Defending Banjo Tooie the Bigger and DARKER Sequel 

CANARY MARY CAN GO SUCK AN EGG! Preferably a Grenade one...

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.

Oh. It's hated, is it? You can turn Kazooie into a dragon and it's hated, is it? Alright.

Honestly I didn’t know this game even was disliked. I had a blast with it as a kid.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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

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.

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

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 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.

Glad to be part of the Banjo Tooie gang and love to see people besides me prefer it. Great defense video

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.

People only started hating more and more once people's shrinking attention spans couldn't give them the patience to complete this game

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.

The larger scope and interconnected worlds was everything I wanted as a kid. And that train man, oh that train.

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.

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.

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.

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 😂

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. RU-vid 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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

I share the exact thoughts. I'll never forget how hyped I was for this game as a kid, studying the guidebook months ahead, and hoping to get it on Christmas 2000, which I luckily did. Still my favorite comfort game. So much to see and do in that game.

I always saw Banjo-Tooie as an upgrade to Banjo-Kazooie. I will say that I actually liked Banjo-Kazooie more, since it does have more the feel of a platformer, but I didn't see much trouble with it's sequel. The only thing that I believe was poorly executed was making interconnected worlds easy to explore, making backtracking not only unintuitive, but also tedious and could easily get lost by the fact that some collectibles were meant to be accessed from other areas. All in all, I liked both games and each one offers it's own charm to it.

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

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.

I like the second game better actually, so get it together, internet!

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

10:08 The only time that auto captions actually spells Kazooie correctly, every other time it says "Kazui"

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.

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!

Great video! Tooie is my favorite game of all time. I'm actually playing through it again right now since it's semester break and I have time haha No idea how many times I've beaten it by now, but it's tons of fun every single time, again and again, it's just such an amazing game, I love it! ❤

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 RU-vid for sure

When the game came out, everybody I knew was absolutely astounded by how the worlds interconnected . Everyone loved it, it was clever, well done, and really put how much bigger the game was into perspective. Then we got every other platformer doing it all the time in ways that got progressively more stale. Love B2E

One of my favorites! Amazing soundtrack too, among other things. Great video

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.

I feel like it’s vilified due to people having more collective nostalgia for Banjo-Kazooie, and people just need random reasons to complain. The game is “darker” barely imo, and it’s darker but not edgier. There’s still a lot of personality and color present. Backtracking is a thing I totally understand, and it does get egregious at times. But the inter connectivity felt like I was more immersed that this was a larger island. Characters weren’t just stuck in one single zone.

Played both this and Kazooie clear through several times with my grandma. I was 6 or 7 and we shared a save file. When we'd go visit she'd catch me up on what she had got done since last time and then we'd play. Good times

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.

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.

Same as with DK64, I loved this game back then. I never saw the bigger levels and backtracking as that much of an issue. The only time I really got annoyed was the mission to help the cold, starving cavemen. That specific mission at least "felt" like it took too long for just 1 jiggy.

You are doing exactly what this franchise needs! These videos are awesome!

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!

My siblings and I actually owned Banjo-Tooie as one of our 1st games for the N64 after DK64. It was years later that we finally owned a copy of Banjo Kazooie. I remember enjoying it, but we always like Tooie over the 1st game.

Tooie’s opening did absolutely horrify me as a kid 😂. See, Bottles doesn’t just perish in a flash, you see him limping out in agony before falling over and giving up the ghost. I also found skeleton Grunty and zombie Jingaling pretty freaky too. See I wasn’t great at games back then, so imagine my shock and relief DECADES later when I find out you end up undoing Grunty’s actions entirely. Nah I thought Bottles was done as dinner and Jingaling was doomed to hear that eerie Jinjo Village remix forever. Saving them was like punching a childhood scar in the face. Extremely satisfying

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

You know, I never looked at as an adventure game first then a platformer and it makes so much sense and has honestly shifted my view on the game. I wouldn't say I disliked the game but the first one is my favorite because of the confined worlds. It makes sense and I do really enjoy the interconnectivity of the second, its really neat and fun. It's just hard for me to narrow it down to a singular *thing* that makes me like the first over the second. Awesome vid and thanks for the perspective. Much love from a Banjo fan

Hailfire Peaks is one of my all-time favorite video game themes, and it's even better when you combine the two realms together, making it one complete track! All that aside, Banjo-Tooie's one of my favorite games ever. I remember when I first got the game I played it religiously, trying to get every Jiggy (including she-who-must-not-be-named's), and I played the game to death, even more than Ocarina of Time and Mario 64. And honestly I don't understand the hate, but at the end of the day I think it's more-or-less a handful of people. The overwhelming majority of gamers who have played this game loved it. Again, my best friend and I played through the game. My only problems with the game would be, again, she-who-must-not-be-named and the Hag 1 boss fight, which I have to admit it took me four years to figure out that I needed to hatch a Clockwork Egg into the tank!

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.

There are 2 unexplained and unintuitive mechanics in the Canary Mary fight: 1) the rubber-band AI and 2) you go faster downhill. So if you just go slow until the top of the mountain at the very end then go as fast as you can, you'll win 75% of the time.

Man I love Tooie. I don’t mind the extra walking around necessary because the music, atmosphere, and characters are just so damn good

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 think one aspect that critics miss is that they are usually either replaying the game or looking at a walkthrough in order to find out what to do. The back tracking can be tedious but when you play it the first time without knowing anything that’s going to happen, and this is not nostalgia lenses, the game feels less like tedious backtracking and more like free experimentation to see what can happen. You explore the world and try to figure things out in a very trial and error way and there is something so satisfying like say when you shoot a grenade at something from a mission before you had grenades, just to see if it will work, and it does. There is a “playing with a chemistry set” feel to it if you are going into it completely new or if you’ve forgotten most of the puzzles.

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.

The kazooie sequel is what literally made my childhood. This may sound dumb, but the story helped me understand death and the darkness behind murder, and how harmful it is to others beside the victim, and learned that at a very young age. Id say this game helped me mature and made me love more complex platform games. Still my favorite type of game to this day ❤❤❤❤ i love banjo kazooie ❤❤❤

This is great. I wonder if we'll see one about Nuts & Bolts, one of the best games I have ever played, held back purely by the reviewers who aren't smart or creative enough to enjoy it rather than any aspect of the game itself.

Banjo-Tooie I thought was a terrific sequel. They said it right at the beginning “more of an adventure, less of a platformer” Banjo-Tooie is an example of a game that feels like it’s been really fleshed out by the devs. It’s a huge interconnected game, and for an N64 title I think was groundbreaking. When you bought a game in those days, you wanted it to last. You wanted it to be filled with secrets. You wanted the game to be a monumental epic journey. There is nothing else like it on the N64. The graphics are amazing.

Just recently found your channel. As someone who grew up in the early 2000's with games like Banjo Tooie, DK64, Ocarina of Time & Super Mario 64, I love this era of gaming. Even though Rare platformer reviews are a dime a dozen on RU-vid, hearing you defend games like Banjo Tooie & DK64 while being entertaining and well thought out. Keep up the good work! I will give you one piece of friendly advice as I want your channel to grow; I recommend getting better quality footage of the games you play. Don't get me wrong, the old CRT blurry footage of the N64 is nostalgic, but using an HDMI adapter or Emulator to bump up the quality would be a nice touch. Just my thoughts.

These games got me through some rough childhood moments. Forever grateful they both exist and are great.

Great video 👍🏻 Tooie/Kazooie are my favorite games forever. I remember how mind blowing it was to play this game as a kid and I still love it just as much now.

Great video! Wish you'd spoken about Tooie for far longer!

The only thing I hate in Tooie is Canary Mary and the wasted potential of 2 transformations in Terrydactland

I have fond memories of coming home from school and just wandering around the world of Tooie. Even after I completed the game. I loved Kazooie, but I was enamored with the large worlds and interconnectedness of Tooie as a kid.

I wasn't even aware it was considered a bad game, first I'm hearing of this. We were just happy to have a sequel without having to wait until the next gen (or just not having one at all) like a lot of other N64 IPs.

Amazing intro. Of course I love Tooie! How can you not!?

I freaking love this game - had no Idea it was viewed upon poorly until looking it up after watching this video. Only way to play it is on the N64

Banjo-Tooie is by far my favourite of the two. It feels more like a puzzle game than Kazooie which is why I love it so much. My one gripe with the game is that a lot of the moves are just one-offs. For example the big t-rex is only used to press one button and that's it. It's the coolest transformation in the game but got so little use. The wading boots from the first game are only required once, and the glide move is unlocked so late in the game that most of the jiggies you need it for can be cheesed using clockwork eggs. Also I wish you could separate banjo and kazooie at any time like you said.

8:07, hidden message? DOD and GEM DO ME

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'm convinced the dislike for Tooie is like a handful of people that got memed and retweeted until it became a consensus. Was beyond excited for Tooie. The first one was my favorite n64 game and I was dreaming about it Tooie leading up to the launch. It lived up to my expectations. I never heard anything negative about it until more recently.

Having played tooie again recently, it’s just a little too massive and tedious. If it was streamlined, it would have hit masterpiece status

Not only was the N64 framerate choppy, but my copy would sometimes freeze on occasion, and yet, in spite of all that, I still liked the game enough to play through to the end. It helps greatly how the world is interconnected, so backtracking was never a problem for me. Warp pads are frequent, and all clearly labeled, so you have a good idea of which one takes you where. You know you've done good when something that should be a source of intense frustration is made more of an inconvenience.

Banjo-Tooie was an awesome step forward for Banjo-Kazooie. Getting that game on day 1 was epic and will always be a classic.

I also love Tooie. Mainly because of the worlds being bigger and more complex, it makes the first game look like a tutorial. At the same time my biggest problem with the game is that some of the worlds are just too confusing. I'm mainly looking at you Terrydacytland and Grunty's Factory.

On topic of backtracking: I think the most problems are if you need to do a specific quest in one level to get a quest in a later level. This is often rather cryptic and I did not understand these without looking them up online

Can't wait for defending nuts and bolts!

yea the criticism that the worlds are too big and empty miss that this is exactly o e of the biggest strengths of this game

Gone back to play both multitudes of times as I didn't own the Xbox version until RareReplay and it's one of my all-time favorite games! For the longest time I proffered Tooie. Maybe still, I go back and forth, BK is easier to replay but Tooie world i was more obsessed with as a child. I'd definitely say outside of absolutely soley the cutscenes, Xbox's many times updated version is definitely the superior way to play this game. It berids all the issues I have outside of some convoluted Jiggies lol. Defo played more N64 but for the how smooth it is both with controls and frames plus the awesome Jiggy checklist feature, its the version I'd suggest to younger folks without an N64 amd to watch the intro cutscene on YT lol. Great video bro! 👏

I feel Tooie gets bashed because it's a game that requires more of your time and attention compared to Kazooie, making it harder to get into and replay. You really need to be in the mood to just adventure around and immerse yourself in the worlds as opposed to moving from challenge to challenge, not being easy to pick up and play. Of course, the atmosphere and charm of the worlds and writing are some of the things that make the Banjo games stand out, so Tooie having more world to explore and characters to interact with just makes those strengths shine brighter. I've always loved the world Tooie made up with the Isle O Hags, being one of the first times as a kid that I felt like I was exploring a real location and not just a series of loosely connected levels, both in the level detail and characters writing. It's one of those games I can just sit down and immerse myself into, making the longer time sink feel meaningful and not just padding.

I grew up with both games. Tooie is the superior title. As a 90s kid, I loved the darker tone, and I appreciate it even more, as an adult. The worlds never felt empty, and I think it's just like you said. Modern gamers are lazy, and they want all the answers handed to them.

I absolutely loved Banjo-Kazooie, but I learned to love Tooie even more because of the challenge and deeper exploration it gave.

The only things I had some issue with, gruntilda stopped talking in rhymes and that damn bird final race for a cheato page which I still haven't cleared, rip fingers. Love the adventure and music

Banjo Tooie isn't my favorite collectathon, but it's very far from a bad game. I still recommend it to those with the patience for open exploration... and the backtracking. I've recently found out just why the low frame rates of Rare's N64 games somehow feel more "playable" than low frame rates in a lot of modern games. They used a technique to, whenever possible, show the most significant frame. That is, frames shown the instant you perform an action (or stop performing an action) are given highest priority, skipping surrounding frames. Second highest priority is whenever another entity performs an action. By doing this, they make sure that even when frame rates dip into the teens, the actions you perform are reflected on the screen instantly, opting to skip the frames that are less and less needed. This keeps the game feeling responsive even when it dips down to crazy low 15FPS gameplay in things like Perfect Dark. It's the lack of responsiveness that most annoys players more than the choppiness, so that really did help things out. Of course, ideally they'd have played at a smooth 60FPS like older SNES and Genesis games (or F-Zero X), but the N64/PS1 era was not exactly the smoothest transitional period in gaming. Modern games don't bother with this optimization. Partly because in a lot of cases, they don't need to do things like that any more.

The best analogy i can make is, gamers who like tooie and dk64 are to average gamers, like a person who has a wine cellar and very high opinions of what they drink to an average sports bar attendee who orders busch.

As a kid I thought Tooie was a great addon to Kazooie, and today I still feel that way. Kazooie was short and easy. Tooie feels like a complete game. Both of them together feels almost seamless and they complement each other perfectly.

I never grew up with kazooie, but tooie. Once visiting kazooie as an adult I can't play it longer than 15 minutes before wanting to slap tooie in my 64 instead. Soundtrack is better, controls better, the dark atmosphere makes it easier to play at a later age over kazooie. I never wanted to beat tooie, and wont. It's such a big game I would get lost as a kid and always find something to do or explore. The boss fights and revisit from main hub were a huge plus for me as a kid. Isle of hags is the best track in game soundtrack history.

I love both games. They're part of my childhood. I remember watching my sister and dad playing it as a kid. I didn't play as much back then because I wasn't as good as them but I practiced later. But as a kid I loved watching everything. Fun times.

Tooie did its job & expanded on what Kazooie was. It especially was great if you were a kid that played Kazooie & then a bit older when you played Tooie. Your mind was able to handle the complexities & more mature nature of Tooie a bit easier. I think most would be left disappointed if they played Tooie before they ever played Kazooie quite honestly.

I quite enjoyed the darker atmosphere of Banjo-Tooie.

You missed one very important thing tooie gave us king jingalings adorable af pet

Tooie has probably one of my favorite levels of any video game - Hailfire Peaks. I don't know what it is about fire levels, but they always tend to be amazing and this one is top of the heap. Witchworld is also really great.

I cannot explain further, but Banjo-Kazooie is Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, and Banjo-Tooie is Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey. I love these games.

I think Banjo Kazooie has the edge when it comes to replayability due to its tighter focus on core gameplay, but there is something absolutely magical about exploring the world of Banjo Tooie.

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!