Price: $100.00 as of 11/21/2009 02:38 EST
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Binding: Video Game
Brand: Nintendo
EAN: 0045496870201
ESRB Age Rating: Everyone
Label: Nintendo
Manufacturer: Nintendo
MPN: 87020
Platform: Nintendo 64
Publisher: Nintendo
Release Date: February 15, 1999
Studio: Nintendo
Features:- The worlds in Banjo-Kazooie are gigantic, and chock full of crazy items to collect
- Musical Notes, Puzzle Pieces, Mumbo Tokens, and Jinjoes are just some of the swag that Banjo must stuff in his backpack to complete his adventure
- While some of the necessary items are simply stashed off the beaten path, others will require puzzle solving skills to turn up.
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Editorial Review:
Editorial Review:
Banjo-Kazooie mimics the look and feel of Mario 64, a truly innovative and visually stunning game that belongs in any Nintendo 64 collection. But don't brush off this 3-D action-adventure as an uninspired clone. On the contrary, Banjo-Kazooie introduces more than enough originality to warrant a spot next to its famous mentor.
The game introduces two of the most charming virtual heroes in recent years--the goofy, floppy honey bear, Banjo, and his faithful, feathered sidekick Kazooie. In the game's introduction, we discover that the sinister witch Gruntilda not only nabbed Banjo's sister Tooty, but stole her beauty as well. Naturally, it's up to the bear-bird team to retrieve Tooty and rid the world of one darned inconsiderate witch.
In this beautifully-rendered and massive game world, players run, jump, swim, climb, and flip over obstacles, defeat all sorts of "baddies," and find and collect numerous items and clues that help the quest to progress. Playing as both Banjo and Kazooie, players hone their characters' actions, learning nearly two dozen special moves that help players expertly defeat foes and successfully tread through the nine worlds.
Banjo-Kazooie is one of those games that can demand hours upon hours of perseverance, patience, and learning of skills to complete. But don't let that discourage you. This epic game is so much fun that reaching the end will be an afterthought. --Eric Twelker
Pros: - Nicely-paced game world filled with well-designed challenges
- Excellent character control with numerous special moves
- Gorgeous graphics
Cons: - Numerous--often complex--special moves may discourage some casual gamers
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
This game has been one of the best I have played throughout my whole life I have played it since I was a kid and even now, it is a timeless classic and will always be one.
Rating: -
I'd played this game a little when it first came out, but I never got around to buying and beating it. Then a friend of mine recently gave me their old N64, and I got my chance. Playing this game took me back to a happy time in my life, when the world was simpler and video games weren't as dark and morbid. I highly recommend it to fans of the classics.
Rating: -
Banjo-Kazooie is an excellent addition to your N64 game collection. It's very similar to Super Mario 64, but beats it in pretty much every aspect. The worlds are bigger, there are more things to do, the graphics are more crisp. Additionally, the game is funny! There are more characters and funny interactions than in Super Mario 64. This is a good game for children and adults. A basic reading level is necessary to understand character dialogue and jokes. One player, 3 save slots.
Rating: -
This game is a classic adventure game, reminiscent of Mario 64 and others. Game play is great with fantastic, colorful, goofy graphics and characters. Just difficult enough to be a fun challenge, but not so hard you break your controller on the wall.
Rating: -
Positive:
+ gameplay is very deep with new elements added all the time
+ worlds are very diverse and have a lot of content
+ music tracks are great and change in style when you're in different spots
+ sharp controls that work well for the most part
Negative:
- you have to start your note count every time you re-enter a world
- camera doesn't always give you the best view you need
Super Mario 64 revolutionized the 3-D platformer; and the amount of people who would deny that are probably fewer than the words in this sentence. But when a revolution comes, what's the point of it being so revolutionary unless something comes of it later on? In video games, a game is a revolution indeed when other games take the basic model and take it to a whole new level, and possibly delivering a game that's even better than the root. Whether it really is a beneficiary of the beloved Mario 64 or Rare is just really, really good at making games, that is where we find Banjo-Kazooie.
Games of the platforming genre aren't exactly known for their amazing stories, and Banjo fares no different. Banjo's little sister Tooty is kidnapped by the stereotypical green witch Gruntilda. She has some sort of weird machine that will supposedly transfer Tooty's beauty to herself, and this will leave Banjo's poor sister ugly in the process! So Banjo and his grumpy bird friend Kazooie (who for some reason lives in Banjo's backpack) set out to Gruntilda's lair to save Tooty. The story doesn't take itself very seriously at all but there's a great, humorous tone to it that more than makes up for the lack of depth.
The game doesn't move from place to place at all; the whole thing takes place in Gruntilda's huge lair, key word being 'huge.' This one location is just so big but perfectly balanced with the ease of traversing that it makes the perfect setting for a platforming game. There is a whole lot of variety within the mountain lair, with a sewer, swamp, graveyard, and many other spots. The areas of different theme will almost always take you to one of the game's nine worlds, which are all big, diverse, and have a lot of stuff to find. You'll find yourself at a mountain to begin the game, then moving on to a beach, and later a snow area and haunted mansion-like world, and so on. The game never really runs out of new material to throw at you, which is really nice, even if most of the themes are found in many other games of the genre, too.
Another way Banjo always keeps itself fresh is with the moves you can learn. In most of the levels you can find a mole named Bottles who will teach you a new move if you can find him. These moves are sometimes confined to certain spots or items you can put on, and they all work together perfectly to make the game progress logically. You have to unlock some of these abilities, such as flight and invincibility, to get deeper into Gruntilda's lair, and also to accomplish more in the worlds. The game controls very well too, even with all the added moves, and it doesn't get too complicated. One issue though is with the camera, which you can control the angle of but you still sometimes can't get the viewpoint that's just right for a room or area.
But the core of the game stays the same, no matter how many moves you learn or different worlds you visit. The main objects to collect are jiggies, which are basically pieces of jigsaw puzzles that, when put together, open the door to a new world. Ten of these can be found in each level along with 100 notes, which open up doors to new areas of the lair. Unfortunately the game's note total is merely a combined high score of how many notes you collect in each level; each time you re-enter a world the note count restarts. This is pretty annoying sometimes, and it would have been nice to just keep all the notes so you don't have to recollect all of them again to advance your total note count. Thankfully the jiggies are extremely well-balanced as far as how hard they are to get; in the first world most of them are sitting on the ground like Easter eggs, but as you progress through the game you have to work much harder to earn your way to more worlds.
Graphically Banjo kept up to date well enough. The visuals are just a tad choppy, but they still look good enough, and that sort of thing happened all the time in the N64 era. Sometimes objects that are a little ways away won't appear on screen until you get closer, which thankfully doesn't prove to be too annoying but still would be good if fixed. Despite these few flaws, though, the graphics look great considering the times.
One of Banjo's shining areas aside from gameplay is the sound. The characters speak in a gibberish sort of language (with text shown on the bottom of the screen) and this might annoy some but it's still good to add personality to each character. The sound effects are all good too, ... Read More
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