Man I had a blast playing this game. I loved the moment to moment of it, loved the traversal mechanics, loved doubling back to find extra things with new upgrades. BD-1 rocks. The lightsaber combat rocks. For me each component works.

It is definitely lacking in depth and diversity of content. It needs more enemy types, more interesting side content, better collectibles to find. The story also doesn't nail every beat, but it works fine.

I love this game though.

The only thing I really knew about Grabbed by the Ghoulies before going into it is that even Rare themselves mock the game, making fun of it (and it’s poor sales) in later games.

The plot is fairly simple: two teenagers go into a haunted looking mansion, the girl gets captured and so on, but it’s presented in a style that’s a mix between comic book and a black and white film, and it’s definitely very charming, with some fun and amusing characters.

The game itself is very arcady, and I think it blends some classic and modern types of gaming quite well. In order to save your friend (and other people trapped in the house), you progress through the haunted out room by room. There’s only one route you can take at any given time, so you can’t explore freely.

Instead, each room is its own contained challenge. As soon as you enter, your health will change to a set amount that is curated for the challenge within and when you trigger the challenge (typically by approaching the exit door, but sometimes before), a set of conditions will appear: kill X amount of enemies, kill a certain type of enemy, only use weapons, don’t kill a particular kind of energy.
If you fail any condition, you don’t fail the challenge, as long as you kill the required enemies the door will open and you will progress. The punishment for failing is that a Grim Reaper (a rather stylish one, at that) will appear and hunt you down, if it touches you, you die. It’s a great mechanic and in some challenges, you may even decide to purposefully fail as attempting to deal with the reaper might possibly be easier than the challenge.

Combat itself is very simple, the right stick is used to attack in the direction you point, a bit like shooters like Robotron and Geometry Wars. You can pick up a wide array of items from objects scattered across the rooms, which do more damage but break after three hits, and some rooms will give you specific weapons.

Also dotted throughout the level are soup cans, which give you temporary power-ups like a mini version of yourself that attacks enemies, stops weapons from wearing, make you faster or possibly give you bad effects. These are all specifically placed, and sometimes finding these are vital for being able to beat a room. If the game puts you against many strong enemies you have to kill, there’s probably a one-hit-kill soup somewhere in the room.

Enemies are also varied and wonderful, from simple imps (which I’m sure are Jinjos) to mummies that cast curses and exploding worms. Each enemy behaves in a certain way, and understanding how they act is important to progressing.

Grabbed by the Ghoulies is fairly short, but also features extra challenges to complete. These are unlocked by finding a Rare Tome in each room. Unfortunately, sometimes these can be a pain as the game will sometimes automatically move you to the next room. On top of this, when you return to a previous room (which will have a new challenge), a new book will appear, so you are likely to miss some, but thankfully there’s a replay option to help pick these up.

I can see why Grabbed by the Ghoulies wasn’t a big seller, as it’s quite a unique game, but there is a lot to enjoy about the game.

Went in expecting scary, was pleasantly surprised to find spooky instead. It's got the goofy charm of Rareware's other titles, and it actually carries a vibe similar to Luigi's Mansion. It's a lighthearted kind of horror, with British "humor" mixed in for good measure. The Grim Reaper shreds on his sycthe like an electric guitar, it doesn't get much better than that.

Despite taking place in a sprawling manor, Ghoulies is completely linear. Door locks behind you when you enter a room, only way out is the other unlocked door in the room. Approach that door, and you're locked into a challenge, which is the main gameplay loop. Each room gives you an objective, usually along with some restrictions. Complete the objective, and the door unlocks. Break the rules, and the Grim Reaper shows up. Get touched by him, and face erasure. You attack by pointing the right stick in the direction of your enemies and picking up stuff with A. There are soup cans lying around or hidden within breakable objects that you can down for some extra boosts, and you will need these.

So, I like the setup that Ghoulies has going here, but they muddy it up in a lot of ways. First off, your health is "randomized" upon entering a room (I'm pretty sure this is always scripted, but it's presented like it's random), usually limiting your approach right off the bat. No need to be concerned about your health, it'll just be fucked over in the next room anyways. Second, there is usually NOTHING denoting if an object is breakable or not. You're just gonna be smearing your face up against walls while swinging at ghosts, and not the tangible kind. Certain objects contain those coveted soup cans though, which are often necessary to finish the more difficult challenges. Actually, scratch that. The powerups provide a solid opportunity to avoid engaging with the challenges. You'll probably die once or twice in most rooms, and knowing exactly where each powerup is located is a necessary piece to solving each room's combat puzzle.

I call each room a "puzzle" in the sense that you're gonna need to find a consistent method to break through this game's undercooked mechanics. It doesn't take long for each rooms' challenges to double and even triple down on failure conditions. The Reaper can be used to your advantage (there's some light enemy infighting mechanics in this game), but most of the time, the reaper showing up is quite literally a death sentence. These systems are so annoying that the game's "easy mode" doesn't necessarily provide a smoother experience to those who're struggling (or just want to get it over with). Doubling your health doesn't mean a damn thing when breaking the rules spawns an instakill hazard. It also doesn't mean diddly-squat in rooms where your health gets randomized to like, 1 HP.

Man, for Rare's first project on Xbox, I'm just kinda sad at how prototype-y it feels. It left me feeling equally charmed and frustrated. "Fun horror" is a genre that deserves more than a green man with a vacuum, or a gang of mystery-solving teenagers and their dog. Still, at about five hours in length, I don't really regret playing it.

Weirdly dull at times, despite the fact it's probably the most authentic-feeling that a Star Wars flying game has ever been. Setting every single mission in the void of space with very few physical markers makes many action sequences feel inert, like you're just pointing a stationary laser turret at targets. I imagine it was a matter of time-constraints, but it would have been cool to have some planetary stuff.

However, when the game does work, it really works! Getting into synchronisation with your co-pilots and landing an objective felt good! My favourite thing to do was pilot a Y-Wing and do slow-steady bombing runs on capital ships and space stations while carefully modulating my shields to block incoming cannon fire. Always thought of myself as an X-Wing boy, but this game may have changed my mind...

X-Wing vs Tie Fighter is a PC flight classic. It was chaotic, a great mix between sim and arcade gameplay, and was a blast to play and you felt like real Star Wars pilots. Squadrons try to re-capture this lightning in a bottle by letting you play as both New Republic and Empire pilots. You fly in Vanguard Squadron for the New Republic and Titan Squadron for the Empire. You play as an unnamed pilot in each squadron and the story is set between movies VI and VII after the battle on Endor. The New Republic is trying to build a new starship and they needed Empirical parts for it while an Empirical captain is trying to stop them and wipe them out. The characters are interesting and well written and the story is rather tense with a constant tug-of-war on who keeps getting the advantage. While you’re playing as one side you don’t know what’s happening on the other and won’t find out until you switch back after a few missions, it’s really intense and I loved it.


That’s not to say the story is memorable or anything, but it’s a good start as I’m sure more of these games are to come. Once you create your pilot, which is a rather basic, you jump into the base of either side and this is where things differ from other Star Wars games. You stand still and can only spin the camera around and click on contextual items. Outside of inspecting your ship, you can talk to the other squad members optionally which gives you insight as to what’s going on in the war and a more detailed context of what is just going on in the Star Wars universe. The voice acting is great and each character had a great personality, but still nothing super memorable. Once you get your briefing and select your craft you head on out. The first time you start up you are launched out into space in real-time and it’s exhilarating. Flying never gets old and it’s a shame the story is only 14 missions long. Each side has the same controls, but the Empire ships have more firepower and the Rebel ships have more shielding.

Controls are slowly unlocked and dished out over the first few missions, but it’s the same all around. You can shift power between engines, lasers, and shields (shields if they are equipped) to allow more speed or firepower. This is essential as you will constantly flip between these as well as diverting more power to either engines or weapons when you are the Empire. Sometimes when you destroy capital ships you want to go slower with more power, but fighting Tie Fighters, Reapers, Bombers, A-Wings, etc. will require more finesse and speed. The steering feels rather smooth and each ship feels different. Either slow or long or even zippy, the ships are well designed. Shooting something down is rather satisfying as there is a button to flip between enemies and once you track them the system can lock on for missiles or you can shoot them down with lasers. The system will tell you if you are out of range and you can’t just lay down fire forever. There are meters for refilling everything from lasers, missiles, repair kits, scatter flares, etc. You can call in for refills, but this also has a refill meter. It’s a delicate balance of using your resources wisely and this is where the simulator part comes in. The arcade part is the instant lock-on, the less obtuse flight controls, and not doing insane stuff like pre-flight checks, fuel, etc.


While I’d love a full-on simulator version of this game, what we get is fine as the balance is nicely done. I just wish the mission was more varied. I know the game is about shooting things down, but rarely did anything new come up outside of shoot these things down. It was fun attacking a giant Star Destroyer or the Starhawk itself that loomed overhead and felt like a planet. Targeting ship systems was fun and even flying inside one here and there was also a blast, but most of the game is just shooting small ships down and it got old after awhile. I wanted more scripted events or something as I can shoot down small ships all day in multiplayer. The final two missions were also a serious pain as you need specific weapons and ships to complete certain objectives and I constantly died until I figured it out, and they dragged on far too long, but the rest of the missions were entertaining the first time around. The ambiance is also very Star Wars-y with chatter and banter during flights, iconic ship sounds, blasters, explosions, and great music.

The game also looks amazing. The character models are detailed, the ship cockpits look like they were ripped right out of the movies with a lot of glowing lights, and strange shapes, but I would love to walk around the base more and just have more variety in missions. The four or five ships per side were fine, you can change the load-outs for various items like ion blasters to knock down shields faster, various engines and hulls that sacrifice one aspect to gain another such as acceleration, maneuverability, shield recharge time, etc. and there are a lot of options which mostly becomes useful in multiplayer. I feel like what we got was just part of a huge design doc and a lot of stuff got cut. I wanted a grander story, maybe some missions where you fly inside a planet and not just in space, more interior levels, and more scripted events. The space battles look great with giant asteroids, huge planets in the background, and beautiful space backdrops, but I wanted more.


The multiplayer is something that I felt wasn’t fun for too long. Unless you master the controls and a specific ship you’re going to die a lot. There are dogfights and missions that have you taking down larger ships and working together. I found the dog fights were boring after some time, but the bigger battles were a lot more entertaining, but I still don’t see this game having longevity in the multiplayer department for very long. Overall, the game plays, looks, and sounds great but feels like it wants to be more of a simulator than an arcade game sometimes, then in others more arcade. It needs to either balance these out better next time or pick one. I wanted more mission variety, a more epic story, and the ability to walk around the shipyards. What’s here is fantastic, and should be played by flight game fans or Star Wars fans.

So I've never been a Star Wars fan, which is why I've never played this before. But when I heard it was pretty good at using Metroidvania elements, I knew I had to try it out. I really did enjoy the parkour, the platforming, and the level design (specifically the way levels open back up on themselves). But I was actually really surprised how much I enjoyed the combat. I've never actually played Dark Souls, but I've heard this is kinda of inspired by that, and seeing how much I enjoyed that, I want to play Dark Souls now.

Also props, I was shocked how well this game ran on my Steam Deck. However, given how bad performance is allegedly in the new Sequel, I probably won't be playing that anytime soon.

So yeah, I would highly recommend this game to any star wars fan or any metroidvania fan, you don't even have to be both, I'm only the latter.

It's no secret that Star Wars Battlefront II was one of the most controversial games ever made. While Motive is a fantastic developer, the pressure from EA higher-ups created the infamous loot box scandal. It was one of the most talked-about stories of 2017. The awful and immoral practices of mega-corporations in the games industry were finally coming to a head, and it was so bad that Motive removed the paid loot box system entirely.

With that said, Motive did add a single-player campaign, which was sorely missed in the first game. While the campaign is nothing to write home about, it's there, and the effort was appreciated. You can blow through the whole thing in about 4-6 hours. There is a three-mission epilogue you can play through as well, which maybe adds 45 minutes to an hour at most. You play as a brand new character created for the game Iden Versio. She's a great character on screen and very charismatic. The First Order elite turned resistance fighter is a nice touch, especially since you start out as the enemy in the game. Sadly, the game doesn't really go anywhere story-wise outside of telling a small battle before the events of Episode 7. A lot of your favorite heroes and villains are present, such as Boba Fett, Luke Skywalker, Lando, and Chewy.

The campaign mostly feels like a very linear version of the multiplayer game. You can just stand in a hallway and blast everyone away. Weapon damage and stats don't seem to really matter in single-player. You mostly just want a weapon with a high rate of fire for when you are out in open areas, which is most of the time. You can equip battle cards that give you three abilities. These range from healing to grenades, scanners, and secondary weapons. They are most useful in multiplayer because they give you a bit of an edge. You occasionally get heavy weapons you can equip, and they have cool-down timers rather than ammo, so you can keep them. There are also vehicles, but you will mostly be flying them in space in the campaign, which is really well done. Ships fly well with fantastic controls. You get a taste of all of the maps in the multiplayer campaign. The campaign is mostly just reworked multiplayer maps with a few hallways thrown in. Getting through each level isn't complicated. Objectives range from securing an area to splicing a console, and that's about it. Nothing too fancy. The main story is entertaining the first time you play it, and then it's off to multiplayer.

Multiplayer is where the meat of the game is. It's built on the Battlefield franchise anyway. Multiplayer consists of large open maps with 20 vs. 20, and you must secure points on the map. This is the most common mode. The new Heroes vs. Villians is really popular and fun. Heroes are nerfed to an extent. You have a stamina bar for blocking blaster fire, jumping, and swinging your lightsaber around. This makes it fairer for other players. You get three abilities, just like every other character. The lightsaber combat feels and looks good, and it also plays the part. You really feel like a more powerful character, but just a tiny bit. You don't want the game to be unbalanced.

If you are familiar with previous Battlefront or Battlefield games, then you know what to expect. The game looks and feels like large Star Wars battles, both on the ground and in space. There are many iconic maps and planets, as well as numerous factions such as the Droids, Republic, and Empire. Everyone will have a favorite to play as, but expect a long grind. You can't even get a single battle card equipped until you level up a character. This will mean playing each one at least once until you find a favorite. Unlocking weapons, cosmetics, emotes, voices, and taunts all come at the cost of grinding. Sadly, the game just isn't interesting enough for me to dedicate that much time to it. I spent maybe 4 hours in total in multiplayer, and while it's fun in short bursts, it just doesn't have that addictive nature that Battlefield or Call of Duty have. There's nothing there that makes me want to come back, and I think the grind for unlocks is part of it. Everything is locked away from the start, with no incentive to keep playing.

I did have a lot of fun in multiplayer, but only in short bursts and only then for a short time span. After a while, I just couldn't dedicate the time needed for the insane unlocks and grind. The game looks fantastic with EA's Frostbite engine at work doing its magic, but that also comes at a cost. The game was a technical nightmare at launch, and DirectX 12 is still broken to this day. Cut scenes stutter and hitch at higher resolutions, and the game used to crash a lot on certain configurations. Motive has the essence down; it just needs more meat around a third entry.

Overall, Battlefront II doesn't quite live up to the original charm and essence of years past. Multiplayer is fun with huge open battles, but it comes at the cost of a serious grind just to get a single battle card equipped. The campaign is appreciated, but it's short and uninspired, and Iden's character is underutilized. Combined with poor performance issues and the loot box scandal at launch, this game is a bargain bin purchase at best.

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!