Despite a slow start, Rare's latest GBA title shapes up to be worth owning for any fan of the original, or someone just looking for a good adventure.

Where have Banjo and Kazooie been? It's been a while since we've seen the bear and bird duo appear on the Nintendo 64 in "Banjo-Tooie" Well they're finally back, but this time they've been shrunk down for the small screen.

Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge, for the Game Boy Advance, is a platform game. But the weird thing is that it isn't a platform game like you're used to. Instead of the usual side platforming view, the developer decided to take it into the third dimension somewhat with an isometric view (like many recent GBA titles, most notably the Tony Hawk series of skating games), the result being an adventure that plays very much like the original N64 classic.

Though this point of view generally works well, there are times you just want to march over to Rare and ask what they were thinking. I'm talking about height detection here. Probably my biggest problem with the game is that it is incredibly hard to determine the height of platforms in relation to others.

A piece of ground that looks like it's separated from another bit if earth by just a little dirt trail could actually be many times higher. Sometimes there are vertical walls, but you don't really know they're walls until you run into them. The only real way to learn what is what is by getting to know the levels, which you will since the game's design involves a lot of exploring the same areas over and over again.

Starting a new game results in an overly-long introduction in which you are told the hackneyed storyline. In short, Grunty is pissed after being foiled by Banjo and Kazooie in the original game and schemes to go back in time to kidnap Kazooie before he meets Banjo.

Banjo, of course, hears of this and has to go back in time to stop her. Though she's dead, her assitant Klungo has revived her spirit into Mecha-Grunty, a giant robot bearing her likeness.

When I first heard about this game, I was expecting it to be a watered-down game for little kids. As I first started playing, my suspicions were confirmed. The game was leading you everywhere.

However, I persisted, and I ended up being pleasantly surprised. Somewhere between the second and third levels the difficulty ramps up nicely and the game becomes just plain fun. If you are fan of 3D platformers, this game becomes a blast.

The only other gameplay element that bugged me were the boss fights. *Yawn*. Been there, done that. You start to realize as you beat the second or third boss that they're all the same! Despite minor variations (partial invisibilty, shields, etc), the bosses seem to be exactly the same.

You either fight Mecha-Grunty or Klungo and your strategy is always the same: dodge the shots fired by the boss and then attack when his or her shield goes down. Repeat. To reiterate my first point: *Yawn*

There are also a number of mini-games that are played during the game, which are all rather easy and simplistic but nonetheless fun.

There’s a downhill slide where you have to collect a certain item while avoiding another, a fishing game reminiscent of the one from Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, and a game where you have to hit certain targets with eggs from a second-person view. Though none of them pose a real challenge, they provide a nice break from the normal gameplay and are fun enough.

The graphics in Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge are superb to say the least. All of the images in the game are prerendered to give the game a 3D effect (once again, look towards Tony Hawk's Pro Skater), so of course it looks great.

However, they were modeled in such a way that if the original Banjo-Kazooie featured the same viewpoint the two games would be pretty much indistinguishable at a first glance (ignoring resolution differences, of course).

Characters look slightly polygonal, but in my opinion this is actually a good thing as it adds to the feeling that it's nothing more than an extension of the original. I have no complaints at all, save the distance problems mentioned above.

Ah, what can I say about the music? Just like almost everything else about this game, it's like the original. If little silly ditties aren't your thing, there's always the volume dial, but otherwise it's just fun. The sound effects, on the other hand, are decent. Nothing more, nothing less.

Some of the voices sound a little weird, particularly Banjo when he rolls, but it’s not anything terrible. The sound effects are average, plain and simple. I would be more descriptive, but there isn’t really anything to be descriptive about.

Overall, Banjo-Kazooie is a solid game. There may be one or two gameplay kinks that could have been ironed out and the difficulty curve definitely needs to be tweaked, but these don’t stop the game from being a total blast.


Review by Michael Walker.