Banjo-Kazooie XBLA Review – Kowbrainz
Kowbrainz, 24th November ’08
It’s been over ten years now since we saw the release of Banjo-Kazooie on the N64. Now, to celebrate the special occasion, 4J has taken up the challenge of porting the original game to Microsoft’s Xbox 360 to be played alongside Rare’s newly released Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts. For those who haven’t touched the old Banjo on the 64 in oh-so-many years, you finally have a good reason to pick up this treasure again.
For everyone else who isn’t quite sure who the bear and bird are and need an introduction, gather round. After asking her cauldron who the prettiest in the land may be and not quite getting the answer she wanted, Gruntilda the warty witch snatches up her broom and soars down to Spiral Mountain to kidnap Banjo’s cute little sister, Tooty. With some help from Bottles the mole to learn some new tricks, it’s up to Banjo the bear and his feathered companion Kazooie to trek up to Gruntilda’s Lair and get Tooty back before Grunty can steal her good looks.
It’s a simple plot for a game with a simple premise. Upon reaching Gruntilda’s lair, you’ll need to gradually open up the path to the tower by collecting jigsaw pieces and musical notes in true, 3D platforming tradition. Jigsaw pieces, or ‘jiggies’ as they’re more commonly known, will allow you to open new worlds to explore much like the stars from Super Mario 64. Musical notes are similar, in that you’ll use them to break down magical note doors within Grunty’s Lair in order to explore new territories. It’s a formula which has been used many times before by platformers new and old, but that doesn’t mean it feels anywhere close to dated here – it’s still just as much fun to play, if not more than when it was released all those years ago.
Worlds themselves in Banjo-Kazooie are very lush and expansive, with plenty of places for players to explore – either to hunt down jiggies and other items or purely for fun. Each world has been textured beautifully, which made Banjo-Kazooie a true standout visuals-wise on the N64, but here it looks even better. Everything has been made crisper to look at, and comparison to the N64 version shows that textures are now much less blurry while colours are lovelier and brighter than ever before. There’s also an increased draw distance now which helps immensely when looking for items that might not be in the immediate vicinity. Remember that extra honeycomb piece in the second level, out in the middle of nowhere which took ages to find? Now the hassles are gone and you’ll be able to see it from a mile away. Graphical updates don’t stop here, though, as you’ll find that most of the 2D sprites used in the original game have been updated for the 360. While the new health bar may look like an odd design choice and probably looked better as it was beforehand, the talking sprites for characters have been improved upon rather nicely, as have the sprites for collectables such as Jinjos. Swim down to the bottom of the third stage, Clanker’s Cavern, and you’ll notice the large, 2D, transparent bubble sprites of the N64 have been replaced by some shinier ones that you can view Banjo’s reflection in – definitely a nice touch.
There’s also a widescreen mode for those players out there who like to enjoy their games on a larger telly, and the sharpened visuals look much better on the big screen than the original did. While the game may look great in high definition, make sure to adjust your Xbox’s settings to play it in 720p and not 1080p, else you may find a weird bug causing some very unwanted lag during play. It’s uncertain what the cause of this is, but it definitely isn’t a welcome feature.
Visuals aren’t the only aspect of the game which has been updated in this version of the game. Much to my surprise, the sound quality of the game has been improved upon. The classic sound effects and score from Grant Kirkhope remain, with all the wonderful tunes of the original making their much awaited return. However, putting the game alongside the Nintendo 64 version shows much clearer sound effects and music while the N64 sounds a little muffled. It’s not something I would have noticed before, but now that it’s been improved it’s very pleasing to hear.
One thing that worried me in the weeks leading up to Banjo-Kazooie’s release on the Xbox Live Arcade was the control system. As a fan who has played through the original title on the N64 countless times over the past few years and even narrowed certain aspects of the game down to a science, my concern was that I would be too familiar with the original’s controls to enjoy the switch. Less than fifteen minutes was all I needed with the game to convince me otherwise. All of Banjo and Kazooie’s moves have been mapped rather well to the 360’s controller, and the new analogue stick gives everything a far superior sense of control. While it may have been convenient to be able to give the C Buttons on the N64 controller a quick tap to change the camera view while on the run, the precision of the right stick in controlling the camera is something I would have loved to have had when playing the game ten years ago, and is a real godsend for new players. The camera hasn’t been completely fixed of all problems though, and has a tendency to make a full 180 degree turn on its own when the player is close to walls or other terrain, which can sometimes spell death if you happen to be running somewhere at the time. There’s also a slight annoyance with not being able to map the controls how you like, as I would have liked to have been able to change the Wonderwing’s controls to something which didn’t mean wasting a gold feather every time I mistakenly tried to change the camera while crouched down, but it isn’t too bad.
Still not convinced about the game just yet? Well, the achievements probably aren’t going to fix that. Each one is rather basic and if you’ve completed Banjo before in your life then chances are you won’t have any trouble knowing what to do here. There’s nothing too creative like in the Nuts & Bolts achievements list, which is a bit of a shame but again it doesn’t matter too much. 4J studios have decided to add a Leaderboards feature to the game, which is definitely nice for those looking for a bit more replay value. You can work to better your times and compare yourself with your friends, as well as checking your times against the best in the world. The tallies only count your jiggies and notes though, so anybody looking to compare their hard earned 100% game time here may be a bit disappointed.
If you’ve picked up Nuts & Bolts and are enjoying that game, then you may like to hear that the fabled Stop ‘n’ Swop feature has been brought back to life on the 360, allowing you to collect the secret items in Banjo-Kazooie in order to trade them in for special items in Nuts & Bolts. I won’t spoil anything, but perhaps I’ll give a word of warning not to set your expectations too high.
While most of the classic gameplay has been left untouched, 4J has made some minor adjustments here and there. The main thing you’ll notice is that notes and Jinjos have now become a one-time item. In the previous version of the game, notes and Jinjos would respawn once you left the level either by death or other means, which could be quite annoying in some levels when trying to collect all 100 notes and dying in the same area each time, only to have to start the tricky challenge all over again. Here, it’s been remedied and the result is something much welcomed from newbie and veteran players alike. That said, it’s rather unfortunate to say that this tinkering has resulted in a few nasty glitches which can prevent players from achieving 100% completion. I won’t spoil anything for new players, but I’ll just say this: don’t go into Banjo’s house until you’ve collected all 900 notes, and make sure you pick up jiggies as soon as they spawn, especially those from Jinjos.
Aside from these minor hiccups, Banjo-Kazooie on the Xbox Live Arcade is essentially the same game, same experience from a decade ago. There’s still a lot of fun to be had, with an adventure spanning roughly fifteen to twenty hours for those who are giving it a shot for the first time. And while there are a few small problems here and there that can hurt the experience a bit, overall the game looks, feels and sounds even better than it was before. If you haven’t already played it, buy it. If you’ve enjoyed the N64 version, buy it. This is the classic Banjo-Kazooie you should all know and love, so there shouldn’t be any other reason for you to snap up the purchase as soon as possible. At a mere 1200 MS points, it’s a steal.
Overall: 5/5