#even though objectively those games were littered with bugs to the point where some normal mechanics were not correct

[ravenwolfie97]

all pokemon games are good but they are not all equally as good

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[game-boy-pocket]

I just finished Banjo Kazooie: Jiggies of Time - a full length mod by Mark Kurko

I don’t normally do reviews because I find it hard to be objective... and this will be no different, so just think of this as me gushing. I’ll go ahead and put the long winded bit under a read more. But the short version is, fans of Banjo Kazooie and Ocarina of Time should play this FOR SURE. Banjo Kazooie fans may actually still love this if they’re not fans of Zelda ( but Zelda knowledge helps sometimes ). Zelda fans may not fare so well if they don’t love the Banjo Kazooie gameplay  ( perhaps they should try the first game as a test if they haven’t played it?  *nudge nudge* )  

I’ve been aware of this project for some time but didn’t really know too much about it. There were a lot of Banjo Kazooie hacks that were just smaller projects that take less than an hour to finish. I was suprised to learn just a few days ago that this project was completed, and was a full length game with the same number of worlds and collectibles as the original Banjo Kazooie. Even better, it ran on a real Nintendo 64! I played mine on the real deal and it ran near perfectly ( there were minor frame dips and a few graphical bugs but nothing too distracting or too frequent )

I’m assuming you already know how Banjo Kazooie plays if you’re reading this, but just in case, Banjo plays a lot like Mario.  You run around in little sandbox areas collecting things, the main collectible being golden jigsaw puzzle pieces called Jiggies, you find these out in the open, by solving puzzles, or by helping NPCs, the secondary collectible being golden music notes, both are needed to progress.  Each level also has five different colored critters called Jinjos that award you with a Jiggy when you find them. Each level has two empty honey comb pieces, collecting six adds another unit of health to your life meter. There are also silver skull shaped tokens used to transform your character into another form in certain levels, and finally, other miscellaneous collectibles to restore health, abilies, and lives.  Pretty basic stuff, you should be familiar if you’ve played any of the Sandbox Mario games, though in Banjo, you unlock your abilities as you progress. 

As I said before the game has 10 worlds. You start in Kokiri forest just like Ocarina of Time. You learn your basic moves in the Lost Woods, though I question the practicality of that, I actually did a full two worlds without my three basic attacks.  I got... lost... I just assumed I was going to learn the attacks elsewhere.  Kokiri forest is actually the first world, with Lost Woods serving as a sort of “Spiral Mountain” area.  Brentilda makes a return here offering three tips about the game each time you encounter her, as well as refilling your health. She appears in every world. Once you get some notes, you can leave to Hyrule Field.

Hyrule Field is the “Gruntilda’s Lair” ( Your Hub world for the uninitiated ) portion of the game, Everything is where you expect it to be, but it’s all sealed off. Instead you need to look for new areas containing jigsaw puzzles to open the locked areas. You will eventually learn a trick to simulate the Sun song as well, but it can only be done here. There’s 10 Jiggies to collect in Hyrule, 7 of which are contained within Lon Lon Ranch, I won’t spoil anything but Lon Lon Ranch has changed pretty drastically. The remaining 3 Jiggies are a bit more elaborately hidden. I’ll get back to those.  When you’re here, Gruntilda will banter with you, just like the original Banjo Kazooie, but sometimes, other characters will talk instead, and there is some genuinely hilarious exchanges between characters here.

Castle Town is the second world, and this is where you get the idea that “oh this isn’t just Banjo in Ocarina of time” because you start to uncover a lot of areas that were not in the original game. It only makes sense that a character with completely different skills can reach places Link never could.  Mumbo Jumbo returns in this world, all of his transformations are the same as the original game, but they’ve been reskinned to fit a Zelda theme... well... mostly.  

Once you wrap up in there, you head to Kakariko village, the third world. And it’s pretty standard. You actually learn the final move in this world. This game utilizes all of the original game’s moves except for the wading boots... they were kind of lame anyway I suppose.  This is also where you start to notice that this game is absolutely loaded to the gills with easter eggs. game cases and consoles are littered everywhere, Nintendo characters playing games are hidden away ( except for one ), and you may also notice some Golden eye characters spying on you ( they actually creep me out when I first catch a glimpse of them. They look ghoulish to me... ) 

Explore Kakariko enough and you should find the way to open Death Mountain, which is the fourth world.  Now this part of the game drove me slightly crazy. Death mountain has lava. Lava is an instant death for Banjo. When you die, you lose all of the notes you collected, and all of your Jinjos too if you haven’t got them all yet.  Here’s the thing, it’s another world where you have to turn into a small creature to get some of the notes, but before you do, you have to open the path for the creature as Banjo. And you have a LOT of ground to cover ( it includes Dodongo’s Cavern, the  mountain trail, Goron City, and a few extra areas not in Ocarina of Time ), so it’s almost like you have to do everything in this level twice... I died several times, at one point all I needed was five more notes, I was about to blow a gasket. After you finish up there, it’s time to head to Zora’s Domain. The world actually starts at Zora’s River, I enjoyed the world a lot but it was also pretty taxing. It demands a LOT of resources I had previously been taking for granted. Namely the eggs you shoot.  I was expecting Jabu Jabu to be replaced with Clanker the whale from the original Banjo Kazooie, but no, it’s just Jabu Jabu.. which is probably fine, this is Hyrule after all.  Jabu Jabu is not actually a dungeon though, which is a little disappointing, but there is some very interesting stuff in there... and this is where I start having a little bit of an issue with the easter eggs, subtlty goes out the window here and we actually start leaving the Zelda theme behind for two pretty big areas in this world.  It doesn’t bother me too much but I really wish this sort of thing was kept for secret levels instead of the main game... there’s a lot of tough platforming around Jabu Jabu’s area.

By now you should have stumbled across the means of opening the way to the Forest Temple. And this is one of the coolest parts of the game but also one of the most long winded and complicated parts.  The game expects you to go back to the old days of taking notes on paper.  You explore the temple looking for letters of the Hylian Alphabet and their English equivalent, you’re expected to to write these down as a chart and then use them to decipher some messages written in Hylian Text through out the temple... the thing is, a lot of the things the text asked me to do, I figured out on my own. There are also paintings on the wall meant to give clues, but I got mixed messages from one of these paintings that was meant to be used in tandem with the hylian writing. So I was trying the wrong thing over and over...  But I will say this level is truly the most jam packed with Zelda easter eggs and It’s hard not to spoil any of it, because I lost my mind at some of it...

At this point I should throw in that this game doesn’t have any new enemies or bosses. Most of the enemies are reskinned to be Zelda themed. It’s pretty effective in selling the illusion... except in the case where it’s not.

Next destination is Lake Hylia. I’ve got to stop to talk about the music real quick because Lake Hylia has my favorite track in the game.  This game has an amazing soundtrack.  It’s mostly Zelda songs remixed in a way that makes it sound like a song you would expect to hear in Banjo Kazooie ( and some hints of Banjo Kazooie/Tooie tunes get mixed in as a medley as well ), very bouncy and fun.  Not all of it is Ocarina of Time music. Lake Hylia actually uses an upbeat version of the Twilight Princess lake hylia theme.   In any case, this level sees you explore the lake, the fishing hole, the water temple, and a new series of floating islands above the lake.  As far as the Water Temple goes, it’s not too bad.

Next is the Gerudo Valley area, which includes the valley, the gerudo fortress, and the desert temple. Disappointingly, you cannot explore the insides of the gerudo fortress.  You can enter them, but you just exit out a different door in the fortress, like some kind of warp maze.  This area was also a real drain on my gold feather and blue egg resources, I almost had to leave to stock up on gold feathers, but I was sly and found a work around my problem and was able to progress. It was probably the least impressive area in the game if I’m being honest... also, Brentilda says that the hylian letters I wrote down were going to be useful here, but I couldn’t find anywhere  in the dungeon that had Hylian letters... hmm.

With this, you head to the final world.  The means which you use to enter this world are very cool. I won’t spoil it but it should be obvious to anyone who’s played already, assuming they haven’t completely forgotten one of the most important locations in the original Ocarina of Time...  Now, the world itself?  It’s cool thematically, but the usage of another small creature transformation really drags the world down.  Not to mention another easter egg really kills the mood of this final world, but it’s easily forgiven.

The final world is also what houses the entrance to the final battle.  But this game actually requires you to get ALL the Jiggies save for three in order to enter the final battle, so if you missed any jiggies at all during the normal levels, time to turn back and get them... unless you’re only short three, and wouldn’t you know it, there are three “secret levels” in this game with extra hidden Jiggies.

So, you would have no doubt seen this by now if you were playing the game but in Castle Town, there’s a museum you can reach by transforming into a small creature and crawling through the keyhole, and this museum houses clues to the location of these secret levels, as well as the secret jiggies within those levels. They’re pretty well hidden.  The clues get revealed more and more as you collect notes. First, just a general description of the area, then a more exact description of the area, but written in hylian, then a photograph of the area you need to inspect to find the entrance, and lastly, a picture of the hidden jiggy in the secret level ( though if you wait this long, the nature of the secret level will be spoiled, and these levels are BIG easter eggs. ), so maybe don’t wait too long to find them.

The final Battle with Gruntilda is the same as it was in the original Banjo Kazooie, but the arena is just slightly altered to make it a little more difficult, but not unfairly so.  Not much more to say beyond that.  The game has a pretty cool credits sequence and ending that Zelda fans are sure to appreciate.

I do kind of wish there was a Quiz show like the original Banjo Kazooie, I was expecting to get my Zelda knowledge tested, but no such luck.

Playing this game was such a blast and it made me feel like I was experiencing Banjo Kazooie and Ocarina of Time for the first time again at the same time, which is a very strange but welcome feeling. I never would have expected these two games fused into one to work so well, but it really is remarkable how well it works, and it tickles my nerd fanboy bone for Zelda in many ways, as well as Banjo, Rareware and Nintendo in general too.  I can’t recommend it enough for fans of both games...  I can only recommend this to non Banjo Zelda fans if they’re willing to play the original Banjo first to see if they like it.  But non Zelda fans of Banjo, I think you’ll just enjoy having a new Banjo Kazooie Adventure to tackle, though the lack of Zelda knowledge might make the road a little bumpy in a few areas.

I love these games to death but i’ve replayed them so much that they don’t entertain as much as they used to. This was a great way to freshen up the experience for both. I’m dying to play more like this. There’s a very interesting “Link in Mario 64″ mod i’m keeping my eye on. But that may take a lot of time, as it’s only released the first demo... for now... I actually kinda want to replay the original BK and OOT agian. Heh.