While Nuts and Bolts may not be the Banjo experience you were hoping for, it still delivers on the fact that it is fun
Now as you may recall, Banjo isnt known for having an outstanding narrative, and Nuts and Bolts is no different. The game takes place 8 years after Banjo Tooie, and Banjo and Kazooie have both gotten a little pudgy. Grunty's head, hobbles out from some rubble and challenges the Bear and Bird for one last duel, however, this is stopped early by the creator of all video games, who decides that the trio need to solve their issues a different way. The creator, or Log, makes Banjo and Kazooie fit and gives Gruntilda a robot suit and a cat. The opening cinematic is hilarious, and for the most part, the entire game is funny, even if their are way too many gamer jokes. Certain characters have returned from previous games, some more obvious than others, and their really arent many new characters. Log, Grunty's cat and Trophy Thomas are the only new characters in the game really, which is really disappointing. The Banjo series has always had a wide variety of funny and goofy characters and seeing as their are only 3 real additions, none of which are that charming really.
Now lets get onto the gameplay, the newest thing in Banjo. As you may of seen, Kazooies moves have been scrapped for vehicles. Kazooie can still attack, except now it is with a wrench, and it is so weak that it is hardly worth it. Vehicle creation is very simple and is as easy as snapping pieces together. You move your selected piece on a plane, using the control stick, D-pad and triggers to move it up or down, left and right, and rotate it. Any Vehicle can function for the most part, as long as it has an engine, fuel and something to move it, whether that be wings, a propeller, or wheels. Once you have created your vehicle, you may find that it doesnt control as well as you may of hoped. At times, certain vehicles can be very hard to control, even the premade vehicles. It seems that no matter how fast you go, or how slow you go, if you tap anything, no matter how heavy or flimsy it looks, you will spin and skid out of control,. Also, the game is physics based, so you must keep in mind where you place your wheels, the weight of your vehicle etc. This can lead to a lot of trial and error when making a vehicle. Most of the time I just edited an existing and working vehicle and make it faster, add guns, etc. Also the placement of your guns are important to, you cant manually aim them. You just press a button and they fire in the direction they were placed. One last flaw to note is that each of your vehicles abilities are mapped to a certain face button, and a lot of the time, you end up overloading your vehicle with abilities that make you manually change what each button does, in the middle of action, depending on the situation, it can either be a minor inconvenience, or a major problem. These small flaws can sometimes end up costing you a challenge What are challenges you ask?
Well challenges are challenges you take on to earn a jiggy or a Trophy (four trophies make a jiggy). These challenges are displayed in each world in the shape of a jiggy on your map. No matter what world your in, usually one of 8 characters will issue the challenge, which makes you feel like you havent accomplished much, the lack of characters in this game is truly astounding, and I am disappointed that Rare couldnt think of a couple more characters. Anyways, the challenges lead from simple fetch quests, to races (lots and lots of races), to knocking down a certain amount of dominos. The challenges can sometimes be reminiscent of old Banjo games, but the old Banjo was a platformer and close to 0% of these quests involve platforming. Sure there are fetch quests, something usually associated with platforming but its usually just drive here, pick this up, drive there. I understand if Rare wants to change the game up but they could at least keep the core gameplay mechanics. Thankfully, the large majority of the Challenges are fun.
The game also sports a multiplayer option through XBL or splitscreen, but you pretty much have to spend a lot of time in the single player collecting parts, and it can take a lot of trial and error to make a vehicle that competes with these vehicles. Games vary from races to battles and then some.
Banjo Kazooie Nuts and Bolts looks amazing. The colors are bright and vibrant and all of the levels in the game have such a great deal of detail. But for some odd reason, Banjo isnt "fur shaded" like Conker was in the Conkers Bad fur day remake, and it looks sort of outta place. Also the game suffers from some major slowdown at times, but it never really gets in the way. The levels in the gamer are very disappointing. There are only six in the game and they are all pretty unoriginal. I mean the first one is your standerd starter level and ***SPOILER ALERT*** The last is Spiral Mountain, a level that has been in every Banjo game, and other than Banjo's house, nothing has changed. ***Spoiler end***. The other levels are very mediocre, the second level is terrible, its bland and a bout as exciting as the inside of your Xbox, which it is based off of! Banjo Land is a just a mishmash of objects from previous Banjo games, its cool but not original.
The music and sound effects are decent. There are a couple of good tunes and some great remixes or old Banjo tunes but for the most part, the new songs arent very memorable, you wont find you self humming them or playing a certain level just to hear a song like you would in a previous Banjo game. Sound effects though, are top notch, complete with annoying voice overs like the previous games. Everything sounds like it should, and overall Banjo does a pretty good job in the sound department.
Banjo has a total of 131 jiggies, and it takes 76 to beat the game, which means Banjo is pretty long. However, you will find you spend way more time than you needed assembling vehicles. Sometimes it can take a good 10 minutes to assemble the perfect vehicle to accomplish a 2 minute task. The game is only $40 new, and is certainly worth checking out, new or old to the series.
I have been a Banjo fan since the original, and frankly, Nuts and Bolts leaves me baffled at what to think of it. I do miss the platforming, Kazooies moves, and quirky characters. However the new gameplay is actually really fun, and could be outstanding if Rare made some improvements. If you are a Banjo Fan or just someone looking for a good game, I strongly recommend Nuts and Bolts, its fun gameplay, long length and cheap price ware enough reason to check it out.