A summary of the story in Banjo-Kazooie is that Gruntilda -- she's an old, dirty, ugly witch -- has kidnapped Tooty, who is Banjo's little sister, because she's the "prettiest of all." Kazooie, the wise-cracking bird friend of Banjo, hears the ruckus outside and wakes Banjo up. So the polite honey bear grabs his backpack with the Breegull in it and heads outside to save Tooty. Bottles the mole warns Banjo and Kazooie that there is a difficult quest ahead and offers to help them along the way. Thus begins the great adventure.
Before talking about how the different moves and techniques in Banjo-Kazooie are used, a generalization of the play control should be mentioned. Basically, the control is similar to Super Mario 64 but slightly different. You still use the Control Stick to move, the A button to jump, and the B button to attack. But the camera is a little different. Being a second-generation N64 game, the camera in Banjo-Kazooie, though not perfect, is much more intelligent and useful than previous 3D action games. The Left and Right C buttons are used to rotate the view around. The Top C button is used to go into a stopped, first-person viewpoint. That leaves the Bottom C button to zoom in and out. But there's also a great new function for the camera. Tapping the R button will move the camera behind Banjo and holding it down will force the camera to follow directly behind. So now you don't have to stop, rotate the view, and struggle with the camera like in Super Mario 64.
Banjo-Kazooie has a vast array of moves. Banjo (the male bear) and Kazooie (the female bird) need to use teamwork in order to rescue Banjo's sister. Besides the standard climbing, running, and swimming moves, there are many other special moves the duo can learn. "Feathery Flap" is the double jump in the game (sorry, there's no triple jump here). "Forward Roll Attack" is accomplished by running and pressing the B button. "Rat-a-tat Rap," which is done by jumping and pressing B while in mid-air, enables Kazooie to use her beak to attack enemies that are higher up in the air. "Flap Flip" is the somersault jump in this game.
As you head from the training world (Spiral Mountain) into the actual game, you'll find even more moves to learn. For instance, the "Talon Trot" lets Kazooie extend her legs and carry Banjo around. This move is needed to get up steep slopes and can be used to move the duo even more quickly than Banjo by himself. "Beak Buster" is a powerful stomp attack. It's done by jumping and pressing the Z button while in mid-air. "Egg Firing" is a very cool technique that's not only used for attacking but also for puzzles. There's also the "Beak Barge," which is a powerful sliding attack. In addition to those aforementioned moves, you'll learn many others in Banjo-Kazooie.
Now let's move on to some of the items. There are two equally important items that must be collected in order to progress further into the game. First is the Jigsaw Piece, or "Jiggy." They're kind of like stars from Super Mario 64. There are 10 hidden in each world. Jiggy pieces are needed to complete picture puzzles of the worlds. For example, in order to enter the first world, "Mumbo's Mountain," you must first find one Jiggy piece. Subsequent worlds will need increasingly more Jiggy pieces to enter. Once you have the Jiggy in hand, you can find and stand on the puzzle switch in front of the picture to the world. The other equally important item in Banjo-Kazooie is the Musical Note. These are kind of like coins from Super Mario 64. There are 100 hidden in each world. Your grand total from all worlds in the game is used to open up Note Doors. Passing through those will let you get to other parts of Gruntilda's Lair.
The coolest item, however, has to be the "Jinjos." There are five of these cute, small creatures hidden in each world. If you find all five, they'll give you a Jiggy. And when you get near them, they call for help. Who can resist that? Eggs are an important part of nutrition and are important in Banjo-Kazooie, too. You can hold up to 100 of them. Red Feathers are used for flying. You can hold 50 of these. Finally, there are the Golden Feathers that make you invincible. You can only hold 10 of them, though. You'll also find Extra Lives in the form of golden Banjo statuettes; Honeycomb Energy, which can be acquired individually by beating enemies or collectively by swatting beehives; and extra Honeycomb Pieces, which will add one to your life meter every time you find six pieces. Adding to your health meter worked in Metroid and Zelda, and it certainly works here.
Wait…did I forget something? Of course not. How could I forget Mumbo Jumbo? Mumbo is a Shaman who practices the art of voodoo magic. He's not in every world, but you'll meet him more than a few times. For a small fee in the way of Mumbo Tokens, he'll turn you into a native animal, such as an ant or an alligator. You can then stay as that animal for as long as you like and use its abilities to get Jiggy pieces. As a nice gesture, it doesn't cost anything to get turned back into your normal self.
Confused about all the items and moves yet? Don't worry. Banjo-Kazooie takes a very proactive approach to teaching you about all the numerous special moves and items; there's no passive learning here. Absolutely everything is taught to you on a step-by-step basis. In fact, even all of the individual items you pick up for the first time end up talking to you, telling you what they're used for.
So let's tie this all together and go into the gameplay of Banjo-Kazooie a little bit. Inside each of the worlds-Mumbo's Mountain, Treasure Trove Cove, Clanker's Cavern, Bubblegloop Swamp, Freezeezy Peak, Gobi's Valley, Mad Monster Mansion, Rusty Bucket Bay, and Click Clock Wood-are Jiggy pieces to be collected and Musical Notes to be found. Sounds like Super Mario 64, right? Well, only in theory. In practice, Banjo-Kazooie requires you to solve puzzles -- which so happen to be more complex and clever than in Miyamoto's game -- for every Jiggy piece and to search every inch of the world to find all 100 Musical Notes. (There are only 100 on each world and no more.) Another great thing is how the worlds in Banjo-Kazooie are much larger than Super Mario 64, too. In addition to the core of each world, there are many sections to be explored. So you'll be exploring plenty of rooms in the most of odd of places.
But the one really, really cool thing about Banjo-Kazooie is how it remembers everything you've done in the world. There are two sides to this. For example, say you leave some Honeycomb energy pieces lying around on the ground in Treasure Trove Cove. Now if you go inside the pirate ship and come back out, you'll find that the pieces are still there! How many other games keep track of that? The other side is the information the game saves. The game will save how many Musical notes you got, how many Jiggy pieces you got, how many Red Feathers you got, how many Golden Feathers you got, how many Eggs you got, and how many Mumbo Tokens you got. When it comes to Musical Notes, they will reset once you exit a world. So they will only be added to your grand total once you pass your previous record for Musical Notes in that world. Jiggy pieces, on the other hand, are saved for good. You can go back and do the same thing to get a Jiggy, but you'll find that it won't appear if you've already got it. Also, you'll find that extra lives are not saved.
Gameplay-wise, what really separates Banjo-Kazooie from Super Mario 64 cannot be classified as one thing, since there are so many things that help. The game just takes the whole search-and-find concept to a new level. Because of the tremendous variety in the puzzles, it doesn't get tedious to find Jiggy pieces like in Super Mario 64. And a lot of the variety can be attributed to the many special moves, which are the result of the character's team nature, that must be used in various situations and the fact that you can be turned into different animals by Mumbo.
Another important facet of Banjo-Kazooie is its personality. Along your quest to save Tooty, you'll find many magnificent and creative characters and worlds. The Jinjos alone make you wonder what these guys were on. Now couple that with the witty screen text, and you've got a game oozing with personality-something that's usually missing in video games. Finally, like most of Rare's other games, Banjo-Kazooie is easy to learn but hard to master. Yes, the game is actually very challenging. Considering many of the N64's games are too easy, it's nice to have a long, difficult, and perplexing game.
