Banjo-Kazooie

N64, Banjo-Kazooie (1998), game

I haven't felt so excited playing a game for ages! A lot of games I play these days are almost a chore, continued for the sake of completism, but playing this was addictive and just made me want to keep on going - one of those where you have to tear yourself away and keep thinking about what you're going to do next. Unlike its Rare-made successors, 'Donkey Kong 64' and 'Banjo-Tooie,' which had vast, sprawling levels to get lost in, 'BK' features relatively compact, tightly designed spaces that are fairly packed with things to do, so for the most part you don't end up wandering the landscape desperate for some new task to uncover, unless you've done everything except for locating that last Jiggy or elusive piece of Honeycomb, but the beauty of the levels and style of graphics, not to mention the excellent sound effects and music make it a joy to exist in. If a game were rated solely on replayability, this would be one of the top games of all time, and it probably is the game I've completed most, this at least the 8th time (back in the day trying to fulfil the amazing N64 Magazine's Skill Club challenge of beating it in under four and a half hours, which I did, though this time it was 15:53:50, as I was collecting everything, and it had been a good few years since my last playthrough!), and even if it weren't rated on that, it's still one of the best, a classic of the genre from a games company in its heyday on the best games console I've ever played.

You can argue that 'Super Mario 64' did it first, and the aforementioned platformers were bigger and more impressive, but what 'BK' lacks in magnitude it makes up for in beauty and gameplay. I was searching round Clanker's Cavern for ages trying to locate the last Jiggy, and it turned out to be just there on one of his teeth - it was my fault for not looking up there, not the game's for providing a ridiculous or contrived solution. And the half hour, or however long I spent, swimming back and forth wondering if I'd missed something, was all wiped out as soon as the Jiggy was found: rewards of the aural and visual kind are a potent draw in this game, spurring you on with humorous sound effects and a context-sensitive soundtrack that enthralled me when I first played this back in 1999. That I could run around a 3D environment was one thing, but that I could swim under the water and hear the music change as if you were hearing it from down there, was incredible, immersing you so much more than the old 2D platformers ever did.

The visuals are still thoroughly attractive to the modern eye, yes a bit blocky, but so colourful and generally such good work on the varied textures and themes in each environment that you never question you're walking on sand, or squelching across swampland or running through long grass with the accompanying dead rustle. And they expertly get around the limitations of cartridges not having enough space to feature FMV or digitised speech by giving characters sounds as voices, which is funny, fitting and suits the style, making it work better than if they were speaking in English, an example of constraint breeding creatively fulfilling innovation! The game mechanics are fairly standard: collect things, perform mini-games, follow a story, learn new moves, but it's all so perfectly put together. Playing Mr. Vile's games of eating the mushrooms in Bubblegloop Swamp genuinely got my heart rate up like I was under threat of my life in some first person shooter, knowing if I failed I'd be chomped (unless I could exit the room quick enough - they were very fair in what you could do).

Humour has been a hallmark of some great games, from point-and-click ('Secret of Monkey Island'), to platformers like this, but you forget little details like how Gruntilda always speaks in rhyme, or Kazooie is always at odds with everyone they meet! It's nice to see elements of a grander plan at Rare with ideas like the areas and items that were planned to link to the not-then-worked-out 'Banjo-Tooie' (Sharkfood Island on Treasure Trove Cove, the tomb in Gobi's Valley, the ice key cavern in Freezeezy Peak…), or Tiptup from 'Diddy Kong Racing' making a cameo appearance - you can see they had plans for a whole franchise with those characters, and it's a shame it never worked out, taking Conker (who could easily have been there in place of Nabnuts), down an entirely different (and needlessly unpleasant), road, and failing to get 'Tooie' to the same level of great gameplay as this first game displayed, the inventive connectivity ideas were cutting edge, pushing the boundaries, definitely ahead of their time (value added content now common thanks to downloadable levels, etc - back then, consoles weren't online, unless you were Japanese). But this game gets full marks for ambition and forward-thinking just the same.

Of all the levels, the only one I completely forgot was Rusty Bucket Bay, and it's probably the least enjoyable level, explaining my lack of memory. I think it has to do with the dark, dull colours, the industrial machinery and general air of rusting ugliness, in stark contrast to so much of the game's bright, naturalistic charms. I'm not saying it shouldn't have been created, as it's good to have a change of scenery (and as 'Banjo-Tooie' showed, it wasn't easy to come up with original level themes that weren't the standard fare of many a 2D platformer before them), but it was certainly less of a fun environment to play in, partly due to the restrictions placed on you with the oily water reducing your air just by swimming in it, and so your freedom also. Clanker's Cavern could almost fall into the same category, in that it was dark and dank, and a struggle to see, if playing on a bright day, though the novelty of exploring a huge mechanical marine creature made up for low light levels. In contrast, I think my favourite would be Treasure Trove Cove, its golden sandy beaches, open-plan layout, and incredible scale in all three dimensions made it an impressive location in which to be let loose after the simpler, and more compact, though nonetheless suitable training ground that was Mumbo's Mountain. Climbing to the top of the lighthouse was one thing, but actually being given the ability to fly might have marked the high point in the game's sense of freedom to explore and enjoy the environment that was not often equalled in other levels.

I wouldn't say the experience goes downhill after experiencing the Cove, but it would be hard to match the size and variety of actions to experiment with, and other levels, aside from perhaps Click Clock Wood (in a different way), tended to be smaller in ambition. Maybe they ran out of time or space on the cartridge, perhaps another reason that the sequel was already planned as they worked on this one, to be able to include ideas that couldn't make it into 'Banjo-Kazooie.' But I think the variety of themes worked well, and there wasn't the need to change into another creature on every level, giving the times that you did have that opportunity a greater sense of anticipation - it could have become an irritation if it had had to be done each and every time, especially as you were limited by the change rather than empowered, so with fewer changes it remained a novel idea. The Cavern began to test the player, making you swim deeper for longer than you might be comfortable with, and Bubblegloop Swamp continued the rising difficulty level by making much of the surface energy-sapping. This also had the disadvantage of limiting your sense of go-anywhere, do-anything, but there were plenty of puzzles and challenges packed in. In contrast, Freezeezy Peak returned to a greater impression of scope and freedom, if not on the scale of Cove, nonetheless very enjoyable. Perhaps Gobi's Valley was too much of an opposite to the icy landscape, but it was inevitable you'd get a desert theme, I suppose.

Click Clock Wood ended the standard levels on a high, literally, as you put into practice all the skills you'd honed to get there, and the unique approach of one level played through four different seasons, with all the problems or advantages each season brought, made a refreshing change. Autumn was my favourite part of that level, with the fluttering leaves and sound of rustling as you hurried about, making for an attractive landscape to explore. Even Gruntilda's lair was varied and interesting, and if I found all the Jiggy's easy to get (bar one - I just couldn't work out how to reach the final piece, high up above Click Clock Wood's entry area, until I remembered that Mumbo's magic extends outside of the world to some degree, and only the bee was needed!), it's probably because it all came back to me. Plus, you get a little cutscene showing where it is once you've hit the Grunty switch in each level. It was no less a feeling of achievement to conquer the game again, and may have been even more fun for the familiarity, though that can be a double-edged beak: you may think you know how to do something, which puts you on the wrong track, whereas coming to something fresh your thought process is different.

It was a stroke of genius to have the final battle take place as a board game testing your memory and how much attention you paid, with sound, picture and general questions, recalling the details Grunty's sister, Brentilda, gave you, as well as replaying some of the timed challenges - and when each wrong answer is a piece of energy gone, those challenges, where you can lose several, suddenly become tougher! It's typical of the game's humour that just when you think it's over, with a false ending scene of the characters relaxing, you have to go back and finish off your enemy. Not that it was that difficult (although it did take me two attempts!). The humour was generally good fun, but it was a little too much towards toilet humour sometimes, (literally in the case of Loggo, an actual toilet you have to flush yourself down when in pumpkin form!), though the much stronger level of later games (Conker), was yet to be seen, so it wasn't anything I was bothered by. While on the subject of flaws, I have to mention the camera, which could be dodgy sometimes, though that's a common problem in 3D games, and I rarely lost out due to a mistake due to losing my bearings. But it could be annoying.

If occasionally off-colour humour and an imperfect camera are the only complaints you can level at a game, you're onto a winner in my book (yes, I found all Cheato's hiding places). If I'm really picky I could also say it was disappointing that you can't go back and play the board game (it should have been a bonus to play with Brentilda whenever you wanted), or beat Grunty again, after you've won, as the cauldron just spits you straight to the end scene again with them all relaxing on a desert island (and if you have all the Jiggy's, you see the secret places). And what was that other cauldron in Grunty's chambers for, the one that looked like a warp cauldron, but didn't have a pairing? Was it another 'Tooie' thing? But this is all churlishness, and the truth is, the attention to detail was superb - for example, if you pressed quick enough and at the right time on the game selection screen, instead of the usual thumbs-up animation, something more dramatic would happen (mine was file 1, so Banjo's bed flips up and shoots him through the window!). And of course all the now-standard character animations when you leave them standing still were among myriad details to enjoy. Add to that so many wonderful sound effects that give you a buzz when you've achieved or collected something. The only downside is that it's a finite experience, with a total number of items to collect, places to see and creatures to interact with. That's why 'Banjo-Tooie' was so anticipated, and why, even now, knowing it's flaws, I want to go and play that one again, too(ie)…

*****