For those that never played it, Banjo-Kazooie tells the story of a bear named Banjo and his bird buddy Kazooie. One day, the evil witch Gruntilda kidnaps Tooty, Banjo’s sister, so that she can transform her ugly green self into an exotic beauty. In typical fashion, Banjo sets out to rescue his sibling. The gameplay mainly sees you explore different worlds, collecting jigsaw pieces and musical notes to access new levels and bypass obstacles. There are quite a few intriguing challenges to undertake as well, everything from racing a polar bear, to clearing the nose of giant sphinx-like statue. Also, players slowly unlock new moves such as the ability to fly and shoot eggs out of Kazooie’s mouth. It’s got all the bells and whistles of a standard platformer.
Musical notes are now a one-time item.
Unlike a lot of other ports on the Arcade, Banjo-Kazooie has been treated to a number of improvements. First and foremost are the visuals. The game now supports 16:9 widescreen, and is a lot crisper and brighter, with a more consistent frame rate. Sprites of all the collectible objects such as musical notes, jinjos and honeycombs have also been updated, while music and sound effects sound a lot clearer than they did back in the N64 days. In terms of gameplay, the camera is free roaming and controlled via the right analogue stick. More importantly, jinjos and notes are now one-time items, so if you exit a world and haven’t quite found them all you can come back later and pick up where you left off. While the improvements are only minor, as a whole they modernise the title and give returning veterans that extra incentive to come back years after its initial release.
To compliment the improvements are also online leaderboards. You’ll have the option to check your times against friends or random strangers over Xbox Live. Again, it doesn’t really add a lot to the experience, but it brings back memories of the old gaming magazine competitions where readers would send in their best times. Another new(ish) feature are those notorious Stop and Swop items. Players who have save data for Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts will finally (or at least legitimately) be able to obtain them. Sadly, the rewards aren’t quite what some may have expected – all you get for your efforts are just a few new accessories for your vehicles in Nuts & Bolts. Regardless, it shows Rare and Microsoft took the time to add all these extras into the game, when they really could’ve gotten away with just sticking it up on the marketplace unchanged.
We spent years wondering what the ice key did... What a disappointment that was.
Unfortunately, the XBLA port isn’t perfect. During the opening cutscene when Gruntilda turns her back to the camera there is this brief pause as if the game has frozen. Also, when you return to the main hub world after completing a level, the game once again pauses briefly, as if it were about to freeze. These are only minor issues, but returning veterans will still get annoyed it isn’t as fluid as they remember. On that note, there have been reports of two major glitches – notes disappearing if players complete the Bottles’ jigsaw game and even jigsaw pieces disappearing if players collect all the jinjos in a level and leave. During our play through we never experienced these issues, but to be on the safe side we recommend players don’t collect the jinjos or complete any of Bottle’s challenges until they’ve collected all the respected items.
So at the end of the day has Banjo-Kazooie aged well? The answer is a resounding yes. With the exception of a few minor issues such as the brief pauses when exiting levels, the game is the same as it was ten years ago. On top of this, you have online leaderboards, connectivity to Nuts & Bolts and an overall better visual presentation. Although the cost of 1,200 Xbox Live points may seem a bit steep for a ten year old game, if you were a fan of the N64 original or simply want some classic platformer action, you need not look anywhere else.
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