User:Tooie
From RWP Wiki
Hey there, it's Tooie from the Rare Witch Project. I'm posting my history here, because I feel like it deserves more attention than it got.
Contents |
Prologue: Origins
A certain bear gets his big break in a racing game.
A long time ago, in the year 1997, Rareware, a video gaming company working as a leading developer released a video game entitled Diddy Kong Racing, a racing adventure game spinoff to the widely successful Donkey Kong Country series, on the 64-bit gaming system, called the Nintendo 64. It was, and is, unique for games of its kind in that it combined two highly successful gaming genres: racing and adventure, and put them together to make a rather interesting game.
But Diddy Kong Racing, although important to the Banjo-Kazooie series’ history, will not be delved into too much. It contained a cast of sixteen characters, ten of which playable, a few of which who are important: Diddy Kong, an anthropomorphic monkey who was the star of the game and already a main character in the Donkey Kong Country series, Banjo, a anthropomorphic bear with yellow shorts and a blue backpack, who would proceed to gain stardom in Banjo-Kazooie and subsequent games in the series.
Then was Conker, an anthropomorphic squirrel, who would take on a more mature (M-rated, to be exact) style of game, which had the (E-rated) Conker’s Pocket Tales for the Game Boy Color, the (M-rated) Conker’s Bad Fur Day for the Nintendo 64, and, much later, the Xbox remake of Conker’s Bad Fur Day called Conker: Live & Reloaded. Why was it on Xbox and not the Nintendo system of that generation, the Nintendo GameCube? If you don’t already know, you’ll find out soon enough.
The game also introduced to the gaming universe Tiptup, an anthropomorphic turtle that would join Banjo in the Banjo-Kazooie series with fairly minor roles. All of the other characters who appeared in the game would not appear in another game again for another decade until the handheld Nintendo DS enhanced remake of Diddy Kong Racing, Diddy Kong Racing DS.
Rare (short for the company’s name Rareware) was going to make a video game on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES for short) with the working title “Project Dream”. The game would star a cast of characters, with the main protagonist being a human boy, and other supporting characters including an anthropomorphic rabbit and an anthropomorphic bear, who was actually Banjo.
The main villain of Project Dream was a giant who went by the name of Captain Blackeye, who would later take a seemingly minor but a very ambiguous role in one of the games in the Banjo-Kazooie series. The game took a while and got canceled, but then transformed into a Nintendo 64 game soon later...
Chapter 1: Banjo-Kazooie
Honeycombs, Musical Notes, and Jigsaw Puzzle Pieces, oh my!
In 1998, Banjo (and his old pal Tiptup) would later star in his very own game with a new bird pal named Kazooie, a character who always resided in Banjo’s backpack. The game would be called Banjo-Kazooie and would star Banjo and Kazooie as the playable characters. Among the main protagonists was a wide cast of characters. There was Mumbo Jumbo, a skull-headed shaman who had the ability to transform Banjo and Kazooie into different creatures for the price of Mumbo Tokens. collectibles in the game. There was Bottles, a shortsighted anthropomorphic mole that taught Banjo and Kazooie a variety of different moves, and other characters of less importance.
There was Tooty, Banjo’s sister and the damsel in distress, and there was Brentilda, the fairy-like sister of the witch (the main antagonist) who would gossip about her sister which would become useful in the final stage of the game, ending uniquely with a trivia show about the information from the game you just played, just before the credits, and then the final boss battle with the main villain. The main villain was Gruntilda (“Grunty” for short), a fat old green witch who always made couplets out of her speech. She kidnapped Tooty to take her good looks with her beauty-stealing machine, making her beautiful and Tooty a monster. Gruntilda had a henchman, Klungo, who would have a minor role, only in cutscenes, until the sequels.
Throughout the game, Banjo would travel through nine different worlds located throughout the witch’s lair, including a large beach, a gigantic ship’s cargo bay, a haunted mansion, and a wood with a gigantic tree that could be visited in all four of the seasons. In these worlds, the unique bear and bird duo would collect ten Jigsaw Pieces (often called “Jiggies”) in each world, and the Jigsaws would be useful for solving (literally) puzzles throughout Gruntilda’s Lair. In a way, Jiggies (being pieces for solving a puzzle) were a parody of the main collectibles of platforms of that day and age because there was usually no reasonable explanation for the main collectibles like the Power Star or the Golden Banana for being there.
Next, each world housed 100 notes in different locations which counted towards the game’s 100% totals. The notes ranged from being on the main path to hard-to-reach locations, and players had to collect all 100 in a single run through the level without dying or exiting the level, or the Notes would reset themselves and if the player wanted everything on the Totals Menu they would need to collect every single note without incident, which, naturally, was infuriating, especially in the last few levels, where it was extremely easy to run out of health.
On the topic of health, being a bear, the units of health for Banjo were five honeycombs. Honeycombs were an item in the game which upon collection increased Banjo’s and Kazooie’s health by one. Honeycombs could be found in Beehives, usually free of bees, which would yield three apiece, and almost every enemy upon defeating would in their dying spot spawn a Honeycomb. There was also the third and final Totals collectible in the game called Extra Honeycomb Pieces, hollow honeycombs without a center, 24 in the game total, and if one collected six of them they would create a sixth, seventh, or eighth bar on Banjo’s health total. Although the final six Extra Honeycomb Pieces could be collected and counted towards the game’s totals, they would not increase the bear and bird’s health to nine units.
Among other moves, there were standard items, the most notable of which being the Blue Eggs, which Kazooie could shoot out and fire at enemies or objects, and Red Feathers, which allowed Kazooie in flight to fly higher, or, later in the game, use the in-flight Beak Bomb kamikaze-esque move, for one feather apiece. Last but not least there were the gold feathers, which could be used for an invincibility move to get past treacherous objects, enemies, and attacks. In each level there would be a Witch Switch which would allow collection of a Jiggy in Gruntilda’s Lair. Obviously, for sake of difficulty, Kazooie could only carry ten Gold Feathers at one time. Another s worth noting for the basic gameplay were the five Jinjos located in each world that were living creatures that would stand around and ask to be “rescued” from either easily accessible or hard-to-reach locations.
Bottles would also teach Banjo the use of two sets of shoes-- Wading Boots that allowed them to trek through swampy piranha-infested waters, and Turbo Trainers that would increase their running speed greatly-- that would last for a set amount of time and would then disappear). He would also teach them two “pad” move. Pads were circles on the ground that would either allow Kazooie to jump a large height, or, amazingly, take in to flight while still carrying Banjo.
There was also Cheato, a unique character, a spellbook with the ability to speak and hover a bit over the ground. He is located in three locations well-hidden in Gruntilda’s Lair that often required the use of transformations from the worlds with Mumbo available to transform you. Cheato would give the dynamic duo secrets, the three spellbooks teaching them codes to be entered in a Sandcastle with all the letters used as a Code Room, and the three cheats, learned late in the game, would allow Banjo and Kazooie to double their supply of Blue Eggs, Red Feathers, and Gold Feathers. Also of note for transformations leaving worlds, transformations could not get far outside the level of origin, or Mumbo’s magic would “grow weak” and eventually be forced to transform back into the bear and bird once more.
The game was also famous (or infamous, rather) for lots of innuendo, sexual or not, that got past the censors and still gave the game an E rating. For example, there were pots in the haunted mansion level that needed eggs to sprout flowers. When the pot was given eggs, it would say “Thank you”, but, intentional or not, it could easily be translated as “Thank you”, or, "Fuck you”. Among other things, during the Ice Key segment at the end of the game mentioned below, Banjo said “Corrr, a giant ice key,” and Kazooie would then say “I know where I’d like to stick that,” with which Banjo’s response being “Kazooie!!!”. The scene pretty much speaks for itself.
The game also housed one of the largest mysteries of gaming to ever surface. Upon players collecting all 100 Jigsaw Pieces, Mumbo at the end of the game would show them three pictures of “secrets they missed, secrets that will be used in the next game” somehow. Before showing them the pictures, Mumbo promised the players who had worked so hard to collect every Jiggy that Banjo and Kazooie would star in another game called Banjo-Tooie, which Kazooie humorously complained that her was not in the title and voted for it to be changed to “Banjo-Kazooie-Tooie”. Mumbo then showed them the pictures which had animated videos in them... somehow.
The first showed the beach level from Banjo-Kazooie, which had a rock in the beach labeled “Sharkfood Island” and could not be interacted with. In this video, it appeared that Mumbo raised the rock out of the sea which allowed Sharkfood Island to be entered through an opening. Inside, Banjo and Kazooie climbed up a large rock inside the island with alcoves for jumping. When they reached the top, there was a pink egg emblazoned with question marks that spun. Mumbo changed pictures before the in-picture Banjo and Kazooie collected the object.
Mumbo then showed them a clip from the snow level, where Banjo and Kazooie entered the walrus’s cave and an ice wall was removed which allowed entrance to a room within the cave for the collection of a key made of ice, called the Ice Key. Again, they did not collect it in the picture.
The last picture showed the duo entering a cavern in the desert level where an immovable door was usually placed. Inside a coffin in this cavern was another egg with question marks, this one dark blue. Players would be stumped about these secrets and how to activate them for quite some time, and is one of the largest targets of discussion in the series
Upon the game’s release, it was received extremely well by critics and fans alike. It sold nearly two million copies in the United States, and was praised for graphics, storyline, and gameplay. In the 1999 Interactive Achievement Awards, Banjo-Kazooie won the Console Action/Adventure and the Art Direction categories, and was nominated for Console Adventure Game of the Year and Game of the Year. On a modern episode of the game-review series Reviews On the Run, it was listed as number 1 on the list of “5 classic Rare games you should try”.
Banjo-Kazooie beat out 1984’s Sabre Wulf, Conker’s Bad Fur Day, and Kameo: Elements of Power, which were also running for the same award. The game was also praised for an exceptional soundtrack and incredible music and sounds, composed by Grant Kirkhope and released as a soundtrack. The huge success of the game quickly lead into the development of the sequel, Banjo-Tooie, a pun on the name “Kazooie” and the number in the series “Two”. The game got an enhanced port, not on the Wii’s Virtual Console, but on the Xbox 360’s Live Arcade a decade later in celebration. We’ll go over why it’s Microsoft, and not Nintendo, later.
Chapter 2: The Waiting Period and Stop ‘n’ Swop
Hacking for the secrets of Stop ‘n’ Swop and the development of Banjo-Tooie
Hacking, hacking, hacking. A Banjo-Kazooie-compatible Nintendo 64 GameShark was released during the 64’s age, and hackers created the moon-jump ability, which allowed players to jump again and again, even in midair. In Wozza’s Cave, the location of the Ice Key, hackers utilized the moon-jump and went out-of-bounds. The wall guarding the Ice Key was not so high, and players actually jumped over the ice wall and into the Ice Key’s room. The hackers then collected the Ice Key much earlier than Rareware intended and were greeted with a few quotes from Banjo-Kazooie, saying that the duo should “save this for later”. Some of the hackers checked the totals menu of Freezeezy Peak (the level with Wozza’s Cave and the Ice Key) but found no “1 / 1” for the Ice Key.
However, there was a totally new totals menu placed after Click Clock Wood, the last level in the menu, labeled Stop ‘n’ Swop, and had the Ice Key rotating on it. This is where the famous feature got its name. While hackers tried again and again, none of them could find a way to enter Sharkfood Island or the secret Desert door… until hackers with other intentions (the famous Rare Witch Project (a Banjo-Kazooie fansite) members Ice Mario and SubDrag) extracted a list of tons of codes usable and enterable in the game for cheating, with at the time no online or in-game saying. Codes included infinite underwater air for Banjo, infinite blue eggs, red feathers, or gold feathers, and some unique codes.
There was a catch to all these codes. Entering more than two codes caused Gruntilda to get angry and erase your game save (after a warning after the second code, of course). There were, however, some exceptions to the two-code-rule, the only of which being Cheato’s three codes, eight codes given by Bottles in a well-hidden puzzle-solving bonus minigame, and seven unique codes no one had heard of. Players who heard the news quickly entered these codes and several things happened to their amazement.
The first code, “CHEAT NOW YOU CAN SEE A NICE ICE KEY WHICH YOU CAN HAVE FOR FREE” magically made the ice wall in Wozza’s Cave disappear, allowing collection of the Ice Key without hacking. The second code, “CHEAT OUT OF THE SEA IT RISES TO REVEAL MORE SECRET PRIZES” magically made Sharkfood Island, allowing collection of the Pink Egg for the first time. And the third code, “CHEAT A DESERT DOOR OPENS WIDE ANCIENT SECRETS WAIT INSIDE” made the desert door vanish and allowed the collection of the Blue Egg for the first time. Finally all three Stop ‘n’ Swop items had been collected. But the menu still looked a little vacant…
Some players stopped with those three codes, thinking the other four codes were useless and just were accidentally overlooked by the two-code-law. However, some players entered them, having nothing to lose, and were amazed at what happened. The fourth code, “CHEAT DON’T YOU GO AND TELL HER ABOUT THE SECRET IN HER CELLAR” made a cyan egg with question marks appear in the previously inaccessible metal keg in the haunted mansion’s cellar. The fifth code, “CHEAT AMIDST THE HAUNTED GLOOM A SECRET IN THE BATHROOM” made a green egg with question marks appear above the toilet in the haunted mansion’s bathroom. The sixth code, “CHEAT THIS SECRET YOULL BE GRABBIN IN THE CAPTAINS CABIN” made a red egg with question marks appear in the large bedroom in the large cargo ship.
And finally, the seventh code, “CHEAT NOW BANJO WILL BE ABLE TO SEE IT ON NABNUTS TABLE”, made a yellow egg with question marks appear in a squirrel’s bedroom in the giant tree in the winter season. With the six eggs and Ice Key collected, nothing unique happened. Something worth noting was that the four eggs that weren’t revealed by Mumbo, with the exception of the Cyan Egg, were in locations not blocked off at all, they had just magically appeared. However, the codes were revealed after Banjo-Tooie’s release, the codes being revealed in 2001, but if Banjo-Tooie was released in 2000 why did we need to hack to get the items? We’ll find out in Chapter 3.
In the meantime, the codes became public quickly and a magazine even spread the info to the general public with the codes and details for all seven items. Also, the Rareware game Donkey Kong 64 in the Donkey Kong series for the Nintendo 64 could have been related to Stop ‘N’ Swop when an “Ice Key” item was found in the game’s coding, along with the fact that a "1 / 1" was found regarding the Ice Key in Donkey Kong 64's totals. Another bit of evidence was that in the beta version of Donkey Kong 64 there was a shower with Banjo and Kazooie's faces on it in Donkey Kong's house. Likewise, in beta Banjo-Kazooie, there was a picture of Donkey Kong in Banjo's house.
Meanwhile, in Rare’s development location, there were problems. Nintendo was developing their new system, the Nintendo GameCube, quickly, and it seemed the sixth generation of video gaming was coming, with the death of Sega, the creation of the PlayStation 2 around the corner, and Microsoft’s entry into the fray, the Xbox, coming quickly. Although tight on time, the game was anything but rushed. There were only two shortcomings of the game because of the quickened release date: the first of which relating to Stop ‘n’ Swop: Rareware had originally planned to connect the games with hotswapping, meaning that upon getting the eggs and key ready for transporting to Tooie, the players had 10 seconds to take out the Kazooie cartridge and put in the Tooie cartridge. However, in 1999, the Nintendo 64 cartridges were edited for efficiency, and made the 10-second interval a 1-second interval, making it next to impossible to “swop” the games in time.
Therefore, Rareware was forced to drop the original plan of Stop ‘n’ Swop, but intent on keeping their promise, they pulled a loophole. In three different locations in Banjo-Tooie, there would be living tiny Banjo-Kazooie cartridges hidden around, which would contain the blue egg, pink egg, and Ice Key. The two eggs could be hatched by a bird named Heggy and allow two different secrets we’ll go into later. The Ice Key, on the other hand, was used to open an ice safe in an icy level, allowing collection of an item that would allow a unique and permanent (but reversible) transformation.
Also, unexpectedly, possibly as just a bonus, Rare placed a third egg, the yellow egg, in Heggy’s egg shed that Kazooie would have to hatch with one of her newer moves. We’ll go into all this in greater detail soon, including the other shortcoming to the pushed release date. Eventually, in 2000, close to the end of the Nintendo 64’s great age, Banjo-Tooie was released.
Chapter 3: Banjo-Tooie
Tons of new moves, great plot, Stop 'n' Swop disappointment, and incredibly large levels.
In 2000, Banjo-Tooie was finally released for the Nintendo 64. Gamers eagerly picked up the game. Now I now you want to hear about what happened with Stop ‘n’ Swop, but first let’s get into the actual game. Let’s start with the plot. It has been two years since Banjo and Kazooie defeated Gruntilda last time. Klungo, trying to push the large rock that blocks Gruntilda’s escape from the hole in which she fell, has been trying to free her from her rocky grave for two years. Banjo, Kazooie, and their friends have been chilling for these two years (or, to be exact, twenty-two months. We’ll get into that later). This specific night, Banjo, Kazooie, Mumbo, and Bottles are playing a game of cards. Kazooie tells everyone Gruntilda is outside. Everyone, shocked, looks, and Kazooie takes advantage of the situation and steals most of Bottles’s cash. Kazooie claims it must have been a shadow and gets away with it. Meanwhile, this turns into a boy-who-cried-wolf scenario, when the entirety of Spiral Mountain starts shaking.
Outside, a gigantic digger machine plows through one of Spiral Mountain’s walls and enters Spiral Mountain. Two witches come out, Mingella (carrying an inanimate spellbook) and Blobbelda (carrying a cat that never has any importance whatsoever) and they are revealed to be Gruntilda’s sister. Klungo steps aside as they use an incantation to levitate the huge rock and destroy it. Gruntilda comes out, but her body has decayed and has been reduced to a skeleton. Gruntilda, dissatisfied with her new body, wants her body back. Mingella and Blobbelda claim they have a solution, but Gruntilda first wants to get her revenge on Banjo and Kazooie.
The shaking has not gone unnoticed by Banjo and his pals, and Mumbo decides to step out and check what happened. He overhears their discussion, and goes to warn Banjo, but Mingella sees him and Gruntilda gives chase and tells her sisters to start the digger. Mumbo makes it back just in time, and tells everyone to leave the house as Gruntilda is about to fire a powerful and deadly spell to destroy Banjo’s home.
Banjo looks outside and sees Mumbo is not lying. Mumbo, Banjo, and Kazooie run outside just in time, but Bottles “isn’t falling for that again” and believes it to be another trick. The spell damages the house severely, and Gruntilda makes it back in the digger with her sisters, telling Klungo to stay behind. Soon after, Gruntilda, with the encouragement, stops her rhyming (for now). Banjo, Kazooie, and Mumbo are relieved everyone is safe, until to their horror Bottles walks out of the house, burnt to a crisp, and collapses.
A few seconds later, his spirit rises from the unconscious body and hovers over it, revealing Bottles has died. Banjo and Kazooie set out to avenge Bottles’s death, but Banjo has a feeling it’s “not gonna be so easy this time”. He is correct. Banjo and Kazooie set out through the hole the digger created and meet tons of new characters as they quest through eight worlds and a final ending world. It is revealed Spiral Mountain is just a part of a huge island known as the Isle o’ Hags.
Banjo and Kazooie meet many new faces, such as Bottles’s family, but the most important of which are as follows: King Jingaling is the king of the Jinjos from the last game, and after his subjects were rescued by you in Banjo-Kazooie, they ran away in fear after the digger terrorized their village. Master Jiggywiggy and his disciple are followers of a Jiggy-like religion or species, and they have Jiggies for their heads. Master Jiggywiggy has a series of puzzles for you that unlock worlds like in the last game, but you need a set amount of pieces to enter. You don’t “pay” Jiggies like in the last game, but you solve the puzzles with preset pieces itself, with gameplay similar to Bottles’s hidden minigame from Banjo-Kazooie. There is also Honey B, a large anthropomorphic honey bee who will exchange you extra units of health for Extra Honeycomb Pieces, a twist on the similar concept in Banjo-Kazooie.
And the most important of all the newcomers are Jamjars, an army mole who is the brother of the now-deceased Bottles, the one who will teach you more advanced moves in this game, and Humba Wumba, a female human Indian shaman who will transform you for the price of magical creatures known as Glowbos, much like Mumbo Tokens. Mumbo’s role instead of transforming is now playable. For the price of a Glowbo, Mumbo will actually leave his skull and perform magic such as healing, reviving, levitating, and even a rain dance on Mumbo Pads in each world.
Musical Notes have returned, but in Note Nests. Each of the eight worlds plus the Isle o’ Hags have sixteen Note Nests hidden or out-in-the-open or for five Notes apiece, totaling 80 Notes, plus a Treble Clef, a large, well-hidden note worth 20 Notes, making 100 for each world again. Also, in this game, unlike Banjo-Kazooie, Notes that are collected stay collected. This severely removes the difficulty of Note-hunting from the past game.
In contrast, the Jiggies are much more complicated and harder to find in Tooie. There is also the inclusion of bosses in each world, including the now-more-notable Klungo and Gruntilda at the end of the game (but with a unique twist to the battle I will not share). On the topic of Totals collectibles, Jamjars’s moves count towards your totals, along with the previously mentioned collectibles. Jinjos are different now, and although there are still five per world, there are nine different families, each with a different number (from one to nine) of family members, in different colors. Collect all the Jinjos in a family and you get a Jiggy for the Isle o’ Hags totals.
The last new collectibles are Cheato Pages. Yes, that’s right, Cheato. Sometime in the beginning of the game but not seen, Gruntilda heads back to her now-closed-off lair and finds Cheato, ripping out his pages for helping them in the last game and spreading them around the worlds. There are twenty-five in total and for every five you collect, Cheato gives you a cheat (the five cheats being double eggs, double feathers, invincibility from falling from high heights, honey regeneration, and the ability to listen to the music from the game by fixing a broken Jukebox in one of the levels).
On the subject of eggs and feathers, Jamjars throughout the game teaches you four new types of eggs: Fire Eggs, which burn enemies, Grenade Eggs, which can break cracked walls and really hurt bosses, Ice Eggs, which freeze enemies, and the interesting Clockwork Kazooie Eggs, which upon contact with a surface create a controllable clockwork bird that can go through tiny walls and reach areas normally unreachable and such. It explodes after 20 seconds, unless you explode it yourself. All the moves from the past game are available from the start and can be relearned (or learned for the first time) in Spiral Mountain.
Like Banjo-Kazooie, Banjo-Tooie contained many codes, though not as much. There were a few never-mentioned codes that hackers uncovered just like in the last game. Notable new moves including grabbing the edges of cliffs and crevices, aiming your eggs in first-person view, and, most notably, the ability to take Kazooie out of the backpack and have Banjo or Kazooie travel on their own. Both the bear and the bird learn new moves only usable solo.
At the end of the game, there is another trivia show, a possible homage to the original game, before the credits and final boss battle once more. Tooie is unique; before it, games had worlds that were self-contained units and had a series of tasks to be completed. In Tooie, there were connections between worlds (not just one-way secret warps, either), and most worlds required actions from a previous or later world to collect a collectible object. Tooie also contained (in much greater quantity) the sexual innuendo, intentional or not, from Banjo-Kazooie, such as a rock shaped a lot like a man’s genitals and one of the bosses (an “inflatable thing” named Mr. Patch) having a blowhole in a derogatory location.
Tooie also had a multiplayer mode, although limited; the multiplayer games were all multiplayer versions of minigames from Tooie. You may have noticed there have been no mention of the Banjo-Kazooie characters Tooty and Brentilda; they have been removed, Brentilda only referenced in a picture in a pawn shop and Tooty only referenced (humorously) by a picture of a missing person on a milk carton. According to Rare, they were removed and “captured by the rubbish video game character police”.
And, of course, who could forget Stop ‘n’ Swop? As you read in Chapter 2, the pink egg, blue egg, Ice Key, and surprisingly the yellow egg have appeared in this game. See the information above for the basic information. There were two Banjo-Kazooie Game Paks in Spiral Mountain, and one in the Jinjo Village. The two in Spiral Mountain contained the Pink Egg and the Blue Egg, and the one in Jinjo Village contained the Ice Key...
The eggs were used for the bird Heggy to hatch, and the Blue Egg contained the “Breegull Bash” ability, which humorously had Banjo pull Kazooie out of the backpack and smash her on the ground like a club and hurt enemies (and Kazooie). The Pink Egg contained the “Homing Eggs” ability. One of the codes in Banjo-Tooie’s eggs was the “Homing” code, triggered by the Pink Egg, and eggs of all five types would home in on enemies. There was a third egg in the Shed, as well; the Yellow Egg. The Yellow Egg contained the ability to use a Jinjo as a playable Jinjo in the three GoldenEye-style shootout in multiplayer. The Ice Key could be used on an icy safe hidden in the icy side of the half-lava half-ice level called Hailfire Peaks.
Inside the safe was a Mega-Glowbo, that could be used for Humba Wumba in the Isle o’ Hags, and could turn Kazooie into a Dragon (not much changed, just green, a few different sound effects, the ability to breath fire instead of a standing peck attack, and unlimited Fire Eggs). This transformation was permanent throughout every world, but you could change back into normal Kazooie. And that was all of Stop ‘n’ Swop. Fans were greatly disappointed, but at least they got what they were told they would get, even if not in the way they expected.
A hidden connection to the two games was still theorized and searched for extensively, and things such as unused text “Ridiculously Secret Area”, "Glowbo Cave", and "Gruntilda's Lair (Tower Room)" were found. Gruntilda’s Lair was closed off, only the Entrance being visitable, and people also theorized that it could hide the connection. Of course, Rareware revealed it themselves that there was no connection present, but fans still fantasized about what the connection exactly was, much to the aggravation of Rareware, who would mock and taunt fans for years to come.
You may also have read in Chapter 2 that there were two shortcomings to the rushed release date for the game: Stop ‘n’ Swop, and something else. Here is that something else. Besides obvious oversighted glitches that no game is free of, there was a multiplayer feature besides the minigames intended for Tooie. Bottles’s angel spirit was intended to turn into a devil (namely Devil Bottles) as a 2-player mode of the main adventure, called Bottles’ Revenge. While one player controlled Banjo, Kazooie, and Mumbo, the other player would use the P2 controller and control Devil Bottles.
While Devil Bottles could not directly interact with the two, he could use “sparklies” to control enemies. These enemies could either attack Banjo and hinder his progress, or aid Banjo by attacking other enemies. Bosses were intended to be controlled, but Rareware stated that disruption of their attack patterns could make the bosses obscenely hard. Devil Bottles was changed to say “I’m not needed here…” and disappear when a boss appeared. Before controlling bosses was scrapped, Old King Coal, the boss of the ore mine level, was the only playable boss.
In the final quiz show at the end of the game (called the “Tower of Tragedy”) Devil Bottles could actually control Banjo’s opponents in the quiz show, Gruntilda’s sisters Mingella and Blobbelda. Also, in the final version of the game, Devil Bottles's head still appears as one of the randomized icons for the answers. The hidden feature was believed to be removed before its release, but was uncovered on September 27, 2004 by two administrators at one of Rare’s fansites called Rare Witch Project. The two users had the usernames Ice Mario and SubDrag (and they also were the ones who discovered the seven Banjo-Kazooie Stop ‘n’ Swop sandcastle codes).
The mode was fully functional, but slightly glitchy; bosses were not controllable, not even Old King Coal, and trying to control any of the enemies in Cloud Cuckooland (a sky-based level) would cause the game to freeze. In 2006, Rareware revealed that Bottles’ Revenge was scrapped because they ran out of time to debug the game, although “It did work rather well”. There is a possibility Bottles’ Revenge was connected to Stop ‘n’ Swop because when Ice Mario and SubDrag found the feature Rareware commented that they were “closer to Stop ‘n’ Swop”.
Upon the game’s release, just like its predecessor Banjo-Kazooie, it was received extremely well by critics and fans alike. It sold very well, but not as great as Banjo-Kazooie, and received many awards, such as the “Moving Image Award” at the 2000 BAFTA award ceremony, and was also nominated for “Console Action/Adventure Game of the Year”, “Console Game of the Year”, and “Game of the Year” at the 2001 Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences awards.
The success once more led to the development of another sequel, Banjo-Threeie, for the Nintendo GameCube, but soon after development began, something drastic happened that caused the game, along with many of Rareware’s other games, to be canned, which we are going to find out very soon, in the next chapter. The game was praised for its soundtrack and excellent music and sounds and a soundtrack was released. The game also had an enhanced port, much like its sequel, for the Xbox 360’s Live Arcade, which will be gone over later.
Chapter 4: Rareware and Microsoft
Banjo-Threeie gets canned, Rareware changes sides, and the GBA/mobile phone games.
While Rareware was working on Banjo-Threeie, and Donkey Kong games like Donkey Kong Racing (a presumed sequel to Diddy Kong Racing), Diddy Kong Pilot (which will be important later), and Donkey Kong Coconut Crackers, Microsoft offered a lot of money to Rareware if they joined Microsoft, and Rareware accepted.
Nintendo allowed Rare's change of presenter, even though Rare was one of its leading developers in terms of popularity and critical response. In the agreement, Microsoft and Rareware gained the rights to its original characters (including Banjo and Conker), and Nintendo kept Donkey Kong because Shigeru Miyamoto of Nintendo had come up with him in Donkey Kong before Donkey Kong Country the Rareware game came to be.
Rareware was still able to work with Nintendo, but only on handhelds, because the Xbox had no rival there. If Microsoft was to make a handheld, then all connections with Nintendo would be severed. To this day Microsoft has never created a handheld. Therefore, Banjo could only appear on Nintendo systems through handhelds. Microsoft had no plans for making a Banjo 3 for now, so a few years later Rare began to make a Banjo game for Nintendo’s current handheld, the Game Boy Advance.
In 2003, Rareware released a Game Boy Advance game in the Banjo series, called Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty’s Revenge. While originally meant to be an “alternate universe” to Banjo-Tooie and having Gruntilda escape the rock some other way, they changed the game into an interquel, taking place two months after the events of Banjo-Kazooie and twenty-two months before the events of Banjo-Tooie. In it, Klungo creates a machine that looks like Gruntilda, called the Mecha-Gruntilda, the HAG 1, or the Mecha-Grunty for short. The machine has the ability to take Gruntilda’s spirit so her spirit can control the suit and enact her revenge, and it does just that. The machine has a time-travel device and she decides to go back in time and kidnap Kazooie before she met Banjo. She succeeds, but Mumbo uses his powers to transport Banjo back in time to where the Mecha-Grunty is.
Banjo must then go on a quest to save Kazooie alone, and when he does, the two must go through several worlds to defeat Grunty and Klungo. The game sports Mumbo returning to the role of transformations, Honey B with a role that is the same as Tooie, and, since the game takes place in the past, Bozzeye, an ancestor of Bottles, teaching you moves. For sake of the limited space on the system, there were much less levels, collectibles, mini-games, and transformations. Jiggies, Musical Notes, and Jinjos returned with the same basic premise as the last game. There were no references to Stop ‘n’ Swop in the game.
The game was generally well-received by critics, who felt that it was a decent handheld adaption to the series, although the isometric view of the game was confusing at times, but some sites complained it was too focused on item collection and too short. The series would get another Game Boy Advance game two years later.
In 2004, a mobile phone developer named Cybiko and a publisher named In-Fusio were granted rights by Rareware to a mobile phone version of Grunty’s Revenge, called Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty’s Revenge Mobile. The game was essentially the same premise and had the same plot and such, but due to the cell phone’s very limited space, graphics and sound were less efficient, the levels were the same but much smaller, there were no Mumbo transformations, and Banjo and Kazooie had less moves.
Before Rare moved to Microsoft, they planned to create a handheld sequel to Diddy Kong Racing entitled Diddy Kong Pilot, where characters would pilot planes through courses. Partway through development, Rare left Nintendo, and the game went into limbo. Eventually, without the ability to make Donkey Kong games, changed their game to a game called Banjo-Pilot (with the beta title “Banjo-Kazoomie”, a pun on the words “Kazooie” and “Zoom”), and replaced everything Donkey Kong-related into Banjo-related things.
The game was released in 2005. The playable characters were main characters from Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie; Banjo, Kazooie, Mumbo Jumbo, Humba Wumba, Bottles, Jolly Roger (a bartender from Banjo-Tooie), a purple Jinjo, Gruntilda, and Klungo. The game used items from the franchise, such as the Golden Feather to make the player invincible, and the Turbo Trainers to give the player a temporary speed boost. Glowbos (green and pink) could give the players speed boosts.
The game had several modes, including the Jiggy Challenge, where players raced around each track collecting six Jiggies while trying to beat Bottles in a race, the Trophy screen, where you could see everything you had won, Quickrace, a single race for fun, and Grand Prix, a competitive tournament. Last but not least was the Cheato mode, where players could purchase cheats for Cheato Pages. The game sported multiplayer, either in the form of Head-to-Head (racing) or Dogfight (battling).
There was one reference to Stop ‘n’ Swop in the game: In Cheato’s menu, there is an option called “STOP ‘N’ SWAP”, with oddly the correct spelling of the word Swap. Players thought Rare was finally going to answer them, but upon purchasing the item Cheato only said: “So you want to know about Stop N Swap, eh? I hope you’re ready. Here goes… Why don’t you stop annoying me and swap this game for a nice book or something?” Obviously, players were disappointed.
Upon release, Banjo-Pilot received mixed reviews; IGN gave it an 8/10, praising it as the second-best Game Boy Advance racing game. It received three out of five stars from GameSpy, who said it “wasn’t worth the near half-decade wait”. Generally, those who praised the game did so for its addictive multiplayer mode and large replay value, while those who criticized it did so for its simplicity in design and loose physics.
Later in 2005, In-Fusio, the game that published Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty’s Revenge Mobile, published and developed another mobile phone game based off of Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty’s Revenge. It was a much simpler game than the other mobile phone game. It was called Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty’s Revenge Missions. The plot was once again the same, except now to save Kazooie, Banjo needed to complete eight “missions” to unlock the final mission, which would save her upon completion. The eight missions were actually the minigames that were featured in 2003’s Game Boy Advance version of the game.
And two years back, in 2003, Rareware also released a game, not in the Banjo series, called Grabbed by the Ghoulies. Although an unsuccessful game overall, it was notable to the Banjo-Kazooie series because it made yet another taunting joke about Stop ‘n’ Swop. On a whiteboard in the game, it had an equation with three unintelligible diagrams, an equation of “[egg] [egg] [egg] [egg] [key] = ?”. Why two of the eggs were missing was unknown. There was also a homework assignment on the whiteboard, reading “HOMEWORK: 1) Collect Ice Key. 2) Collect Eggs. 3) Activate secret level.” Obviously, the “secret level” part and there being only four eggs rose more questions, but it could’ve been a joke based on the wild theories made up from die-hard longtime Stop ‘n’ Swop fanatics.
Chapter 5: Nuts & Bolts
The series gets jump-started on its tenth anniversary.
At some point in Rare’s Microsoft history, a gaming magazine published a list of games Microsoft was working on or planning to make. One of them was “Banjo-Kazooie game”, which obviously caused quite a ruckus by Banjo-Kazooie fans. Rareware was working on a third main series Banjo-Kazooie game. They had two basic concepts before they made a third which would become the final: In an interview, Gregg Mayles (a key creator of the game) stated that it was originally a port of Banjo-Kazooie, but with random unexpected changes. For example, a massive Queen Termite would come out of the termite hill in Mumbo’s Mountain, the third world, and the player would need the monkey Conga’s oranges to throw at her. This idea was scrapped for a second premise, with traditional platforming in a third game, with Banjo and Kazooie learning new moves again but Gruntilda following them to learn new moves in an attempt to best them.
The third idea was a vehicle premise, nicknamed Banjo-Buildie, but they did not like the name, as it was too similar to previous titles in the series. Rare kept going with this vehicle premise, until they were happy with it. They released a trailer which did not reveal the vehicle aspects, and then much later confirmed the game with two screenshots and two videos, along with the correct title Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts. It was finally released in 2008 on the Xbox 360.
In the plot, eight long years have passed since Gruntilda was defeated in Banjo-Tooie. Banjo and Kazooie have now become fat, lazy slobs who spend most of their time eating pizza and playing video games. The MC of Spiral Mountain, the move teacher from the last game, tells them it has been ten years since the events of Banjo-Kazooie and that they have become “all fat and washed up”. Gruntilda then appears through the now-almost-completely-closed-off entrance to the Isle o’ Hags, still just a skull (and apparently back to rhyming), and has a bone to pick with the duo. Before the fight can begin, a mysterious new character named Lord of Games, L.O.G. for short, stops the fray and is sick of the constant bickering. He issues a challenge, true to the Banjo-Kazooie theme, as a collectathon. He soon grows tired of this, and sends them to his world, Showdown Town, to have a competition.
In the competition, Banjo, Kazooie, and Gruntilda must compete in five worlds created by the Lord of Games. The winner gets the deed to Spiral Mountain, and the loser is forced to live an eternity of toil in L.O.G.’s video game factory. L.O.G. also aids Grunty by giving her a mechanical host with a casing for her skull, and robs Banjo and Kazooie of their moves in favor of vehicles and Mumbo’s wrench.
The game features a cast of characters old and new. Since the demand for shaman magic has declined in the eight years since Banjo-Tooie, Lord of Games ordered Mumbo to start Mumbo’s Motors, a garage in Showdown Town where Banjo and Kazooie can bring the vehicle parts they collect to build new vehicles. Mumbo also created the magic wrench which replaces the moves of Banjo and Kazooie. Humba Wumba now sells blueprints and vehicle parts. Bottles also returns as a tourist information officer in Showdown Town, similar to his “teaching” role in the first game. Humorously, there is a grave marking his Banjo-Tooie death in Spiral Mountain. In Banjo-Tooie, Klungo stated he was going to make “ssstupid gamesss”, and this turned out to be true.
In Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, Klungo created a game called “Hero Klungo Sssavesss Teh World”. King Jingaling also returns running a bingo hall in Showdown Town where players can earn Musical Notes and Vehicle Parts. Boggy and Captain Blubber, two classic characters from Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie, are also major characters, along with Banjo-Tooie’s Jolly Roger (now renamed “Jolly Dodger”) and Mr. Fit.
There are also three new characters besides Lord of Games: Trophy Thomas, a large anthropomorphic cat with blue hair on his head, and is described as overly-competitive, self-confident and egotistical. He owns the T.T. Trophies, which are harder to earn than Jiggies, and for every four you collect you earn a Jiggy. He was actually based on a Rare employee, James Thomas, who had Trophy Thomas as his nickname (along with blue hair). Another character was Pikelet, an overweight pig as a corrupt police officer in Showdown Town. The last character was Piddles, a female purple cat with a long, fluffy tail and large whiskers, and reluctantly aided Gruntilda. All of the characters listed above besides Banjo, Kazooie, Gruntilda, King Jingaling, Piddles, and L.O.G. also appear as actors assuming different roles in the five different game worlds.
As far as gameplay goes, the main gameplay is based on roughly 80% vehicle build-and-use gameplay and 20% platforming. The game makes references to the gameplay with a lot of its vehicle parts. For example, there is a Grenade Egg Gun. The game features five worlds with fifteen challenges each, and six Acts, similar to Click Clock Wood’s four seasons in Banjo-Kazooie. The level is slightly modified for each Act.
In the main world, Banjo and Kazooie are restricted to a default vehicle, a shopping trolley, which can be upgraded to access other parts of Showdown Town. Many of the game’s vehicle parts can be found in Mumbo Crates, which can be found all over the place and, when given to Mumbo, give you a vehicle part. Showdown Town features Game Globes, which unlock new worlds. As soon as the Jiggy requirement for the first Act of a world is met, L.O.G. will dispense a Game Globe, which must then be taken to a plinth in one of the areas of the town for it to go. Setting the Game Globe in will allow entry to the first Act, and, if you have enough Jiggies, other Acts.
Musical Notes and Jiggies return once more to collect. Jiggies are won in Challenges, and Notes are both scattered around the worlds and won in challenges in each world. The Notes are different from the last games, as, instead of Note scores or Note Nests, Notes now come in three different varieties: Gold Notes, worth 10 overall notes, Silver Notes, worth 5 overall notes, and Copper Notes, worth 1 overall note. Notes and Jiggies are won from challenges, along with T.T. Trophies, Trophy Thomas’s trophies, a new item in the series. They are the top prizes for each challenge, and, if you collect four of them, Trophy Thomas will give you another Jiggy.
Showdown Town also contains “black market” Jiggies sold by Jolly Dodger (a.k.a. Jolly Roger), and Jiggies can also be found in Tamper Switches, which, when found, give the player a free Jiggy. Another major part of the game is the Grunty Challenges, where the player goes head-to-head with Gruntilda herself. Each time a Grunty Challenge is completed, a new vehicle part for the shopping trolley is available, and using it will allow you to explore further areas of Showdown Town.
Also in Showdown Town, there are six Jinjos (along with six of their archenemy Minjos who debuted in Banjo-Tooie). The Jinjos are trapped in prison and must be freed, and oppositely the Minjos have escaped from prison and must be put in jail, so the Jinjo must be freed while the Minjo put in jail. In the five game worlds, Jinjos are much different and host challenges, much like other characters, and beating their challenges give you Jinjo Tokens (instead of Jiggies), which can be used in King Jingaling’s bingo hall.
Due to the Xbox 360’s capabilities, there is online play, such as leaderboards (the top ten times/scores for every challenge, which can be downloaded and viewed as replays, and the blueprints for the vehicle if the user who made it has allowed it). True to the Xbox 360, there are also 50 Achievements that can be earned for a total of 1000 GamerScore for the player’s overall score for every game they own on the 360. The game’s last level, like series tradition, features a final boss battle with Gruntilda and a quiz show, this one hosted by Lord of Games.
Upon the game’s release, it received generally favorable reviews. Many reviewers praised the high production value in terms of graphics, music, and presentation, as well as the depth and versatility of the vehicle creation aspect of the game. Criticism rose from critics and fans alike over the drastic departure from the standard platforming genre, and (true to Banjo-Kazooie series form) the framerate tends to chug at particularly busy moments and that a number of challenges are overly similar and repetitive.
There were a few somewhat major bugs in the game; one achievement (called “Burn the Witch”) could not be collected if the player beat the game before achieving it, and on another note the small text in the game was hard to read on a standard-definition television. The bugs were both fixed with a patch; the achievement could now be unlocked after the game’s completion, and the text was updated, and changed into a format similar to the text seen in Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie.
This game also had several references to Stop ‘n’ Swop. Bottles has an option in the information menu labeled “Stop ‘n’ Swop Truth” for a whopping 6,000 Notes. This option is impossible to buy (there are only 5,230 Notes in the game, 1,900 of which counted in the game’s totals menu), but hackers extracted the text string from the game’s data, revealing that if someone somehow purchased it, Bottles would say “I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you, and we couldn’t show that in a game with this rating. Put it out of your mind and think happy thoughts! Thanks for the notes!” This perhaps could have been encouragement of Rare to the die-hard fans to give up on Stop ‘n’ Swop entirely.
In addition, Trophy Thomas, Lord of Games, and one of the Jinjos also reference Stop ‘n’ Swop. One of Trophy Thomas’s lines after someone beats one of his challenges reads “I’m almost speechless at how well you did. You must be using a cheat code! That’s it! Did you stop the game and swop something?” Also, one of L.O.G.’s questions during the “Six of the Best” Challenge in Spiral Mountain is “What is the supposed link between Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie that some fansites still won’t shut up about?” The answer being, obviously, Stop ‘n’ Swop. Lastly, one of the Jinjos challenges you to collect an Ice Key. In the challenge, the Jinjo makes numerous references to Stop 'n' Swop, saying things like "Now the mystery will never be solved" when asking you to find the key, along with "Perhaps I should look for something else. Now where are those strange eggs?" if you failed the challenge, and when you succeeded the mission, the Jinjo said "Now I can resume my pointless and useless obsession with this key!"
There were also several visual references, such as large fake eggs that when opened had useless boxes inside. About a month after the game’s release, the Xbox Live Arcade would get the Banjo-Kazooie series treatment, and even the Banjo-Tooie treatment four months later, and somewhere along the line a certain game connection would finally become existent…
Finally, in March, Rare revealed downloadable content (DLC for short) for Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts. It would involve new, unreleased challenges and would involve Klungo. At the end of March 2009, Rare confirmed this with a downpour of info: First, a trailer was released, revealing that there would be twelve new challenges, seven new multiplayer modes, 10 more achievements for 250 more Gamerscore, and a sequel to the popular "Hero Klungo Sssavesss teh World". The game would release on April 7th, 2009 for 400 Microsoft Points, the currency for downloadable Xbox 360 items. They also revealed more information on a certain remake in a future chapter...
And, seven days later, it was released. It contradicted claims of "12 challenges", being only 6 with the ability to play L.O.G.'s Choice and Player's Choice. The bonus took place in a modified Test-O-Track, and the six new challenges were harder than ever. Once a player completed a L.O.G.'s Choice version of the challenge to Jiggy standard, a black-and-white piece of art on a board with the new Klungo game's artwork was posted. This also unlocked the Player's Choice version of the challenge. If you beat that to Jiggy standard, a colored piece of art would replace the black-and-white one. If you got all 12 pieces, Klungo's new game, "Hero Klungo Sssavesss teh Universsse" was released, sporting eight levels (based on the eight planets), a gun for Klungo to hold, new enemies, a skateboard powerup, a flying superhero powerup, and everything from the old Klungo besides the old enemies. On the subject of the collectibles, the 10-Notes reward would count (increasing the note count by 120 and letting the player collect less Notes to be able to purchase everything). However, although the Jiggy and T.T. would count in the "Lost Challenges" section of the totals, the Jiggy and T.T. would not affect the totals or Jiggy Bank. However, if you completed all the challenges to T.T. standard, Trophy Thomas would complete his statue at his house in Showdown Town. And, as promised, seven new multiplayer modes were released. And that was all for the Nuts & Bolts Downloadable Content.
Chapter 6: XBLA Enhanced Ports
The N64 titles get remakes.
Still in 2008, Rareware ported Banjo-Kazooie to the Xbox Live Arcade (abbreviated as XBLA; Nintendo fans will understand this as the Xbox 360’s version of the Wii’s Virtual Console) with the help of 4J Studios, called Banjo-Kazooie, or, to differentiate it from the Nintendo 64 version, Banjo-Kazooie XBLA or Banjo-Kazooie (XBLA). The gameplay, plot, and such remained the same, but there were differences from the original Nintendo 64 version released ten years earlier.
First off, the graphics were enhanced, a few sprites such as talking icons and health bars were touched-up (or completely remade), and the framerate ran much smoother, the game overall being in a much higher resolution. Besides those obvious differences, there were also some gameplay changes. The Note score premise was replaced with Notes collecting being permanent (this caused a glitch in the game if you played Bottles’s puzzle minigame and Notes were collected you could not collect them thus making your game incomplete. This bug was soon fixed with a patch.).
Next, like Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, the port had leaderboards for the best times in each world, and it also had 12 achievements for a total of 200 GamerScore. Button directions were changed to refer to the Xbox 360 controller rather than the Nintendo 64 controller, and every reference to Nintendo (even on the cover art) was removed. And last, but certainly not least, the game, surprisingly and shockingly, supported Stop ‘n’ Swop. How? Though obviously not the original intention for Stop ‘n’ Swop, it did actually link two games, what was impossible to do on the Nintendo 64 games. Now, Banjo-Kazooie (XBLA) linked with Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts. Here's how it worked.
If a player owned Nuts & Bolts, Banjo-Kazooie (XBLA) would recognize the game save and the seven Stop ‘n’ Swop items would “magically” be accessible in Banjo-Kazooie (XBLA). The game also changed the text at the ending scene to refer to Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, rather than Banjo-Tooie, and the text upon receiving the items. The menu stayed the same, and once the items were collected a corresponding crate for each item would appear in Showdown Town in Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts. When given to Mumbo, they would (in some people’s opinions disappointingly) reveal useless trinkets and accessories, being the following:
The Ice Key gave you two British flags, the Pink Egg gave you pink Fluffy Dice, the Blue Egg would give you a goldfish bowl with Roysten inside, the Cyan Egg would give you a Mole-On-A-Pole with (supposedly) Mrs. Bottles’s head, the Green Egg would give you a police beacon, the Red Egg would give you a Disco Ball, and the Yellow Egg would give you a pair of Googly Eyes.
Coming soon in 2009, Rareware will release another enhanced port, a port of Banjo-Tooie to the Xbox Live Arcade, again with the help of 4J Studios, called Banjo-Tooie, or, to differentiate it from the Nintendo 64 version, Banjo-Tooie XBLA, or Banjo-Tooie (XBLA). Just like Banjo-Kazooie (XBLA), Banjo-Tooie (XBLA)’s gameplay, plot, and such will remain the same. Like the XBLA version of Banjo-Kazooie, the framerate will be much smoother and the graphics will be enhanced. Some game sprites will likely be enhanced or remade, and the button directions will be changed to the Xbox 360 controller’s and references to Nintendo will most likely be removed. And like its XBLA predecessor, Banjo-Tooie (XBLA) will feature leaderboards (likely of best level times and possibly minigame high scores) and achievements.
And yet again, amazingly, Stop ‘n’ Swop will be featured in its original form, between Banjo-Kazooie (XBLA) and Banjo-Tooie (XBLA). In an interview, a developer stated (without going into too much detail), the items from Banjo-Kazooie once collected will “magically” appear in Banjo-Tooie, with secrets supposedly better than Dragon Kazooie. Many theorize that this could mean Devil Bottles or other new secrets, and others are a bit more reproachful, and not getting their hopes up too high for fear of being let down again.
Later, new info on Banjo-Tooie (XBLA) was released on March 31st, 2009. It revealed Banjo-Tooie XBLA would still be released in April, and 10 gamerpics would be released shortly before its release. (7 days later, three days before the release of these features, a premium Banjo-Tooie theme for the Xbox 360's Dashboard for 250 Microsoft Points; the screenshots also hinted (or possibly taunted) at Devil Bottles, a Tooie Stop 'n' Swop theme, a Perfect Dark XBLA game, and a Stop 'n' Swop video). These gamerpics involved the famous six Stop 'n' Swop eggs, a suspiciously dark Ice Key, and three new eggs: What appeared to be a Gold Stop 'n' Swop Egg, a Silver/Grey Stop 'n' Swop Egg, and a Brown Stop 'n' Swop Egg. These only raised more questions in anticipation of the title and the eleven-year old feature...
On April 10th, 2009, the trailer and gamerpics were released. The trailer involved a short dialogue with Heggy, collecting the Banjo-Kazooie (XBLA) Stop 'n' Swop Eggs, and then having Heggy hatch the six Eggs, with the last one, the blue one, unlocking the "Breegull Bash" extra from the original Banjo-Tooie. Nothing else was revealed.
Later, on April 15th, 2009, the release date was confirmed as April 29th, 2009, two weeks away. Later that day, the price was confirmed as 1200 Microsoft Points. Six days later, on April 21st, 2009, a second trailer, this one of gameplay, was released. It confirmed Dragon Kazooie's return, Heggy hatching different eggs, and a timer for the boss battles in replay mode, among other things. Finally, on April 29th, 2009, Banjo-Tooie (XBLA) was released.
As stated before, the game was similar to Banjo-Tooie on the N64. It had the same plot, gameplay, characters, and levels. Like Banjo-Kazooie (XBLA), the game had 12 achievements for 200 GamerScore, leaderboards (this time, instead of level times, it was game time, boss time, and minigame high scores), enhanced graphics, a few removed Nintendo references, a few menu options, a Gamerpic of a Jiggy for collecting all of the Doubloons in Jolly Roger's Lagoon, time scores for each of the bosses, and Stop 'n' Swop.
Now, of course, let's get into how Stop 'n' Swop works. As was confirmed in the first trailer, Heggy would be brought the six eggs to be hatched: though a specific egg would not reward a specific prize, a certain number of eggs would yield one to six prizes: An Xbox 360 gamerpic of Banjo and Kazooie, a theme of the Banjo-Kazooie game, Jinjo as a multiplayer character, Breegull Bash, the HOMING eggs cheat, and.................................... shockingly, a confirmation of a SECOND Stop 'n' Swop, dubbed Stop 'n' Swop II, with a Stop 'n' Swop "achievement" "Oh no, not again" in the Stop 'n' Swop II submenu on the Objects and Items pause menu screen. It talked of SNSII being used in another game (!) and Kazooie jokes they'll see their twentieth birthdays, whereas Banjo says "I don't think Rare will take THAT long."
The Ice Key had the same role as the past game, being utilized for the Mega Glowbo which unlocks Dragon Kazooie. As for the locations of the Ice Key, Blue Egg, and Pink Egg, the B-K cartridges were still there, but the rewards were the three eggs from April 10th's gamerpics: the Gold, Silver, and Bronze Stop 'n' Swop eggs, which gave you the following Stop 'n' Swop II achievements, respectively: "And the winner is...", "Better than a slap!", and "Lucky Loser". However, Stop 'n' Swop II didn't stop there.
A little while later, after transforming into every transformation (including Dragon Kazooie), players were surprised to find a new SNSII achievement "Calmer Chameleon". The Rare Witch Project looked into the game data to find two more SNSII achievements: called "Heroic Failure" and "Now Who's Boss?". Over the next day or two, players from all over the Internet tried everything from the simple to the ridiculous to unlock the last two achievements. Eventually, coincidentally on the same day, the two were both found. "Heroic Failure" was unlocked by dying forty times while fighting bosses, and "Now Who's Boss?" was unlocked by achieving a time of under fifteen minutes as a boss time total for all thirteen bosses, which was very challenging. And that was all for Stop 'n' Swop II... so far.
But Stop 'n' Swop still had one more feature: seven winning Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts blueprints from an old Rare contest were unlocked by transforming into Dragon Kazooie and utilizing the six eggs. This was only available if the player had purchased and played April 7th's L.O.G.'s Lost Challenges. The blueprints were an immobile vehicle with a rotating top called the "Rotating Turret", an immobile carousel with a center that could fly with some music called the "Carousel", a giant robot with a laser-shooting arm and flying capababilities called the "Robot", a transformer that could brilliantly change from a flying machine into a robot called the "Transformation Machine", a tank with a detatchable back called the "Tank", a land-or-air beetle-shaped vehicle called the "Flying Beetle", and a vertically-designed vehicle in the shape of one of Banjo-Tooie's Gruntlings/Uggers, with an extended mouth that could fly. It was simply called the "Gruntling". And that was all for Stop 'n' Swop.
And Devil Bottles? Though hinted at in the Banjo-Tooie Premium Theme and Banjo-Tooie Gamerpics, Devil Bottles maintained the same use in the N64 version: functional, but not accessible through normal gameplay without cheats. This, and the lack of online multiplayer, upset many fans.
And that was pretty much it with Banjo-Tooie (XBLA), possibly, but not likely, the last game in the Banjo-Kazooie series...
... But it was not the end for Banjo and Kazooie. Quite some time later a game was announced for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, DS, and PC. This game was called Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing (with the added suffix "with Banjo-Kazooie" for the Xbox 360 version) and, on the Xbox 360 version only, Banjo and Kazooie (together) would be a playable character in the game. In the game, there are several different racers that race around tracks not unlike Diddy Kong Racing, Banjo-Pilot, and Mario Kart, and each character has a special power. Their vehicle resembled one of the many vehicles from Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts.
A demo for the game was released in early February 2010, with the only playable characters being Sonic and Banjo-Kazooie. Banjo-Kazooie's special ability was revealed by the demo to be "Jiggy Rain". The item that unlocks this is Kazooie's wrench from Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts. The ability causes massive Jiggies to fall from the screen with a remix of the Wonderwing ability theme from Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie. These Jiggies presumably harm the other racers while leaving Banjo and Kazooie unharmed.
Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing (with Banjo-Kazooie) is set to be released on February 23rd in North America and February 26th in Europe. If Banjo started with a racing game, Diddy Kong Racing, will a racing game also be his last? Only time will tell...
Chapter 7: The Future
What’s next for the Banjo-Kazooie series?
Since both Nintendo 64 games have been ported, Stop ‘n’ Swop’s answers are (hopefully) finally solved, and Lord of Games sadly said “But you may never appear in another game”, there isn’t much you can be honestly be 100% hopeful for in the Banjo-Kazooie series. It was a great series, it had its moments, but there is a good chance no new games will be made. On the bright side, if there brilliantly is a fourth game, and since Rareware has always been so good to us chronologically, Banjo and Kazooie will have all of their moves back, as they were returned to them by the Lord of Games at the end.
A fourth Banjo-Kazooie game was announced in January, planned to support the fans' point of view (what this meant was unclear), but a few months later an interview revealed that the project was dropped.
At the end of Banjo-Kazooie, Gruntilda, if you got less than all 100 Jiggies, foreshadowingly warns that “Stupid bear and dumb Kazooie, I’ll be back in Banjo-Tooie!” At the end of Banjo-Tooie, Gruntilda made reference to Banjo-Threeie, which eventually became Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, foreshadowingly warning that “You’ll be sorry, all of you! Just you wait until Banjo-Threeie…” Both of these foreshadowings have come true eventually, and, similarly at the end of Nuts & Bolts, Gruntilda laughs as she is working in the video game factory, and she foreshadowingly warns that “Leaving me here was a big mistake! Just wait for the devious game I make!” And, if Rare stays true, a potential “Banjo-Fourie” has a small but possible chance of making it to reality. But, for now, we’ll just have to wait and see.
Credits: Where It’s Due
I give credits to the information and such that helped me write this article.
I give credit to my memory, Wikipedia’s Banjo-related articles, the Rare Witch Project wiki, the Banjo-Kazooie Wikia, and several fansites such as BoltDragoon’s Geocities website, Spiral Mountain, and the Rare Witch Project for a lot of the information behind this. I give credit to Rareware, Nintendo, Microsoft, In-Fusio, Cybiko, and 4J Studios for developing, presenting, or porting these games. Credit to the Rare Witch Project forum for letting me post it here. I'd also like to thank BurstingFurball, TheRipper, BanjoPL, Shiner, treeckoman, TwilightVestige, and StarFox for support in the thread in which this was released. Also thanks to Little Laurence and Bottles98 for minor help on the RWP Wiki. And of course, tons of credit to myself for writing this painstakingly long history of this amazing series.
That's all. Hope it is/has been a good read.
