Part I: The Flashback
Part 2 of the 'unfulfilled dreams' saga, as hard as I hunted for this game, it was yet another no-show in my city. Couldn't find it up for rental, couldn't even find it up for purchase. Luckily, I can no finally claim to have played and beaten Banjo-Tooie.
Part II: The Review
Banjo-Kazooie was a masterclass in platform-collectathon games, every single move had its use, every level had a fair amount of things to collect and every step of the hunt felt rewarding. But, fitting for its era, Banjo-Tooie went bigger, and bigger isn't always better. It probably was, at the time, though.
Something I really liked about Banjo-Kazooie was how you could pretty much finish every level when you got there, no need to go back to the hub like Mario 64. Two levels didn't fit the bill, but they were the exception, not the rule. In Banjo-Tooie, such is not the case. The game's world has gone massive, so much so that you'll need to use the new teleporters spread throughout the Isle O' Hags, the game's main 'world' to move around. Each sub-world also has its own set of teleporters, and soon enough you'll learn to love them. Heck, a few sub-world are interconnected between each other, and you can also unlock a train to travel between a few worlds.
You could make a pretty good case for Banjo-Tooie being a Metroidvania. Every level has about 3 moves that Banjo and/or Kazooie can learn, so you'll constantly find yourself backtracking to previous worlds to clear obstacles that you couldn't before. It was a touch annoying having no way to know if I had done everything I could in a level or not, so by the end I had a FAQ closeby so that I knew when I was clear to move on and return when I had new moves. This means that the game has more emphasis on puzzles rather than platforming, as a matter of fact, the last three levels were so complex that said FAQ became my best friend. I mean, the final world has many Jiggies, your main collectible, that require Banjo and Kazooie being separated.
Banjo and Kazooie retain every move they had in the previous game, so in Tooie they only obtain new moves, making for a massive amount of abilities by the end of the game. They go from different shooting-egg ammo types, to letting Banjo cling onto edges. The biggest game changer is the ability to separate Banjo from Kazooie, and each character also gets to earn moves that they can only use while on their lonesome. Each level also features Wumba, a new character that'll transform Banjo and Kazooie into something else, be it a Dinosaur or a car, while Mumbo, who is out of his transforming-job, becomes playable... albeit at a very limited capability, he is only used to trigger very specific Mumbo-pads. The most use you'll get out of Mumbo is in level 1, when he can control a giant stone statue.
Banjo-Tooie is a very different game from Banjo-Kazooie, even if it shares the same foundation. I still found the game to be great fun, but I much preferred the simplicity from Banjo-Kazooie. A few collectible jiggies require completing objectives in multiple worlds, as a matter of fact, in some ways, the game feels a bit less rewarding, since sometimes fulfilling an objective won't have an immediate reward. I think the developers knew that this was more of a thinking game than the first one, so you can very easily unlock cheats to prevent fall damage and to grant Banjo regenerating health.
Mind you, the game has the same sense of humor from the first game, and it's as beautiful as ever. The new worlds are very colorful and fun to explore, and there's always a new silly transformation to look forwards to. The gameplay is as tight as ever, controls are responsive, and even simple things like flying around feels great. That said, there's something to be said for a game that pretty much requires a guide to get the most fun out of it. A few levels, like Grunty's factory, had me exploring for over an hour before I collected a SINGLE jiggy. Everything after the Prehistoric world just ends up feeling quite overwhelming, with many different places to explore and poor guidance. Worlds are simply too large for their own good.
Banjo-Tooie is another Nintendo 64 classic, no doubt about it, but I don't think it's as good as Banjo-Kazooie, although not by a margin. I'm sure that there's an audience that'll like this more convoluted approach to the game, but it loses a bit of the magic that made the first game so special. Still, I can't complain, as Rare managed to deliver yet another knockout on the N64. And as great as I think the game is, I still think that a simpler approach would've been better.
8.0 out of 10
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