Reviewing Banjo-Kazooie in 2020

Do Rare’s famous bear-and-bird duo still delight after more than 20 years?

Whether we’re ready for it or not, the current generation of consoles is slowly coming a close, making way for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. Due to this, a lull in releases was bound to happen. The beginning of 2020 saw very few big names being released, aside from some promising indie games like the final act of Kentucky Route Zero. As such, and before Animal Crossing and Doom: Eternal completely took over our lives, I decided to visit some old classics and replay two games that meant the world to me when I was a child: Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie. So, my girlfriend and I decided to break out our Nintendo 64, blow the dust out of the cartridge slot, and embark on a twenty year old adventure. What resulted was an epiphany—video games are a completely different beast than their polygonal grandfathers of yesteryear.

In the ‘90s, British game developer Rare was an industry juggernaut, its repertoire filled with classics like Battletoads, Killer Instinct, and Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest, along with trend setting industry legends GoldenEye 007, and Donkey…