2 Hours of Nintendo 64 Games and Hacks to Sleep To

[Music] oh hey didn't see you there because YouTube law dictates that every video covering banjo kazui has to start like this banjo and kazui and smash well damn to say about time would be underselling it it's a pretty fascinating case honestly because conversations regarding the bear and bird Duo can rarely happen nowadays without bringing up r Banjo Kazooie what a damn good game but you've heard this all endlessly by now it was almost as if for a while if you wanted to get into the whole video game review thing a pretty cliche way to get your foot into the door would be to cover this game specifically and I would know listen all right I was a very different dude back then banjo smash reveal sparked something different in me I wanted to finally experience everything that this franchise has to offer from its debut to what led us to this very moment and to do so I was about to do something pretty drastic and I did it I bought an Xbox yeah I'm actually part of the small percentage of the population out there who has never owned a single Xbox console I've always been totally content with just Nintendo and Playstation but hey I found an original Xbox One and rare replay combo for $100 on eBay I've certainly spent money on much worse playing banjo Kazo on the N64 is still fine in Dandy don't get me wrong but I just had to see what I've been missing out on with the Xbox Live versions for all these years it runs at a higher resolution that's the big one the life icon doesn't really look as good I I don't know man that's that always irked me all of the Nintendo references were removed and replaced and you know that one that one makes sense banjo does Still Rock A Classic Game Boy on the load menu though which is pretty cool you know it probably would have been a bit too much work to outright change the model with something else and besides the equivalent device that would have made sense would have been to give banjo a zoon and that makes me uncomfortable and hey can't forget about this my very first ever achievements how exciting well H damn that's $100 well spent but oh if it's banjo's debut we're going to talk about Banjo Kazooie isn't the game to go over of course not it's racing off in a forgotten part of banjo's past Diddy Kong Racing is actually the first sighting of the bear just with no bird in sight he was simply one of the playable Racers and nothing more so it's mostly just a neat little factoid it was an appearance that lacked much impact but you slap a bird on him you wait a year compose and animate an iconic musical number to start off a brand new adventure and well the rest is history So the plan here is to take a look at what made this game so good and then take a look at the highs and lows that followed soon thereafter people lost their mind seeing Banjo and Kazooie show up in Smash Brothers surely there has to be a reason why and finding that reason out starts now it's banjo time straight out of the gate banjo kazui just oozes charm the load file screen is fantastic which is a sentence that you don't really hear very often banjo just chilling out around his house getting a bit of cooking done the music is different when hovering over each file it's minor but it really does set the tone for the rest of the game the story is super simplistic as well but enough to get you out of the house and ready to go the evil witch grunt TAA can't stand that her talking pot basically called her ugly the prettiest in town is this little bear girl toy banjo's sister and in an absolute rage she sets off to do something about it uh any day now oh okay there there she goes grunty then manages to kidnap toy and banjo somehow slept through the entire thing that was going on outside despite kazui losing her mind right next to him man he's a he was hibernating just then and once we get all of the info from our friendly neighborhood bottles we set off on an adventure to save our sister and we got to get her back super soon or else grunty will steal all of her prettiness that's a damn impressive machine to be honest props to her sure it's a pretty nothing plot and at the end of the day you are still saving the girl but it gets the job done it has a good fairy tale vibe to it and just like that we're already at one of the coolest parts of the game at this point bottles offers you the tutorial section where you get to run around the awesome starting area spiral mountain and get used to the different mechanics available to you and you're not allowed to move on until he gives you each individual move or you can just press the B button get everything immediately and get going the entire tutorial is optional being able to start properly playing the game almost immediately is really satisfying and something that modern games still sometimes have troubles with you do still deal with tutorials from bottles introducing brand new moves to Your Arsenal throughout the different levels but the banter back and forth is actually super endearing Kazooie and Bottles call each other names on a constant bases while banjo is the straight man and just wants to get things done this makes the encounters a lot more enjoyable right in their very first ever interaction bottles calls Kazooie Strang looking and she immediately hits him back with goggle boy oh man how vicious and then we have grunty's layer found by entering her massive head sculpted onto a mountain side I'm sensing a bit of a pattern here with these bige Head Mountains in rare games the layer is Banjo kazooie's Hub world and man it is one of my favorites there's a surprise Rising amount of variety to the Landscapes found within and the further you progress you notice that it's always slowly transitioning into the themes of the worlds that you're about to jump into with new enemies and obstacles creeping in and the layer's music remixing on a level by level basis and the entire time gruntilda will regularly chime in with insults in rhyme form just the right amount of annoying to make a compelling to take her down even her sister brentilda is rooting for you as well she pops up around the layer to help you out for your inevitable final battle and uh all right all right this part's not the best but I'll I'll get to that and we've only just scratched the surface about what makes this game Cool the optional tutorials The Hub world the loading screen yeah banjuk kazui does a lot of cool and unique things but things like that they kind of Get overshadowed By the Fantastic gameplay all right now let's talk about the Fantastic gameplay by modern standards of the word collectathon banjo is actually pretty by the books each of the game's nine worlds are laid out in a pretty similar fashion 10 jigsaw pieces known as Jiggies the main collectible are spread throughout each and are rewarded for fulfilling requests by the world's NPCs or by completing gameplay challenges like finding the five hidden jingos oh wait I'm sorry I forgot the quotations hidden like literally you're like you're like literally a brisk walk away to safety what do you are are your legs are your legs broken no all right sure whatever for the instant satisfaction of a cheery jingle do whatever's asked of me you also gain access to a constantly growing move set adding a ton of Versatility to the play control extra movement options like the Talon Trot which is going to be how you spend 95% of the game playing new items like different types of shoes to Traverse poisonous areas or move faster being able to fly or turn Invincible thanks to finding these colored feathers and new attacks like kazui being able to shoot eggs from her mouth and her oh but even in this fairly standard gameplay style something that we're already pretty used to seeing with games like Mario Spyro more modern attempts like a had in time banjo still excels due to personality being at the Forefront of everything you do without needing to sacrifice fun gameplay each of the levels has a very distinct theme with characters and missions fitting them to a tea like a giant snowman and living Christmas tree lights on the verge of death and freeze easy peak to the dreary bubble gloop swamp being filled with appropriate swamp life both evil and good there are so many moving s too you actually have an impact on these worlds and the lives of the characters that you interact with for example in Go's Valley you save GOI from imprisonment who then goes to find some shade under this chunky tree trunker and after just a just a little bit more animal abuse not not not too much the water from Go's hump quenches The trees's Thirst and then he leaves to find safety in a later level clicklock wood where you abuse them just a just a little bit more man goby GOI can't catch a break but I got to get these jigsaw pieces Cheeto is a bit of an underappreciated character as well hidden deep within parts of the layer you can find grunty's old magic spell book where he rewards you with some cheat codes that can double your limits for your eggs and Feathers which you then input inside of a sand castle in Treasure Trove Cove there's no no simple menu here you got to slam Kazooie into the ground for each individual letter oh man there's a there's a lot of animal abuse in this game it does take way longer than a menu just for the sake of being unique but I still love it there are even some hidden cheat codes that you can access by completing a secret puzzle miname in banjo's house that uh oh oh my uh yes uh finally uh washing machine banjo uh brilliant Watch Out World here comes some freshly cleaned tidy whes and mumbo jumbo man you can't forget about this guy in most of the levels you can find Mumbo in one of his huts and if you collected enough of his Mumbo tokens he's able to transform banjo into a brand new form with a unique set of abilities to complete a few more challenges the thing is though this doesn't happen in every level and more times than not they end up having multiple uses so it ends up not feeling like a tacked on gimmick that you just expect to happen every single time you enter a new stage and if anything it just adds to the game's charm and World building these are more than mere stages they're living breathing worlds with plenty to do and see and the music gets this across too because every area comes with a bright and cheery beat to accompany the colorful landscapes but it's also a dynamic soundtrack since it changes slightly depending on where you're located like a muffled sound when you're underwater or in a cave the composer Grant Kirk hope is amazing he made one of the best soundtracks of all time etc etc I love him moving on we've heard this a million times already and in terms of the level's designs they're also tight and concentrated making it a breeze to navigate and constantly get your hands on some Collectibles the more minor items the 100 music notes are sprinkled about the areas in such a way that if you're going for all of them you're guaranteed to see every single thing a level has to offer the jigsaw pieces are a brilliant collectible as well because they're more than just a simple number used to unlock a new area they're tangible objects that are used throughout grunty's layer to fill out incomplete puzzles that reveal the next stage that's a really cool use for them and I always like that more than Mario 64 being like Oh the stars have magic and you need just about that much magic and now go fight the turtle they also do a little bit of a dance every time you get one and it's consistently like the greatest thing ever that's beautiful that's a that's a 10 out of 10 game right here I guess if anything could be said as a negative here it's maybe that the levels do feel a bit too self-contained at times like there are a few moments when elements of levels leak into the Hub world or other levels like some sections of the layer being accessible with mumbo's Transformations and the aformentioned animal abuse but typically a level has its own identity that stays there and that's it you're also able to knock out most of the levels in one go only on the rarest of instances is being asked to return after getting a new ability a lot of the best elements about this game aren't exclusive to banjo kazui it's just that everything coming together in such a fantastic way is why banjuk kazui is held to such a high standard you know it never feels repetitive the worlds are so full of personality and life you're constantly encouraged to explore while also being correctly funneled down the correct Pathways it Nails everything so damn well I would argue perfectly there is that one propeller Jiggy that you go for in Rusty Bucket Bay that one that one really sucks but you know aside from that the development team totally nailed their first full go at a 3D platformer for all of the reasons stated above that is why banjer kazui is such a damn fine game all of these years later which is all the more reason why the end of the game is very upsetting damn the end of this game kind of kind of sucks I'm sorry once you're ready to tackle gruntilda it's time for the furnace of fun board game it's a super cute and novel idea on paper but it's the part of the game that I dread the most each spot on this board is a different style of challenge which that alone is totally fine until you land on a grunty space and then everything gets ruined when you land on one you get asked a personal question regarding how gruntilda lives her life and you remember brentilda well she gives you the answers to these questions and on every playthrough those answers are random so you either need to really pay attention and write those answers down or just blindly guess and if you die well hey just start it all over that's that's awesome I love the idea but those grunty spaces really ruin the entire thing if I was able to skip this without doing some sort of speedrun exploit that would make this so much more bearable ha bearable it does at the very least wrap up in a great way though once you make it to the end grunty escapes up a Stairway 2D is saved we're treated to a mock credit sequence again more similarities and we get a cute little vacation scene that also reminds banjo that hey you big dumb idiot you still didn't defeat grunty haha and then you get to make your way to the final part of the layer you get access to a few extra goodies if you collected enough music notes and with the help of her ding pood who totally betrayed her we can finally confront gruntilda in a pretty great boss fight the key to a good final boss in my opinion is one that properly tests every single one of the skills that you've learned on the adventure lead up to it and this absolutely does that after some solid hits It's Time to summon the help of the jingos oh what you didn't expect these cute little incompetent creatures to come together and form the almighty gingo nator well of course it's only the most logical conclusion they beat the crap out of grunty knock her right off the roof of the lirer and she falls all the way down to spiral mountain and she dies like literally a giant rock falls on top of her and her assistant can't free her and she's suffocating she dies she actually she legitimately dies well damn that's pretty morbid oh man would you look at those melons finally after that grand battle the day is saved Banjo Kazooie and Company can enjoy some rest and relaxation and then Mumbo does something pretty neat he shows off secrets from the levels that we've been visiting but they end up tying into the sequel banjo Tui this is where that mythical stop and swap idea comes into play but I think I'll save that for next time actually though in the Xbox version they start mentioning nuts and bolts instead of Tui and I I I don't know how to feel about that banjo kazui nuts and bolts make Banjo Kazooie look like a joke oops a series of somewhat weak final moments can't make banjo kazui any less of a fantastic Adventure that still all of these years later remains in the upper echelon of 3D Platformers it's not just a good game on the Nintendo 64 it's a collectathon that helped start the trend of collectons being a thing everyone at the time wanted to copy what banjo kazui did so well everything came together beautifully to make an unforgettable game that in my opinion put the red plumber to shame back in the day it does have somewhat of an interesting history as well rare replay has this really cool behind the scenes look at banra kazi's development on how it started off as an RPG for the Super Nintendo and then it moved on to the N64 and then we got sort of a side scrolling thing here that uses the bear that we know now to eventually getting to see the game that became an Ultimate Classic they also just straight up show the beta Jiggy get animation this short documentary is a really entertaining watch that comes highly recommended as well and you know now that I finally have access to rare replay I can check out the rest of rare's lineup all of these years later I've only played a couple of their games but there's 30 in here it's it's quite the quite the varied lineup as well uh okay so the first one on this list is attic attack uh it's an old computer game I guess yeah sure why not let's just say that rare had humble beginnings 3D Platformers are one of if not my favorite gaming genre exploring huge colorful worlds just collecting whatever the story tells you to collect and having a lot of fine- tuned control of your character while doing so oh it's pretty awesome and the Nintendo 64 is known for having some of the best of the best Banjo Kazooie Rayman 2 conquer Bad Fur Day if you even want to call that one a platformer and of course Super Mario 64 the game that kickstarted the whole Third Dimension Revolution and that's all fine and good but when you really dive deep into a console's library and you look for Platformers you see that there are a ton of games that make you wonder do people even know that these games exist so I have taken it upon myself to play through some hidden I don't want to say gems necessarily but definitely hidden Platformers that you may or may not have heard of but people certainly don't talk about it doesn't really help that when it comes to the Virtual Console what it is and what it was a lot of the options that I have here uh it's just not happening these games are lost in time so I've went ahead and pulled out three N64 games that I really couldn't see myself making a solo dedicated episode on and I think you'll see why in just a bit but uh let's get this adventure started shall we first off we got chameleon twist and uh boy what a what a relic of its ERA this one is so here's the story the rabbit from Alice in Wonderland I guess is running off into a giant jar that leads him into a different dimension and as the curious little chameleon that you are you jump in and doing so you transform into this thing which is still a chameleon boy I um I certainly like a good narrative in my Platformers there are actually four different chameleons that you can choose to play as but I had to go with Fred I I think he speaks to me on a personal level chameleon twist is a pretty basic linear 3D platformer that utilizes one main mechanic the chameleon's incredibly long tongue with it you can slurp up a bunch of enemies and then spit them back out latch on to different rods to get you to new platforms or spin around them for some extra Challenge and even get to perform a pole vault and honestly that kind of covers the whole game the adventure has you travel through six different lands oh hey look at that ant land that's where I live each one of course has a different aesthetic but really if you play one you've kind of played through them all in all of them you go through a series of different rooms each one offering some sort of platforming or enemy Challenge and then there are these special crowns that could be found if you want to be a true completionist and uh yeah that's it all right I just I I just got to nudge my way off this platform ever ever so slightly and that Crown is okay okay cool so while the game is pretty repetitive it doesn't overstay its welcome it honestly takes only about 2 hours to complete and in that time frame it manages to stay pretty enjoyable the entire way the bosses in in particular are really satisfying you just got to find a weak point and then absorb as many items in your mouth as you can and give yourself some nice big old chubby cheeks it's kind of cute despite the polygons and then you just keep attacking until you win it actually really works you do that six times and then the credits just kind of appear out of nowhere and yeah that's uh that's chameleon twist there was there was really no way I was going to get a full episode out of this game chameleon twist represents a simpler time in gaming it's definitely nostalgic for the era but uh it really really won't blow your mind it did manage to get a sequel though which is kind of surprising but I think we'll save that until next time honestly I think the best part about this game is the cat at the very [Music] beginning yep definitely that part oh yeah here we go now we're getting into some more of the classic stuff out there Mischief Makers it it's weird I know I'm talking about about this game in the context of it being forgotten but it's kind of not people know of Mischief Makers but they kind of know nothing about it I never see anyone talking about it so it may not be forgotten but it's definitely ignored and that's a shame in short well treasure made this game so you should kind of play Mischief Makers for that alone the story is pretty basic this professor has been kidnapped by these alien creatures and as the professor's creation you the robotic made Marina goes out to save him and while exploring the planet of clancer you actually find out that not all of these creatures are bad don't associate us with those guys we're also suffering because of them did did the game just have some sort of social commentary this uh this this got too real so the basic idea is to save the day you just grab on to anything that you can and you shake the crap out of them shake shake it's it's a lot more satisfying than you may think what's really weird about the game is the structure is super confusing you are presented a pretty basic level map but you have absolutely no idea what a level is going to have you do until you get there so there's a lot of ball shaking that goes on that's a pretty Common Thread but then you could capture some alien kids cuz they ran away from from their parents there's uh there's like a little tricycle thing that you can ride uh that's that's kind of neat you outrun exploding platforms and that's all that level is typically when the game tosses a new idea at you the level that's associated with that idea is pretty short and then there's a good chance you will not see that mechanic again while some other levels task you with exploring making those levels a lot longer it's really inconsistent and it would be more of a problem than what it really is if if it wasn't for the fact that it's actually pretty fun like there's this level about halfway through the adventure where you basically partake in the Olympics and the final competition is a mathematical faceof finally my years of being good at math in school finally come in handy oh and then you know you play dodgeball with a cat yeah you know as as one does for being a 2d platformer I really can't say that I've seen one laid out like this before okay so I know I just said that you never really know what to expect from The Game's levels but then this guy showed up and he begged me to shake him and then he turned into this weird formation of balls and blocks with faces on them and uh man the '90s were actually a mistake this whole time but ultimately the biggest problem that I have with Mischief Makers is it does kind of do a pretty poor job of introducing some gameplay mechanics as well as sometimes not really pointing you in the right direction in some some of the exploration levels it was actually kind of frustrating cuz I just didn't know where to go and then some of the mechanics that just pop up out of nowhere are really cumbersome like there's this pot idea where you get to hold it and then toss items into it and then depending on what items are in the first few slots you can then combine them together and the game is like oh you never know what you're going to get keep trying out combinations but it is used so rarely and for such small contextual puzzles that it ended up being pretty Prett annoying to use whenever it did pop up the bosses can be pretty confusing at times too often hitting me when I definitely feel like I press the grab button at the appropriate time it also really doesn't help that there's actually a bit of a delay from pushing the throw button in midair to when she actually does it the game has a lot going for it and I'm sure that's why it's so highly regarded but honestly it turned out to be a little bit too frustrating and random for its own good in my opinion ah yes it's the one mission where you're escaping from danger on an ostrich it's my favorite part of any game to be honest it's like uh it's like Mario 2 right yeah it's a just a big old Mario 2 ripoff but at the very least there is some replay value every level has a gold gem hidden to find sometimes in pretty arbitrary ways I don't know how anyone back in the day would have been able to get these without looking at a guide but uh yeah they're they're certainly hidden all right each boss can give you one too but you got to beat them perfectly without taking any damage and I quickly realized after like a half hour of trying to beat this Dragon thing without getting hit yeah that's where I gave up that just it does not seem possible that or I suck again that's very easily a possibility the game does end off pretty strong though I'll give it that throughout the adventure you go through plenty main boss battles there are three different commanders that all try to stop you along the way in pretty glamorous fashion I add this leads off to a battle with their boss the evil Commander it's a it's a clever name and then that leads off into the final battle where all three of the previous commanders combine together with their vehicles and a final fight that admittedly is is pretty cool the bosses in this game can range from being super easy or pretty frustrating except for this final boss which is actually kind of perfect and then there's the ending which is um it's it it counts down a timer with the number of how many Gold Gems you've collected to that point and since I didn't get them all eventually the ending just stops when it hits zero if I got more though the ending would actually still continue and the only way to get 100% is to get the final gem which you get by getting all the previous gems in the ending it's weird it's a very very weird ending I will say though everything else I've set aside the main theme is jamming Mischief Makers is a game that I certainly like the idea of but in execution I feel like it's just a little bit too too random and frustrating for me I don't have the Nostalgia that I'm sure a lot of you guys do out there so sorry to disappoint you that's just how I see things I definitely could see why people want a sequel though that would be awesome that alien transformation still haunts my dreams last up here today we have tonic trouble already I'm feeling little weird about this just what exactly am I looking at here what is this weird Rayman knockoff looking thing actually it turns out that this game was in fact created by the creator of Rayman Michelle anel okay all right you know I'm I'm a little more interested now in this game you play as the space janitor Ed who drops a can of weird drink to Earth which ends up transforming everything into evil versions of themselves and now the new person in charge Grog has to be stopped this game's going to try to pull a message of don't Litter the environment isn't it and then like after that cut scene it cuts to a PowerPoint presentation of the rest of the story what what wow talk about cutting costs I cannot think of a single other game off the top of my head that just gave up its storytelling halfway through the first cutscene it's pretty impressive I'm not going to lie the first thing you do is a slide Mission as well man what a what a bizarre opening from that point the game does end up following a pretty standard formula throughout the entire Adventure here is the doctor he needs some help Gathering materials all conveniently in bunches of six to power up his machine to get Ed to where Grog is located you go and explore pretty linear 3D environments to get the mcduffin that you need you get a new ability every time you complete a level to help you out on your next level you're and repeat until the end though I will say the game is very very rough often it just doesn't feel like the game is finished with how bad the camera can be at times the controls sometimes just aren't responsive the frame rate dips into insanely low numbers at times I'll be honest though just the absurdity of what I was doing did Keep Me invested Until the End believe me a lot of the game a whole lot of it is frustrating due to the poor camera and controls like I mentioned before but I'm clearly just a sick person here I just had to see what the next level was going to do to me who knows what weird and wacky layout of platforming and puzzles I'll end up hating in 20 minutes all right I just I ju I just want the thing I just I I just want the thing all right fine you know what I didn't I didn't even want it in the first place like okay a common mechanic throughout the game is like you'll occasionally stumble upon these popcorn machines that and I'm really not lying here are branded Newman's Own Super Ed dude just what the hell was going on in the 9s I get it a lot of you guys miss it myself included but let's be real here a lot of you guys who were part of it you you were out of your minds all right man you against me with my dart gun obviously I'm going to win that that man exploded I kind of have a sneaking suspicion here that the developers really had no no idea on how to make this adventure make sense like you collect 10 thermometers to increase your maximum life for some random reason they probably thought that was funny but then you also collect bits of mercury the stuff that's found within thermometers to heal up so I guess it ends up making sense and honestly while I did kind of enjoy myself here the game is certainly not pleasant at all to look at you're kind of just surrounded by caves and metal for the entire way through just with different colors you're also expected to collect a majority of these swirly little things too uh oh they're called antidotes by the way I don't know why either and the only way to do so is with that good old fashion backtracking oh talk about having the cherry on top by collecting enough of them you then get access to the final item that you need to take on Grog you then get slingshot into orbit cuz I I think this point sure I'll take it and after one final level you battle Grog and his robotic creation and oh my God it's mainly flying with these terrible controls they just they just had to ruin the final boss didn't they after far too much time dealing with that torment Grog disintegrates the world goes back to normal Ed celebrates and the doc's daughter congratulate you from now on we'll take more care of our environment oh my God they actually did it I I am honestly a bit stunned on how poor this game is considering how good Rayman 2 is Rayman would go on to be one of the best games on that console while tonic trouble deservedly went on to be forgotten it's probably where it belongs at the very least it does have an interesting spot in the console's history it just makes Rayman 2 look that much better at the end of the day here despite these games being forgotten they still do all represent a part of gaming history this was a time where 3D Platformers were so prevalent but people only were interested in the cream of the crop all of these other games came out to try to get to that success but barely any of them did these Adventures created brand new worlds characters and stories but I doubt that we'll see companies return to them anytime soon and really now in the context of a gaming world where everyone wanted to be 3D it's amazing that Mischief Makers exists all this hyper on games adding a z-axis to the X and Y axis for you to play through and this game goes 2D it's no wonder this game got lost in the shuffle I know I just ended up picking three games that I wasn't a huge fan of but here's the thing realistically the quality of these games don't really matter if you're a fan of the N64 and a fan of Platformers you have three more games to check out here it doesn't matter if they're good or bad because at the end of the day these are games that represent this conso soul in that generation while I didn't enjoy tonic trouble I definitely don't regret playing it but uh that's only three games now I'm only scratching the surface of what forgotten Platformers are out there but there is one game that I did want to check out that I think I could go a little bit more in depth with I know you guys are going to be asking for it anyway so tune in next time we have a glove game the '90s were weird Glover is the origin story of the Smash Brothers antagonist masterand okay wait no that that doesn't sound right Glover is a licensed game partnered up with hamburger helper to help sell more pasta okay wait that still doesn't seem right Glover is an Underdog Story detailing the trials and tribulations of Childish Gambino AKA Donald Glover man that's still something's not right here now I can't even begin to think about the thought process that led to this game's development a lot of 3D Platformers of this time brought us characters who a lot of them were animals there were some aliens here and there but a glove dude like why why does this exist a platformer featuring a glove I mean it must have worked though to be fair I remember specifically asking for this game when I was a kid and this is still my original copy hell I'm amazed I remember this but it even sponsored classic WWF for a little while now I haven't played this game in quite a while and actually this is going to be the first time that I go ahead and beat it so that's a bit of a momentous occasion Let's uh let's see what I've been missing out on all these years it's a glove why a large lovely Castle I'm liking this so far so here's the story here we have the wizard named The Wizard it's a good thing they told me okay so that that is that's not how that works at all you don't just toss the entire vial in the pool of evil goo oh and hey look at that it exploded that's what you get as a result of the explosion he turns into stone and falls to the bottom of the castle not before both of his gloves fly off him well that's awfully convenient the crystals that are laying on top the Castle's many roofs then start to fall but thankfully our hero Glover transforms them into bouncy balls as they all bounce into these portals to other Realms again awfully awfully convenient and what happened to the other glove oh it looks like he's evil now uh-oh Glover got fed okay so that's a that's a whole lot to take here let's just let's just dive into the game oh no this game is scary you can't see anything the sky is covered in red that evil menacing laugh just keeps playing in the background there are bats maybe the bats are actually the ones laughing all this time oh oh man buddy you all right oh it's no worries though thankfully we got Mr tip here to give us some help nothing that our friendly neighborhood Mi Mr tip can't fix I I I don't like that name the concept of the game is pretty straightforward you transformed the crystals into balls so now it's your job to bring the balls back back to the castle to recrystallize them and save the wizard easy peasy and of course she got to do some platforming to get that done but it's not just you that gets the platforming done when you go into a new world for the first time the ball that you need is right there meaning it is your job to bring it safely to the end of each level in order to return it home successfully that also means this game is one long escort Mission Yoshi's Island eat your heart out and and you can do a lot with the ball here to be fair you can bounce it you could slap it you can roll on it all the standard things that you could do with a hand and a ball that keeps the game's age rating low and if you're feeling risky you can transform the ball on the fly to a bowling ball or a small magnetic ball each having some contextual uses and lastly the crystal itself it scores double points for all of the items that you pick up but be careful one false move and I I genuinely love that sound it's amazing basically you and the ball end up sharing like the same life force or something like if you die you lose a life but if you lose the ball you also lose a life and for some extra fun sometimes the ball just escapes from you without even meaning to do that and then it falls it breaks then you die oh it's exciting so this is an entire game based around the idea of bringing a ball from point A to point B and for a concept that's so simplistic I'll give the game credit it has a decent amount of variety mainly in how Glover controls very often you'll run into different potions and stuff that help you solve more puzzles gather Collectibles or just move the ball someplace else uh spinning collectible symbols a true staple of the 9s as for the different worlds that you explore you have the Atlantis a Carnival a pirates World Fortress of fear ooh spooky the prehistoric era and lastly out of this world man you even get to travel to space Oh that's pretty cool look at this super cool dino here I definitely want to party with them the changes in the visuals definitely keep the game interesting the adventure is very bright and colorful and each level within a world strives for something slightly different but there's there is so much fog in this world Nintendo 64 games no notoriously have bad draw distances so much so that people just ended up jokingly calling it fog what a cute name for a technical limitation the soundtrack is surprisingly good too most of the tracks are legitimately great some of the carnival music the Atlantis music even the title screen is pretty good didn't see that coming it's kind of shocking from such a random game like this gameplay-wise though the variety doesn't really exist it's kind of the same thing the whole way just and weave the ball safely hit the switches with the ball slam your fist into Glover switches you collect these special garab cards if you want and yeah that's that's about it for as weird of a game as this is it plays pretty well Glover controls really nicely the game keeps a fairly consistent frame rate it's pretty to look at compared to some of the other B tier Platformers on this console it's kind of impressive actually it's just those damn ball controls kind of kind of r ruin everything they fight you back at all times and since the game is all about that it knocks it down quite a few notches whenever you play as Glover it plays totally fine whenever it's just you and not the ball I never once felt like I didn't have proper full control over his actions the ball changes everything just in terms of basic platforming so you can't jump with the ball right no no no you have to dribble it instead meaning you have to push the button a second before you want to move since you need to factor in the time it takes for the ball to hit the floor oh and then sometimes the camera absolutely sucks too cool that's that's fun and then remember how I said you go to space at the end of the game it sounds cool right and then consider that it's also a lack of gravity oh good God now realistically it is pretty easy to see why this game got created who doesn't love just taking a big bouncing ball and just bouncing it all over the place it is one of life's Simple Pleasures and then you take 3D Platformers which are also awesome you put those two together what happened thankfully though the boss battles are relatively simple it's usually just a matter of hitting them or hitting switches around them and you just keep doing that until they go down except for the Frankenstein monster here which is just bad for this one you have to slowly readjust the positions of all of these platforms to then bring the ball up while bouncing it at the right time to avoid the monster from causing the ball to fall it's honestly a mess all the other bosses in this game are fine some of them are far too easy for their own good or far too weird I'm just bowling the ball and hopefully hitting the dinosaur what but no this one sucks this one is the worst part of the game and then rather than having a dedicated final boss the boss of world six out of this world is the final boss the first thing you do here is simply walk into the robot from its foot there that was that was pretty easy you know just the only I do is walk there it's really not all that difficult uh what I died but wait what I just I just did it though nothing spawned that was weird oh wait no there I am uh okay I just got to slide into place uh wow okay yeah we're good cool we're good and then the last part here is like the most clever part of the entire game you're a hand for crying out loud so you grab like this big control stick and now you just shoot this flying robot with as many bouncing balls as possible which somehow hurts it I don't understand how that works they're just bouncing balls but okay this is some sort of creativity that the entire game could have used you bring that final Crystal back to the wizard he returns to normal as does the evil crossstitch due to the Wizard's magic and uh yeah that's that wraps up Glover Glover is a weird game out of all the B tier Platformers on the N64 it's kind of one of the most iconic that has to be primarily due to the character's design I think more people are aware of that than the game itself and you know what fair enough a four-fingered glove with the face you got to remember this was a time where they told us that this was a chameleon Glover made perfect sense there was actually meant to be a sequel and it did end up getting fairly far into development as a ROM of the beta got uploaded online it seemed like it was going to be more of a mission based game than level based and you'd be able to move more things around than just a bouncing ball so that would have been cool but sadly that got cancelled and I'm pretty sure we'll never see another Glover game again at the very least though we did get Billy Hatcher and that's it's kind of like a spiritual successor right it's just it's just not the same we are going to start things off by talking about a game that is near and dear to basically all of our hearts Super Mario 6 for and what else can really be said about this classic it shook the industry at its core back in the day and personally speaking it was quite magical my first time playing through and even nowadays the game is still pretty F that ain't Mario that's that's green [Music] Mario welcome to Super Mario 64 ROM hacks now these ROM hacks have a bit of an interesting history while you would assume that modifying a three-dimensional game as opposed to two-dimensional would provide just a ton of super simple hacks that get a couple little things done like changing Mario into green Mario for example would be really the entirety of it that's actually not the case the earliest hack that I can remember that was actually super surprising was Super Mario 64 the missing stars in the far off year of 2009 and I mean hey look at this totally new Landscapes a modified HUD and totally new mechanics like a day night cycle that provide different missions without needing to go through the classic star selection screen there's only 38 stars in this adventure but still it was super cool to see at the time after seeing so many hacks of Sonic the Hedgehog and Super Mario World seeing someone put genuine effort that shows in a 3D game was awesome it may not seem all that impressive now but it set the framework for years in the future and two recent major hacks show just how far this hacking scene has come first up we have sm64 Star Road oh man where to begin with this one this hack is awesome at its Essence well it is a full scale 130 star adventure with completely new and fleshed out worlds and a varied lineup of missions The Hub world is really nice even holding a few Secrets here and there the soundtrack is filled with a bunch of remixes from games like Mario RPG Donkey Kong Country 2 and even Bomberman 64 and man it's just a lot of fun the level designs have a good blend of exploration and proper platforming and with a camera that's actually pretty good I know contain your shock if any hack in this video is is considered must play it's going to be this one I know I'm totally just getting ahead of myself here but this is easily the best hack of Mario 64 yet I even like the slightly changed colors of the plumber for some reason it's not much but it looks nice and it even pulls off some really unheard of stuff like if you get a game over you actually get tossed into this little area that you must escape to get back to the adventure Star Road ain't nothing to mess with I could talk about this for 20 minutes but let's move on now not too long ago we have a more conceptually advanced hack last impact and uh H so getting the good out of the way up front there is plenty of brand new stuff that is exclusive to this hack like there is a fully playable file select screen there's cutcenes and no your eyes are not fooling you it's even in widescreen it's actually super surreal playing Mario 64 this way way I mean you could play it in 4x3 but like why for the most part though the adventure follows the same idea as Star Road you have a bunch of new areas to explore with original missions to do but the worlds are much larger missions are more varied and there's even a plethora of new powerups yes I am currently using the flood right now that's pretty cool the space level also uses meteor herds theme from Sonic Adventure 2 and I don't care what anybody says I still love that soundtrack there is a lot of really cool things going on in this hack however while all of this stuff is impressive it's going for far more than it's really capable of I get the feeling the hacker went for more of a look at this cool thing I added approach rather than a look at this fun thing I added approach the game can be shockingly frustrating at times and some of the missions are far too directionless despite the addition of the cutcenes that introduce each of the missions like here's a perfect example I just started a race with this mermaid but I have absolutely no idea where she went could be that the camera was completely facing the opposite direction and the game didn't tell me where she was going to go in the first place eventually I did figure out where to go but even once I passed this awful camera I didn't have enough air if only the game pointed me in the right direction of the frog suit or even told told me the thing existed in the first place I'd have been fine now this is not really a game-wide issue but I still found myself more annoyed than I should have I think I'm in a minority here since I think people actually really like this one so last impact is definitely worth checking out simply based on its impressiveness but for me it is honestly way too frustrating for its own good if you're going to pick one star road is the way to go but see now now that is both sides of the timeline right there the Genesis and the modern and there are also plenty of fullscale hacks that have been made on top of these one example Super Mario 64 green stars stop me if you've heard this before we have a brand new Hub World new levels with different settings and a full range of missions and a whopping total of 130 stars to collect it's not as good as Star Road but it's still awesome to see and like this is why I love really good ROM hacks you basically have the equivalent of a full game that blends familiar with new and it is awesome I may not be a fan of last impact but I can at least appreciate and admire its existence but finally that is enough time spent raving it's time to take a look at all of the other stuff that's thrown here somewhere in the middle first up there's swamp's Easter egg hunt and here you actually play as the Swamp it's a it's an interesting choice I'll I'll give them credit on that your job is to run around or I guess hop around all of the areas trying to find Easter eggs I guess I mean I think that's what I'm trying to do but I I don't know it seems like a neat idea but this is just absolute hell to control you constantly need to jump and maintain momentum and platforming on top of that is a near impossibility there's also these weird static Banjo Kazooie models just thrown around randomly I I don't know man I I play this for like 20 minutes and I didn't see a single egg I'm pretty sure they're just a myth if there's any Easter egg hunt that you want to go on the better choice here is to play Goomba's Easter egg hunt and by the grace of mamoto look at him go he can actually move and the game looks a lot better too the Aesthetics definitely fit the Mario theme here and the music is nice and energetic this is what I'm talking about the camera can be a bit annoying to work with but it is still loads better than the last one there's your typical Mario grasslands a space area with lower gravity and even a purely 2D area not enough Mario 64 hacks go for this type of thing um this is the level select room from Glover Why by the time I got to the desert stage though things started to get a bit unnecessarily tough for me so I think it's time I tap out and well the banjo kazui models are here again for no real reason and I'm constantly questioning that super Banjo Kazooie 64 it's the levels from banjo kazui but in Mario 64 that was that was a simple enough explanation now unfortunately don't get too excited here it's not as good as it sounds the camera was clearly not built for levels like this and honestly the hack itself doesn't seem to be built for levels like this it's a really great idea that's worth some time and it only has 30 Stars so it's okay for what it is man can you imagine Luigi and Bottles hanging out that would be just the most perfect pair of nerds and I would love to see that and in fact the same idea was even done for banjo tu's levels again it doesn't really work out as well as I would like to but it's at least really cool to look at and some of the missions are legitimately fun there's even an attempt to recreate the massive Hub world of ILO hags and it actually kind of succeeds and you know what why not let's go for the hatrick Super Donkey Kong 64 and hey I was actually ready to hate on this one too but it actually has a bit more work put into it like this area here that was used with tiny Kong in the source game was actually properly recreated that's cool you can get powerups by getting enough Stars there's even an area that transports you to different levels through Cranky's lab again just like the source game and I got to say it's actually pretty refreshing moving through this game this quickly considering the original moves at the pace of a sloth forget about a gorilla yeah yeah I'm not a big fan of dk64 what of it now say what you will about the Wii U but that console is home to Captain tow treasure Tracker so it will always be worth owning an awesome puzzle game starring the mushroom capped hero Capp Toad and you can probably guess where I'm going with this Captain Toad 64 now this is only a proof of concept only having one level but it's so cool unlike the actual Captain Toad you can jump but as you can see doesn't really do much of anything as a result it is up to you to figure out how to get from one platform to another and and get all of the treasure before collecting the big star It's a Mario game where the main character traverses the world without jumping I love it actually there is a similar hack that changes all of the textures into the monkey's face you you hackers are a bunch of sick people you know that now if you're familiar with Super Mario World hacking the name kaiso will either ring a bell or bring up War flashbacks some would argue that this style of hack really offers up a unique challenge others would argue that it's really really bad level design thinkk you know where I stand but why do I bring this up now I am glad you asked kaiso Mario 64 ah yes the line of fire shooting through the pipe bit classic immediately we're left with an interesting challenge the door is blocked also fire and there is a block pyramid just on the opposite side also fire now if you're a veteran of Mario 64 you know that within that Black Pyramid is the respawn point so what you have to do is die from the fire so you spawn inside of the pyramid you quickly talk to the pink B bomb that's in there and then you can open up the path and get inside the castle oh off to a good start so far all right all right let's see what bub bom Battlefield has in store oh no wait sorry chain chomp Battlefield let me guess uhhuh yep okay there's copy and pasting chain Chomps all over the place beautiful I mean it's not as hard to Traverse as it may appear to be it's just I it's a it's confusing really oh and the warp spots have changed too that that's a challenge right now I got to play through the level like how Nintendo wanted me to oh this is a tough the battlefield is just covered in chain trumps what it what is the challenge here oh no I can't possibly beat king B oh hey look at that I beat him cool ah all right they can't possibly screw up the secret slide can they ah yes of course they can I was foolish at least a dozen attempts later I finally made it the star is just not going to show up is it I hate Kao so much all right everyone here we are we're playing the ever famous adventure mode from Super Smash Brothers Melee we got Mario here for this one of course my main and you know the one thing I always loved about Adventure Mode was the fact there was a whole lot more than just fighting we got full on platforming dungeon crawling oh yeah collecting red coins on the r wi that was always my favorite part oh and yeah how can I forget about the beating up Pikachu's bit you can't forget about the beating up Pikachu's bit that part's great getting into the Blue Falcon and driving along big blue doy wait a minute this isn't melee this is a rom hack I really should have known this part here really threw me off but yes today we're going to be taking a look at ROM hacks and mods for Super Smash Brothers but as you can clearly tell this goes far beyond just smash this was actually the hack that inspired this entire video Adventure Mode recreated in Super Mario 64 such a cool idea given the nature of how that mode was done the levels within really lend themselves to the movement options possible in sm64 it can be stressful too man there's a time to brinstar escape like you would expect and wow if we ever needed a reminder that Precision platforming wasn't really this game strong suit this would be it but you may be saying what if Mario isn't my main well no worries there we got a whole slew of extra characters to play as you got Luigi Fox NES and even Captain Falcon each with their own little slight tweaks the only real issue though is Falcon isn't fast enough to outra Samurai Goro's vehicle on foot and admittedly that would just be kind of cool big shout outs to the creator of this one pasta Power Man such a cool idea and it was done so well and as an additional bonus they went ahead and hacked in not only Fox but also Falco in the base Super Mario 64 as well these basic little character swap hacks are such a simple pleasure in life man they're so cool oh man you move so fast when you're carrying King B bomb to this is great all right King I'm done with your shenanigans let's go done with you you're grounded we're through God damn it not really sure where this is going but I'm excited oh this is incredible Hyrule Temple from melee the infamously huge stage with nooks and crannies of Plenty it is not something I've ever thought of before but with some creative Liberties it does kind of make for a really fascinating platformer stage and in Banjo kazui no less ah it's so refreshing seeing this after playing as many Mario 64 hacks as I have this is no simple dragon drop of the source stage either all of the set pieces are definitely here but there was a lot more added to make this feel as fulfilling as an actual banjo level we got 100 musical notes and eight Jiggies to collect you got to make that ride really enticing you know yeah you know this area at the very bottom that is definitely familiar but scaling this mountain side to check out the top of these castles super cool idea and it makes sense with within the level's context and my favorite part by far was the secret door that led to Zelda 2's title screen oh I loved that a lot it's time to talk about smash 64 this is in my opinion the most exciting modding scene at the moment as far as smash is concerned simply based on how new it all feels as expected on a Bare Bones level we do have a few new individual stages there's Tetris themed Banjo Kazooie Bomberman 64 even a brand new break the target stage featuring elements from every main level which is really cool big shout outs to snooplax he does a great job showcasing mods like this and many more and is even responsible for creating a few of these wouldn't have known about some of these levels if it wasn't for him so good job dude like this full hack right here super sonic Bros a mod pack that replaces all of the stages with ones inspired by the original Sonic the Hedgehog with all of the appropriate music attached to them of course there's simple layout changes here we're not dealing with any new gimmicks or anything like that but they all still feel like the stages they're representing and that is all I need to see and also there's a Sonic 2 variant here Super Sonic 2 Bros and I mean come on now Sonic 2 is better than Sonic 1 so singing those same exact Praises but with Sonic 2 themes instead ah this instantly makes this the better hack I'm sorry I don't make the rules gameplay-wise smash 64 is definitely less intense than all the newer entries so having stuff like this is a great incentive to give this old game another shot especially since you see most of what these hacks have to offer in a single run of the single player mode a perfect way to experience what these are all about but if you're a longtime rom hack episode Watcher on my channel you already know that I love when someone can take an old game and completely transform it into something totally new brawl definitely had that but it's infinitely cooler when we get that with something even older everybody say hello to smash remix so you know how a mod like project plus adds an incredible amount of content and customization to brawl well I love that I'm able to say that smash remix does the same exact thing but for smash 64 oh baby this character select menu I love this we got all these melee characters showing up even a couple from brawl and beyond all of these new Fighters have new move sets too they play just like you think they would even with the limited options of Smash 64 and on all of the returning characters pressing the d-pad in a different direction brings up variations like polygon versions accessing Metal Mario giant Donkey Kong even Giga Bowser and even why not Regional variants I do believe this means gameplay differences but the most important change is while American smash goes Japanese smash goes that is very important and oh oh man I'm going to do it again the stage selection holy cow this is so good there's multiple Pages oh you get to play on the desk from the opening cut scene and it's called first destination that that is so clever the only real way to describe smash remix is absolute overload enough changes were implemented to make the game feel distinct from the pure smash 64 so with that in mind being able to play with new and familiar characters on stages like momentos from Persona 5 Goomba Road from Paper Mario a basketball court from NBA Jam I guess it's probably from another smash mod but I don't know you get to slam dunk your opponents with the barrels that's all I needed to see man the stage is great new challenge levels for all of the new Fighters a pretty cool 12 character battle mode sort of similar to Smash down from Ultimate and the best part this hack is still getting updated consistently as I was working on this episode a new version dropped with new items Kirby hats for all of the new Fighters which is great because I was ready to complain that they weren't in the version I was working with before this dropped and the Bowser hat on Kirby is just so so damn cute and even oh man get this the Mad piano from Super Mario 64 as a playable fighter oh this is amazing he can Chomp you he shoots books at you when you taunt he plays a little bit of of Music this is this is amazing and something else really cool is you can even play this on a real Nintendo 64 simply load up the ROM on something like an ever drive and boom it's like it's a real game or something sure it definitely looks worse than an emulator no doubt but there is something really cool about being able to play this on an actual console you can actually do the same thing with that banjo kazui hack too that's so much fun man the ROM hacking scene is so damn cool last year we took a look at some n6 four Platformers that I would consider to be more on the Forgotten side of things tonic trouble Mischief Makers and chameleon twist and while I wasn't the biggest fan of everything that those games had to offer I thought they were still worth playing hey if the entire console generation is going to be considered the Golden Age of 3D Platformers you may as well play everything there is to play and then some I have since gone ahead and played the chameleon twist Sequel and uh boy what happened here I'm sorry was was the original chameleon just too cute for the hardcore Gamers at least everywhere except Japan they kept it adorable that's appreciated high voltage screaming action certainly that's subjective I was thinking that I would have a lot more to say about this game going into this episode but honestly I don't it's kind of just a not as good chameleon twist with a whole lot more waiting like holy cow the game asks you to wait so many times and then like there's this weird roulette power up that sometimes just turns your run into a crawl just like that and you're forced to deal with it for a little bit I mean sometimes the power up does nothing at all which is weird but I would much rather that than being forced to go slow in a platformer that sucks overall though chameleon twist 2 not terrible but you're better off playing the first one even if the new chameleons just look like an ugly Yuka nah I take it back the sequel's better but I made sure to listen after that last episode you see I thought I knew the entire N64 library but I really wanted to see what you guys were going to be suggesting in the comments of set episode I know it's a it's a novel concept so if you're in the market for some more N64 Platformers out there that are a bit under the radar this is the place to be oh man if any game oozes that good old 9s cheese it's space station Silicon Valley a slideshow of images of janky 3D models acting like an old CRT TV with the interface using at Comic Sands for the font the absolute madmen and the story here is so ridiculous it's on a level that I really couldn't anticipate so the space station Silicon Valley filled with robotic animals and a few scientists disappeared after it launched in the year 2001 a thousand years later in the year 3000 it reappears and it's on a collision course towards Earth well I guess we know now where Sonic Adventure 2 got its inspiration so Dan danger and his robot companion Evo set off to investig at Dan danger that's a pretty sweet name well as expected their ship crashes causing EVO to eject out of his seat and break into a bunch of pieces and well this is where the core concept of the game comes from you take control of Evo's microchip which allows you to take over the wide variety of animals that are spread throughout the entire space station and whenever you enter one for the first time there's this sick matrixes reveal of what the animal is and what it can do that's pretty sweet and the amount of animals that can take control of is wild there's rocket shooting dogs elephants hyena bikers camels that spit a king rat that farts oh and the normal mice just poop nice dude and each of these creatures are introduced at a great Pace you see the game is structured with a basic level setup with each one dropping you off into a small sandbox and you have a few objectives to go through and once you set off well it's up to you to explore and experiment with what works and what doesn't and well it's not always pleasant but the creativity of what these animals can do shines through so often and when it finally clicks on which one you need to take control of to do the thing that's asked of you oh it's very satisfying but then the game has you do combat every now and then and it blows mainly because it takes no time for you to die no lie if the game had like an infinite health code or something it would be way more enjoyable I know I'm complaining oh man games are just too hard for stupid old me n this this is pretty cheap there are some minor control issues like some animals move too slow some animals platform in pretty cumbersome ways but come on now it's an N64 quotes platformer some of these things just come with the platform like listen to this sometimes the camera isn't great I know truly shocking to hear but the health issue is really the only part of the game that's actively preventing you from enjoying it a lot more with no better way to progress then kind of just hope that this time you get lucky even when I go in knowing exactly what I have to do sometimes the character will just be like one in to the left or something like that and I'll get hit by some other missile that I didn't get hit from last time and there you go got to start again it can kind of suck that being said though based purely on the originality and the sense of style that is overwhelming in this game I still had a good time it is definitely more annoying than it should be at times but I can't say I've really played anything like it I guess Super Mario Odyssey letting you take control of a ton of different things with Cappy sort of comes close but that's about it the soundtrack is pretty popping too and it actually plays in the game world that's pretty cool so yeah not perfect but a damn interesting game to say the least during an era where a lot of these games were considered Super Mario 64 clones it's nice to see one do something absolutely original you know these developers would make another game on the 60 Flor called body Harvest a sort of open world third person shooter where you like shoot the crap out of insects it looks pretty cool come to find out that actually that team dma design would become Rockstar North the people behind Grand Theft Auto so yeah pretty cool history all around you know put a microchip and some robotic animals into Grand Theft Auto 6 and we may have something there and speaking of Super Mario 64 clones and companies with interesting history rocket robot on Wheels it kind of sucks that this game is considered forgotten because oh man do I ever adore it sucker punch the company for these Sly Cooper and Infamous franchises got their start with this adorable little robot dude although rocket only has one wheel and the title implies that he has multiple now we know why the game didn't sell well the theme park whoopy world is in crisis while the owner is out at a party the mascot's sidekick JoJo is tired of the walrus Whoopi being the star of the show and he finally takes his chance to do something about it and Rocket the obedient little robot that he is goes off to explore the park retrieve all the tickets and tokens that JoJo stole as well as Whoopi and make sure that everything is good for the parks opening day it's a pretty interesting premise that gives you just enough reason to go on an adventure and once you start exploring it's obvious that this game nails that amusan Park aesthetic perfectly just in the first level alone we're dropped off onto a Beachside Boardwalk with a ridable hot dog car there's multiple attractions to take part in and there's even a roller coaster creator that you're then able to go in and ride yourself that's really cool not every stage necessarily goes for that theme park aesthetic but the things that you're able to do within each of them are just so out there and varied it ends up being a super compelling Adventure from start to finish and this is also thanks to how rocket controls if you played sucker Punch's other games then you would know that they have a certain sense of flow and momentum to them when it comes to the platforming while still being able to nail where you want to go at almost all times rocket has that same exact feel from his bouncy jumps swinging grabbing hold of items and throwing them it just feels really good we have an original idea with an adorable mascot character that fits in right with the rest of them NE to remind you one of them was a glove and it's all presented to us in a gameplay style that we're definitely familiar with but outright labeling any 3D platformer as a Super Mario 64 clone isn't really fair to what the game does on its own that being said it is structured in a similar way more so like banjo kazui than anything else each level is a sandbox with a dozen tickets to get for completing objectives there's a couple Health upgrades to find and 200 tokens to collect that can be brought over to Tinker in the home world to unlock some more abilities like a grappling hook or ice breath and every single tool in Your Arsenal is put to the test so when the time comes for the final level this massive obstacle course you feel ready for it because you already messed with everything you have available to you and no worries if you think you'll get lost each collectible ticket has a little hint attached to them and your quest to find everything is nothing a little bit of exploration and experimentation can't solve and while we can argue whether or not a lava pit here is something that constitutes a theme park setting it's awesome that each level has a strong identity from one having a big painting mechanic to one being entirely based on writing a flying carpet again frustrations do show up from time to time but on the whole it is a damn magical 3D platformer and considering how good sucker punches later games were I I would say that this makes them one of the most consistent thirdparty developers out there funnily enough I've also always considered this part of an unofficial platformer Trilogy with Rayman 2 and tonic trouble not just because Ubisoft published all three but because back in 1998 there was this promo tape that advertised all three games and for me it was at the start of this Rayman cartoon VHS tape that I had because that was totally a thing and since I didn't own this game until I got older as well as tonic trouble I watch this advertisement over and over again it is ingrained into my psyche the tonic trouble commercial was just a bunch of people beating up Tomatoes well yeah sure I'll buy that game all these years later being able to finally play these games to completion and talk about it with you guys is personally really satisfying also it's the best game on the 64 to come in a red cartridge take that Jeremy McGrath and finally we're ending off with mystical ninja starring going man you know I did want to go into this talking about just how forgotten this little guy is but he recently just got a costume in Smash Brothers ultimate how awesome is that it was revealed like 20 seconds before Sans so he immediately went back to being forgotten but hey for those 20 seconds what a time to be alive overall though mystical ninja is indeed a forgotten series which is crazy because it's absolutely massive just got to do one little internet search here bam a a couple of the localized games did make their way to the Virtual Console services but for the most part this is a large franchise in Japan and that's about it they gave one game a shot on the Super Nintendo and of course here we are talking about one of their attempts on the N64 and uh yeah it takes no time to see just how Japanese we're dealing with here right as you boot the game up we got a full-on animesque opening all done with the in-game models which is pretty wild for the 64 and actual Japanese vocals being sung well if they want me to really feel like I'm in a Japanese setting they nailed it while our heroes goon and ebis samaru were out shopping a giant flying object appears and fires a laser at oo Castle fully transforming it so after we have eamu do this for a little bit we go off to investigate from there honestly the story ends up going a bunch of different ways this really does have that sort of long running anime feel to it the second one story arc ends we start off on another one but all with the goal of stopping this evil Idol spring Breeze dancing that's a pretty fantastic name all things considered now I knew absolutely nothing about this series going into this game but if you had told me earlier that this is essentially a Zelda styled Adventure where you explore different lands and towns with the main goal of getting through different dungeons except you do a lot more platforming than puzzle solving yeah I would have signed up for this years ago navigation can be a bit confusing at times in my experience it's best to have a on you since the game doesn't really do an awesome job reminding you of where you need to go next but once you have that sense of direction it is surprisingly super fun you explore massive castles deal with ghosts with the power of a special camera turn yourself into a mermaid to deal with underwater sections fast travel is courtesy of a giant flying dragon and hey if you do want to be traditional and stick to the in-game method of trying to figure out what to do next you can always ask for assistance from plasma man well now that's absolutely terrifying and like whenever something kind of humorous happens in the story a laugh track plays man this game is weird oh and uh just in case you were wondering because I know you were of course goon can go Super Saiyan why would you think otherwise for the most part this is what the entire game is all about talking to civilians in different towns mowing down a bunch of enemies across the lands and getting through the obstacles that stand in your way in the dungeons leading up to boss fights and the whole time time the soundtrack is fantastic constant jams from start to finish but when the game does want to change things up well that's when you call upon this giant Mech impact accompanied with its own theme song because of course it does and after running towards the villain in question destroying anything that you come in contact with you then take part in a firstperson punchout styled fight with laser beams throwing fists all over the place this is ridiculous they were pretty difficult to get through at first as well but once I learned about some of these special moves that you can pull off oh boy did I ever just dominate from then on this this game is fantastic dare I say when it comes to third party games on the Nintendo 64 something that the console didn't really excel at this is easily one of the best that you can play they did make another game on the N64 with goon's great adventure which does have similar elements but this is a 2d platformer instead something more in line with the other goingon game that released outside of of Japan the plot is ridiculous as to be expected at this point the game overall is a bit tough actually especially in Co-op but once again super fun it's also one of the few mythical games out there on the N64 that actually uses the d-pad pretty interesting I would say we definitely had a better lineup of games this time around titles that do a much better job representing the N64 generation as the quote unquote golden age of 3D Platformers I may not be over the moon about space station Silicon Valley but I can always appreciate when a game strives to do something original and hell I finally saw the opportunity to talk about rocket robot on Wheels that's good enough for me like I said last time the quality of these games doesn't really matter in this case I just enjoy finally getting to explore everything that this console has to offer Mario Party 1 oh boy the commercial for this game was wild man Mario straight up gets arrested what a way to sell a Mario game Mario Party 1 also known as and with this Unholy amalgamation of Mario and board game Mario party was born the game begins with a bit of a story five of the mushroom Kingdom's finest and Wario are arguing about which of them is the biggest star you got you got Peach out here getting kidnapped every 2 minutes with the nerve to think that she's the best one of the group even Mario is like is she a for real what the oh God guys what what are you doing the poor OU eventually the arguing gets to be too much and then toad ascends into the heavens it's decided that the only way to figure out which character here has all the qualities needed to be a superstar whatever that means a competition must be held those qualities being strength wisdom courage and kind kindness three of those things are just the Triforce everybody runs towards the pipe leading to party town and then boom Party Time few things in life are as satisfying as seeing a story introduced into a party game as a glue to stick everything together personally I would have preferred a story that doubled down on the whole Mario getting arrested idea I think at this point everyone is well aware about the way to play Mario Party you get your turn placement at the start of the board board and then you just kind of go and then whatever happens happens and we got a good handful of boards to play on for this first Suare most of them being based on the characters involved in said Suare they try to take advantage of what the characters were all about at this point in time so Donkey Kong has a jungle Yoshi's got an island Peach has a birthday cake Mario has a Castle in the Sky Wario has a war zone that's a bit of a stretch there I didn't play that game and then Luigi has engine room H is Mario Party predicting the future with Luigi taking advantage of technology in his own Adventures that wouldn't release for a few years after this hm makes you think rounding off the boards are Bowser's magma mountain and eternal star like I said it's a pretty good lineup it's the first game in the series here what better way to hit the ground running than by making boards that are based on the characters involved even if there're as dumb conceptually as plants on a cake to spice the different boards up each one is paired with its own sort of gimmicks like Yoshi's tropical island for example is all about traveling between two different islands Peach's birthday cake is based on planting flowers for some reason yo what is this woman doing planting flowers on her cake Luigi's engine room has barriers that alternate between open and closed to really mess up someone's plans and Mario's battle Canyon is bad one of these boards had to had to take that title after all magma Mountain though this one woo this one is legitimately dumb every couple turns the game just decides to constantly take a bunch of your coins away but what would a Mario Party game be without the good oldfashioned chance time it did make its debut here in this first game and it's kind of as crazy as ever within the span of like 30 to 60 seconds the entire momentum of the game changes and it is honestly awesome I know people don't like the randomness of this but quite frankly the yelling that ensues when this happens with a bunch of friends oh it's so worth it overall though the boards are just kind of okay and they're pretty repetitive honestly despite some gimmicks popping up here and there the boards kind of tend to feel pretty similar you can occasionally have like this mushroom block pop up to let you roll again or you skip a next turn that kind of makes things a little more interesting but no no every board kind of feels the same to be fair though I'm pretty sure the developers were really just testing the waters here throwing whatever they could at the wall and seeing what sticks that explains how Mario Party 2 is so much better and you want to know how I know this is the case well to access any of the mini games in free play mode you have to buy them oh but okay what if what if I can't afford the game that I want to play oh no worries there I'm glad you asked you just rent them instead okay so going against what people typically say here not all of the mini gamess in this first game are bad some of them are actually quite good and still hold up bombs away was always a favorite of mine growing up I am more than willing to show off in a game of crazy cutter or facelift bumper balls is here that that's a plus automatically oh oh my what what kind of weird Abomination is that to be honest the four player mini games are generally pretty okay it's when you play anything else that the game takes a nose dive the one versus three games either heavily favor the one or the three providing no equal level of challenge one of them is damn near just a game of chance it's practically impossible to tell which pipe goes where there are far too many single player games that pop up way too often they just feel like a waste of time in my opinion and then the 2v2 games there's only like a couple of them and Dam man they're just kind of okay too although I will say I am a big fan of bombs ball it's a clever name for a clever game Pedal Power yeah you just rotate the analog stick Castaways oh you just you just throw the line out and then you rotate the analog stick paddle battle i i w I want to die doesn't matter how much time you let pass you think that maybe it's just a meme maybe Mario Party 1 isn't that painful to actually play no no no no oh boy boy this game hurts many of you know the story now as well but these games caused so much legitimate pain and blisters to Children's hands back in the day that Nintendo actually got sued and started sending out gloves to those who can provide a proof of purchase for their game say what you will about how they thought this was a good idea in the first place it is a very very crazy part of Nintendo's history I even have this brand new and pretty solid third party controller with a great analog stick but really it doesn't it doesn't eliminate the pain ask anyone from back in the day who played Mario Party as a kid I'm pretty sure their analog stick looks like this I think it kind of goes without saying here but Mario Party 1 it definitely suffers from being the first game in the series despite all that it's still not the worst game in the series but it's easily the weakest of the N64 ones I spent a ton of time time playing this when I was a kid like in the single player miname Island mode which just had you play every mini game with a mini challenge tied to it I always appreciated when a multiplayer game had some sort of singleplayer components it was weird too cuz you'd make your way to the top of the island and then the final boss was toad C can you imagine toad as the final boss of anything amazing I have played this game with friends over the years that's for sure but really only to remind them of of the pain I have taken a bit of pleasure in seeing fresh reactions to playing a video game that actually physically pains them boy yeah we should play Mario Party 1 you may have heard some things but you don't know what's coming we should play paddle battle that'll be fun that explains how I've lost friends over the years we want Mario games with Golf and Tennis in them if that makes any sense we already had options for normal sports games if you wanted to play as a realistic tiger woods and a boring realistic Golf Course while avoiding lame realistic scandals you already had those games to choose from I want a golf with the Goombas and thus a champion entered the arena Camelot oh wait sorry Camelot yeah yeah he says it way better than I ever could by this point in the company's timeline Camelot definitely had a track record but clearly it was their work with Hot Shot Golf on PS1 that was enough for Nintendo to trust them with their top IP I can't say too much about that series as a whole I've only ever played the first one but hey it's the only one that Camelot actually worked on and uh wow it's it's pretty uncanny with just how similar it ended up being to Mario Golf 64 you can see the framework all over this one and right out of the gate The Rebirth of Mario Sports hit the ground running opening cutcenes for both Golf and Tennis we start off being greeted by the cast enjoying their day and getting into mischief and man I just I love this song much it's pretty rare to get full-blown cutcenes with any of these characters it injects so much personality into a genre where you really wouldn't expect it the human character start showing up uh Plum who many of you have seen in the Smash Brothers Melee trophy uh this is where she made her debut what do you mean you forgot about Plum this is also where we got our first whiff of Waluigi a character so many people love for some reason yeah I don't know honestly I never really got the massive appeal I apologize of the Waluigi fan base out there I'm a bit more of a blue Mario guy myself he made his debut in this game too and nobody talks about him he's the True Underdog but this level of charm is exactly what these games needed when I said we wanted Mario games with sports in them this is what I meant this translates to the gameplay too for both Golf and Tennis we do have options to of course play a standard game with normal rules but if you dig into the menu a little bit more you can play tennis with item boxes in Bowser's Castle go for round of golf on Yoshi's Island Golf 64 has a mini golf mode that we haven't seen in any of the other Mario Golf games and I don't know I always liked it or partake in a ring challenge in both Sports it's such a fun concept for an additional Challenge and it's simply great having more stuff to do this whole ring idea Works in both Sports perfectly and yes it helps that the arcade Vibe is perfect here as well everything is so Snappy and Punchy the soundtracks to these games are incredible too and man going back to that cast of character I mean we got Plum Maple Harry I'll give them credit they got their one game they got their money and they got out that's that's true goals and if you love those opening cutcenes well that charm carries into the whole animations in golf and the trophy celebrations in tennis dude the the trophy celebrations these are like the best part of the game short clips of Mario characters just doing things with a trophy and frame I I love this Wario talks like a damn Pokemon in his that's that's amazing and the icing on top of all of this you could even transfer your characters to the console versions you don't really see too many people talking about this feature nowadays because with the re-releases of the N64 games people being nostalgic about the GameCube games it's kind of just Fallen by the wayside but thanks to the N64 having a transfer pack as well as the GameCube having the GBA Link cable you were able to take your characters put them on the big screen and it was so so damnn cool dude the fact that your human character has their own trophy animation in tennis that's amazing that's me that's me getting a trophy from Red Luigi ah banjo kazui is one of the best Platformers of all time it's an amazing culmination of great art style level design music game mechanics World building script writing it is damn near Perfection it's like just an accepted idea at this point that banjo kazui was not only impactful at it time but a clear example of a game that has survived the test of time everyone holds this game in super high regards as a game that not only helped to find a genre but an entire console generation it's awesome and then banjo Tui happened and no one really talks about it all that much you'd think with a game as celebrated as banjo kazui the direct sequel would pop up in conversation a whole lot more but yeah no that's not the case it's not that people don't know about this game but while people are able to go into these long elaborate essays to explain how all the pieces fit together so beautifully in kazui discussions about Tui tend to focus on how the game is big and that's about it well to continue on my quest on exploring the entirety of banjo's Legacy as well as Justified the purchase of an Xbox One let's take a look at the sequel to banjo kazui banjo Tui the Xbox version this time around is a lot more required I think a lot of people remember remember that Tui is all about being bigger in scope and this was all done at the cost of performance holy crap the frame rate is so rough at times on the 64 it's a game that actually had widescreen support back in the day which is pretty damn neat actually but o for a good chunk of the game it feels like a SLO just based on the smoother frame rate alone the Xbox version is Far and Away the better way to play this game and with the higher resolution I can finally understand what I'm looking at here this pixel sandwich on the N64 or confused me for years also I'm pretty sure that's a Game Boy camera no amount of Nintendo to Microsoft rebranding is going to change that one that is a Game Boy camera and all of its quote unquote Glory now one of the best parts about banjo tuille is that it feels like a genuine continuation of the previous game so many sequels for Platformers usually take place in brand new worlds with new stories and new villains and often times totally new mechanics but not this one kazui ended with grunty falling off her castle and a giant boulder landed on top of her need I remind you killing her and Tui begins with her assistant kungo who had a super Miner role last time struggling to get the rock off her for the last 2 years since that first game but we cut to a massive digging machine the hag one crashing through spiral Mountain manned by grunty's sisters Mella and blab belda and thanks to an always reliable witch spell they dispose of The Rock and with that grunty is saved she's still still dead but not dead dead you know how these things go all the while Banjo Kazooie bottles and Mumbo are enjoying a good old game of poker and this is where some more of that awesome style that the first game had shines through I really love how fluid these animations are these are genuine cartoon characters oh but no toti in sight though yeah banjo's sister is just Mia for this one I wouldn't really blame her last time she really hung out with these guys a witch kidnapped her so I would leave too as the drill is making its way through the map M it shakes things up pretty violently and Mumbo goes to check things out unfortunately though now without being spotted by the returning grunty so as you would expect she makes Chase she pulls out a magical spell of her own and shoots it towards banjo's house luckily though all the characters that matter make their escape eh I'm sure that's just a flesh wound not like they would actually kill off one of the main characters in the game before the adventure even begins oh man the entirety of spiral Mountain's been destroyed it's all in tatters not even grunty's own layer was safe from all of the attacks as dark and Grim as this is it's actually pretty cool to start off in the same Hub world as the first game after sometime has passed there are some extra areas to explore and once you travel down the hole that the hag one came down in and encounter kungo for the first time we run into the much more pleasant IO hags and The gingo Village on top of also having access to every single ability that we learned in the first game this all adds to that feeling of this being a proper continuation rather than just another adventure that's really really cool I also love the king of the jingos King jingling this guy's a trip what the first games ending had you think that the jingos are some sort of mythical beasts that are able to summon An Almighty being of mass destruction no man that was all a fluke they all just want to chill out and this guy is their leader but don't get too attached though one press of the suck button on the big old Blaster zombify is our beloved King this uh this game's a whole lot darker than the last one luckily though before his zombification King jingling instructed us on where to go next and after one run through bottle's house and refusing to tell his family the tragic news of his passing nice guy banjo over here we run across the shrine of Master Jiggy Wiggy that's an amazing name this is the new location to unlock levels all by actually completing puzzles this time which is pretty cool it controls much better than that side game from kazui as well but with that very first puzzle done all of that story out of the way the adventure can finally properly begin I know that usually Platformers don't really do much with the story but credit or credits do banjo Tui added a ton of lore to this world it introduced a new premise with gruny going out for Revenge it brought in a brand new world that's connected to the old one without feeling forced there are plenty of incentives to see the adventure through all the way to the end good job rare you did an awesome job with this one but with all that being said it's time to finally dive into the meat of the game the actual gameplay play oh boy so at its core Tui is just more of Kazooie but with a much larger scope the worlds are absolutely massive this time around with a half a dozen or so different sub areas within each of them and rather than being their own self-contained locations now the entire universe of this game is interconnected whether it be from traveling on this huge train that you get access to a few levels in or by fing hidden Pathways scattered about you can get to any single area in this game a handful of different ways and that would just be one thing if it was an additional means of fast travel but often some of the tasks that characters ask of you consist of Performing actions in different levels the prospector here in Glitter Gulch mine wants his Mouse partner back who is held captive in mayahem Temple GOI the poor guy can't can't catch a break got himself imprisoned in witchy World on his way to the lava world and upon freeing him and by using that aformentioned train he actually gets to finally go to that lava world he was talking about in the last game on the fire side of Hailfire peaks my absolute favorite though we have Mildred Ice Cube in the I side of Hailfire peaks she lost her husband by way of a blizzard sweeping him up away into the sky in Cloud cucko land and after just one little push you get to reconnect him back with this true love oh JK we kill him but it's okay now the water's not hot so these little pigs in Jolly Rogers Lagoon can go for a swim and on top of the returning move set from kazui Tui is all about once again constantly adding to it with so so many different moves and abilities it is crazy now you can aim your eggs in first person either while on the ground or while flying there's different Elemental eggs that you can use now with fire ice and explosive as well as one that shoots out a tiny robotic bird that you can then control and explode on command you can use kazui as a drill for maneuverability you can grab on Ledges now and shimmy across them and you're even able to split the duo up when you touch the appropriate pads a sick dude that was totally worth an achievement with this new ability now both banjo and kazui have their own unique set of solo moves As you move forward throughout the adventure it almost feels like three entirely different characters here since each one is able to do things that the other configurations can't and the feeling of constant growth is nice but a lot of these are implemented to fix problems that shouldn't have been introduced in the first place it's also pretty annoying at times being blocked out of a move just because you're not playing as the right configuration requiring you to add quite a bit of backtracking into the mix it is relatively easy getting back to that point with the appropriate character but even then it's still not ideal just not terrible oh yeah and also banjo can use kazui as a gun this is so weird man I guess I guess because rare had success with golden eye and Perfect Dark then why not do the same thing with banjo the oddest part about the entire thing these segments are actually pretty fun never would I have thought that these two things coming together would have made a good fit but callor me surprised they're not bad this one Mission really sucks the time limit is super strict on it but aside from that now I know the big question on your mind is who is giving you these moves if bottles bit the big one introducing bottles brother drill sergeant jam jars who is not only your new teacher but he also takes on this game's rhyming duties as well worlds also have proper boss fights now too yeah kazui had some stronger enemy encounters here or there but nothing that really felt like a proper battle aside from the final fight with gruntilda here every single stage has a big baddy to tango with and with how wide the move set is and the boss is sometimes taking full advantage of that these are a much appreciated addition I mean Old King Cole is pretty dumb he he just wanders aimlessly while you Pelt him with eggs uh that's the it's the worst it's the worst fight in the game but for the most part these are a real highlight for the adventure Mr patch the strange wobbly inflatable Thing by far my favorite one it's mainly for his Awesome theme song which is still so damn good but this is the one fight that stuck out to me the most out of all of them well aside from Lord woo fakfak just just for the name uh now I wonder if I'm going to be demonetized for saying that mumbo jumbo has a starring playable role this time too by collecting these magical creatures called globos you're able to toss them into mumbo's little bag where he can then harness that magic when standing on his specific pth ads he can bring a giant Stone Golem to life for you to control and wreak havoc add oxygen to water so you can swim without worrying about catching your breath lift a rock it's exciting stuff all around those globos can also be given to this Native American stereotype humba WBA who now takes control over transforming banjo into a new creature there's a little Stone banjo that let you talk to other Stone creatures and take place in a kickball tournament always thought that was cute an adorable roaring T-Rex that with the power of of Mumbo you're able to play as into different sizes there's a TNT Detonator where you can you can detonate TNT there's a there's a snowball all right some of these aren't that great they all perform as expected at least there are plenty of things that you simply can't get to as banjo or kazui and that's where these Transformations come in and none of them are outright bad but some of them are just not all that exciting although the B from clicklock wood returns it's a little weird though like you guys you guys didn't want to even try making an animation for this so yeah man they really added a lot to this game just conceptually banjo Tui is Far and Away better than kazui you got brand new moves interconnected worlds you got unique play Styles pretty fun boss fights there's a lot of cool stuff here but it's when it all comes together that it starts to fall flat there is one major issue that prevents this game from being greater than it should be the backtracking that's that that's that's the main problem problem sure the worlds are huge this time but that isn't inherently a problem often you're restricted from progression towards a jiggy because you just didn't have the needed ability and that coupled with areas not really having much in the way of interesting landmarks when the time eventually comes to return half the struggle is then finding just where exactly you need it to go I've heard people have issue with how much darker the tone of the game is from a more muted color palette used for the levels and a less bouncy more atmospheric soundtrack to accompany it but that's all fine to me that's not an excuse for making these locations so Barren and a hassle to explore especially when sometimes the clue to completing a level's task rests in another level so unless mentally you're keeping on top of things at all times it is very easy to get confused witchy world is the main exception to this in my opinion every area of this level feels different so I never once struggled to complete it the same goes for cloud cucko land yeah it's big but the outside has so many interesting landmarks on them big cheese a trash can there are bees all the way at the top of the mountain the majority of Jolly Rogers Lagoon is a massive confusing underwater maze terod dactyl land is just open and empty for the sake of it just to make room for the big T-Rex which only gets used a couple of times and grunty industries oh man grunty Industries this stage is multiple floors of dank gray uninteresting looking Warehouse with doorways leading up and down and all around I spent just over 3 hours getting everything in here it felt like genuine Insanity at times the scope of things here does make the game feel like a much grander adventure for sure but it's at the sacrifice of satisfying momentto moment gameplay a lot of times you're just spent walking to a destination that you're not even sure if that's the right place to go and sometimes the game just tells you to wait oh fun luckily though in the Xbox version there is a brand new hint system that does help point you in the right direction it doesn't fully alleviate the frustration though you just get vague sentences that tell you what the objectives are if this game got the full remake treatment and had an in-game map that you can have show up at all times then it would probably be totally fixed the number of collectible notes has been reduced as well I was always of the mindset that they helped push the player to see every aspect of a level back in Kazooie so here it's a bit tougher to do so when there are less of them in bigger areas yeah the overall count is still at 100 but it's chopped up into 16 nests of five and one nest of 20 I guess it was to counter Donkey Kong 64 having 500 bananas per level but in my opinion this is far too on the opposite side of the spectrum oh yeah and also that lovely little Jiggy animation from the first game that was pretty iconic completely gone now which personally I'm I'm still pretty upset about it and actually come to think of it the talking items that explained what they did in kazui that's gone too now everything is explained by jam jars I mean that's that's fine it's not really a problem but it does feel like they removed some of the charm on purpose without much substance to replace it with ultimately all of these things combined lead to a less satisfying experience which sucks because again I think Tui does so many things right and it did have the potential to be way better than kazui like when you know you're working towards something in this game and you can see the reward within Arms Reach it is pretty fun and just based on the expanded move set simply controlling banjo is much more enoy able than last time I just think rare was too ambitious with this project seeing just how much stuff they could fit into a single cartridge which to be fair is something rare was pretty known for back in the day but I'll give the game this much any sense of confusion or overload coming from the things that you can and can do and all the objects to collect it's not as ridiculous as Donkey Kong 64 where that game had like a million things to collect and every button and every button combination had a different thing that you can do it was very confusing now that game was a nightmare and with all the stuff that Tui has going for it there was even some content that didn't make it into the final product this has been like one of my favorite things in the entirety of gaming for a long time now bottles Revenge a mode where a second player is able to play as the newly evil spirit of the recently deceased mole where they can control enemies and try to fight the other player as banjo this is all thankfully still within the game's code so it's nothing that some emulation can't solve and on top of the massive single play player campaign there's also a pretty substantial multiplayer mode where many of these score-based challenges that are found within the main game can be played with multiple players which is actually pretty fun it may seem pretty forced given the genre of 3D platformer having just a ton of mini games like this but considering how multiplayer focused the N64 was this makes perfect sense and of course then we have stop and swap time to finally talk about this can of worms so this was a feature that was meant to transfer data between banjo kazui and boui by way of swapping out cartridges mid playthrough since early models of the N64 had 10 seconds of ram that would maintain data despite the cartridge no longer being in the console however newer models of the 64 reduced at that time to only 1 second so for fear of I'm assuming kids breaking games and consoles on a regular basis this had to be scrapped the way it was meant to work was that there was a handful of colored eggs as well as an ice key hidden within banjo kazui that was teased in the game's ending they are still accessible by entering in stupidly massive cheat codes in the N64 version but they're also unlockable by having Sav data from bandid 2E on the Xbox version so you go to the different hiding spots where these items are located it plays a massive Fan Fair makes it feel like it's a really big deal when you get them and then with the eggs in toe you're able to go back to banjo tuille and find this brand new character heggy and she will hatch them for you I got to say after 10 plus years of anticipation I am super excited to see what I get okay you get one new close combat move okay you don't really do close combat much anyway gingo as a multiplayer character homing eggs and Xbox theme a g gamer pick all right cool man this this whole thing really paid off at least with the ice key if you find the massive safe you gain access to a mega globo which you bring to Humble wba's Hut in the io hags to transform kazui into a dragon dude it's like it's like super pointless there's no time in the game whatsoever where blowing fire is useful in the slightest but I don't care this is this is still pretty awesome it's certainly a better move than being able to abuse kazui at the push of a button some of those unlockables were still accessible in Banjo tuille on the 64 by finding and defeating the three of them spread throughout spiral mountain and the gingo village they originally would give you some of the colored stop and swap eggs but now on Xbox you just get shiny eggs that's it nothing nothing special jam jars says hey good job and uh that's about it ah okay it's a it's a really big let down after so many years of mystery but the whole idea of stop and swap is still such a super fascinating concept for me for years there was always this massive mystery surrounding these items that you could never get access to but you can just see them they're within Arm's Reach but you can do nothing about it it always led to really fun discussions talking about what could have been and besides a game rewarding you for playing previous games in the same series is something that I don't think has done enough in gaming nowadays that's still something really cool so if it wasn't obvious enough at this point I am definitely in the camp of people who think that kazui is way better than Tui on individual things Tui does do things better but on the whole kazui is like I said that game is damn near perfect it's it would have been really hard to top of that game anyway but one of the things that Tui does do better than kazui is the ending and this was a clever segue to talk about the ending once you finally get your hands on the appropriate amount of of Jiggies and complete every puzzle that Jiggy Wiggy Shrine has to offer you it is time to head to the tippy top of IO hags cin keep and I love this place gruntilda being out for revenge and retiring her rhyming ways makes her a bit more of a serious villain the darker themes make for a more serious adventure and finally reaching the top of a huge mountain after a long adventure makes for a more epic conclusion being reminded of the bad guys's existence a little bit more often with been nice you just fight kungo a couple times and that's it but overall I'm a fan there is another fun and wacky quiz segment but instead of doing the over-the-top board game it's a trivia fight to the death and grunty is not afraid to put her own sisters who saved her at risk yeah it's not as Charming as the furnace of fun I guess but I wasn't never a huge fan of that anyway so I like this mostly because we don't have to deal with any of that brentilda garbage that alone makes us way better after getting through the game show safe grunty once again makes an escape while we let some credits Roll by banjo is able to reverse the effects of the suck blow machine and bring bottles back to life as well as un zombify King jingling and with the help of ding poot grunty's old assistant making a grand return it's time for the final encounter against the evil witch in her giant drill tank it's a good oldfashioned shoot off too this is a pretty fun final boss there's plenty of obstacles to avoid and questions to answer because why not it's a much more engaging fight than the final boss of the first game in my opinion but before long she's toast anyway we saw that coming we killed her again banjo and Friends celebrate their Victory with a party at bottle's place the good guys kick around grunty's head for a little bit which was actually censored in Japan cuz I guess this was just too violent for you guys she warns us of her impending return in Banjo 3 which still hasn't happened yet and every time I say that out loud it makes me sad and that ends banjo Tui and then Microsoft bought rareware and it's been a disaster ever since but yeah that's banjo Tui not a bad game but it does feel like rare developed it without really keeping in mind the stuff that made banjo kazui so special in the first place this game does have its fans and if you're one of the people out there who do prefer this sequel to the original more power to you but I think as time goes on the momentto moment gameplay of banjo kazui that tends to be the preferable option maybe a full remake that the likes of Crash Spyro and even SpongeBob got would make this adventure a lot more worthwhile in a modern-day setting but who knows time will tell on that one with the extra little bit of time I have with you all I want to take another look at rare replay I want to take another look at a game from rare's past last time we took a look at attic attack and that was yeah we just went way too far back in rare's Timeline how about we take a look at saberwolf you know the main character from that game does show up in Banjo Tui so that character must have a great legacy if they wanted to put him into a banjo game let's check it out nope

Channel: AntSnooze

Views: 36,474

Keywords: AntDude, AntDude Plays, AntSnooze, AntDude Sleeps, AntDude ASMR, antsnooze n64, n64 asmr, n64 to sleep to

Id: qQrIuZ4_jyA

Length: 114min 42sec (6882 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 22 2024