Banjo Kazooie

Banjo-Kazooie (Japanese title: バンジョーとカズーイの大冒険, Rōmaji: Banjō to Kazūi no Daibōken, English translation: Banjo & Kazooie's Great Adventure) is a 3D platform/adventure video game for the Nintendo 64. more...

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It was developed by Rare and published by Nintendo in 1998. The game stars a bear named Banjo and a bird named 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.

Known by the project name Dream until it was first shown at the 1997 E³, Banjo-Kazooie 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 needed 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.

Story

The story begins one day at Spiral Mountain, an area 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 are 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, (despite Kazooie continually yelling at Banjo to wake up) and only walks out of the house shortly after Gruntilda has flown away with Tooty. After hearing what transpired from Bottles, Banjo and his friend Kazooie begin their journey up Spiral Mountain and inside Grunty's Lair to save Tooty.

Gameplay

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, the game did introduce a number of innovative features, 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 music that dynamically changes style in order to reflect the environment and dangers to the characters.

Read more at Wikipedia.org