Banjo Kazooie

[Joeiss]

One of last generation's best games. I just brought out my N64 yesterday, and I am hooked.

Discuss.

[Typhoid]

I used to go to my friends house every day after school and we used to play this for a few hours every day.

Same with Donkey Kong 64.

[GameMaster]

It received a significant amount of hype, partly due to being marketed as the game that would be to the N64 what Donkey Kong Country was to the SNES in terms of an advancement in graphics. I never was able to beat it and I never played Banjo Tooie. It was fun though. The problem was I would get scared by some of the enemies. Same thing happened with Pilot Wings and Super Mario 64. Some bady guys just scare me or creep me out.

Some interesting information you might want to look into Joeiss:

An unusual feature of Banjo-Kazooie was that the game contained several items (specifically, a key made of ice and several different-colored eggs with question marks on them) that could not be accessed in a normal manner, or even seen, with the Ice Key being the exception (it can be seen behind a translucent wall in a walrus's cave). However, players may notice some suspicious, unaccessible areas (like a rock jutting out of the ground called "Sharkfood Island," a stone door that never opens, and a locked barrel with an X on it), but some of the eggs appear in places that are commonly accessible; the eggs don't appear until they are unlocked. A completion of the game with 100 jiggies would tease the player with some glimpses of a player entering the (now unlocked) area and standing in front of the item. Rare announced that these areas were only to be reached by completing certain tasks in the sequel, Banjo-Tooie, and linking that game up with the original in some unspecified way to unlock them (this was later to be dubbed "Stop n' Swop" by the screen which lets a player see the items). While the code for this presumably exists in the Banjo-Kazooie cartridge and has been sought after, the rest of it was apparently never implemented in Banjo-Tooie although smaller versions of the Ice Key and the purple and blue eggs could be found in Banjo-Tooie; no way to link the games has ever been found and Rare has said nothing more on the topic except to comment on the Banjo-Kazooie fanbase's fascination with it and to include reference to it in future games. Ways to reach the secret areas in Banjo-Kazooie have been found by entering certain GameShark codes, and in-game 'cheat codes' in the sandcastle at Treasure Trove Cove have been discovered to unlock access to the secret items. However, once a player has an item, he can never be rid of it: The items taken are taken in each of the three files of the game and do not disappear even when data is erased.

Banjo-Kazooie has more unusual features than just the aforementioned items, however. One of the most prominent is the existence of two doors with knockers shaped like a goblin's head. When they were opened with a GameShark, they led out a few steps and then collapsed into a bottomless pit.

A popular explanation for this fiasco is that the linkage was originally intended to be accomplished by use of the Expansion Pak to the Nintendo 64 system, which would allow data to be stored in the pack while cartridges were "hot-swapped." Originally, it was planned that the Expansion Pak would be packaged with Banjo-Tooie, however, Rareware decided instead to include it with Donkey Kong 64. It would be unreasonable to expect players to buy the expansion pack solely for Stop 'n' Swop, so Rare decided to use a rather complicated three-way swapping system between Banjo-Kazooie, Banjo-Tooie, and Donkey Kong 64; this is evidenced by various references to Banjo-Kazooie in beta versions of Donkey Kong 64 such as a shower in Donkey Kong's treehouse with Banjo and Kazooie on it. Unfortunately, this was too complicated, and the whole Stop 'n' Swop venture was scrapped. This storyline has not been officially confirmed by Rare, but hackers have found lines of code in all three games that seem to support this line of reasoning.

[DarrenMcLeod]

This is crazy that you brought this game up.

My girlfriend doesn't have a GameCube or any other system, just NES, SNES, and N64, and she owned B-K but never played it because it was "too hard". Anyways, about a week ago she started playing it, but then got stuck on Treasure Trove Cove. I gave her my strategy guide for the game (dug it out of the attic), and she literally played all day monday and tuesday... clocking like 16-20 hours between the two days. She's not really a hardcore gamer (as you can tell by her not owning a current gen system), so I thought it was crazy she loves this game. She's hooked on B-K and Yoshi Touch and Go.

[Dyne]

Man, I loved BK and to a lesser extent BT.

BT was disappointing because the Ice Key ended up being lame. Bah. And it was more of a fetch-quest. But turning into a giant T-rex was effing fun. I loved that.

BK's music was just fantastic. I loved it. Every single level was memorable. Great game. I especially liked that last "four-season" level's music.

Why the hell haven't we seen an Xbox version? Goddamn Rare. One of the reasons I bought an Xbox.

EDIT: Damnit, now the Spring theme is stuck in my head. This sucks.

[The Germanator]

Banjo Kazooie was an amazing game for sure. The hype behind the ending was incredible, and even though Rare didn't pull it off like they should have (what else is new?), it still provided much excitement for the sequel. I remember having to share time with this game between my friend and brother because they were both as equally addicted.

I conquered Tooie as well, but I didn't have as much fun doing it. Kazooie remains somewhere in my top 25 games of all time I'd say.

[gekko]

Me and my best friend got BK the day it was released, beat it, saw the BT sneaks, thought it was second quest, spent every day of the next 3 weeks playing it, finding the hidden items. After that, opened up an EGM2 or perhaps Expert Gamer by that point, saw that is was just a teaser. Cried, never played it again.

And BT was disappointing.

And as long as you have your N64 out, consider importing Sin & Punishment. Excellent game. Should be part of every collection.

[Bube]

I absolutely loved BK. I remember paying a ton of money for it, almost double. But it was worth every penny. The hooking gameplay, beautiful graphics, great music and the Gobi's Valley door/Sharkfood Island mysteries. It was different, funny, scary, mysterious, enchanting.

BT was just as great. I had a BT fansite, I was so hyped. And it didn't dissapoint.

I completed them both with 100%.

[Joeiss]

I never bought Banjo Tooie... Partly because I heard that it wouldn't tie in with the original...

I must say, I totally forgot about the Ice Key and all the other little mystery items... I remember reading in magazines/internet about possibly ways to connect the sequel to the original... Those were interesting days! I even remember there was one picture that had BT in the N64, with a connector thing on its top, then BK on top of that... That would have been sweet.

I'm gonna go play some more Banjo. Oh ya, and jinjos are ill.

[Neo]

BK is probably my favorite console game of all time. I remember all the talk about the ice key. I eventually used a game shark to capture it. When you pick it up Kazooie says something like "We should save this for later."

And I remember something about there being one extra doubloon left over that you didn't use for anything.

I thought the music was great too. I recorded the sound clips of the "new world opening" and the "jiggy capture" and put them on my computer.

[Stonecutter]

Banjo Kazooie is better than Super Mario 64.

[The Germanator]

Originally Posted by Neo

I thought the music was great too. I recorded the sound clips of the "new world opening" and the "jiggy capture" and put them on my computer.

I think I still have the soundtrack. They sent it to my friend for subscribing to Nintendo Power and then I stole it I think.

[Jason1]

Banjo Kazooie was an awsome game...

I remember tooie being pretty good too, but I remember it having some serious framerate issues....

[AzeaL]

Banjo Kazooie was so sweet, I think i'll pull it out tomorrow. I'm so anxious to play it again.