ERA, what are your thoughts on Banjo-Tooie?

[AlexFlame116]

It's no surprise that whenever someone mentions Rare or brings up a list of amazing games that everyone has to try, Banjo-Kazooie is normally the favorite to talk about with the exception of the Donkey Kong Country series. Heck just seeing the excitement that people had when it was announced that Smash Bros Ultimate was getting the bear and bird as DLC characters is a huge understatement. People went insane!

Normally when talking about them you either hear a lot about how Banjo-Kazooie was a masterpiece of a game and a gold standard that to many hasn't been matched yet, or people talk about Nuts and Bolts and how to many it wasn't a worthy contender for the Banjo series. But not many talk about Banjo-Tooie, the second game in the Banjo trilogy.

I've seen some videos from multiple people and most of the opinions I've seen range from "it's great!" to "there's way too much in that game and it hurts it". Generally many see it as not as good as the first game.

What about you all? What are your thoughts on Banjo-Tooie? Do you agree with the game being "not the best" or is it a worthy sequel to Banjo-Kazooie?

 

[Fat4all]

i always found it not as fun to get into for whatever reason, i think it had sommit to do with the pacing and progression between areas

the first game i was hooked into immediately

 

[Mekanos]

Good but overly ambitious game. Impressive at the time but harder to come back to. Kazooie is a much better paced game and an overall tighter product. Tooie asks the player to juggle a lot of balls.

Kazooie is in my top 5 but I don't think Tooie would even be in my top 100. And I played both games a ton.

Much better than DK64.

 

[Richietto]

Its great although a bit too ambitious and thus gets in the way of its own core game design. I appreciate what they did but its just not as tight of an experience as the first, but I mean 1 is incredible so I don't blame it for being just great,

There are kinda like 2 ways about it. The games enjoyment value depends on if its a 100% run or not. 100% Tooie is what really shows the games flaws. So if you want to enjoy the game to its fullest, 100% it is NOT the answer. Grunty Industry is proof of that.

 

[RockmanBN]

Too spacious. A lot of time used is you running around.

 

[Weiss]

Everything except Grunty Industries is great. There's tons to do with a constant stream of variety.

I'll admit to the game's flaws (backtracking and overly complex tasks for one Jiggy) worsening as time goes on.

 

[Deleted member 9135]

I don't like it and have tried to on several occasions. I feel an overwhelming sense of anxiety as soon as I get into it with everything they dump on you. It really comes off as the devs foolishly thinking that bigger was better.

The first is still a freaking classic save for the board game segment toward the end.

 

[Lucas M. Thomas]

 

[Okabe]

Guh-Huh/10

 

[Nights]

I think its WAY too big.

Reminds me kind of Twilight Princess levels of too big. Where there's just a lot of traveling, not enough interesting things between traveling so much.

 

[Dremorak]

 

[Dyle]

It has its issues, but I prefer it over 1, in part because I played it first and when going in that order the smaller scale and less inspired worlds of the first game felt limiting

 

[Hayama Akito]

At least is not DK64/10

 

[NotLiquid]

At least is not DK64/10

Click to shrink...

I prefer playing DK64 over BT to be honest. At least DK64 is easy to compartmentalize.

 

[Crayolan]

I think it's great, pretty much right on par with the original or just a tiny bit behind. I don't consider jiggies taking multiple steps to to get to be a negative, it makes some of the levels feel like mini metroidvanias to me and I love that. The infamous Grunty Industries is my favorite level because it leans the heaviest into that design style.

 

[hydruxo]

I know it's an unpopular opinion on here but I love it almost as much as Kazooie. Big fan of both games.

 

[bionic77]

Technically amazing for its time but not half as fun as the original game.

Way too much bloat in between the cool stuff.

If you took away half of the collecting and dumb exercises and kept the meat it would have been one of the best games of the gen IMO.

 

[Deleted member 18021]

I was too busy marveling at how big these worlds were, and how Rare made them connect, to really notice the game's short-comings back in the day. Now, I feel it has aged better than DK64, but I'd still rather play Kazooie.

Later Rare N64 games always felt like they were too ambitious for their own good, personally.

 

[Prof Bathtub]

I like it. Played it a lot before I got the first game. Made it to the end just fine without a guide, even if the last boss is a bit of a "you have to use cheats" situation.

 

[Ayirek]

I've only played through once, but I remember really enjoying it. Though I did like the first game better.

 

[Firmament1]

Pretty good. Levels get a bit too big, though.

 

[FreddeGredde]

Seems like I feel the same that most do: I love Rare but couldn't actually get into this game at all. It's the only N64 Rare game is didn't finish, actually probably didn't even play a third of it.

And the multiplayer mini games sucked. This one had a ton of them, didn't it? That's the first time I realized that mini games aren't automatically fun.

 

[Glass Arrows]

It has its issues, but I prefer it over 1, in part because I played it first and when going in that order the smaller scale and less inspired worlds of the first game felt limiting

Click to shrink...

I agree. As someone who primarily played Tooie growing up, BK feels really basic in comparison.

 

[Rubblatus]

It's just too big. Banjo Kazooie was a fun game to collect things in. The environments were deceptively dense with collectibles, could easily be cleaned out in under an hour a pop, and I want to say there's only one instance where backtracking's required. Banjo Tooie just inflates the scope of the game too far, makes it way too difficult to track multi-stage objectives and doesn't ever make up for it with new abilities that specifically make zig-zagging across all that empty space over and over again that interesting.

I gave up on it in the dinosaur stage and never felt compelled to go back.

/I found DK64 fine in comparison, for what it's worth.

 

[Deleted member 224]

Not as good as 1. But it's still a very enjoyable game because of the writing, atmosphere, music, and gameplay (for the most part). The issue is that after a while things became too complicated and intertwined as you had to remember all of these different elements of each world simultaneously.

 

[Kinsei]

Higher highs than Kazooie but also lower lows. Overall I prefer it, but I totally understand why others prefer Kazooie.

 

[woopWOOP]

Too big, both levels and overworld areas.
Frame rate bothered me too.
Jinjo village was lame.
Never got beyond world 3.

Replayed and finished BK multiple times, but I'm okay with never finishing BT.

 

[Birdie]

Weaker than BK and DK64 after playing all three recently.

Basically you juggle five characters and use them to hit switches and play mini-games (red worth 1, green worth 2, blue worth 3) which in fairness is kind of DK64, but I feel the individual characters in that game have enough of their own feel.

 

[Acetown]

It was better than Donkey Kong 64, still, a whole lotta tedium. I recommend Tim Rogers review of the game.

 

[Remo Williams]

I liked it a lot, but out of the three major Banjo games, Tooie is the least great. The huge levels really do hurt it somewhat.

 

[Akumatica]

I beat Banjo-Tooie once and would give it a 6 out of 10. Compare that to the 1st game which I've played through 20+ times and is one of my favorite games.

It's a slog. The levels are too big, the tone is darker & much of the humor from the 1st game is missing, the whole Stop 'N Swap disappointment, the first person segments aren't fun, the game ran horribly on the N64 & Grunty's random quips are gone.

It's not as bad as Donkey Kong 64 though.

 

[julia crawford]

Hum it has a pee easter egg I think?

 

[theme park joe]

Density of the levels plus too many random systems hampered the game. Felt like they wanted to go for the kitchen sink but ended up making a lot of half polished things. Feels like huge chunks of the game were either walled off (Kazooie's special abilities), half ass implemented (Stop n Swoop), or just totally cut (Bottle's Revenge). A smaller game scope would have improved the game overall. Just really a victim of "everything needs a 1 v 1 v 1 v1 multiplayer mode".

 

[Croix]

I think it's great, pretty much right on par with the original or just a tiny bit behind. I don't consider jiggies taking multiple steps to to get to be a negative, it makes some of the levels feel like mini metroidvanias to me and I love that. The infamous Grunty Industries is my favorite level because it leans the heaviest into that design style.

Click to shrink...

As someone who really likes DK64, this makes me really want to try Banjo-Tooie. I played Kazooie much later than DK64 and while I liked how compact it was, I missed how dense and big DK64 worlds felt; they were filled with so many things to do. Maybe I should track down a cart...

 

[big_z]

Tooie is proof that bigger doesn't mean better. The first game was an excellent Mario 64 clone. Tooie felt like a slog where you traverse large boring environments to play the next mini game. The camera always wanting to angle down to the ground is super annoying too. I get rare had to do that to get the framerate up but it makes for an awful experience.

 

[jimboton]

It's a slower game partly because of the lower framerate, and the basic platforming gameplay and feel suffers for it.

On the other hand it's a lot more ambitious with a complex interconnected world where the solutions to puzzles in some levels may require actions performed in another, which brings it almost to adventure territory, and ties nicely with the old 'videoadventure' genre of the early 8 bit computer days of which Rare (or Ultimate) were masters.

It's both more and less than a 3d platformer. I like them both equally for slightly different reasons.

 

[Danzflor]

People give it a lot of flak but for me is one of the best platformers out there. Main discussion is always "is too big", but people always overlook how creative and imaginative it was, also how good the story and writting was. It really felt like the game grew with his audience, it was a lot more mature and with a bit of "edginess", just enough to not be cringy. The dark humour also is fantastic, they killed one main character right from the get-go, with banjo and Kazooie having to deal with the little fact Bottles was dead with his family, not to mention the zombified king. Was amazing stuff for his age.

In terms of gameplay, I enjoyed a lot the new additions, was trying things no other platform even tried after or before. We can discuss the execution of it, but I give it merit regardless, felt like Rare went out of his comfort zone for this one. And finally, the most unpopular opinion of all, I enjoyed the Hag 1 final battle a lot more than the original Grunty final battle. The tension, the music, the fact that you actually had to use everything you learnt in the game to beat it, I loved it.

I know I'm the minority and "unpopular" opinion here, but for me Tooie was everything I wanted from a sequel, it did not dissapointed me.

 

[Kouriozan]

I admit I'm a big fan of Kazooie but never touched Tooie and from what I saw I'm scared I wouldn't like it.

 

[N64Controller]

Tooie is a great ambitious game that should have come out a generation later.

 

[Birdie]

I feel like Tooie would be criticized more if we got a true sequel and it wasn't the "end" of the franchise

 

[Deleted member 49770]

It is my favorite game of all time. It has a much greater sense of scale and challenge than its predecessor while also being (imo) more charming and better written. It feels more like an adventure game than a mere platformer - which understandably turns a lot of folks off who prefer the "quick, get-in-get-out" pacing of the previous game - while not devolving into the repetitive nonsense of DK64. Unlike that game, Tooie's jiggies feel special and earned. There are a lot of them, and some require much more effort and thinking than others, but few feel like you just did the same thing you did last level, but harder.

And even putting aside the gameplay, the soundtrack is just fucking perfect and the characters you meet, new and returning, are lovable and unforgettable. I won't argue with someone who doesn't like this game - it asks for a lot of patience from the player - but for me, it's truly GOAT.

Also, Nuts & Bolts is great and if that's how the series had to return, I would be content.

 

[AppleKid]

It's an incredible game that was everything I wanted from a sequel.

• Keeps the full skillset from the original and expands on it in meaningful ways
• Large levels that still feel carefully crafted with a warp system for easy traversal
• More challenging/involved jiggies to collect.
• Cross-world shortcuts and character interactions
• Loads of new characters while bringing back old ones
• And most importantly: nearly all of this makes sense in the context of the game's world

Starting the game in a ruined Spiral mountain where Gruntilda's lair has crumbled and actually being able to hear it's theme if you walk close enough to the crumbled passage is magic. And the game is full of those kind of special moments.

Will never understand the "too much" arguments because every bit of what was there was delightful. It's the main reason I'm not feeling butthurt over never getting Threeie

 

[Crayolan]

As someone who really likes DK64, this makes me really want to try Banjo-Tooie. I played Kazooie much later than DK64 and while I liked how compact it was, I missed how dense and big DK64 worlds felt; they were filled with so many things to do. Maybe I should track down a cart...

Click to shrink...

If you like DK64 and aren't turned off by how big the levels are, then I'd encourage you to try Tooie for yourself. It's not quite as big as DK64 (which is probably for the better, lol) but I feel like Tooie has much better, more compact level design than DK64 and its awkward content hubs connected by corridors.

And before anyone says anything yes I know I just called Tooie levels "compact", I mean in terms of how worlds are laid out in comparison to DK64, not in sheer size where it's obviously nowhere near as compact as BK levels.

 

[Christo750]

Has the reliable foundation of Banjo-Kazooie but is held back by convoluted level design and too much space between objectives, especially considering how much backtracking there is.

There's just too much bloat to the overall package. Plenty of interesting grandeur to create a bigger sense of adventure but lacks incentive to explore, if that makes sense. Newer moves learned beyond WitchyWorld didn't really feel useful, and the whole split-up thing felt kinda unnecessary.

 

[Rodney McKay]

Has the reliable foundation of Banjo-Kazooie but is held back by convoluted level design and too much space between objectives, especially considering how much backtracking there is.

There's just too much bloat to the overall package. Plenty of interesting grandeur to create a bigger sense of adventure but lacks incentive to explore, if that makes sense. Newer moves learned beyond WitchyWorld didn't really feel useful, and the whole split-up thing felt kinda unnecessary.

Click to shrink...

Pretty much my thought.

Banjo Kazooie is one of my favorite games ever, but Tooie didn't do much for me at all.

One small thing that ended up being a big annoyance was just HOW MANY abilities they add to the game. Multiple types of eggs, lots more BK abilities, and then unique abilities for both Banjo and Kazooie individually.

What makes it bad is that to get the individual abilities you have to go to the mole hill as the character, so if you find it as B+K you have to backtrack to the nearest splitter pad, then go all the way back. Sometimes you couldn't even use the same route because you can't jump as high or can't talon trot for example. With the levels being so large it could get confusing without a map.

And having so many abilities it gets confusing to keep them all memorized, similar to what could happen in the Arkham games after a while. Banjo got a backpack scoop ability st some point, but it's only used in a few specific situations, so when I needed it I'd forgotten what the button combo was for it.

 

[Jahranimo]

These threads always come up and my unpopular opinion is, once again, that Tooie is my favorite and more fun.

 

[Kouriozan]

Click to shrink...

Of course this had to remind people that Banjo Threeie could have happened :(

 

[Mandos]

Shrug I like it as much as the original but I got it first

Also there's four main Banjo games not 3, don't go snubbing grunty's revenge

 

[Diddy Kong]

The worlds are a bit too big but it's a good sequel. I wish we had a Super Mario 64 2.

 

[dancingphlower]

Better than the original!