ROMHack of Banjo-Kazooie by Kurkomods, available here. Released May 7th, 2025
With my own attempts at video game journalism coinciding largely with the rising popularity of retro-inspired games — your modern Metroidvanias, pixel-heavy 2D platformers, and faux-early 3D adventure titles — I’ve had and abandoned my own affair with the phrase “love letter.” It comes up all the time and it’s hard to get away from because of its ubiquity. Every game is a “love letter” to a particular genre or era or game. It’s rarely inaccurate — a game like Kaze and the Wild Masks, for example, is a top to bottom tribute to the SNES Donkey Kong Country titles that doesn’t hesitate to show its hand as soon as you pick up a controller. It’s just that if I ever think about it while I’m playing something nowadays, I can practically feel my professors over my shoulder telling me that I should be better than a simple cliche. But if I were to ever have a real send-off to the phrase “a love letter to x,” I think Mark Kurko has made the case for it with his now-complete version of Banjo-Kazooie: Nostalgia 64.
One look at the man’s resume will give you a pretty good idea of what Mr. Kurkomods enjoys in his gaming. He loves Rare Ltd. He loves Banjo-Kazooie. He loves the Nintendo 64. In addition to his many other Banjo-Kazooie ROMHacks, including one for each N64 Zelda title, and a number of other mods with original levels and concepts, Kurko has been working on the content of Nostalgia 64 for about five years now, having begun the project in Summer 2020 as a pandemic-inspired romp through the 64 library titled “Stay at Home.” What then began as something new to do and release consistent updates on to keep folks entertained during COVID lockdown has evolved from there to this full-sized adventure through many of the N64’s most beloved titles — or at least, those not already given a full spotlight in his other works already.
Both a trip through the N64 itself, as well as a new Banjo-Kazooie adventure and a sightseeing tour of some of the system’s greatest games, Nostalgia 64 offers full Banjo levels, each with nine Jiggies and 100 notes to collect. Based on some of the most iconic and recognizable levels and scenes from a variety of games and genres like Diddy Kong Racing, Goldeneye 007, and Pokemon Snap, the anticipation of which parts of these games being used and how they’ll become a proper Banjo level is itself one of the game’s greatest joys. It makes it equally exciting to go through familiar territory like the Dam at Arkhangelsk or DK Isle where you’re likely to know the lay of the land as it is to explore off the usual track in Pokémon Snap or find out what Diddy Kong Racing’s Haunted Woods has going on in all those buildings.
There may not be anything exceptionally offbeat for ways to collect the Jiggies in each level — no timed mini games and only a few Mumbo transformations — but hidden panels, timer challenges, platforming tests, and, of course, collecting the five Jinjos in each area are all here to run the gamut of what you might find in any given Banjo level and it never feels like you’re playing something less than just because you’re not triggering some chain reaction between NPCs or a special mechanic you’ll only use on one level. Each level also falls at vastly different points on the spectrum for how much Banjo-Kazooie spin has been put on it. An early example of this variance comes in the three stages based on Super Mario 64, with Jolly Roger Bay having little aesthetic difference from the original, while Bob-Omb Battlefield has almost been combined with Jinjo Village despite the same general level layout.
What really ties everything together, though, and makes this something really special, more than just picking levels and using character models, is that Kurko really gets the original game and the company that made it. Recreating the music from the original titles in the BK sound font, writing plenty of new dialogue for various characters — both Banjo characters and outside characters who are now appearing in a Banjo game — and just generally designing the collectathon style in tremendously clever ways, even with the restriction of working off the original game’s code.
The reason I think of this as that ultimate “love letter” title, then, isn’t that I think it’s more heavily inspired by something or that it has to make all these direct references — it’s because a ROMHack, one this fully-realized, complete, and polished, can only be made out of passion and dedication. And even more so than something like Smash Remix, a massive group project that redefines what the N64 can do in so many ways, having Nostalgia 64 be the long-term vision of mostly just one person, one who by definition cannot make any significant profit from it, it can only be a labor of immense love and appreciation for the games on display here. I cannot recommend Nostalgia 64 enough, even for those who aren’t that into Banjo-Kazooie, because even if somehow you love the N64 like I do and don’t even care that much about the pair, experiencing the reverence with which it’s been treated here is still a delight that hardly be passed up.
