A Review: Banjo-Kazooie, N64 1998
Banjo-Kazooie is a third-person action adventure game developed by Rare and published by Nintendo in 1998. Following the exploits of an easy-going brown Honey Bear named Banjo and his sidekick, the Breegull Kazooie, the player is taken on an adventure to save Banjo's sister Tooty from the foul-tempered, grumpy witch Gruntilda. With classical platformer-style gameplay, the player must lead Banjo and Kazooie through a series of worlds with a rich and diverse cast of characters and enemies. Collecting various items and skills along the way, fixing the wrongs caused by Gruntilda before finally cornering her for the final showdown. In 1999, Banjo-Kazooie received two awards during the 2nd Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, which were 'Console Action Game of the Year' and 'Outstanding Achievement in Art/Graphics'. It also received several nominations, including for 'Game of the Year' and 'Console Adventure Game of the Year'. IGN awarded Banjo-Kazooie the 'Best Graphics of the Year', 'Best Texture Design of 1998', and 'Best Music of 1998'.
I loved this game and very much enjoyed my playthrough of it. Coming off the back of Diddy Kong Racing, I looked into the character of Banjo and was rewarded with this game. I didn't know what to think when I first started playing, and I had no idea what joy this game held in store for me. The gameplay is solid, with all the required staples of a good platformer, such as puzzle solving, exploration, and item collections. I loved the various characters and found their lines and humour to be great additions and worth a laugh more than once. I very much liked the smooth and clean movements and control responses, and I hardly found there to be any issues on that front. The various tasks and objectives made perfect sense, and nothing felt out of place or wrong. The various skills and such that can be unlocked made progression seem natural and fluid, though I did find that the backtracking could get irritating at times, but not horribly so. It was just frustrating to sometimes see a needed item so close but then be forced to leave it until a later point. The various items that Banjo could use as weapons were nicely implemented and had hitboxes that matched their sizes and shapes. The levels were wonderfully laid out, and I had no issues at all navigating around. I was frustrated by the camera more than once though, and I found that to be one of the few consistent faults that I noticed. It was sometimes just janky and didn't quite move to where the player would need it, or it would get hung up on something, or it would just get in the way. I really loved that this game played very much like Mario Bros. 64, which made control mastery very simple. The button mapping was intuitive and made the actual playing of this game so crisp and simple. I liked the various sections where I had to use Kazooie and found that it raised her character from a simple sidekick to an actually useful component of the game. It was also nice to see that the characters weren't all perfect beings; they had flaws and quirks that made them feel more real and alive. I thought that the game-show-style level before the final boss fight was a stroke of genius. It really put me on the spot and made me think about what I had done and where. It was also a very refreshing way to end a game. I will say that I had some issues with overrunning more than once and found that trying to be precise was not as easy as I would have liked, though that could have just been me. I also thought that Gruntilda's Lair was a little too labyrinthine-like for my tastes and made getting around a little annoying. Otherwise, though, this was a very good title, if not a little frustrating, and a perfect example of a platforming adventure game.
Visually, I again thought that this game was ace. The menus and user interfaces were perfect and looked great, with intuitive commands and controls. The worlds were deep and vibrant, with colours chosen that really popped and lifted them and the environments above the average. The character models were great, and I had no issues with how they looked. Items and objects were very clean and stood out from clear across a level, which made finding things so easy. The buildings and structures were very good and matched perfectly to their surroundings and world themes, I thought. I loved the eyes on everything and found that it was great for visual comedy and added another dimension to the enemy's that populated the worlds. It was hard to take some creatures seriously with their bulging eyes, and it lifted the mood of this game wonderfully.
Overall, this is a game that will always have a place in my heart and is one that I love playing. The only reason the score is not higher is the blasted camera and the other issues that I mentioned above.
7/10 – Nearly There!
Signed Off – Leonardo – PSJ
I loved this game and very much enjoyed my playthrough of it. Coming off the back of Diddy Kong Racing, I looked into the character of Banjo and was rewarded with this game. I didn't know what to think when I first started playing, and I had no idea what joy this game held in store for me. The gameplay is solid, with all the required staples of a good platformer, such as puzzle solving, exploration, and item collections. I loved the various characters and found their lines and humour to be great additions and worth a laugh more than once. I very much liked the smooth and clean movements and control responses, and I hardly found there to be any issues on that front. The various tasks and objectives made perfect sense, and nothing felt out of place or wrong. The various skills and such that can be unlocked made progression seem natural and fluid, though I did find that the backtracking could get irritating at times, but not horribly so. It was just frustrating to sometimes see a needed item so close but then be forced to leave it until a later point. The various items that Banjo could use as weapons were nicely implemented and had hitboxes that matched their sizes and shapes. The levels were wonderfully laid out, and I had no issues at all navigating around. I was frustrated by the camera more than once though, and I found that to be one of the few consistent faults that I noticed. It was sometimes just janky and didn't quite move to where the player would need it, or it would get hung up on something, or it would just get in the way. I really loved that this game played very much like Mario Bros. 64, which made control mastery very simple. The button mapping was intuitive and made the actual playing of this game so crisp and simple. I liked the various sections where I had to use Kazooie and found that it raised her character from a simple sidekick to an actually useful component of the game. It was also nice to see that the characters weren't all perfect beings; they had flaws and quirks that made them feel more real and alive. I thought that the game-show-style level before the final boss fight was a stroke of genius. It really put me on the spot and made me think about what I had done and where. It was also a very refreshing way to end a game. I will say that I had some issues with overrunning more than once and found that trying to be precise was not as easy as I would have liked, though that could have just been me. I also thought that Gruntilda's Lair was a little too labyrinthine-like for my tastes and made getting around a little annoying. Otherwise, though, this was a very good title, if not a little frustrating, and a perfect example of a platforming adventure game.
Visually, I again thought that this game was ace. The menus and user interfaces were perfect and looked great, with intuitive commands and controls. The worlds were deep and vibrant, with colours chosen that really popped and lifted them and the environments above the average. The character models were great, and I had no issues with how they looked. Items and objects were very clean and stood out from clear across a level, which made finding things so easy. The buildings and structures were very good and matched perfectly to their surroundings and world themes, I thought. I loved the eyes on everything and found that it was great for visual comedy and added another dimension to the enemy's that populated the worlds. It was hard to take some creatures seriously with their bulging eyes, and it lifted the mood of this game wonderfully.
Overall, this is a game that will always have a place in my heart and is one that I love playing. The only reason the score is not higher is the blasted camera and the other issues that I mentioned above.
7/10 – Nearly There!
Signed Off – Leonardo – PSJ
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