Banjo Kazooie Series

[ZeroAX]

I am feeling in the mood to play some 3D platformers, and one of my favorite game's of all time in the genre is Banjo Kazooie. But since I've already beaten that game I was wondering of trying out Banjo Tooie, though I haven't actually heard much about that game. A quick forum search showed me we have no dedicated thread for this series, so here I am .



So imo Banjo Kazooie was an amazing game, perhaps better than Mario 64 (ok maybe not, since Mario 64 involves a lot more platforming, but it's still a great game), but I have never tried the sequel and come to think of it, I haven't even heard that much about it.

Is it any good? Rare used to produce gaming gold, but its last Nintendo game was average at best (Star Fox Adventures) and anything after that sucked, and since this came out in 2001 (over here at least) I am afraid it might not be as good as the previous game.

Any thoughts? Is it better/worse than the first?

And what are your feelings on the series in general? You liked the GBA games? Any fans of the 360 game here?


Also since I'm going to be an illegal bastard and emulate the game, are there any good fan mods/hacks for either of the games I should know about?

[Xeogred]

I think it's way better than both Kazooie and the successor Donkey Kong 64. Both those games had way too many caves and claustrophobic environments, that for whatever reason make me nuisance just thinking about it (I never had this issue with Mario 64 or the Zelda's, etc). DK64 then has the issue with all the multiple characters and is just absurdly long for an adventure game, feels endless. Tooie is massive as well, but it just feels a lot more focused and refined. Banjo Tooie is far bigger than Kazooie and way more open. It expands upon all the cool stuff the first one did plus some. To me it almost feels more like Zelda in some cool ways, there's just so many abilities and things you get as the game goes and so many crazy mechanics (there's FPS levels haha).

Also you do know it also got the HD port treatment right? I thought both were top notch. Though I still had that issue with the first, it's just so claustrophobic.

I've only played the two main games. Although I say that about the first, I still think it's pretty damn good. And I can't really go into too much detail, but I just simply think Tooie is even better on every level. It's damn good.

The 360 one never sounded too special. MS had an excellent series handed to them that could have competed again Mario or Sony's Ratchet and Sly, etc, but of course, they dropped the ball on just about everything Rare brought with them. Banjo was a cool guy.

[darsparx]

Still a series I want to try out...I just don't like the nintendo tax that it has

[ZeroAX]

I think it's way better than both Kazooie and the successor Donkey Kong 64. Both those games had way too many caves and claustrophobic environments, that for whatever reason make me nuisance just thinking about it (I never had this issue with Mario 64 or the Zelda's, etc). DK64 then has the issue with all the multiple characters and is just absurdly long for an adventure game, feels endless. Tooie is massive as well, but it just feels a lot more focused and refined. Banjo Tooie is far bigger than Kazooie and way more open. It expands upon all the cool stuff the first one did plus some. To me it almost feels more like Zelda in some cool ways, there's just so many abilities and things you get as the game goes and so many crazy mechanics (there's FPS levels haha).

I've only played the two main games. Although I say that about the first, I still think it's pretty damn good. And I can't really go into too much detail, but I just simply think Tooie is even better on every level. It's damn good.

WOW better than Banjo Kazooie? Now I'm really excited. I'll try it out tonight .

Also you do know it also got the HD port treatment right? I thought both were top notch. Though I still had that issue with the first, it's just so claustrophobic.

I don't own a 360, and these HD ports are the only reason I only ever wanted the console, and honestly the only reason I never got one was cause I knew it would collect so much dust once I was done with these 2 games.

Also I never found Banjo Kazooie so full of narrow paths. Now DK64, I will agree.

The 360 one never sounded too special. MS had an excellent series handed to them that could have competed again Mario or Sony's Ratchet and Sly, etc, but of course, they dropped the ball on just about everything Rare brought with them. Banjo was a cool guy.

yeah that was a bummer. Though I wonder if something had already changed at rare. Stafox adventures wasn't that good, and Nintendo DID choose to part with them even though for an entire decade they kept making amazing games for their platforms.

[darsparx]

Well I thought someone mentioned that when rare became a microsoft company that a lot of the good stuff was shot down and the guy who came up with dk64 and the other platformers(sorry I'm horrible with knowing company names like you guys XD ) left and made his own company or something along those lines.

I think it's way better than both Kazooie and the successor Donkey Kong 64. Both those games had way too many caves and claustrophobic environments, that for whatever reason make me nuisance just thinking about it (I never had this issue with Mario 64 or the Zelda's, etc). DK64 then has the issue with all the multiple characters and is just absurdly long for an adventure game, feels endless.

Guess I just liked dk64 too much, but I always liked having the other characters. It was fun going back and grabbing some stuff I missed and might need in other levels. That and starfox are probably the two games where a little bit of a completionist comes out in me.

The 360 one never sounded too special. MS had an excellent series handed to them that could have competed again Mario or Sony's Ratchet and Sly, etc, but of course, they dropped the ball on just about everything Rare brought with them. Banjo was a cool guy.

Funny thing is I never really heard about banjo until the gba game, and wish now when i had seen it at gamestop that i would've grabbed it or something if my dad would've....

[CFFJR]

Just gonna back up Xeo and say that Tooie is indeed a fantastic game.

A better variety of larger levels, some great new bosses and goals, sharper graphics, and a more interesting world on the whole.

It also feels a bit "darker". Not in a bad way, you'll see when you play it.

My only beef with the game is that it does have some backtracking. Among other things, there are certain jigsaw pieces that you cannot get on your first run through a level. Some people don't mind that, some do, so your mileage may vary I guess.

Anyway, enjoy your time with it, Tooie rocks.

[Xeogred]

I don't own a 360, and these HD ports are the only reason I only ever wanted the console, and honestly the only reason I never got one was cause I knew it would collect so much dust once I was done with these 2 games.

Also I never found Banjo Kazooie so full of narrow paths. Now DK64, I will agree.

Well what I mean is like, there's less blackness/dark areas. Kazooie still has that caves hub world and a lot of underground stages. In comparison Tooie feels a bit more comparable to Mario 64 or something visually, because most of the levels are outside and a lot more colorful, way bigger too. Maybe it's just me.

The HD ports were really top notch, better framerates and such too. But yeah, you'd be fine with emulating it or the N64 carts instead of buying an entire system just for those.

The opening of the game really sums it up. You kind of just walk right over the caves/beginning of the first game and you instantly see how much bigger in scope Tooie is (it's cool seeing it on the outside and in better graphics). I think that alone is really cool. The first was like a prelude to a much more grand adventure.

(random note: The Perfect Dark HD port is incredible too).

Guess I just liked dk64 too much, but I always liked having the other characters. It was fun going back and grabbing some stuff I missed and might need in other levels. That and starfox are probably the two games where a little bit of a completionist comes out in me.

DK64 is still good... but I think bloated is the word. Kind of like Donkey Kong Country 3, there's just so much STUFF and collectibles it gets a bit ridiculous to me. In comparison I like the simplicity of DKC1-2 far more, and I guess you can say the same about Banjo vs DK64. Banjo still has a lot to collect, but at least you're not having to juggle 5 different characters and do an insane amount of backtracking through the same levels. lol

[Dylan]

Massive Banjo Tooie monologue incoming.

I'll throw in the controversial opinion that Tooie is actually a step down from the origianl in terms of gameplay.

The reason that I say this is that I find Tooie to be far too slow paced a game compared to Kazooie, to the point of just feeling sluggish for long periods of time. The worlds are much bigger, but as a result navigating many of them starts to become tedious and frustrating (the worst offenders of this are levels like Grunty Industries, Jolly Roger Lagoon, and Terrydactyland). In levels like Terrydactyland or Hailfire Peaks the slow levels are a problem because one accidental vertical drop means you're looking at retracing your steps through a massive portion of the level.

Say what you will about the smaller environments in Kazooie, but that level design works wonders for the game's pacing. In Kazooie you'll never feel like the world has long treks that are just there to make you appreciate the level design and scale, you could easily enjoy the level design without having to slog through it. What's unfortunate is that some levels in Tooie (namely Witchyworld) I think actually are well designed, the level is sort of centralized around a hub with branching paths like in Kazooie. At any given time no objective is a massive trek away.

One thing that I will say towards Tooie's credit is that it does include warp pads scattered around the levels, which definitely helps reduce the tedium. The problem is that in many cases these just aren't enough to compensate for the level design.

Tooie often requires backtracking through areas exacerbating the tedium of the level design if you don't have access to warp pads. This is also especially a problem in the case of trying to use Wumba transformations (for example the washing machine jiggy in Grunty's factory is inexcusably monotonous to get). The quest in which you have to travel through multiple levels to try and rescue the dinosaur children takes an unbelievably long amount of time for what amounts to a singly jiggy. Kazooie had a few tough jiggys, but it never made you bust your balls to get them like Tooie often does.

Tooie also has an issue of reusing content, namely the Red/Green/Blue shooting minigames that pop up in every single level (twice in Cloud Cuckooland). While this minigame takes on subtle differences between levels, by about the third time it's pretty obvious that it's just being recycled.

To Tooie's credit, it's art and music are consistently on par or better than Kazooie's. While I'm not a fan of the map design there's no argument that the worlds in Tooie are more fleshed out and graphically polished (although Cloud Cuckooland is sort of nonsensical and ugly in my opinion). I also have to mention that it's cool that they designed interactions between the levels and the main world, which was a nice touch.

Overall I think you could say that Tooie sort of developed the prototype DK64 syndrome of putting way too much effort into making worlds big at the expense of what the player has to do to achieve goals in those levels. The scale just starts to feel like an arbitrary obstacle the more you go through the games.

[ZeroAX]

So are there any HD texture packs for this like Super Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time?

EDIT

Yes there are...for the first one at least

http://textures.emulation64.com/index.php?id=banjo-kazooie

Also I just remember, Xeo dafuq you dissing DKC3 on my thread? . Seriously if you consider it bloated you have to consider DKC2 too since they have almost the same exact features and collectibles

[Sload Soap]

I'll agree with Dylan on this. Tooie isn't a bad game by any means but its levels are just TOO big and you end up covering a lot of ground to get anything done. I also think it suffers from the Rare mentality that "bigger=better" which is what ruined DK64 for a lot of people though it doesn't get anyway near as bloated as DK64.

Having said that if you really loved Kazooie you might be able to overlook this as it is more of the same. And it is was an absolute technical marvel for the time.