Banjo-Kazooie - Two good games and a third that was shit

[Trans-istor]

Banjo-Kazooie, for those of you who don't know because you don't play 20 year old games, is a collectathon similar to (and made by many of the same people as) Yooka-Laylee. Except this time it's not garbage.

Personally I'm (albiet glacially) working on a port of Banjo-Kazooie to the PC just to see if I can.

 

[ConcernedAnon]

So how exactly are you going about doing that? Ripping or remaking assets I assume, and then probably writing the code from scratch right? Sounds like a big job, and I'm sure some fans will be sticklers for replicating every silly minute detail.

 

[Trans-istor]

So how exactly are you going about doing that? Ripping or remaking assets I assume, and then probably writing the code from scratch right? Sounds like a big job, and I'm sure some fans will be sticklers for replicating every silly minute detail.

Yes. Sorta. With some borrowing ideas from other engines, like the mapping system from HL (the only major use of OSed code) and the idea of a modular engine. And I'm being a little too grandiose, it's really a port of Spiral Mountain and the first level and if people want it they'll get the source to finish it up themselves. As a 2-for-1 deal it comes with a Swapstone Hollow demo as well.

 

[ConcernedAnon]

Custom made engine I take it? That's ambitious. Also wasn't Dinosaur Planet completely unreleased? Unless a demo has been found I would think you will have to entirely recreate those assets entirely which sounds like quite the task given the relative sparsity of reference material.

 

[Trans-istor]

Custom made engine I take it?

Yep. A little on the basic side (somewhere around Half-Life's engine), but I'm just one person.

That's ambitious. Also wasn't Dinosaur Planet completely unreleased? Unless a demo has been found I would think you will have to entirely recreate those assets entirely which sounds like quite the task given the relative sparsity of reference material.

There's plenty of left over content from DP in a beta disk of SFA. Also, no, Dinosaur Planet got released, just as a Star Fox game. Enough content left over from DP to remake Swapstone Hollow, in any case.

 

[BoingBoingBoi]

Banjo Kazooie is a game worth sperging out about as an old fuck because it is that good. Everyone should play it. I'm not gonna sperg out about it bcs i'm lazy but if you haven't seen it dunkey's video on it is as good of an advertisement as can be.

 

[Khayyam]

Would it not be faster to use one of the N64 emulators as a base? Those games already function on PC through it.

 

[vertexwindi]

Time to sperg! God I fucking hate Yooka-Laylee's sense of humour. Banjo was fun and charming but Yooka-Laylee is dripping with smug meta "humour" it's impossible for me to like it. "HAHA GUYS WE'RE DOING ANOTHER FUCKING QUIZ. WE KNOW THEY'RE SHIT BUT YOU HAVE TO DO THEM ANYWAY." Fuck off you wankers, if you know the quizzes suck dick let me skip them. Fuck.

God I miss Banjo.

 

[MightyBiteySnake]

Good ol’ Banjo. Such a simple enjoyable series that should, frankly, be held up as one of the hallmarks of 3D platforming.

Recently, I’ve gotten into watching speed runs for B-K and there’s some pretty whacky shit people have figured out how to do in the game. People have figured out how to use clipping to get into certain levels way easier than intended, a clip to allow you to play as the bee from click clock woods anywhere, and even a way to start the game with every move. It’s pretty awesome.

On a side note, I’m curious who here knows about Grunty’s Revenge for the GBA?

 

[LofaSofa]

The third game gets a bad rap but I think it was a fun game, just not a very good Banjo-Kazooie game.

 

[nanny911]

Good ol’ Banjo. Such a simple enjoyable series that should, frankly, be held up as one of the hallmarks of 3D platforming.

Recently, I’ve gotten into watching speed runs for B-K and there’s some pretty whacky shit people have figured out how to do in the game. People have figured out how to use clipping to get into certain levels way easier than intended, a clip to allow you to play as the bee from click clock woods anywhere, and even a way to start the game with every move. It’s pretty awesome.

On a side note, I’m curious who here knows about Grunty’s Revenge for the GBA?

The GBA game was hard af, in a bad way. One of my biggest gripes was that the enemies respawned way too quickly. But yeah Banjo-Kazooie is still a fun game. I've loved it ever since I was a kid, and unfortunately we'll probably never get B-K 4.

 

[TrippinKahlua]

I wish people would stop using that derogatory term "Collect-athon."

I think of it more as a "Huge Adventure."

 

[RG 448]

When I was a kid stop-n-swop kept me up at night.

 

[An Ghost]

Nobody mentioned the amazing music yet. Grant Kirkhope is a king. Every track gets stuck in your head and all the variations on the main theme are also stellar. He’s the reason I bought the Mario Rabbids game for the switch and in addition to being a solid game, the music was phenomenal.

In the charity stream AGDQ I think 2016 he did a Skype call in during the banjo run. He talked about sitting with his son and watching him play the Xbox ports of Banjo and Tooie without telling his son he did the sound track and voiced a ton of characters. He described it as “finding an old worn pair of slippers you forgot about but they’re the most comfortable things.” He also said “my son liked the third game the best because it was like Minecraft” so also shout out to him for being a parent to a kid with autism and bad opinions.

 

[Penguino]

Unpopular Opinion: BK:N&B was a good game... just not a good BK game

 

[Trans-istor]

Would it not be faster to use one of the N64 emulators as a base? Those games already function on PC through it.

It would probably be faster but the point is to have a completely native game, not a Project-64 interface.

Nobody mentioned the amazing music yet. Grant Kirkhope is a king. Every track gets stuck in your head and all the variations on the main theme are also stellar. He’s the reason I bought the Mario Rabbids game for the switch and in addition to being a solid game, the music was phenomenal.

In the charity stream AGDQ I think 2016 he did a Skype call in during the banjo run. He talked about sitting with his son and watching him play the Xbox ports of Banjo and Tooie without telling his son he did the sound track and voiced a ton of characters. He described it as “finding an old worn pair of slippers you forgot about but they’re the most comfortable things.” He also said “my son liked the third game the best because it was like Minecraft” so also shout out to him for being a parent to a kid with autism and bad opinions.

I thought it went without saying, the game is in the top 10 best soundtracks of a game I've played, and that's pretty hard to do when its competition is The Sims 1 and its sister game The Urbz for the GBA, TF2, and Quadralien.

 

[Vault Boy]

Unpopular Opinion: BK:N&B was a good game... just not a good BK game

I think that it (and perhaps Rare) would've fared much better if it was a new IP instead of the long awaited sequel to Banjo-Tooie. There wouldn't have been the baggage associated with being an in-name-only sequel, expectations wouldn't have been so high as to have completely destroy the hype for it when it was revealed, and it could've been a decent start to an interesting new series.

Anyway, I might be a fool for holding out hope, but I think the series will return in some form in the future. Now that Kinect is deader than a dodo, Rare Replay was a hit, and with the return of Killer Instinct and Battletoads, would Banjo-Kazooie returning really be all that unlikely?

 

[SteelPlatedHeart]

 

[MightyBiteySnake]

Nobody mentioned the amazing music yet. Grant Kirkhope is a king. Every track gets stuck in your head and all the variations on the main theme are also stellar

Kirkhope’s one of the only people out there who can make an entire soundtrack of 10/10 amazing songs. It’s hard to pick a favorite cuz there’re all just so damn catchy.

Unpopular Opinion: BK:N&B was a good game... just not a good BK game

I’ve stood by this opinion myself for years. Rare clearly put a lot of work into making the Build-A-Vehicle stuff work well, so it’s a shame the game was doomed from the start but the troglodyte producers at Microsoft insisting they sink their flagship series. (Ironically not unlike the mistake Miyamoto and Nintendo made with Star Fox Adventures)

It would have been nice to see a new IP work with the excellent creative mechanics behind Nuts and Bolts, or maybe even see it be treated as a B-K spin off rather than a main game but that’s life I guess.

I think that it (and perhaps Rare) would've fared much better if it was a new IP instead of the long awaited sequel to Banjo-Tooie. There wouldn't have been the baggage associated with being an in-name-only sequel, expectations wouldn't have been so high as to have completely destroy the hype for it when it was revealed, and it could've been a decent start to an interesting new series.

Anyway, I might be a fool for holding out hope, but I think the series will return in some form in the future. Now that Kinect is deader than a dodo, Rare Replay was a hit, and with the return of Killer Instinct and Battletoads, would Banjo-Kazooie returning really be all that unlikely?

There’s been rumors for ages now that Nintendo is in the process of reclaiming a bunch of old rare titles (B-K included), that only got more fuel when K Rool was confirmed for smash (who was confirmed in the past as a popular yet “impossible” pick).

In this dream scenario I’d love to see the people at Retro do something with the property, since imo they’re basically Rare 2.0

 

[Overcast]

The first two Banjo games are golden. I loved the level design, the humorous characters, the soundtracks, and the self awareness the games had about themselves. Granted, the first game is much less of a time sink and can be done in a weekend.

As others stated, Nuts and Bolts I feel would be fine if it was its own IP.

Yooka-Laylee’s team clearly had their heart in the right place, but the game just felt like something that didn’t have its own identity. Also the whole “expand the worlds” mechanic is so pointless and unnecessary I can’t imagine why they decided to put something like that in there.