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Am I the only one who thinks Banjo-Tooie is not good? I mean... for N64 standards.
I recently played that game... and what I found is... a HUGE MESS.
First of all, I had and played Banjo-Kazooie in 1998. Few weeks ago I saw that recreation of the second world in that "Dreams" thing (I thought Dreams was abandoned...), and I decided to play BK again. The original. BK is as good as it was in 1998. Amazing 3D platform-adventure, pretty well balanced and beautiful. You cannot find anything that good in 3D adventure/platforming in PSX.
During the pandemic I played DK64.
I always heard the same: the game was the "Ultimate" collect-a-ton... and because of this, that game gained some fame of being a boring or painful game along the years.
Well..., it is a brutal "collectaton", but the game is well planned and can be very addictive. In fact, I was more and more addicted to it as more as I advanced in the story, until I finished it. To me, that means the game was a success.
Tooie was another story....
After replaying with satisfaction Banjo-Kazooie few weeks ago, I decided to try Tooie.
And, for me... That game... is a failed product.
To be clear, the game is not really a "collectaton" like BK or DK64 were (especially that last one). It's just a VERY CONVOLUTED 3D adventure. It's a massive 3d adventure with huge flaws and a looooot of backtracking but without many collectables, so... it makes the experience absolutely boring almost all the time. It can even be painful to play it.
Why? cause Notes, the basic collectible in BK, are just put in "groups" of 5 or even 20 pieces in BT. That can be useful with eggs and feathers, but with Notes, you just left the levels a lot empty, and BT levels can be big, with many subzones. Also, the BK "Mumbo tokens", which were a nice distraction because they used to be "semi-hidden" and you only need some (not all of them) were replaced by just 2 "Glowbos" for every level. Only 2 magic tokens in EVERY level. Always near to its 2 magic users. So... they are basically redundant.
And also redundant are ALL the "important" secondary characters of BT. They are many:
Mumbo Jumbo, now, is just a wasted character. Yes, you can "finally control him" in BT. But while in BK he has some charisma and fun phrases, as he is the extravagant chaman who transforms Banjo (in exchange for a bunch of Mumbo tokens only the first time of every transformation)... in BT he is a lame character, only used to be controlled some minutes to solve some cheap "puzzles". And the puzzle is always... jumping on a pad with his head on it, and press the action button... Just that. He has ZERO interesting moves: one simple jump, and one basic attack. Just that. He is a chaman! give him 3 or 4 nice magic attacks at least!! He also can't climb ANYTHING.
(The model from BK vs. BT. He has a pathetic sad face in BT).
Humba Wumba, the new character introduced to do the old job of Mumbo in BK (transformations)... is just BORING. I mean... why Mumbo can't do the transformations anymore? Just because now he has to be controlled from time to time to go to some stupid "pad" to press one button? Wumba is just an excuse to put a big titted character in the game. it's okay for a teen player in year 2000 with no internet... I suppose, but she is just totally unnecessary and not funny.
("Me Wumba, Me help you to find some big Jigs". Don't worry, she will not say ANYTHING like that. She is more dry than a martini.)
Then, you have those 3 idiots below. I do not know which of them is more incredibly useless. All of them could be just mixed in 1 character, and it would be completely useless as well. Also, the "Temple of Jiggywiggy" could perfectly be also the "Throne Room", or viceversa. No need for those 2 big spaces.
("The three totally useless amigos")
Because there are many HUGE buildings in BT... almost all of them pointless and empty: The two aforementioned above, all those Jinjo houses (nine...), the huge "Honey Hive" with one "bee" character (more later about her), the Huge "HenHouse" with one "hen" barely useful along all the game (she really give you just one useful cheat, the homing eggs)... many of those places are huge and useless spaces: One big palace instead, where to go for "all those things", would have been a lot smarter. Some of those places are visited just one time in the game. In fact, the Jinjo houses don't even need to be visited at all.
Talking about the mentioned "Honey Hive"... You can meet "Honey B." there, another redundant character who will give you the extra panels (of life)... for some reason (in BK you just collect them, expanding your life automatically).
(Another excuse to got some nice melons on the screen, in theEpstein's Isle O' Hags, where the game takes place).
But if you are searching for extra useless characters... you have the new Gruntilda's sisters. You only would see them in the intro of BT. And in the very end of the game, where they barely appear and don't speak at all... just before being killed by their own sister. By the same sister THEY saved in the VERY BEGINNING of the adventure, from below the rock she was trapped since the end of BK.
After the first 10-15 minutes, the game ABSOLUTELY FORGETS about this pair of witches, as well as the plan of Gruntilda to recover her own flesh sucking the life of the other characters with a giant-ray machine. What a planning, Rare... The game lasts various dozens of hours of gameplay, so...
(So many efforts designing many characters in BT... for nothing at all. And I thought "Brentilda", was a "wasted" character in BK. LOL.)
By the way, Brentilda, the "good" trash talking sister of Gruntilda, didn't appear in BT, neither was referenced at all. But the same happens with "Tooty", the Banjo's sister you have to save in the first game. The reason/excuse for the first adventure. Not even Banjo says a word about her in BT. The game only gives you one very dark reference about her:
(Woow... WTF? I told you,Epstein isle O'Hags.)
But there are more secondary useless characters in BT: the complete Bottles family. ZERO utility for any of them.
You could expect they could be useful in some way during the game. Nope.
(Again, maaaany useless new characters presented during the first minutes... for nothing at all).
Ironically, Roysten, the suicidal goldfish of Banjo and Kazooie, is a LOT more useful than all those characters in Banjo-Tooie... if you don't overlook it.
(When a simple joke from BK becomes more useful than almost all the sequel "BIG" secondary characters... you have a serious problem developing the game, Rare).
Then, there is another HUGE PROBLEM. The huge worlds. Tedious and EMPTY. Because, why you would need those huge worlds... if they are empty of notes and things to collect? You don't.
And here's another big problem: The game is not a bunch of self-contained worlds, like in BK: All of them are interconnected in BT, and some jigsaw pieces requieres you to do MANY things, sometimes, in 2 or 3 different worlds. For just one Jiggy.
And I'm not forgetting about the new warp pads, which are very useful. But even with them the experience is slow or boring.
This is why I think BT fails: Too big, too overcomplicated, too full of empty places, too many "bombastic" and useless characters, and too boring at the end. The game is not more fun than BK at all. And is a lot more tedious: Some worlds as "Grunty Industries" can be very tiring and needed some kind of a map.
BT is also LESS intuitive than BK: Many times you have no idea what you have to do, and many of those times you just need "to blow up" something with an egg-grenade or similar. And sometimes, this is not evident AT ALL. BK rarely had this problem, was a lot more organic.
Banjo Tooie is a surprise to me, a real proof sometimes LESS is MORE. And BT wanted to be a LOT MORE than BK. So... it became a messy experience.
BK kicks BT ass in almost every aspect. Not in all of them though: Banjo grabbing movement into the edges in BT... is extremely useful, and I always wanted that move in the original BK to save some short jumps.
But many of the new moves in BT... are just bad excuses. Many could be easily replaced by one of the old BK moves you already have at the start of BT. And the split-up pads to control Banjo or Kazooie as separated characters... although interesting in principle... the truth is... it is not THAT interesting and feels "orthopedic" and "artificial".
You can clearly see how the game had a lot of effort behind (big levels, nice new characters...), but that effort was not well used.
I recently played that game... and what I found is... a HUGE MESS.
First of all, I had and played Banjo-Kazooie in 1998. Few weeks ago I saw that recreation of the second world in that "Dreams" thing (I thought Dreams was abandoned...), and I decided to play BK again. The original. BK is as good as it was in 1998. Amazing 3D platform-adventure, pretty well balanced and beautiful. You cannot find anything that good in 3D adventure/platforming in PSX.
During the pandemic I played DK64.
I always heard the same: the game was the "Ultimate" collect-a-ton... and because of this, that game gained some fame of being a boring or painful game along the years.
Well..., it is a brutal "collectaton", but the game is well planned and can be very addictive. In fact, I was more and more addicted to it as more as I advanced in the story, until I finished it. To me, that means the game was a success.
Tooie was another story....
After replaying with satisfaction Banjo-Kazooie few weeks ago, I decided to try Tooie.
And, for me... That game... is a failed product.
To be clear, the game is not really a "collectaton" like BK or DK64 were (especially that last one). It's just a VERY CONVOLUTED 3D adventure. It's a massive 3d adventure with huge flaws and a looooot of backtracking but without many collectables, so... it makes the experience absolutely boring almost all the time. It can even be painful to play it.
Why? cause Notes, the basic collectible in BK, are just put in "groups" of 5 or even 20 pieces in BT. That can be useful with eggs and feathers, but with Notes, you just left the levels a lot empty, and BT levels can be big, with many subzones. Also, the BK "Mumbo tokens", which were a nice distraction because they used to be "semi-hidden" and you only need some (not all of them) were replaced by just 2 "Glowbos" for every level. Only 2 magic tokens in EVERY level. Always near to its 2 magic users. So... they are basically redundant.
And also redundant are ALL the "important" secondary characters of BT. They are many:
Mumbo Jumbo, now, is just a wasted character. Yes, you can "finally control him" in BT. But while in BK he has some charisma and fun phrases, as he is the extravagant chaman who transforms Banjo (in exchange for a bunch of Mumbo tokens only the first time of every transformation)... in BT he is a lame character, only used to be controlled some minutes to solve some cheap "puzzles". And the puzzle is always... jumping on a pad with his head on it, and press the action button... Just that. He has ZERO interesting moves: one simple jump, and one basic attack. Just that. He is a chaman! give him 3 or 4 nice magic attacks at least!! He also can't climb ANYTHING.
(The model from BK vs. BT. He has a pathetic sad face in BT).
Humba Wumba, the new character introduced to do the old job of Mumbo in BK (transformations)... is just BORING. I mean... why Mumbo can't do the transformations anymore? Just because now he has to be controlled from time to time to go to some stupid "pad" to press one button? Wumba is just an excuse to put a big titted character in the game. it's okay for a teen player in year 2000 with no internet... I suppose, but she is just totally unnecessary and not funny.
("Me Wumba, Me help you to find some big Jigs". Don't worry, she will not say ANYTHING like that. She is more dry than a martini.)
Then, you have those 3 idiots below. I do not know which of them is more incredibly useless. All of them could be just mixed in 1 character, and it would be completely useless as well. Also, the "Temple of Jiggywiggy" could perfectly be also the "Throne Room", or viceversa. No need for those 2 big spaces.
("The three totally useless amigos")
Because there are many HUGE buildings in BT... almost all of them pointless and empty: The two aforementioned above, all those Jinjo houses (nine...), the huge "Honey Hive" with one "bee" character (more later about her), the Huge "HenHouse" with one "hen" barely useful along all the game (she really give you just one useful cheat, the homing eggs)... many of those places are huge and useless spaces: One big palace instead, where to go for "all those things", would have been a lot smarter. Some of those places are visited just one time in the game. In fact, the Jinjo houses don't even need to be visited at all.
Talking about the mentioned "Honey Hive"... You can meet "Honey B." there, another redundant character who will give you the extra panels (of life)... for some reason (in BK you just collect them, expanding your life automatically).
(Another excuse to got some nice melons on the screen, in the
But if you are searching for extra useless characters... you have the new Gruntilda's sisters. You only would see them in the intro of BT. And in the very end of the game, where they barely appear and don't speak at all... just before being killed by their own sister. By the same sister THEY saved in the VERY BEGINNING of the adventure, from below the rock she was trapped since the end of BK.
After the first 10-15 minutes, the game ABSOLUTELY FORGETS about this pair of witches, as well as the plan of Gruntilda to recover her own flesh sucking the life of the other characters with a giant-ray machine. What a planning, Rare... The game lasts various dozens of hours of gameplay, so...
(So many efforts designing many characters in BT... for nothing at all. And I thought "Brentilda", was a "wasted" character in BK. LOL.)
By the way, Brentilda, the "good" trash talking sister of Gruntilda, didn't appear in BT, neither was referenced at all. But the same happens with "Tooty", the Banjo's sister you have to save in the first game. The reason/excuse for the first adventure. Not even Banjo says a word about her in BT. The game only gives you one very dark reference about her:
(Woow... WTF? I told you,
But there are more secondary useless characters in BT: the complete Bottles family. ZERO utility for any of them.
You could expect they could be useful in some way during the game. Nope.
(Again, maaaany useless new characters presented during the first minutes... for nothing at all).
Ironically, Roysten, the suicidal goldfish of Banjo and Kazooie, is a LOT more useful than all those characters in Banjo-Tooie... if you don't overlook it.
(When a simple joke from BK becomes more useful than almost all the sequel "BIG" secondary characters... you have a serious problem developing the game, Rare).
Then, there is another HUGE PROBLEM. The huge worlds. Tedious and EMPTY. Because, why you would need those huge worlds... if they are empty of notes and things to collect? You don't.
And here's another big problem: The game is not a bunch of self-contained worlds, like in BK: All of them are interconnected in BT, and some jigsaw pieces requieres you to do MANY things, sometimes, in 2 or 3 different worlds. For just one Jiggy.
And I'm not forgetting about the new warp pads, which are very useful. But even with them the experience is slow or boring.
This is why I think BT fails: Too big, too overcomplicated, too full of empty places, too many "bombastic" and useless characters, and too boring at the end. The game is not more fun than BK at all. And is a lot more tedious: Some worlds as "Grunty Industries" can be very tiring and needed some kind of a map.
BT is also LESS intuitive than BK: Many times you have no idea what you have to do, and many of those times you just need "to blow up" something with an egg-grenade or similar. And sometimes, this is not evident AT ALL. BK rarely had this problem, was a lot more organic.
Banjo Tooie is a surprise to me, a real proof sometimes LESS is MORE. And BT wanted to be a LOT MORE than BK. So... it became a messy experience.
BK kicks BT ass in almost every aspect. Not in all of them though: Banjo grabbing movement into the edges in BT... is extremely useful, and I always wanted that move in the original BK to save some short jumps.
But many of the new moves in BT... are just bad excuses. Many could be easily replaced by one of the old BK moves you already have at the start of BT. And the split-up pads to control Banjo or Kazooie as separated characters... although interesting in principle... the truth is... it is not THAT interesting and feels "orthopedic" and "artificial".
You can clearly see how the game had a lot of effort behind (big levels, nice new characters...), but that effort was not well used.
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