Banjo-Tooie

Review from Phil - Monday, 13 July 2009 @ 11:01pm

Three simple words can describe Banjo Tooie quite easily.

Too damn big.

I happily spent over 100 hours exploring the gigantic world of Fallout 3, even longer discovering everything Oblivion had to offer, and naturally played every Zelda game and their increasingly huge iterations of Hyrule.

Banjo Tooie, with its handful of worlds and lighthearted story, is bigger than all of them. Well, maybe not technically, but it's a platformer - and when you make a platformer as big as this, it feels a little too packed and even more cumbersome.

Banjo Kazooie was a game worthy of classic status because it combined a fun story, amazing graphics and tight, perfectly designed worlds. Banjo Tooie expands on the formula perfected by Banjo Kazooie and makes it un-perfect. Here's an example.

Think about worlds from BK like Gobi's Valley, Treasure Trove Cove and Mad Monster Mansion. Layered, intricate levels which were fun to explore and flawlessly designed. In Banjo Tooie, multiply the physical size of these levels by about 6 or 7 times over, and take away half the fun. I spent over an hour exploring the Tyrannoland level in Banjo Tooie before I found my first Jiggy (out of ten). To this day I still find it confusing and obtuse.

Isle O' Hags, one of the few areas of the game that is reasonably fun to navigate

Every level beyond the first three becomes an exercise in tedium rather than exploration. Some Jiggys can't even be obtained until you actually explore later levels and learn more advanced moves, yet there is absolutely no indication which Jiggys can't be collected and which moves are necessary. You'll often explore for hours before giving up, then finding out all along that you were never capable of finding any new areas from the start.

For those completely in the dark, Banjo Tooie basically continues right where the first left off, with Grunty getting revived by her sisters and taking off to the Isle O' Hags. From the get-go the increased size of the game is evident - the very first cutscene is incredibly long, longer than all the scenes in the previous game combined. The humour isn't as sharp, the adventure doesn't seem as pressing, and everything is bigger for the sake of size, not for the sake of improvement.

The first couple of levels are reasonably well done, but by the time you reach Jolly Roger's Lagoon and Tyrannoland, you'll be spending far more time just getting from A to B instead of doing Jiggy-related activities. Mumbo can also be controlled this time around, where he is used to activate Mumbo Magic Pads and change some aspect of the world. The problem with this is that first you need to find his hut, take control of him and then run to the Magic Pad. After it's done there is no quick change, you'll need to run all the way back again and retake control of Banjo. Of course, with the worlds being so big, you'll discover new Mumbo Pads several times, which simply means another trek back and more tiresome work for the same result every time. Yes, there are warp pads, but even they can't offset the tedium of constant backtracking.

This dude has a jigsaw piece for a head. Cool...

A train system now connects every level, which doesn't make much sense beyond adding an extra level of backtracking. One of the levels, Grunty Industries, can't even be accessed by the main entrance - you actually have to backtrack to a previous level, jump on the train and travel along the tracks to unlock it from the inside. Seems like a cool concept, but it's really not. It means an extra 10 minutes of walking to various train stations and slowly chugging your way to an area that should have been opened from the start.

Banjo soon gain the ability to carry things in his backpack. You'll be carting crap throughout several levels and back again, with multiple Mumbo switches, multiple transformations (via the new Humba Wumba) and separating from Kazooie - to simply complete the FIRST PART of a Jiggy quest. Again, seems cool, but the level are so big, by the time you've worked out what you need to do, it's another 30 minutes on top of that just for the legwork alone.

This is why I've collected about 45 Jiggies and given up. I've looked at a guide which details some of the later levels and their requirements, and I honestly can't be bothered. It isn't fun anymore, and that means a platformer fails spectacularly. If it's not fun, it's not a good game. It's merely the design choices which let it down the most - the levels might be a manageable size, but only if they eliminated the constant swapping, switching, carrying and switching via some kind of quick-swap button, and instead focused on the platforming. I'm not even touching the collection of Jinjos, musical notes and Isle O' Hags exploration, and that just adds even more time.

This half-human, half-canary is the most disturbing character in the game

Now, Banjo Tooie is still fun when the design pulls it together. Some Jiggies are heaps of fun to discover, some levels are interesting and unique, and Banjo stills controls very well - but like I said, the fun is pretty much exhausted about 45 Jiggies in. It becomes far too huge and cumbersome for its own good. In a platformer, I want to run and jump and collect stuff. Banjo Tooie is running, running, running, running back, jumping, running, running back, collecting and then running back again. Then you do it all again just to familiarise yourself with the level.

Banjo Kazooie is recommended for everyone, as it is a true classic. Banjo Tooie simply fails in too many regards to be recommended for even 1200 Points on Xbox Live Arcade. No point going back to a dated game which never did much right in the first place.

Pros

Big world, big characters and a massive variety of moves.

Cons

Pitiful design of levels and in-game mechanics means hours and hours of backtracking, changing characters and generic legwork. Not much platforming at all, for a game that calls itself a platformer.