This has been a tremendous year for gaming, especially for fans of platforming as I very much am. Over the summer we were spoiled with Donkey Kong Bananza, and although it’s technically a remake of an older game, Yooka-Replaylee has a fresh enough coat of paint to feel like a modern platformer as well.
But every October it’s tradition for me to go back and play through the original Banjo-Kazooie, and this year was no exception. While it’s still one of my absolute all-time favorites, I’m starting to feel its age more and more each year.
Obviously, comparing an almost thirty-year-old game to ones that are fresh out the door is unfair. No matter how groundbreaking, inventive, or spectacular a release might have been in the late 90s, given the fact that Banjo-Kazooie was released on one of the first consoles that could display 3D graphics and the literal decades of both hardware and software improvements since its original release, the technical aspects are going to pale in comparison to what developers can accomplish today.
That said, since I can’t help but make these comparisons myself, here are my thoguhts from a primarily game design perspective:
Negatives:
1) It really suffers with its camera. Of all the issues Banjo-Kazooie has when compared to modern platformers, this is the one that causes the most friction and frustration. Part of this is because having a second control stick dedicated to the camera was not baked into the N64 hardware (although PlayStation did notably have such a thing available with its DualShock controller, which was already widely available when Banjo came out in 1998). Not only that, but 3D platforming as a genre barely existed, and figuring out how to move the camera was an unsolved problem. The game compensates by setting up specific, static angles and giving the player some control by allowing them to center the camera over the player, or control it with the “C” buttons. Nevertheless, compared to the fluid and adaptive cameras we have now, the camera system can sometimes make for a difficult experience. My wife, who did not grow up playing Banjo-Kazooie or any games on the Nintendo 64, could not get used to the camera enough to continue past Mumbo’s Mountain.
2) Restarting each play session by entering Grunty’s Lair kills all momentum. Although on systems with save slots of sleep states enabled this is less of an issue, if you’re running on original hardware, or if you’re saving and quitting between each play session (as I am), it takes about five minutes of traversing the hub world to get to the level you’re actually in the middle of (especially in the latter stages). And that’s to say nothing at all of the fact that all your music note scores reset when you exit and re-enter a level (something that is thankfully fixed in the Xbox version).
3) It exists in a time before cosmetics. I’m not always the biggest fan of dessing up my characters in outlandish or wacky costumes, but I know a lot of players love it, and sometimes I do enjoy the novelty. Before games like Mario Odyssey, Donkey Kong Bananza, and Yooka-Replaylee this was not something that would even have crossed my mind, but now that it’s an established feature in so many games, the lack of it feels a bit retro.
Positives:
1) Perfect progression. Banjo-Kazooie is a masterclass in game design and staggering progression in a meaningful. It allows you to complete worlds in a linear fashion and collect Jiggies, music notes, Jinjos, Mumbo skulls, extra-life tokens, and probably half a dozen other collectibles I’m forgetting as you go. There’s almost no backtracking. Some treasures are locked behind specific moves you get as you progress, but you always have access to the moves before the game expects you to use them. Everything feels earned, and you are encouraged to keep moving forward without making the game either too difficult or too simplistic. It’s a pitch-perfect balance that Rare struggled to get right in every game after Banjo-Kazooie.
2) Character design. The characters here are memorable, unique, colorful, and charming as hell. There’s not a dud or forgettable character among the bunch (unless you count, perhaps, Banjo’s sister Tootie). There are mascots of other franchises that achieve varying levels of charm and quirkiness, but I would argue that none land quite the way the characters do here. From Grunty’s rhyming, Kazooie’s sharp jabs, and Bottles’ dry humor, all the characters are ones I’ll remember forever. Even though many of the original designers and developers are involved in Yooka-Laylee, the characters they created there just don’t have the same… character, really… that they do here (with the exception of Trowzer, who is a perfect character and I will not hear any slander against him).
3) Music. There’s not much to say here, other than the music is as much a core part of the play experience as the controls, the collectibles, and the levels. Grant Kirkhope turned in a soundtrack where each and every tune is a standout, and I still find myself humming random melodies from this game as I go about my day-to-day.
Banjo is not a perfect game. While it has aged well, to say it has aged flawless would be to deny the improvements that the gaming industry and platforming as a genre has introduced in the time since. But without a question, it is a masterpiece, and even with its outdated controls and mechanics, it’s still well worth playing— whether for the first time, or the hundredth time.