Banjo-Tooie

N64, Banjo-Tooie (2000) game

I first played this in 2008, eight years after it had been originally released. I'm not sure exactly why I waited so long, since 'Banjo-Kazooie' was, and still is, one of my Top 10 games of all time. It probably had something to do with the relatively negative review given to it in 'N64 Magazine' as they were usually right about these things, and I'd likely tired of playing platform games. There's also the cost factor - as I remember, it was a game that stayed at its £40 release price and couldn't be found secondhand, at least not easily. In those days I still relied on games shops to find old titles, I hadn't progressed to the stage of buying online. So price, coupled with worse than expected reviews, and boredom with the genre all contributed to me staying away for so long. When I eventually got hold of it I remember the feeling of disappointment that permeated the experience, though until I played it again recently I couldn't quite recall why. After playing 'BK' last year and really enjoying it, I was primed to get into the sequel. Something that had been a disappointment back in the time of release was that the long-awaited connectivity with the original Banjo game had been abandoned, as if Rare didn't really care any more. I suspect it was more to do with cost and technical feasibility, but it was just one more thing about 'Banjo-Kazooie' that had excited and made it seem ahead of its time: you could collect certain secret items in the game that would be used in 'Banjo-Tooie,' but this was revised to them being found in 'BT,' making them largely redundant, and they turned out not to be that special after all, but more on that later.

Starting the game I was quickly reminded of one of the things wrong with it, or to be precise, slowly reminded. Very, very slowly. In fact it took around an hour to actually get to the first level! Now fair enough, if you'd waited two years for this title, with building anticipation, you'd have wanted the story to pay off events at the end of 'BK,' but it was such a long opening, and mostly slow cutscenes that took up the time. What was once a technical achievement was now an irritation as I just wanted to get on with playing the game, not watching it, but even if you could skip it, you wouldn't want to for fear of missing something important. It wasn't just the ponderous opening that got me down, but the depressing, dark landscape that prevailed, the story being that Grunty's sisters had rescued her and gone off in a mole machine having destroyed Banjo's house and killed Bottles (his guide and helper in 'BK'). There's no mention of what happened to Tooty, Banjo's sister, she remains absent from the game for some reason (though amusingly, there's a missing persons advert on a carton of milk in the rubbish bin on 'Cloud Cuckooland'!). If you wanted to recall the first game's moves, or you'd never played 'BK,' you could take up the training around 'Spiral Mountain,' but it was dark, rainy and dismal, far from the bright, upbeat opening of 'BK,' with its ripe corn, green, green grass and clear blue water, smiled down upon by eternal sunshine.

It may be a bit unfair to keep comparing the two games, but it's inevitable, especially as 'BT' was supposed to be bigger and better. It may also be churlish to complain about the mood of the opening, as it's all part of the story, but one of the things that made 'BK' great was being such an enjoyable place to visit. It's not just a plodding story and depressing start that are the problems, there was also the first glimpse of technical issues: even on 'Spiral Mountain,' a reuse of a level in 'BK,' the framerate is noticeably jerky, and for a company like Rare to release a game without their expected level of technical perfection had at one time been unheard of. The counter argument would be that they'd reached the limits of the N64's capabilities (I'm not sure if the Expansion Pak was utilised, but it certainly wasn't required, unlike some of their last N64 games, such as 'Donkey Kong 64' and 'Perfect Dark'), but it doesn't explain why a level from a 1998 game had developed flaws in 2000! Jerky framerates weren't a major problem in the game, just an occasional annoyance in large areas, but when you're used to polish that rivalled Nintendo's own brand games, it's a worry. And we were right to be worried: the once unstoppable Rare, like Pixar, became a shadow of their former selves, so that when they were snapped up by Microsoft in the early days of the N64's successor, the GameCube, it wasn't really a loss, which was hard to believe considering they crafted many of the best games on the N64. But I'm not here to judge Rare's business relationships or company history, except where it relates to 'Banjo-Tooie.'

While I'm being mostly negative, I will say it was impressive to see the excellent config selection, with a widescreen option and the ability to adjust even the position of the output on your screen - more options for adjustment are always appreciated for the best sound and vision experience. It was also brilliant that the game was geared to the level of someone who'd completed 'Banjo-Kazooie,' so you didn't have to go through relearning well-rehearsed moves, and the difficulty was immediately up there as a tougher experience, so you didn't feel like the training wheels had been reattached. At the same time, everything was clear for those that needed a refresher, so it catered for all. But what it's all about is getting to the collecting and puzzle-solving, something which on 'BK' you were quickly thrust into, learning some moves on 'Spiral Mountain,' then making you're way up to the first level. This time you find yourself wading through dull, muddy landscapes, and I lost track of how many cutscenes there are to advance the daft plot, which is silly rather than funny, before you get to 'Mayahem Temple,' meaning you're itching to get started properly. My disappointment in the style also stretched to Bottles' brother, Jamjars, whose metal hatches signal a change to a more artificial, industrial look, rather than the more suitable natural theme of the first game. The same can be said of Jamjars' Silos, replacing the much more characterful Warp Cauldrons. Such things are subjective, but they added to the unattractiveness of a game that was somewhat ugly when compared to the freshness of 'BK.'

That game still had machines and metal (look at Clanker in 'Clanker's Cavern'), but the environments tended to be more appealing. Not to say there weren't beautiful levels: 'Jolly Roger's Lagoon' was very much in the previous style; 'Terrydactyland' brought a nice orangey-pink colour palette to proceedings (though it was a little bare), 'Hailfire Peaks' carried on the platformer tradition of slippy-slidey ice worlds and boiling hot fiery worlds, with 'Cloud Cuckooland' the most colourful (rivalled a little by the patchy 'Witchyworld'). So there was no shortage of colourful landscapes to get lost in, it's just that the palette often seemed more muted than before, 'Mayahem Temple' an example with its dull green main colour. Such things may not be that important, and certainly don't affect gameplay, but they do affect the mood and, to me at least, made the game less welcoming. As contrary as it might seem to laud a game for bringing us familiarity in world styles and in the same paragraph mark it down for doing the same kind of thing again, I must - 'Glitter Gulch Mine' was a remake of 'Crystal Caverns' on 'Donkey Kong 64,' with the underwater majority that made up 'Jolly Roger's Lagoon' having very similar music to that of 'Gloomy Galleon' and 'Grunty Industries' easy to link with 'Frantic Factory.' I appreciate there may be only a certain number of workable themes for this kind of game, but 'BK' did some things with traditional themes, like the giant snowman for example, which made 'Freezeezy Peak' so much more than an ice world.

The fact that the only levels I recollected before playing were Mayan, ice, lava, circus and dinosaur themed show that it was a far less memorable experience, as you'd think I'd have remembered the game more clearly having first played it only a few years ago, whereas I never forgot the structure of 'BK,' from twice as long ago. I have to wonder why games insist on putting one of the final levels set in the sky, or with deep drops and no barriers! It can only be to raise the difficulty or impression of raising it, but I never liked such open, empty spaces - even 'Super Mario 64' did it, though that was far trickier as there was much more actual platforming to do. So although 'Cloud Cuckooland' was a breath of fresh air, literally allowing you rise above the dark, depressing influence of the witch, it was a bit frustrating trying to work out how to get to each floating island. I will grant that the view down to the worlds below was a beautiful one, and it was most certainly the most colourful in the game. And there were areas of the lair that stood out as beautiful: the Beehive, the temple of Master Jiggywiggy (with its innovative jigsaw puzzles done while the image is in motion - a great idea, but I think it was nicked from a secret extra in Banjo's house in the first game), and the sandy cliff top all had their appeal.

One of the big flaws of the levels was simply that they were so big. At one time, size seemed the most important thing, you wanted to be wowed by the scale of the next game (even going back to the 2D days, how many screens a game had, and how long it would take to complete were important buying decisions for cash-strapped young gamesplayers!), but eventually you realise that most games are full of empty space, and the extent of the horizon has less to do with how enjoyable a game is than how much interaction you have with your environment. 'The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess' was not as involving an experience as 'Ocarina of Time,' despite its scale, and the same is true between the two Banjo games, 'Tooie' too big for its own good. This is because the scope of the levels makes them far less focused, and leaving aside the occasional technical flaws, you soon see that though they are huge, they're made up of multiple, smaller areas that you have to scurry between, interconnected locations that can become a bit maze-like when you're trying to remember where to go, or how. This, in turn, adds drudgery as you often find yourself traversing the expanse back and forth, which feels like a cynical attempt to extend the playing time. It works, the game does take a long time, but it's not due to the inventiveness of the puzzles or the joy of exploring. Also, the compartmentalised nature of the levels takes away the awe that you sometimes feel on seeing a vast land stretching out before you (such as 'Treasure Trove Cove,' or 'Clanker's Cavern').

Some are worse than others, with 'Jolly Roger's Lagoon' and 'Witchyworld' being among the worst contenders, and factory level, 'Grunty Industries,' being one entire internal experience of rooms and corridors. That was one of my least favourite, being another dark, grimy, brown puddle of industrial revolution, but I can see why they might want to make a completely different experience to the outdoor, open spaces of others. It's just less appealing, once again proving to me that naturalistic, organic environments are more fun. At least that level didn't have any swimming, which was the bane of 'Jolly Roger's Lagoon.' It was nice to find, on returning to 'Spiral Mountain' that you could rescue Banjo's goldfish from under a boulder, who then gives you more air, and faster swimming ability, which I didn't discover until well into the game! Once Mumbo's magically filtered the lagoon water with air, you can stay under indefinitely, and thing are easier, but it doesn't stop the experience of underwater exploration being a real drag. Some might love gliding around in the depths, and at least in this game, unlike the previous one, you can switch to first-person view, making it easier to see things, but it doesn't stop the camera from being particularly annoying in third-person view, and so much of the sights look similar that it can be difficult to orient yourself, which is essential to keep track of where you've been and where you're going. Underwater swimming irritation isn't unique to this game, it's just that there was less of it in 'BK' and you were usually on a tight time limit which added tension and meant you didn't have long to do it.

What really irks about the levels, in the same vein as cynically expanding game time, is how much pointlessness there is. In 'BK' things were done with intent and purpose, there for a reason. And you could chart your progress by it, gain satisfaction from it. Take the musical notes: in 'BK' they were an essential part of progressing through the game as you needed a certain note score to pass doors in Grunty's lair. They were also a reason to replay levels as you had to collect them all in one go as they were replaced once you exited a level. This gave the game an added dimension, rather like a time trial in a racing game, or headshot count in a shooting game, not to mention they were one of those immediate, continuing rewards that increased your feeling of wellbeing - even if you weren't playing to collect the notes they made a pleasing sound when picked up! No such feeling of reward in 'BT,' the notes are there almost as an afterthought, and I can't even remember why they needed to be collected, which is telling. They were no longer individual items, but bunched into 'nests' of five, making them slightly harder to spot and much less frequent, and could no longer be used to guide you around a level as they often were in 'BK.' They were there because the first game had notes, but weren't really needed. I can understand why this game didn't have the same replayable level totals as before, because they were so big it would get quite irritating if you had to spend hours tracking down all the notes in one go, I just wish they'd played a worthwhile role.

I think they were something to do with Jamjars teaching you the next move, but it was obviously vague enough that I never needed to keep track. Another pointless collectable was the Glowbo. Like the Mumbo Tokens in 'BK,' these were required before Mumbo or Humba Wumba could do anything for you. Thing is, they were always near the wigwam or skull, so why even bother with them? Again, at least with the Tokens you felt an achievement at finding them, this was just insulting, especially in a game that was more geared to an experienced platformer who'd played 'BK.' One improvement in 'Tooie' was that you got to change into something in every level this time, so there was a greater variety of changes, one of the things to look forward to. They could be quite big, too, as was the case with the full-sized T-Rex you could stomp around as in 'Terrydactyland.' Naturally, not every creature was a good one, 'Glitter Gulch Mine' had you as a detonator which could blow up kegs of TNT, but each time you detonated, a honey piece was lost from your health so you had to keep returning to Humba to change back so you could replenish health. The back and forth mechanics were possibly the worst thing about the game: on 'Terrydactyland' you could become either an adult T-Rex, or a juvenile, but to do this you first had to change into Mumbo, walk him to his pad in front of Humba's wigwam so he could make it bigger or smaller, return to the Skull, back into Banjo, back to the wigwam to change into the T-Rex… and then you realise it was the wrong size for what you'd planned to do, and have to do it all over again! Arrggh!

I had forgotten you could play as Mumbo, which was a nice surprise, though it usually consisted of him travelling to a pad with his face on so he could perform his magic and activate something, and for a supposedly powerful shaman that was the limit of his ability. He could jump, he could zap with his stick, and that was it. So it was hardly a pleasure to be a different character when it meant actually reducing your capabilities, when you should have had more freedom. There was a bit more fun to be had with the creatures Humba Wumba transformed you into, especially that frustrating T-Rex. I'd once played a trick on a family member back in the day when I used a cheat in 'Banjo-Kazooie' to become a washing machine and pretended I'd got 'Banjo-Tooie' before it was supposed to come out! This time you get to be the washing machine for real, freshly laundered pants, your projectile attack! The submarine made the lagoon's underwater section a little more palatable, and although the bee in 'Cloud Cuckooland' was another repeat, it made life easier. Except, when you realise how many times you have to go here and change into this, it got to be too much: change into Wumba's creature, play as Mumbo Jumbo, one move even had you splitting up into Banjo or Kazooie. At first that seems like a great idea, and the logical next step for the series, but it was usually just an excuse to make a puzzle where you had to use one character to pull this switch or stand on that pad, then the other one to do the same, so rather than being used in an inventive way, it was too often a chore.

Other unnecessary changes, just for the sake of it, included Minjos, evil versions of the Jinjos you had to collect (I grant that the more detailed exploration of Jinjo culture in the story was interesting, to an extent), which would stand innocently around as bait to lure you in, then attack. You could usually tell them apart by their location: if a Jinjo was in an easy to reach area it was probably a Minjo. They also added different honeycombs to the usual life replenishment variety, sometimes making them Skill Honeycombs where you had to press the button to stop it on your health bar and it would fill up to there, or Mystery ones which would stop randomly, so you may have just as well not picked these variations up at all! The scarce Cheato pages of the first game became another collectable, giving you some useful cheats, though I'm not sure they can be called cheats if they're openly available to collect (though I did turn them all off for the final battle, so as to feel a greater sense of achievement). The repetition of time and effort in the game also stretched to the empty Honeycomb pieces. As before, if you collected enough you'd get another piece permanently added to your health bar, but this time you had to actually visit a shop to exchange the collected pieces for what you were given automatically in 'BK'! These unnecessary additions for the sake of extension made the experience galling, and gave the impression of an elaborate plot to disguise the lack of innovation and good game design that had oozed naturally from the earlier game.

To counter the negativity in the game's design I should point to the interesting development of various 'rabbit holes' to connect levels. On one hand, they do create more back and forth options, a symptom of the game's flaws, but on the other, it was quite useful to have shortcuts between levels, and to be able to bring certain things through to solve the odd puzzle, making the greater world seem more cohesive. The biggest connection (between levels which you'd normally see as completely enclosed in games of the time), was the train, which allowed travel between stations in each level, once they'd been opened. The train was an important part of solving certain problems and was an impressive sight at the time. It was also at the heart of my biggest failure in the game: when I originally played it I thought, and always had done until recently, that it wasn't possible to get every Jiggy in the game due to the Gobi the Camel glitch. Put simply, I could never get Gobi to spit out his water into the train's funnel to cool it, despite bouncing on top of him, spitting eggs, and slamming as hard as I could on his hump. This was the only time I had to look up a solution on the internet, because first time round I'd just accepted it must be a glitch as there was no other way. Except there was: I hadn't realised that you could still do the same moves from 'BK,' and that they hadn't been superceded by your new moves. All you had to do was perform a simple Beak Bash (jumping up, then tapping Z once), instead of the Bill Drill (jumping up, then holding Z), which I'd assumed had replaced it!

It was inconsistencies like this that put another dent in my appreciation of the game. Some crates would blow up, others wouldn't; some rocks could be smashed, others couldn't. I can understand that it was technically impossible to make the environment fully interactive, and that inconsistencies like these were par for the course (and may still be?), but I like games to have internal logic, and to be tied to that, so you can work things out in a way that makes sense. Sometimes you get completely stuck in a game, and you want that to be because of a fiendish puzzle, not inconsistency. That said, the value of taking a break from a game and coming back with fresh eyes should not be underrated as I found with the last few items I needed in the game. I had three levels left in which I hadn't collected everything, and after a break of a few days with plenty of thinking time expended upon it, I was able to conquer them all in an hour's play. The Jinjo behind the boiling waterfall on 'Hailfire Peaks' was all I needed there, and I'd thought up a convoluted plan of changing into a statue in 'Mayahem Temple,' before returning and jumping through, but it didn't work! It suddenly clicked: it was as simple as using the golden invincibility feathers. Sometimes the simplest solution…

On 'Grunty Industries,' finding the rear exit to reach the last worker to clean his overalls was a matter of noticing the back room through the glass which had an unused button within, on Floor 1, so I just had to go up a floor, find the clearly marked exit to Floor 1 on Floor 2, and voila, went down as the washing machine and exited nicely! Finally, how to get the beans to grow in 'Cloud Cuckooland'? I wondered if I could get to them as Mumbo, in order to zap them, but in searching for a route I came across his old pad from where he was able to work his magic anyway, even though I'd already emptied the water from the pool, making it rain, watering the beans and providing the beanstalks to success. Phew, what a relief! Even the last Notes Nest which I was missing from my tally in Grunty's lair, was accidentally discovered over by one of the pillars holding up the Beehive, so it was a relief not to have to spend hours fruitlessly searching for those last nagging collectables.

It was these kinds of experiences that brought me back around to the game's side, as the satisfaction of completion could be almost as strong as 'BK.' This acceptance of the flaws and enjoyment regardless made me realise that, yes, it was a good game after all, just not a great one. So many ideas hadn't made a good impression, and so much of the early part of the game gave me a feeling of filling out a form: go here, do this, tick this box. But eventually the goodness was released, it just needed some squeezing. Moody, muted colours, bloated levels and so much padding had hidden the fun core of the game, and no amount of light effects or good music could fully rescue it, but to be able to return to that world of funny-voiced characters with the solid feel to the lands (unlike the plasticky or rubbery textures I have in my memories of 'DK64'), with a number of creatures populating it from 'Banjo-Kazooie' was attractive. So much so, in fact, that I even bought what I believe is the only other Banjo game in existence: the Game Boy Advance's 'Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge,' and it's been a long, long time indeed since I bought a GBA game!

With the danger of ending my review on a high, I'd better say one last thing about the secrets and special items out there, because this was a botch after the promises from 'BK.' The great ice key was used to open a giant safe, which contains the giant Glowbo, which can then be taken to Humba. She then transforms Kazooie into a green, fire-breathing dragon, which although novel, has apparently no effect on the game whatsoever. The eggs, which were the other 'BK' artefacts, found in little N64 cartridges hidden in the lair (in areas devoid of the grand, portentous music from the first game, showing of how little import they really are), which you can eventually hatch, give you mostly minor cheats, such as homing eggs (useful, but not the essential item you might have expected), the Breegull Bash Beak Bomb (I think, but I can't actually remember, that's how exciting the secrets were), and the option to play as a Jinjo in the multiplayer game. I necessarily haven't touched on the multiplayer option because we never played them - experiencing some of the minigames with human opponents might have been a draw, just as 'Super Monkey Ball' on the GameCube was enormous fun in small doses, but the possibility of first-person shooter levels based on the empty and dull FPS sections where Banjo uses Kazooie as an egg-firing gun, never appealed. If you were going to play an FPS on N64 it would be 'Goldeneye' or 'Perfect Dark' - the 'Mayahem Temple' inauguration of this new mode heavily reminiscent of the Temple in 'Goldeneye,' down to the music. It's not what you play a platformer for, and was a bit dark, bland, and tiresome after a while, a maze of mostly emptiness.

One cheat (the final one from Cheato, I think), usefully fixed the Jukebox in 'Jolly Roger's Lagoon.' It was annoying that this was how you did it, as you assume there's a way to fix it yourself, so you exhaust all possibilities before moving on, only to find it was impossible until Cheato fixed it for you! But it was great to be able to play most of the tunes from the game on tap (I say most, as the Beehive isn't included, for example), even if it serves as a reminder that few of them carry a candle to those jaunty tunes of 'Banjo-Kazooie.' Ultimately, that's how I feel about the game as a whole, even the ending rather underwhelming. There's little incentive to get all notes and Jiggies as all that you're rewarded by is a character parade on the cinema options screen. It's a nice touch to be able to replay the cutscenes, or minigames and bosses, one area this game improved on its predecessor, with truly huge opponents to fight, though they rather overshadowed the final battle with Gruntilda as she stays inside her grey mole machine on top of her grey fortress. The party takes place in the revived Bottles' house, underground, and it would have been nice to see the sun shine down upon Banjo's world once more, and revisit the characters now free from the witch's power across the land. But you can't have everything, and you tend to find there's less playability and enjoyment in later parts of games, partly perhaps because less people are going to see them, and also production staff must be getting tired and fed up by the time they approach the finishing line, with deadlines looming after long hours of toil. Sadly, this game can sometimes feel like long hours of toil, too, but if you played the first one, you'll want to play this one as well, as long as you keep your expectations lowered.

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