Originally Posted by http://ign64.ign.com/articles/061/061161p1.html
August 5, 1997 - Most gamers know by now that Banjo and Kazooie are a strange hybrid character that make up Nintendo and Rare's newest first-person platformer, Banjo-Kazooie.
The pair are the stars of the game once code-named Dreams, and Nintendo has stretched as far as to say they're comparable to Laurel and Hardy and Abbott and Costello. From what N64.com has seen, this weird pair is leagues apart those hilarious comedians, but we're certain the game itself will be an epic romp, possibly in spite of its obvious, sometimes annoying characters.
The game sets the pair off in search for Banjo's girlfriend, Piccolo, who's been captured by a giant, and whom Banjo and Kazooie must defeat in order to return her to safety. (If the story sounds oddly familiar, that's because its an exact duplicate of the simplistic storyline from Mario, in which the poor princess Peach is constantly stolen by Bowser. How's that for originality?)
Banjo
Banjo is a male honey bear, with a big nose (say, doesn't Mario have a big nose?), a blue backpack, and yellow shorts. He can walk, run, jump, swim, climb, swipe, and perform a running forward roll.
A few of his favorite things are his girlfriend, Piccolo, sleeping, being carried around by Kazooie, staying on flat surfaces, swimming, and dancing the preposterous Jigsaw jive, a hopeless dance meant to charm really young, innocent children.
Banjo, however, like all animals, has a few dislikes as well. He doesn't like it when Kazooie runs fast, or sliding on his rear end, and he gets easily tired of carrying all of Kazooie's eggs. he's also afraid of dark places and flying, which surprisingly happen to be two of his partner's strengths.
Kazooie
Kazooie is Banjo's sidekick, and hangs out in his packback for a large part of the game. Kazooie is a female Red Crested Breegull, and flaunts bright red and yellow feathers, runs on long, skinny legs, and features a long neck.
This bird can perfrom possibly the coolest moves in the game, and all of them are oddly named moves at that. Kazooie can help to extend Banjo's jumps with the Barge Feathery Flap, and helps with the Rat-aTat Rap, a jumping attack. She has a list of others as well: the Flap Flip (backflipping); the Shock Spring (high jump), the Beak (shoulder barging), the Beak Buster (vertical air-to-ground attacking, the Beak Bomb (fly and dive bombing), and the Talong Trot (which means simple running). A few others specialties include the Turbo Talong trot (even faster Kazooie running), the Stilt Stride (long legs walking), Egg firing (from both the front and rear), invincibility, underwater swimming and flying.
Kazooie has a personality of her own, claims Nintendo, and has a few things that she adores. These include: running, flying, destroying things (now we're talking), screeching loudly, dive bombing collecting eggs and feathers, eating cheese and mounting steep slopes.
She dislikes quietness, facing backwards (which is what she does for most of the game), carrying around Banjo's banjo, stopping to rest, swimming underwater, and Banjo's frightening, helpless, Barnie-esque jigsaw jive.
Well, there you have it folks, an inside look at the videogame industry's newest darlings, Banjo and Kazooie.
|