Creating a sequel to Banjo-Kazooie can't have been an easy task. Consider, first, the tremendous pressure that you'd have been under to build upon what many consider to be the greatest platformer this side of Donkey Kong Country 2, Mario 64 included. Add to that the critical slating that Donkey Kong 64 has released, and it's not difficult to imagine a few sleepless nights over in Twycross. As if recognising the need to distance Banjo-Tooie from its platforming cousins, the team have gone to great lengths to remove Tooie from the straight-laced platform genre - Tooie is much more of an action-adventure than its prequel. For a start, the collecting aspects of the game have been minimised greatly; any items, including musical notes, will now come in bunches of 5, 10 or 20 and all are reasonably accessible - they act as a reward for exploration rather than platforming agility, and are more likely to be set openly on the floor of a new area than in plain view, but requiring a series of acrobatics to reach. There's also a slew of mini-games - but unlike Donkey Kong 64, these are generally tests of skill rather than tenacity, and are therefore much less of a chore. The only complaint about these mini-games, in fact, are that many of them take the form of "shoot red, green and blue objects to surpass a point total" - fun, but not particularly inventive. Finally, the platform staple that has become increasingly irrelevent recently - lives - has been done away with altogether. The few common complaints with Banjo-Kazooie have, for the most part, been rectified in Banjo-Tooie. Those who complained about having to collect all 100 notes whenever they left a world will be pleased to find that things stay collected in Tooie - although this has led to fresh complaints, since a lot of the gameplay in Kazooie came from trying to collect all 100 notes in a sitting, adding to the longevity. Those who wished you could fight the bosses more than once will be pleased at the new addition of a "replay" mode which allows you to fight any boss, replay any mini-game and view any cinema again from the title screen. There's even - finally - a sound test available, courtesy of a jukebox in Jolly Roger's Lagoon. It's now even possible to aim your eggs. And the camera has been much improved, too - it's not perfect, but it's a heck of a lot better than Kazooie's ever was. If you're expecting the sequel to lead you straight back into the action, you'll be in for a shock; This is most definitely a game that has a story to tell. Rare are anxious to establish the plot of the game as being something other than a simple "rescue operation" this time, and this can get annoying for the excited gamer. When you first start a file, there's an intro sequence that lasts for almost ten minutes (that's longer than the ending to the majority of games) and you've then got another cutscene, a boss (in the form of Gruntilda's hapless servant Klungo) and three long conversations to listen to after that. In short, you're going to be getting caught up on the plot for about half-an-hour before you actually get the chance to do any serious exploring. Once you get into Mayahem Temple, though, things definitely pick up a pace, as you'll find you've got all of the old moves learned from Banjo-Kazooie to begin with. These moves, combined with a greater sense of freedom - you'll find a flight pad near the start of the level rather than being forced to take a long, circuitous route around the map - really start to establish a sense of an interactive world more akin to a Zelda game than to a platformer. Graphics, then. The game, frankly, is gorgeous, with some of the best water I've ever seen in a game, and excellent dynamic light sourcing - with proper shadows. The only minor complaint is that the textures are a little bit blurrier than they were in Banjo-Kazooie, and the whole game looks slightly less "crisp" overall. Also, there's little to no pop-up, the framerate suffers somewhat. It can get really rather syrupy in places, but it's really forgivable if you're able to look down and see the whole of a level spread down beneath you. Since the game is a platformer and not a shooter (for the most part, anyway, but the shooter sections are lovely and smooth), it's never really that likely you'll find yourself taking damage or mistiming anything as a result of a low framerate, it's just a minor niggle - Rare have pushed the N64 as far as it will go and there's no wonder it complains. The music in the game is, once again, excellent, and very much in the Banjo-Kazooie style. The tunes aren't quite as memorable as those in the prequel, but it's really good stuff nevertheless. The "dynamic soundtrack" is put to much better use this time around - it's a lot less "gimmicky" than in Banjo-Kazooie, which is necessary given the larger size of the levels - instead of having the area around Mumbo's hut have its own music, for example, you'll find 5 or 6 variations of the same track that are alternated to suit the mood. The result is a lot less "show-offy", but much better in terms of usage. Fans of the original voices may be saddened to learn that Banjo's voice has changed over the two years, and Mumbo appears to have changed his voice and eyes, but that's about it. They've even shoehorned the Gruntilda's Lair music in. The biggest change to the gameplay, apart from the shifting of the focus away from item collection, is probably that of the "integrated worlds". This is much more useful and well-done than it sounds on paper. In Jolly Roger Lagoon, for example, you'll meet a pair of pigs who ask Banjo to clean out and reheat their swimming pool. It sounds simple enough, but in practice you'll end up performing tasks in at least four different worlds to get a Jiggy from them. This almost-RPG like method of task completion is very well-executed, but can also be a cause of concern for those who like to get everything as they go along - if you have a task left to do, there's no way of knowing whether you're missing something, or if it's actually impossible for you to get at the jiggy without going through the game some more. If you're playing Tooie for the exploration, you won't mind too much, but it's been known to drive some players mildly violently insane. Jinjo collection is a bit of a pain in Tooie. Instead of having 5 Jinjos = 1 jiggy per world, you'll now get a piece for uniting a whole "family" of Jinjos, which will have between 1 to 9 members of the same colour. Since the Jinjos are randomly placed, what this means is you generally end up getting 10 Jiggies at the end of the game, when you finally locate the last lot of Jinjos, rather than a Jiggy every so often, which frankly I found rather irritating. The only real other gameplay flaw in Tooie worth mentioning is that of the slightly disappointing final battle. Not only does it ape shamelessly from Banjo-Kazooie (a game show, followed by the fake ending, followed by the realisation you need more Jiggies to get at the boss) but the final battle is somewhat less spectacular than in the first game, particularly as you're quite likely to have unlocked some of the cheats at that stage. It's also as shame that Mingella and Blobbelda, Grunty's sisters, are pointlessly killed off during the quiz - it would have made for an excellent 2 or 3-way battle before Grunty had they survived. These minor moans aside, Banjo-Tooie plays very nicely indeed, and I found it thoroughly enjoyable and a lot less frustrating than Banjo-Kazooie. The multiplayer is surprisingly fun, too, and appears to have had a lot more thought put into it than Jet Force Gemini's and DK64's. The only problem seems to be the slightly shorter lifespan - secrets and cheats aside, the main "body" of the game is probably going to take you a lot less time than Banjo-Kazooie, even though the game is "longer" - whether this is because it's slightly too easy, you're used to the "Banjo mind-set" or just the lack of item collection is uncertain, but the game is actually quite short. There's plenty of extra bits to keep you coming back for more, though, it's not a game that you finish and then sling on the pile never to play again. Banjo-Tooie is not a perfect game. While it succeeds in getting rid of the old problems, it does introduce one or two new ones. While it's a "longer" game than Banjo-Kazooie, it - paradoxically - probably won't take you as long as complete. That said... it's impossible to dislike it. It's been worth the two-year wait, it's fun, and it's a damn shame that it's not going to get a PAL release until April. Just believe me when I say that it is worth the wait... GRAPHICS Some slightly fuzzy textures and a poor framerate can't spoil the sheer beauty of this game. This is the best the N64 can do, folks, and it's a technical marvel. 9/10 SOUNDS Not QUITE as high a quality as Banjo-Kazooie, overall, but still very, very good stuff. 9/10 GAMEPLAY (SP) Although some new problems have cropped up while fixing the old, this is really fun stuff. What else would you expect? 9/10 GAMEPLAY (MP) Not the best that the N64 has to offer, but it's fun, it's varied and it's an excellent alternative to, say, Mario Party. 8/10 LIFESPAN Although it won't take you as long to complete as Banjo-Kazooie, there's enough secrets and replay modes to give it a long lifespan. 8/10 OVERALL A superb game, not the perfect sequel some were hoping for, and very different in tone, but well worth the wait and deserving of a place in your home. 86% Chris_A Last Updated: 5/16/01