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Defiance's Banjo-Kazooie (N64)
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| [March 29, 2011 12:54:02 AM]
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Banjo-Kazooie for the Nintendo 64:
Banjo Kazooie is a platform game created by Rare. Released in 1998, the game features a 3-dimensional world with 2.5 dimensional play(with exceptions due to a flying ability learned later in the game), single-player mode, and a secret ending through obtaining resource as well as narrative exhaustion. the adventures of a bear and a bird on a quest to obtain one hundred jigsaw puzzle pieces. I played and finished the game in my elementary school years, and now return to review the game with a more extensive vocabulary, more common sense to refrain from using un"bearable" puns, and the same admiration I held back then playing from start to finish.
= The Story =
Gruntilda the green witch is enraged when her cauldron tells her there is one girl more beautiful than she: Tooty the bear. The witch then sweeps down from her mountain lair and looks for Tooty, planning to capture the bear and steal her pretty looks. Tooty is standing by her brother Banjo’s house with Bottles the mole, waiting for her brother to wake up so they can go on an adventure. Gruntilda’s mountain lair is visible from Banjo’s house, and Gruntilda quickly swoops down and kidnaps Tooty. (Who in the world would live right under a Witch Mountain Lair is beyond me. If you ask me, the heroes really should have seen this coming.) So now, Banjo the bear and his friend Kazooie, a bird who’s willing to reside in his backpack the entire adventure, must travel to the very top of Gruntilda’s lair and save Tooty before the witch takes her beauty.
The characters are full of witty humor, shown in dialogue such as when Banjo introduces the odd bird in his backpack to Bottles...
Banjo: And this here's my buddy Kazooie!
Bottles: Sure is a strange looking buddy Banjo, can it talk?
Kazooie: Better than you can, Goggle Boy!
= Gameplay =
To reach the top of Gruntilda’s Mountain Lair, Banjo and Kazooie must travel through nine worlds located within the Mountain. Each world contains ten jiggies, golden jigsaw puzzle pieces that our heroes must collect through aiding inhabitants in that world, beating often-timed puzzles, or saving magical creatures called jinjos. New worlds are accessible only through collecting a sufficient amount of jiggies to complete world maps displayed in various areas of the witch’s lair as you progress. As if puzzle collecting wasn’t enough, each world also contains one-hundred music notes. Doors through Gruntilda’s lair contain the number of notes you need in order for them to open.
Worlds get more and more bizarre (in a good way) as you progress. The first accessible world is Mumbo’s Mountain, complete with village huts and giant termite enemies. The next world is Treasure Trove Cove, a tropical island complete with pirates, giant crabs, and a surprise-attack shark (Scariest thing in the game, I promise) that eats you if you fall into deep water. Later worlds include Mad Monster Mansion, a haunted mansion complete with ghosts and tombstones that attack you, and Click Clock Wood, a forest you can enter in all four seasons deciding on the entrance you pick. Click Clock Wood is the most complex of the courses, as things you do in earlier seasons result in changes in the later seasons. One way to obtain a jiggy is to feed a baby eagle worms from spring through fall; the eagle grows and flies away in the winter, leaving a jiggy in the nest for you to collect.
= Abilities =
Banjo and Kazooie learn various special moves through the game from Bottles the mole. If you walk to any of his molehills throughout the courses, he will pop out and show you how to use special items conveniently located near his appearance. For example, he teaches Kazooie to cough out projectile eggs and how to fly from special launch pads.
Banjo can also transform into various creatures in worlds the hut of a shaman called Mumbo Jumbo can be found. If you pay him with enough mumbo tokens once, he can turn you into a specific creature for the rest of the game without future payment. The creature you are turned into depends on the world the hut is in; for example, you become a termite at Mumbo’s Mountain, a walrus at Freezeezy Peak, and a pumpkin in Mad Monster Mansion. Creatures have specific abilities that let you get to places you would not normally be able to access; for example, being a pumpkin lets you squeeze into small places, and being a walrus lets you move without consequence in frigid waters that would otherwise quickly deplete health.
= Collectible Items =
As mentioned earlier, Mumbo tokens can be collected to turn Banjo into different creatures. Collecting bear trophies results in extra lives. Empty Gold Honeycombs are hidden throughout worlds, and obtaining six gives you another slot on the health bar. Full Honeycombs can be obtained by defeating enemies or breaking open beehives (and consequently running from angry bees after you collect the health!) Each full honeycomb replenishes a health slot.
There are items you can only carry so much of in your inventory that can be used against enemies and for obstacles. For example, Banjo and Kazooie can only carry ten golden feathers (any more collected will not affect the amount in your inventory.) After Bottles teaches how to use golden feathers, you can activate the ability anytime to have invincibility for up to ten seconds (Each golden feather lasts one second.) Other limited-amount items you can carry include up to one-hundred eggs, which Kazooie can fire from her mouth or have plop out of her rear, and up to fifty red feathers that give Kazooie a boost when flying. Later on, the amounts of gold feathers, eggs, and red feathers can be doubled if you find Gruntilda’s abandoned spellbook, Cheato, who will gladly give you secret locations and codes for increasing your items as retaliation for Gruntilda’s negligence. (I wonder if there’s some implied message here for all the dusty university textbooks I have lying around and never use…)
= Endings =
The game has two ending cutscenes, a game over cutscene and the final cutscene that plays when the storyline is finished.
Banjo Kazooie was the first game I ever played with a game over cutscene, and for a little bit I was convinced that once the cutscene happened, it affected the rest of the game (Luckily it doesn’t, or you would have to fight Tooty as a final boss...) The cutscene is supposed to occur if Banjo and Kazooie run out of lives, but it also occurs if you select "Quit Game" on the pause menu. The game over cutscene goes as thus: the camera pans in on Gruntilda’s lair. After mocking Banjo and Kazooie about their death, Gruntilda uses an electricity-powered machine to transfer Tooty’s beauty to herself. After Gruntilda steps out as a complete supermodel, Mumbo(the two-timing creep) offers her a flower and a date. The game over cutscene ends with Tooty, now an ugly creature, creeping out of the machine.
The actual ending cutscene occurs after you free Tootie. You make it to the top of Gruntilda’s tower for the final battle, and with the help of the jinjos you originally freed from the worlds, you finally manage to defeat Gruntilda. She falls to the bottom of her mountain and ends up being pinned under a boulder. Banjo, Kazooie, and their friends visit the beach in a well-earned vacation, and the game ends… Sort of. Here, the ending cutscene splits into two. If you did not collect every single jiggy, Mumbo tells you that if you do, he will let you in on a secret. If you did get all the collectible items in the game, Mumbo reveals the locations of two of six secret eggs and an ice key. The items were supposed to be able to be transferrable to the sequel Banjo-Tooie, but the feature was never implemented in the sequel.
Regardless of whether all the jiggies were collected, after the beach scene, one last cutscene returns to the bottom of Gruntilda’s lair. Klungo tries to remove the boulder burying Gruntilda, and the witch swears revenge on the heroes.
= Overall =
Banjo-Kazooie stood out on its own as a unique game. It was the first video game I played simultaneously controlling two characters, and the controls were so fluid I did not even think once about how complex it might have been to develop them. The game does get tiring when you play it to collect every single music note, especially since the music notes re-appear every time you leave the courses, so I do not recommend doing this. Luckily, not every single item needs to be collected to reach the end. In conclusion, this game was full of surprises, fun in exploration of every new world, and hilarious, especially when characters picked on each other. I would recommend Banjo-Kazooie for any gamer, especially beginners, as it is as fun for me now as it was when I first picked it up, and has proven to be a time-standing classic. We give two paws up and two talons up for this game, and a bonus achievement to you for reading a game analysis that might have been chock full of beary terrible puns. =)
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Defiance's Banjo-Kazooie (N64)
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Current Status: Finished playing
GameLog started on: Tuesday 7 December, 2010
GameLog closed on: Tuesday 26 April, 2011 |
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