Blobbelda immediately arrive on the scene; two ugly sisters whose noisy entry through the rock in a monstrous digging device heralds a great tragedy in the lives of bears and birds.
Upon arrival, the witches pull out a book of spells and free Grunty from her wormy enclosure, revealing that two years under a rock have turned our favorite rhyming witch into a skeleton. Reunited, the trio attack Banjo’s home, killing Bottles in a malevolent magnitude spell before escaping in a digger.
With this shocking start to the game, Banjo and Kazooie set out on a quest to exact revenge on the Grunty skeleton and her siblings, following them to previously unexplored locations. However, as they search for the sisters, the creepy, er, trio plan to use an invention called the Big-O-Blaster to drain the life force from the entire world and restore Grunty to her former, meaty glory. Starting with King Jinjaling, the evil witches set the clock on the world’s energy, with only Banjo and Kazooie standing between them and victory. Indescribable!
Right from the start, just like the story, everything about Tooie feels grandiose, larger than life and a little overwhelming compared to its humble predecessor. Arriving in Jinjo Village for the first time hints at the sheer size of this game: there’s a lot to do and explore here, and this is just the first part of the hub world – and there are countless other parts to Isle O’ Hags that could swallow Spiral Mountain in one they sip.
Entering a level in Banjo-Tooie is a bit like Kazooie. Every size of the world is quite a surprise (sorry, Grunty’s rhymes are quite addictive, apologies to anyone who finds this outrageous!)…
Ahem. Rather than having levels that can be completed in one sitting, Tooie’s levels are specifically designed to connect to each other through tunnels and other means with a more “open world” approach. you can’t 100% end level until you’re most of the way through the game and gain access to related areas and later game abilities.
This is confusing at first, as it’s not clear that jumping between levels is necessary – you’ll wonder how to get Jiggies, only to discover a few hours later that you can access them via another level. But this design that ties all the levels together lends itself to the game’s expansive approach, and is good fuel for your typical gamer to complete – depending on your skill and knowledge of the geography, there’s around 20 hours of content here, and while it can become overwhelming, it’s still extremely enjoyable. Since the year 2000, we have all become much more accustomed to navigating the vast spaces of the open world.
The levels themselves are richly designed: from the circus to the prehistoric land; from the depths of the ocean to a decrepit mine, the settings are varied and atmospheric – and really capture ’64. at its peak. You will be amazed by the variety and feel enchanted by this unusual fairy tale. The basic loop of the original is still there: you get a few Jiggies; a new world opens; repeat until the witch is defeated and you have collected absolutely everything. Sure, Tooie is into collecting musical notes and all sorts of other weird and wonderful objects, but now there’s a lot more to it. Gone are the days of completing a level in five or ten minutes; Banjo-Tooie massively expands the canvas and a few cracks begin to appear.
Some of these cracks are caused by a feature not often shown in sequels: our heroes retain all of their moves from the first outing, which is pretty neat. Or is it? It’s ironic that Rare decided to keep the moves from the first game from the start – something that pisses off a lot of people not happens in the sequels – the team put themselves in a bit of a bind. No new moves would mean little variety, but the expanded moveset would become unwieldy.
Since Bottles has no corporeal form, the intrepid adventurers look to Jamjars – the wiry brother of the deceased mole – to teach them new moves. Most notable among them is that they can separate the duo: Banjo and Kazooie can go through levels on their own, with a whole host of new abilities – Kazooie even learns to hatch eggs! The game changes drastically when the duo are separated, and you have to think outside the box (well, a backpack in the case of our feathered friend).
However, splitting up and getting lost isn’t fun and, given the scale of the levels, it’s sometimes unclear what you’re actually supposed to do. Other additions from Jamjars, such as using the Kazooie as an FPS-style gun (in closed environments – you can’t just go through the entire game in first-person mode), a drill, spring shoes, and a new range of egg types from fun to just a little too much to deal withespecially when all the moves from the first game are still there. Cycling through five types of eggs isn’t particularly exciting.
And then we have the introduction of Mumbo Jumbo as a playable character. Basically, all he does is find special Mumbo pods and activate them, after which you return to his hut. Unfortunately, controlling the poor shaman adds relatively little value.
Still, Tooie balances the difficulty with almost all the control precision of its predecessor: it’s only marginally less fluid when it comes to new moves, which still puts it well above most other games. The transformations are back (this time you can actually play as a washing machine and a dinosaur!) but it’s Humba Wumba who works her magic and transforms into a bear and a bird – poor Mumbo really gets a raw deal.
Level bosses also enter the fray for the first time, ranging from a giant rag-balloon dinosaur to a grumpy old lump of coal and a pterodactyl. These additions add even more humor and depth than the first release. Maybe more depth than we needed, but just enough.
But it’s too big really big flaw? Not in our opinion – and especially not after years of open world experience. Played on original hardware, the game’s real flaw is its notoriously unreliable — well, reliable poor — number of frames per second. As with Rare’s other late-cycle N64 releases, it stretches the console to its breaking point – and then stretches it even further. Xbox and A rare replay the re-releases have fixed this issue, and the game is much smoother via Nintendo Switch Online as well. Just something to be aware of if you are plugging in an original cart.
The only other thing that slightly dampens this brilliant fairy tale adventure is the position of the evil Gruntilda in the back seat. He no longer teases and provokes you with his couplets; it seems that she is only there at the end to give a good beating.
All in all, Banjo-Tooie is a fantastic game filled with the variety and imagination you’d expect from Rare’s glory days, although the enormity of the game makes it hard to squeeze every drop of fun out of it. With a four-player GoldenEye-style deathmatch option, things can get hilarious with a few friends around, even if they’re relatively short-lived.
Conclusion
Banjo-Tooie is a wonderful time. The levels are fantastically designed, the humor is always present and a lot of care has been put into creating an adventure of epic proportions. It stands above most other platformers out there, but it’s not perfect just because it goes overboard. They are worlds little too big, has a few more moves than necessary, and playing as Mumbo Jumbo unfortunately added little value. However, don’t let this detract from the fact that Banjo-Tooie is one of the gems in Nintendo’s platform history: with rich level design, brilliant gameplay and the same charm that made the original so special, this one is well worth getting and keeping.
