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Banjo-Tooie: Xbox Live Arcade Review

Banjo-Tooie
Release: April 29, 2009
Rating: E – Everyone
Platform: Xbox Live Arcade
Price: 1200 Microsoft Points

Gameplay: 9.5/10
Graphics: 9.5/10
Sound: 9.5/10
Length: 10/10
Replay Value: 8/10

Overall Score: 9.3

Like it’s predecessor, Banjo-Tooie is a platformer originally made for the Nintendo 64. Since it’s release back in 2000, 4J Studios has done the honor of faithfully porting it to the Xbox Live Arcade for a new generation of gaming fans to enjoy.

Banjo-Tooie starts out two years after the original game, with Gruntilda still trapped under the rock that fell on her. But her sisters have freed her to find out that she is nothing but a skeleton now, and is now determined to restore her original body back and get revenge against Banjo and Kazooie, and it’s up to you to stop her.

The main style of the game is similar to the last. You play through various and giant worlds in search of Jiggies, which is what you need to progress further through the Isle o’ Hags, the game’s main hub world, while learning new moves to help you in your adventure during the process. You also find and collect Jinjos, which helped you greatly in the first game, except this time you return them home to their families and upon completely rescuing a family you will get a Jiggy as a reward.

The gameplay overall is very similar to the previous game. All the buttons do the same things, you have the same moves, and you learn new moves during the adventure. There is no difficulty setting (as with the last game), so the learning curve really depends on whether or not you played through the first adventure. The gaming controls are good, but have a few hiccups here and there. Every now and then while rolling continuously, the game will think that instead of pushing forward on the left stick and B, that I just pushed the B Button so instead of rolling like I want Kazooie will attack the air. It’s not anything bad, but it gets annoying after you’ve played the game for 10 hours or so.

The game’s length is much bigger than the previous. While the previous game was only 7-10 hours (on your first play through), this one (on your first play through) could easily be 15 hours or more, which I feel is appropriate for a game like this.

The game is fun to play, but it can constantly get a tad frustrating. Whereas in the last game if you went in order of the levels (from first to last) if you learned the moves in each level you could beat it 100%, in this game it’s not the case. In the first level, Mayahem Temple, there are some quests you need to complete for a Jiggy, but in order to get it you need to learn a move you don’t learn until the next level, or even the one after that. Inexperienced players could easily get frustrated by this as the game has no indication that you aren’t able to do something yet besides letting you try everything until you’ve given up hope and just moved on to the next world, planning to revisit a previous one later.

The graphics of the game are almost exactly the same as the last, with the same amount of detail and color, with nice and smooth animations for the characters. There are no jagged edges here, and the worlds are very colorful and feel “alive” with the color Rare put into each world to make it unique. The sound also fits each world very well. From being underwater and hearing a similar tune to the one in Donkey Kong Country, to being in Witchyworld and hearing a dark, haunting melody of a nighttime fair, the music fits everything just right to give the player the real feeling of where they are and what is going on.

The game never released any extra content on the N64, so it is certain that Microsoft won’t pay anyone to make new content for the XBLA port. After beating the adventure, most players are sure to play the game again just for the fun of it and looking at the beautiful surroundings, full of color and life.

There is a local multiplayer to this game, which has not been reviewed.

All in all, Banjo-Tooie for the XBLA is a wonderful game. It is a faithful port of the original, while implementing the Stop N’ Swap features that were canned for the N64 versions. To anyone who likes platformers, colorful games that don’t cost $60, and just a fun game to play and interesting story, along with imaginative worlds, I highly recommend you download Banjo-Tooie from the Xbox Live Marketplace.

the Pl4gue