Banjo-Tooie is unfairly overhated. It seems that people began to dislike the game only after certain online critiques focused on its few flaws, neglecting its strengths. Unfortunately, this trend has become typical since the advent of the Internet.
@@sampicano look up Banjo Tooie on UA-cam videos popping up on how it’s awful and bad :/ online forums have started having people pop in. Everything I put at the beginning are things I’ve found
I never really understood how the backtracking in Banjo-Tooie was a bad thing. In Banjo-Kazooie, you had these creatively-designed worlds with unique characters and mechanics, and yet you only really have to explore them once before they become obsolete (aside from a single Jiggy in Freezeezy Peak) Banjo-Tooie gives you the incentive to explore new areas that were once inaccessible and even connected to different worlds, which I feel makes the game much more immersive and satisfying. My favorite example is murdering George Ice Cube because it gives you access to a flight pad and also gets you a Jiggy for cooling down the pool in JRL. Murder is good
>(aside from a single Jiggy in Freezeezy Peak) And one jiggy in Gobi's Valley. The devs were clever, because these two jiggies required the shoes from the other world but in only those two worlds, so you could do them in either order but only one would require backtracking.
Technically the Mr Vile jiggle is meant to use the speed shoes too. You can do gobis valley before freeze easy Peak but you also need the peak bash in that one so it is more those two worlds are inter connected. I am not a fan of back tracking personally as I feel like it reduces the feeling of accomplishment and slows down progression. It also feels like a way to artificially lengthen a game. I know in tootie worlds are inter connected but still that is still more loading screens than necessary I can forgive Banjo tooie for any experiments they tried to input but it does surprise that they decided to stick to these decisions going forward in future games
Banjo Tooie in my mind is the example of a perfect sequel. Familiar and same, but still feels and looks slightly different. Picks up where the first one left off, but builds on the move set so that it develops perfectly. The increased difficulty was also a welcomed touch. A lot of us were small children when we played Kazooie, and loved it for its accessibility to kids our age. By the time Tooie came out we had aged a couple years which is huge when you're in elementary. We were ready for more of a brain challenge from 3D platformers at this time.
agree, the game is a mega-puzzle and slow-paced. That's why frame rate issues are irrelevant but still doesn't feel as a platform and is for adults. If you are smart, this game is very satisfying to beat and you can minimize backtracking by a lot
@@joshuawidener8407 well yes and no. Apparently Nintendo fans' favorite sport is overcriticizing certain games. That's a pretty advanced game for the time. Other successful contemporary competitors like Crash and Spyro were ages behind but do not receive too much criticism
I was absolutely shocked to hear that the opinions on Tooie were mixed. I've never been so excited for a sequel and also felt like it had lived up to all my expectations before or since, except maybe for pokemon god and silver. I will say it's not entirely true that people don't complain about Ocarina of Time, that game's reputation has had a target painted on it's back ever since 2006 because fans of other games in the series have sour grapes that it gets more praise than their own fave. But I agree that Tooie's worlds don't feel so empty to me, it helps that enemies respawn. When I was younger, and still even to this day, I would sometimes just play around in the level not really aiming to accomplish much, just see ow far I could glide with Kazooie from the highest point in the level and other such things, the improved controls from BK really made the game fun to just move around in. And I love the minigames! I know the team working on Banjo hacking tools is kind of fractured at the moment but I really hope they can find a way to resolve their differences or figure out a way to hack Banjo Tooie with a new team, because the thought of romhacks on the scale of Jiggies of Time but with all of Tooie's improved movement and extra moves makes me drool.
AGREED 100% I’m waiting for Tooie gameplay in mods! Love that idea! And I also spent time just making my own goals like gliding and exploring! A big part of the charm!
It’s a small thing, but one thing I love about Tooie is that it shows WHY Banjo and Kazooie need each other. Kazooie may have more speed and moves than Banjo, but she can’t take as much of a beating as him. And his strength and weight makes her attacks more deadly
Tooie is probably my fav sequel of all time. It's made for the fans of the first one, instead of new players. I don't want just another game like the first one that I would be able to speedrun in a handful of hours. I feel like if people get their wish, I won't ever get a good sequel anymore. This is a game I can get lost in, and I love that. Edit: spelling
Banjo Tooie... More polished and detailed graphics + accurate shadows and dynamic lighting (something incredibly beautiful and impressive for the N64), better mobility AND animations, cool new moves and mechanics like character separation and first person shooting, more fun and immersive mini-games, epic new bosses for each level, a better developed story and cutscenes, a darker setting that fits great with the cartoony style, more charming dialogue with elevated humor, bigger and more detailed worlds with more things to do, new charismatic and memorable characters, a jukebox that lets you listen to every theme in the game, and a soundtrack that's as good or better than the first game. Even outside of the main content, you can find amazing additions in the menu, such as a multiplayer mode that allows you to play mini-games with friends and family, you can replay all the cinematics and mini-games and even re-fight all the bosses in the game, it also has a menu of options to lower or raise the volume, change the audio type from Mono, Stereo or Surround, options to adjust the screen and resolution and lastly, the generous option to change the language of the game. To say that this is a good sequel is an understatement, it is an AMAZING game and an AMAZING sequel that surpassed the original.
Banjo-Tooie is my favorite game ever and I'm glad to see it getting love and appreciation after so many people seem to dunk on it for a while. For me, I love 3D collect-a-thon platformers and Metroidvania style games and Tooie feels like an amalgamation of those genres. I know a lot of people think the first game flows better because in Tooie the jiggies and other collectables take a lot longer to get and you have to backtrack. I actually like that more. I often use this analogy since I'm someone who hunted down every North American N64 game for my personal collection: Banjo-Kazooie feels like the first half of building up a game collection. The jiggies/games are abundant, sometimes tricky to get but you'll find a lot wherever you go. Banjo-Tooie is like finishing off the second half of a game collection. The jiggies/games take more time to get, you'll definitely have to go back to places you've already been to complete it but its a lot more satisfying and rewarding when you finally get what you were looking for. They're both fun experiences in their own way but the latter in both situations contain the more satisfying results in my opinion. On top of that, Tooie has more moves, fun minigames, multi-player, more characters, deeper lore on existing characters and a world that feels much more alive and interconnected. Also, I know the X-box version fixes this but I really hate how in the N64 version of Banjo-Kazooie you lose all your musical notes when you die or exit a level. I'll take the occasional frame rate issues on the N64 version of Tooie over that flaw in Kazooie any day. Wasnt expecting to write so much lol. Great analysis! I greatly enjoyed your Donkey Kong 64 defense too (which I also 100% agree with)! Be definitely sticking around for more.
The real reason why these n64 games got so much hate is because we have the famous UA-camrs who just point out any little flaw for likes and subscribers
The interconnected worlds of Tooie are fantastic. As a kid I had way more fun with this game than Kazooie, and nowadays I do think it's about how far lost you could get in the journeys for those Jiggies and Cheato pages. I used the official strategy guidebook, and the maps with all the many icons on them were beautiful. A far cry from the idea of being "empty." Dragon Kazooie rules. The new moves rule. The boss battles rule, even if Chillie Billie and Chilly Willy are a bit redundant. You love Terrydactyland, which gets critiqued for being too sprawling (even though it's not that different from Click Clock Wood). My favorite is Grunty Industries, which people also hate on. It's just amazing how thorough they were with Tooie, and how much love was put into every room, every character, Grant Kirkhope's music, etc. The N64 version is definitely the definitive way to play it. I never felt like the Xbox port got the stick sensitivity right, especially for aiming eggs. It makes bosses like Lord Woo Fak Fak feel more tedious. Still my favorite game ever. The only flaw is totally the 2nd apperance of Canary Mary. Thank you for your video.
Thanks for watching! I should have highlighted Dragon Kazooie cause it’s cool haha imagine Threeie where we find baby dragons and they recognize Kazooie as their mom and she recounts being a dragon in Hailfire lol implications but it could be funny
Tooie was the best thing 4 year old me got to experience. To me, Kazooie is like playing with those big megablocks. Tooie on the other hand is more mature, more refined. It's the smaller lego pieces. Less straightforward, but there is so much more depth. More to be done. Each world had to be not only fully explored, but also memorized. The moment you make the connection between two worlds and get rewarded is so much more satisfying. Nowadays, I feel like people prefer the one time visit, full clear and move on to another stage that Kazooie provides. Moving the Tooie, the completionist might find it frustrating. But maybe back then, having all the time in the world to get lost in Tooie is what made me appreciate it more. And today, that kind of time isn't available to everyone.
I hated it the first time I played it, due to the large confusing maps and backtracking. But on my second replay I fell in love with it. Definitely not as iconic as the first game but it’s a really good example of expanding and building from the first game, some of it I’d argue is done better than the first.
The boss battles were the best! It was always my favorite thing about the game. Not to mention, you get to replay boss battles in the main menu and I love that!
@@ricardocantoral7672 seriously! And it made you utilize all the moves you’ve learned through the game and when she’s beat, I always feel so so good about it lol
I love Banjo-Kazooie... but it's also a bit too segmented for my tastes. But Tooie? Ah man, I love Tooie! It feels like a massive, interconnected world! The atmosphere is better too, thanks in no small part to the incredible soundtrack. Trekking across the Isle 'O Hags, sneaking through the ducts in Grunty Industries, stepping into HailFire Peaks for the first time, walking into Jiggywiggy's Temple... there's this large, sprawling atmosphere and _feel_ to Tooie. It has a game feel that Kazooie doesn't have. Even the animation in Tooie is better! I love how Banjo's backpack bounces as he moves in Tooie, whereas in Kazooie it's static. It gives Banjo a level of dynamism that makes him that much more fun to control. As tightly designed as Kazooie is... it also feels cut off from the larger scope the world of Banjo offers. For me, Tooie edges the win for me between the two.
Same. The worlds being connected makes a huge difference for me. I love Gruntilda's lair but having this giant overworld with different environments feels right.
I have never ever understood the hate for Tooie. Tooie is the perfect example of how to make a sequel. Similar, but expanded in all the ways that could've been expanded upon without changing the fundamentals of the game. I love Banjo Kazooie AND Banjo Tooie, but damn dude, I love Tooie just a little bit more
Fully agree with the "You were supposed to actually explore and find things yourself" Part. The easy access to Walktroughs and guides made it way harder to experience that unique thrill of playground rumours that you can investigate and find out if there was anything true to them. That's also a somewhat recent sentiment, you can find in some modern indie games. The way, games like Tunic or Deltarune are hiding their best kept secrets is pretty much a direct attempt to revive that feeling. Another great video Btw. I love Banjo Tooie.... did that back then and still do it now.
Thanks so much for watching! I’m glad there are others who appreciate it! We need to spread the love to the new generations and let them experience it too :)
One of the best sequels ever made! It's one of the very few titles I know that doesn't take away the power-ups you got from the previous game. It even expands your move set by giving you new abilities.
One of the best games on the 64, CERTAINLY one of the most underrated. Off the top of my head, it has the most impressive atmosphere of any game on the console next to Ocarina of Time, which is hilarious coming from such a sarcastic and goofy series. Tooie and Bad Fur Day are so impressive in their ambition. I can't think of anyone else than Rare who took better advantage of the hardware, and put so much effort in where it definitely wasn't expected
6:07 Wish granted! I'm sure the sequel is as good as Kazooie. My only issue with Kazooie is not saving the game within the level and had 100% in the entire run without dying.
One problem is a similar one to DK64, where you need to swap characters all the time. Except in BT it takes a lot more time to do so. For example, to play the dodgem game you need to go to Wumba, turn into the van, drive to the horror zone, pay, go inside and activate the teleporter, teleport to Wumba, transform back, teleport to Mumbo's skull, fetch Mumbo, go and power the dome up, return to Mumbo's skull, go to Wumba, turn into the van again, drive into the dodgem dome, pay the machine, return to Wumba, then as Banjo go back to the dome.
9:05 No, that's not the only reason why Tooie gets flack for that. OOT has exactly one large, mostly empty space. It's the central world HUB, it's easy to learn how it connects to the other main areas. They also give you Epona (as you mentioned) to pass through it quickly. It serves it's purpose of connecting the world and also making the game feel bigger than it really is (or, at least, that was the effect when it came out). I've never been able to get very far into Tooie, though I have tried. I *really* want to love it, and one of the reasons this video popped up for me is my recent dip back into Banjo/DK content. I intend to give it another shot sometime soon. But this video is reminding me why the game failed to keep me interested (partially, anyway): The worlds are so huge that they become hard to keep track of in detail, and getting around them is kind of slow and tedious. Maybe it's not as bad as I remember, but I plan to play with a notepad next time so that I can remember what I was doing and where points of interest are.
I just replayed it on stream recently… Utilizes the Warp pads. Things like Wumbas Wigwam and Mumbos hut are landmarks to help you keep track. The only world I had issue navigating was Glitter Gulch Mine since a lot of it looks similar. No other world had that issue particularly. At least for me.
@jiggylookback It's been years since my last attempt, and the one before that was at least a decade earlier. It might not be as bad as I recall, but the video definitely gave me some familiar feelings. Warp pads are great, but they require you to remember where they are and how they're all connected, right? I'm not trying to say it's impossible to manage. It's just proven to be a bit much for me, which is crazy because this was my favourite genre as a kid.
@ hmmm usually they’re placed in strategic locations with landmarks like the world entrance and mumbos hut. I really had no issue locating them or anything…idk I think you should try it again on NSO!
@jiggylookback I've been craving a big collect-a-thon pretty hard recently, so I'll probably go to Banjo-Tooie. I have an N64 cart, so that'll be my preferred way to play. I haven't wanted to play a game like that in a long time, so it's a bit weird. I keep watching videos about them, though. Hah
personally, I've heard "backtracking" as an argument for why something I love being bad so many times that it doesn't even register as a valid argument anymore and it just comes off the younger generation complaining for the sake of it. I think I'm slowly becoming Cranky Kong but that's besides the point.
The way I see it: Banjo Kazooie was a lighting in a bottle type szenario. You got a bunch of highly talented, highly passionate and eager Britains who took a WHOLE YEAR extra to polish a game which they literally called "the Mario 64 killer." Banjo Tooie did get just a fraction of the attention from Rare and due to hardware limitations, it was quite difficult to eleveate the platformer genre further. Which is why they implemented all these Metroidvania-like worlds with barely any in-game help to navigate them. This Breath of the Wild principle to have the player see multiple points of interests wherever they are in a level, was gone in BT. Instead we got mole den like levels with bare holes in the wall that lead to random places with no hints to remember the layouts of these places. Good luck exploring those. I remember as a kid as it took me close to an hour to get my first actual jiggy in BT, which was that one mini game where you have to protect some flower fields from flies.
Banjo Tooie is technically the first Banjo game I played and so not only do I like it more, I've memorized quite a lot about it. I've even learned a few speed run tricks even though I have no interest in speed running. It's good to see somebody besides myself defend tooie as everyone seems to be so stuck up on Kazooie. And you make some pretty strong points, and everyone seems to forget that Kazooie did actually have an instance of backtracking, two at most. There's also lots of things I think Banjo Kazooie sucked at that Tooie got right, and you covered those too. The biggest was the swimming. I struggle a lot playing Kazooie especially in Clankers' Cavern because I'm used to the swimming controls in Tooie, and rightfully so, the swimming controls in Tooie are superior. Plus I started playing Tooie when I was really young and just enjoyed it more as it had Chuffy, and my personal favorite, Hailfire Peaks and Jolly Roger's Lagoon. While this comment is starting to turn into an essay covering points you already covered, see it as somebody with the same views trying to reinforce your argument. And for the people who say the worlds are empty, I'd like to see you design worlds better, I bet you can't, they'll probably be just as empty, and don't cheat and make a small level, actually make a big one, I dare ya'. Overall Tooie is great, but I also agree there's only one thing that sucks about Tooie... CANARY FUCKING MARY! I remember you said she broke your Turbo Controller, she also caused Carpel Tunnel Syndrome fuck her!
I used to hate Canary Mary until I realized there was a trick to beating her in Cloud Cuckooland. All you have to do is let her stay slightly ahead of you until you reach the top of the course. Then as soon as you're going down the sharp drop at the end, towards the finish line, mash the button like crazy and you're good.
THANK YOU! You hit so much of what I could never put into words and why I ALSO consider Banjo-Tooie my favorite N64 game. Finally doing a 100% run of this game a few years ago made me stay in touch with how much I love the scope and scale of it. Oh, and Canary Mary, do us all a favor, go down as a hero and fall on a grenade egg for us, it'll make up for Cloud Cuckooland's hair-pulling debacle.
forget the haters. THIS game OWNS. Awesome review! I was late into playing kazooie and then tooie years later, and they are some of my most memorable games. Enjoyment rarely match by just about any game I've ever played. Blast anyone on the 'net that has serious beef wit hthis game .
Tooie felt like a game that came from the future at the time. I think that’s why a lot of gamers who grew up with it like I did are so burned by what games turned into. Action/adventure platformers have all but gone extinct after the PS2 era. Banjo 3 is literally the only sequel to classic titles that was promised but never delivered…and no, Nuts & Bolts does NOT count.
Tooie is much better than kazooie. It feels like a real world not like the Mario64 template kazooie followed. Both are amazing but tooie is better in every regard. All the complaints people make are what make tooie better. Its 100% a case of 'lets hate it because the internet said so' very similar to Dkc3. which was fun back in the day but picked apart these days.
Tooie for me is a better game in terms of gameplay and it's mechanics as well as storytelling. It is a lot better than Kazooie but the first game had a charm that could not be copied which is why people prefer Kazooie over Tooie.
Most hate towards Tooie is unfounded and unjustified (save for the last Canary Mary race in Cloud Cuckooland). I don't take seriously any opinions that stem from modern internet culture and niche community echochambers.
this is a pretty absurd point of view lol there are plenty of legitimate things to complain about in tooie for example - the moves you learn are generally quite underwhelming and either feel like "get jiggy" buttons than actual gameplay mechanics that the game is built around the player using, or just seem tacked on for additional padding take egg aiming, you have to learn it three separate times in tooie, how does it even make sense that you become incapable of doing it in the air/underwater before you learn it in those instances? how about moves like bill drill, taxi pack, talon torpedo, hatch, shack pack, or sack pack? where do you actually employ those as a general part of BK's kit that isn't just where you're required to use them to complete arbitrary challenges? then there's just nonsensical ones like kazooie having to re-learn how to do a backflip once you split up, despite the fact that she can already perform one when together with banjo, or how beak bayonet is a separate move to learn from breegull blaster, despite the fact it is only used specifically in the FPS segments and therefore would make more sense to be available from the start? - the game advertised mumbo being playable as one of the highlights but he's just another "get jiggy" button, like there's zero reason to ever swap to him except to go to a mumbo pad to perform a chant the glowbo system in generally doesn't really feel very well implemented either, the majority of glowbos you find almost directly next to where mumbo and humba wumba are, so like what's even the point of it at that point? BT is known for having massive levels, were there really not better spots to hide them? frankly, i think the game goes overboard with minigames as well and a lot of them just really aren't all that fun, not to say that the ones in BK were all fun (mr vile being somewhat of a slog for example) but at least BK only had a small handful of them, whereas tooie has a lot almost all of the ones that involve shooting eggs at targets just devolve into the player spinning/rotating in a circular motion and winning with no real challenge because the time limits are outrageously long, chris p bacon/pot o gold/chompa's belly to name a few other issues are just the general repetitiveness of some of them like having to win kickball SIX times over the course of the game, the FPS segment being reused three times, and the dodgems challenge also needing to be won three times despite it barely qualifying as a challenge in the first two rounds again, not every minigame is bad, i like the saucer of peril for example, but there's a reason a lot of people bring up minigames as a complaint towards tooie that they don't bring up with BK and it's more than simply rose tinted glasses - like sure, call it nitpicking/unfounded/unjustified/whatever other buzzword you want to fill in, but these are genuine examples of gameplay elements that many people have issues with in tooie that simply weren't an issue in BK or were drastically less so yes tooie has more positives than negatives in the end, but saying people's complaints are unfounded when they very clearly take away from someone's gameplay experience is just insane
I hope so as well, but it might be difficult because of the lock out chip. Banjo-Tooie has the most difficult to circumvent lock out chip out of any N64 game. I could be wrong, but I believe it was even custom made for only that game. Yes, it would affect NSO, because the chip not being present is the issue. It would need to somehow mimic the programming of it. Nintendo may have a proprietary way around it, but it may be too much effort for a nearly 25 year old game. They did do it for Jet Force Gemini though, which I was pleasantly surprised by. Only time will tell, I suppose.
@@jiggylookback Yes. It's why Everdrive support for it only became available in the last few years. A team of hobbyists finally cracked it, but not without serious effort.
Critics: The worlds are too big! How often are you using the warp pads? Critics: The what? I’m replaying this now and though Glitter Gultch Mine’s YEEHAWS got annoying, Witchyworld is cake if you use the warps
I think some people did the failure to try to complete the game to 100% before finish their first run. Like you said, there is way less needed this time to complete the story. Maybe save some stuff for the postgame when you get frustrated with backtracking or have problems with a certain jiggy? I love both games so much i cant say which one is better. Banjo kazzoie games on the N64 are just peak gaming
Often in a level you have to run around as Banjo-Kazooie, Banjo alone, Kazooie alone, Mumbo, and your world specific transformation. I got annoyed with having to pass the same areas multiple times in different forms. A lot of things are character specific, so you must hike back and forth to the split up pad, wigwam, or skull just so you can go back to trigger what you are trying to do. Another way the game disappoints is with Grunty's sisters. I was expecting to have some boss battles with them, but they end up just getting smashed by Grunty in a quiz.
Very true. That is why I think being able to split up whenever would really help. And you know what I never thought of that....yeah her sisters needed more. Or maybe Brentilda comes in then Mumbo and Humba back her up and they magic fight as we take on Grunty.
Yes Mumbo as playable character was just boring. Would habe been cool if he got extra missions and has his own moveset with magic. But just running to platforms wasn‘t it. Also you need to do so much for a jiggy. It doesn‘t feel rewarding. They should have add more jiggys per world (like 15) so you have more motivation. For example, hatching the eggs in terryland was cool, but then one stupid babyterry is too big and u need to carry him with banjo. That is just unnecessary…
My problem with Tooie is some jiggys feel like unnecessary padding, I understand not every Jiggy needs to be collected to finish the game, but for us completionists Banjo Tooie isn’t all sunshine and rainbows, where as Banjo-Kazooie , IMO, is a complete joy to 100%. The first thing that comes to mind is the T-Rex transformation, having to find the glowbo thing, run to humba, give it to her, find another glowbo, run to mumbo, give it to mumbo, run mumbo to humba, enlarge the tent, run back to mumbos hut, run back with banjo, transform into the R-rex, run the T-rex over to a gate and use the roar button. Those are literally the steps to collect 1 single jiggy. It’s so much tedious running and back tracking and the game as many examples of that, but ultimately the good out weighs the bad if you’re just going for a casual play thru where the goal is to simply defeat Grunty and not 100% the game it’s a rather excellent game. I put DK64 in the same bracket as Tooie, if you just want to collect 100 golden bananas and beat K.Rool, I think DK64 is a great game, but if you want to collect all 200 golden bananas it’s one of the most tedious video game experiences ever 😂
Banjo Tooie is still one of my favorite games from my childhood to this day. I loved being able to explore the larger worlds and expanded range of abilities with Banjo and Kazooie that the sequel had to offer for hours while trying to hunt down all the collectibles in each level. But I hope if we get a Banjo Kazooie remake it'll lead to a remake of Banjo Tooie that'll really show how good this game can be that can improve upon the limitations the original game had while adding some new mechanics that weren't in the original.
I've always preferred Tooie for the same reason many prefer Kazooie: Simply because the levels are bigger. I love exploring big spaces, and feel that many of Kazooie's levels are a bit too compact. That said, I don't feel that they managed to fill Glitter Gulch Mine or Terrydactyland with enough stuff to justify their sizes, but in levels like Grunty Industries, there's always a lot to explore, find, and understand. But if you like collecting more than exploration, then you'll like Kazooie better.
This is a considerable honor to have partaken in this video-even with just participating in discussing this game on Twitter. One thing you forgot to mention when discussing the XBLA iteration is how some instruments (most notably, the therumin) are not properly tuned during the transition period to the other hardware. I look forward to your future works! This is awesome, and you have earned yourself a subscriber!
Thank you so much! And funny you say that I did mention that Rare made the cutscenes with the N64 lag in mind, but I didn't expand upon what that meant. That is what I meant. It is cool!
hey Jiggylookback! thank you so much for this awesome video! i am a Tooie Defender too! this was my most anticipated game of all time. i bought every magazine back in the day to get as much info as i can get! to this day i love this game with such a passion! Banjo Kazooie is a super magical game and i love every bit of it, but tooie is just more. more Banjo! i love every little detail it adds to the lore. i love skeleton Gruntilda! i love the isle o Hags. i love the fact that every world is connected and i will always prefer the Banjo Games over any Zelda title. you mentioned it. they control wonderful in tooie, you never have to stop. solo kazooie is one of the best characters i have ever controlled in my life. i love the atmosphere in this game and i prefer the soundtrack too, Witchy World and Grunty Industries are some of Kirkhopes best work. i love the FPS sections and we played the hell out of that multiplayer when we were younger. i still wish there were more FPS Sections. i love the Bosses, everyone of them has so much personality! playing Banjo-Tooie is always some kind of celebration! thank you for work!
Heck yeah! I also agree Kazooie as a seperate character feels really good! The speed is just awesome and if you like that I highly recommend trying super kiwi 64. It’s basically like a Kazooie indie platformer. It’s not long and just fun!
Kazooie was my favourite game as a kid but I didn't own a copy of Tooie because my brother didn't and it was his N64, so I didn't know of it's existence until years later when the internet got more popular and I eventually got a computer, by this point the game was really expensive. I wanted it for so many years but never had an xbox either to play it, well last month it suddenly only just occured to me that I'm an adult with money and an ebay account and I bought it! I dug out my old N64 and I just finished playing it today, I had so much fun!!! I knew a bit about the game from seeing it on the internet in all my years of yearning for it, but I'd mostly seen hate about it, especially the backtracking...well, I didn't know all the worlds were connected, I was blown away!! This game was so so clever, and the backtracking is FUN, I love getting to revisit old worlds to get jiggies I couldn't get before, that's so cool?! Being able to play as mumbo was fun, the transformations were so awesome, like how in Kazooie the thing about turning into a washing machine by accident, and in Tooie we actually get to turn into one? Amazing. Being able to split up banjo and kazooie and they have their own mechanics? Also awesome. Plus I didn't find Canary Mary's second race hard at all, just used the old race trick of staying on the characters tail right to the end then speeding up at the end, got it first time on both jiggy and cheato page race, so that's a bonus😅 Thank you for making this video I've had the best time ever playing Tooie for the first time, truly an unforgettable game, I do wish I would have known about it as a child, I would have been obsessed with Witchyworld and Terrydactyl land, but oh well it's never too late
I agreed with everything you said 100% on this one. I started to scroll down to comment this but was going to add the part about the only thing about this game that sucks was the second Canary Mary race but you mentioned that too. I love BK but this one is so much more fun and interesting to me. I always thought it was cool the way the different worlds were connected. It made it feel like a real world as opposed to BK which the worlds existed in paintings. I also felt the back tracking arguments were lacking. I always kind of like when you can't do everything all at once in a level. It makes it exciting when you finally get the tool you needed to unlock the area you couldn't get to before. A lot of times it didn't feel like back tracking so much because it would open up a whole different level. Also with the warp pads in the worlds and warp pipes in the hub world, it wasn't really that huge of a deal to get around. Also, for the record, this isn't some childhood nostalgia. I was 28 when this came out and I was already a seasoned gamer having been playing games since having a pong system in the 70s and Atari 2600 and computer games in the 80s. Then NES, SNES and Sega Genesis games in the early 90s. Not to mention playing tons of arcade games.
Thanks for commenting! Really great to have this perspective of someone who was older when it released! The interconnectivity of the worlds and creative ways you get Jiggies are awesome! I still go back and play it now and again and have a great time.
Last time I played these games on the xbox (early 2021) I much preferred Kazooie to Tooie cause I was looking for a collectathon game and you framing tooie as an adventure reminded me why I preferred Tooie when I was a kid. I still think I prefer Kazooie now but Tooie will always have a special place in my heart. But I wanted to give my two cents on the major complaints of the game. 1. The darker atmosphere was never a problem for me. It was distinctly different than Kazooie on purpose. Ik they added some depth because Kazooie had little drive to the story while this one compels you step into the world with it's start. 2. The backtracking is one I'm on the fence about. I see both sides but I'm going to lean to the side that says it helps the game feel interconnected and like on big journey vs it feeling like random worlds. I think it does it a little too much but usually the backtracking is rewarding. It might be a little annoying but the gratification is always there. 3. The frames were never bad for me when I was a kid. I kinda took the frame drops and lag as the game trying to convey how big the world was. That it took a lot of time to get from point a to point b. That this is an adventure with a capital A. But just play the rerelease if that's the biggest issue for you. But I do agree that the 64 controller is the best way to play the game. It's made an impact on me when I play games nowdays that I don't really mind framedrops that much unless it really gets in the way of the game. It kinda makes me shocked when I see frames drop and I see people act like one dropped frame means the game is total trash and the game devs are awful. Idk... gamers are kinda mean sometimes. 4. the minigames are fine. The only bad one is the one with the canary the second time. 5. Large Empty worlds is kinda true. I do think that if you're looking for stuff to collect and not objectives like in zelda, then yeah, it'll feel that way but they aren't made with that in mind. I love the worlds but they can feel a bit like lolllygagging. It works better for a kid and is kinda annoying as an adult. 6. All the game mechanics are really smooth and are super fun to use but I will also say that's probably why the open worlds can feel too big. The game provides a really fluid move set and fun mechanics but doesn't always have a way to use it. You're stuck trecking along sometimes. And the framerate can always make this feel even more frustrating for those who don't like dips in framerates. So the game being fluid is like a double edged sword in a way but of course is a positive vs if they didn't improve it.
I liked the video a lot. I'm glad you brought up the boss fights, having a giant enemy in every world that you stumble on I think is really really cool. Even if a fair amount of them are just "shoot the giant glowing spot in first person". I find the boss fights are either really cool (Weldar specifically being a highlight for me, Targetzan for being the best controlling egg shooting one I think, Mingy Jongo for shock factor) or pretty inoffensive considering none of the fights took very long. I wish you brought up the world building a bit more and how the game drops hints that all worlds are connected. I hope you don't mind me referencing a different youtube channel, but "Framework" I felt had a good analysis of it called "Banjo Tooie’s Puzzle Piece World". Basically a lot of collectibles have some sort of visual storytelling nearby to help hint where you need to go. Learning about that gave me a new appreciation for the game since as a kid I just wandered and collected whatever was in my cone of vision. All that being said. The general length of time it takes to do anything is really really annoying haha. I enjoyed playing it as a kid, but even back then I noticed I went back to Kazooie far more often. It just scratches the right itch for me so well. It just feels like everything in Tooie takes longer. I don't really mind the backtracking I just wish it was quicker. I wish egg nests just gave me a bit of everything so I didn't have to sit around waiting for clockwork kazooie eggs. You mention the sick dinosaur jiggy, I think the bumper car minigame highlights the issue as well. Even if you know what you're doing. You get the van to open the door to Mumbo's, you go back to get Banjo, you go get Mumbo, activate the machine outside the bumper car minigame, leave to go get Banjo, go to Humba Wumba, turn into a van, go back to deposit a coin, go get Banjo again, go back to the minigame, then play three rounds of it to get one jiggy. It's brutal. Anyway, that's a lot of complaining from me. UA-cam recommended me your video and this is the first one I've seen. You have a new subscriber, I liked it a lot and will be checking out more.
Well thank you I’m really glad you found me and watched my video! I’ve got plenty more haha appreciate the comment. You’re so right some jiggies are a little much to collect. I still love this game tho :)
I'm pretty sure those who dislike this game never actually tried to challenge themselves and that's how you come to really love this game. The first time I played it, I found it extremely difficult and challenging at times, so I never really managed to 100% it and I was put off to even try, but then, when I actually tried because I wanted more challenge, I really loved this game and it's one of my favorites ever.
It has nothing to do with people being used with Banjo-Kazooie in terms of laborious and cumbersome character switching and task mechanics. In itself it's tediously executed without any need to reference any other game. There's no defending it. It's a decision the devs made and they decided to take it to quite extreme lengths for whatever reason. It doesn't ruin the game but it's a negative aspect due to its cumbersome nature and how frequently it occurs and if folks like that busy working implementation then good for them. The problem with Tooie is some of its vacuous game-padding and a bunch of its sucky minigames - especially disliked the FPS portions. The pacing of this game is problematic. However I still enjoy this game... it's like a massive untamed beast one has to toil to control and master, and as a fan of games like Riven, Myst, Quern, I appreciate the mystery and sometimes opaque directives for what's required to accomplish tasks. Movement is better in Tooie but overall it's not great as the world is huge given the typical movement speed. Overall this game feels like a lot of wasted time, some of which I like (not knowing always what to do, exploring this huge untamed beast of a world and finding its mysteries and solving its problems) and some of which I don't (game-padding, tedious and laborious execution and obtusely implemented busy work). Tooie vacillates between being a joy and a chore.
Dude you are an absolute machine. I can't believe that you are turning out videos this fast, and at such a high quality! If you keep this up you will be huge on UA-cam for sure
Thank you for noticing. Lol once I had that DK64 video take off a bit I told my wife I NEED TO WORK REALLY HARD AND PUT VIDEOS OUT. I literally spent all Friday night and Saturday editing the Tooie video (and a bit on Sunday) as well as trying to play through Nuts and Bolts. I’m just super thankful they are being well received and hope they take off even more so I can make this my career! I LOVE playing and chatting about these games! Your comment made me feel good. So thank you so much!
Nuts and bolts isn't a bad game and I feel it was a bit ahead of its time in terms of customization to vehicles. it's just not a good Banjo Kazooie game.
Tooie is my favorite game of all time. They meant it when they said they took BK and just amped it up. I get why people like BK more but I remember that as a kid, I would go back and play it and just sit there thinking "it'd be cool if I could shoot grenades or use Kazooie as a missle underwater." Tooie has just always been better to me.
This game will always be one of my favorites. In a way, it was one of my first ever sandbox games out there. I loved the huge open world and all the different characters you met on your journey. It really made the world feel more alive. I also liked there was lots to do in it. The mini games were fun and engaging, the puzzles to get Jiggies felt more inspired and loved that there were more boss fights with their own themes in the game, something the first game really lacked. Will always defend this game and really hope it comes to Switch Online soon!
The funny thing about the backtracking is, you dont actually have to do all that much if you don't want to. I recently did a playthrough where I used split up as little as possible, where I just went through world by world, and did a victory lap at the end to grab every jiggy from the earlier worlds I couldn't the first time around, without ever having to return to the hubworld except to get to Jolly Roger's Lagoon. The main source of backtracking is the split up mechanic itself, so if you avoid the jiggies based around it, and do everything you can with Mumbo or the transformations in one go, there's barely any needed.
@@SamWickens 100%. I believe there are like 16 total backtracking jiggies that require you to go back. And you don’t need any of them really. I could be wrong but off the top of my head that sounds about right.
Banjo-Kazooie is my favorite game of all time (as is probably obvious by looking at my channel, haha), and I love Tooie as well. I remember when I was younger that the sheer size and overwhelming number of things to keep track of was one of my biggest frustrations with Tooie; but upon replaying it as an adult, I found it a lot easier to make mental maps of each world, and I appreciate that the game is so complex as to always have at least a few challenges whose solutions I've forgotten every time I play. I've gotten Kazooie down to a step-by-step process, but Tooie is still somewhat fresh every time. The XBLA port, despite its audio issues, was also a big help with the smooth framerate.
This was my all time favorite game as a child; the interconnected world and mountain of secrets, the colorful characters and charming music, literally everything about it was amazing and still is to this day. I can't imagine what kind of person could hate this game honestly.
I'll admit I wasn't a fan of tooie at first, and yeah, it was mainly cause I had a problem with the backtracking. But I was so used to completing worlds from the first game that I realized I needed to take my time to explore and find all these things. On my second playthrough, I enjoyed it. I actually had fun after getting a better understanding of the worlds.
I really do love Banjo-Tooie, and hell, I'm gonna be honest and say I love Nuts & Bolts too (I plan on checking out your retrospective on it next). Tooie really does do a lot of things great or even better than the first; I will say that I wish notes were still individual collectibles - maybe like 70 plain, then three bunches of 10? idk. The tone is an interesting topic to me as well, since I think both excel at what they're meant to do Now, back to praying that Banjo-Tooie is added to NSO soon. I own it on Xbox 360, not to mention... other methods... but it would be cool to see
Funny how the interconnected level-design and backtracking is so hated on... back in the day, it blew my mind. Seeing how all the levels were no longer self contained, how you could open up shortcuts, and even solve puzzles that spanned multiple areas. Then, years later, I discovered I was a huge metroidvania fan. Suddenly my fascination with Tooie made a lot of sense.
YES! It’s so true. I played Super Metroid before this so I loved that concept. But it makes so much sense. The massive interconnected world is arguably my fav part
I've always found Tooie to be even more nostalgic than the first Banjo-Kazooie game, partly because I watched some of the gameplay footage that played on a VHS tape for Toy Story 2 when I was 5 (before I became invested in playing Nintendo games), so I associated the Glitter Gulch Mine level with Woody's Roundup. I also really appreciated the levels' environments and the additional moves the first game lacked.
This will forever be my comfort game, right next to Majora's Mask. Greatest 3D platformer ever made, imo. It may not be objectively a near-perfect game, but the sense of adventure, the music, sound effects, charming characters, dark humor and situations, etc... Everything is amazing, and I hate when people want to claim that them getting a spot in Smash Bros. was mostly just due to people's nostalgia. To me, this franchise cemented itself as one of the best videogame franchises ever made with the first 2 games alone, and Banjo-Tooie's contribution to that is huge.
To have such a massive following like Banjo and really only a handful of games to its name I think says a lot. People really only talk about the first two, but it’s enough for them to love it forever. For me it’s a big comfort game as well :)
I am so happy to finally find not just another person appreciative of my favourite n64 game, but you even like my favourite level Terrydactyland. Scaling that mountain was so enjoyable as a kid, I felt so awesome when I got to the top and saw there was ANOTHER SECTION with the stomping plains. Such a cool experience. They threw everything they had at that game and it really shows. I love and appreciate both Banjo games for very different reasons. I love the tight platforming segments in the latter half of kazooie, but I LOVE the sprawling interconnected worlds of Tooie. It felt big to me as a kid, massive, unconquerable. But that just made me more excited to get stuck in!
Just playing Tooi for the first time after only playing kazooi as a kid before. Overall I am liking it a lot and find it superior to the original, but I can still understand some of the complaints. My biggest thing (which also applies to the original) is that when you are transformed or playing as mumbo, you always have to backtrack to the teepee ir skull to change back, instead of just being able to change back anywhere, and that more than anything feels like unnecessary backtracking to me. Especially in some levels where you have to transform or switch to mumbo multiple times. I’d also say that I’ve spent a LOT of extra time in each level simply because I’d explore, find stuff I can’t do yet, and then have to double back once I do have the new move or item or ability to get past the area. The game would really benefit from an in game map or objectives list, like a lot of modern games, and I feel like I’ll have a better time on a replay when I actually know the world and can explore in the most efficient manner instead of trial and error. I do also think some puzzle solutions and stuff are unintuitive, and could have been telegraphed better. Like, I honestly had to look up in a guide that you have to blow open the doors to Area 51 with an egg, because it never occurred to me, and I assumed I’d just find a switch to open it.
Funny enough DK64 when you transform into animals you can transform back anytime. Thats something that tho never bothered me you’re right they could have done that. I’m not a huge fan of maps and objectives. I like figuring things out and being surprised. But that’s just me. I love the exploration!
I was only about 4-5 years old when Donkey Kong 64 and Banjo Tooie originally came out, and I adored them both. I didn't play the first Banjo game until much later, and while I had a ton of fun with it as well, I felt like it was missing something important: atmosphere and world-building. It had a much smaller scale, no scary bosses, and lacked the mysterious, darker tone of the adventures I had grown up with. Comparing Tooie and Banjo-Kazooie really is like comparing Ocarina of Time and Super Mario 64. They both excel at what they set out to do, it's just that one feels like a huge adventure, while the other feels more like a simple collection of levels in a small hub world. Which is fine --- Super Mario 64 is actually my favorite N64 game because it feels more replayable --- but a true adventure does necessitate some degree of backtracking through a bigger world. The Isle O' Hags as well as DK Isles are outstanding hub worlds in that they feel like a tangible interconnected space. I will never forget finding the entrance to Witchyworld and exploring it for the first time. That may be my favorite zone in any 3D platformer ever. I can't even bring myself to call it a mere level, because of how immersive it is. Grant Kirkhope's music was key in capturing that sense of wonder and adventure, and the cutscenes setting up the villain in DK64 and Tooie helped establish that dark tone. I think overall, if I had to pick between DK64 and Tooie, I would choose DK64, as I'm not a fan of losing my whole platforming moveset through Wumba transformations, Mumbo gameplay and splitting up Banjo and Kazooie. But both games are very close to my heart.
I swear the reason I’ll have arthritis in my thumb is because of damn Canary Mary. Her second race for both Glitter Gulch and the cloud level would leave you wanting to rest the thumb for a few minutes when you finally won
I cannot say I like it better than Kazooie, but it is still a beautifully designed game and the backtracking was never a bother to me. The N64 is still my favorite way to play it. Also, I feel the same way about the Jinjo Village theme.
As someone who played Tooie first it was kinda hard for me to like Kazooie, i liked the open world aspect more than having be in a hub area, even as much as i liked SM64. I had a used copy so i had a lot of things opened up to me and as a 6 year old then, i just liked going around an open world i just ran around in. I eventually did play the whole game thru then. And currently am with the NSO.
@@jiggylookback you’re videos r exactly the kind of things I think about almost to a scary degree lmao there’s not one video that isn’t amazing on here!! I sing for a group called chemical youth. It’s taken awhile but I’m just starting to see the progress. If you keep making masterpieces and keep that genuine humor in you have a bright future! We just must always continue to work as long as we enjoy it! So glad I found ur channel and have a kickass day dude !!!
Thank you so much! I really appreciate your kind words! You keep at it too! It’s like I always say…I don’t quit and I don’t run and I WILL BE HOKAGE! BELIEVE IT!
For a long time I was never aware that Tooie had garnered it's own set of detractors. I would still say claiming it has haters is a bit of an over-exaggeration, it still seems to be generally loved, though in modern tirmes, it's vocal critics are more vocal. Overall, I absolutely loved the game, and felt it did a really good job expanding on the building blocks Kazooie started. Aside form the infamous Canary Mary Cloud Cuckooland Jiggy/Cheat Page, something that always annoyed me is that we never actually got to properly fight either Mingella or Blobbelda (and no, that Tower of Tragedy game show doesn't count), similar to how we never fought Klungo in Kazooie (though Tooie rectified that). I've always envisioned that when fighting them, we actually get to fight them individually via Split-up: Banjo fights Blobbelda and Kazooie fights Mingella. And the moves they've learned individually from Jamjars are key to victory (as well as Kazooie's variable egg attacks in her case). And then after when Banjo and Kazooie return to each other, we fight them both at once, or perhaps they fuse together to become much stronger.
A Tooie defense video? A man of culture, a man of quality. I'll say it as many times as I need to- Tooie is like Kazooie but *more of it*, & Kazooie is amazing so how can I complain?
I wasn't really a kid anymore when I first played it but I rembember I was just very lost on my first playthrough. I really struggled to open some of the later doors because I never had enough Jiggies. I maybe got 3-4 Jiggies out of a new level. Then I had to revisit all of the older levels until I had enough. I think I barely collected anything In CCL. Then a few years later I replayed it and it was fine. It was still challenging (especially Jiggies like washing the dirty rabbits) but I had the patience to explore levels and figure out how to get all of the Jiggies.
The Banjo Kazooie series was and still is probably my favorite series of adventure video games. I just wish to this day that they would make a third game. Though i guess not so much anymore unless its directly made by nintendo/under their supervision given the infiltration of Wokeness in most game companies ruining them, Still Banjo Tooie as far as I am concerned is a BETTER game than Super Mario 64 OR Ocaraina of Time. It takes the best of those two games and improves and expands upon them.
I just completed this game 100% yesterday by getting Dragon Kazooie and tbh, this game don’t deserve all the hate, it’s a good sequel for me. Did I hated to carry Groggy and run with Mary? Yes, but I had fun with this game? Also yes, and well, at least it’s better than Nuts and Bolts…
CANARY MARY CAN GO SUCK AN EGG! Preferably a Grenade one...
Let’s not stop there. We can also shove a clockwork up the other way as well.
@@bingo9499 I like your thinking
That is funny I'm not going to lie😂😂😂😂
You broke her out of that cage. You unleashed that monster into the world upon us all. You get what you get.
@@ExaltedTilemaker
Oh. It's hated, is it? You can turn Kazooie into a dragon and it's hated, is it? Alright.
Fair! Haha
My favorite feature from the game honestly
And you can shoot grenades but ya know it’s hated lol fyi I love tooie so much
@@bobboberson12555 It was kinda annoying in multiplayer tbh. But the proximity eggs… 😂😂
The transformation also nets you infinite fire eggs too
Banjo-Tooie is unfairly overhated. It seems that people began to dislike the game only after certain online critiques focused on its few flaws, neglecting its strengths. Unfortunately, this trend has become typical since the advent of the Internet.
Yes and I am annoyed with it! This game is great!
Banjo tooie is my favorite that's my favorite one
@@jiggylookback Same for DK 64.
@@mdrstudios7067 yep. Made a video on that one too!
@@jiggylookback I know. I saw the vid. I think. Say did you made a defending Donkey Kong Country 3 video?
Honestly I didn’t know this game even was disliked. I had a blast with it as a kid.
It's kinda mixed, but lately online it has been getting a bad rep.
Where has it been getting bad rep?
This video is the first time I heard it mentioned.
@@sampicano I’ve heard a from a few places now.
@@sampicano look up Banjo Tooie on UA-cam videos popping up on how it’s awful and bad :/ online forums have started having people pop in. Everything I put at the beginning are things I’ve found
Same here. Hell I’ve been playing it still over the past few weeks lmfao it’s one of my all time favorite games.
I never really understood how the backtracking in Banjo-Tooie was a bad thing. In Banjo-Kazooie, you had these creatively-designed worlds with unique characters and mechanics, and yet you only really have to explore them once before they become obsolete (aside from a single Jiggy in Freezeezy Peak) Banjo-Tooie gives you the incentive to explore new areas that were once inaccessible and even connected to different worlds, which I feel makes the game much more immersive and satisfying.
My favorite example is murdering George Ice Cube because it gives you access to a flight pad and also gets you a Jiggy for cooling down the pool in JRL. Murder is good
George was a really funny one for sure
>(aside from a single Jiggy in Freezeezy Peak)
And one jiggy in Gobi's Valley. The devs were clever, because these two jiggies required the shoes from the other world but in only those two worlds, so you could do them in either order but only one would require backtracking.
Technically the Mr Vile jiggle is meant to use the speed shoes too. You can do gobis valley before freeze easy Peak but you also need the peak bash in that one so it is more those two worlds are inter connected.
I am not a fan of back tracking personally as I feel like it reduces the feeling of accomplishment and slows down progression. It also feels like a way to artificially lengthen a game. I know in tootie worlds are inter connected but still that is still more loading screens than necessary
I can forgive Banjo tooie for any experiments they tried to input but it does surprise that they decided to stick to these decisions going forward in future games
Do the people hating on Tooie hate metroidvanias too?
Banjo Tooie in my mind is the example of a perfect sequel. Familiar and same, but still feels and looks slightly different. Picks up where the first one left off, but builds on the move set so that it develops perfectly. The increased difficulty was also a welcomed touch. A lot of us were small children when we played Kazooie, and loved it for its accessibility to kids our age. By the time Tooie came out we had aged a couple years which is huge when you're in elementary. We were ready for more of a brain challenge from 3D platformers at this time.
People only started hating more and more once people's shrinking attention spans couldn't give them the patience to complete this game
Finally, a opinion from an adult.
agree, the game is a mega-puzzle and slow-paced. That's why frame rate issues are irrelevant but still doesn't feel as a platform and is for adults. If you are smart, this game is very satisfying to beat and you can minimize backtracking by a lot
It's barely hated. I think it's doing ok
@@joshuawidener8407 well yes and no. Apparently Nintendo fans' favorite sport is overcriticizing certain games. That's a pretty advanced game for the time. Other successful contemporary competitors like Crash and Spyro were ages behind but do not receive too much criticism
@banjobro64 the only criticism tooie really gets is backtracking which isn't really an issue
I was absolutely shocked to hear that the opinions on Tooie were mixed. I've never been so excited for a sequel and also felt like it had lived up to all my expectations before or since, except maybe for pokemon god and silver.
I will say it's not entirely true that people don't complain about Ocarina of Time, that game's reputation has had a target painted on it's back ever since 2006 because fans of other games in the series have sour grapes that it gets more praise than their own fave. But I agree that Tooie's worlds don't feel so empty to me, it helps that enemies respawn. When I was younger, and still even to this day, I would sometimes just play around in the level not really aiming to accomplish much, just see ow far I could glide with Kazooie from the highest point in the level and other such things, the improved controls from BK really made the game fun to just move around in. And I love the minigames!
I know the team working on Banjo hacking tools is kind of fractured at the moment but I really hope they can find a way to resolve their differences or figure out a way to hack Banjo Tooie with a new team, because the thought of romhacks on the scale of Jiggies of Time but with all of Tooie's improved movement and extra moves makes me drool.
AGREED 100% I’m waiting for Tooie gameplay in mods! Love that idea! And I also spent time just making my own goals like gliding and exploring! A big part of the charm!
We don't have good gamers, anymore. Most of them have shitty tastes and only care about trash like Fortnite, pfft!
It’s a small thing, but one thing I love about Tooie is that it shows WHY Banjo and Kazooie need each other. Kazooie may have more speed and moves than Banjo, but she can’t take as much of a beating as him. And his strength and weight makes her attacks more deadly
@@luhyzi5012 it definitely develops the pair as a duo for sure!
I like the second game better actually, so get it together, internet!
6:00 Switch online version actually did fix it, appart from transporting through Flowers in Cloud Cuckooland the framerate is really solid on switch
Tooie is probably my fav sequel of all time. It's made for the fans of the first one, instead of new players.
I don't want just another game like the first one that I would be able to speedrun in a handful of hours.
I feel like if people get their wish, I won't ever get a good sequel anymore.
This is a game I can get lost in, and I love that.
Edit: spelling
I love getting lost in these worlds and exploring. That is the best part!
Same here it’s one of the best sequels in video games along with Kingdom Hearts 2 and Monkey Island 2
Banjo Tooie... More polished and detailed graphics + accurate shadows and dynamic lighting (something incredibly beautiful and impressive for the N64), better mobility AND animations, cool new moves and mechanics like character separation and first person shooting, more fun and immersive mini-games, epic new bosses for each level, a better developed story and cutscenes, a darker setting that fits great with the cartoony style, more charming dialogue with elevated humor, bigger and more detailed worlds with more things to do, new charismatic and memorable characters, a jukebox that lets you listen to every theme in the game, and a soundtrack that's as good or better than the first game.
Even outside of the main content, you can find amazing additions in the menu, such as a multiplayer mode that allows you to play mini-games with friends and family, you can replay all the cinematics and mini-games and even re-fight all the bosses in the game, it also has a menu of options to lower or raise the volume, change the audio type from Mono, Stereo or Surround, options to adjust the screen and resolution and lastly, the generous option to change the language of the game. To say that this is a good sequel is an understatement, it is an AMAZING game and an AMAZING sequel that surpassed the original.
All of that! Heck yeah!
Banjo-Tooie is my favorite game ever and I'm glad to see it getting love and appreciation after so many people seem to dunk on it for a while. For me, I love 3D collect-a-thon platformers and Metroidvania style games and Tooie feels like an amalgamation of those genres.
I know a lot of people think the first game flows better because in Tooie the jiggies and other collectables take a lot longer to get and you have to backtrack. I actually like that more. I often use this analogy since I'm someone who hunted down every North American N64 game for my personal collection:
Banjo-Kazooie feels like the first half of building up a game collection. The jiggies/games are abundant, sometimes tricky to get but you'll find a lot wherever you go.
Banjo-Tooie is like finishing off the second half of a game collection. The jiggies/games take more time to get, you'll definitely have to go back to places you've already been to complete it but its a lot more satisfying and rewarding when you finally get what you were looking for.
They're both fun experiences in their own way but the latter in both situations contain the more satisfying results in my opinion. On top of that, Tooie has more moves, fun minigames, multi-player, more characters, deeper lore on existing characters and a world that feels much more alive and interconnected.
Also, I know the X-box version fixes this but I really hate how in the N64 version of Banjo-Kazooie you lose all your musical notes when you die or exit a level. I'll take the occasional frame rate issues on the N64 version of Tooie over that flaw in Kazooie any day.
Wasnt expecting to write so much lol. Great analysis! I greatly enjoyed your Donkey Kong 64 defense too (which I also 100% agree with)! Be definitely sticking around for more.
@mikesantos8554I would hope he does!
Well thanks so much for watching! Definitely have more to come!
The real reason why these n64 games got so much hate is because we have the famous UA-camrs who just point out any little flaw for likes and subscribers
I hate that.
The interconnected worlds of Tooie are fantastic. As a kid I had way more fun with this game than Kazooie, and nowadays I do think it's about how far lost you could get in the journeys for those Jiggies and Cheato pages. I used the official strategy guidebook, and the maps with all the many icons on them were beautiful. A far cry from the idea of being "empty."
Dragon Kazooie rules. The new moves rule. The boss battles rule, even if Chillie Billie and Chilly Willy are a bit redundant.
You love Terrydactyland, which gets critiqued for being too sprawling (even though it's not that different from Click Clock Wood).
My favorite is Grunty Industries, which people also hate on. It's just amazing how thorough they were with Tooie, and how much love was put into every room, every character, Grant Kirkhope's music, etc.
The N64 version is definitely the definitive way to play it. I never felt like the Xbox port got the stick sensitivity right, especially for aiming eggs. It makes bosses like Lord Woo Fak Fak feel more tedious.
Still my favorite game ever. The only flaw is totally the 2nd apperance of Canary Mary. Thank you for your video.
Thanks for watching! I should have highlighted Dragon Kazooie cause it’s cool haha imagine Threeie where we find baby dragons and they recognize Kazooie as their mom and she recounts being a dragon in Hailfire lol implications but it could be funny
Tooie was the best thing 4 year old me got to experience. To me, Kazooie is like playing with those big megablocks. Tooie on the other hand is more mature, more refined. It's the smaller lego pieces. Less straightforward, but there is so much more depth. More to be done. Each world had to be not only fully explored, but also memorized. The moment you make the connection between two worlds and get rewarded is so much more satisfying.
Nowadays, I feel like people prefer the one time visit, full clear and move on to another stage that Kazooie provides. Moving the Tooie, the completionist might find it frustrating. But maybe back then, having all the time in the world to get lost in Tooie is what made me appreciate it more. And today, that kind of time isn't available to everyone.
If Tooie is Lego then Nuts N Bolts is Knex
This is a great analogy.
I hated it the first time I played it, due to the large confusing maps and backtracking. But on my second replay I fell in love with it. Definitely not as iconic as the first game but it’s a really good example of expanding and building from the first game, some of it I’d argue is done better than the first.
Word!!
The boss battles were the best! It was always my favorite thing about the game. Not to mention, you get to replay boss battles in the main menu and I love that!
The boss battles were sooo good! I feel I don’t say that much about games
Grunty was brutal. Easily one of the hardest boss fights in gaming history!
@@ricardocantoral7672 seriously! And it made you utilize all the moves you’ve learned through the game and when she’s beat, I always feel so so good about it lol
I love Banjo-Kazooie... but it's also a bit too segmented for my tastes.
But Tooie? Ah man, I love Tooie! It feels like a massive, interconnected world! The atmosphere is better too, thanks in no small part to the incredible soundtrack. Trekking across the Isle 'O Hags, sneaking through the ducts in Grunty Industries, stepping into HailFire Peaks for the first time, walking into Jiggywiggy's Temple... there's this large, sprawling atmosphere and _feel_ to Tooie. It has a game feel that Kazooie doesn't have.
Even the animation in Tooie is better! I love how Banjo's backpack bounces as he moves in Tooie, whereas in Kazooie it's static. It gives Banjo a level of dynamism that makes him that much more fun to control.
As tightly designed as Kazooie is... it also feels cut off from the larger scope the world of Banjo offers. For me, Tooie edges the win for me between the two.
Same. The worlds being connected makes a huge difference for me. I love Gruntilda's lair but having this giant overworld with different environments feels right.
I quite enjoyed the darker atmosphere of Banjo-Tooie.
Me too!!
I played Tooie first. Loved it. Then played Kazooie next and thought "that's it??"
The larger scope and interconnected worlds was everything I wanted as a kid. And that train man, oh that train.
I have never ever understood the hate for Tooie. Tooie is the perfect example of how to make a sequel. Similar, but expanded in all the ways that could've been expanded upon without changing the fundamentals of the game. I love Banjo Kazooie AND Banjo Tooie, but damn dude, I love Tooie just a little bit more
Glad to be part of the Banjo Tooie gang and love to see people besides me prefer it. Great defense video
Thank you so much! Appreciate a fellow Tooie lover and for watching my video
Fully agree with the "You were supposed to actually explore and find things yourself" Part.
The easy access to Walktroughs and guides made it way harder to experience that unique thrill of playground rumours that you can investigate and find out if there was anything true to them. That's also a somewhat recent sentiment, you can find in some modern indie games. The way, games like Tunic or Deltarune are hiding their best kept secrets is pretty much a direct attempt to revive that feeling.
Another great video Btw.
I love Banjo Tooie.... did that back then and still do it now.
Thanks so much for watching! I’m glad there are others who appreciate it! We need to spread the love to the new generations and let them experience it too :)
True I 100% both games without any help whatsoever
One of the best sequels ever made! It's one of the very few titles I know that doesn't take away the power-ups you got from the previous game. It even expands your move set by giving you new abilities.
Yeah I really dig that aspect as well!
One of the best games on the 64, CERTAINLY one of the most underrated. Off the top of my head, it has the most impressive atmosphere of any game on the console next to Ocarina of Time, which is hilarious coming from such a sarcastic and goofy series. Tooie and Bad Fur Day are so impressive in their ambition. I can't think of anyone else than Rare who took better advantage of the hardware, and put so much effort in where it definitely wasn't expected
Yeah it is. Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask have such cool vibes.
True
Agree with everything 💪
@@jiggylookback yeah, meant to say next to both of the 64 zeldas! majora is actually my favorite
6:07 Wish granted! I'm sure the sequel is as good as Kazooie. My only issue with Kazooie is not saving the game within the level and had 100% in the entire run without dying.
One problem is a similar one to DK64, where you need to swap characters all the time.
Except in BT it takes a lot more time to do so.
For example, to play the dodgem game you need to go to Wumba, turn into the van, drive to the horror zone, pay, go inside and activate the teleporter, teleport to Wumba, transform back, teleport to Mumbo's skull, fetch Mumbo, go and power the dome up, return to Mumbo's skull, go to Wumba, turn into the van again, drive into the dodgem dome, pay the machine, return to Wumba, then as Banjo go back to the dome.
True! The team up ability to be used at anytime would have been great. And if they could auto reunite.
More cheese with that whine OP?
9:05 No, that's not the only reason why Tooie gets flack for that. OOT has exactly one large, mostly empty space. It's the central world HUB, it's easy to learn how it connects to the other main areas. They also give you Epona (as you mentioned) to pass through it quickly. It serves it's purpose of connecting the world and also making the game feel bigger than it really is (or, at least, that was the effect when it came out).
I've never been able to get very far into Tooie, though I have tried. I *really* want to love it, and one of the reasons this video popped up for me is my recent dip back into Banjo/DK content. I intend to give it another shot sometime soon. But this video is reminding me why the game failed to keep me interested (partially, anyway): The worlds are so huge that they become hard to keep track of in detail, and getting around them is kind of slow and tedious.
Maybe it's not as bad as I remember, but I plan to play with a notepad next time so that I can remember what I was doing and where points of interest are.
I just replayed it on stream recently…
Utilizes the Warp pads. Things like Wumbas Wigwam and Mumbos hut are landmarks to help you keep track.
The only world I had issue navigating was Glitter Gulch Mine since a lot of it looks similar. No other world had that issue particularly. At least for me.
@jiggylookback It's been years since my last attempt, and the one before that was at least a decade earlier. It might not be as bad as I recall, but the video definitely gave me some familiar feelings. Warp pads are great, but they require you to remember where they are and how they're all connected, right?
I'm not trying to say it's impossible to manage. It's just proven to be a bit much for me, which is crazy because this was my favourite genre as a kid.
@ hmmm usually they’re placed in strategic locations with landmarks like the world entrance and mumbos hut.
I really had no issue locating them or anything…idk I think you should try it again on NSO!
@jiggylookback I've been craving a big collect-a-thon pretty hard recently, so I'll probably go to Banjo-Tooie. I have an N64 cart, so that'll be my preferred way to play. I haven't wanted to play a game like that in a long time, so it's a bit weird. I keep watching videos about them, though. Hah
personally, I've heard "backtracking" as an argument for why something I love being bad so many times that it doesn't even register as a valid argument anymore and it just comes off the younger generation complaining for the sake of it. I think I'm slowly becoming Cranky Kong but that's besides the point.
In my day kids called backtracking "exploring".
Being able to turn Kazooie into a gun releases all charges
The way I see it:
Banjo Kazooie was a lighting in a bottle type szenario. You got a bunch of highly talented, highly passionate and eager Britains who took a WHOLE YEAR extra to polish a game which they literally called "the Mario 64 killer." Banjo Tooie did get just a fraction of the attention from Rare and due to hardware limitations, it was quite difficult to eleveate the platformer genre further. Which is why they implemented all these Metroidvania-like worlds with barely any in-game help to navigate them. This Breath of the Wild principle to have the player see multiple points of interests wherever they are in a level, was gone in BT. Instead we got mole den like levels with bare holes in the wall that lead to random places with no hints to remember the layouts of these places. Good luck exploring those. I remember as a kid as it took me close to an hour to get my first actual jiggy in BT, which was that one mini game where you have to protect some flower fields from flies.
Oh man. The exploration was my favorite part. I agree it could have used a bit more polish to assist with some of the issues, but hey I love it still!
People complain about backtracking as if they've never played a Metroid game.
10:08 The only time that auto captions actually spells Kazooie correctly, every other time it says "Kazui"
LMAO that’s actually funny, good find
Banjo Tooie is technically the first Banjo game I played and so not only do I like it more, I've memorized quite a lot about it. I've even learned a few speed run tricks even though I have no interest in speed running. It's good to see somebody besides myself defend tooie as everyone seems to be so stuck up on Kazooie. And you make some pretty strong points, and everyone seems to forget that Kazooie did actually have an instance of backtracking, two at most. There's also lots of things I think Banjo Kazooie sucked at that Tooie got right, and you covered those too. The biggest was the swimming. I struggle a lot playing Kazooie especially in Clankers' Cavern because I'm used to the swimming controls in Tooie, and rightfully so, the swimming controls in Tooie are superior. Plus I started playing Tooie when I was really young and just enjoyed it more as it had Chuffy, and my personal favorite, Hailfire Peaks and Jolly Roger's Lagoon.
While this comment is starting to turn into an essay covering points you already covered, see it as somebody with the same views trying to reinforce your argument. And for the people who say the worlds are empty, I'd like to see you design worlds better, I bet you can't, they'll probably be just as empty, and don't cheat and make a small level, actually make a big one, I dare ya'. Overall Tooie is great, but I also agree there's only one thing that sucks about Tooie...
CANARY FUCKING MARY! I remember you said she broke your Turbo Controller, she also caused Carpel Tunnel Syndrome fuck her!
@@22kbut yes. Canary freaking Satan.
I used to hate Canary Mary until I realized there was a trick to beating her in Cloud Cuckooland. All you have to do is let her stay slightly ahead of you until you reach the top of the course. Then as soon as you're going down the sharp drop at the end, towards the finish line, mash the button like crazy and you're good.
Yeah the rubber banding. It takes a bit to learn and get it right. But it’s possible!
Didn’t know people hated this game. I absolutely love this game.
You’re in good company! It’s a great game!
THANK YOU! You hit so much of what I could never put into words and why I ALSO consider Banjo-Tooie my favorite N64 game. Finally doing a 100% run of this game a few years ago made me stay in touch with how much I love the scope and scale of it. Oh, and Canary Mary, do us all a favor, go down as a hero and fall on a grenade egg for us, it'll make up for Cloud Cuckooland's hair-pulling debacle.
Intro to a Threeie game should be Canary Mary doing just that lol
forget the haters. THIS game OWNS. Awesome review! I was late into playing kazooie and then tooie years later, and they are some of my most memorable games. Enjoyment rarely match by just about any game I've ever played. Blast anyone on the 'net that has serious beef wit hthis game .
Tooie felt like a game that came from the future at the time. I think that’s why a lot of gamers who grew up with it like I did are so burned by what games turned into. Action/adventure platformers have all but gone extinct after the PS2 era. Banjo 3 is literally the only sequel to classic titles that was promised but never delivered…and no, Nuts & Bolts does NOT count.
No it does not count
Tooie is much better than kazooie. It feels like a real world not like the Mario64 template kazooie followed. Both are amazing but tooie is better in every regard.
All the complaints people make are what make tooie better. Its 100% a case of 'lets hate it because the internet said so' very similar to Dkc3. which was fun back in the day but picked apart these days.
I agree!
Tooie for me is a better game in terms of gameplay and it's mechanics as well as storytelling. It is a lot better than Kazooie but the first game had a charm that could not be copied which is why people prefer Kazooie over Tooie.
Most hate towards Tooie is unfounded and unjustified (save for the last Canary Mary race in Cloud Cuckooland). I don't take seriously any opinions that stem from modern internet culture and niche community echochambers.
Yeah for sure.
this is a pretty absurd point of view lol
there are plenty of legitimate things to complain about in tooie
for example - the moves you learn are generally quite underwhelming and either feel like "get jiggy" buttons than actual gameplay mechanics that the game is built around the player using, or just seem tacked on for additional padding
take egg aiming, you have to learn it three separate times in tooie, how does it even make sense that you become incapable of doing it in the air/underwater before you learn it in those instances?
how about moves like bill drill, taxi pack, talon torpedo, hatch, shack pack, or sack pack? where do you actually employ those as a general part of BK's kit that isn't just where you're required to use them to complete arbitrary challenges?
then there's just nonsensical ones like kazooie having to re-learn how to do a backflip once you split up, despite the fact that she can already perform one when together with banjo, or how beak bayonet is a separate move to learn from breegull blaster, despite the fact it is only used specifically in the FPS segments and therefore would make more sense to be available from the start?
-
the game advertised mumbo being playable as one of the highlights but he's just another "get jiggy" button, like there's zero reason to ever swap to him except to go to a mumbo pad to perform a chant
the glowbo system in generally doesn't really feel very well implemented either, the majority of glowbos you find almost directly next to where mumbo and humba wumba are, so like what's even the point of it at that point? BT is known for having massive levels, were there really not better spots to hide them?
frankly, i think the game goes overboard with minigames as well and a lot of them just really aren't all that fun, not to say that the ones in BK were all fun (mr vile being somewhat of a slog for example) but at least BK only had a small handful of them, whereas tooie has a lot
almost all of the ones that involve shooting eggs at targets just devolve into the player spinning/rotating in a circular motion and winning with no real challenge because the time limits are outrageously long, chris p bacon/pot o gold/chompa's belly to name a few
other issues are just the general repetitiveness of some of them like having to win kickball SIX times over the course of the game, the FPS segment being reused three times, and the dodgems challenge also needing to be won three times despite it barely qualifying as a challenge in the first two rounds
again, not every minigame is bad, i like the saucer of peril for example, but there's a reason a lot of people bring up minigames as a complaint towards tooie that they don't bring up with BK and it's more than simply rose tinted glasses
-
like sure, call it nitpicking/unfounded/unjustified/whatever other buzzword you want to fill in, but these are genuine examples of gameplay elements that many people have issues with in tooie that simply weren't an issue in BK or were drastically less so
yes tooie has more positives than negatives in the end, but saying people's complaints are unfounded when they very clearly take away from someone's gameplay experience is just insane
@@watercrystals9744 I think that’s a fair response 👍🏻
I love Banjo Tooie I hope it comes to the Switch Online N64 Expansion soon
ME TOO!
I hope so as well, but it might be difficult because of the lock out chip. Banjo-Tooie has the most difficult to circumvent lock out chip out of any N64 game. I could be wrong, but I believe it was even custom made for only that game. Yes, it would affect NSO, because the chip not being present is the issue. It would need to somehow mimic the programming of it. Nintendo may have a proprietary way around it, but it may be too much effort for a nearly 25 year old game. They did do it for Jet Force Gemini though, which I was pleasantly surprised by. Only time will tell, I suppose.
@@NezuChan I do remember hearing that’s why modding it is hard. Uuggg
@@jiggylookback Yes. It's why Everdrive support for it only became available in the last few years. A team of hobbyists finally cracked it, but not without serious effort.
I love banjo-tooie, I love how it has more personality, and filled the brim with content ❤
Critics: The worlds are too big!
How often are you using the warp pads?
Critics: The what?
I’m replaying this now and though Glitter Gultch Mine’s YEEHAWS got annoying, Witchyworld is cake if you use the warps
I agree with the yeehaws lol almost feels embedded in the soundtrack
I think some people did the failure to try to complete the game to 100% before finish their first run. Like you said, there is way less needed this time to complete the story.
Maybe save some stuff for the postgame when you get frustrated with backtracking or have problems with a certain jiggy?
I love both games so much i cant say which one is better. Banjo kazzoie games on the N64 are just peak gaming
@@uimasterroshi171 agreed!
Often in a level you have to run around as Banjo-Kazooie, Banjo alone, Kazooie alone, Mumbo, and your world specific transformation. I got annoyed with having to pass the same areas multiple times in different forms. A lot of things are character specific, so you must hike back and forth to the split up pad, wigwam, or skull just so you can go back to trigger what you are trying to do.
Another way the game disappoints is with Grunty's sisters. I was expecting to have some boss battles with them, but they end up just getting smashed by Grunty in a quiz.
Very true. That is why I think being able to split up whenever would really help. And you know what I never thought of that....yeah her sisters needed more. Or maybe Brentilda comes in then Mumbo and Humba back her up and they magic fight as we take on Grunty.
I agree with the complaint about Grunty's sisters. I wish they were given something to do.
Yes Mumbo as playable character was just boring. Would habe been cool if he got extra missions and has his own moveset with magic. But just running to platforms wasn‘t it. Also you need to do so much for a jiggy. It doesn‘t feel rewarding. They should have add more jiggys per world (like 15) so you have more motivation.
For example, hatching the eggs in terryland was cool, but then one stupid babyterry is too big and u need to carry him with banjo. That is just unnecessary…
Hot take, i love going back to earlier areas with new abilities, especially banjo-tooie
@@JaykubHarreld-y1t same
My problem with Tooie is some jiggys feel like unnecessary padding, I understand not every Jiggy needs to be collected to finish the game, but for us completionists Banjo Tooie isn’t all sunshine and rainbows, where as Banjo-Kazooie , IMO, is a complete joy to 100%. The first thing that comes to mind is the T-Rex transformation, having to find the glowbo thing, run to humba, give it to her, find another glowbo, run to mumbo, give it to mumbo, run mumbo to humba, enlarge the tent, run back to mumbos hut, run back with banjo, transform into the R-rex, run the T-rex over to a gate and use the roar button. Those are literally the steps to collect 1 single jiggy. It’s so much tedious running and back tracking and the game as many examples of that, but ultimately the good out weighs the bad if you’re just going for a casual play thru where the goal is to simply defeat Grunty and not 100% the game it’s a rather excellent game. I put DK64 in the same bracket as Tooie, if you just want to collect 100 golden bananas and beat K.Rool, I think DK64 is a great game, but if you want to collect all 200 golden bananas it’s one of the most tedious video game experiences ever 😂
Banjo Tooie is still one of my favorite games from my childhood to this day. I loved being able to explore the larger worlds and expanded range of abilities with Banjo and Kazooie that the sequel had to offer for hours while trying to hunt down all the collectibles in each level. But I hope if we get a Banjo Kazooie remake it'll lead to a remake of Banjo Tooie that'll really show how good this game can be that can improve upon the limitations the original game had while adding some new mechanics that weren't in the original.
Yep I'm with you. It would be incredible!
When I was young the darker tone made it feel like such an evolution. I was a bit older and the game was a bit more mature. It worked so well.
Right?! I loved the tone!
I've always preferred Tooie for the same reason many prefer Kazooie: Simply because the levels are bigger. I love exploring big spaces, and feel that many of Kazooie's levels are a bit too compact. That said, I don't feel that they managed to fill Glitter Gulch Mine or Terrydactyland with enough stuff to justify their sizes, but in levels like Grunty Industries, there's always a lot to explore, find, and understand. But if you like collecting more than exploration, then you'll like Kazooie better.
This is a considerable honor to have partaken in this video-even with just participating in discussing this game on Twitter.
One thing you forgot to mention when discussing the XBLA iteration is how some instruments (most notably, the therumin) are not properly tuned during the transition period to the other hardware.
I look forward to your future works! This is awesome, and you have earned yourself a subscriber!
Thank you so much! And funny you say that I did mention that Rare made the cutscenes with the N64 lag in mind, but I didn't expand upon what that meant. That is what I meant. It is cool!
hey Jiggylookback! thank you so much for this awesome video! i am a Tooie Defender too! this was my most anticipated game of all time. i bought every magazine back in the day to get as much info as i can get! to this day i love this game with such a passion! Banjo Kazooie is a super magical game and i love every bit of it, but tooie is just more. more Banjo! i love every little detail it adds to the lore. i love skeleton Gruntilda! i love the isle o Hags. i love the fact that every world is connected and i will always prefer the Banjo Games over any Zelda title. you mentioned it. they control wonderful in tooie, you never have to stop. solo kazooie is one of the best characters i have ever controlled in my life. i love the atmosphere in this game and i prefer the soundtrack too, Witchy World and Grunty Industries are some of Kirkhopes best work. i love the FPS sections and we played the hell out of that multiplayer when we were younger. i still wish there were more FPS Sections. i love the Bosses, everyone of them has so much personality! playing Banjo-Tooie is always some kind of celebration! thank you for work!
Heck yeah! I also agree Kazooie as a seperate character feels really good! The speed is just awesome and if you like that I highly recommend trying super kiwi 64. It’s basically like a Kazooie indie platformer. It’s not long and just fun!
Kazooie was my favourite game as a kid but I didn't own a copy of Tooie because my brother didn't and it was his N64, so I didn't know of it's existence until years later when the internet got more popular and I eventually got a computer, by this point the game was really expensive. I wanted it for so many years but never had an xbox either to play it, well last month it suddenly only just occured to me that I'm an adult with money and an ebay account and I bought it! I dug out my old N64 and I just finished playing it today, I had so much fun!!! I knew a bit about the game from seeing it on the internet in all my years of yearning for it, but I'd mostly seen hate about it, especially the backtracking...well, I didn't know all the worlds were connected, I was blown away!! This game was so so clever, and the backtracking is FUN, I love getting to revisit old worlds to get jiggies I couldn't get before, that's so cool?! Being able to play as mumbo was fun, the transformations were so awesome, like how in Kazooie the thing about turning into a washing machine by accident, and in Tooie we actually get to turn into one? Amazing. Being able to split up banjo and kazooie and they have their own mechanics? Also awesome. Plus I didn't find Canary Mary's second race hard at all, just used the old race trick of staying on the characters tail right to the end then speeding up at the end, got it first time on both jiggy and cheato page race, so that's a bonus😅 Thank you for making this video I've had the best time ever playing Tooie for the first time, truly an unforgettable game, I do wish I would have known about it as a child, I would have been obsessed with Witchyworld and Terrydactyl land, but oh well it's never too late
Yes exactly!!! Glad you really enjoyed it on a first playthrough even with all the negativity and online sentiment!
It’s a gem!
I agreed with everything you said 100% on this one. I started to scroll down to comment this but was going to add the part about the only thing about this game that sucks was the second Canary Mary race but you mentioned that too. I love BK but this one is so much more fun and interesting to me. I always thought it was cool the way the different worlds were connected. It made it feel like a real world as opposed to BK which the worlds existed in paintings.
I also felt the back tracking arguments were lacking. I always kind of like when you can't do everything all at once in a level. It makes it exciting when you finally get the tool you needed to unlock the area you couldn't get to before. A lot of times it didn't feel like back tracking so much because it would open up a whole different level. Also with the warp pads in the worlds and warp pipes in the hub world, it wasn't really that huge of a deal to get around.
Also, for the record, this isn't some childhood nostalgia. I was 28 when this came out and I was already a seasoned gamer having been playing games since having a pong system in the 70s and Atari 2600 and computer games in the 80s. Then NES, SNES and Sega Genesis games in the early 90s. Not to mention playing tons of arcade games.
Thanks for commenting! Really great to have this perspective of someone who was older when it released!
The interconnectivity of the worlds and creative ways you get Jiggies are awesome! I still go back and play it now and again and have a great time.
Last time I played these games on the xbox (early 2021) I much preferred Kazooie to Tooie cause I was looking for a collectathon game and you framing tooie as an adventure reminded me why I preferred Tooie when I was a kid. I still think I prefer Kazooie now but Tooie will always have a special place in my heart. But I wanted to give my two cents on the major complaints of the game.
1. The darker atmosphere was never a problem for me. It was distinctly different than Kazooie on purpose. Ik they added some depth because Kazooie had little drive to the story while this one compels you step into the world with it's start.
2. The backtracking is one I'm on the fence about. I see both sides but I'm going to lean to the side that says it helps the game feel interconnected and like on big journey vs it feeling like random worlds. I think it does it a little too much but usually the backtracking is rewarding. It might be a little annoying but the gratification is always there.
3. The frames were never bad for me when I was a kid. I kinda took the frame drops and lag as the game trying to convey how big the world was. That it took a lot of time to get from point a to point b. That this is an adventure with a capital A. But just play the rerelease if that's the biggest issue for you. But I do agree that the 64 controller is the best way to play the game. It's made an impact on me when I play games nowdays that I don't really mind framedrops that much unless it really gets in the way of the game. It kinda makes me shocked when I see frames drop and I see people act like one dropped frame means the game is total trash and the game devs are awful. Idk... gamers are kinda mean sometimes.
4. the minigames are fine. The only bad one is the one with the canary the second time.
5. Large Empty worlds is kinda true. I do think that if you're looking for stuff to collect and not objectives like in zelda, then yeah, it'll feel that way but they aren't made with that in mind. I love the worlds but they can feel a bit like lolllygagging. It works better for a kid and is kinda annoying as an adult.
6. All the game mechanics are really smooth and are super fun to use but I will also say that's probably why the open worlds can feel too big. The game provides a really fluid move set and fun mechanics but doesn't always have a way to use it. You're stuck trecking along sometimes. And the framerate can always make this feel even more frustrating for those who don't like dips in framerates. So the game being fluid is like a double edged sword in a way but of course is a positive vs if they didn't improve it.
Yeah for sure. I think Kazooie has easier replayability the way it’s structured. But Tooie is far from a bad game!
I liked the video a lot. I'm glad you brought up the boss fights, having a giant enemy in every world that you stumble on I think is really really cool. Even if a fair amount of them are just "shoot the giant glowing spot in first person". I find the boss fights are either really cool (Weldar specifically being a highlight for me, Targetzan for being the best controlling egg shooting one I think, Mingy Jongo for shock factor) or pretty inoffensive considering none of the fights took very long.
I wish you brought up the world building a bit more and how the game drops hints that all worlds are connected. I hope you don't mind me referencing a different youtube channel, but "Framework" I felt had a good analysis of it called "Banjo Tooie’s Puzzle Piece World". Basically a lot of collectibles have some sort of visual storytelling nearby to help hint where you need to go. Learning about that gave me a new appreciation for the game since as a kid I just wandered and collected whatever was in my cone of vision.
All that being said. The general length of time it takes to do anything is really really annoying haha. I enjoyed playing it as a kid, but even back then I noticed I went back to Kazooie far more often. It just scratches the right itch for me so well. It just feels like everything in Tooie takes longer. I don't really mind the backtracking I just wish it was quicker. I wish egg nests just gave me a bit of everything so I didn't have to sit around waiting for clockwork kazooie eggs. You mention the sick dinosaur jiggy, I think the bumper car minigame highlights the issue as well. Even if you know what you're doing. You get the van to open the door to Mumbo's, you go back to get Banjo, you go get Mumbo, activate the machine outside the bumper car minigame, leave to go get Banjo, go to Humba Wumba, turn into a van, go back to deposit a coin, go get Banjo again, go back to the minigame, then play three rounds of it to get one jiggy. It's brutal.
Anyway, that's a lot of complaining from me. UA-cam recommended me your video and this is the first one I've seen. You have a new subscriber, I liked it a lot and will be checking out more.
Well thank you I’m really glad you found me and watched my video! I’ve got plenty more haha appreciate the comment.
You’re so right some jiggies are a little much to collect. I still love this game tho :)
I'm pretty sure those who dislike this game never actually tried to challenge themselves and that's how you come to really love this game. The first time I played it, I found it extremely difficult and challenging at times, so I never really managed to 100% it and I was put off to even try, but then, when I actually tried because I wanted more challenge, I really loved this game and it's one of my favorites ever.
I have nightmares where the Mr. Patch theme plays in the background.
It has nothing to do with people being used with Banjo-Kazooie in terms of laborious and cumbersome character switching and task mechanics. In itself it's tediously executed without any need to reference any other game. There's no defending it. It's a decision the devs made and they decided to take it to quite extreme lengths for whatever reason. It doesn't ruin the game but it's a negative aspect due to its cumbersome nature and how frequently it occurs and if folks like that busy working implementation then good for them. The problem with Tooie is some of its vacuous game-padding and a bunch of its sucky minigames - especially disliked the FPS portions. The pacing of this game is problematic. However I still enjoy this game... it's like a massive untamed beast one has to toil to control and master, and as a fan of games like Riven, Myst, Quern, I appreciate the mystery and sometimes opaque directives for what's required to accomplish tasks. Movement is better in Tooie but overall it's not great as the world is huge given the typical movement speed. Overall this game feels like a lot of wasted time, some of which I like (not knowing always what to do, exploring this huge untamed beast of a world and finding its mysteries and solving its problems) and some of which I don't (game-padding, tedious and laborious execution and obtusely implemented busy work). Tooie vacillates between being a joy and a chore.
Dude you are an absolute machine. I can't believe that you are turning out videos this fast, and at such a high quality! If you keep this up you will be huge on UA-cam for sure
Thank you for noticing. Lol once I had that DK64 video take off a bit I told my wife I NEED TO WORK REALLY HARD AND PUT VIDEOS OUT. I literally spent all Friday night and Saturday editing the Tooie video (and a bit on Sunday) as well as trying to play through Nuts and Bolts. I’m just super thankful they are being well received and hope they take off even more so I can make this my career! I LOVE playing and chatting about these games!
Your comment made me feel good. So thank you so much!
Can't wait for defending nuts and bolts!
LOL
Nuts and bolts isn't a bad game and I feel it was a bit ahead of its time in terms of customization to vehicles. it's just not a good Banjo Kazooie game.
One of THE BEST n64 games of all time ❤
So freaking good
Tooie is my favorite game of all time. They meant it when they said they took BK and just amped it up. I get why people like BK more but I remember that as a kid, I would go back and play it and just sit there thinking "it'd be cool if I could shoot grenades or use Kazooie as a missle underwater." Tooie has just always been better to me.
Based on all the comments and common senses. The game was never hated
Watch any of the videos I highlighted at the beginning lol
This game will always be one of my favorites. In a way, it was one of my first ever sandbox games out there. I loved the huge open world and all the different characters you met on your journey. It really made the world feel more alive.
I also liked there was lots to do in it. The mini games were fun and engaging, the puzzles to get Jiggies felt more inspired and loved that there were more boss fights with their own themes in the game, something the first game really lacked.
Will always defend this game and really hope it comes to Switch Online soon!
Me too!! Really want it on NSO!
The funny thing about the backtracking is, you dont actually have to do all that much if you don't want to. I recently did a playthrough where I used split up as little as possible, where I just went through world by world, and did a victory lap at the end to grab every jiggy from the earlier worlds I couldn't the first time around, without ever having to return to the hubworld except to get to Jolly Roger's Lagoon. The main source of backtracking is the split up mechanic itself, so if you avoid the jiggies based around it, and do everything you can with Mumbo or the transformations in one go, there's barely any needed.
@@SamWickens 100%.
I believe there are like 16 total backtracking jiggies that require you to go back. And you don’t need any of them really.
I could be wrong but off the top of my head that sounds about right.
I absolutely loved Banjo-Kazooie, but I learned to love Tooie even more because of the challenge and deeper exploration it gave.
It just did everything that Kazooie had and expanded it!
Banjo-Kazooie is my favorite game of all time (as is probably obvious by looking at my channel, haha), and I love Tooie as well. I remember when I was younger that the sheer size and overwhelming number of things to keep track of was one of my biggest frustrations with Tooie; but upon replaying it as an adult, I found it a lot easier to make mental maps of each world, and I appreciate that the game is so complex as to always have at least a few challenges whose solutions I've forgotten every time I play. I've gotten Kazooie down to a step-by-step process, but Tooie is still somewhat fresh every time. The XBLA port, despite its audio issues, was also a big help with the smooth framerate.
This was my all time favorite game as a child; the interconnected world and mountain of secrets, the colorful characters and charming music, literally everything about it was amazing and still is to this day. I can't imagine what kind of person could hate this game honestly.
I'll admit I wasn't a fan of tooie at first, and yeah, it was mainly cause I had a problem with the backtracking. But I was so used to completing worlds from the first game that I realized I needed to take my time to explore and find all these things. On my second playthrough, I enjoyed it. I actually had fun after getting a better understanding of the worlds.
Someone clearly plays games to finish and not enjoy. Bet you couldn't handle the *_Metroid_* series _*NEWB*_😂
I really do love Banjo-Tooie, and hell, I'm gonna be honest and say I love Nuts & Bolts too (I plan on checking out your retrospective on it next). Tooie really does do a lot of things great or even better than the first; I will say that I wish notes were still individual collectibles - maybe like 70 plain, then three bunches of 10? idk. The tone is an interesting topic to me as well, since I think both excel at what they're meant to do
Now, back to praying that Banjo-Tooie is added to NSO soon. I own it on Xbox 360, not to mention... other methods... but it would be cool to see
I’d love to see it on NSO. We need it! Especially for online play
Funny how the interconnected level-design and backtracking is so hated on... back in the day, it blew my mind. Seeing how all the levels were no longer self contained, how you could open up shortcuts, and even solve puzzles that spanned multiple areas.
Then, years later, I discovered I was a huge metroidvania fan. Suddenly my fascination with Tooie made a lot of sense.
YES! It’s so true. I played Super Metroid before this so I loved that concept. But it makes so much sense.
The massive interconnected world is arguably my fav part
I've always found Tooie to be even more nostalgic than the first Banjo-Kazooie game, partly because I watched some of the gameplay footage that played on a VHS tape for Toy Story 2 when I was 5 (before I became invested in playing Nintendo games), so I associated the Glitter Gulch Mine level with Woody's Roundup. I also really appreciated the levels' environments and the additional moves the first game lacked.
Come on it’s time to play! (Woodys roundup song)
This will forever be my comfort game, right next to Majora's Mask. Greatest 3D platformer ever made, imo. It may not be objectively a near-perfect game, but the sense of adventure, the music, sound effects, charming characters, dark humor and situations, etc... Everything is amazing, and I hate when people want to claim that them getting a spot in Smash Bros. was mostly just due to people's nostalgia.
To me, this franchise cemented itself as one of the best videogame franchises ever made with the first 2 games alone, and Banjo-Tooie's contribution to that is huge.
To have such a massive following like Banjo and really only a handful of games to its name I think says a lot. People really only talk about the first two, but it’s enough for them to love it forever. For me it’s a big comfort game as well :)
Jiggylookback: "maybe the switch online version"
Nintendo: "We're on it, After 7 months"
I am so happy to finally find not just another person appreciative of my favourite n64 game, but you even like my favourite level Terrydactyland. Scaling that mountain was so enjoyable as a kid, I felt so awesome when I got to the top and saw there was ANOTHER SECTION with the stomping plains. Such a cool experience. They threw everything they had at that game and it really shows. I love and appreciate both Banjo games for very different reasons. I love the tight platforming segments in the latter half of kazooie, but I LOVE the sprawling interconnected worlds of Tooie. It felt big to me as a kid, massive, unconquerable. But that just made me more excited to get stuck in!
100% yes!
Love tooie more than the original!! Thank you for giving it some love!! ❤
Absolutely and guess what I LOVE Sonic Adventure 2 and saw your Escape from the City cover! Thanks for that 😎
Just playing Tooi for the first time after only playing kazooi as a kid before. Overall I am liking it a lot and find it superior to the original, but I can still understand some of the complaints. My biggest thing (which also applies to the original) is that when you are transformed or playing as mumbo, you always have to backtrack to the teepee ir skull to change back, instead of just being able to change back anywhere, and that more than anything feels like unnecessary backtracking to me. Especially in some levels where you have to transform or switch to mumbo multiple times.
I’d also say that I’ve spent a LOT of extra time in each level simply because I’d explore, find stuff I can’t do yet, and then have to double back once I do have the new move or item or ability to get past the area. The game would really benefit from an in game map or objectives list, like a lot of modern games, and I feel like I’ll have a better time on a replay when I actually know the world and can explore in the most efficient manner instead of trial and error. I do also think some puzzle solutions and stuff are unintuitive, and could have been telegraphed better. Like, I honestly had to look up in a guide that you have to blow open the doors to Area 51 with an egg, because it never occurred to me, and I assumed I’d just find a switch to open it.
Funny enough DK64 when you transform into animals you can transform back anytime. Thats something that tho never bothered me you’re right they could have done that.
I’m not a huge fan of maps and objectives. I like figuring things out and being surprised. But that’s just me.
I love the exploration!
Freaking loved this game
Heck yeah!
I’m currently playing through Tooie again and while the backtracking can be really tedious, it’s overall such a joy to play and a great sequel!
It really is
I was only about 4-5 years old when Donkey Kong 64 and Banjo Tooie originally came out, and I adored them both. I didn't play the first Banjo game until much later, and while I had a ton of fun with it as well, I felt like it was missing something important: atmosphere and world-building. It had a much smaller scale, no scary bosses, and lacked the mysterious, darker tone of the adventures I had grown up with.
Comparing Tooie and Banjo-Kazooie really is like comparing Ocarina of Time and Super Mario 64. They both excel at what they set out to do, it's just that one feels like a huge adventure, while the other feels more like a simple collection of levels in a small hub world. Which is fine --- Super Mario 64 is actually my favorite N64 game because it feels more replayable --- but a true adventure does necessitate some degree of backtracking through a bigger world.
The Isle O' Hags as well as DK Isles are outstanding hub worlds in that they feel like a tangible interconnected space. I will never forget finding the entrance to Witchyworld and exploring it for the first time. That may be my favorite zone in any 3D platformer ever. I can't even bring myself to call it a mere level, because of how immersive it is. Grant Kirkhope's music was key in capturing that sense of wonder and adventure, and the cutscenes setting up the villain in DK64 and Tooie helped establish that dark tone.
I think overall, if I had to pick between DK64 and Tooie, I would choose DK64, as I'm not a fan of losing my whole platforming moveset through Wumba transformations, Mumbo gameplay and splitting up Banjo and Kazooie. But both games are very close to my heart.
Agreed! Tho I would end up picking Tooie myself it’s a pretty close race. I love the wonder and exploration! Well said!
Enjoyed how Mario Odyssey did a little bit of that inter-world transporting, reminded me of Tooie instantly
Odyssey became my favorite 3d Mario!
I swear the reason I’ll have arthritis in my thumb is because of damn Canary Mary. Her second race for both Glitter Gulch and the cloud level would leave you wanting to rest the thumb for a few minutes when you finally won
Same. It’s pretty ridiculous lol my thumb still hurts from my last playthrough
This game single-handedly made my childhood 9/10
I remember playing banjo tooie as a kid but it was a Japanese version so it was hard to do so and tower de quiz being pure RNG to beat
Honestly hot take maybe but I like tooie more than 1. First off it has Klungo, nuff said
Well Klungo is in the first game…but his role definitely is way more substantial in Tooie. His boss fights were fun!
I cannot say I like it better than Kazooie, but it is still a beautifully designed game and the backtracking was never a bother to me. The N64 is still my favorite way to play it. Also, I feel the same way about the Jinjo Village theme.
Did you try the NSO release? Very good port.
@ Yes. It’s great.
As someone who played Tooie first it was kinda hard for me to like Kazooie, i liked the open world aspect more than having be in a hub area, even as much as i liked SM64.
I had a used copy so i had a lot of things opened up to me and as a 6 year old then, i just liked going around an open world i just ran around in. I eventually did play the whole game thru then. And currently am with the NSO.
One of my favorites! Amazing soundtrack too, among other things. Great video
Thanks so much for watching! Really appreciate that :)
Dude ur channel is so amazing
Well thank you so much! I work super hard on it and trying to keep improving and growing! Appreciate that!
@@jiggylookback you’re videos r exactly the kind of things I think about almost to a scary degree lmao there’s not one video that isn’t amazing on here!! I sing for a group called chemical youth. It’s taken awhile but I’m just starting to see the progress. If you keep making masterpieces and keep that genuine humor in you have a bright future! We just must always continue to work as long as we enjoy it! So glad I found ur channel and have a kickass day dude !!!
Thank you so much! I really appreciate your kind words! You keep at it too! It’s like I always say…I don’t quit and I don’t run and I WILL BE HOKAGE! BELIEVE IT!
@@jiggylookback LETS FKNNN GOOOOOOO NARUTOOOO!!!
@@christianoneal380 lol I quote it all the time 😂
For a long time I was never aware that Tooie had garnered it's own set of detractors. I would still say claiming it has haters is a bit of an over-exaggeration, it still seems to be generally loved, though in modern tirmes, it's vocal critics are more vocal.
Overall, I absolutely loved the game, and felt it did a really good job expanding on the building blocks Kazooie started. Aside form the infamous Canary Mary Cloud Cuckooland Jiggy/Cheat Page, something that always annoyed me is that we never actually got to properly fight either Mingella or Blobbelda (and no, that Tower of Tragedy game show doesn't count), similar to how we never fought Klungo in Kazooie (though Tooie rectified that).
I've always envisioned that when fighting them, we actually get to fight them individually via Split-up: Banjo fights Blobbelda and Kazooie fights Mingella. And the moves they've learned individually from Jamjars are key to victory (as well as Kazooie's variable egg attacks in her case). And then after when Banjo and Kazooie return to each other, we fight them both at once, or perhaps they fuse together to become much stronger.
A Tooie defense video? A man of culture, a man of quality. I'll say it as many times as I need to- Tooie is like Kazooie but *more of it*, & Kazooie is amazing so how can I complain?
Exactly. I see you too are a person of culture and taste.
@@jiggylookback HUZZAH!
I wasn't really a kid anymore when I first played it but I rembember I was just very lost on my first playthrough. I really struggled to open some of the later doors because I never had enough Jiggies. I maybe got 3-4 Jiggies out of a new level. Then I had to revisit all of the older levels until I had enough. I think I barely collected anything In CCL. Then a few years later I replayed it and it was fine. It was still challenging (especially Jiggies like washing the dirty rabbits) but I had the patience to explore levels and figure out how to get all of the Jiggies.
Yes it's a time sink of a game for sure
The Banjo Kazooie series was and still is probably my favorite series of adventure video games. I just wish to this day that they would make a third game. Though i guess not so much anymore unless its directly made by nintendo/under their supervision given the infiltration of Wokeness in most game companies ruining them,
Still Banjo Tooie as far as I am concerned is a BETTER game than Super Mario 64 OR Ocaraina of Time. It takes the best of those two games and improves and expands upon them.
I’m with you and agree. Tho I do like Mario 64 and OOT.
I just completed this game 100% yesterday by getting Dragon Kazooie and tbh, this game don’t deserve all the hate, it’s a good sequel for me. Did I hated to carry Groggy and run with Mary? Yes, but I had fun with this game? Also yes, and well, at least it’s better than Nuts and Bolts…