Banjo-Kazooie: Encyclopedia - Banjo-Kazooie

Banjo-Kazooie

Banjo-Kazooie is a 3D platform/adventure video game for the Nintendo 64. It was developed by Rare and published by Nintendo in 1998. Known by the project name Dream until it was first shown at the 1997 E³, 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. Originally, it was supposed to be released as Nintendo of America's big holiday game for 1997 with a Taco Bell toy promotion lined up, but Rare decided to delay it several months. Instead, Diddy Kong Racing took its place, and with Banjo as a character in that game as well, it turned B-K into an incidental spin-off of the Donkey Kong franchise. Banjo-Kazooie went on to become one of the most popular games for the console.

The game stars a bear and a bird, Banjo and Kazooie, who set out on a quest to rescue Banjo's sister, Tooty, who has been kidnapped by the witch Gruntilda. Along their journey, Banjo and Kazooie receive help from Mumbo Jumbo the shaman and Bottles the mole, as well as from various other characters in smaller roles.

At the 1999 Interactive Achievement Awards, Banjo-Kazooie won in the "Console Action/Adventure" and "Art Direction" categories, and was nominated for "Console Adventure Game of the Year" and "Game of the Year."

The Banjo-Kazooie soundtrack, composed by Grant Kirkhope, was released on a limited edition compact disc.

Banjo-Kazooie - Story

The story begins one day at Spiral Mountain, which is inhabited by Banjo, Kazooie, Bottles, and several other creatures, including giant hopping carrots and other vegetables. On that particular morning, while the sun is shining and the fauna is flourishing, Banjo lies snoring in his bed while Tooty is waiting for Banjo to "go on an adventure" with her.

Meanwhile, Gruntilda is hunched over her cauldron admiring her own beauty; even though she is the ugliest hag of all, she remains convinced that she is the loveliest in the land. Asking her magical cauldron, Dingpot, if she indeed is the fairest of all, assured that she will hear her own name, Dingpot answers that it is in fact not her, but Tooty who is the fairest in the land. Gruntilda is enraged by this and sets out to Tooty's house to kidnap her and steal her beauty.

Meanwhile, back outside Banjo's house, Tooty is talking to Bottles the mole when Gruntilda sweeps down and kidnaps Tooty, who does not go without a fight. Banjo, of course, sleeps through the whole thing and only walks out of the house shortly after Gruntilda has flown away with Tooty. After hearing what transpired from Bottles, the two begin their journey up Spiral Mountain and inside Grunty's Lair to save Tooty.

Banjo-Kazooie - Game play

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 worlds and gather tokens in the form of "Jigsaws" (like Super Mario 64's "Stars") to unlock new worlds. While some considered Banjo-Kazooie an evolution of Super Mario 64, others have criticised Rare for lacking innovation in this respect. However, certain features were perceived as novel at the time, such as 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 a 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 the music that dynamically changes style in order to reflect the environment and dangers to the characters.

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 in his or her progress through the game, namely Jigsaw Pieces, Musical Notes, and Mumbo's Tokens. The first, "Jigsaw Pieces," open doors to new worlds. There are ten "jiggies" (as they are sometimes called) in each world: nine must be sought and found, and one is granted by finding all five "Jinjos" on each world. The second, "Musical Notes," open magic Note Doors in Gruntilda's lair. There are 100 notes on each world, and 900 total in the game. The third, "Mumbo's Tokens," grant the player magical transformations at Mumbo's hut. Each hut that the player visits will yield only one of the following transformations: termite, alligator, walrus, pumpkin, or bee.

Besides these primary tokens, players may also collect items, which can be used for solving puzzles and beating enemies. Bottles the Mole must teach Banjo and Kazooie how to use items before they can be utilized. Items include: Eggs, Red Feathers, and Gold Feathers, which can be held in quantities up to 100, 50, and 10, respectively. Eggs are fired as projectiles or ejected from Kazooie's rear, Red Feathers are utilized in flight and flying attacks, and Gold Feathers are for the most powerful attack, "Wonderwing," which makes the player invincible and can kill most any enemy. Furthermore, rarer tokens 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 powerups, 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.

A large feature of gameplay is that the characters make limited speaking-like sounds when they talk. The voices were not real speech, but rather a looping of voice-like sounds when text bubbles were displayed. This artistic choice was likely made due to memory limitations on N64 cartridges; however, this added considerably to the atmosphere and uniqueness of the game.

Besides the technical aspects, Banjo-Kazooie's rich characters were what really made the game come alive. Gruntilda the witch always spoke in rhymes (which she would declare inexplicably as you wandered about her lair) such as "it really is 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. One notable motif is that nearly all objects, including wrapped presents, mines, and vegetables, had eyes.

Banjo-Kazooie - Linkage controversy

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, inaccessible 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. These GameShark codes were found by Ice Mario and SubDrag of Rare Witch Project. [1] 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.

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.

It was later discovered that actual Cheat Codes (which, like all other game cheats, are input in the sandcastle in Treasure Trove Cove) were programmed into the game to allow these three teaser Eggs, the Ice Key, and a few other Eggs, to be accessed. However, they still served no purpose in the game whatsoever, aside from unlocking the Stop 'n' Swop menu.

Banjo-Kazooie - Characters

• Banjo (hero)
• Kazooie (sidekick)
• Tooty (damsel in distress)
• Bottles (Wise Old Man)
• Mumbo Jumbo (Absent-minded professor)
• Gruntilda (villain) (laughter)
• Brentilda
• Klungo (Igor)

Banjo-Kazooie - Worlds

There are nine main worlds (or levels) in Banjo-Kazooie, although much of the gameplay happens outside of them, in Gruntilda's Lair. They are, in order:

• Spiral Mountain: Though not a world in the same sense as the rest, Spiral Mountain is where the game begins, after Tooty is kidnapped. Banjo and Kazooie must first learn some basic moves here before they can proceed into the lair.

In the Banjo and Kazooie game series, Spiral Mountain is home to many characters, including Banjo himself. Banjo’s house lies on the outer part of Spiral Mountain. But Spiral Mountain isn’t only the home of Banjo. It is also where you will discover Grunty’s Lair. In Banjo-Kazooie, Grunty’s Lair is how you are able to enter the worlds you must venture in. Spiral Mountain gets its name from the spiral-shaped mountain that lies in the heart of the area. There is also a moat-like lake placed around it.

Before the release of Banjo-Tooie, many fans speculated that Spiral Mountain was part of the Northern Kremisphere of Donkey Kong Country 3. This theory probably stemmed from another assumed theory that claimed Banjo was one of the Brothers Bear, as they both shared a similar design (With the exception of Banjo's front paws not having fur on them.) However, after Banjo-Tooie was released, it was confirmed that Spiral Mountain was actually a part of the Isle O' Hags. Whether the other worlds found in Gruntilda's Lair are on the Isle O' Hags as well is unknown, however, it can be assumed that they aren't, seeing as the player is "warped" to the worlds upon entering them, as opposed to the player just entering the level as if he had physically reached it. In addition, the sky view of the Isle O' Hags from Cloud Cuckooland also disproves this, as there doesn't appear to be any landmarks resembling the Banjo-Kazooie worlds (Treasure Trove Cove would have been an obviously visible island.)

• Mumbo's Mountain is the smallest world, which, for the most part, serves a training ground for basic moves such as swimming, jumping, climbing and others.
  • Transformation: Termite
• Treasure Trove Cove is set on a hot, sandy island inhabited by pirates.
• Clanker's Cavern is a large dank metal area that inhabits a gigantic mechanical shark. A portion of this level is played inside his belly.
• Bubblegloop Swamp is a swamp world inhabited by piranhas, frogs, and a menacing alligator.
  • Transformation: Crocodile
• Freezeezy Peak is a probably-Christmas-based ice world; at its center is a giant snowman.
  • Transformation: Walrus
• Gobi's Valley is a desert world that may seem Egyptian due to pyramids; a camel named Gobi plays a large role in it.
• Mad Monster Mansion is a probably-Halloween-based world with a ghosthouse, skeletons, ghosts, gravestones as well as other nasties running around.
  • Transformation: Pumpkin
• Rusty Bucket Bay is designed as a port, centered around a large ship.
• Click Clock Wood is centered around a giant tree and can be played during each of the four seasons, with different obstacles and objectives. (Considered to be a fan favorite)
  • Transformation: Bumblebee

There were also to be more worlds, which were removed before the game's release. Some include:

• Fungus Forest (a picture of it can be seen in Banjo's house next to his bed, possibly the original Bubblegloop Swamp). Some say that it was used in Donkey Kong 64 instead as Fungi Forest.
• Hammerhead Beach (a picture of it can be seen in Banjo's house above a shelf; again possibly the original name of Treasure Trove Cove)
• Mount Fire Eyes (the lava room in Gruntilda's Lair is believed to be where the entrance was to be located). Some say it was the inspiration for the fire side of Hailfire Peaks in Banjo-Tooie.

Banjo-Kazooie - Cameos

• In Click Clock Wood, you'll meet a character named Gnawty the Beaver. This character is also an enemy from the Donkey Kong series, also made by Rareware. The Gnawty in this game looks very similar to the ones in Donkey Kong 64, only its skin is brownish and not blue (although there were brown Gnawtys in Donkey Kong Country 1).
• Tiptup makes an appearance in Bubblegoop Swamp. He was one of the racers from Diddy Kong Racing, a racing game from 1998 which also featured Banjo as a playable character. Tiptup also makes a cameo in Banjo-Tooie.

Banjo-Kazooie - Sequels

• Banjo-Tooie - N64 (2000)
• Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge - GBA (2003)

There was also a spin-off Mario Kart-inspired racing game (similar to Rare's Diddy Kong Racing) for the Game Boy Advance entitled Banjo-Pilot released in 2005. There are also rumors of another Banjo-Kazooie game scheduled for release on Microsoft's new Xbox 360 console.

On November 30th, 2005, EGM rumored that Rareware was working on two titles for Nintendo DS. One of the titles is going to take place in the Banjo-Kazooie universe. However, it is unknown whether this is a Banjo-Kazooie platformer game or a spinoff of the series.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Banjo-Kazooie", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki