Banjo-Tooie

Developer: Rare, Ltd. Publisher: Nintendo

Released: November 20, 2000 Rated: E 9/10

Banjo-Tooie is a big game. Relative to the N64, one might very well say it is staggering. The textbook example of aiming for a sequel to be bigger, better, and badder in every way compared to its predecessor, Banjo-Tooie is also one half of a tandem of titles that seems easy to dunk on in the modern day for this very reason. Along with the even more notorious Donkey Kong 64 a year earlier, Banjo-Tooie is often placed on the lower end of Rare’s weighted scale of hits for the N64. And while assessments and labels like “bloated,” “confusing,” and “overly ambitious” might bear a kernel of truth, they’re only the result of an overly critical eye with which we typically view the British company’s well-documented slew of hits that still largely hold up today.

The shaky frame rate on offer, particularly while traversing the overworld and many of Banjo-Tooie’s other large, open areas, make it one of the few games where the Xbox port is objectively better to play.

Few sequels truly come into existence with the benefit of a foundation that essentially requires no tweaking to garner success. Looking back on Banjo-Kazooie, and what it delivered at the time it was released in Spring of 1998, there would be no need to tweak the controls, game feel, or structure of a title that raised the already high bar for 3D platformers — a genre with no signs of fading in popularity for the rest of this generation. Banjo-Kazooie controls like second nature, even by the end of the first game with the duo’s arsenal of moves filling out the whole journey. It packs in even more charm than Super Mario 64 in most places, with its cast of characters, signature Rare dialogue and humor, and masterful music and sound design. From all angles, the only right answer to follow it up is “more.” More characters, more moves, more levels, more jokes and more sass, more left-field memorable moments, and at the time, even Donkey Kong 64’s tremendous success the year prior would hardly indicate the need to pull back on the reins.

Previews of the “horny on main” vibes coming up in Conker’s Bad Fur Day

And so there aren’t actually very many “problems” when it comes to Banjo-Tooie, mostly just nitpicks and other examples of players being more overwhelmed than disappointed. Oddly enough, though, three of these issues come up almost immediately when starting the game, which I believe also bodes poorly for how Banjo-Tooie is remembered nowadays, as new or lapsed players will make these judgments rather quickly. For starters, the intro sequence is long. In fact, the whole beginning to the game is more in line with a JRPG as far as how long it takes to get going, but the opening story cutscenes don’t help move this along, especially when you can feel the whole console practically stopping to take a breath before moving onto the next one — no loading screens, after all. This also ties into the next issue which is that the frame rate is noticeably unstable. I don’t use the word “noticeably” lightly either, as I, well, almost never notice these types of things, but walking through the ghost town of Jinjo Village or through the interconnecting tunnels in the overworld, you’ll see a choppiness reminiscent of some of Goldeneye’s most hectic, explosion-ridden missions, and little else on the system. It’s this technical limitation encountered by the N64’s most talented dev team that even suggests that the console was hitting its glass ceiling and that Tooie would be one of its swan songs.

The final step in unlocking new areas is to place your Jiggies into a moving puzzle showing the new area. It’s similar to that of Banjo-Kazooie, but now in a timed challenge.

So if it’s supposed to send off the system in its defining genre — Conker’s Bad Fur Day is still yet to come, but a much more linear adventure, among many other differences — how does it compare to its predecessor, the previous high-water mark, in key areas like level design? Rare’s philosophy for Tooie was to aim insanely high, and in most cases, they hit their marks. Levels are massive, which isn’t always for the best, but the variety and creativity in their theming and mission designs is often superior. While the comparisons will inevitably favor the spread of Banjo-Kazooie’s iconic worlds, level concepts like the shoddy theme park trappings of Witchyworld and the prehistoric Terrydactyland break free from a lot of its contemporaries’ usual roadmap, and its predecessor’s reuse of certain tropes. Its mission structure then finishes the job in delivering a constantly fresh and creative slew of missions, characters, and gameplay ideas, including character challenges, mini-games, and varied uses of the duo’s massive arsenal of moves that continues to grow, even on top of those from the first game. There are also some wise choices on Rare’s part, such as dialing back the focus on collecting notes. With so many things to populate the levels like egg and feather pickups and ability pads, together with the much larger and more sprawling levels, the consolidation of notes into only 16 pickups per area (in five and 10-note bunches) does its part to streamline the type of gameplay that its own sequel would eventually chastise for its perceived tedium.

Visually, Banjo-Tooie is trademark Rare style through and through, loaded with anthropomorphic animals of every shape and size, each boasting big saccharine cartoon faces and with a matching silly noise to stand in for their dialogue. Grant Kirkhope is on point as always, though, like the level designs, it’s hard to say the compositions are as memorable as those of Banjo-Kazooie. This may also owe to a considerable restraint, or at least a more dynamically varied approach to some of the tracks. Kirkhope still does an excellent job creating variations of each piece that transition smoothly between different areas of a level, but it’s much more common to find that instead of an up-tempo busy-bee of a theme, it’s a more subdued, ambient theme with a limited but particular instrumentation, though still typically on the melodic side.

Possibly the only real failure in meeting the standards of the original is the overworld, the Isle O’ Hags, which pales in comparison to the genius layout and character of Gruntilda’s Lair. To say it’s confusing is one thing, but the place is just too damn big and empty, often feeling like each area is spread out twice as much as necessary just for the sake of being “big” or “expansive.” The remainder of the game isn’t completely innocent of this trend, but it’s only in the overworld where this feels like a consistent source of frustration.

No shortage of funky characters here, whether they be new or returning.

Of course, none of this would be quite as enjoyable were it not for Rare’s trademark charm, penchant for character design, and irreverent humor, all of which is on full display. Along with bringing the cocky, wise-cracking Gruntilda back alongside her two equally witchy sisters, other new characters like Humba Wumba become major players as Rare sees fit to double down on magic wielders, moving Mumbo Jumbo into playable character territory. We even open with the outright death of Bottles the Mole, as he’s replaced by his drill sergeant brother, Jamjars, to teach us all these numerous new moves, such as grenade eggs and, of course, Banjo and Kazooie splitting up and having their own solo abilities. And on top of the laundry list of new and returning items and abilities, we even see Rare dipping back into their FPS success with actual shooter sections on top of several other mini games. This even leads into Banjo-Tooie’s almost-obligatory-by-this-point multiplayer mode, which offers splitscreen versions of these segments in deathmatch style, as well as a few other score attack style mini-games repurposed from the campaign.

Playing Banjo-Tooie now, it’s almost crazy to think that Rare had ever intended to keep expanding within the confines of the N64 hardware, with Dinosaur Planet (eventually Star Fox Adventures for the GameCube) having a lot of overlapping development time and being intended for an N64 release most of that time. Banjo-Tooie is massive, and when taking into account that there is a lot of backtracking, character swapping (if you count the transformations), and various ways in which the levels interconnect with each other, it’s even more sprawling than Donkey Kong 64, which has even more of a reputation in this regard. The fact that it’s less prevalent, but still easily identifiable as the bigger and crazier sequel to an all-time classic probably doesn’t hurt, even if the online discourse hits a lot of the same talking points. Even if it’s not a perfect package, a lot of what Banjo-Tooie brings to the table is really impressive and really worth seeing as how the collect-a-thon genre peaked on the system that is still defined by it.