Banjo is fun, and that's honestly not something I expected going into this game. After my experiences with super old early 3D games of this era ended up being mostly on the negative end, I was surprised at what a relaxing fun game this was. I ended up really enjoying my first experience with Banjo Kazooie, but it got me pondering: why did I have fun with this but didn't have fun at all with Mario 64? By design I prefer platformers where you can really mess around with their movement and experiment and Mario 64 has that on display ten fold while Banjo is super limited in this regard. So why did I end up not only hating that game but having fun with this one? After thinking it over I came up with a couple of explanations.

For one, the overall handling and ground control is LEAGUES better than 64's overly sluggish almost tank like base movement. Moving around was no problem at all and the levels were all small and compactly built around Banjo's overall relaxed easy going pace and speed, it felt great from the get go. It's simply fun to explore the stages and find collectibles without getting booted out of the stage the moment you collected them. There's overall a lot of fun silly charm the game has that definitely bolstered my enjoyment. Yeah the swimming controls aren't super ideal, it's often hard to tell what object is breakable (specifically windows and doors that lead to different rooms but most of them look like any flat uninteractive texture already in the game) and the final boss sucks, but I overall had a good time. It's not super amazing and didn't blow me away or anything, but it didn't need to. I feel not every game needs to be an 8-9/10 or bust, some games can just be simple and fun to play through and not much more than that, I can vibe with it.

Basically confirmation to me personally that this game is something I'd have absolutely adored if not for the notes resetting, because this version doesn't have that issue, and I think that this is one of the best 3d platformers out there now! Basically every stage here strikes that perfect balance I like in a collectathon, with pretty solid gameplay with the way your moveset is utilised to lead to discovering a ton of secrets and little hidden areas, combined with some of the best atmosphere you could hope for. It's really diverse stuff too, being especially effective at balancing between more lighthearted, comfy areas with the threats being way more on the goofy side, but then throwing some really grim ideas once in a while too, especially with Clanker's Cavern and Rusty Bucket Bay.

I also find it really neat how each different collectible is handled in terms of level design, as it basically always leads to you finding something and the reward feeling accurate to the amount of effort you needed to put in to discover it, allowing for both a lot of freebies while leaving room for a few truly devious hiding spots. Honestly just one of the most charming games ever to me and now that I can play it without wanting to tear my hair out whenever I die, I can truly say that I absolutely love Banjo-Kazooie.

I am SO HAPPY that I gave this cute little bear and his cheeky bird friend a second chance.

Banjo-Kazooie is outstanding, especially considering its release date.
Funny, great level design, superb soundtrack.

This is on Mario Odyssey level!

Jogado no Xbox Game Pass pelo Cloud Gaming. Banjo-Kazooie é um jogo muito especial. A inventividade dos cenários, a diversão das músicas, o espírito de procurar e coletar, o design de personagens, tudo é muito, muito especial, remanescente de uma época em videogames que não vai voltar.

Mas Banjo-Kazooie também é um jogo antigo, com seus problemas (mesmo que a versão de X360 resolva alguns). Desafios levemente obtusos, controles que decidem não funcionar, progressões estranhas.

Podem me chamar de frouxo, mas o mês que esse jogo ficou parado já diz bastante sobre o porquê de eu deixar ele de lado por enquanto. Talvez as pessoas lembrem dele com carinho pela nostalgia, em uma época onde essas coisas não eram problemas, mas o melhor que tinhamos? Eu comecei tão animado, eu fiz o passeio na 1ª fase... simplesmente porque foi o que eu mais joguei do jogo quando criança.

Jogar Banjo-Kazooie e entender o quão especial ele é... só me faz querer que alguém reimagine Banjo-Kazooie para mais pessoas, incluindo eu, consiga entender o quão especial ele é.

only took me 10 years of saying "i should play banjo, i know i'd like it." and who would have guessed, i liked it!

every world is pretty great! treasure trove cove, freezeazy peak, mad monster mansion, and click clock wood were probably my favorites. the lowest point was rusty bucket bay, which is a bummer cause i loved the theme and climbing up the boat was fun, but it was probably the most bullshit of them all. even that world is still fun, just the worst one for me. the hub world is also GREAT, one of the best in any game i've played for sure. so fun to run around in, and lots of fun and cool secrets. i love hub worlds in 3d platformers so much!!!
the control is so good here, there truly isn't any game that has this kind of weight and feel to it. basic running and jumping feels great and has such a satisfying weight to it. it's far from the best feeling 3d platformer ever, but there really isn't anything similar to it and i think that makes me appreciate it a lot. it's not perfect by any means, i wish the flap flip (the big backflip jump) let you have a bit more control after you executed it, and i wish there was a bit less end lag to some moves, it takes a while to get out of the talon trot namely, and you have no attack options while using it which is a bit frustrating. flying and swimming also are pretty rough, flying especially when you need to be more precise with beak bombs can be pretty frustrating. this hurts the most against the snowmen enemies and the final gruntilda fight (which in spite of that i still loved and thought was super cool) all in all it feels great though!
this game looks great too, i'm playing the XBLA remaster which for sure helps, but even the original game has such a charming art style that i really can't get enough of. rare knew how to make their games look absolutely gorgeous in this era. there's such a big cast of super charming and cool characters! this really is peak character design on display.
obviously sound wise this game rocks, everyone knows it's an all time video game OST but even just the sound design is soooo good and iconic. all of kazooies sounds when she performs movies, the jingles that play when you pick up collectables or equip power ups are all insanely top notch. obviously they knew this because in the final quiz show one of the categories is sounds in the game, it almost felt like they were flexing how great and iconic these sounds were!

although, speaking of the final quiz show, that brings me to the negative of the game. that quiz show is dumb! i think if they just removed insta death squares it'd be fine, and i only got caught by the insta death square once but just know they're there felt like a pretty bad mechanic and made it ruthlessly hard when i feel like it already has a solid challenge! even if you wanna have less honeycombs to compensate i still think that's a way more fair and fun challenge to it. it's also a late 90s collectathon so it has a lot of those trappings when it comes to finding everything. spyro truly nailed the system of having sparx lead you the general direction of gems, i really wish this game had something like that for notes. i didn't often find myself missing out on notes and having to comb levels, but the few times i did were pretty frustrating and it'd be an easy fix. thank god i didn't play on the n64 version where dying resets notes that would have been unbearable! it's not the end of the world, especially with video guides and such but it was a bit frustrating and i think every collectathon should bare minimum have a system that points you in the general direction of any missing collectables. aside from those 2 things (and the brief control issues i mentioned in that section) i don't have much negative to say about this game. it's just so much fun!

a phenomenal 3d platformer all around! looks great and has a super charming cast of characters, genuinely pretty funny writing, and an all time great OST + sound design are the cherry on top of amazing level design and very great control. highly recommend!

Your sister, Tooty, has been kidnapped by the nefarious witch Gruntilda. It's up to you, Banjo, and your trusted, but surprisingly bitter companion Kazooie, to save her from having her beauty stolen. The only thing in your way? Gruntilda's luxurious lair, decorated with portals to multiple realms you must plunder for resources to reach your sister.

Man oh man do I wish that I'd played Banjo-Kazooie when I had a lot more patience for 3D Platformers that expect precision movements. I found that I myself was the biggest obstacle between myself and enjoying this touched up Nintendo 64 classic. It's a wonderfully designed collectathon platformer with 9 levels filled to the brim with a variety of objectives, collectibles, and new abilities to enrich your journey through Gruntilda's lair.

But.

It's also a 90s 3D Platformer. That means you have to wrangle with the camera, deal with a host of imprecise controls that become barriers to progress (I'm looking at you, swimming and flying controls), and some pretty obscure objectives that require you to make pretty large leaps in logic to complete. Especially in the latter half of the game's 9 massive playground-esque levels, I hit multiple walls where I really ended up scraping against every bit of the terrain in order to find some basic progress. You also have limited lives, and losing them sends you all the way back to not just the beginning of the level you're working on, but to the beginning of Gruntilda's lair. Every time something a poor choice or cheap mechanic led to the loss of all of my lives I could feel my blood pressure rising. Man.

Beyond my grievances however, is a colorful, huge game that really encourages you to dig in and explore everything it has to offer. Every level introduces new objects to engage with and a slew of new moves and new ways to convince you engage with older moves as you run, jump, and climb your way through each of the 9 levels. Not all of the level design is intuitive within the game's limited camera control and movement, but its a richly designed experience that's every bit as creative and interesting as its contemporaries; I found myself reflecting on my relationship with the later entries in the Spyro trilogy which are two games that definitely take a similar approach in collecting and objective driven gameplay to Banjo Kazooie. I love those games.

So why don't I love Banjo-Kazooie?

Well. I played them Spyro games when I was all of about 8 years old. My relationship with those games goes back an entire generation at this point. It's aged like a fine wine.

I played Banjo-Kazooie as a 27 year old. 27 year old had a pretty bad time. I yelled. Hooted. Hollered. Cheered when it was over. Because of course I did - I don't find as much fun in repetition as someone experiencing it for the first time as a child does. As someone who has that deep connection with it that goes back years. 27 year old me probably rates this a solid 2.5 stars; removing myself and looking at Banjo-Kazooie from the top down and understanding its target audience and its existence over time make its a far more engaging experience.

Banjo-Kazooie is pretty good.

Everything in the world of BK is so charming and alive. I wish Rare continued making games in this same joyful and colorful theme. Sadly, I didn't hear good things about the sequel but I might give it a try one day, who knows. Furnace Fun wasn't a good time for me, it heavily punishes people returning to the game after a long break, so I had to cheese my way through by looking up the wiki for answers (I feel bad for this). As for the final boss, it was probably the most fun and difficult boss fight I have ever played in a platformer. The game was so fun to play from start to finish. Highly recommended :)

Of all the games in Rare’s expansive catalog, Banjo-Kazooie best encapsulates the studio’s storied history. A quirky 3D platformer that represents Rare at the peak of the creative prowess, it was released on the Nintendo 64 at a time when the console was already flagging against Sony’s CD-powered juggernaut. The circumstances of its release, and Rare’s subsequent shift from working exclusively with Nintendo to joining Microsoft, have led the bear and bird to becoming a forgotten duo.

In any case, the creativity here is undeniable. Banjo-Kazooie feels like an indie developer’s fever-dream Unity platformer that was given enough support to blossom into a full-blown, high-quality game. Banjo and Kazooie are as zany as heroes come, and the supporting cast is even zanier. Who thought to pit the player against a crotchety green witch who always speaks in rhyme? And how about the “Game Over” cutscene, which in 2023 wouldn’t get off the drawing board, much less into the final source code? Green-skinned Barbie is so 1998.

Every room is different from the last, and the game always kept me in the dark about what was coming next. But when every level is an experiment, there are bound to be a few flops, and in Banjo-Kazooie the questionable design decisions disproportionately weigh down the back half. Rusty Bucket Bay and Click Clock Wood have finicky platforming bits, with long walks of shame when you inevitably fall and need to try again. Then there’s Grunty’s Furnace Fun, the final stage, whose name that’s only two-thirds true. It feels like a throwback to NES-era game design, with the bonus addition of guide-proof trivia questions thrown in just for kicks. I didn’t much enjoy it, though I admit I felt a small sense of satisfaction upon passing it and then laying the smackdown on the final boss.

While these sections are annoying in a modern context, one in which I have thousands of games to play and not enough time to play them, I suspect if I went back in time to 1998 I’d feel differently. Nintendo 64 game carts were expensive, and for a kid with just a couple of them, Banjo-Kazooie’s level of difficulty would’ve been a godsend, providing extra hours of fun. Although many players gave up before reaching the true ending, the good vibes they felt while dashing, jumping, and flying around the game’s lovingly crafted levels were crystalized in their memories for decades to come.

As I write this review, it’s already been over a week since I finished Banjo-Kazooie. Yet even now, with my playthrough not even a month behind me, I can already feel my recollections of the game growing fonder. Frustration fades away and only fond impressions of pure creative exuberance remain. Perhaps this explains why everyone thought Yooka-Laylee was a good idea until they didn’t.