Banjo-Kazooie

Banjo-Kazooie is the first game in the Banjo-Kazooie series. It was developed by Rare Ltd. and released on the Nintendo 64 in 1998. The story involves the two heroes, Banjo and Kazooie, going on an adventure to rescue Tooty from Gruntilda, who tries stealing Tooty's beauty. The game received a sequel in 2000, titled Banjo-Tooie.

In 2008, Banjo-Kazooie was ported to the Xbox Live Arcade, where it received updated textures, a newly implemented Stop 'n' Swop feature, and additional minor changes.

Story
The evil witch of Spiral Mountain, Gruntilda, is inside her lair, asking her cauldron Dingpot questions about who is the 'nicest and fairest of them all', to which Dingpot reluctantly answers, "Why it's Grunty, any day, she really takes my breath away". She gloats over her "beauty", until Dingpot finally breaks his 'silence' and tells the witch that Tooty, another inhabitant of Spiral Mountain, is actually the prettiest and the fairest of them all. Grunty reacts angrily and decides to kidnap Tooty in order to steal her beauty. She grabs her broom and sets off immediately. Meanwhile, Tooty is running around Spiral Mountain, when she is greeted by Bottles in front of Banjo's House. She eagerly tells Bottles that she is going on an adventure with her brother, Banjo. Inside the house, Banjo is sleeping soundly, with his breegull friend, Kazooie, sleeping in his backpack, which is hanging on a nearby coat rack. Tooty and Bottles are still talking, until Bottles spots Grunty in the distance, but confuses her for Banjo (due to his short-sightedness). Grunty immediately goes for Tooty, and a struggle ensues. Kazooie, eager for action and adventure, overhears the clamor outside as well as Bottles' cries for help and tries to wake Banjo up. Banjo and Kazooie leave their house, only to discover that Grunty has gone off and kidnapped Tooty. Bottles tells the bear and bird that they must venture to Gruntilda's Lair to rescue Tooty. Bottles offers to prepare the duo to fight Gruntilda by teaching them some basic moves and repairing the bridge leading to the lair's entrance. Banjo and Kazooie set off on an adventure into the lair to save Tooty.

Once inside the lair, Banjo and Kazooie find a Jiggy, which is used to open and unlock levels around the lair by completing Jigsaw Puzzle pictures. They soon find a painting that fits their first Jiggy, opening the first level of the lair, Mumbo's Mountain. Banjo and Kazooie enter the first level and find that their quest is not as easy as they had anticipated. They discover that they need to rescue Jinjos imprisoned by Grunty throughout each of the levels as well as collect Musical Notes, which are needed to open up Note Doors, to progress through the deeper areas of Gruntilda's Lair. They also meet Mumbo Jumbo, a skull-faced shaman who offers his services to the bear and bird by transforming the adventurers into different animals with new abilities.

The two continue progressing through the lair, gathering musical notes, Jiggies, and other collectibles along the way, as well as rescuing the Jinjos of each level. They also encounter Mumbo Jumbo and Bottles several times, who continue to help the heroes by transforming them and teaching them new moves, respectively. Banjo and Kazooie also get help from Gruntilda's nicer sister, Brentilda, who gossips interesting facts about her ugly sister.

After successfully surviving through all nine levels in Grunty's Lair, Banjo and Kazooie eventually reach Gruntilda but are forced to participate in her quiz show, Grunty's Furnace Fun. Thanks to the information provided by Brentilda's gossips, Banjo and Kazooie win Grunty's game and save Tooty. With Tooty rescued, they return home and celebrate with a barbecue. However, Tooty reminds our heroes that Grunty had escaped shortly after the game show and was still at large, plotting her wicked schemes.

Banjo and Kazooie make their way back up the lair until they finally reach the roof with a little help from Dingpot. On the roof, Gruntilda challenges them to a more direct confrontation and an epic battle ensues. But, with the help of the Jinjos they rescued in the various levels in Gruntilda's Lair, Banjo and Kazooie defeat Gruntilda and ultimately knock her off her tower. She crashes into the ground, creating a crater of her shape, which is then covered by a large boulder that falls from the tower and traps her beneath it. Banjo and Kazooie finally take a well-deserved break at the beach, where the bear and bird and their friends anticipate a sequel, Banjo-Tooie. Meanwhile, Gruntilda, whose loyal minion Klungo is trying to rescue her, swears her revenge.

Gameplay
Banjo-Kazooie adopted many of its central game play mechanics from Nintendo's groundbreaking title Super Mario 64. For instance, the player must similarly explore non-linear 3D levels and gather tokens in the form of jigsaws (like Super Mario 64's stars) to unlock new levels. However, Banjo-Kazooie is often considered an evolution of Super Mario 64 as it introduced a number of innovative features. These included the ability for Banjo and Kazooie, with the aid of Mumbo's magical powers, to transform into other creatures such as a termite, crocodile, walrus, pumpkin, and bee; the ability for the characters to learn new moves (as taught by Bottles); the game's extensive use of textures for surfaces where other N64 games would have used plain colors, extensive lighting, and music that dynamically changes style in order to reflect the environment and dangers to the characters. The Banjo-Kazooie central theme music, heard in the main play area, changed to reflect the environment entrance (levels) the player was near, such as taking on music box instrumental-style play near the ice level entrance. The music's notes and play never changed though, producing a seamless integration into the new instruments without stopping the forever-looping song.

Like Super Mario 64 before it, the player proceeds through the game by finding tokens. There are three kinds of tokens that help the player progress through the game, namely jigsaw pieces, musical notes, and Mumbo Tokens. Jigsaw pieces open doors to new levels by collecting enough to complete the corresponding jigsaw puzzle. There are ten Jiggies in each level: nine must be sought and found, and one is granted by finding all five Jinjos on each level. Unlike Super Mario 64, Banjo does not have to exit the level every time he collects a Jiggy.) Musical notes open magic note doors that allow Banjo and Kazooie to progress further into Gruntilda's Lair. There are 100 Musical Notes per level, meaning there are 900 in total. Mumbo's tokens grant the player magical transformations at Mumbo's hut when the player collects a sufficient amount. These transformations include termite, crocodile, walrus, pumpkin and bee.

Banjo and Kazooie must collect items that are used in performing certain moves. Bottles teach Banjo and Kazooie a move in some of the earlier levels (the last one being Gobi's Valley) before the item can be utilized. These items include Eggs, Red Feathers, and Golden Feathers, which can be held in quantities up to 100, 50 and 10, respectively. Blue eggs are fired as projectiles or ejected from Kazooie's rear, and bounce slowly until they either hit an enemy, or break on their own; red feathers are utilized in flight and flying attacks; and gold feathers are for the most powerful attack, Wonderwing, which uses Kazooie's wings to make her and Banjo invincible and can defeat almost any enemy, or at least protect them both. Furthermore, rarer temporary items can be found which have specialized use in puzzle-solving, namely wading boots, which enable the crossing of hazardous terrain, and running shoes, which grant extra running speed, often as part of a race or a time-based puzzle. Finally, there are power-ups such as extra lives, which look like golden Banjo statues and grant one extra life each, and honeycomb energy, which incrementally increases the player's health and can be found in each level. Collecting six extra Honeycomb Pieces and gives Banjo and Kazooie a permanent increase of one honeycomb of health.

A notable part of the gameplay was the speech-like sounds made by the characters as they talked. Gruntilda the witch always spoke in rhymes (which she would declare inexplicably as Banjo and Kazooie wandered about her lair), such as, "It really does sound quite absurd, adventure of a bear and bird!" Kazooie was always very annoyed at Bottles the Mole, and various other smaller characters made memorable appearances. Nearly every object, including wrapped presents, mines, and vegetables, had eyes.

Stop 'n' Swop
Stop 'n' Swop is an incomplete feature in Banjo-Kazooie. Six colored eggs and a key made of ice were discovered in the game that would be viewable in a menu titled Stop 'N' Swop. In the 100% completion ending, Mumbo Jumbo would tell the players that secret areas would be accessible via a link with the sequel, Banjo-Tooie. Stop 'N' Swop was never fully realized in Banjo-Tooie. The special items can still be collected in Banjo-Kazooie using a cheat cartridge or in-game cheat codes, though the purpose they would have served in Banjo-Tooie, as well as how the games were meant to link, has not been specified.

Characters

 * Banjo - One of the main protagonists, Banjo is a good natured and polite honey bear. He wears a blue backpack to carry Kazooie around.
 * Kazooie - The other main protagonist, Kazooie is a red-crested breegull with a sassy and impolite personality.
 * Mumbo Jumbo - A shaman that helps the duo by transforming them into various creatures.
 * Bottles - A shortsighted mole who teaches new abilities to Banjo and Kazooie.
 * Gruntilda Winkybunion - The main antagonist, Gruntilda is an evil witch who captures Tooty in an attempt to steal her beauty.
 * Klungo - A large green monster and Gruntilda's servant, Klungo appears to be based on an.
 * Tooty - Banjo's cheerful and younger sister, who was kidnapped by Grunty for her beauty.
 * Brentilda - Grunty's good natured sister, who tells gossip about Grunty to Banjo and Kazooie.

Spells
In each world that Mumbo Jumbo appears in, he can transform Banjo into a different creature or object if he has enough Mumbo Tokens.


 * Mumbo's Mountain - A termite, which can't attack, but can sneak past other termites and can scale steep surfaces.
 * Bubblegloop Swamp - A crocodile which is resistant to (or at least scares away) the piranhas that infest the water, as well as being able to bite.
 * Freezeezy Peak - A walrus, resistant to the icy waters of the area.
 * Mad Monster Mansion - A pumpkin, which bounces around to move, can go into small spaces,and will not be hurt by the thorns on top of the hedges.
 * Grunty's Lair - Mumbo appears inside a small hut near the entrance to Mad Monster Mansion. Here, his purpose is to transform Banjo back to his normal form, which enables him to hit a switch in the room, before being re-transformed into a pumpkin in order to leave.
 * Click Clock Wood - During Spring, Mumbo will offer his services and transform the duo into a bee, which can fly very high altitudes, and can sneak into the Zubbas' hive.
 * During Summer, however, it's too hot to perform the spell.
 * During Autumn, however, he's too busy raking up leaves.
 * During Winter, he's gone on holiday and has gotten a Beehive to watch over his hut.

His hut is absent from Treasure Trove Cove, Clanker's Cavern, Gobi's Valley and Rusty Bucket Bay; as such, those levels don't have transformations.

Very rarely, he mistakenly turns Banjo into a washing machine, before going on to turn him into the correct transformation. Also he mentions he would turn Banjo into a T-Rex but changes his mind, saying that the transformation is meant for the next game.

Music
The music was composed by Grant Kirkhope. A CD soundtrack was exclusively sold to Nintendo Power subscribers or a pre-order bonus at Best Buy stores. According to an interview with OC Remix, Kirkhope stated that Banjo-Kazooie was his favorite work that he composed.

Reception
Banjo-Kazooie was highly successful when it was released, selling over 1.8 million copies in the United States. At the 1999 Interactive Achievement Awards, Banjo-Kazooie won in the Console Action/Adventure and Art Direction categories, and was a nominee for the "Console Adventure Game of the Year" and "Game of the Year" categories.

It also received the following ratings:


 * IGN: 9.6
 * GameSpot: 9.5
 * GameStats: 9.2
 * 1Up.com: 9.2
 * Metacritic: 23 of 25 (based on 19 reviews)
 * Game Rankings: 91% (based on 14 reviews)

Development
Banjo-Kazooie started development in the mid-1990s as a completely different game for the Super Nintendo, Dream: Land of Giants. Most details regarding the game's development were unknown until 2015, when Rare discussed the game in their Rare Revealed series, "A Rare Look at Dream". and "Five Things You Didn't Know About Banjo-Kazooie". An unlockable video on Rare Replay named "Dreaming of Banjo" also revealed more information about the game's development.

Sometime during its development, Dream shifted its development to Nintendo 64. After a few months of development, the team felt that Edson was a weak character and began searching for a replacement. A rabbit was considered at first before the team decided on a bear, who would become Banjo. The team scrapped Dream entirely and reworked it into a 2.5D platformer similar to Donkey Kong Country, which had a gameplay style more familiar for them. This was the earliest form of Banjo-Kazooie, where Banjo would move along linear path collecting fruit. In the "A Rare Look at Dream" video, Gregg Mayles called it the "connecting piece" between the Donkey Kong games they developed and the final version of Banjo-Kazooie. Kazooie was created during this phase so that Banjo could perform a double jump. The team designed some more moves that involved both characters.

One day, the developers saw an early version of Super Mario 64, making their project looked obsolete in comparison. The project was scrapped again, and the team began a fourth and final attempt at making the game in the style of Super Mario 64. This version would be finalized and released as Banjo-Kazooie. The game was in development for 17 months after Dream was scrapped.

Trivia

 * On December 29, 2020, both Banjo-Kazooie and Blast Corps were mistakenly listed as upcoming games for the Virtual Console, both having a set release date of December 30, 2020. The error was fixed that same day, and both titles were removed from the list.