Banjo-Tooie
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| Banjo-Tooie | |
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| Developer(s) | Rare Ltd. |
| Publisher(s) | Nintendo |
| Designer(s) | Gregg Mayles |
| Series | Banjo-Kazooie series |
| Release date(s) |   November 19, 2000 November 27, 2000 April 12, 2001 |
| Genre(s) | Platformer |
| Mode(s) | Single player Multiplayer |
| Rating(s) | ESRB: Everyone |
| Platform(s) | Nintendo 64 |
| Media | 256 megabit cartridge |
Banjo-Tooie (Japanese title: バンジョーとカズーイの大冒険2, Rōmaji: Banjō to Kazūi no Daibōken 2, English translation: Banjo & Kazooie's Great Adventure 2) is the sequel to the 1998 Nintendo 64 game Banjo-Kazooie. It was released on November 1, 2000 for the Nintendo 64. It was published by Rareware and features the popular video game characters Banjo and Kazooie.
Contents |
[edit] Aim / Scenario
As before, the aim of the game is to collect all the Jiggies (golden jigsaw pieces) that can be found. There are ten in each level, and an additional one is awarded for finding each of the nine families of Jinjos hidden throughout the game. This, in addition to the Jiggy awarded at the very beginning by the benevolent Jingaling, king of the Jinjos, brings the total to 90.
As a platformer, the game is groundbreaking in that the levels are not stand-alone areas linked only by the overworld; on many occasions in the game the player is required to cross between the levels, or return to a level after learning a new skill in order to use it. The train stations in most levels are an integral part of this system; once the station has been opened, it is possible to move between levels on the train. This is vital to completing the game.
[edit] Plot
The game takes place two years after Gruntilda the Witch was defeated by Banjo and Kazooie. Over this time, she has been buried under a rock with her assistant, Klungo, trying to save her. On a stormy night Gruntilda's sisters appear and remove the rock. Gruntilda is now a skeleton and wants a new body. She then kills Bottles the Mole and heads off with her sisters to get her a new body using Big-O-Blaster (B.O.B.), a machine that sucks the life force out of living things.
As the game's one-player mode opens, Banjo, Kazooie, Mumbo Jumbo, and Bottles are enjoying a game of poker in Banjo's house. But outside, the mischievous goon Klungo is helping Mingella & Blobbelda resurrect their witch sister, Grunty. They do succeed in reviving Grunty, although she is no more than a skeleton with witch's robes. Mumbo witnesses this ceremony, and speeds back to Banjo's house to warn his friends. The witches give chase, and Grunty hurls a deadly spell at the house. Forewarned, Banjo, Kazooie, and Mumbo get away in time, but Bottles, suspecting the claim that Grunty is back to be trick by Mumbo to win at poker, stays put and is caught in the blast. The witches speed away in their Hag 1 machine, and Banjo and Kazooie watch as Bottles wobbles out of their destroyed house and dies at their feet. Shaken, they agree that they must chase down Grunty and foil her plans once more. Mumbo informs them that he will return to his hut and prepare some magic to aid them.
Banjo and Kazooie follow the trail of the Hag 1 to Jinjo Village, which they discover to be devoid of Jinjos, with the Gray Jinjo House destroyed by the Hag 1. Confused, they approach the Jinjo King, who informs them that a kickball tournament is to start within the week, but without his Jinjo subjects, he has no team. Banjo and Kazooie agree to help find his subjects, and he consequently gives them puzzle pieces called Jiggies to help them on their journey. Shortly after their departure, we learn that Grunty's sisters have created B.O.B., a tremendous machine that can suck the life force out of people and places. Grunty's sisters agree to let her use it, but only if she stops speaking in rhyme. She agrees, and they decide to test B.O.B. on the Jinjo king, who is instantly turned into a zombie, with his palace now an ugly grey color. Grunty eagerly states that she wishes to next zap Banjo and Kazooie and the whole island with them, but her sisters inform her that B.O.B. must first charge up.
Meanwhile, Banjo and Kazooie take a shortcut through Bottles' house to reach the Isle O' Hags, where they meet Master Jiggywiggy, a mysterious sorcerer who agrees to help them open up the worlds on the island if they present a proper amount of Jiggies and solve his puzzles. Their adventure thus begins.
On their journey they collect a total of ninety Jiggies, and receive help from old and new friends. They often stumble upon Mumbo's hut, where he agrees to go out and use his magic to open up new passageways for them. They also encounter Sergeant Jamjars, Bottles' soldier brother, who agrees to teach the duo new attacks (if, of course, they can present a proper number of Musical Notes). They also meet Humba Wumba, a female Indian who requests magical Glowbos in exchange for transforming Banjo and Kazooie into something else.
Finally, the pair reaches Cauldron Keep, Grunty's castle. After facing her henchman Klungo and taking her "Tower of Tragedy" quiz, they hurry upstairs to reverse the effects of B.O.B., thus reviving Bottles and the Jinjo king. They then hurry up to the top of the tower and face off with Grunty in her Hag 1 machine. Once she is defeated, they return to the Isle O' Hags to celebrate with their friends, as well as kicking around Grunty's head, much to her disgust.
Strangely, Banjo's sister Tooty is neither seen nor mentioned in this game. The only time Tooty can be seen (although not in person) is when one visits the trashcan in Cloud Cuckooland. A "Have you seen me?" picture of Tooty is on the side of a milk carton. Gruntilda's "good" sister, Brentilda, is also absent from the sequel, but a portrait of her (taken from Mad Monster Mansion in the prequel) can be seen in Pawno's shop in Jolly Roger's Lagoon, along with some other Banjo-Kazooie memorabilia such as the doll from Grunty's Furnace Fun.
[edit] Main characters
- Banjo - A lovable, yet somewhat confused bear. The hero of this tale.
- Kazooie - An elegant bird with a cutting wit. Banjo's partner in action and character foil.
- Mumbo Jumbo - A shaman that helps the duo by performing various tasks with his magic. In this game, he is actually a playable character, as opposed to his role in the previous game, Banjo-Kazooie, where he would simply transform you into animals and objects.
- Bottles - A timid, mild-mannered mole, the neighbor of Banjo and Kazooie. In this game, Bottles is slain (but remains a ghost) after an attempt on Banjo and Kazooie's life by Gruntilda.
- Gruntilda Winkybunion - A witch that vows revenge on Banjo and Kazooie.
- Sergeant Jamjars - Bottles' brother. Teaches Banjo and Kazooie new moves.
- Humba Wumba - A Native American woman and Mumbo Jumbo's rival. Transforms Banjo and Kazooie into other forms.
- Klungo - Gruntilda's servant.
- Mingella - Grunty's tall, skinny sister. She and her sister Blobbelda have a habit of speaking in Object Subject Verb order.
- Blobbelda - Grunty's short, obese sister.
[edit] Worlds
[edit] Spiral Mountain
Spiral Mountain is the home to Banjo and Kazooie. Spiral Mountain went through some damage in Banjo-Tooie after the Grunty Sisters came through with a powerful digging machine to rescue Gruntilda, who was trapped under a rock after the previous Banjo-Kazooie game.
[edit] Gruntilda's Lair
Players are able to enter Gruntilda's lair from Banjo-Kazooie. The lair is accessible, but players can only enter the first room, where Cheato will exchange codes for his missing pages. The two hallways that lead to Mumbo's Mountain and the first note door are now blocked by stones that presumably fell when Gruntilda's sisters drilled through Spiral Mountain.
Many players have tried endlessly to get past the boulders to access the other parts of the lair, but have failed. This was mainly because the title of the map was "Gruntilda's Lair (Entrance)", meaning that there might actually be another room. Although there have been hackers who have made a "go through walls" code for GameShark, nothing actually lies on the other side of the rocks.
[edit] Isle O' Hags
This is a continent that is the home of many places, including all of the entrances to the levels of the game. Isle O' Hags gets its name from the evil witches that roam the area. These witches include Gruntilda Winkybunion and her two sisters Mingella & Blobbelda.
[edit] Various other worlds within the game
- Mayahem Temple: A Mayan-themed world that contains a code chamber for various game cheats.
- Glitter Gulch Mine: A stereotpyical gold mine with prison cells, a waterfall, and caves filled with poisonous gas.
- Witchyworld: A highly unsafe fairground, endorsed by Gruntilda, with dangerous rides and rude employees.
- Jolly Roger's Lagoon: This world is comprised of two areas, a nautical village and the lagoon where Banjo and Kazooie can breathe underwater with the help of Mumbo.
- Terrydactyland: An ancient world filled with dinosaurs and cavemen. This is also the home to Terry, a pterodactyl, whose nest sits at the top of the central mountain.
- Grunty Industries: A factory for electrical appliances, endorsed by Grunty, with a waste disposal that causes problems for a previous world.
- Hailfire Peaks: A giant mountain where one side is ice and the other is fire. The fire side of the mountain was originally planned to be "Mount Fire Eyes" in Banjo-Kazooie.
- Cloud Cuckooland: A world made of an enormous, hollow, purple mountain, surrounded by floating platforms of various oddities including a large piece of cheese and a gigantic trash can.
[edit] Cauldron Keep
Grunty's hideout is the game's final level, though not a bona fide level like the others, as Jiggies, other items, and characters (Mumbo Jumbo, Humba Wumba, and Sgt. Jamjars) are all absent. After the player faces off one last time with Klungo, they must survive Grunty's Tower of Tragedy quiz, which is similar to Grunty's Furnace Fun in Banjo-Kazooie. After that, a cut- scene shows Banjo and Kazooie reversing B.O.B.'s effects to bring King Jingaling and Bottles back to life, followed by a showdown on the roof with Gruntilda in her Hag 1 machine.
Interestingly, there is a continuity error involved: the B.O.B. only absorbed Jingaling's life force, yet the heroes are able to resurrect both Jingaling and Bottles. Additionally, although Banjo and Kazooie never ascend any stairs (in fact, they come down a large flight when entering the gun room), they inexplicably emerge at the top of the tower, high above where they entered. Presumably an elevator of some form is present through the doorways, but as Banjo and Kazooie are out of sight of the player during this time it is quite impossible to tell.
As of the end of this game, which saw the "death" of Gruntilda (though how she could die in her current form is anyone's guess), she is reduced to a mere skull with a missing eyeball. She says that she'll return in Banjo-Threeie for her revenge (as promised at the end of Banjo-Kazooie) as several game characters are using her head as a kickball.
[edit] Differences from Banjo-Kazooie
A major change with the sequel is the introduction of non-recollectable music notes. In Banjo-Kazooie, the premise is the same: the player enters the level and collects notes, trying to achieve the highest score. However, if the player dies or leaves the level, upon re-entering the level the player has to start collection all over again as all the music notes reappear, and players must beat the previous score by collecting a higher number of notes in one go compared to last time. Banjo-Tooie reverses this change: any collected music notes will not reappear and are cumulatively added to the players score (rather than having a player to attempt to collect the highest amount possible in one go at a particular level).
Another change is the introduction of Banjo having infinite lives. Although neither game is necessarily "life-based," such as games like Super Mario Bros., the player in Banjo-Kazooie had a supply of lives that, if emptied, would display a "Game Over" screen and force the player to start from the entrance to Gruntilda's Lair. This was not so in Banjo-Tooie - the player would start from the beginning of the level in which the player died.
Most of the abilities that you can receive in Banjo-Kazooie are available to you at the start of Banjo-Tooie. This is in contrast to games where all powerups are inexplicably gone in the sequel. On a very minor note, Banjo can no longer perform his Claw Swipe from the previous game. This change is probably due to the continuity of that Banjo being alone without Kazooie can only perform the Pack Whack as the attack. For the same reason, Banjo's rolling attack is also seen assisted by Kazooie in this game. Some moves were also changed slightly. For example, the Beak Bomb attack can now be used indefinitely by holding B as long as you want (though this will use up extra feathers). Also, the Turbo Trainers can now be used to run on water, which is useful in certain places in the game. Banjo's voice is much deeper, as well.
Perhaps the largest change, though, is the shift in tone from Banjo-Kazooie. While the original presented a fairy-tale atmosphere with a "Save the Princess" style plot, Tooie was not afraid to kill off major characters and make liberal usage of darker themes.
[edit] Stop 'n' Swop controversy
[edit] Bottles' Revenge
For reasons that are unknown, Rare apparently left a secret mode where Player 2 plays as an undead version of Bottles the Mole and can take control of enemy characters. The player can not take control of bosses however, due to Bottles leaving when entering a room to fight a boss, stating "I'm not needed here". It has now been confirmed that you can use a GameShark to play this mode, and additionally the cheat code part of the Project 64 emulation software can access this. It is assumed that this mode was originally intended to be used in gameplay (it was playable somewhat at E3, supposedly) but scrapped for reasons unknown (possibly programming difficulties). The face of "Devil Bottles" appears with one of the questions in the Tower of Tragedy. "Devil Bottles" is also pictured in a sheet with all Banjo-Tooie characters on it, which could be won in a Banjo-Tooie contest on Rare's website, back when the game was released in Europe, in 2001. In 2006 Rare said that the reason Bottles' Revenge was scrapped because they ran out of time to debug it, although "it did work rather well". They also mentioned that Bosses were ment to be able to be controllable in Bottles' Revenge, but the only Boss that they had working in the mode when they dropped it was Old King Coal.[1] Old King Coal is not controlable in the version of Bottles' Revenge that appears in the game.
[edit] Cameos and cultural references
- Mr. Pants appears on a television screen in Hailfire Peaks, and in a constellation in Witchyworld's Dodgem Dome arena.
- Tiptup makes an appearance in Jolly Roger's Lagoon. He was a playable character from Diddy Kong Racing and also made a cameo in Banjo-Kazooie.
- Roysten the Fish (who appears in this game) makes a cameo in Rare's first Xbox game, Grabbed by the Ghoulies.
- The pufferfish enemy (known as the "Swellbelly") in Jolly Roger's Lagoon is nearly identical to the Puftup enemy from Donkey Kong 64.
- Bottles' son Goggles plays with a Donkey Kong doll.
- Inside Bottles' house there are two posters showing Juno and Vela from Jet Force Gemini. Another Vela poster is seen in the bathroom of Grunty Industries.
- Mario is mentioned in a dialogue when Kazooie speaks with Loggo, a toilet bowl in the men's bathroom.
- The logos for Donkey Kong 64, Banjo-Kazooie, Perfect Dark, and Jet Force Gemini are magnets on a fridge in Grunty Industries.
- Sabre Man makes an appearance in the game. He also mentions the game Sabre Wulf.
- Kazooie asks the aliens in Jolly Roger's Lagoon if one of them is named "Elvis", a reference to Perfect Dark.
- When the aliens say they have a problem, Kazooie says, "Let me guess, you need to phone home?" A reference to E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial.
- In Viva Piñata, a part of the Jameleon Dance of Romance song is part of the background music from Mayahem Temple.
[edit] Trivia
- There is some controversy that in the level Terrydactyland, the pathway in leading up to Mumbo Jumbo's house resembles a penis from an aerial view.
[edit] Banjo-Threeie
At the end of Banjo Tooie, Grunty's severed head makes a comment about getting revenge in Banjo-Threeie. At the time, no news about such a game had been announced and after Rare was sold to Microsoft, some wondered if such a game would ever exist. Nintendo Power Volume 151 stated that no such game existed and any rumors or theories about it were (at the time) false.
On September 27, 2006, Microsoft and Rare announced at X06 that the series will be returning on the Xbox 360.[2] The IGN website currently has a teaser trailer for the upcoming game tentatively titled Banjo-Kazooie 3.
There is a third Banjo-Kazooie game for the Game Boy Advance titled Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge, although, in chronological order, it is the second in the series.
[edit] References
- ^ Scribes - December 8, 2006. Rare. Retrieved on 2006-12-09.
- ^ X06: Banjo, Kazooie Return on 360. 1UP.com. Retrieved on 2006-09-27.
[edit] External links
| Banjo-Kazooie games | Banjo-Kazooie • Banjo-Tooie • Grunty's Revenge • Banjo-Pilot • Banjo-Kazooie 3 | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Conker games | Conker's Pocket Tales • Conker's Bad Fur Day • Conker: Live & Reloaded | ||
| Donkey Kong games | Donkey Kong Country/Land • Donkey Kong Country 2/Land 2 • Donkey Kong Country 3/Land 3 • Diddy Kong Racing • Donkey Kong 64 • Diddy Kong Racing DS | ||
| Perfect Dark games | Perfect Dark • Perfect Dark (GBC) • Perfect Dark Zero | ||
| Other games | Blast Corps • GoldenEye 007 • Star Fox Adventures • Grabbed by the Ghoulies • Kameo: Elements of Power • Viva Piñata | ||
