This is yet another Kirby game I had yet to play prior to this Kirbyathon. I was honestly feeling a 6 most of the time I was playing, and was thinking this is the best Kirby spin-off thus far (after Dream Course). Then the endgame happened.

Let's start with the positives first though. This is basically Kirby breakout and it's generally pretty fun. You break blocks by bouncing Kirby against the paddles, typical breakout basically. The twist here, besides being Kirby themed ofc, is 4 of Kirby's staple copy abilities are in the game and used as power-ups. Stone let's you destroy anything directly below you, burn anything directly above you, needle stops you in place briefly and let's you cling back onto a bumper and aim again and spark bounces you sporadically destroying any block in your path more effectively. This was probably the coolest part of the game. Like Dream Course, the copy abilities are implemented super well into the actual gameplay.

Each level also has a boss at the end, like Pinball Land, but unlike that game I was actually able to beat (almost) all of them this time around. They can be pretty fun but watch out you don't get thrown into the spikes. Luckily in the stage prior to the boss, you can get a sneak-peak at what the boss will be as well as the opportunity to get safety blocks that cover the spikes in the boss stage.

The OST was alright, I saw some reviews saying it was really good but I can't say any of the songs stood out imo.

Now for the endgame, the later stages can be quite annoying with their block placement and the use of 4 bumpers around the screen. The 10th stage, I even decided to save state past that first section cuz it was just so obnoxious. The hit detection on the bumpers can be wonky, which I can't discredit the game too much since it's still a Gameboy game, however it still led to some frustration in the endgame. That plus you can't even play the final level and get the true ending without getting a certain score threshold in each stage. I did this only once in stage 9, and it was by complete accident. I tried to beat the required score a couple of times in stage 1, but I think there's also a secret time requirement (from one of the reviews I read on here) and with how random the game can be with being able to hit blocks in time, yeah no thanks. I know they did this, so it would make you replay the game a bunch, however it's still a bummer.

Overall, it's a decent little game however the true ending being locked to a somewhat frustrating 100% and the endgame levels being kinda frustrating brings it down a bit. It's a fun little time waster, and definitely better than Pinball Land. And yeah, this is yet another game I technically wasn't able to beat due to the 100% requirement. At least I beat every other stage in the game otherwise.

The first time I ever beat this game was back in 2022. After playing Forgotten Land when it launched, and really enjoying that, I was still in a Kirby mood and decided to beat one of the few mainline games I haven't already. While not bad overall, I found this notably weaker than Dreamland 1 for several reasons. I was a bit generous back then tho and gave it a 6 like I did Dreamland 1. Well coming back to it again, yeah It's still weaker than Dreamland 1 and I'm dropping it to a 5 now.

That's not to say there aren't some things this game improved on compared to 1. Overall, Kirby feels better to control in this one which is nice. While I'm nostalgic for the first game's ost, this game might have it beat overall. Sure it reuses a lot of tracks from Dreamland 1 and Adventure, however it's original tracks are actually really damn good. Coo's Theme is the real standout here, goddamn is that some good shit. Visually it also looks nicer than Dreamland 1 I'd say, though still doesn't look that great overall since it's still a Gameboy game.

The main thing this game added though were the animal friends. The aforementioned Koo the owl, Kine the fish and Rick the hamster are the three buddies in this game. They're a fun addition and change the gameplay up. Since copy abilities are back, each animal friend actually has their own version of each one. They greatly vary in usage though. Koo with parasol is amazing while Rick with needle is most of the time awful. It's a cool idea, that gets expanded on way more in Dreamland 3, however the execution here is very hit and miss.

Something you can use these animal friends abilities on are copy ability specific blocks. These usually block the main collectable in this game, the rainbow drops. To get 100% in this game, and fight the true final boss, you must get them all. Let me tell you, some of them are a huge pain to get. Not only are the later ones cryptic, the one where you have to use Kine + electric is just straight BS sometimes because of what you have to do to get it. If you know you know, but either way you most likely won't be getting these without a guide.

Other than that, the game just goes on for way too long I feel. To beat Dreamland 1, it takes around and hour or less (most likely a half hour) which is perfect for the type of game this is. Dreamland 2 might improve on 1's controls a bit, but it's still a Gameboy game and it's around 4 hours long to full complete everything. That's way longer and as such it just drags on near the end. That, plus the level design can be very hit or miss. Most of the levels are passable I'd say, however the game really loves its auto scrolling levels and these can be a bitch sometimes with it being a Gameboy game. And of course there's the infamous auto-scroller with the instakill dead ends that is pure trial and error and yeah that one is pure dogshit.

Along with the rainbow drops, to get 100% you have to also do these star collecting minigames and also find the female Gooey once. Gooey is this blobby guy that replaces an animal buddy if it gives you the one you already have. He just gives you some health back if you collect him. However there's a 1/8 chance it'll be a female Gooey instead and finding her actually contributes to 100% which is weird but easy to do in a certain level luckily. The star minigames you can do after going into the boss door again after you've beaten them. You have to collect every star and get a perfect in every world because this contributes to 100%. The minigames themselves are fine enough, however if you get hit or miss a star, you can't play it again until you go and beat a stage. I get why they do this as it's easy to grind lives if this wasn't in place, however the fact you have to do this for 100% just means it wastes time if you lose which isn't fun.

This is the first in the Dark Matter trilogy and so after we defeat Dedede at the end, we get to fight Dark Matter for the first time. Get used to doing that as he's a regular throughout the trilogy ofc. I remember the fight being more frustrating back in 2022, but here it wasn't too bad. Decent introduction to them as a main antagonist of the trilogy.

While I quite like Dreamland 1 and 3, I don't have much of a connection to 2 at all and I personally think it's a lot more flawed compared to those two games. It improves on some things from 1 but is also way longer and drags on because of that. Not to mention it's annoying to 100%. It's not a terrible sequel but I personally think it's a downgrade compared to 1 even if the animal friends and copy abilities being here are nice. I'll take 1 any day of the week over this.

Ever since last Eid, I've been trying to complete this game. Slowly chipping away at this game, but now It's finally complete. The premise has always stuck out to me. Though, this game starts to show its flaws the further you go. It's a game designed for bus rides to school, for the long car rides to grandma house, not for the long binge sessions I'm usually accustomed to.

After fighting the grueling fight against Articuno, the cracks started to show. With the party you randomly amassed, dungeoneering starts to feel like a clusterfuck. Especially with the map covering the screen. Though, it might just not be for me

My disc was scratched to shit, so Pox would repeat the mission objectives incessantly while I destroyed stuff to broken sound effects. Which sucks because the voice acting and jokes were funny, at least before it started to mess up. Being an alien is fun, and each level allows for it to just be a sandbox of destruction. They just don't make 'em like this anymore.

Though there's some stark difficulty spikes on certain missions after the Psi Majestics are introduced that made repeating missions with broken and skipping audio torture to get through. I can't fault the game for it cause it ain't its fault (and I could've just played the remastered version I own on Steam), but by this point I struggled a lot against the hordes of military doops. Having to charge up every weapon kinda got tiring towards this point where I just wanted an alien rocket launcher that shot on command instead of charging, or an anal probe beam that didn't need to be fully charged 6 times to defeat someone.

Before playing this game, the only 3D Sonic I ever played was Sonic Colors. And even then, a good chunk of that game was in 2D. So Adventure was my first fully 3D Sonic game ever. For years, I'd hear people say this game was broken beyond belief or just simple a "guilty pleasure" game that they enjoy despite being shit. While I did not love it like some people do, I can personally say I did not think the games were either of those things.

The game is broken up into 6 (technically 7 if you complete all other routes) character routes. You can play as Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Big the cat and Gamma respectively. Each of these characters play differently from each other, whether it's for better or worse, and even tho each playthrough varies in quality, I can at least commend how ambitious this is. Because in each character's playthrough, you get different cutscenes and also context for certain scenes that may not be explained in earlier playthroughs. As my friend Lemonstrade said, it's sort of similar to what Drakennier does which again is super cool conceptually, especially for a 1998 game.

But back to the actual characters, Sonic is the clear best one here. He has his spin dash, is of course the fastest in the game and also has a super fun aerial dash. I've heard people say the controls are bad in this game and I simply don't get that at all. Sonic, at least, feels simply perfect to control. The levels on the other hand, I can see people having issues with. I disagreed with the fact this game is broken beyond belief, but it definitely can be a bit broken if you're unlucky. I only glitched through the stage like 2 or 3 times, but the first time it happened was on the very first stage. That made me think the entire game would be broken, but it wasn't. Unless I got lucky, those claims, while still credible sometimes...are massively overblown. Besides that though, Sonic's stages while still fun, can feel incredibly janky just because of how fast he goes. It's hard to explain but if you've played the game you'd know, a lot of times the animations and your movement through levels can feel very unwieldly. It can be really hard to control sonic sometimes, and it often looks super awkward when looking back at it. Like I said it's hard to explain, and while I still had a ton of fun with his levels (just because he feels so good to controls) I can't help but think thee levels feel off. Again, this is mostly when you're at full speed going through loop de loops and shit. When it's slower sections you're going through, it's not an issue.

As for the other characters, they all have significantly less stages than Sonic. Tails has you racing against sonic, and with him being able to glide, you can take some seriously crazy shortcuts. The game itself even encourages this which I thought was pretty neat. Knuckles has you searching for three master emerald shards. It's basically a treasure hunt, with the emerald icons turning different colors depending on how close you are to them. These were alright, but story-wise I wasn't really a fan. Honestly thought his story would be more different from Sonic's than it was, not to mention the final Chaos fight was barely different from Sonic's (and Tails had a unique fight for his ending). Amy was probably my least favorite character to use. Her levels consisted of getting to the end like Sonic, while running away from one of Robotnik's robots. Problem is, while her hammer bounce is kinda cool, her moveset isn't nearly as fun as Sonic's yet her levels are still long like Sonic's (which isn't much of an issue with Tails and Knuckles). That plus, besides the one Gamma scene, her cutscenes were lame. Big the cat is the most contentious character by far, and honestly I didn't hate him. Yeah his cutscenes are super dumb and don't add much to the story. However his campaign is by far the shortest, and the fishing is actually really easy (and kinda fun) once you get the hang of it. Gamma is by far the best character next to Sonic. Not only are his stages fast paced, with you having to kill enemies quickly to get more time to your total. His story is actually significantly different compared to the others, and quite touching at that. If I had to rank each character's campaigns, I'd say Sonic>Gamma>Tails>Big>Knuckles>Amy.

To go to each actual level, you have to navigate the hubworld. For a 1998 game, it's not bad but it can feel somewhat empty I felt. Though, there are things to get that aren't just apart of the main story. There are some optional collectables and even some minigames you can play. There's also the chao garden which, I tried to get to work but since I was emulating the game, I suspected there was an add on I needed or something idk. But from the little I've heard, it does sound fun.

The story in general, does have its high points, like the aforementioned Gamma campaign and the ending is really nice. It's simple but effective. However, the actual voice acting is horribly stilted a lot of the time. It's not even a so bad it's good situation, it was just mediocre a lot of the time. That is, except for Robotnik who is super over the top but hilarious. Even despite the fact they reuse fight dialogue in actual scenes (which is jarring for sure) his dialogue is super duper memorable and easily the highlight. Something else that was memorable were some of the face animations, goddamn are they awful sometimes.

I didn't like LOVE the soundtrack like some people do, but it is quite nice overall. Very experimental which I appreciate a ton. My favorite songs were probably Red Skull Mountain, Welcome to Station Square and Egg Carrier: A Song That Keeps Us on the Move.

Once you complete all 6 character routes, you unlock the 7th and final one..Super Sonic. This is essentially just the final boss and some closure on the story, but it's definitely satisfying. You become Super Sonic, defeat Chaos's final form at supersonic speed, and in turn this cleanses Chaos of his evil as we find out he wasn't ever bad from the start. The closure on the whole Chao's and the past cutscenes was really nice. That along with Gamma's scenes ofc, easily the highlights of the story.

This game is definitely flawed in some ways, and Adventure 2 might improve on everything in this game idk. But I can officially say, this game is overall good and that Sonic had a good transition to 3D. Not everything works in this game, but I can acknowledge this game is full of heart.

May drop it down to a 6 cuz I was feeling like that for a good while but for now it's a 7.

Back in September of 2023, I decided to replay both Banjo games to see how much I still liked them. It had been around 10 years since I had played Kazooie since then, and 4 years since I'd last played Tooie, so I was excited to dive into both games. Well, as it turns out, I loved replaying both so much I decided to replay them directly after. I very rarely do that, so I just knew I had to bump both games to a 10. Well, after my whole review purge, I decided to replay these once again and rereview them all over again. Only 7 months later after playing them both twice before, I'm a madman I know (haha you won't get this reference because those reviews are now deleted). Anyways, just like before...I had a blast replaying Kazooie and consider it one of the best N64 games ever.

The first thing I'll get into are the controls and Banjo-Kazooie's moveset in general. I honestly think this game controls masterfully, Banjo and Kazooie have such a varied move set that flows well with each of the levels. The talon trot is a must in every level as it let's you go through each area that much faster. With the c buttons, it's also really easy to remember how to perform it too. In fact, I haven't played the game on anything but the N64 itself, but idk how I'd feel about playing it on another controller just cuz I find the N64 controller fits it perfectly lol. Besides the talon trot, you also have a roll attack, rat-a-tat rap which is an aerial move, golden feathers which you can use to turn invincible as long as you have them, red feathers which you can use to fly (and the flight in this game is more satisfying than Mario 64), the beak bomb which is an attack you can use while flying and more. All of this you unlock gradually while playing and is all used plenty through-out the game. You also have two power-ups that let you either traverse unsafe ground (wading boots) and the speedy shoes which, as the name implies, let's you go fast. Even the swimming in this game is pretty nice once you know how to use it. I've seen some people say it's awful because it's so clunky. Which, if you're not holding the R button then yeah totally, but if you are it's very nice and smooth as you have a breast-stroke and a paddle you can perform depending on what you need.

The game itself is incredibly charming, both aesthetically and comically. The world's all look lovely and is just full of that N64 Rare ware charm. When playing through a world, you would be hard pressed to not see a pair of googily eyes on an enemy or even the items (when the item explanation first pops up) and for how lighthearted this game is, it very much fits. That's not to say the dialogue is all light-hearted. It's not as dark as Tooie obviously but they still put in a couple of dirty jokes hear and there. The dialogue itself, while not nearly as funny as Tooie imo, its witty enough especially Gruntilda's dialogue.

Going into Gruntilda and her lair in general, both are fantastic. The lair is a tightly designed hub world that is super memorable, not just because of it being compact in size and easy to traverse, but because the whole way through Grunty insults you and eggs you on. Kazooie has way less dialogue than Tooie, and Grunty herself I find more menacing in that game, but when it comes to her insulting rhymes...they're easily the most memorable pieces of dialogue in the game. Even on this most recent playthrough, I was still hearing rhymes I've never heard before. Really makes me wonder just how many there are in total lol.

When it comes to the worlds themselves, they are excellent tightly designed levels just like Grunty's lair was. Mumbo's Mountain is the worst one imo, and that's just because of how small it is...which makes a ton of sense because it's the first world. All the rest are very enjoyable, with some of my favorites being Freezezey Peak, Clanker's Cavern and Click Clock Wood. Now you might be saying to yourselves, Clankers Cavern? Yeah, idk why but it might've been my favorite world this time around. I honestly don't have an issue with the swimming portions, I love the track that plays in it and the dank grimey atmosphere I find wonderful (which makes sense because I love Tooie and it has a lot of that). It feels like one of the more unique world settings next to Rusty Bucket Bay. Speaking of Rusty Bucket Bay, it has the infamous engine room area and yeah that's still my least favorite part pf the game. It's not TOO bad if you do that part right away, but I still died like 5 times this playthrough. I also died to Click Clock Wood very stupidly, those two levels even now can still get me as they're easily the two hardest in the game. Going back to the engine room tho, the reason it's so hated is because it's the only world with an instant death pit. In the N64 version, instant death means you lose all your notes as the game tracks a total note score in this version rather than keeping your notes when you die like in the Xbox version. This is also a small gripe I have, but only in these last two levels because I pretty much never die in any of the earlier ones.

The music in this game was done by Grant Kirkhope and he's absolutely legendary. He has a very distinct bouncy style to his music and it absolutely fits here with how goofy this game is. My favorite tracks in the game would have to be Rusty Bucket Bay, Spiral Mountain, Clanker's Cavern, and The Final Battle. The entire soundtrack is wonderfully though, and I especially love Grant's use of dynamic music. His work on Banjo Kazooie and Tooie, and DK64 show he's a big fan of it and it's perfect in these types of games.

Once you beat every single world, and have obtained enough notes and jiggies to progress, you enter Grunty's Furnace Fun. This is basically a giant quiz show that puts your knowledge to the test. It's very goofy and fitting for the type of game Banjo Kazooie is. The questions consist of listening to the voice of a character or song of a level and guessing who/what it is, random trivia, playing a mini-game from the main levels or a Grunty question. The grunty questions consist of trivia about Grunty herself that you must know to answer. To find these out in-game, you must hunt down her sister Brentilda, who is hidden in specific areas of the lair. You might think, meh I'll just look the answers to these online. But they're randomized per playthrough so you simply cannot do that. Luckily, with the joker card which let's you skip 2 spaces on the board, you can bypass these if you weren't able to find Brentilda. Same with the instant death skull spaces which are usually just a basic trivia question, but still are very nerve-wracking. After you get to the end of the board, you get a hilarious joke where Grunty makes her escape by forcing credits on you. After that though, it's actually time to fight her.

Before you fight Grunty, depending on how many collectables you have gotten, you can unlock consumable refills and even double health. Once you've gotten what you need, it's time fight Gruntilda herself. The final battle may honestly be in my top 20 fights ever, it's super good. It tests you on many of your moves you've learned through out the game and it has a killer boss theme to boot (as you know with my favorite songs portion). The end of it is super satisfying too, with the Jinjonator being summoned to defeat her. If there's any one thing I love more than Tooie, it's this final boss and cutscene. The Hag-1 is a fine enough final boss for that game, but it pales in comparison to Kazooie's final fight.

All in all, I'm glad I replayed this once again as it's still amazing and still one of my favorite games ever. Back in September, I stated I might love Tooie even more for the things it improved on and its expanded worlds, and yeah I probably do in the end. However, Kazooie has its own strengths , some even over Tooie's and it's still a must play as an N64 fan. Next up though is Tooie, and I simply cannot wait to replay it so look forward to that review coming soon!!

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!

Minit is one of the most average games I’ve ever played but with a phenomenal gimmick. I love the idea of you have one minute to figure out what you need to do and then speed to get it done. However the game only lasts about an hour and once you know what to do it really kills the replay-ability imo. The puzzles were good enough. Nothing to ridiculous but not so easy that you can walk through the game without thinking. The minimal visuals and simplistic gameplay were a nice change of pace. Overall a solid good game, again, mostly because of its awesome gimmick. If you want something quick and easy to play I would definitely recommend it.

Ok, listen. As an adult lesbian, I was genuinely excited when I heard about this VN, mainly because the Yuri genre tends to be saturated with innocent and wholesome schoolgirl fluff, and honestly, I'm just tired of it. I was thrilled to see someone finally tackling the relatively unexplored realm of Yuri omegaverse. Unlike the hugely popular BL omegaverse genre, larger-scale Yuri omegaverse projects are practically non-existent.

But the VN left me with mixed feelings - it was both disappointing and great at the same time. The pacing was breakneck, rushing to introduce players to its vision of an omegaverse setting, which felt pretty basic compared to other omegaverse works. It seemed like ideas were thrown around and plot points were set up, only to either remain unresolved or fall flat upon execution. Despite this, the writing was still very enjoyable and refreshing.

However, the biggest letdown was the VN's length. It was incredibly short, much shorter than their previous games. I finished it in about 1.5h, leaving me feeling like the game ended just as it was getting started. Which is frustrating, because I really liked the relationship between the two leads.

Overall, it's a great Yuri VN with excellent artwork and character design that tries to stand out from generic schoolgirl-themed ones, but is soured by its short length.