Review: Banjo-Kazooie

,Back in the days of the N64 it was said that Super Mario 64 had changed the way platforming games worked and had been the first true 3D platformer but that wasn't the only good platformer to come out of the N64 one of which being the game I'll actually be talking about today. Banjo-Kazooie probably wasn't as well known as Mario but I wouldn't exactly say that it wasn't noticed as it actually had quite a large fan base as it was quite a memorable game.

Banjo-Kazooie was a game created by Rareware which starred and unlikely duo of a Bear, Banjo, and bird, Kazooie, who would take shelter in a large backpack which Banjo would carry around on his back. These two heroes would soon set out into the lair of the wicked witch, Gruntilda, in order to rescue Banjo's younger sister, Tooty.

Throughout the witch's lair Banjo and Kazooie would come upon the gateways to all sorts of unique worlds where you're main goal would be collecting the ten jigsaw pieces also called a jiggy for short. Of course there was more to them then that including music notes which each world contained a hundred of these and the more you had the deeper into the over world lair you would be able to go. The method of collecting these notes was possibly the most complicated thing in the game as it worked on a record system where whenever you leave the world the notes go back the way they were and the only way to actually accumulate more from that world would be to collect all the ones which you had the previous time as well as any new ones you might find with the new ones being the ones added to your grand total. This meant that in order to collect all one hundred notes in each world you would have to collect all of them at once without leaving the world or dying as this would only reset their locations throughout the world forcing you to start all over again. Each world would also contain small multicolored creatures called Jinjos which when all five of these creatures in each world are collected they would present you with one of the ten jigsaw pieces for that world.

In order to unlock all of the various worlds throughout the game you will have to place the appropriate amount of jigsaw pieces into the appropriate picture for each world in order to complete the picture. Of course as mentioned above there will also be doors which can only be opened by having the appropriate about of music notes and the numbers required will really get up there by the time you reach the end of the game meaning that right from the start you should try and collect as many notes as possible, if not all of them in each world.

All of the many moves in the game are easy to use and all of them are taught to you by a friend of Banjo and Kazooie named Bottles. Throughout the whole game you'll actually be looking through the levels for him in order to learn new abilities and moves that will allow you to reach the jigsaw pieces that you were unable to reach without that ability. There are also a few temporary upgrades through the game as well in the form of shows which Kazooie will put on her feet allowing her to either walk through piranha infested waters as well as quick sand or give her the ability to run at much higher speeds then she is normally able to. Of course before you can use these shoes you will have to talk to Bottles and learn to.

There is actually a set of cheat codes built right into the game but of course you'll have to find and talk to Gruntilda's spell book in order to receive the codes of course there are plenty of sites around the net that actually have all the cheat codes making it so that you won't have to actually go through the trouble of learning them. Be careful however if you use too many cheat codes it will mean game over, and I mean it, your game file will actually be deleted and I've actually tested this and it is true so just keep that in mind.

Along with the text, used as the main method of getting the storyline acrossed, each of the character were given a unique way of speaking with what has been named, mumbling, it's more or less the closest thing to speaking with out actually speaking making it seem as though the characters are talking using a language of their own.

The main storyline of the game really isn't too deep as through most of the game you will only be going through the individual and disconnected worlds storyline wise as none of the smaller stories having absolutely nothing to do with the main storyline of the game. The graphics in the game were average for the N64 as they were very similar to graphics used for many other games on the console back in those days. The music of the game is actually one of the best features in the game featuring quite catchy tunes while you play through the already overly addicting game.

Banjo-Kazooie was also the holder of possible the most well known mystery in the gaming world in the form of Stop n' Swop which would have connected game play in Banjo-Kazooie with it's sequel game Banjo-Tooie. I won't get into too much detail on this at the moment however as I will talk about this in a future article.

Overall Banjo-Kazooie may have been overshadowed by some of the other platforming games with more well known characters but Banjo-Kazooie still ended up becoming, in my own person opinion, one of the best games on the N64 which still holds a place in my childhood. When I had originally played this game I was only a kid but even when I play it now I still have just as much fun with it as I did back then. The graphics weren't anything overly impressive but they were among some of the best in the N64 age which was enough to say they were pretty damn good. The music was amazing and the unique style of voice acting made the game seem like something completely different from many games at that time. The storyline wasn't too involved in the actually game play of the game but you know what? It didn't have to be because all of the individual worlds could stand on their own without involving the actual storyline in them. The game would be worth a play, that is if you've never played it in the past and if you have played it then you could always play through again as it does have enough replay value to actually play through the game again.