TL;DR This game is awesome and you should consider playing it if you haven’t and you like retro games from this era or if you like similar collectathon games.

To preface before my opinion: Yes I did emulate this game on PC, Yes I used a modern Xbox controller for most of my playthrough, and No I do not have many references for games from this time but I will be attempting to be balanced on parts I felt did not age well.

I’ll start with the good parts. If you’ve played Mario 64, this game is right up your alley and so is its sequel. This is one of the best 3D platformers from the era and its one that is challenging and has more personality than M64 did for me. Mostly due to the stellar characters and personalities. So much love went into crafting each characters outfit, voice, and animation even though they’re so simple.

Next up, the levels. Not every level here is amazing but the same can be said of M64 (which I’ll continue to reference as my main comparison game since I’m familiar with it). Each level has 10 jigsaw pieces to collect and some of them are extremely creative uses of the environment. Some are just annoying to get though and will have you overlooking them. Overall the levels are solid if not as memorable as many M64 levels are to me.

The music. Wow the music! Its very good for the era and fits right in with the classics. Even the rest of the sound design is incredible but seriously, go listen to some of the level tracks if you haven’t played the game. The theming done in the music alone is very good. The rest of the sounds do a very good job of fitting right in with the art and they characterize a lot of the game. Audio-wise this is amazing for the N64.

Here’s where I digress though. My overall view of the game is VERY positive so take these criticisms light. A lot of these things are parts that just didn’t age so well. First off, the movement system isn’t as good as other 3D platformers. Its passable. But a lot of the platforming requires button presses repeatedly. You can’t walk crouched. So a series of leaves that need high jumps to go up them look like this: Stop your character in just the right spot and crouch, hit the jump button, direct the jumps movement, move a tiny bit forward on the next leaf to position, crouch, jump. Wouldn’t be so bad if I could trigger it all quickly but its very hard to do that. Not to mention the swimming is really not great and wrestles with the camera constantly. And the air attack is nearly impossible to aim if you aren’t flying straight or are too high or low to attack properly.

The rest of the moves are all based on the C stick. Which also controls camera. Its a nightmare with a modern controller. But again, each move takes seconds to activate and need prep time. You have an invincibility move which would be great for avoiding incoming damage. Except it takes too long to trigger so is only used for obstacles. Weird right?

And that’s my final gripe that I feel is really valid. Mario 64 has a move set that gets activated mostly organically. Wall jumps and rolls and ledge grabs all work with minimal or no buttons. Meanwhile the run move here requires you stop to crouch and press the stick a specific way. And most other moves have buttons on the floor or pickups. Its confusing why they did it that way and it takes me out a bit fiddling with my controller. It doesn’t feel natural and I never got to the point of pressing all of the moves without thinking.

Overall final opinion is that this game is an amazing classic that I feel most people should play if they like 3D platformers. Just be aware that its best played on older controllers and also has a few features that you may miss from modern games. But it’d be hard not to recommend this. This game is great, onto the sequel!

  • Varyk@sh.itjust.works
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    6 months ago

    Just want to agree here. Didn’t pay it until 20 years after it came out and everyone was right, it’s a lot of fun.

  • smeg@feddit.uk
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    6 months ago

    I played Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie for the first time a couple of years ago and thought they were great. Really enjoyable collectathons which have aged really well, I think I agree with all your points.

    As you noted the controls and camera can be a bit clunky, but I think that’s expected for n64 games. I played on original hardware and the frame rate can get pretty bad, especially on Tooie. I’ve heard a lot of people say that the Xbox 360 versions deal with a lot of those issues though.

    I’d also recommend Youka-Laylee as a proper spiritual successor. I think it was made by a lot of the same people, and you can see that in the characters and story.

    • CleoTheWizard@lemmy.worldOP
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      6 months ago

      Yooka-Laylee is next on my list after Tooie actually, I’m looking forward to it since I enjoyed this and a more modern take has a lot of potential.

      • smeg@feddit.uk
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        6 months ago

        It can be a little buggy and some people were expecting more from it, but don’t go into it expecting the world and you should have a good time!

      • icermiga@lemmy.today
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        4 months ago

        Yooka-Laylee is clearly a spiritual successor but also clearly not as good as Banjo Kazooie. In many aspects it’s just slightly worse: There’s less personality, clunkier movement, less good music, the humour is less funny. Perhaps the largest downgrades are the collectibles placement and the world size. The positioning of collectibles is not so much beckoning you towards exploration and platforming challenges, as it was in BK, but instead it’s just putting things in arbitrary places. The world size is a downgrade in the sense that the worlds are larger, yes, MUCH larger, but also more empty and it simply means you spend more time holding forward on the stick waiting for the next bit of gameplay. Banjo Kazooie beats the other 3D platformers by this team because it’s comparatively fast-paced (not as in adrenaline but as in giving you lots of new things to do every minute and has very little backtracking), and it has the strongest music, theming and humour. As an N64 game, the controller had four directional buttons and most modern takes map these to an analogue stick which works very badly, but that’s not the game’s fault. I bought a controller for emulating N64 games that has enough buttons to avoid this. Yooka-Laylee wins on graphics. If anyone prefers YL to BK I’d love to hear why you feel that way.

        • CleoTheWizard@lemmy.worldOP
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          4 months ago

          I think stay tuned because I’m almost finished with Banjo-Tooie now and I’ll be posting that this month. Then I’ll be going to YL and then the second YL game. I’ll let you know my opinion on both and I’d love to hear your comments on those posts when I get them up! I definitely have feelings about what you said lol

  • djidane535@sh.itjust.works
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    6 months ago

    I had the chance to play it at the time, and since I hadn’t played SM64 yet, this game was even more impressive to me :). I wouldn’t change anything to it, mixing up 3D platformer with mini-games and a moveset that evolved through out the game, combined with an amazing OST and funny dialogs … it was perfect <3.

  • Stalinwolf@lemmy.ca
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    6 months ago

    The Bubblegloop Swamp music still pops up into my head every time I think of a frog or a swamp.

  • SavvyWolf@pawb.social
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    6 months ago

    I grew up with Kazooie, so it’s nice seeing someone else enjoy the game.

    Personally I never really had an issue with the controls, but that’s probably due to me learning them when I was a child. I can certainly see them being confusing if you’re not familiar with them though.

    I did recently play a BK randomizer and a romhack recently and ended up binding C buttons to my controller’s bumpers and x/y buttons rather than the stick. But that was a pain because Retroarch is still buggy for me when you try to do it.

  • Cowabunghole@lemmy.ml
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    6 months ago

    It’s been one of my favorite games since I first played it ~25 years ago, so it makes me so happy to hear that it (mostly) holds up. I have my opinions about Tooie (both good and bad), but I’ll let you form your own opinions about it. Looking forward to hearing what you think!

    Also, it’s too bad they never made a third game. But if they did I can only imagine they would have done something crazy like remove the platforming and added in some vehicle building mechanic. Thank goodness that never happened!

    • CleoTheWizard@lemmy.worldOP
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      6 months ago

      I started playing tooie and put an hour or so into it. I’m not sure if I like it or dislike it yet but they definitely went heavier on the story elements and the levels so far are more confusing. Layouts are weird. I’m liking the characters and music though! We’ll see, I may end up liking the levels later on. I’ll just have to see how things go.

  • GluWu@lemm.ee
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    6 months ago

    Just tried it on my steam deck. Controls are kinda not the best. I might be around to playing it, I have so many old games I never bought back in the day that now I can just emulate on my steam deck, it’s so incredible.

  • thanks_shakey_snake@lemmy.ca
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    5 months ago

    If you want more from the same era, give Conker’s Bad Fur Day a try. It’s got much of the same DNA (it’s also by Rare) but it’s voice acted and does significantly more to mix up the gameplay mechanics and abilities.

    For that reason, it’ll be more hit-or-miss for people, and the humor might be a little crude or immature for your taste (they’re going for a kind of edgy adult vibe, which I think has its moments, but is not for everyone), but it’s really a good time, which I think still holds up, and is a good companion to Banjo Kazooie/Tooie without just being more of the same.

    Conker’s Bad Fur Day. Let me know what you think if you try it.