Chapter 8-1: Cloud Cuckooland

Isle O’ Hags – Jinjo Village

Refill your eggs and feathers if you need to, then jump in the silo and warp to the Wooded Hollow.

< WOODED HOLLOW >
Jump up the steps to Jiggywiggy’s temple and head inside.

< JIGGYWIGGY'S TEMPLE >
Head on over to the monolith again and complete the puzzle to open up the final level in the game, Cloud Cuckooland. You can just tell from the name you’re going to love this one. Jiggywiggy’s crystal jiggy will once again shoot a ray of light up into the air and out of the temple. The camera will reappear in the wasteland near Terrydactyland’s entrance, but head up another hill, through a cracked wall and stop on a platform above the fogged abyss. The Crystal Jiggy’s magic will appear once again, to make… a bubble appear? Yes, a large bubble will be your mode of transport into Cloud Cuckooland. If you’re fond of wacky experiences, this is definitely the level for you. Exit the temple.

< WOODED HOLLOW >
Warp to the wasteland.

< WASTELAND >
Take the path up the hill to the blue rock wall, just like the camera in the cutscene before. Run through the crack in the wall to the other side and collect the notes (10) by the wall before leaping into the bubble and taking the ride up to the new land.

Cloud Cuckooland

Cloud Cuckooland isn’t like most levels you’d see in a platforming game. It’s given that you’ll see your lava level, your ice level (in Banjo-Tooie’s case, rolled into one), your jungle/forest sort of area among others, but it isn’t often that you’ll see something like this. Banjo-Tooie’s designers really went for a… unique feeling when creating Cloud Cuckooland, and it won’t take too long to realise that. The music alone is rather wacky.

After you make it to the top of your trip with the mysterious bubble transportation, hop behind it to find a warp pad. There are only two warp pads in Cloud Cuckooland, and you won’t be using them very often. The real challenge of the level comes from being able to traverse the entire level on your own, and knowing which path leads to where, no matter how confusing it may get.

Head forward to the edge of the floating platform, ignoring the star-jumping kangaroo by the high jump mat. Jump in the odd looking flower, and you’ll be spat out over the abyss to the mountain.

Once you’re back on your feet again, try drill billing the cracked patches of dirt on the ground to dig up a few useful items, the most notable of which being an extra honeycomb piece (1), a pair of springy step shoes and two purple coloured beans.

These beans have some magical properties to them, and if you give them enough love, may just grow into giant beanstalks to help you up to new areas. The only problem is that you can only use each bean once, and it’ll only grow in a patch of nice, damp soil. Looks like the soil you found them in just wasn’t good enough.

Take the springy step shoes, then use the cannon plant/flower behind you to blast yourself back to the level entrance. Hop behind the bubble, then use the shoes to bounce over the high jump bar. Mr. Fit will run off to another area of the world for the sack race part of his triathlon – we’ll take care of that later.

Take the cannon plant back over to the mainland again, then head left and around the ledge. Jump down and jump into another cannon plant to be blasted to a purple floating platform with Humba Wumba’s wigwam in the middle. Only problem is, you have no Glowbo just yet. We’ll come back for the transformation later.

In the meantime, walk up the left side of the purple platform to find Canary Mary again. There may not be any minecart around, but Mary’s managed to fix a magic clockwork mouse up so that you can race her around the level.

Now, don’t expect the races to be a piece of cake, because they certainly aren’t. You’re not going to get a chance to look at the scenery as you go around the level, even though the path you take pretty much covers the entire world. There’s only going to be two things you’ll be focusing on – the tapping of the A button, and the distance between you and Mary.

However, there is one thing I need to address – Canary Mary is NOT hard if you know what you’re doing. And I don’t just mean being able to tap super fast either. When the Banjo team programmed Canary Mary, they made it so that the difficulty of the race would vary depending on the player and their tapping speed. Canary Mary doesn’t have a set speed – for most of the race she will match your speed.

Basically, Canary Mary will start the race at a medium pace. If you can’t keep up with this pace, she’ll beat you and you’ll have to start again. This forces you to go a little bit faster than her set speed if you wish to keep in the race.

For the first half of the race, Canary Mary will mimic the speed that you set in that half. If your speed fluctuates (ie, you go fast for a bit then slow down) she will mimic your fastest speed.

At around about the halfway mark of the race, Canary Mary will speed up and go a little bit faster than your speed before. In order to keep your nose ahead, you’ll need to increase your own speed. This is the part where most players get most frustrated, as they’ll go flat out in the first half of the race and tire out a bit around here. The idea is to start at the medium
pace and keep that steady until the halfway point, then take it up a little bit and keep the new speed steady.

So basically, the idea for the player is to start out at a medium speed – just enough to keep in front of Mary. Keep this speed CONSTANT – DON’T fluctuate and go any faster than needed, and try not to slow down.

At the halfway mark, or when you can hear Canary Mary gaining on you, start to increase the speed a little bit, then keep it constant again.

When you’re on the home stretch (When you can see Wumba’s Wigwam in the first race, or when you get to the top of the mountain and start coming down again in the second race) – go flat out. Tap the button as fast as you can. If you can do this, you’ll thrash the bird without a problem.

If you still need help with this jiggy, there are a few other methods to tackle the bird. You can press start during a race and pause to get the blood back to your thumb or finger (or both) if you like, or you could go out and buy a controller with a turbo button to do the work for you.

Pick up your Jiggy (1) and your Cheato page (1), say farewell to the devilish bird, then take the cannon flower back to the mainland again. Once on the other side, head to the right of the pool past an ice cube and a flower enemy to find a crack in the wall. Shoot a Clockwork Kazooie egg inside to find a switch on the ground – press B to blow up and press the switch.

A cutscene will show a googly-eyed safe from somewhere within the mountain, with four blank number panels above his dial. One of them will change to the number 1, but the three remaining panels with stay blank. It’s your job to find the rest of the switches for the remaining panels so that you can unlock the safe and retrieve its treasure from inside.

Head back down the grass until you find the ice cube you saw before. Yep, it’s George Icecube, husband of Mildred from Hailfire Peaks. You know, the one you killed to grab the Jinjo she was occupying? Don’t tell him that, either way.

George wants to get back to his wife, since a large storm managed to blow him up to Cloud Cuckooland. He reckons he can see Hailfire Peaks directly below him, so give him a whack and off he tumbles…

…conveniently for you, right into that pool of hot water on the lava side. Not so great for him. Oh well. Jump onto the flight pad he was previously occupying, then take to the skies and over to the large trashcan. There’s a large handle on the top you’ll be able to see; as you approach you’ll see a honeycomb piece in the middle of it. Carefully collect the hollow honeycomb (2) whilst avoiding the Zubba enemy guarding it, then fly down onto the ledge behind the trashcan to find a small hole. Shoot a clockwork kazooie inside and you’ll find yourself within a large bottle in the trashcan – blow yourself up on the switch in front of you for the safe (aptly named Superstash)’s second number.

Head around the front of the trashcan again to find another flight pad, then use it to fly up to a red platform at the very top of the mountain with a hole in the wall. Head inside.

< CENTRAL CAVERN >
Collect the notes (10) infront of you, then take out the Zubba with an egg or two if possible. If not, carefully walk along the narrow platform infront of you (don’t fall!!) and use the wonderwing attack when you get closer to him so that you don’t fall off while crossing. Grab the treble clef as you cross, then shoot a clockwork egg into the small hole on the other side of the walkway to find another one of Superstash’s numbers. 3 down, one to go.

Sorry if you’re afraid of heights, but the next thing to do is position yourself above the pool of water below, using the top C button if you need it. When you’re ready, feathery flap down to help guide yourself into the water, plus reduce the amount of damage taken from the fall if you miss accidentally. Collect the Glowbo inside the pool, then hop out and ascend the platforms in the centre of the room to find an almost useless warp pad with some notes (15) near it. Split up and heal with Banjo if you need to.

Take a look around the room until you spot Superstash in a corner, then walk over in his direction but take the ramp to the right of him so that you’re on a platform above him with another red coloured, see-through wall. Grip grab across to the left, then spit a clockwork Kazooie into the hole and guide it down towards another switch and the final number for Superstash, allowing you to open him up for another jiggy (2).

Turn around again and head back towards the centre of the room, then hop down onto one of the adjacent platforms and hatch the pinkish egg to reveil a Floatus Floatium creature. Switch to Banjo, then use his Taxi Pack to use the creature to float across to the rock with a transparent red wall with Jamjars’ silo inside. Use your shack pack move to get inside, then hand over some notes (755) for the Sack Pack attack. Sack Pack makes Banjo hop into his backpack and hop around, allowing him to jump over areas which would normally hurt his sensitive feet like lava, frosty water and thorns.

Grab the notes (10) then exit and head back to the centre of the room to switch back to Kazooie. Use Kazooie to glide over to the same area you were before. Grab the notes (5) by the door, then shockspring up for a Jinjo in a high up grotto (1).

Head back to the centre of the room with Kazooie, this time grabbing the claw clamber boots on one of the platforms and using them to head up the wall with footprints of it, just right of superstash and up the same ramp you went for his last number. At the top, collect the notes (5) as you exit through the yellow tunnel.

Next: Time to find Mumbo