Banjo-Tooie

As a major Banjo Kazooie fan who never got to play Banjo-Tooie on the N64 this was a very exciting release for me. Trailer watched repetitively? Check. Premium theme downloaded? Check. Time to jump into the sequel of one of my all-time favourite games. Banjo-Tooie follows on the storyline from the original when surprise surprise, you end up called into action once again! A lot of familiar faces appear (although a lot has changed in some cases!) but you are also accompanied by many new characters, which fill in the gaps for those who had played the original and Nuts & Bolts but not Banjo-Tooie.

Banjo-Tooie has roughly the same mix of action and adventure offered in the original, with puzzles and collectibles scattered throughout the experience. However, the main difference in game play is the overall feel of the game. The outside world has warp points with an addition of warp points in the levels themselves, as a lot of them are bigger than the levels in previous game. The combination of the two generally gives you the feel that you’re traversing one big world rather than giving you that segmented old skool feel of levels. This is also reiterated by the level designers in the way that some levels link in to each other, giving you a chance to pop into a different level in order to solve a puzzle. This gives what is actually an old game a rather modern feel to it and makes the game feel like it has come a long way from the original (although both were created on the same engine and they were released only 2 years apart).

Graphically speaking a lot of problems I’ve heard people rant about in forums seem to have been fixed for the Xbox release although the draw distance presents problems that were never apparent in Banjo Kazooie. Open doors may shut when you get nearer and some objects appear before your very eyes but it is worth remembering that this is a game from 2000 and although improvements have been made it wasn’t rebuilt from scratch.

This game screams sequel in every possible way. The story carries on easily, the game-play is tweaked but along the  same lines and the lovable characters have all their old moves plus some new ones that are added throughout the game. Unfortunately, the last point does seem to mean the game is less accessible to those who are new to the series as the original carried a huge variety of moves that you learnt along the way. Although Banjo-Tooie does give you the option to learn all the old moves at the beginning, the tutorials on these are shorter than they were originally and as a single hit may be too much for people to remember, especially children, who are more than likely to struggle with this. Once all the old moves are cemented in your head the game then continues like it’s predecessor with moves being picked up throughout the game.

Due to the open plan take on the world there is a train that once released can be used to travel between levels and also between the outer world areas. This becomes increasingly useful as the game continues as completing a level before you move on is now impossible. Moves learnt in later levels are often needed to complete earlier puzzles so depending on how you play you may find yourself going backwards and forwards a lot in order to get all those precious jiggies.

Each level carries many things to keep you occupied with 10 jiggies to be found solving puzzles, fighting bosses etc., 80 notes and 1 treble clef to collect, jinjo’s making a collectible comeback and 3 Cheato pages being hidden on each level as well. In addition to this, magical creatures must now be found to be given to Mumbo, who will cast spells at select points in the level, and Humba, who will transform you into a dinosaur, truck etc. Although blatantly being cruel (Mumbo keeps his creatures in a little bag) these collectibles are necessary for the game to continue, so again these are always near where you need them.

For the first time in the series Banjo and Kazooie can now be split up and taught separate moves to enable them to use different abilities. A good example of this is that once Kazooie is gone, Banjo has an empty tardis style backpack and can therefore carry many large objects. This new flexibility provides more depth to the moves list but does mean that in order to rejoin your characters you either need to kill one off or run back to the point at which you left the other, which can be very tedious!