Banjo-Kazooie (video game)

''Banjo-Kazooie'' is a 1998 platform game developed by Rare and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64. Controlling the player characters, the bear Banjo and the bird Kazooie, the player attempts to save Banjo's kidnapped sister Tooty from the witch Gruntilda. The player explores nine nonlinear worlds to gather items and progress. Using Banjo and Kazooie's traversal and combat abilities, they complete challenges such as solving puzzles, jumping over obstacles, and defeating bosses.

Rare conceived ''Banjo-Kazooie'' as a role-playing video game, '' Dream'', for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System following the completion of '' Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest'' (1995). The 15-member team, led by Gregg Mayles, transitioned development to the Nintendo 64 and retooled the game as a platformer after the role-playing format proved too complex. ''Banjo-Kazooie'' was inspired by ''Super Mario 64'' (1996) and designed to appeal to a broad audience, similar to Walt Disney Animation Studios films. Grant Kirkhope composed the soundtrack, the first in games to feature vertical remixing, where various sound layers fade in and out depending on the player's location.

''Banjo-Kazooie'' was released in North America in June 1998 and in Europe the following month. It sold over three million copies, making it one of the bestselling Nintendo 64 games, and received acclaim. Critics favourably compared ''Banjo-Kazooie'' quality and design to ''Super Mario 64''. They praised its visuals, soundtrack, and level design, but criticised its virtual camera system. ''Banjo-Kazooie'' received numerous year-end accolades, including two from the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences: Console Action Game of the Year and Outstanding Achievement in Art/Graphics.

In retrospect, ''Banjo-Kazooie'' is considered one of Rare's best games and among the best Nintendo 64 games. It spawned a series which includes two sequels, ''Banjo-Tooie'' (2000) and '' Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts'' (2008), and two spin-offs, '' Grunty's Revenge'' (2003) and ''Banjo-Pilot'' (2005). Following Microsoft's 2002 acquisition of Rare, 4J Studios developed a port for the Xbox 360 in 2008, later included in the Xbox One compilation '' Rare Replay'' in 2015. It was released on the Nintendo Switch for Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack subscribers in 2022, marking its first rerelease on a Nintendo console.

Gameplay

''Banjo-Kazooie'' is a single-player platform game where the player controls the titular protagonists, an easy-going brown honey bear named Banjo and a troublemaking female red-crested "Breegull" Kazooie, from a third-person perspective. Living in the region of Spiral Mountain, the two attempt to rescue Banjo's younger sister Tooty from the foul-tempered witch Gruntilda, who creates and uses a machine to transfer an entity's beauty to another, which she intends to use with Tooty. The game features nine three-dimensional worlds where the player must gather musical notes and jigsaw puzzle pieces, called Jiggies, to progress. It culminates to a trivia game show a la ''The Adventure Game'' hosted by Gruntilda, where to surpass a title a question about the game has to be correctly answered or a challenge successfully completed, and a final boss fight with her.

The player travels from one world to another through Gruntilda's Lair, a region that acts as the game's central overworld. Jiggies allow the player to complete jigsaw puzzles which open doors to new worlds, while musical notes are required to open doors to new sections of the overworld. There are a total of 100 jiggies to collect (ten in each world), all of which are needed to view the proper ending, and 900 notes (100 in each world). The door with the highest amount of required notes is the one with 880, although 765 notes are needed to enter the final section. Like ''Super Mario 64'' (1996), ''Banjo-Kazooie'' is very open and allows the player to collect Jiggies and musical notes in a nonlinear order. It is also possible to complete certain worlds out of order, assuming the player has enough Jiggies and musical notes to reach a world earlier than intended.

Each world is composed of a number of challenges that involve solving puzzles, jumping over obstacles, racing, playing a bonus game, gathering objects, and defeating opponents. The game features action-adventure elements, and the player must often interact with non-player characters and help them. It is also possible to increase Banjo and Kazooie's health bar by collecting empty honeycomb pieces (of which there are two in each world), and extra lives by obtaining Banjo statues.

Banjo and Kazooie can perform many abilities, such as jumping, climbing, ground-pounding, swimming, flying, and rolling into enemies. Some moves cannot be performed until conversing with Bottles the mole, who teaches them. The breegull and the bear have unique assets. For example, while swimming, Kazooie moves faster but also has a harder time turning directions than Banjo, who only swims when above ground. Kazooie can perform the Talon Trot, where she runs faster and up slopes too steep for Banjo, the Beak Bomb, a long and fast hit towards something with her beak that she pulls off while flying, and either shoot blue eggs from the front or rear. In the middle of jumps or falls from great heights, Kazooie can use her wings to glide Banjo down at a slower speed for a few seconds. She can also fly and jump way higher than Banjo, but these moves can only be activated by standing on pads signifying them; pads with red feathers on them activate flying, green Shock Spring pads the extra jump height. Some abilities require specific items to be performed. For instance, red feathers allow Banjo and Kazooie to fly, while gold feathers protect them from damage. There are two types of collectible shoes that provide temporary abilities. The Turbo Trainer shoes provide a speed burst used to reach a destination on time, while Wellington boots allows Kazooie to run on otherwise harmful ground, such as the piranha-filled waters in Bubblegloop Swamp and shifting sands in Gobi's Valley.

Additionally, found in each world are five small creatures called Jinjos that Gruntilda imprisoned and, upon collection of the entire world's population, grant the duo a Jiggy. For the camera, there are three choices of views and the ability to spin the camera around the player character. However, some areas fix the camera to one angle, which sometimes hides items out of view, requiring the player to choose a first-person perspective to see them.

Banjo and Kazooie are also aided by Mumbo Jumbo, a shaman who used to be Gruntilda's teacher. Mumbo Jumbo can use magical powers to transform them into several creatures. These include a termite, an alligator, a walrus, a pumpkin, and a honey bee. Creatures have their own abilities and allow the player to access otherwise inaccessible challenges, some of which are required to collect jiggies. Before a transformation process is allowed, the player must find a required number of "Mumbo Tokens" in the worlds. By finding a spell book called Cheato in the game's overworld, the player may also unlock secret codes that increase the capacity of Banjo and Kazooie's item inventory, such as the red feathers from 50 to 100 and the blue eggs from 100 to 200.

Development

Origins

The origins of ''Banjo-Kazooie'' can be traced back to ''Project Dream'', a cancelled video game developed by Rare's '' Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest'' (1995) team for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Inspired by Japanese role-playing games and LucasArts adventure games, ''Dream'' was developed for 16 months and starred a boy who got into trouble with a group of pirates. The game used Rare's Advanced Computer Modeling (ACM) graphics technology, first used in '' Donkey Kong Country'' (1994), to an advanced level. As development progressed, the boy was considered by the developers to be generic; thus he was replaced by a rabbit for "two or three days," then a bear who wore a backpack, sneakers, and cap.
The bear eventually became Banjo.

Because the introduction of the Nintendo 64 made the ACM technology obsolete, Rare decided to transition the development of the game to that console, and it ran on a "psuedo-3D" engine. When this occurred, the Nintendo 64 was still known as the Ultra 64. The project proved to be too ambitious for the developers, who felt the game was not fun. More than a year into the project, out of desperation "like the end wasn't in sight," the project switched from ''Dream'' to a ''Donkey Kong Country''-esque 2.5D side-scrolling platformer, with more depth and range of movement than a typical 2D platformer. It was given the names ''2.5-D Banjo'' and ''Kazoo''.

In the 2.5D game, Banjo would have collected fruits, the equivalent to musical notes in ''Banjo-Kazooie'', in five "fruit houses" named after the fruit in them: orange, grapes, lemon, bananas, and cherries. Collecting jigsaw pieces would have also been done. Similar to the barrels in ''Donkey Kong Country'', Banjo would have used balls from a variety of sports, such as a football, baseball, soccer ball, bowling ball, basketball, and a water-filled ballon, that could be powered up by a balloon inflator, football boot, football helmet, and baseball glove. The enemy parts and hub map were also taken from the 1994 SNES platformer. Two months into its 2.5D phase, Rare was presented by Nintendo a "really, really early" version of ''Super Mario 64'' (1996), which exposed them to the percceived future direction it would take the video games market. The genre was changed accordingly, a new 3D engine was built, and the aesthetic became focused on cuteness, requiring an alteration in Banjo's proportions (such as an increased head shape) and less tight shorts to match it. However, much of the controls were the same.

Staff and workflow

The team comprised both experienced and inexperienced people; some had been working at Rare for 10 years while others had never previously worked on a video game. Gregg Mayles served as the head designer, Bayles' brother Steve "chief scribbler" and character designer, and Chris Sutherland head programmer. Ed Bryan was also a character artist, as well as animator and box cover artist. Bryan has not revealed much about the making of the cover art, other than Rare wanted him to "tell a story" with it. Kieran Connell was junior software engineer when the team said "the game had no chance of being completed on time," and Gavin Price joined as tester only a few months after receiving a demo of the game from '' Official Nintendo Magazine''.

Actual work on ''Banjo-Kazooie'' started in March 1997 with a development team of 10 people. As development progressed, the team grew to a total of 15 members, which included seven engineers, five artists, two designers and one musician. The development of the game took overall 17 months to complete after Rare discarded ''Project Dream'', the first two of these being spent experimenting with ''Dream''s graphic technology. Each staff member had a work week of at least 80 hours, a day lasting until three-to-five in the morning. Mayles and Bryan, in one week, attempted forty hours of normal time and 60 overtime hours for a total of 100 hours, Mayles admitting in 2022 to have worked 102 hours. Sutherland reported one morning where the Stamper brothers threw stones at his house window, as well as provided a McDonald's meal, to get him to work.

Design

Despite being praised by critics and gamers as an improved version of ''Super Mario 64'', ''Banjo-Kazooie'' was not intended by the team to simply be that. However, ''Super Mario 64''s 3D aspect was referenced heavily, as Rare intended to combine it with the look of ''Donkey Kong Country''. The developers appreciated the freedom of movement the 3D game provided, but analyzed it did not take enough advantage of it. Instead, it centered on quick timing and reflexes required for most 2D platformers, which Mayles considered unsuitable for 3D games due to lesser accuracy of viewing distances. Thus, ''Banjo-Kazooie''s gameplay was mostly exploration and discovery. Rare also disliked ''Super Mario 64''s forcing of the player back into the hub world once they collect a star in the level, thinking that it hindered immersion. This is why the player stays in a world after collecting a jiggy.

For the collectibles, Mayles wanted ''Banjo-Kazooie'' to differ from other games involving collecting, in that "rather than being just a shiny object, he jiggywas a shiny object that could actually be used for something." The jinjos, which Mayles found the game's dumbest collectable, were green-lit out of an idea Rare had since developing '' Donkey Kong Country'' (1994), a "hard-to-collect collectable" that chased away or camouflaged when the player was about to obtain it. However, they stood and whistle'd to the player character in the final product. Other collectables, such as the eggs, feathers, notes and honey combs, were incorporated to contribute to the theme of the titular protagonists. Difficulty balance was a major focus; for example, the musical notes were ultimately the only collectibles the player would lose if they died or exited a level.

Rare decided to make an action-based game that focused totally on Banjo and his abilities, Kazooie later born out of the planning of them. Mayles wanted Banjo to run really fast and have a double jump, but thought the bear looked strange doing it. According to Mayles, "We came up with the ..idea that a pair of wings could appear from his backpack to help him perform a second jump. We also wanted Banjo to be able to run very fast when required owe added a pair of 'fast-running' legs that appeared from the bottom of the backpack. nd soon afterwe came up with the logical conclusion that these could belong to another character, one that actually lived in Banjo's backpack." Furthermore, the backpack containing an animal also rationalized why Banjo walks slow. Kazooie was named after a kazoo, which was considered an annoying instrument, "much like the personality of the bird" to Mayles, while the witch Gruntilda was inspired by Grotbags from the ''Grotbags'' British television series.

Writing and humour

''Banjo-Kazooie'' was designed to appeal players of all ages in a similar vein to Walt Disney Animation Studios films. According to Rare, "We wanted the characters to primarily appeal to a younger audience but, at the same time, give them enough humour and attitude not to discourage older players." One major goal was for everything to have personality, down to the collectables, which includes items with eyes and eggs that bounce up and down. Another was its style of humour that distinguished it from other platform games, which Mayles described as "very dry, very typically British, slightly sarcastic, happy to poke fun at ourselves." All the characters, in particular, "basically had something wrong with them", Mayles explained. ''Banjo-Kazooie'' continues the trend of Rare games with characters titled "ame
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