A couple of months ago, Rare teamed up with 4J Studios to gussy up Banjo-Kazooie to tie in with the release of the series’ latest iteration, Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts. Six months later, it’s the sequel, Banjo-Tooie’s turn to get a bit of a spit and polish. It’s another fine job from the lads at 4J Studios, with a nice visual clean up and a few new surprises like Stop ‘n’ Swop thrown into the mix, though the core game is certainly showing its age.

Banjo-Tooie takes place roughly two years after the team or bear and bird defeated Gruntilda and rescued Tooty. Grunty’s evil siblings Mingella and Blobbelda show up with a digging machine to save their sister while our heroes are preoccupied with a poker game. Now reduced to a skeletal state, Grunty seeks revenge on Banjo and Kazooie for ruining her plans by destroying their house, killing Bottles the Mole in the process. Banjo, Kazooie and Mumbo Jumbo join forces to defeat the witch, whose latest plan is to suck the life force out of everything on the island to restore her body.


Released late in the life of the Nintendo 64, Banjo-Tooie is one of the more impressive fifth-generation platformers. The game features some huge levels, richly detailed characters, and vast draw distances which had a tendency to make the ageing Nintendo 64 hardware shake in its boots – fortunately, the Xbox Live Arcade version experiences nary a stutter. The game has been cleaned up a lot, so you get a richer 720p resolution without having to endure the usual N64 blur-fest. The soundtrack is intact, though it does lose sync in some sequences where the music was paced in a way that took account of the slowdown in the original version. The camera control still leaves a bit to be desired, with the right stick simply serving the same purpose as the N64’s C buttons, rather than acting like a modern camera. Banjo-Tooie features a great script, with all characters voiced with cute gibberish noises, though it is worth noting that Grunty’s amusing rhymes are quickly put to a stop by her sisters in a rather funny scene early in the piece.

Banjo-Tooie retains the basic note and jiggy collecting formula of the first game, but smatters a bunch of layers of new content over the top. Players have all of the moves learnt in the first game from the start, and Bottles’ replacement Jamjars has another 40 or so for you to pick up. Banjo and Kazooie can now separate, and Mumbo joins them as a playable character, with his girlfriend Wumba taking over shaman duties. Most levels follow a structure where the player can earn eight of the ten jiggies with existing moves, but need to find Jamjars to get the moves for the last two. Larger worlds make the jiggy and note hunt a bit harder, though notes (along with eggs and feathers) can be found in bunches now. The only downside of the large worlds (now the frame rate is fixed) is that they can be pretty sparse – enemy numbers seem quite thin, and they’re easily disposed of. Fortunately, warp pads are distributed throughout the level to cut down on travel time.

Jiggy-related activities are more varied than in the first game, with more puzzles and mini-games coming along for the ride. You still have the odd jiggy out in the wild and the Jinjo hunt, but now you’ve got more puzzle, racing and first person shooter style sequences to mix the action up more. There are new transformations too; Banjo and Kazooie get transformed into a T-Rex, an armed submarine and a washing machine. Banjo-Tooie’s collection focus is a bit more perverse than the original game, which is probably the element which makes the game seem dated. 4J Studios has thrown in another collection element; Stop ‘n’ Swop eggs, which can be taken to Heggy the Hen for hatching, which unlocks novelty parts in Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, gamer pics and a new dashboard theme.


With all of those extra collection elements and more challenging Jiggy hunts, Banjo-Tooie winds up being a bit longer than the original. On top of a longer single player quest, the game has several multiplayer modes, which involve first person shooter style Deathmatch, kickball contests and other party style contests. 4J Studios didn’t add the ability to play these games over Xbox Live, so you’ll have to make do with splitscreen play.

Banjo-Tooie remains one of the best 3D platformers around, and the Xbox Live Arcade version simply makes it better. It’s not exactly perfect, though; some of the gameplay elements do seem a bit dated, and the camera system probably could have been reworked. 1,200 points ($AU19.20) might also seem a bit pricey compared to other games on the service, but the length of the adventure (and price of the original cart on the secondary market - $AU40 minimum) does a lot to negate that issue. Banjo-Tooie is a worthy addition to your Xbox Live Arcade library.