As I stated in my Kazooie review, I replayed the game two times back in September of 2023. With Kazooie, that doesn't seem too crazy because it's about half the length of Tooie. However, I also replayed this game twice as well. And with it being twice as long, or maybe even longer for some people, as Kazooie? Seems a bit nuts right? Well, I really went Banjo crazy that month because after beating both games once, I couldn't stop thinking about them which led to me replaying them again right away. The thing is, that whole time I couldn't stop thinking about playing them again...I was thinking about Tooie pretty much. I don't know what happened to me because I went from thinking this game was just decent and definitely worse than Kazooie, to thinking it was amazing and super addicting and better than Kazooie overall. After replaying both games yet again, do I still think this? Probably, tho it's a bit complicated.

If you played Kazooie prior, the first thing you'll notice with Tooie is just how much Banjo and Kazooie's moveset has improved. The roll attack lasts longer, is more mobile and has a nice visual of Kazooie shielding Banjo. The normal attack you perform by standing still, which before was a simple claw move by Banjo, is now replaced by a more effective stationary rat-a-tat rap. The swimming is now WAY better naturally and doesn't require you to hold the R button for it to be good. In fact I don't think the R button does anything when swimming lol. You can now flip-flap directly out of a talon trot. When you do a beak buster, you can now move forward while you're doing rather than staying in place. This change can actually lead to some exploits you can perform too which is rad. These along with some non move-set changes like how whenever you speed up the text it makes the characters talk faster and doesn't pitch up their voices (which was an issue I had forgot to mention in Kazooie), the camera is slower but smoother to use and is overall an improvement, Banjo's backpack animates now when he walks and something about it is incredibly satisfying to me idk why, and the biggest thing is now notes don't get reset when you die (for a reason I'll get into later). All of these improvements drastically enhance the basic gameplay and I honestly miss a ton of these whenever I go back to Kazooie.

That's all fine and dandy, but how about new moves? Well, Tooie's got you covered because it's got like double the amount of moves in Kazooie. The biggest addition is the split-up mechanic. Now you can play as Banjo and Kazooie separately which makes for some clever puzzles. Each singular character gets their own specific moves and while Kazooie's are generally really fun, Banjo's are mostly situational. Kazooie's consist of moves that aren't as context-specific like the ability to glide on her own, her own backflip that's better than the normal one, and the ability to hatch eggs which gets used quite a bit. Banjo's however, besides the first one that lets him pick up and move objects which can lead to some fun puzzles, aren't used that much. He has an ability that let's him recover HP which is nice but only gets used a couple times overall and isn't as helpful as you think because lives aren't an issue anymore. I actually forgot to say they don't exist anymore and it's actually better to die sometimes because it respawns you at the last split-ip bad/beginning of the world which can work in your favor. But anyways, his other two abilities which let him go in dangerous liquids and the other let's him go in his backpack like a burlap sack to cross dangerous obstacles, just aren't used much and are incredibly situational. They all feel pretty samey too unlike Kazooie's, so overall I'd say Kazooie had the better new moves overall. This isn't even getting into all the new moves they both got together. There's 4 new egg types: Fire, Grenade, Ice and Clockwork. All have various uses and are fun additions. There are two new shoes, the claw clamber boots and the springy step shoes. The springy step shoes feel a little derivative because of the jump pads but they're still cool. The claw clamber boots however let you walk on designated parts of walls and it's awesome. There's the bill drill which is also kind of situational but is super satisfying to use. You can now fire eggs in first-person, which can be a little tricky at first with the N64 joystick but is also fun. Because of this, the game also added egg shooting in the air and water when going in first-person mode. The first-person shooting also leads into this FPS mode where you use Kazooie as a gun, certainly riding on the success of Goldeneye, and they can be super fun as well. All of these additions, plus the split-up stuff just really add to their whole move set and makes traversing through worlds a ton of fun.

Speaking of the worlds in this game, they're overall a lot bigger than Kazooie's. The first couple are kinda comparable in size to the first game's but by the time you get to Terrydactyland, they become just massive in size. You'd think this would be super annoying compared to Kazooie, but the game added warp pads that can warp you all over the level. These are the reason I never found the game tedious, if the game didn't have them or if they were awful like DK 64's warps, then the game would be way worse than it is. Anyways, the world's are much bigger in size and there's a lot more things you can do in each world. Though, overall there are less collectables because notes are now in bundles of 5 and 20. So overall the game has less of a focus on tons of collectables like the notes and more of a focus on the jiggys themselves. Jiggy's require way more steps than they did in Kazooie and this turns a lot of people off of the game. A bit understandable but the game is clearly trying to be more of a slower paced adventure platformer rather than Kazooie's brisk pace. I like both approaches but when it comes to Tooie's unique world themes like a run-down amusement park, a dinosaur world and a combined fire and ice world, I definitely prefer just how creative Tooie gets.

I mentioned how Jiggy's take longer to get because more steps are involved, and that's partly because of Mumbo Jumbo and Humba Wumba. In this game, Humba is the one that transforms you and Mumbo is actually a playable character. It greatly depends on the world but overall, I think this is a fun change. Mumbo has a very basic moveset compared to BK but his whole deal is using his magic on specific Mumbo pads. This is incredibly situational ofc and depending on the world it can be a bit tedious, but it can also lead to some interesting puzzles where you have to switch back and forth between BK and Mumbo. Same thing with Humba, sometimes you actually have to switch between Mumbo and then the Humba transformation. Mostly in the later levels do they make these portions kinda puzzling. In terms of everything new they added, this is probably the weakest addition just because it can lead to some tedium, I'll admit that, however I personally never had much of an issue with it tho I also have the whole game memorized at this point so take that as you will.

Besides all that, one of my absolute favorite additions was the fact a lot of the world's are interconnected. Early on, you'll help this mayan cat character out in recovering this idol. Well, you obtain it from this caveman in a weird looking cave and bring it back to him. That's strange though, you're in a world called Mayahem Temple and you just saw a caveman. What gives? Well it turns out, you just entered Terrydactyland when you did that, the aformentioned dinosaur world. This happens a lot in this game where you'll briefly cross over from one world into another or even unlock paths to directly travel between each one. The most memorable one is where you have to feed a different tribe of (good) cavemen this time, and to do so, you unlock a shortcut between Terrydactyland and WitchyWorld. You pick up some burgers from this one character, use the claw clamber boots you get from Grunty Industries and walk along the wall to feed them. All these working parts and interconnectivity just make the world feel alive and I love it.

I mentioned how you had to get the claw clamber boots from Grunty Industries, which is world 6, and use them for a jiggy in Terrydactyland which is world 5. Banjo Kazooie did this exact same thing only once, where you had to backtrack with an ability from another world. Tooie does this way more often and because of that and the interconnectivity of the world, it kind of feels like a 3D metroidvania at points which is awesome. Anyways, people seem to have an issue with backtracking in this game and I don't get it. The more complex jiggy's I understand, but the backtracking is not required as there's enough jiggy's in the game for you to beat the final boss. And even then, there really aren't that many backtracking jiggy's in general. Maybe like 12 or 13 of the 90 jiggy's require backtracking I think? Either way I think that complaint is majorly overblown and is not an issue at all to me, again the Mumbo and Humba stuff I can understand but backtracking to old levels with future abilities? Never even crossed my mind as an issue.

Something else this game added was a boss for every world and they're all really fun. Some are better than others, Lord Woo Fak Fak for example is probably the worst, but I really like how almost every single one of them are large in scope. They really feel menacing even if some of them are pathetically easy.

The game is also way funnier and a lot more cynical in general which I dig. Kazooie was both of these things as well but Tooie cranks it up to the max. The game literally starts off with Bottles dying and Kazooie going "well, he wasnt the most popular character anyways". The game is just full of this tongue-in cheese cynicism. The cast of side characters is not only WAY larger, they're more distinct and memorable just because the dialogue is so much better. There's literally an immigration joke when BK have to help some actual aliens, it's amazing. I think this, plus the interconnected worlds and more unique world themes, are THE main things I like over Kazooie. That plus the improved move set ofc.
The OST is again wondeful just like the first game, but instead of being upbeat, catchy tunes..Grant went for a more atmospheric darker ost this time around. Because worlds are much larger and take more time to beat, I think this change is for the better since the music track won't get old at all. Some of my favorite songs were Grunty Industries, Weldar's Theme and Mr Patch's Theme.

Yes I know two of those are from Grunty Industries. I honestly don't get the hate at all for that world. Something like Terrydactyland I can get, even if I still like it, because it's a massive world with empty space in a lot of it. However, Grunty Industries is a complex, zelda dungeon-like world and it's amazingly designed. I guess if you went into Tooie expecting it to just be like Kazooie, you'd hate it however it's very fun to explore and again super well-designed. It's not even that easy to get lost imo, it's a multi-layered world with distinct set-pieces rather than a super large open world. Sorry for the rant, I just don't get Grunty Industries hate lol. Something I did end up feeling a tiny bit sour on this time around was Hailfire Peaks. I still really like that world, and think the theming is awesome. However the fire side is a little too big for its bridges I will admit and the lag gets really bad sometimes there. The game can get laggy throughout portions of the game, which is only a thing on the N64 version, but there especially it's pretty bad.

One more thing before I mention the endgame and close out the review, is Canary Mary. Canary Mary has methods that make her very doable but she's still easily the worst part of the game and the only part I straight up dislike and dread doing. Her first button mashing races in Glittergulch Mine are perfectly fine. Her races in Cloud CuckooLand tho are insane. If you aren't doing the pause trick, idk how it's humenaly possible to win without using a turbo controller or something. The 2nd race isn't as bad because you can stay near her until the very end and then button mash to hell to pass her right before she can catch up. These races are easily doable with the right methods but the fact you have to do them this way, it just stinks man. But luckily this is only for 100% and only a tiny portion of the actual game so it's not the worst thing in the world.

I talked about a lot of improvements this game has over Kazooie. If there's one thing Kazooie destroys Tooie on however, it's the quiz section and final boss. Gone is the charming board game aesthetic of Kazooie, now you have a typical game show-esque quiz game where you have to answer enough questions to beat Grunty's sisters. It's not bad but it pales in comparison to Kazooie's version as it's less charming and even has less question types. Yeah, I won't miss the Gruntilda specific questions but no sound/music quizzes? That's kinda lame. Again, it's not bad and is only disappointing when compared to Kazooie. The final boss is also not nearly as good as Kazooie's. Is the Hag 1 harder? Most definitely but it's not as memorable as the Gruntilda fight from Kazooie and isn't as fun. It's a solid fight overall but compared to Kazooie's, just a bit lackluster.

So do I like Tooie more than Kazooie? In many ways, hell yes. It improves on many things like the duo's moveset, the writing is way funnier and the interconnectivity between worlds felt like a logical step to take after Kazooie. It may have the weaker end boss and quiz show, it's definitely and easier game to replay/100% and the Canary Mary rematch race is the worst thing between both games, however I'm still feeling like I may like this just slightly more than Kazooie just because of how ambitious and fun it is. It's kinda like Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 where each game has is own strengths over the other and it's just hard to choose what's better. Either way, it's still a 10/10 like the first game and one of my favorite games ever now. Easily in my top 3 N64 games, alongside the first game and Majora's Mask of course. Either way, if you see people saying you shouldn't play this game after you've beaten Kazooie. Don't listen to them, give this a try and you might fall become infatuated with it like I have.

This Banjo double feature was fun but I reckon it's time to play some Kirby again. Stay tuned for a Dreamland 2 review coming soon!

I don't know why I waited so long to finally 100% Banjo-Tooie. I grew up playing this game here and there, but never made it very far. Banjo-Kazooie has always been one of my all-time favorites, but as an adult, I never took the plunge into tooie until recently. And wow, am I glad I did. <3

This game is just as charming as the first, and it will make you realize just how small the worlds of BK are. The interconnectedness of Banjo-Tooie is mind boggling. Some folks find this to be a tedious venture, but in my opinion, it's where the game truly shines. The jiggies and objectives get harder as the game progresses, and some of the challenges really make you work for a single jiggy. But that being said, the satisfaction I felt after finishing a tough section (lookin at you, Grunty Industries) made it well worth the effort. The cheato-pages definitely helped alleviate some of the pressure of the final boss as well, which improved the pacing at the end of the game significantly from BK.

I love how this game reignites that spark of wonder that you feel while playing a game for the first time as a child. Where is the secret Glowbo? What will it do? Will I ever find the alleged Ice Key from BK? What will the Stop n Swop eggs hatch into? There are just so many little mysteries in this game that keep the player returning to discover. Not many games can do that, and for that, this game deserves a perfect score.

I hope someday we see a true Banjo-Threeie, and I hope it feels a lot like this game. 5/5, I love this series so, so much. <3

It's not as bad as some people make it look, but I wouldn't call it great either. Often the levels are too big and confusing and you may waste a lot of time just figuring out what to do and then the things you are meant to do aren't always fun. But when it is fun, its pretty damn good, the humor and characters are great, there are many fun mini-games and places to explore and I'd say p much everything after Grunty Industries is solid.

Also unlike many other sequels at the time, it doesn't feel rushed, the content, good or bad, is unique for each world, so props for that too.

Don't get me wrong, I like this game...I just don't love it like the first one. And that is entirely because this game is TOO DAMN LONG! I understand that on the heels of Banjo-Kazooie, the next logical step in the developers' minds would be "Bigger levels, more open world", but it feels like Tooie is open to its own detriment. "Too much of a good thing" and all of that. I hate backtracking in any game I play, especially collectathons. I hate having to go back to a level after learning a new ability. There are so many moving parts in this game, and don't get me wrong, it is ambitious and charming, but it pushed me away from really enjoying it as much as the first game, especially since unlike the first game this was my first playthrough and there was a lot of confusing portions and puzzles. This entire game feels like its populated with levels similar to the the final world of Banjo-Kazooie, Click Clock Woods, which is by far the most tedious level in that game, spread out even longer. That being said, I love it, and I think if you take it slower or don't try to 100% complete it you may honestly find it more enjoyable. Overall not a bad game, just not as well-rounded and enjoyable as Banjo-Kazooie. But then again, are any of us?

I definitely think the original Banjo-Kazooie is a tighter video game than its sequel. Some of the level designs in Banjo-Tooie are not fun to play on. I constantly got lost trying to navigate Terrydactyland where every area of the level has the exact same textures, and I really didn't like whatever the hell was going on at Grunty Industries. By the time I hit the requirement to fight Gruntilda I felt incapable of doing any more Jiggies. Despite this, I can't bring myself to hate this game because the charm of Rare's classics is still here. The dialogue is as witty as ever and a proper boss lineup in this game is very much appreciated. Witchyworld might be my favorite Banjo world, though it might be a result of my favorite Kazooie level being a much closer race while Witchyworld is by far my favorite in Tooie.

Your eternal reminder Nuts & Bolts is Banjo-Threeie.

This is easily my favorite collectathon game and one of my favorite games ever. It blows anything the predecessor did out of the water. Banjo and Kazooie now feel like they have their own game with its own structure, instead of the Peach Castle-like level selector of the first. The world is MASSIVE for the time and full of life. Every character that you encounter is memorable and the tasks are super fun. Honestly, I don't see the problem with Backtracking. Each time you're learning new moves and you unlock new areas using them. This is a metroidvania style of gameplay loop that I really like and I personally think that fits the game wonderfully. You can clearly see that Rare's next big project would be Conker, it is like the natural step after this. The humor in the game got darker than the first entry and there are some sexual innuendos here and there (Lord Fak Fak). The world is massive as I said and every area is interconnected to the other much like in the same vein as Dark Souls (ha ha). It is an epic and long journey through these lands full of charm. There are a bunch of minigames that I found fun, especially the fps sections. A super ambitious game for its time and even now. In short, a Masterpiece and Rare's very best. I love It!

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).

Consider me pleasantly surprised! Everything I'd heard about this game prior was that it was an iterative sequel with worse level design, and I guess that is true if you approach it exactly like you did with Banjo-Oneie. But these levels aren't meant to be compact, easily sight-read, or fully completed in a single sitting. Try to do so and you'll only end up frustrated, because Tooie is really closer to a 3D Zelda game than a collectathon. Worlds are laid out more like Kakariko Village than Treasure Trove Cove, with a few obvious points of interests in each that conceal lengthy, labyrinthine subareas. Oneie essentially guaranteed that any major task would reward you with a major collectible, while Tooie leaves it more up in the air. Being used to the first game, I assumed beating the timer challenge in Glitter Gulch Mine would earn me a jiggy, so I left it for when I ran out of anything else to do, but it actually unlocks a long series of rooms that significantly increases the scope of the level. Shifting this precedent means there's genuine anticipation as to what you're going to find whenever you make progress, and once you realize the game's designed around masking secrets and hidden areas with occasionally difficult to internalize architecture, a lot of baffling-at-first decisions make complete sense. Why do you need a certain number of notes to learn new moves this time? Well, it's not about actually making players earn upgrades, considering I was always well beyond each respective note threshold, but rather creating an association between notes and Jamjars. The first thing you want to do whenever entering a new world is find its new moves, because they're never gated behind moves from later levels, and are theoretically more valuable than any item. Tooie takes this mindset and uses it to give players a guided preliminary tour of the location, strategically placing Jamjars's bunkers in major areas that might not have been apparent at first. There's less notes in every level because they're generally only used to signify Jamjars's presence- whenever you see some, he's probably nearby. The first trip to every world consists of finding new moves by way of finding notes, which has the intended side effect of giving the player enough information to begin to sketch a mental map. Of course, you can only complete a fraction of every level on your first go-round, so you'll probably poke around just a bit and grab a few Jinjos before calling it quits and returning to a previous world to flesh out one of your earlier pieces of Jamjars-assisted layout knowledge. And these revisits, layered several times for every area throughout the game, are where Tooie's unique blend of collectathoning and progression gates separates itself most from other adventure game subgenres. In a search-action game, you have to evaluate whether or not you have enough upgrades to make it to an out of reach area. In a point-and-click, you have to think about what kind of contextual event will allow you to get where you want to go. In a Zelda game, you have to consider both, but Link's lack of mobility doesn't obfuscate the seams between these two factors as much as it would if he was in, say, a platformer. That's not to imply that the puzzles in here are ever particularly great on their own merits, but it's still fun to feel out what exactly you can and can't do before eventually putting everything together. Though, it seems that's where Tooie loses a lot of people. My favorite parts of Zelda games are when you're wandering around without any idea of how to progress, so maybe I just have an immunity to it, but is the backtracking really that bad? I'd assumed early on that the in-level teleporters were a QoL change added in the Xbox version, because fast travel in this game feels... pretty generous! That being said, I didn't come close to 100%ing this game, and I probably would've liked it less if I did. While Oneie's worlds felt appropriately shallow so as to not detract from the joy of fully completing them, Tooie's come chock-full of surprises, and, as a result, it's more fun to skirt by with just as many jiggies as you need to unlock the next level. In my eyes, Oneie fills its niche as an easygoing collectathon better than Tooie fills its niche as a 3D adventure game, but I'd still argue that it's a great sequel. And even when it falters, and, boy does it falter- I haven't mentioned the over reliance on minigames, or the mostly pointless transformations, or the entirely pointless parts where you play as Mumbo- there's enough raw fifth-gen ambition to keep things interesting throughout.

I still enjoy this game a lot but it really frustrates me, it tried to make Banjo Kazooie bigger and better in every way but it made it a little too big and to better (?), the leves have really great theming and charm, but most of them are giant and feel cumbersome to navigate, specially since you have to constantly revisit areas due to things like the wumba transformations, having to play as mumbo, Banjo or Kazooie individually or coming back after learning a new move, wich there are a lot of in this game, some of them are great, while the separatiom gimmick is a little badlyutilized i love Kazooies solo moveset, but many of the new moves feel like just STUFF TO DO, same with playing as Mumbo, is it really that fun? No, but its stuff to do so do it. However its not all bad, i love the atmosfere of Isle O' Hags, it feels like its own interconected and interactive world in a very Banjo-Kazooie way, the first games levels were also great but they were mostly limited to themselves so having the levels interact with eachother is a very natural next step to take, the charm and character of the first game is multiplied by ten in this one, part of the fun of doing the tasks asked of you in each area is getting to meet the silly characters behind them, especially the bosses, wich were my favorite adition here, the first game had one amazing bossfight aggainst Grunty and that was kind of it so this time around every level has one of them and theyre all great! Except old king coal but just because hes dumb and easy. In conclusion, while this game delivered on a ton of what i was hoping for in a sequel to my favorite 3D platformer, it also stumbled a lot (i would delete the 4 hours i spent on grunty industries from my life if i could) i feel like making banjo bigger is a good idea but they had a little too much ambition with this one, this is the main reason i want a Banjo-Threeie, a sequel to this could find the perfect balance between the simple fun of Kazooie and the excitting new ideas of Tooie.

Bigger and grander than its predecessor in just about every way. Mumbo's claim at the end of the first game that Tooie would make Banjo-Kazooie "look like joke" Is apparent from the get-go, between its ambitious 20 minute(!) opening cutscene, the jaunt through ruined Spiral Mountain with the first game's moveset nearly intact, and that moment the player steps into the much, much larger Jinjo Village. I can't even begin to imagine the sheer amount of programming tricks required to pull off half of what Tooie's going for with stuff like rendering the ginormous worlds, handling the gameplay shift to its FPS segments, accommodating all the mini-games, the split characters, the cutscenes...

Banjo-Tooie is a very ambitious game. This has both upsides and downsides. The huge worlds lend themselves to a lot of experimentation, but the game sometimes runs into conveyance issues as a result. It's suuuuper easy to get turned around in places like Terrydactyland, and as cool as the inter-level connections are, that a Jiggy in one world can require a puzzle being solved in another (for example, clearing Stomponadon in Terrydactyland to get a Hailfire Peaks Jiggy) means that a player simply searching a given level for solutions can be left high and dry.

Grunty Industries is commonly pointed to as a world with this issue, but I have to side with my friends at Designing For here - Grunty Industries is brilliantly-executed. Having to sneak in, the slow opening of the factory floors, the building sense of scale, pay-off for B-K's WISHYWASHYBANJO, that moment towards the end when you finally unlock flight pads... so much to love there. I know this is the most likely thing to be overhauled in a theoretical remake, but I'd hope they wouldn't change too much.

There's also a sense of incompletion to Tooie that just wasn't present for Kazooie. Part of this was unavoidable - Tooie had to do SOMEthing to fulfill the promise B-K made with Stop 'n' Swop, and with Ninty quashing Rare's initial plan to literally yank out the N64 Game Pak, the team had to make some sort of compromise. But there's no dodging the feeling that a full world's missing, between that suspicious 900 Notes/90 Jiggies count and how nothing Cauldron Keep feels. B-K famously left a lot on the cutting room floor as well, but it had a far more complete illusion; Rare clearly just ran out of time and did their best to put a bow on the game. They did a great job, but there's no arguing with the numbers.

I think, if you only know the first two Banjo-Kazooie games by reputation, it's easy to lump them together as similar ideas. But both end up having very different identities. B-K is a pure expression of 3D platforming and exploration - perhaps less mechanically difficult than something like Super Mario 64, but still derivative of that general formula and its gameplay goals. B-T is less interested in posing mechanical challenges for the player and more interested in encouraging exploration through characters, skillsets, and world integration. Everything in Tooie feels less like "more Kazooie" and more like "commentary on Kazooie" (and other Rare trends, given the FPS segments). They're great complementary titles because they're so dissimilar, really; I'd rather have Tooie be like Sly 2 rather than Super Mario Galaxy 2. I prefer Kazooie all the same, but both are great times.

One last note - Banjo-Tooie would be the last title developed by Gregg Mayles' team during Rare and Nintendo's collaboration. This wouldn't be the team's last effort - Grabbed by the Ghoulies was only a couple years away - but Tooie feels like it carries a ton of weight as the terminus of this team's golden years. This is the same creative effort behind Donkey Kong Country 1 & 2 as well as the first Banjo-Kazooie - all absolutely incredible, ground-breaking releases. I feel like of those four titles, Tooie had the least impact on the industry (modern throwback 3D platformers are more likely to do genre work broadly or Banjo-Kazooie specifically than Banjo-Tooie soecifically). But this shouldn't be confused for Tooie being unimportant. Far from it: Banjo-Tooie is the summation of lessons learned by some of the industry's greatest talents at the tops of their games.

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.

Pros: Massive 3D Metroidvania game, with huge interconnected worlds that you travel back and forth between. This game was the closest we'd felt to one seamless living game world, before "open world" gaming became a thing. Banjo-Tooie is a fantastic sequel to Banjo-Kazooie, especially as a sequel, it follows up the events of the first game wonderfully, carrying over so much from the first. Every move you learned in B-K, you still have, and you learn tons of new moves on top of them. Characters you've met, you now see what they're up to, and they're up to quite a lot! If you're familiar with B-K and enjoyed yourself, you'll get a lot out of Tooie!

The big new gimmick is that Banjo and Kazooie can now separate and split-up, and you can switch between the two for character specific moves, that grant you access to new areas or enemy/character interactions. Or possibly using both separately and together for puzzle solving and triggering key events. It really helps magnify the "Metroidvania"ness of these games worlds, which, yeah, you will be backtracking in and out of frequently. It's a different flavor of game than B-K was, where it was very satisfying to complete each world in one go. Can't do that here, and while I don't enjoy Tooie's method as much, there's still a lot to value in what it brings to the sense of adventure.

Mumbo is of course back too, but this time fully playable! Though he just acts as another key type of character for puzzles and gates. Meanwhile newcomer Humba Wumba does the transformations this time around. And each stage now has their own transformation, and each of them are more elaborate than the ones in B-K were. Favorites among them, a snowball that grows or shrinks depending on if you're rolling over snow, or on volcanic ground. A van, yeah, you can straight up be a van that drives around running over enemies (which is pretty fun, admittedly). But my favorite of all is the giant T. Rex, which is just an invulnerable powerhouse, roaring and crashing through anything you desire (also you can be a baby T. Rex! Good to have the cute alongside the badass). All's this to say, this game is packed with content, and in most cases everything feels contextual and fun, and worth doing (unlike... ahem... DK64), and on top of it all, you still get the charm and wit from Rare with these beloved characters! And along with that is the once again excellent soundtrack by Grant Kirkhope, with brand new stages comes brand new music, and it's all fantastic here! And of course, the visuals are top-notch, expect nothing less from Rare.

Cons: The backtracking is a big ask, and can wear you down... It's especially tiresome on replays, where unlike B-K, you don't really have a good sense of when to take a break or a breather. The game could really use a map. And generally, the tone is a bit less cheery, which ain't specifically a bad thing, but it's another element that can make the playtime grow wearisome.

What it means to me: Upon first completion of this game, I was blown away, to the point where I considered this game, to be the best game ever made. Yeah, I was that into it. In time, my views have softened on the game, especially upon trying to replay it. Banjo-Kazooie (the first game) does hold up much better design-wise, in terms of playability, pacing, and so much more, it's just the perfect game. But I will say, Tooie is still a magnificent sequel, and did everything, and does everything, I wanted a sequel to Banjo-Kazooie to do. And I can't fault it there, it's the game it needed to be for its time, a time before Open World games were a thing. And what a hell of a time it was!

This one took me a while to get to. As a kid, I never played Banjo simply because I didn’t have an N64. Many years later, I tried out Yooka-Laylee when it finally released and found it to be a bit underwhelming. Seeing as how everyone loved Banjo, I put down Yooka-Laylee and I finally decided to give Banjo-Kazooie a try. I had a great time with it! Immediately upon completing the game, I decided to give Tooie a try as well. While it’s still very cool, I began to notice that this game is where most of Yooka-Laylee’s problems start to creep in.

Tooie overall is a very fun game. After all, it’s just more Banjo-Kazooie! However, if you were to draw a line in the sand and label it as “tedious,” Tooie would not hesitate to cross that line. There are a few major issues with this game, but I think they all loop back into what I think is, fittingly, the biggest problem of all: the levels are simply too big. All the characters (minus solo Kazooie) move so slowly that it takes forever to get anywhere. Switching between all the playable characters and transformations is a process and a half. You’ll switch to a character, do everything they need to do, run all the way back, switch back, and then realize “oh! I missed something!,” then run to wherever you have to switch characters, switch back to the other character, do whatever it is you need to do, then run back, then switch again. There are lots of sub-areas which is fine, but there are very few visual indicators as to where they’ll take you, meaning you’ll get lost quite a bit. Then you have the massive array of moves you can learn. In some cases, the game straight up tells you when you don’t have the proper move yet. Other times, you hit a roadblock without any notice and your only thoughts are “am I being dumb or do I just not have the right move yet.” You combine all these factors and a good amount of your time will be dedicated to running back and forth in large, almost-empty landscapes while accomplishing barely anything. With that in mind, little things start to become more grating, like watching Banjo slooowly transform into something or watching Chuffy the Train slooowly switch levels. Or sometimes an enemy will knock you off a cliff and kill you instantly, meaning you'll respawn a mile away from where you were. I’m grateful for the warp pads, because the whole thing could’ve been much worse, but it almost feels like a band-aid solution. Either making the characters faster, making the levels smaller, or even just giving some sort of map system could’ve gone a long way with Tooie.

Those are the main issues I had with Tooie. I have a few minor ones listed below mainly because I feel they don’t need too much explanation:
- Notes are no longer used as breadcrumbs. They’re grouped in bundles of 5 and almost feel unnecessary.
- Many of the new moves feel underutilized or redundant.
- Some of the most annoying enemies in the game respawn after like 10 seconds which defeats the purpose of killing them at all.
- Upgrading your health is no longer automatic, you have to go to an NPC in the hub to do it.
- There are many parts where Wonder Wing SHOULD be a viable solution but you end up taking damage anyway.

To be fair to the game, I didn’t take note of just the bad things. Tons of people love this game and I wanted to see the good in it as well. While playing, I took note that there were quite a lot of improvements from from the first game along with generally nice additions as well:
- You start with all the moves from the first game.
- No lives system. Hugely appreciated since many 3D platformers at the time were still using lives. Having no lives system lets players play more dangerously, allowing them to have more fun AND you can use death-warps as a fast-travel in some scenarios.
- You no longer lose your Notes upon death. I know this was removed in the Xbox versions, but it was still a general pain to lose Note progress if you died in B-K.
- The bosses feel more like actual bosses with proper fights this time.
- The new method of shooting eggs with an aiming reticle. It's a little janky, but still miles better than shooting eggs in B-K.
- Eggs and feathers are plentiful and you no longer pick 1 up at a time (minus the Clockwork eggs).
- Grenade eggs are pretty fun to use and are arguably the most useful of the new moves.
- I’d argue that Minjos are an objectively funny addition to the series. Jinjos are funny themselves, but to occasionally have an evil one chase after you while going “grr” is inherently hilarious.
- The minigames are super simple and don’t last very long compared to Rextro’s in Yooka.
- Playing as Banjo and Kazooie separately is a really cool idea in general, it just needed better execution.
- The NPCs and writing are genuinely charming and funny.
- Doing puzzles to unlock each world is a fun and clever way to use Jiggies.
- You can do a weird double jump with Banjo by himself. I don’t think it was intended but it saves a lot of time.
- The world themes are pretty creative this time around.
- Grant Kirkhope is back at the helm in the music department and delivers some of the most memorable tunes you’ll ever hear in a video game.
- The sound design in this game is awesome, almost every single sound is so silly that you’ll find yourself repeating them without even thinking about it.

Tooie is a testament to how bigger isn’t always better, which is a concept many modern games are still struggling to grasp. It’s a good game, but I would be lying if I said it didn’t feel like an absolute slog at some points (Grunty Industries, smile). Even when it comes to my most favorite video games of all time, most of them have sections that make me say "oh god, not this part," and this game is chock full of them. Though in the same vein that I ended my Yooka review with, I’m excited to see what this team does in the future. I think if they really take some of the common criticisms to heart, they could make something amazing.