I have a lot of mixed feelings on this game, I really enjoy the level concepts a lot more here first than the first game and the music is also similar in this regard, I think as a follow-up game its 100% worth playing. but there's some things to be aware of heading into it, it loses a lot of the simplicity that made the first banjo such an enjoyable experience and went more in the direction of padding runtime with unnecessary and poorly implemented backtracking, I cant count how many collectibles I straight up never collect in regular playthroughs due the tedious nature and that's just to start, notes were given a reduced presence and instead of collecting a single note at a time you instead collect bundles which sounds great on paper however less notes means less notes to direct the player to where they actually need to be going which in this game is devastating in some areas

Banjo & Kazooies Moveset (both together and seperately) has greatly expanded but some of the movies feel like integral new parts of the movesets and others can feel like bloat, the split pads were also poorly used in my opinion and kinda groaned whenever I encountered them.

all in all I'd recommend it if you liked the first one but just be aware that its a much longer and tedious collect-a-thon


p.s: this game loses an entire star to Grunty Industries*

Pega banjo-kazooie, que tem as fases perfeitinhas fechadinhas e fáceis de se movimentar e situar devido ao level design compacto com pontos claros de referência, e joga tudo isso pela janela diretamente numa fogueira e esqueça isso.

Pra começar falando bem, todas as coisas boas que fazem o primeiro ser foda pra mim ainda estão aqui, o banjo se movimenta magnificamente, e agora tem muitos mais opções devido ao moveset expandido. Além disso o tom do jogo é bom também, ele tem um humor bem mais irônico que o primeiro jogo, e isso pra mim foi um acerto devido a se tratar de uma sequência com um plot mais "sério". Como de se esperar a trilha sonora é bem foda ainda, é mais sútil, mais ambiente mas no que se propõe é agradável.

Mas nada disso pra mim salva esse jogo do seu maior problema: Esse jogo é inchado pra caralho, as fazes são IMENSAS, muitas com várias áreas separadas por várias telas de loading. Não satisfeito com isso, por algum motivo esse jogo tem VÁRIAS jiggies que você tem que voltar depois na fase pra buscar com uma habilidade nova ou após fazer outra coisa em outra fase, isso pra mim é terrível pois eu não sabia o que dava pra pegar e eu tava perdido mesmo ou era pra eu voltar depois. Enquanto o primeiro era mais um mario 64 esse aqui é beeeeem mais um donkey kong 64 júnior (que nesse sentido de fases inchadas é beeeeeeeeeeem pior).

And so my trek back through nastolgia concludes by playing through my favorite-est 3D platformer ever. I'd never 100%'d it before, but gosh I did it this time. It was certainly FAR quicker and easier to do than doing DK64's would've been XP. I only had to use a guide for about 5 minor collectables as well (ones which I know I've found on previous playthroughs, but missed this time), so I found just about everything myself :) . Granted, this is like my fourth or fifth time through this game, but it took me about 13.5 hours. Judging from another save file on the cartridge that had about 18 for the minimum amount of jiggies to beat the game, I'd say I've gotten much faster :P

It's still Banjo-Tooie. Dripping with style, color, and silly dialogue, it's still the best the N64 ever had to offer in terms of 3D platforming. The bosses are also still fantastic as well. I certainly don't remember the final boss being as hard as it was, but all of them were certainly a blast (I even beat Weldar on the first try this time :D ).

Being a Rare game, there are of course some technical issues in terms of framerate. Especially in world 7, the game experiences some really significant slowdown quite frequently. Nothing that ever made the game impossible to control, but definitely annoying now that I'm old enough to notice it. I'm fairly curious if the XBLA versions of the game fix that problem, tbh.

Verdict: Highly Recommended. If you like 3D platformers even a little, then this game should totally be a must-play. I know they're really not for everyone, but if you enjoy classic collectathons, there's really nothing better than this game.

A sequel that is still fun but flawed.

I still have a love for this game. It improves on some things but falters in others. And this is just another part of the story of how Rare didn't listen to criticism.

Where last left off with DK64(Go check my review of it so this makes a bit more sense.). The biggest problem with Tooie is that worlds are yet again too big. They are tedious to get around. It requires a stupid amount of backtracking. You have to get a move 2 world from now and then return to get this jiggy. Worlds are not self contained anymore. They actually connect in insane ways. You can do things in one world that effects another. It's cool but it also leads to tedium. They tried to add warp pads in worlds like DK64 but it doesn't really solve the problem.

Now, why am I mentioning DK64 so much? It's because it came out a year before this. And they learned nothing! They were told how tedious it was. They were told the worlds were too big. Yet here we are, with Banjo-Tooie having the same issues. The one thing they did improve is there is way less to collect in Tooie than there is in DK64. Rare simply did not listen to very valid criticisms.

Now, let's compare it to Banjo-Kazooie. It is a sequel after all. What does it improve it on? Note count no longer resets on death or exit of a level. You can now collect packs of notes instead one 1 note at a time. The overworld is a bit more interesting than the first. Although I feel like Grunty's Castle is a better vibe and theme. Ilse of Hags has more variety and there is more life going on. It has more moves to learn. Moves are more varied and all of them are used more. We get a lot more lore about the world. We also get what most people wanted and that was, to see Kazooie out of the backpack.

A cavoite to the separation move though. It does lead to tedium. Gotta find a pad to do it. Got to find a pad to switch. Got to separate in order to learn individual moves. It does lead to tedium but it was still a cool thing to do.

As usual, the worlds are varied. Most are fun. Later levels get to be a bit too much. Music is great as always. The final boss is honestly less frustrating. Dare I say, it's fun? Or at least very close to fun.

There are a few incredibly frustrating jiggies. Cough CANARY MARY cough. Some of the timers in the game are very tight. Like unfair tight. Some of the mini games suck due to bad controls.

One cool thing is the addition of a Golden Eye like multiplayer minigame. It's really fun with friends. You have to deal with the bad controls, but the 360 version does it fix it.

How does the Xbox 360 version improve on Tooie? Not much to be honest. It improves some controls. Stop n Swap lives on in this version. You get some player icons/profile pictures and a wallpaper for your 360. It looks better. I believe you could select a boss rush mode and play all the mini games from the menu.

I know I complained a lot about it. But I do love this game. I'm harsh because it needs to be said. It is not better than the first game, but not a bad sequel. It is just another example of Rare, not listening.

I know what some people are going to say. They were developed to close together. They couldn't change it even though they knew the criticisms of DK64. Fair enough. Here is the thing though. That's a trend with Rare. DKC 1, 2 and 3 were all released with 1 year of in between each other. 94, 95, 96. Bk1, DK64 and BK2 did the same thing. 98, 99, 00. Do you see the problem there?

I'm not going to go into much but DKC 3 is a mess of a game. It's not as well regarded because Rare didn't polish it like the other two. Bad hitboxes, worse graphics, worse music, etc. They simply didn't have the time.

Yet again, I know what some of you are gonna say. It's not Rare's fault they had to pump out so many games in a short amount of time. Yet again, fair enough.

I just need to paint the picture of why Tooie is the way it is. And how all of this effects not only Banjo-Kazooie Nuts n Bolts but Yooka-Laylee. I'm telling a story here of how they did not listen to criticism. Did not learn from their mistakes with DK64 and Tooie.

It is an improvement over the original game in many regards (cinematic, presentation), but it didn't delivered it as powerfully as the first one.

Is it a bad game? Ofc no, not in the slightest.
It can be tedious? Yes, mainly due to the backtracking, hard jiggies to find and not a real 1st-time friendly game.
Oh, not to mention: the framerate on N64 is dreadful.

Banjo and Kazooie new moves are really interesting. It's sad that we never got Threeie because I can't imagine how much other crazy stuff it could come up with if just Tooie provided enough (like a freaking Dragon Tooie).

I'm so indecised between a 3 and a 3.5/5. Considering that they'll barely do stuff like this nowadays, I would give a 3.5 alright. But man, it didn't do the trick as amazingly as other collectathon I played...

Before I went on holiday I was playing this, and I was like "this could be a 5 or 6 because of some of the fun moments", but coming back off holiday and detoxing while playing some good games and getting back into this! Wow! It is bad. Don't even bother trying to sate your curiosity. I played Banjo 1 some years ago and whilst I don't remember it living up to the dunkey hype, I remember it being nowhere near this bad.

Avoid like the plague.

Avoid like the plague.