Banjo Kazooie XBLA Review

The Classic Bear’n'Bird Duo.

by Shadow Wave

©Ben Cadwallader

Celebrating the release of Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts, RARE has given the franchise’s decade old fans a gift to rejoice over, a port of the original Banjo Kazooie for Xbox Live Arcade.  The story throws you into the backpack of Banjo and Kazooie as they venture through Gruntilda’s Lair to find Banjo’s ‘cute and nice’ sister, to stop the ugly witch from stealing her good looks!

Banjo Kazooie has similar elements in common with Super Mario 64, it adheres to the platforming genre of collecting items.

These items will unlock doors, which in turn open more worlds for you to visit with more items for you to collect. It’s a simple theme, but it worked 10 years ago… and it still works today.

Most people have experienced the original Banjo Kazooie game previously on the Nintendo 64 platform but the XBLA version brings something new to the table. When the opening cinema starts, I found the graphics as impressive as they were initially some 10 years ago.  There is NOT ONE jagged edge anywhere to be seen, the game looks crisp and clean.

Objects in the far distance did not have noticeable jagged edges either, with draw distances of characters also significantly increased. Suffice to say this game still looks good, even the characters models have been improved, if you never knew that this was a N64 game, you would just assume that it was the unique art style of the title.

Widescreen support has been added which is brilliant, with the HUD needing a few slight adjustments to compliment the widescreen support.

Unlike many arcade games that add the border around the edges to compensate for the wide screen view, Banjo Kazooie is displayed in its’ full widescreen beauty, another indicator that RARE cares for its’ fans.

Textures on characters and the environment have been improved to a much higher standard, whilst not to the degree expected from full retail games, they are a noteworthy improvement over the original.

All text in the pause menu and the HUD have been redone to a much clearer font, that’s very easy to read and is noticeably larger, catering to young children and their reading abilities.

However, there is one major downside to the graphical enhancements of the Banjo Kazooie XBLA version, the frame rate will often drop to give you substantial slow down. It’s often as you enter an area, or as you approach something that is not common (such as the puzzle piece boards to open levels) and seems to happen randomly.  It is a real let down and possibly a put off for some gamers to stop playing, especially those gamers new to the genre’.

There have been a few gameplay tweaks and changes here and there, such as doing certain tasks, which now unlock special Xbox gamerpics. The major change though is now RARE has made the Tolls Of Death much less frustrating. In the original version, if you died during the game and had not collected the 100 musical notes you effectively had to start the level again. In the XBLA revision, RARE have taken that specific penalty away and you can now find all 100 notes in however many attempts you wish.

The fabled Stop’n'Swap feature has finally been added, with the Ice Key and other collectibles reflected in Nuts and Bolts to give you extra bonuses (I won’t spoil the surprise). Xbox Live features leader boards where you are able to track how your friends are doing by how many collectables they have, as well as how long it took for them to complete the game and each world.

Though some aspects of Banjo Kazooie have been enhanced, other issues have still remained. Gamers will still have to use those infuriating swimming controls that make some worlds much harder than they should be.The original N64 control schematics have been emulated exceptionally well on the 360 controller and generally, if you are familiar with the N64 control style, then you will not have any trouble picking this up.

They even let you use either the Left of Right triggers to function as the Z button. The only downside is that while the Right Joystick lets you move the camera around; it still basically acts like you were pressing one of the C buttons on the N64 controller.

So there will still be those annoying moments when you want to position the camera directly behind Banjo, but it will jump to either side of him, a minor issue and one that fans of the series generally won’t notice.

Overall, fans of the series should buy this game now, without haste. It is definitely an improvement on the original game, and helps fix some of those frustrating moments of game play. The only downside to this experience as mentioned is the frame rate drops, though these are few and far between. I highly recommend giving this blockbuster game a play, for both experienced Banjo players and those new to the series as it’s a top-tier XBLA experience.

Especially with the NXE onboard your 360!

“9.0/10

©Ben Cadwallader

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