2008 was a bad year for me. While I have listened to others bemoan the decision to reboot Bond, reset Batman or remake Buffy the Vampire Slayer for the big screen (OK, that was me too), for me and my childhood memories the most arduous travesty of recent years didn’t even take place on the silver screen. Gamers everywhere carried on with indifference, either happy to watch this injustice take place or completely oblivious to the scale of the slight, as one of the greatest entertainment series ever lost its footing and disenfranchised fans everywhere. The game responsible: Banjo-Kazooie miss-step Nuts and Bolts. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. What made the original such a big deal to begin with?
I know it might seem a little odd to base HeyUGuys’ first ever Video Game Vault on a little-known title from 1998, but rather than preach to the choir with a pop retrospective lavishing praise on something like Super Mario, Sonic the Hedgehog or Crash Bandicoot, I hope to introduce you instead to one of the most creative, enjoyable and ultimately overlooked games I have ever played – and my own personal favourite to boot. The original Banjo-Kazooie never received the same level of popularity as other games at the time, the demise of the Nintendo 64 and its similarity to other platformers taking it to the grave until renowned Leicestershire-based developers Rare Ltd later re-released it for XBox 360 Live Arcade in the lead up to Nuts and Bolts’ release. I urge you to seek it out, look past the dated graphics, and surrender yourself to one of the most addictive games ever made.
The game, like any other worth its salt, is utterly mad. Banjo, a brown honey bear, is violently awoken just in time to see his sister Tooty abducted by a jealous witch named Gruntilda, who is intent on stealing the younger sibling’s good looks. Along with best friend Kazooie, a red female bird who resides in Banjo’s backpack, he sets off in pursuit of his captive sister. Before them lie nine worlds which can only be entered when the requisite number of musical notes have been collected. To better prepare them for the task at hand, Banjo and Kazooie learn a number of helpful moves from friendly mole Bottles, and seek guidance from a mysterious shaman named Mumbo Jumbo, and must locate a predetermined number of jigsaw pieces on their journey to Grunty’s lair.
Considering just how old the game now is, and just how crude the N64 graphics look in hindsight, it really is quite staggering just how forward thinking, sprawling and detailed Banjo-Kazooie actually was for its time. Awarded “Console Action Game of the Year” and “Outstanding Achievement in Art/Graphics” by the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, any similarity in gameplay it shared with fellow platformer Super Mario World 64 was quickly forgiven, with many critics commenting on the natural technological progression between games. From the vast starting point of Spiral Mountain to the labyrinthine overworld inside Gruntilda’s lair, the player has largely free reign through multiple levels packed with challenges, collectibles and interactive characters.
With a greater emphasis on non-linear adventure than many of its peers, Banjo-Kazooie is an experience which actively invites exploration. Layered in a vein similar to the recent Lego franchise games, early levels often contain secret areas initially out of reach to the dynamic duo. As you are tought to fly, attack whilst climbing and fire eggs out of Kazooie’s backside, previously inaccessible areas open up, ensuring that the game is never fully complete. I hate nothing more than to be herded along some predetermined path, cut off from the previous areas by a conveniently locked door or the completion of a level; Banjo-Kazooie never tells you what to do, each challenge quite happy to carry on without you until you are ready to go back and have another try on your own terms, at your own speed.
It is the game’s character which will keep you coming back for more, however, with stylised and quirky dialogue, memorable and cross-over characters, and a charming sense of humour and a cheery atmosphere making the game an absolute joy to play. Banjo-Kazooie’s complicated relationship leads to constant squabbling, the game’s script accentuating personality rather than merely furthering the level’s plot. Across a variety of forms, having been intermittently transformed into a termite, a pumpkin, a bee, a walrus and a crocodile by Mumbo Jumbo, they are still incontrovertibly the same sardonic twosome, their voices punctuated with myriad chirps and whistles. Ripe for the rebuke, then, are a manic ensemble of similarly bonkers creations, whether a blubbering hippopotamus pirate, a sentient spell book or a dastardly shark emblazoned with the Rare insignia.
These characters are spread over a veritable smorgasbord of gargantuan worlds just waiting to be encountered. Whether it’s the beachside, mountain-top lighthouse of Treasure Trove Cove, the underwater fish-tank that is Clanker’s Cavern or the treacherous cesspits of Bubblegloop Swamp, Banjo-Kazooie is laced with imaginative and intricate levels taking in everything from killer snowmen to angry apes. Aside from such thematic and visual diversity, however, is the game’s other crowning achievement: Grant Kirkhope’s music. Each world is complemented with its own unique score, which bleed seemlessly into the game’s main theme every time a world is exited. Treasure Trove Cove, for instance, is alive with swash-buckling bombast, whereas Mad Monster Mansion is substantially more dark and menacing. As if this wasn’t impressive enough, Kirkhope has on occasion included more than one distinct score per level. This is best exampled by the final level, Click Clock World, which presents the same level with slight variations depending on which season it is during which you decide to enter in.
While Banjo-Kazooie might not be the most well-known title in gaming, doing itself few favours with its ambiguous teaser title ‘Project Dream’, it has enjoyed quite a legacy regardless. After the success of the first game, a sequel was quickly put into production, subsequently released in 2ooo and also for N64. Bigger, barmier and somehow even better than the original, Banjo Tooie introduced a whole host of new characters, worlds and scores, improving gameplay and allowing you to play as both Banjo and Kazooie separately. A number of spin-offs were also released, broaching the Game Boy Advance with Grunty’s Revenge and Banjo-Pilot, while the characters also cameoed in Conker’s Bad Fur Day and Diddy Kong Racing. After nearly a decade away from screens, the game was re-released for Xbox 360 ahead of the franchise’s most recent release.
If there was one good thing to come out of the tenth anniversary release of Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts – a game which bore the franchise’s hallmark eccentricity and enormous worlds but traded in the exploratative platform gameplay for a repetitive exercise in vehicle construction – it was the game’s success, going platinum with 400,000 units in the first nine months of release. With an outcry from fans to return the leads to their action-adventure roots, there is hope that Rare might one day produce the Banjo-Threeie we have all been waiting for.
So, there you have it, my favourite game ever made. What’s yours?
