While the dog would have been a fun late game unlock, having it from the start removes almost all the interesting gameplay. Water and ledges are no longer blockers, and combat is trivial, reduced to one universal strategy that dominates every single fight. There’s minimal challenge in keeping a clean sheet when the dog can keep everyone grouped, stun enemies, and instantly deliver your full squad. I’m not sure if Snegrets have the same patterns as the other games, because you can take on 3 in a room by just ramming their head as soon as it emerges, regardless of how they emerge. No pikmin are ever in danger.

Everything edge is sanded down, you always get the pikmin you need, you can use items at will, there’s aggressive auto lock and auto stop.

For a story/ethos that focuses on streamlining efficiency, prioritizing, triage and multitasking… they added a lot of cruft on top of the gameplay. So much time and load screens wasted by forcing the camp aspect, which is just padding time without adding any gameplay or worthwhile story.

Banjo-Kazooie is the platonic ideal of a video game to me; all throughout its assortment of colorful levels are opportunities to see and learn new control modes and special moves for its title characters to interact with the game world, either asking you to use them skillfully or cleverly to earn the next jigsaw piece. It can sometimes be unclear what to do next, and a game with this level of variety is obviously not going to be 100% perfect (ah, a refreshing game of Concentration awaits around the corner), but despite those shortcomings, Banjo-Kazooie is nevertheless so well-paced and courteously laid out that it maintains its appeal where many other 3D platformers fall short. Loads of secrets, too!