Hello Gamers! Welcome to the Stark Gaming Industry, where gaming isn’t a pastime, it’s a way of life.
Sorry for the long period of not blogging, it was a hectic couple of months there with the holidays and switching jobs, but I’m getting back on track!
This Nostalgia Trip is about Banjo-Kazooie! For those of you who don’t know, Banjo-Kazooie is a game about a bear named Banjo and a bird named Kazooie…creative thinking right there. HOWEVER! It does roll off the tongue quite nicely, and who could forget those names?! The game was created for the Nintendo 64, was added to the Xbox 360 games, and now is available in the Rare Replay game for the Xbox One. Originally released in the year 1998, which doesn’t seem that long ago, it was sort of the pinnacle for new cutting-edge graphics. It received two awards, the Console Action Game of the Year and the Outstanding Achievement in Art/Graphics from the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences.
In Banjo-Kazooie the objective was to collect Musical Notes and Jigsaw pieces, also known as Jiggies, to progress through 9 levels. Each level introduced different puzzles you had to solve and harder areas to get the Musical Notes and Jiggies. You would progress until you reached the antagonist Gruntilda, a witch that “speaks” in rhymes, and when I say “speaks”, I mean she would talk in honks and cackles…at the same time. Her speech text would be written out as to what she is actually saying, and she always spoke in rhymes which made her quite the memorable character.
Gruntilda found out that there was someone more beautiful than her, Banjo’s little sister Tooty. So Gruntilda kidnapped Tooty to transfer Tooty’s beauty to herself. Once Banjo learned of his sister being taken, he and Kazooie set off to get his sister back. Their friend Bottles the mole, told them where Gruntilda was keeping Tooty, in Gruntilda’s Lair, and that they would need some training to collect Musical Notes and Jiggies to progress through Gruntilda’s Lair.
I didn’t own the game when I was little, but every time when my family and I would go to the rental store I would rent that game, along with StarFox! (yes, I self-advertised….) I’ve spent countless hours on this game, but I didn’t get to play much of Banjo-Tooie, where Gruntilda is dug up by her sisters Mingella and Blobbelda and blows up Banjo’s house, killing Bottles. When it came out I bought the Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts to relive my childhood and spent countless hours on that as well, but that’s a story for another time!
This game is one of my childhood favorites and will always hold a special place in my heart. Just hearing the music at the start menu gives me warm fuzzy feelings and I get sent into an immediate Nostalgia Trip. I would recommend this game to anyone who hasn’t played it before and is looking for an early Nintendo 64 game era game to enjoy. It’s a collectathon, but don’t be turned off by the idea of that, that’s what the game is meant for.
Game On, Gamers! 🙂
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