I greatly enjoyed my time with this game. However, I would not have enjoyed it without save states. It was much more flawed than I was expecting, even for an early 3D game; the fact that music note progress resets upon leaving a level or dying is the worst part.

However, the game was clearly experimental for its time, and there's many great ideas here. The game is especially adept at hiding its collectibles. I'd usually collect about 60-70 notes in a world and half the jiggies, and then spend another hour or two scrounging around for the rest. I especially enjoyed how clever they were with hiding sub-areas throughout each map to give it more depth.

Having played Mario Odyssey just before this, I feel like Odyssey refines this level design concept really well: Big, open playgrounds with loads of collectibles, where you kinda just do whatever's in front of you rather than a specific mission. Only thing I think it could use is more collectibles that provide varied rewards, just like Banjo does with things like feathers, eggs, and jinjos.

Grunty's Lair is the best hub world I've ever seen in a video game. I think the fact that level entrances and level unlocks are separate places really helps the design in this regard; it lets them provide meaningful rewards for exploration throughout the entire lair. There's not a single room that feels like a waste of time.

I enjoy that laying eggs is accompanied by a fart sound effect.