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Banjo-Kazooie: The Bear, the Bird and the Witch. (Banjo-Tooie out now!)
Undead Scottsman
Cybertronian Paranormal EliminatorRegistered User regular
Cybertronian Paranormal EliminatorRegistered User regular
Welcome to the Banjo Kazooie thread, which I was conscripted against my will to create, so I don't wanna hear any bitching 
Banjo-Koozie is a platforming franchise made by Rare, which started with the N64 title “Banjo-Kazooie†released in 1998. It follows the adventures of a honey bear named Banjo and a “red-crested breegull†bird named Kazooie, who hangs out in Banjo’s backpack. Together they fight against the evil, rhyming witch Gruntilda in her various schemes to make peoples lives terrible. The series started out as a 3D platformer on the N64, reminiscent - some would say clone - of Super Mario 64.
In these games, Banjo and Kazooie worked together, and sometimes apart, to perform special moves to complete tasks in order to collect the coveted Jiggies: golden Jigsaw pieces that are pretty much equivalent to stars from Super Mario 64. They also collect musical notes, honeycomb pieces, Jinjos, Mumbo tokens, Cheato pages, glowbos, and numerous powerups to aid their fight: Yes, this is an oldschool collect-a-thon.
Along the way they work with a colorful cast of characters who aid the duo in various ways, from transforming them into animals and objects, to teaching them new moves or otherwise performing other tasks.
After the second game, Banjo-Tooie in 2000, Rare was sold to Microsoft and the series disappeared for 8 years (Aside from a couple of GBA games) until 2008 and the release of Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts. N&B is a departure from BK’s collect-a-thon platforming roots. In it, you are stripped of your variety of moves and given a magical wrench in which to use to build a myriad of vehicles, lego-style, to accomplish many, many tasks and collect Jiggies, musical notes and vehicle parts. Okay, so it’s STILL a collect-a-thon.
The series is notable for it’s inclusion of Rare’s trademark humor, and it’s dynamic music: wherein the instruments behind a given tune will change depending on a location, so in, say, Treasure Trove Cove, you'll hear a nice tropical tune, but it'll shift to a more naval tune as you approach the Pirate Ship, all the while being the same tune.
Finally, the series has probably one of the most frothed after secret feature in a game, ever: The fabled Stop 'n Swop system.
STOP 'N' SWAP
Originally in 1998, when you beat Banjo-Kazooie with all 100 jiggies, Mumbo would reveal the existence of secrets in the game that the player couldn't reach, including some mysterious eggs and an ice key, and that these things would be used in the sequel, Banjo-Tooie. This caused no small amount of rumor and conversation about what they did and how the transfer between the two games would work. However, the feature never materialized, and in Banjo-Tooie, players acquired the secrets by beating them out of Banjo-Kazooie carts that was hopping around the gameworld.
Eventually, after much haxoring and admittances from Rare, it was revealed that special codes, which would have been given out in BT, would unlock the Eggs and Key in BK. The player would gather the eggs (six in all, not just two like was shown) and key, and then after they were collected, the player would shut off their N64, and switch cartaiges from BK to BT, at which point BT would read the code left by BK in the N64’s ram and unlock the items in BT. However a running change to the N64 hardware made it so the system would only keep the data for less than a second rather than the 10 or more it would before, making it nearly impossible to swap the games fast enough. The feature was scrapped and became the stuff of internet legend for 8 years.
However, thanks to modern technology, the Stop ‘n Swap feature will be getting brought back not once, but TWICE!. First as a connectivity feature between the XBLA port of BK and Nuts and Bolts (unlocking special novelty vehicle parts in N&B), and then as a connectivity feature between BK and an upcoming XBLA port of BT.
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/47864.html
The Games
Banjo-Kazooie ($15 on Live Arcade)
Originally released in 1998 for the N64, Banjo-Kazooie set the setting and characters in motion. After Grunty kidnaps Banjo’s sister in order to steal her beauty, Banjo and Kazooie embark on a journey into Gruntilda’s lair and the various worlds contained within. Bottles the Mole aids the duo by teaching them new moves, and Mumbo Jumbo the shaman helps by transforming the duo into various creatures. This help is needed, because the pair need Jiggies to complete the puzzles to open up new worlds, and musical notes to open up doors blocking their way. After fighting their way through the 9 unique worlds and Gruntilda’s lair, the player it met with board game trivia challenge where they are quizzed on everything from random trivia from the game, to special trivia given out by hidden NPC’s, to identifying sounds, music and pictures from the game, to retrying boss fights and puzzles. After beating the triva game, the duo fights Grunty, and eventually knocks her down her tower, where after impacting into the ground, she is buried under a boulder. Even her loyal minion Klungo is unable to free her.
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/40453.html
Banjo-Tooie ($15 on Live Arcade)
Originally released in 2000, also for the N64, this chapter has Grunty returning from her defeat in the first title: dead but not out, she is rescued by her sisters. She then devises a plan to harvest life force from the world to regenerate her skeletal form. After the death of Bottles the Mole, Banjo and Kazooie set out to defeat the Witch once again. This time the pair can split up to access new, individual moves, and Mumbo Jumbo hops out of his Skull house to aid the duo by performing various feats of Magic. In his place in the transformation department is another shaman named Humba Wumba; and teaching the pair new moves in Bottles’ brother, the militant mole Sgt. Jamjars (who, unlike his brother, charges the team musical notes for the new moves.) Banjo and Kazooie make their way through the Ilse ‘O Hags and the 8 worlds contained within it. A feature not seen in the original is the massive interconnectivity between the worlds; you’ll often be moving between the worlds without even visiting the overworld, as objectives require do a thing in one world to access it in another. (There’s even a train that travels between several of the worlds). After crushing Klungo enough times that he decides to stop henching, the game again ends with a trivia competition, followed by a boss fight with Grunty. After her defeat, she winds up as nothing more than a skeletal head being used as a hacky-sack. And just in case you didn't see it above, the XBLA release includes the long awaiting, true blue, Stop ‘n Swap connection between Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie.
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/48269.html
Banjo-Pilot
Originally Diddy Kong Racing, after Rare was sold to Microsoft, the title was rebranded with Rare characters. Not much to note about this.
Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty’s Revenge
The franchises only 2D platforming adventure, Grunty’s Revenge was made by THQ and released for the GBA in 2001. It revolved around a bizarre plot to say the least. In-between BK and BT, Klungo builds a Mecha-Grunty for Grunty to possess as a ghost, she then kidnaps Kazooie and travels back in time to prevent Banjo and Kazooie from ever meeting, and therefore never combining forces to defeat her in Banjo-Kazooie. Got all that? Mumbo sends Banjo back in time to rescue Kazooie and stop Grunty. Banjo is aided by past Mumbo (who does transformations) and a distant relative of Bottles, named Bozzeye, who teaches new moves. Banjo rescues Kazooie, travels between the games 5 worlds, and defeats Mecha-Grunty. Grunty is banished back to her body under the boulder, so she sends Klungo off to get her sisters and Banjo/Kazooie decides to invite Bottles and Mumbo over for a card game.
Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts ($25-$30 at Amazon.com)
8 years pass….
Banjo and Kazooie have grown fat and lazy, having no more adventures to do, but Grunty’s skeletal head interrupts their retirement, forcing the obese duo and get ready to battle their skull adversary. Before hilarity can ensure, the LORD OF GAMES (who is the creator of all video games) interrupts their fight. Giving Banjo and Kazooie back their fit forms, and giving Gruntilda a mechanical body and a ferocious housecat, he enlists the Bear, Bird and Witch into a new competition, with the winner taking Banjo’s home of Spiral Mountain. Stripping the duo of all the moves they learned in the previous games, L.O.G. makes the new rules clear: vehicles are the new order of the day. Giving Kazooie a magic wrench with which to assemble these new vehicles, the pair mast battle Grunty and accomplish a multitude of tasks and challenges across Showdown Town and the five worlds, in order to return to Spiral Mountain and defeat Gruntilda once again.
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/36229.html
L.O.G.’s Lost Challenges (400 points on Xbox Live)
Hungry for more nuts? (And bolts?) Nuts and Bolts DLC: New challenges, new multiplayer game modes, new achievements and a new Klungo arcade game.
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/47421.html
Banjo-Koozie is a platforming franchise made by Rare, which started with the N64 title “Banjo-Kazooie†released in 1998. It follows the adventures of a honey bear named Banjo and a “red-crested breegull†bird named Kazooie, who hangs out in Banjo’s backpack. Together they fight against the evil, rhyming witch Gruntilda in her various schemes to make peoples lives terrible. The series started out as a 3D platformer on the N64, reminiscent - some would say clone - of Super Mario 64.
In these games, Banjo and Kazooie worked together, and sometimes apart, to perform special moves to complete tasks in order to collect the coveted Jiggies: golden Jigsaw pieces that are pretty much equivalent to stars from Super Mario 64. They also collect musical notes, honeycomb pieces, Jinjos, Mumbo tokens, Cheato pages, glowbos, and numerous powerups to aid their fight: Yes, this is an oldschool collect-a-thon.
Along the way they work with a colorful cast of characters who aid the duo in various ways, from transforming them into animals and objects, to teaching them new moves or otherwise performing other tasks.
After the second game, Banjo-Tooie in 2000, Rare was sold to Microsoft and the series disappeared for 8 years (Aside from a couple of GBA games) until 2008 and the release of Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts. N&B is a departure from BK’s collect-a-thon platforming roots. In it, you are stripped of your variety of moves and given a magical wrench in which to use to build a myriad of vehicles, lego-style, to accomplish many, many tasks and collect Jiggies, musical notes and vehicle parts. Okay, so it’s STILL a collect-a-thon.
The series is notable for it’s inclusion of Rare’s trademark humor, and it’s dynamic music: wherein the instruments behind a given tune will change depending on a location, so in, say, Treasure Trove Cove, you'll hear a nice tropical tune, but it'll shift to a more naval tune as you approach the Pirate Ship, all the while being the same tune.
Finally, the series has probably one of the most frothed after secret feature in a game, ever: The fabled Stop 'n Swop system.
STOP 'N' SWAP
Originally in 1998, when you beat Banjo-Kazooie with all 100 jiggies, Mumbo would reveal the existence of secrets in the game that the player couldn't reach, including some mysterious eggs and an ice key, and that these things would be used in the sequel, Banjo-Tooie. This caused no small amount of rumor and conversation about what they did and how the transfer between the two games would work. However, the feature never materialized, and in Banjo-Tooie, players acquired the secrets by beating them out of Banjo-Kazooie carts that was hopping around the gameworld.
Eventually, after much haxoring and admittances from Rare, it was revealed that special codes, which would have been given out in BT, would unlock the Eggs and Key in BK. The player would gather the eggs (six in all, not just two like was shown) and key, and then after they were collected, the player would shut off their N64, and switch cartaiges from BK to BT, at which point BT would read the code left by BK in the N64’s ram and unlock the items in BT. However a running change to the N64 hardware made it so the system would only keep the data for less than a second rather than the 10 or more it would before, making it nearly impossible to swap the games fast enough. The feature was scrapped and became the stuff of internet legend for 8 years.
However, thanks to modern technology, the Stop ‘n Swap feature will be getting brought back not once, but TWICE!. First as a connectivity feature between the XBLA port of BK and Nuts and Bolts (unlocking special novelty vehicle parts in N&B), and then as a connectivity feature between BK and an upcoming XBLA port of BT.
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/47864.html
The Games
Banjo-Kazooie ($15 on Live Arcade)
Originally released in 1998 for the N64, Banjo-Kazooie set the setting and characters in motion. After Grunty kidnaps Banjo’s sister in order to steal her beauty, Banjo and Kazooie embark on a journey into Gruntilda’s lair and the various worlds contained within. Bottles the Mole aids the duo by teaching them new moves, and Mumbo Jumbo the shaman helps by transforming the duo into various creatures. This help is needed, because the pair need Jiggies to complete the puzzles to open up new worlds, and musical notes to open up doors blocking their way. After fighting their way through the 9 unique worlds and Gruntilda’s lair, the player it met with board game trivia challenge where they are quizzed on everything from random trivia from the game, to special trivia given out by hidden NPC’s, to identifying sounds, music and pictures from the game, to retrying boss fights and puzzles. After beating the triva game, the duo fights Grunty, and eventually knocks her down her tower, where after impacting into the ground, she is buried under a boulder. Even her loyal minion Klungo is unable to free her.
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/40453.html
Banjo-Tooie ($15 on Live Arcade)
Originally released in 2000, also for the N64, this chapter has Grunty returning from her defeat in the first title: dead but not out, she is rescued by her sisters. She then devises a plan to harvest life force from the world to regenerate her skeletal form. After the death of Bottles the Mole, Banjo and Kazooie set out to defeat the Witch once again. This time the pair can split up to access new, individual moves, and Mumbo Jumbo hops out of his Skull house to aid the duo by performing various feats of Magic. In his place in the transformation department is another shaman named Humba Wumba; and teaching the pair new moves in Bottles’ brother, the militant mole Sgt. Jamjars (who, unlike his brother, charges the team musical notes for the new moves.) Banjo and Kazooie make their way through the Ilse ‘O Hags and the 8 worlds contained within it. A feature not seen in the original is the massive interconnectivity between the worlds; you’ll often be moving between the worlds without even visiting the overworld, as objectives require do a thing in one world to access it in another. (There’s even a train that travels between several of the worlds). After crushing Klungo enough times that he decides to stop henching, the game again ends with a trivia competition, followed by a boss fight with Grunty. After her defeat, she winds up as nothing more than a skeletal head being used as a hacky-sack. And just in case you didn't see it above, the XBLA release includes the long awaiting, true blue, Stop ‘n Swap connection between Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie.
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/48269.html
Banjo-Pilot
Originally Diddy Kong Racing, after Rare was sold to Microsoft, the title was rebranded with Rare characters. Not much to note about this.
Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty’s Revenge
The franchises only 2D platforming adventure, Grunty’s Revenge was made by THQ and released for the GBA in 2001. It revolved around a bizarre plot to say the least. In-between BK and BT, Klungo builds a Mecha-Grunty for Grunty to possess as a ghost, she then kidnaps Kazooie and travels back in time to prevent Banjo and Kazooie from ever meeting, and therefore never combining forces to defeat her in Banjo-Kazooie. Got all that? Mumbo sends Banjo back in time to rescue Kazooie and stop Grunty. Banjo is aided by past Mumbo (who does transformations) and a distant relative of Bottles, named Bozzeye, who teaches new moves. Banjo rescues Kazooie, travels between the games 5 worlds, and defeats Mecha-Grunty. Grunty is banished back to her body under the boulder, so she sends Klungo off to get her sisters and Banjo/Kazooie decides to invite Bottles and Mumbo over for a card game.
Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts ($25-$30 at Amazon.com)
8 years pass….
Banjo and Kazooie have grown fat and lazy, having no more adventures to do, but Grunty’s skeletal head interrupts their retirement, forcing the obese duo and get ready to battle their skull adversary. Before hilarity can ensure, the LORD OF GAMES (who is the creator of all video games) interrupts their fight. Giving Banjo and Kazooie back their fit forms, and giving Gruntilda a mechanical body and a ferocious housecat, he enlists the Bear, Bird and Witch into a new competition, with the winner taking Banjo’s home of Spiral Mountain. Stripping the duo of all the moves they learned in the previous games, L.O.G. makes the new rules clear: vehicles are the new order of the day. Giving Kazooie a magic wrench with which to assemble these new vehicles, the pair mast battle Grunty and accomplish a multitude of tasks and challenges across Showdown Town and the five worlds, in order to return to Spiral Mountain and defeat Gruntilda once again.
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/36229.html
L.O.G.’s Lost Challenges (400 points on Xbox Live)
Hungry for more nuts? (And bolts?) Nuts and Bolts DLC: New challenges, new multiplayer game modes, new achievements and a new Klungo arcade game.
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/47421.html
Undead Scottsman on
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Posts
...If there is, do point them out.
Otherwise, I thought Tooie was excellent. The new moves for Banjo and Kazooie were sublime, and I especially love how they could split up now and do even more crazy shit. And while the worlds were a little daunting in their size, how they all interconnected was really cool. Generally I find it worthy sequel.
And yes, more BK games please. A new Nuts and Bolts game would be okay, but I'd love a new traditional platformer.
I remember seeing those secret eggs and big-ass key during the first game in my youth, and getting excited over it. And all it did in the second game was give me a useless extra melee move and turn my bird into a dragon (kinda cool).
I can't remember what the pink egg but it was probably something retarded. Are they going to explain all of the other eggs or what?
EDIT: Tooie was great, but yeah, it was fucking massive; Grundies Industries itself dwarfed every level in the previous game.
I did find it hilarious how Kazooie got all the useful moves when the pair spit up, both old and new, while Banjo just found different ways to hop into his backpack.
The pink one gave you homing shots IIRC.
And they're not going to explain what they do, they're going to let us find out for ourselves since it's being reimplemented for BT's XBLA release!
Godfather, Stop N Swap is really kind of complicated. Originally, it was going to do SOMETHING in Tooie as well as Donkey Kong 64. Nobody knows what exactly it was going to do though because Rare absolutely refuses to talk about it. You can say it was originally going to do what it ended up doing in Tooie but we have no proof. It's possible that they just changed it to do that stuff at the last second because honestly, extra multiplayer characters and one good cheat code are a shitty ass reward. I'm pretty sure we have even less of an idea of what it was going to do in DK64.
This screenshot is hilarious
http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o204/UndeadScottsman2/log2.jpg
Looks like Grunty's been working out. I bet that's how she would of looked today if she successfully captured Banjo's sister.
A good interview about the Tooie port: http://mundorare.com/features/behind-the-fur-and-feathers-with-4j-studios Basically it says we can look foward to stop and swap and a better framerate, but no Xbox Live multiplayer or Bottle's Revenge (lame).
Also, I would bet money that it wasn't going to do anything with DK64 and that the references found in the gamecode were engine leftovers. I don't have any way to prove that of course.
EDIT: Godfather, if you pick "Quit Game" in Banjo-Kazooie before you rescue Tooty, the process goes through and that is pretty much what Gruntilda winds up looking like. Tooty winds up as an Ogre.
And given the fact that she dissapeared from the series, I don't think anyone really would have minded if that's how it happened.
True.
And the GBA camera thing isn't THAT silly. We eventually saw that feature years later on the Xbox 360 and the Vision Camera. It only got axed because Nintendo got up in arms about kids being able to shoot people with their friends faces, IIRC.
That was a feature they were going to put in? Seriously?
Our lord and master Wikipedia sez
EDIT: I think the real reason they dropped it is because pratically no one had both a Gameboy Camera and an N64 transfer pack. Certainly not enough to bother with that feature, IMO.
Now I really want to finish B&N whilst waiting for Tooie.
I really hope Rare continues the series.
Nonsense, you could connect PD on GBC! Granted it wasn't worth it, but still they knew people had those transfer packs! You could also use the printer with PD on GBC and even less people owned the printer than the camera.
...I also preferred Banjo-Tooie over Banjo-Kazooie. Looking back, I'm beginning to think that the trouble I had with my transfer pak might have been influenced by karma resulting from this.
I got mine from Pokemon Stadium, and I'm not embarassed to admit that.
On replay through XBLA recently, the B-K levels did seem a lot more manageable/smaller than 10 years ago, so hopefully B-T will not feel so overwhelming this time. I mean, since then I've gotten used to Morrowind/Oblivion etc so B-T's gameworlds should not feel so Epic. Some of the N&B levels were pretty massive too (kinda negated by using a rocket ship to traverse them though!).
Edit: Nice OP too Scottsman :^:
XBL/PSN/Steam: APZonerunner
Did they do anything to the graphics of the original when they ported it to XBLA?
And how well did Nuts & Bolts sale?
I think they touched it up a little to get rid of jaggies? Don't quote me on that though. Banjo and Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts sold around 500,000 according to VG Chartz
I think it's more that Columbine happened right before Perfect Dark's release. Nintendo and Rare weren't stupid, and it was up to Rare anyway because Rare was publishing the game, not Nintendo.
Not much changed about the graphics, though I think things are slightly smoother. It's hard to say, because I have a hard time remembering just how horrid graphics were back on the N64. It also has full widescreen support.
http://www.audioentropy.com/
They replaced the HUD graphics (for better or worse) and it runs in native 1080p if you have a monitor or TV that supports it. They also pushed the draw distance out to $HOLYSHIT, so you'll actually see characters walking in place in the distance because you couldn't actually see them on the N64.
I think this might have actually resulted in Tooie's low framerate because I seem to remember the draw distance was really far out on that one, because it released a year or two after all the video game sites and magazines started whining about fog a lot. One of the review points for a game was "How much fog?" Nowadays though, people want fog in their games for atmosphere.
The only textures that changed were all the instances of the Rare logo. Instead of the old blue and gold, they're just black boxes with the Rare 'R' in them (it actually looks kind of bad), and some of the in game text is changed to remove Nintendo references. And all the ending text is changed to reference Nuts and Bolts instead of Tooie.
However, the Nintendo credits are still there at the end of the game, but they duct taped MS credits onto the end.
Feel free to add me: Pemulis
Huh? You couldn't beat any world completely except for the last one on your first time through. Even then I'm not quite sure on my memory for that. Every world before that though definitely requires coming back later.
http://www.audioentropy.com/
I'm pretty sure he's referring to Tooie and in Tooie you have to backtrack. Sometimes it's just for the last step of a quest, like the.... rat(?) in Mayahem Temple, but you still have to backtrack for it.
No, he's saying that in BK you could beat every world without back-tracking, and the fact that that wasn't the case with BT is what turned him off to it.
http://www.audioentropy.com/
I'd get as many jiggies as possible, as after awhile you start getting the super vehicle parts which makes building an anti-grunty vehicle a lot easier. Also there's a bigass log challege in Spiral Mountain before you can fight grunty.
Make sure you get all the crates in town too.
Also, does BK force widescreen on SD?
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They fixed the text, and no, widescreen is not forced.
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