Banjo-Kazooie

Template:Infobox gameBanjo-Kazooie is a 3D platforming video game originally developed by Rare and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64 in 1998. It is the first and titular game of the Banjo-Kazooie series. Since its release, the game would become a best-seller for the console. In 2008, the game was ported to the Xbox 360's Xbox Live Arcade. On January 20, 2022, Banjo-Kazooie was ported to Nintendo Switch Online as one of the playable titles.

The game's story focuses on a bear named Banjo and a bird named Kazooie as they go on a journey to rescue Banjo's sister, Tooty, who was kidnapped by Gruntilda. Banjo-Kazooie was revealed as one of the games planned for inclusion on the Nintendo Switch Online service, and was released on January 20, 2022, marking its first re-release on a Nintendo console.

Plot

Gruntilda asking Dingpot who is "the nicest looking wench"

The evil witch of Spiral Mountain, Gruntilda, is inside her lair, asking her cauldron Dingpot questions about who is the 'nicest and fairest of them all', to which Dingpot reluctantly answers, "Why it's Grunty, any day, she really takes my breath away." She gloats over her "beauty," until Dingpot finally breaks his 'silence' and tells the witch that Tooty, another inhabitant of Spiral Mountain, is actually the prettiest and the fairest of them all. Grunty reacts angrily and decides to kidnap Tooty in order to steal her beauty. She grabs her broom and sets off immediately.

Tooty is confronted by Grunty.

Meanwhile, Tooty is running around Spiral Mountain, when she is greeted by Bottles in front of Banjo's House. She eagerly tells Bottles that she is going on an adventure with her brother, Banjo. Inside the house, Banjo is sleeping soundly, with his breegull friend, Kazooie, sleeping in his backpack, which is hanging on a nearby coat rack. Tooty and Bottles are still talking, until Bottles spots Grunty in the distance, but confuses her for Banjo (due to his short-sightedness). Grunty immediately goes for Tooty, and a struggle ensues. Kazooie, eager for action and adventure, overhears the clamor outside as well as Bottles' cries for help and tries to wake Banjo up. Banjo and Kazooie leave their house, only to discover that Grunty has gone off and kidnapped Tooty. Bottles tells the bear and bird that they must venture to Gruntilda's Lair to rescue Tooty. Bottles offers to prepare the duo to fight Gruntilda by teaching them some basic moves and repairing the bridge leading to the lair's entrance. Banjo and Kazooie set off on an adventure into the lair to save Tooty.

Once inside the lair, Banjo and Kazooie find a Jiggy, which is used to open and unlock levels around the lair by completing Jigsaw Puzzle pictures. They soon find a painting that fits their first Jiggy, opening the first level of the lair, Mumbo's Mountain. Banjo and Kazooie enter the first level and find that their quest is not as easy as they had anticipated. They discover that they need to rescue Jinjos imprisoned by Grunty throughout each of the levels as well as collect Musical Notes, which are needed to open up Note Doors, to progress through the deeper areas of Gruntilda's Lair. They also meet Mumbo Jumbo, a skull-faced shaman who offers his services to the bear and bird by transforming the adventurers into different animals with new abilities.

The two continue progressing through the lair, gathering musical notes, Jiggies, and other collectibles along the way, as well as rescuing the Jinjos of each level. They also encounter Mumbo Jumbo and Bottles several times, who continue to help the heroes by transforming them and teaching them new moves, respectively. Banjo and Kazooie also get help from Gruntilda's nicer sister, Brentilda, who gossips interesting facts about her ugly sister.

After successfully surviving through all nine levels in Grunty's Lair, Banjo and Kazooie eventually reach Gruntilda but are forced to participate in her quiz show, Grunty's Furnace Fun. Thanks to the information provided by Brentilda's gossips, Banjo and Kazooie win Grunty's game and save Tooty. With Tooty rescued, they return home and celebrate with a barbecue. However, Tooty reminds our heroes that Grunty had escaped shortly after the game show and was still at large, plotting her wicked schemes.

Banjo and Kazooie make their way back up the lair until they finally reach the roof with a little help from Dingpot. On the roof, Gruntilda challenges them to a more direct confrontation and an epic battle ensues. But, with the help of the Jinjos they rescued in the various levels in Gruntilda's Lair, Banjo and Kazooie defeat Gruntilda and ultimately knock her off her tower. She crashes into the ground, creating a crater of her shape, which is then covered by a large boulder that falls from the tower and traps her beneath it. Banjo and Kazooie finally take a well-deserved break at the beach, where the bear and bird and their friends anticipate a sequel, Banjo-Tooie. Meanwhile, Gruntilda, whose loyal minion Klungo is trying to rescue her, swears her revenge.

Main Characters

• Banjo the Bear - A good hearted, well mannered and sweet natured honey-bear. He's always seen wearing bright yellow shorts and a blue packpack for carrying Kazooie around. As seen in the opening scene, he's an experienced banjo player, he cares a lot for his best friend and those in need and sometimes shares a bond or two with his little sister, Tooty. Unlike his sister, Banjo's not really into adventuring. Banjo first appeared in Diddy Kong Racing.
• Kazooie the Breegull - A sassy and obnoxious wise-cracking red-crested Breegull and Banjo's best friend. She loves to insult people out of the blue which causes conflicts and fights, Kazooie loves to explore and go adventuring. She also plays a namesake instrument; in this case: the kazoo.
• Gruntilda Winkybunion - The main antagonist, Gruntilda or Grunty for short is an evil and stereotypical Witch who sets out to capture Banjo's sister to steal her beauty. She always speaks in rhyme and also happens to own a broom that follows her when needed.
• Tooty the Bear - Banjo's cheerful and younger sister. Tooty is somewhat a bit of an outgoing lass and loves adventuring, she's a bit cowardly but did vow that Banjo would come and save her from Grunty after being kidnapped.
• Bottles the Mole
• Mumbo Jumbo the Shaman
• Brentilda Winkybunion
• Klungo

Worlds

There are nine main worlds, one overworld/hub world, and one starter world. Three additional worlds were left unfinished so therefore were not featured in the game. This comes to a total of eleven worlds featured in Banjo-Kazooie.

File:SpiralMountain.png Spiral Mountain (Starter World)	File:Gruntys Lair entry.png Gruntilda's Lair (Hub World)	File:Mumbos Mountain entry.png File:Mumbo's Mountain Title Card.png	File:TreasureEntry.png File:Treasure Trove Cove Title Card.png
File:Clankers Cavern entry.png File:Clanker's Cavern Title Card.png	File:Bubblegloop Swamp.png File:Bubblegloop Swamp Title Card.png	File:Freezeezy Peak.png File:Freezeezy Peak Title Card.png	File:Gobi's Valley.jpeg File:Gobi's Valley Title Card.png
File:Mad Monster Mansion.jpeg File:Mad Monster Mansion Title Card.png	File:Rusty Bucket Bay.jpeg File:Rusty Bucket Bay Title Card.png	File:Click Clock Wood.jpeg File:Click Clock Wood Title Card.png

Gameplay

Banjo in the first world, Mumbo's Mountain

Banjo-Kazooie adopted many of its central gameplay mechanics from Nintendo's groundbreaking title Super Mario 64. Banjo and Kazooie must similarly explore non-linear 3D worlds and gather Jiggys (comparable to Power Stars from Super Mario 64) by completing certain tasks to unlock new worlds. However, Banjo-Kazooie is often considered an evolution of Super Mario 64 as it introduced a number of innovative features. These included the ability for Banjo and Kazooie, with the aid of Mumbo's magical powers, to transform into other creatures such as a termite, crocodile, walrus, pumpkin, and bee; the ability for the characters to learn new moves (as taught by Bottles); the game's extensive use of textures for surfaces where other N64 games would have used plain colors, extensive lighting, and music that dynamically changes style in order to reflect the environment and dangers to the characters. The Banjo-Kazooie central theme music, heard in the main play area, changed to reflect the environment entrance (levels) the player was near, such as taking on music box instrumental-style play near the ice level entrance. The music's notes and play never changed though, producing a seamless integration into the new instruments without stopping the forever-looping song.

Like Super Mario 64 before it, the player proceeds through the game by finding tokens. There are three kinds of tokens that help the player progress through the game, namely jigsaw pieces, musical notes, and Mumbo's Tokens. Jigsaw pieces open doors to new worlds by collecting enough to complete the corresponding jigsaw puzzle. There are ten Jiggies in each world: nine must be sought and found, and one is granted by finding all five Jinjos on each world. Unlike Super Mario 64, Banjo doesn't have to exit the world every time he collects a jiggy.) Musical notes open magic note doors that allow Banjo and Kazooie to progress further into Gruntilda's lair. There are 100 notes in each world, and 900 total in the game. Mumbo's tokens grant the player magical transformations at Mumbo's hut when the player collects a sufficient amount. These transformations include termite, crocodile, walrus, pumpkin and bee.

Besides these primary Tokens, players may also collect items which are used in performing certain moves. Bottles the Mole must teach Banjo and Kazooie the move before the item can be utilized. Items include blue eggs, red feathers and gold feathers, which can be held in quantities up to 100, 50 and 10, respectively. Blue eggs are fired as projectiles or ejected from Kazooie's rear, and bounce slowly until they either hit an enemy, or break on their own; red feathers are utilized in flight and flying attacks; and gold feathers are for the most powerful attack, Wonderwing, which uses Kazooie's wings to make her and Banjo invincible and can defeat almost any enemy, or at least protect them both. Furthermore, rarer temporary items can be found which have specialized use in puzzle-solving, namely wading boots, which enable the crossing of hazardous terrain, and running shoes, which grant extra running speed, often as part of a race or a time-based puzzle. Finally, there are power-ups such as extra lives, which look like golden Banjo statues and grant one extra life each, and honeycomb energy, which incrementally increases the player's health and can be found in each level. Collecting six extra Honeycomb Pieces and gives Banjo and Kazooie a permanent increase of one honeycomb of health.

A large feature of gameplay is that the characters make limited speech-like sounds when they talk. The voices were not real speech, but rather a looping of voice-like sounds when text bubbles were displayed. This artistic choice was likely made due to memory limitations on Nintendo 64 cartridges; however, this added considerably to the atmosphere and uniqueness of the game.

Besides the technical aspects, Banjo-Kazooie's rich characters were what really made the game come alive. Gruntilda the witch always spoke in rhymes (which she would declare inexplicably as Banjo and Kazooie wandered about her lair), such as, "It really does sound quite absurd, adventure of a bear and bird!" Kazooie was always very annoyed at Bottles the Mole, and various other smaller characters made memorable appearances. One notable motif is that nearly all objects, including wrapped presents, mines, and vegetables, had eyes.

Stop 'n' Swop

Stop 'n' Swop is a notable incomplete feature of the game. Six colored eggs and a key made of ice were discovered in the game that would be viewable in a menu titled Stop 'N' Swop. In an ending sequence of Banjo-Kazooie, Mumbo Jumbo would tell the players that secret areas would be accessible via a link with the sequel, Banjo-Tooie. Stop 'N' Swop was never fully realized in Banjo-Tooie. The special items can still be collected in Banjo-Kazooie using a cheat cartridge or in-game cheat codes, though the purpose they would have served in Banjo-Tooie, as well as how the games were meant to link, has not been specified.

Game information

Development

A screenshot of an early build of Banjo-Kazooie, when it became a 3D platformer.

Banjo-Kazooie started development in the mid-1990s as a completely different game for the Super Nintendo, Dream: Land of Giants. Most details regarding the game's development were unknown until 2015, when Rare discussed the game in their Rare Revealed series, "A Rare Look at Dream." and "Five Things You Didn't Know About Banjo-Kazooie." An unlockable video on Rare Replay named "Dreaming of Banjo" also revealed more information about the game's development.

Sometime during its development, Dream shifted its development to Nintendo 64. After a few months of development, the team felt that Edson was a weak character and began searching for a replacement. A rabbit was considered at first before the team decided on a bear, who would become Banjo. The team scrapped Dream entirely and reworked it into a 2.5D platformer similar to Donkey Kong Country, which had a gameplay style more familiar for them. This was the earliest form of Banjo-Kazooie, where Banjo would move along linear path collecting fruit. In the "A Rare Look at Dream" video, Gregg Mayles called it the "connecting piece" between the Donkey Kong games they developed and the final version of Banjo-Kazooie. Kazooie was created during this phase so that Banjo could perform a double jump. The team designed some more moves that involved both characters.

One day, the developers saw an early version of Super Mario 64, making their project looked obsolete in comparison. The project was scrapped again, and the team began a fourth and final attempt at making the game in the style of Super Mario 64. This version would be finalized and released as Banjo-Kazooie. The game was in development for 17 months after Dream was scrapped.

Pre-release and unused content

Main article: List of Banjo-Kazooie pre-release and unused content

Music

The music was composed by Grant Kirkhope. A CD soundtrack was exclusively sold to Nintendo Power subscribers or a pre-order bonus at Best Buy stores. According to an interview with OC Remix, Kirkhope stated that Banjo-Kazooie was his favorite work that he composed.

Reception

Banjo-Kazooie was highly successful when it was released, selling over 1.8 million copies in the United States. At the 1999 Interactive Achievement Awards, Banjo-Kazooie won in the Console Action/Adventure and Art Direction categories, and was a nominee for the "Console Adventure Game of the Year" and "Game of the Year" categories.

It also received the following ratings:

• IGN: 9.6
• GameSpot: 9.5
• GameStats: 9.2
• 1Up.com: 9.2
• Metacritic: 23 of 25 (based on 19 reviews)
• Game Rankings: 91% (based on 14 reviews)

Xbox 360 Version

Banjo-Kazooie was re-released on the Xbox 360 in late 2008, and updated with improved graphics and several new additional features:

• Fully working Achievements.
• Working Leaderboards that also show Online Worldwide Leaderboards.
• All of the Nintendo references, including the Nintendo 64 logo, have been removed and some of the logos of Nintendo are replaced with Microsoft logos, although on the screen for the third save file, Banjo is still seen playing a Nintendo GameBoy.
• Fully compatible with HD, including an Xbox One loading screen.
• Many bug fixes from the original N64 version and glitches have been removed.
• Musical Notes and Jinjos no longer regenerate; once collected, they are permanently saved.
• A remade Main Menu (The three Save Files are still in the game).

Awards

At the 1999 Interactive Achievement Awards, Banjo-Kazooie won in the Console Action/Adventure and Art Direction categories, and was nominated for Console Adventure Game of the Year and Game of the Year. In an episode of Reviews On The Run, Banjo-Kazooie was ranked number 1 on the list of the "5 classic Rare games you should try", beating out Sabre Wulf, Conker's Bad Fur Day, and Kameo: Elements of Power, which were also running for the same award.

Gallery

For this subject's image gallery, see Gallery:Banjo-Kazooie.

Names in other languages

• Japanese: バンジョーとカズーイの大冒険 (Banjo to Kazooie no Daibouken), meaning Banjo and Kazooie's Big Adventure

Trivia

• On December 29, 2020, Banjo-Kazooie and Blast Corps were mistakenly listed as upcoming games for the Wii U Virtual Console, both having a set release date of December 30, 2020. The error was fixed that same day, and both titles were removed from the list.