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All right, on with the show, everyone.
Welcome to Remember 64, where this week we're taking a bit of
a handheld detour on our way up Spiral Mountain.
Hello everyone, and welcome to the show.
Hello again if you are a returning listener or viewer and
welcome if this is your first time joining us here on Remember
64. We are going through the Good,
The Bad, the Ugly. Had everything in between of the
Nintendo 64's library. My name is David Petrangelo and
I am #3 of Mumbo Jumbo's number 5 in this Banjo Kazooie
franchise. Also #4 in here as well.
We got lots to talk about. We're talking about the Game Boy
Advance and the two Banjo Kazooie games that came out for
that. We'll get to that in just a
moment. Jiggy, look back.
How are you buddy? I'm fantastic.
I'm happy to be a part of this episode of Remember GBA.
Let's do it. I once again, once again I
messed it up. Once again I messed it up.
Thank you for correcting me. That's pretty much what it is.
We have two people joining us for this.
We have two games and two people joining us.
So Josh from Still Loading podcast is here.
Josh, welcome back buddy. We just chatted a little while
ago. Yeah, you can't get rid of me.
Doesn't matter how much your listeners throw fits about.
They hate me. I'm back again.
Well, well, we want you back, OK, And that's.
What? I've actually never read
anything, I'm just assuming. No, no, it's all love buddy,
it's all love and first time joining the show Thrac from the
3D O experiences with us. How are you?
Hi. Hi.
I'm great. Thanks.
Thanks for having me on this podcast about a console that I
hate. It's great.
No problem. That's why we're talking GBA.
Yeah, yeah. A console that I love, that I
love I'm. I'm just kidding.
I don't hate this N64. I just think it's funny to make
jokes about it. Hey.
You can joke all you want, it's all good.
Hey hey, I defend the Sega Saturn so I I defend the Sega
Sat. I know the 3D O sucks but.
It's fucking interesting. OK, but like, hey, I defend like
the Sega Saturn and all that so. That's that's that's one of
those consoles I have like next to 0 experience.
That and 3D O are probably actually 2.
And we were talking about this in the before we started hitting
record for the episode that the 3D O and the Virtual Boy are
probably the three things I've probably had less than 10
minutes on in my entire life, maybe collectively so.
Well, you come come on my show and and we'll get you a 3D OD
up. I want to, dude, I want to.
I will play I, and it's the same thing with this show.
If it's something I've never heard of, never played, Even
more interested. Even more interested, honestly,
before we get into talking about Banjo Kazooie, Grunty's Revenge
and Banjo pilot on the Game Boy Advance, Thrac, I just want to
ask you, I guess we can kind of all kind of go around around the
the table here. But Thrac, I want to start with
you first because just briefly and you can joke, you can make
fun of you can cut into whatever you want your experience with
the N64. And then we can all kind of riff
a little bit on our experience of the GBA since that's pretty
much what we're covering in this episode.
So Thrac, what's coming into the into this year as of as of us
sitting here and stuff, What's what's been your experience with
the 64? Did you have it growing up?
Was it later? All that kind of stuff.
So my experience with the N64 starts many, many, many years
ago. So growing up, I had an NES in
the second Genesis. That's what I played, right?
And then a while after that, early 2000s, I got a GameCube
and I still have that GameCube that that's the console I grew
up on, played a bunch. And then around the time I got
into like high school, like late middle school or high school, I
was watching a lot of say, Angry Video Game Nerd and other gaming
content on YouTube. So I was learning about gaming
history and, you know, the N64 and Super Nintendo completely
passed me by and and I was starting to get some money at
the time. So I was like, oh, there's a
little game store behind by me. Let me go check it out.
And I went in and they had a Nintendo 64 and I was like, I
want it, I want to play that one.
I want to see what the big deal is.
I think I paid 40 bucks for it. This was back when BB game
collecting was cheap. So I got it in six.
Yeah, exactly. So yeah.
This was about yeah, 2008, 2009. I bought it in 64 and bought
quite a few games for it. Like I got Mario, I got
Goldeneye, I got all the wrestling games.
I'm a big wrestling guy. Indiana Jones and the Infernal
Machine. I had that complete inbox.
I paid like 20 bucks for it. Crazy.
Yeah. And, and a handful of other just
kind of ran. I had the Blues Brothers game,
which I actually don't hate. And so I, I remember I, I played
it quite a bit and I even, I even tried buying Superman 64,
but my console wouldn't play it. It just wouldn't play the thing.
So I was spared Superman 64 and it was so weird because when I
bought it, it wouldn't work in my N64.
I took it back to the store, they popped in their N64 and it
worked and I took it back. Still didn't work.
Interesting. You were determined.
You were determined, and yet. I wanted, I wanted to know how
bad it was. I, I still haven't actually
really played that game, but so I played the N64 for quite a
while, played a bunch of games on it and just the more I went,
I was just like, it's a fine console, but I don't get what
the big deal is. You know, there's some good
games on it, you know, some great games, But I, I always
found myself going back to say my GameCube or my 360 or even my
Game Boy Advance. You know, those are more
interesting consoles for me. So I eventually got rid of all
of it. And so, you know, in the last
few years, getting into this like podcasting sphere that
we're all in, hearing all this stuff about people like in the
N64 has always made me go like, I mean, it was good, but I don't
think it was like that great. But, you know, there's, there's
definitely good stuff there, you know, but.
Everyone's got their own thing that that sticks with them.
Like for me it was the Super Nintendo, like you say.
Oh, I still have my Game Cube. I still have my original SNES.
And I and I had AI had a Super Nintendo for a while as well.
It's actually the and it's the only time I've beaten Super
Mario World was on the Super Nintendo, Yeah.
The GBA version's really good. All, all those GBA versions are
are are great. Oh yeah, that's.
Right. I'm more of a I'm more of.
A. I'm more of a Mario Three guy,
so I've beaten every version of Mario Three that there is.
Yeah, I just said accept the music on the GBA version.
Music on it is a little rough for Super Mario World compared
to the. For Super Mario World, yeah, I
like, I like the Mario 3 soundtrack on there, though.
Oh. OK, I got to hear the
difference. It's been a while.
It's a different style, yeah, but the Mario 3 soundtrack is
amazing, so yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I mean, do you want me to segue into?
The the GBA. Well, I was gonna say I I was
gonna just hop in myself for a second and just say the GB AI
have this behind me over here there we go I got my direction
still there we go that's my original GBA still that still
works the lights on the on it is not great.
That's the only thing that doesn't really work is the fact
that it's really getting very dim.
Was it? Was it ESP or the original?
No, the original, it's a silver. Oh, I mean it's not backlit so
that. Also, it's not backlit no, but
it's still like darker than it was.
You know what I mean? So like there's there's like a a
difference there. So, but it still works.
The the cartridges I still have still work.
If I'm gonna play a Game Boy Color game, I put it in that.
I played Banjo Pilot on that this week because I have woo a
boxed. It's actually in really good
shape. I at the time I was like oh I
don't know if I want to pay that much for this thing but like
it's actually really hard to find and it's quote UN quote
gone up in value in the last like 3 years since I've got it.
They all have I. Don't know what the fuck that
means anymore, but. More people want it, so it's
just cost more money, that's all.
But yeah, and I love my GB AI. It's been great.
I love going back and playing so many of the games that I, I grew
up with playing and stuff that like a lot of people are very,
very attached to, like the Switch experience and, and that
being their sort of mobile gaming and stuff.
Partially because of age, partially because of nostalgia.
The GBA is the first thing I think of when I think of any
kind of handheld gaming of any at any time.
It's that specific one. I never had an SP had a friend
who did, but so I don't really have any experience really
playing it other than like sharing his.
But I do know that when I, you know, when I've played ones
since then as as an adult, I don't like the form factor on
it. So I think the form factor, the
GBA itself works for even slightly larger hands.
I I think because it's not just a square essentially.
So I don't know. I love my GBA.
Oh, if you hate the SP form factor, what do you see the Game
Boy micro? Oh my God, that thing is so.
That's ridiculous. It's a ridiculous idea.
Ridiculous idea. I I kind of defend it, but I can
get to that later. That's just, that's just my I
don't know, I get it. I don't want to strain my eyes
more than I have to, you know? That's fair.
Yeah. Jiggy, what about you, buddy?
Cause we've talked a lot about, you know, through episodes,
obviously the 64, but we've talked about your experience
with Dreamcast and PlayStation and obviously Switch and stuff
too. But like you're, you know, did
you, do you have AGBA? Did you, What's the deal with
that for you? Oh, absolutely.
I had a let me go back, OK? I had a Game Boy Pocket first.
I had a red Game Boy Pocket. I never got the first generation
of Game Boy. I was a little too young for
that, Yeah. I had a red all of them.
It's ridiculous. Didn't I have that?
I had a red Game Boy Pocket with Pokémon Blue, and that was epic.
And then I upgraded to the purple Game Boy Color.
That was the atomic purple translucent.
Yeah. And then I got the translucent
light blue Game Boy Advance, which I think it's somewhere in
a box here. I don't have it on display
because it's broken. It does not work anymore
unfortunately. I do have my SP sitting on the
shelf back here at a blue SP Sort of similar story.
The reason why my old Game Boy Advance doesn't work is because
hand me downs to little brothers and little brothers destroy
everything. He destroyed the DS.
He just shout out to my brother. Thank you.
Thank you for ruining my value. I do have a really cool, I
bought this from a guy who had it custom built or whatever, or
it's just like a IPS screen. Well, he bought it for himself
and I was just like, sure, I'll buy it from you when he wanted
to get rid of it. So it's pretty cool, Really nice
looking screen. Love reliving some of the GBA
classics on it. But yeah, I this convenient
silver case here. I did not treat my Game Boy
games well, and to this day I still do not treat them well.
So you're not gonna see any good complete Inbox copies.
And this is how I stored all my Game Boy games.
And this is not all of them. Some of them my brother has.
For anyone who's not seeing this, it's just he's opening a
briefcase as if it's a stack of cash from the fucking Sopranos
or something. I was gonna say that.
No, that, that's the that's the briefcase from Pulp Fiction or
Pulp. Fiction.
The one that Travolta opens and the light shines, it's 'cause he
was seeing that value of Game Boy games.
Oh yeah, with cheese in here. That's a lot of games, too.
That thing's got some depth to it, that box.
Oh yeah, it's stacked. And there's some games like
floating around, like on the back.
Shelf and stuff to you. So nice.
They're hard. They are hard to store.
It's it's a, it's a problem. Yeah.
A. 100%, especially the GBA ones, they're so they're so
tiny. Like, yeah, like I before the
switch was an issue, it was this, you know for sure.
Josh, let's go to you buddy. What's the What's the GBA
experience for you? Sure.
So I didn't have much of an experience back when it was a
contemporary. When it, when it was
contemporary, excuse me, the GBA was a weird one for me because
I, I don't think this perception is correct, but my perception of
it growing up was that it was kind of the handheld that people
forgot about because the Game Boy was huge and right.
And then what was it? The GBA came out in 2001 and
then three years later the DS was out.
So like you have this very short span of time that the GBA was a
thing, relatively speaking. And if you think about it,
because what was it? The 3DS came out what, 2000 and
2011? 2011, So you had so there.
That's a seven-year gap between the DS and 3DS.
The original Game Boy if you count the Game Boy Color and
Pocket in the different iterations, even though the
color is a little bit of a step up from the original.
Either way, came out in 89 and you're looking at it like a 12
year gap between the original Game Boy and it's technically
it's full on successor, not the half step which was the GB.
Which was the color. So it's the Game Boy Advance to
me always felt like the handheld that people just for that time
forgot, right? That people just don't remember.
When you look at it on a calendar like that, it
completely makes sense. Like, I get what you mean, yeah.
Because by the time I like I, I was aware of it.
I had friends that had it, I had friends that play had like the
Final Fantasy Origins collection that you could get for it.
Yeah, what? Donna Souls 1 and 2.
Yep, Donna Souls and they also obviously Golden Sun which shout
out to later on this year. I have to cover that game for my
backlog month. So there you go, I've been.
Playing through gold, the first Golden Sun game.
Thank God for. I mean, I actually do have the
original Game Boy Advance copy of it, but I'm playing it on the
Switch, so that way I can it's a little, it's backlit and I can
put headphones in because I only have an SP.
So the SP does not have a headphone Jack.
Yeah, dumb. Feature that is so stupid, so
stupid it's even at that time. Considering when it came out,
yeah. And just since Jiggy had a
visual prop, I It's not a Game Boy Advance game.
I wish I had one within reach. I have a Game Boy Color game
made by a buddy of mine that keep it came.
Out amazing that. Looks that looks really cool.
Bobo Escape for the Game Boy Color.
Shout out to my buddy Gabe Swore who made this game.
Nice. Is that like a puzzle game?
Yeah, it's like a it's like a puzzle, that platformer.
It's basically you play as this little cannon named Bobo.
He shoots bubbles. The puzzle of it is that he is
always, he, he is always shooting no matter what.
And you only have a certain number of bubbles in each level.
So you have to look at the level and then figure out where to
move bubbles. So that way when did the when
the shot comes next? Because it it comes on at a the
same rhythm, same interval every single, you know, every second
or so. Then you have to take out the
full enemy. It's actually really it's really
fun. It's almost like an actual tiger
in a way. That's kind of cool.
Yeah, I'm looking at it. It's it's on itch dot IO and
it's 5 bucks. Oh shit.
Beauty. Yeah.
James, a good dude, he's been on, he's been on my podcast
before, Really nice guy. He also, just to give him some
more cred that he he already shipped a game, which is cool,
but he was the executive producer of the Animaniacs
reboot that came out on Hulu a couple years ago.
Nice. Yeah, anything Animaniacs I.
Completely forgot about that. I watched it.
It's actually really good. It is good.
I'm digressing. So I just figured I'd share that
as a visual prop. Also give my buddy Gabe some
much needed love. He actually had another game in
the Bobo series come out called Oh my gosh, I'm I'm blanking on
the name. I'll look it up while I'm
finishing my story of the GBA. But yeah, so my experience with
the GBA was pretty much non existent and it's Bobo Burst
that is the newest scheme that just came out just earlier this
year anyway. So yeah, the GB AI didn't really
have too much of and in general, handhelds for me have been a
blind spot until the last like four or five years.
Like I owned a lot. I owned a Game Boy Advance.
Not none of it was actually contemporary.
I always bought them used well after they were released.
Right. Game Boy I got after its life
cycle is over. GBA.
Same thing the DSI got during its life cycle, but I never
fucking played it until after its life cycle.
The only handheld that I actually played during their
actual life cycle were the Vita and the 3DS, and even then I
barely touched it and it wasn't until I started podcasting that
I really sat down. I'm like, OK, let me dive into
this. And I've been enjoying it ever
since. So the GB AII when you said
like, hey, we're looking for guests to talk about GBA game.
I'm like, that is one of the consoles I've played the least.
So I will look for any excuse to dive in and try out some new
things. Though I guess full Full
disclosure, I did not play any Banjo pilot mean because I
didn't have time and honestly I'm not a cart racing fan so I
will I will keep my opinions a little bit lower on that one.
I have lots to say though, about Grunty's Revenge, which we'll
get to Nice. It's not a racing game, it's a
flying game. Yeah, it's, it's not a cart
game, it's a plane game. Yeah, cart games are for babies.
This is the. Same how?
This is a cart in the sky. And somehow your plane still
goes slower over grass. I was going to say that.
Really long grass, OK, really long grass it.
And there's a turbulence on this grass here.
Calling someone to cut your grass in this economy?
Come on. Can I ask the price of grass?
Can I ask what has everyone given their GBA history?
Thrac has not. Thrac has not yet.
Thrac has not. OK, can I add just what are some
of your favorite games? Josh, before we move forward,
I'd love to hear everyone's favorite, like if you have like
a top GBA game, if you have one that you just like.
I love this. Typically.
Do you have any? Barely client on these.
Yeah, I. Barely put.
I can't even say what my favorite would be.
So Banjo's grunty's revenge? Grunty's Revenge.
Out of the ones I've beaten, yes, because it's the only one I
think I've fully beaten. Right.
Yeah, well, happy to help, man. Happy to help.
That's the title of this episode, Josh's favorite GBA
game. Yeah.
I fucking hate grass it's so coarse and turbulency.
Turbulent turbulency I like gets everywhere.
It gets everywhere. It gets everywhere.
All these things clipping. Thrack, let's let's go to you
then let's let's talk about your experience and then those like
games that might be your. Favorite so so I fucking love
the Game Boy Advance. I'm a big GBA guy.
I got AGBA again early 2000s when it was new 'cause back back
when I was growing up, there was this kid who always used to, so
my mom would like babysit for like random kids.
So there's always like a group of us hanging out.
And one of them, she brought her like original GBA and she had
like Mario Advance and I think there was some like Tom and
Jerry game, The Infernal Escape. We played those a bunch and I
was like, this Game Boy Advance thing's pretty fucking cool
'cause I had a Game Boy, I had a Game Boy Pocket, I had like
Tetris plus Kirby's Dreamland 2 Solar Striker.
So I had Pokémon Red, but I've never really been a big Pokémon
guy. So even though I I played Red a
bunch, it just never made me like a Pokémon guy.
But so I had the pocket, I still have my yellow Game Boy pocket
around here somewhere. And then I got a GB ASP with, I
know I got Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories and there's like an
Incredible Hulk game and some other stuff.
And I played the shit out of that GBA and so much that when
the DS came out I was pissed. I was like, how dare you
Nintendo, drop my favorite handheld for this new bullshit
thing. Exactly.
That was just a kid. So I never got ADS until many
years later out of protest. I was one of the only people I
think, in the world that never had ADS.
Ever. I have never.
I really, I eventually got one. I eventually got one many years
later and messed around with it and it's really fun, yeah.
I did 3DS a few years after it came out, but I never had a DS.
Yeah. Well you can play DS games on
the 3DS so and if you homebrew your 3DS you can just load DS
games on an SD card and which is what I do but but yeah.
But The thing is they were still making GBA games well past the
DS launch. Like even up to like I think it
was like 2008 they were still making GBA games like Minish Cap
came out like when the DS was a thing.
So because Nintendo was smart dropping the DS as early as it
did because had the DS flopped, they could have sold it as AGBA
because it had the GBA slot and could have kept supporting the
GBA. So really it was like they were
in a no lose situation. So that helped.
But quite a few years ago I started collecting for the GBA.
So there's like these three tubs here that are basically full of
GBA games. There's like hundreds of them in
there. Like I have I have some complete
inbox. I have some with the the the
retro game cases. If you guys have seen that for
like handheld games, those are really cool.
And also I have every model of the Game Boy Advance.
So we'll we'll do some visuals. Hey.
Yeah, that's what I have. Yeah, yeah, it, it's still, I
believe it still works. Let me turn the thing on.
Yeah, it's. It still works.
The beautiful color of the. Screen console but the screen
like we put up with this. Yeah, it's so dark.
People need to talk about this because versus even the gay boy
color, it was darker. Darker, yeah.
It was hard, like you'd hold it against the light.
And that's why so many early games have like a really washed
out color palette so you could see them, but they did the the
SP This is the SP001. Mine is dead at the moment.
I just need to charge it. So there are two different
versions of the SP. There's the the 001 AGS and then
there's this one which is the AGS one O 1, which is a so.
So basically what it is is the O 1 is a front lit screen and the
one O 1 is a back lit screen. So the.
Front lit. That's right.
Basically the way to describe it, it's like the square is like
a light ring. It's like they built a worm
light into it so you could see it and it's it's perfect.
Like along the frame like a. Yeah, yeah.
And it and it works. It's not amazing but it works
and you can get these for like pretty cheap.
Even the original models you can get for pretty cheap and mod
them but the one O ones have like a complete backup screen.
Mine actually is still working. You can see even through the
camera. That looks nice.
Yeah. Oh, it just died immediately,
these things. Do, but even just the Game Boy
Woo. Well they don't hold charges
anymore. I bought like a new battery for
this. It's still as a whole charge,
but yeah. So the one O 1 is pretty good.
I see why people don't care for the form factor, but I'm used to
it and I have kind of tiny hands, so it's fine.
And Speaking of tiny hands, I do have a Game Boy micro.
Don't ask how, don't ask what I paid for this too much money.
But honestly, like it. It is small, but the screen is
really nice. Like it's small, but it's like
the brightness and the definition is really good.
You can, it has like 10 different levels of adjustment,
adjustment. And if you have tiny, Yeah.
And if you have tiny hands like me, it goes for the OG form
factor. And it's actually not terrible.
I've messed around with it enough and it's mine doesn't
work any. The R button is broken so.
Does it have a headphone Jack? Yes, it does.
What? A What a great.
Idea. You can't play Game Boy or Game
Boy Color games on this guy. You can only play advanced.
But I mean if you see if you have to see how small this thing
is to to. It's so.
It's. So I do have Agba cart with me,
not to show off, but it's a Oreo Sorrow, one of my favorite
Castlevania games. And yeah, like that's the size
of it compared to the console. Exactly.
It's the size of two games. Yeah, basically, in fact, In
fact, that guy was sitting in this little guy, the GB Operator
by Epilogue, which is basically a little epilogue epilogue.
So basically it's a little Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy
Advance thing that you can just plug it into your PC via USB and
you can just play games, Game Boy games on your computer.
You can like backup saves, download saves.
It even can check to see if your games are like, you know, fake
or not, which is really cool. In fact, I have a fake GBA game
right here, Doom, Doom 'cause I, yeah, though I did get my money
back on it. The guy was nice about it 'cause
I, I've learned how to detect fakes.
But yeah, there's that. And then also I have an analog
pocket, so and that's, that's a nice way to play them as well.
Like people usually complain about how shallow the cartridge
slot is, and it is, but for GBA games, it's not too bad.
I mean, it's so small, but like if you put something else in
there, it'll be a little iffy. Like like I have the Game Gear
adapter 'cause I'm also a game Gear collector.
That's another story. Yeah, I'm trying to get all the
game gear, the Game Gear library.
I'm like 42%. Is the game?
Is the Game Gear library made-up of 17,000 batteries or is it
actually games? Well, I play it on this guy just
because my Game Gear quit out on me.
But yeah, yeah, the Game Gear's a whole nother thing, but.
There's a has the most half, yeah.
But there's a lot of really cool Game Gear games, so bring me
back on. We talk Game Gear.
I don't F man forget we get get some Sega crossovers there we.
Go, but I also have the e-reader for the GBA.
Oh, I had a buddy. Out of those.
Yeah, and I and I have a set, I have a set of the Mario Advance
for Mario 3 cards. And I've done the thing where
you put this guy in the in the SP, you put the game in the
other SP, you link cable to them, you swipe the card.
Really stupid, but I did it just to make myself happy.
So so on my gravestone it'll say I did the thing.
And then I also have the the little wireless adapter thing.
Yeah I found one for like 5 bucks so I've been meaning to
get the. Never owned, but I've like used
at some point because of a friend.
So it's like kind of cool. It's like a little trip down
memory lane. I'll be like, Oh yeah, I
remember that. Yeah.
And So what I want to do it, and what I want to do at some point
is find a way to display all the GBA models just to be like a
three. D Printed, sort of like little
shelf or whatever, yeah. But yeah, favorite GBA games.
I could go on, but Metroid Fusion, my favorite Metroid
game, the Advanced Wars games, Mario Advance 4.
Let's see, there's a game called Medal of Honor.
What's the medal? Infiltrator.
Yes, that game is really fucking cool.
Final Fantasy Tactics. Which one's Mario Advance 40?
That's Mario Brothers. That's Mario Three.
Yeah. I'm just, I'm just looking at my
game, Mother Mother Three. I do have a physical of Mother
3. It's funny I I forgot this might
be on your list, Toothrack. I did actually play one other
Game Boy Advance game and I feel like an idiot because I
literally just covered it for Mario Month this year.
Mario and Luigi Superstar soccer.
Oh. Yeah, that's a That is a great
game. I've beaten it.
I hate the final boss battle, but the rest of the game is
fantastic. Oh yeah, it's all.
If anyone is curious, you can listen to my episode.
I was. Pissed.
Yeah, yeah. Minish Cap, Golden Sun, all the
Final Fantasy ports are great. The Tony Hockey games are really
good on GBA. Yeah, I have two.
I think. I think I have.
I have Tony act two. Yeah, it's good.
It is. Warioland 4, one of my greatest
achievements the the the first two Warioware games 'cause you
have the original, then you have twisted, which is like the
weird, like they put a gyroscope in the in the cartridge so you
like turn it around. It's really cool.
I do have it all the Castlevania games for it, the Fire Emblem
games for it, the Sonic Advance trilogy.
Well, the first two Sonic Advance 3 is kind of but Astro
Boy Omega factor that is a fantastic game.
Oh, I heard that was good. I've never.
It's made by treasure and it is. It's pretty fucking good.
I, I, I could, I could go, I could go on and on about GBA.
Yeah, that was a pretty extensive list.
I I. And also Clinoa.
OK, that's what I was. Waiting I have.
A what? A segue.
Empire dreams, that's the one. Two favorite Game Boy titles
arguably or GBA titles are Clinoa, Empire Dreams.
I played that game tons, loved it.
I also really enjoyed Mega Man Battle Network as a series.
I loved 4 Red Sun in particular. I remember getting it for
Christmas. I just freaking loved it. 5 was
also very good. Wasn't super into 6 but four and
five were like my favorite. Yeah, I wasn't into those games.
I wasn't. I had to really get into Mega
Man till like a couple years ago, so those completely passed
me by. I was always more of a
Castlevania guy. I like him but I'm so bad.
At them Battle Network, if you haven't played it, it's like a
it's like an RPG with like a weird like.
That's what I heard. I.
Don't even know how to describe the battle system.
It's it's like you move on like 6 tactical squares.
Is it? Turn based?
I don't even know if it's not turn based.
It's not turn based, OK. It's kind of a really weird
battle system, but it focuses on like chips and powering up your
character. And then like, it's, it's, I
like that Cool. It's unique.
It's different. Yeah, it's fun.
The problem was they made way too many of them way too fast.
They made like 6 of them in like 3 years.
Yeah, you just like list it off. Yeah, 456 were great.
I was like, wait, there was a there was a 123.
Like what the fuck? Honestly, they could have kept
making them into. Like the three DFS if they
spaced them out correctly, right?
Yeah. Right.
They could have kept. They'd probably still be making
them. They are.
They are making them. I think they are.
No, they did the collection. Oh collection which?
The DS had #5 it had it did like basically so they made they
tried to do like a Pokémon thing or they did like 2 versions and
then the DS made the IT just skipped 6/6 was only GBA and
then they put 5 on DS and they made it like a double pack.
So it was like 1 cartridge that had both games, Team Proto man,
Team Colonel. And the DS version was actually
pretty dope, I'm not going to lie.
But that was like the last raw of Battle Network, yeah.
They're really cool doing everything mega band they could.
Now they're like Mega Who? Who who's that?
Yeah, really. I know my on that.
Legends Collection. My my top ones actually two of
them I actually really only played fairly recently or at
least within the last decade, which for me is recent
considering when I got the GBA like you said thrack when it
came out, that's when I had a 2 and I never owned these games
growing up. But Minish Cap became one of my
favorite Zelda games of all time when I played that it's.
One of my. Favorites too.
Yeah, it's fantastic. And that's a quintessential sort
of, for me anyway, GBA art style.
There's something special about the way that the sprites look on
the GBA and stuff, and that is like exactly the feel and the
look that I've I always think of when I think of the GBA.
It just captured it in such a great way in a Zelda title,
which is awesome. I like how I like how they took
the Wind Waker. Like yes.
Character designs and made them 2D.
Aesthetic. That's pretty much.
What I love the Wind Waker aesthetic so making it in 2D
like perfect fit. Yeah, exactly.
You mentioned fusion. I actually prefer 0 mission over
fusion. Maybe that's just. 0 mission is
great yeah, I love me some 0 mission, but Fusion I I play
that game like once a year. It's just it's a very special
game for. Me, well, it's, it's great.
And I, I didn't play either of those until, until recently,
like I think I played Minish Cap, 0 Mission and Fusion all
probably within the same year, like about two, maybe three
years ago. So and 0 Mission, for some
reason, I don't know, whatever, just click with me better.
And then one of my favorite games.
Yeah. And then one of my favorite
games of all time, which I've mentioned numerous, numerous
times here. And I do think the Game Boy
Color version is better because it's simpler, but like the
simplification of it is almost better.
But that's the Mario Golf games. So Mario Golf Advance tour is
amazing. I think the the sort of one for
Game Boy Color is just like the the the dial down just a touch
and that sort of hits that sweet spot in my opinion for just for
me. So and those those like you say
you, you played Fusion like every year at both Mario Golf
games I could pick up and. Here here here it custom game
cases. Sorry, I got it wrong.
Yeah, I I have the manual in it. It's really nice there.
You go, yeah. So those, those are it for me.
So. But but the the GBA Mario golf
game you can you can golf with Golden Sun characters.
Golf with golden Sun characters well.
Because Camelot made it, and they're the exact same character
model. They're also the same character
models that are used in Shining Force Three 'cause they made
that for the. Oh, are they really?
Yes, it's don't let me start on shining force.
Not this time. There's a really good GBA remake
of the first game of the first Shining Force though.
Yeah, it's very expensive. Don't buy it.
I will not, don't worry, I will not.
That's all I had to hear. OK, let's get to 1 of the two
games. What are we talking about again?
One of the two games that we're going to be talking about.
Let's start with it's playing here for the last several
minutes since we've been talking about the GBA, let's talk about
Banjo Kazooie, Grunty's revenge, who wants to put their hand up
first for their experience if they had any previous and how it
went this last couple weeks for them.
I'm going to wait a little bit 'cause I'm very curious to see
what, what people thought of this.
So Josh, let's go with you buddy, because you, you said you
made your way all the way through it and don't have a ton
of GBA experience, which is a little bit of a, a, a unique
sort of approach. I think like when it comes to
these games, 'cause I just honestly, I just automatically
assume that people have played the GBA forever, so.
You know, I, I, yeah. So those, this is my first time
playing it. I will say I'm overall like if,
if, if I had to give my overall vibe to it, overall feeling to
it. I enjoyed my time with the game.
I thought overall it was a pretty fun experience.
It was a really good, like Dylan, not delineation, but a
really good porting of the Banjo Kazooie 3D Platformer
Collectathon to a 2D world and a 2D view viewpoint, kind of
isometric ish, a little bit too, a little bit, because you do
play with that, you do play with height a little bit with this.
So I thought it was a pretty good distillation.
That's the word I. Was looking for.
Big words. Like that.
I like that. That was, that was.
Today's word is distillation. Today's letter is D.
Installation. D baby no, it's it's a good
distillation of a 3D formula that we that for those who like
the original Banjo Kazooie and Banjo Tubi games, it's a pretty
good distillation of that. It it they honestly do a really
good job of taking a lot of mechanics from 3D and finding a
way to make them work on a 2D game pad, you know, with just AD
pad A&B buttons and then the bumpers and or the LNR.
Where it kind of falls apart is I think when they start adding
the different egg types because as kazoo you can get like fire
eggs and ice eggs and that kind of stuff.
And that's a little tedious, especially considering there is
a segment of the final boss where you have to cycle through
depending on what type of enemy you're facing determines what
type of eggs you need to defeat the little sub enemies.
And that's a pain in the butt to cycle through those in the game,
it's not so much of a problem because they don't make you do
stuff with a really intensive time limit.
Like these guys are bearing down on you in the in the boss fight.
So you don't have a lot of time. You have to cycle through
quickly and hope that you don't get hit just or and hope that
you do it fast enough or you have to stop, run away from them
and then just continue to cycle. And that's a bit of a pain in
the butt. So overall it was a good
distillation. Where I think it falters the
most is its perspective. It's 2 1/2 D isometric
perspective. It is God damn impossible to see
like height on this because of the way they designed the pixel
art, specifically the pixel art. Excuse me, the especially you
had it up on the screen a little bit ago, Dave, the underwater
segments, it is like there is no visual indication that you're
supposed to really swim through holes in the coral.
You you figure it out like you are able to figure it out.
So I will give them that, but I don't think it's really well
broadcasted. It's not intuitive.
It's not.
Yeah, that's the better. Yeah, It's not intuitive.
Distillation, intuition. There we go.
Yeah. So it it's not intuitive in the
slightest. And they also make it because of
that same issue with how they design the world.
The world on in this 2D plane, there's some jumps that you make
that you think you're going to make but you don't because of
the perspective. So it's biggest issues for me
were that perspective. And I don't know if you want me
to go off on a 20 minute rant, but I can.
The final boss is fucking bullshit.
We'll we'll get there cuz I think there's lots, there's lots
to talk about. We'll get there.
Yeah, yeah. Threats.
Go ahead, buddy. What's your?
What's your or? Sorry, Josh.
I used a save state. The last thing I was gonna say
it's the only time I used a save state in the entire playthrough
was literally I used a save state.
I literally used a save state right before right after you
climb up the tower and right before you enter into the boss
because to put out those fucking fires to shoot a fucking egg and
trying to fucking hole so you can fucking and fucking jump up
the fucking thing. And I just.
Fucking hate. So yeah, sorry, just go.
On. Oh man, and then the boss itself
was a pain, which we'll get to, but I that's the only time I
used to save state and then I died so many times to the boss
anyway. Then I started save stating in
the middle of it 'cause I just didn't care anymore.
I'm like, I've already proven I can get to this with this level
and actually relatively consistently.
I don't feel like doing this again and again and again when
I've already proven I can get to this.
So I normally I don't count save stating as like like oh I beat
the game if I did it like no no issue if someone else does.
I just can't do it for myself. This time I did because I
thought this was more of just wasting my time than actually
testing me on something. But.
That's fair. Anyway, that's fair.
And a mini rant. I will re rant when we get to
the boss. Thrac, go for it buddy.
What was your sort of, was this the first time you played it and
so. IIA 100% of this game a couple
years ago. Yeah, I I did everything.
I, I don't know what propelled me to do it, but I did.
And so yeah, I messed around with it a little bit again just
to re familiarize myself and, and yeah, I was, I was surprised
at how well they were able to take like a, a 3D platformer and
convert it to a quasi like 2.5. It's like the top down Zelda
perspective. But they're still using like,
you know, 3D character models for Banjo and all that.
And they look really good. And yeah, they were somehow able
to make a platforming game from that perspective, which kind of
worried me. And there are definitely some
depth reception issues, especially if you're trying to
jump up onto something. But I found when I was playing
it, the more I played it, the more I got used to it and kind
of learned how they judge height, you know, so you can
just kind of adapt your brain a little bit.
And yeah, there's like a lot of mini games in this as well.
Like arguably too many, like all the fishing and like the quiz
answering and all that other stuff, but I found myself
enjoying the game overall. You know, it it, it was a pretty
solid and interesting experience as a way of converting Banjo
Kazooie to the Game Boy Advance. Well, I was saying, yeah, it's
the only Banjo game I've beaten, so I have limited.
I've never played Banjo Tooie ever.
I've been I've played a bit of Banjo Kazooie off and on on N64
and I like it. In some ways I like it more than
Mario 64, but other ways I don't.
And then Nuts and Bolts I do not like at all.
It's I I have very, very little. Experience with that?
Yeah, yeah, it's really. Like it I I know people who love
that game. I got to, I got to give it
another shot. They love it for like specific
reasons, you know, reasons that I understand.
But like when I played it, I'm like, this isn't what I wanted.
Right, right. That's, I think that's that.
I think that's largely that's the issue.
I think that's like the overall, like disappointment with it.
It's like, oh, this is not what I wanted or needed or expected
or whatever at the time. So, yeah, Jiggy, I feel like I,
I don't know if you're going to say this is this is awesome or
you're going to say, or if you've played this before before
now, or if you're going to say this is the worst decision they
could have ever done and bring you back to the 64.
I really don't know where you're going to sit with this.
So what? What do you think?
Well, First off, I just want to say like nuts and bolts is fine.
I don't think it's fantastic, but I, I, I feel like I've been,
I've been going through like it's not that bad guys.
But you're right, it's not Banjo 3.
But I also thought it was interesting that you said that
after you said you never played Dewey.
So I'm like, OK, I love the banjo series.
Obviously I did play this one growing up.
I did not beat it growing up. I found it really hard and like
kid me struggled to get through it.
Yeah, there's some tough spots with this in terms of like
puzzles and whatnot. Sorry to cut you off but I could
see how totally like I could see I I had to use a a walkthrough
in some spots just cuz I'm like I don't feel like aimlessly
wandering for like 20 minutes just to find another goddamn
piece of a puzzle. I remember Banjo Kazooie.
Oh my gosh, that's another thing.
We'll talk about that some other time, then we.
Can. Talk about it.
Yeah. There you go.
Yeah, yeah, let's do it. It.
It plays good. I think, like what they were
saying. I thought it translated pretty
well. The game mechanics that I'm
familiar with, you know, Banjo felt like Banjo the world feels
very Banjo Yi. Honestly, if I was going to play
it for something though, I'd be playing it for like the little
lore and like just one point, the story, like 1.5.
I think that's pretty cool. This takes place in between
Banjo Kazooie and Banjo Tooie. What I can't stand about it is
the fact that you have moves like the drill PEC and I'm just
like, OK, that's the move we learned in Tui, but we get in
Grunty's Revenge and Banjo just doesn't know it and you need it
in TUI like it to save your like Goldfish Royston.
It's like, I don't know, it's like little things like that.
It's sort of like kind of broke up consistency between the
games, which it's not that big of a deal.
It's a lore thing. It's a lore thing I get.
It it's a lore. Thing and it came out after TUI,
didn't it? Yes.
Yeah, OK. Both these both these GBA games
said yeah. They probably just forgot.
Yeah, Prayer does that sometimes.
It's it's cool. I like it.
It's not my favorite Banjo game. Obviously.
There's some things I like. I like how you can go to Mumbo
because Mumbo's happening right now.
I like you can go to Mumbo and you can actually pick what
transformation you want. I thought that was a really cool
mechanic. So it's like, I do like that you
could, you could be a different transformation in a different
level and you know, you need to do that.
I think that's really neat. I love just how all the
characters and everything looks. I think like looks wise, I'm
really impressed with this GBA title.
I think it's really cool. I did have the same depth
perception issues like it was, it was frustrating.
At some points you really have to rely on your shadow, so you
kind of gauge 1 landing on something, which is nothing new
to 3D platformers, but in a 2D platformer?
Weird. I'll.
Give them credit, they tried to make the the shadow as dynamic
as possible when you're going up and down like they tried to make
up for. It that's true, it's not just
like a flat always the same shape or whatever.
Yeah, that's true. They tried, yeah.
Yeah, yeah. So I sit, I sit somewhere in the
middle. I I, I don't think it's bad.
I don't think it's great. I think it's it's OK to good and
it's a fun experience, but I definitely like I'm probably not
going to replay it. That's where I'm at, yeah.
I also think that the voice acting gets under my skin very
easily if I have to hear like like I know that in Banjo
Kazooie and Tui and even like DK64, they kind of have that
same type of like voice cadence like the the the voice sounds
for some reason that doesn't. Bother me as much, thank.
You on the N64 as it does on this This one really like graded
my nerves. Like, real bad.
Yeah, I like it. I like that.
Probably. That's probably the sound or the
lack of AGBA sound, yeah, which I can understand, yeah.
And I, I think there's also a memory thing.
So like, there's fewer iterations of the gibberish.
Yeah. So they're working with less.
And I think they're also like, just, I mean, that's no stranger
to the banjo series, just like pitching slightly different
versions of the same. I honestly, I turn on the music
just to hear the stage like one or two times and then I play it
on mute. That's how.
I played so did did Grant Kirko work on this?
I I doubt he. Did no, I don't think so.
I don't not neither of these titles.
He was he was a part of it was this was that's fair.
So what's interesting too about this is that it's right at the
time and and I think it was this one specifically or was it
pilot? I don't remember.
I think it was this one specifically where it was
supposed to come out a year before and it just took kind of
a while to get going. And then what happened was it
was right. This got released right when
Microsoft bought Rare. So there was a lot of internal
and external sort of bullshit going on that.
Yeah, probably. Published a lot of.
Changes. Yeah, this was published by THQ.
THQ. And there's a handful of GBA
games that Rare made that are published by THQ because
Microsoft allowed that because they weren't going to publish on
Nintendo systems, at least not yet.
Not yet. Yeah.
So there was. Yeah, that there was the Sabre
Wolf remake. The banjo pilot is also THQ so.
And it's Mr. Pants, which people, a lot of people forget,
is a rare game. Yeah.
Exactly. Yeah.
So this this actually started as a GB color title, Yes.
And it sort of trans transitioned into it and banjo
pilot just to like piggyback into that was actually supposed
to be Diddy Kong racing. I don't know if it was supposed
to be Diddy Kong Racing 2 and I got.
Pilots. It's just what?
They call it Transition. I thought it started off as
Diddy Kong Racing 2 and then Transition did pilot and then
they switched to Banjo and I. Switched don't remember the
Yeah, they I have a couple notes written down about they switched
the banjo because I thought that it was Microsoft, that they
didn't have the rights to the Nintendo characters, so they had
to find another way to Microsoft, Microsoft.
Was like, totally for them making GBA titles, by the way.
Yeah, because they were just, they just didn't have a
handheld. And they're like, sure.
Yeah. Like, great.
Why wouldn't you take take advantage of that chance when
you have it right? Because they.
Didn't have another I think. I think they flirted with the
idea of making a handheld in the 360 era but it never really came
to be. But there is that one that's
supposedly coming either this year or sometime next year.
Sometime in the next couple years, I'll, I'll, yeah, I'm
interested. Nah.
I'm too Nah. I I'm curious how about this?
I'm curious how. About this, I'm curious too.
I mean I'm an Xbox guy so I'm curious.
I love my game Pass. That's that.
So I'm curious just because of that alone.
So I. Like your controller.
I have game pass as well. Yeah, but I would just put game
pass on a Switch too. Let's just do it.
Or just steam back. They tried.
They tried it. Didn't work out what was I going
to say oh I was going to say I I am pretty much I think we're all
kind of in agreement with with how this game is is it amazing
no. Do they do a decent job yes.
Is it does it feel the best that every point and all the puzzles
and the depth perception no, there's some issues with that
and it's there's a lot of that's just limitation of the hardware.
It's hard to sort of translate that I do think that I didn't
have that much of a problem with the depth stuff, but it's only
certain points where I was like this is ridiculous like this.
This Cliff above me looks exactly the same as what I'm
standing on. How would I how could I possibly
know that this is above me or below me?
This is this is stupid. The the difference of where it
works no problem is like what we're seeing right now on the
screen with like spiral mountain and stuff.
It's easy to see because you know, the walls are brown and
the ground is green for grass and it's just you just know,
right? And that's totally fine.
But otherwise, there's a lot of points where you just run into
it and you're just like, well, I don't understand how you could
have possibly done that so. It's funny because the the, the
level that's on screen right now is one of the levels with, with
the worst instances of that, with the freaking in the Bayou
with the docks and stuff. Like there's a section down in
the southern part of the dock that like you can't.
I genuinely could not tell that I was going to be able to jump
high enough to reach it, but you can.
But it just, it doesn't, it feels like when you do your,
your, you know, your crouching high jump, it doesn't feel like
I would be able to reach it, but you can.
And it's it's very hard to really kind of gauge that, which
is frustrating. Yeah.
The interesting part is that like the shadow thing that we
were talking about is present for you, but it's often not
present for the platforms. So you.
Yes, you. Can't really like there's some
sometimes you'll see the, you know, the, the legs of whatever
you're you're trying to jump on or off in front of you and
that's fine. But if you're kind of at the at
the back of it, you can't really tell.
So it yeah, it looks like you can just walk right onto it.
No, but no. Instead I'm just walking into
like, you know, poison. Essentially, and you know, one
that one thing I when you're talking about how like, you
know, this game's not great, but it's it's solid.
It's good, but not bad, but not great.
It it I've been seeing the discourse a little bit more
recently on blue sky and other things like that.
But like what is a perfect like 7 out of 10 game?
To me, this is a 7 out of 10 game where it's like it doesn't
do anything great, but it's like it's solid.
It's a real I I'd even give it like a 7.5 if I was actually
grading it on like a out of 10 scale.
But I also usually grade things a little more lenient than other
people. So like, I don't know, to me
this is like a 7 out of 10 game. Like it's got a lot of solid
stuff going for it, but it's just there.
There's some really weird things that even like right now, like
the mini games are very odd. Yeah, so if anyone can't see.
It that's what we see on screen. Just like yeah, the.
Mini games, there's so many of them I feel like, and I feel
like it's excessive. I think it's just trying to pack
because the game's not super long anyways, so I think it's
trying to pack out the experience and they're just two
hours for the yeah and for the most part, like the mini games
just I don't they're not great. I have.
A question for the four of you or the three of you.
I have a question for the three of you in I only saw this one
mini game on the final boss. I don't know if I would have.
I don't think I saw it anywhere else.
So the mini game that we're seeing on screen right now,
there are no listeners won't be able to see it.
But essentially you Banjo has a fishing line.
He casts it at the however long you hold the cast button
determines how far to the bottom of the screen the line goes.
And then you have to time it with fishes going across.
But you can't catch crabs because that'll hurt you.
No, I mean like a real life. Crabs hurt.
You don't catch crabs. Kids don't catch crabs.
Don't catch crabs kids, it's not great.
So I'll give. You crabs.
Not from any experience or anything, I'm just it's just a
it's just a general knowledge type thing that's all.
My wife and I have a but no so the the one mini game though in
the final boss they did the same thing where it was it was like
fishes and like crabs but they were all underground.
You couldn't. You can't tell.
So I was like already down to like, so little health.
And I'm like, I want to make sure.
Was there any visual indication that you could tell the
difference between crabs and fish when they were fucking
under the sand? So yeah, so this is like sort of
like a classic sort of old school fishing type mechanic
where where you just where you just you, you cast the line like
you said. And there's different sort of
like, you know, power to your cast, I guess for how far you
can throw it or something. Normally you can see, oh,
there's the redfish, there's the green crab catch the redfish,
that's the mini game. But in that in that boss one,
they're all underwater and all you see is like shadows
essentially. There's no difference.
And I look this up and I was like, is does one move
differently? Is that how you can tell or
whatever? I thought, I thought it was
movement stuff. It's not apparently.
Apparently it is randomized and that is.
I mean, I'm sure I don't know this for sure, but I wouldn't be
surprised if certain ones are always a crab, Certain ones are
always a fish. Like you go through it a second
time and they're always in the exact same place.
I don't know that. And I feel like it gives you
more fish than crabs anyways. It does, but the problem is.
The crabs. I got 1 fish and like 5 fucking
crabs and that must be my life before I did the save state on
the final boss. So then I had to go and do the
whole goddamn thing over again. Fucking goddamn.
Crab that is maybe it is one of the that is one of the points
that I ended up playing this not on on the actual GBA and stuff.
That's one of the points where actually I could be.
The only point is that is that exact fishing spot where I was
like I have to use a safe safe 'cause I have one hit left, one
fucking hit left. So I make one mistake when it's
like 5050 chance essentially. How the fuck am I like it was
it's it's a stupid, stupid idea that that part specifically was
so stupid. Just imagine if that video game
was in a 3D Banjo game. Just imagine.
It's like the big the catfishing game.
Yeah, yeah. It's probably it's probably
better on mobile phone. Oh yeah, there.
Is a. See that?
Version There's a mobile phone version of this of this.
I didn't know that. I didn't see.
That my guess is. My guess is it's.
The same. My guess is it's the same game
but like like engage screen. Yeah.
Sonic and I was. Going to say if they I could
totally. It's very like move in a line,
collect all the notes in a line. Like, look it up, it's very
interesting. No thanks.
The fact that it exists is kind of cool.
Yeah, do that right now. The other thing that's a little
bit of a mini game, which I thought was a really dumb
decision in my mind is some of the honeycombs that you pick up
are a mini game for how much health you have.
And I thought that was so I thought it was so stupid.
Like when you pick up one, OK, it gives you health.
I get that. That's that's the way it is.
When you pick up the one with a 2O, it gives you two.
OK, cool, that's not bad. But then there's one where
there's a a 10 second timer and it is randomized across your
whole health bar. And sometimes you can lose
health just because you happen to press A at the exact moment
that you weren't quote UN quote supposed to.
I thought that part of it was stupid.
The other part where it's like, you know, it gives you a couple
at a time fine, OK, every once in a while they give you a
little extra health great. Why do why?
And it stops the game. The whole game just stalls and.
I'll tell you why. I'll tell you why.
It's a TUI mechanic that should not have been translated to this
game. I know I I I forgot that that
was even a thing. That was in TUI, yeah.
Yeah, it's in TUI. Yeah.
Oh no, yeah, I totally. Forgot it works in TUI though.
It works in TUI because a you know that it's.
It's a honeycomb that you can avoid if you don't want to do
it, but it seems it's a lot faster.
It's easier to land on that like Max health thing.
So if you're in a level where you're like losing health, it
can really help you out. But it's like totally optional,
right? I feel like in this one you're
you need health all the time. That's true.
Constantly. Yeah, you are.
You are struggling a lot more with your health because there's
a there's a few points that I ran into and I don't know, maybe
maybe it was just, I couldn't quite figure it out, but some
enemies knock off more health than others and there's really
no way to tell why. Maybe because they're like
different elements or something. I don't, I don't know what the
deal is, but I didn't love that either.
And then all of a sudden I'm doing, you know, I'm, I'm just
scraping by to get by a stage that actually really shouldn't
be that difficult, right? Just because of that.
So. They're also.
Like see, I didn't really struggle until like the final
boss, which is. Where it gets yeah, I wouldn't
say it's just unfair. It it is pretty unfair.
Yeah, it is pretty unfair. I I don't know if if struggle's
the right word or more just like an annoyance I think is probably
I could see. That I mean, I could see that.
When you try to move as fast as possible and just go collect
everything right And you have a game like what's it called it
the level that's like the this, the oil like spillage, like
harbour level. It's like spill something,
right? No, no, no, not in the original.
That's Rusty Buck Bay. Don't test my knowledge.
I was gonna say I know that one. I was like, no.
This. One spill harbor, maybe that's
coming to mind. It's it's this level that he's
like walking up to. There's a section.
The name bees Spiller's harbor section with.
Bees. Yeah, Spiller's Harbor.
There it is. And the bees take away 2
honeycomb per hit. And you wanna just quickly,
like, run through, hit the switch that you need to switch,
and then there's a timer and you gotta run, do these shock pad to
jump up. But the bees are hyper
aggressive and they come at you so fast.
You're intended to have the golden feathers at that point,
right? And they're like, yeah, I walk.
Through them I definitely did not.
But who's gonna do that? I can make it right, But you run
through and they're just like, like super fast.
Like way too fast. There's no way.
There's no way to avoid them. It's it's impossible.
When Thrack said he 100% and I was like God damn, he actually
did because this is the one. There's two jiggy pieces that I
did not get and that was one of them.
Because in order to get it, you have to get the invulnerability
feather go over, take out the bees.
Once the bees are gone then you're fine until you walk too
far off. Oh, I did.
I did it with them and then they respond.
So then you then you hit the switch and then you have to
Sprint over to the gazebo to like have Tui or sorry, Kazooie,
excuse me, do it there long, like jump to get up top there
and then you have the switch again up there to that.
That'll spawn the jiggy, But then you have to get over to the
spot fast enough. Yes, and I just couldn't get
over to the spot fast enough. And I didn't feel like doing
that same thing over and over and over.
Again, just. For a.
That I that I didn't need anyway because I was already ahead on
the jiggy count. So I just kind of like, I just
didn't care. At some point I just didn't.
Care that that's fine. I so, So what got me going with
with like doing things like that is I wasn't necessarily trying
to 100% it because I mean, we'll talk about this when we actually
talk about Banjo Kazooie itself. But as of this recording, we
have not talked about it yet. I tried to 100% that game.
And I think I've said this on a previous episode already.
Maybe it was the Rayman when we were talking about it where I
was only off by like 4 or five notes and.
I got everything. Yeah, everything else in the
game. And I was like, I can't, I can't
fuck, I can't, I can't. I don't have time to find this.
It was in the final world and I was like, there's Four Seasons
to go through all these changes, all this up and I was like, I
can't do it. And this, it was a smaller game
and I'm like, I think, I feel like I could pull it off.
And again, I was only short by like 3 or 4 notes and I was
like, I don't know where the fuck any of these are.
So I didn't do it. But I came so close.
I had everything else every other collectible I had in this
game except for that I missed that.
I have no idea. Yeah, I.
Have no idea. Where 100% in this game is a
tedious exercise that you should not have to do.
And don't feel compelled. Yeah, I did it 'cause I was
like, by the time I beat the game I had I I didn't have that
much left 'cause I just just like to try to get everything I
can. So I was like, and let me just
go find it. And I used to walk through
'cause there was, again, a couple notes I was missing and
like one GPS. So I got them and I was like
sweet and I yeah. But but to really like hammer
home and do it and stuff, you're right.
I I it's not, you know, you don't really have to and you
don't need it necessarily to beat the game, right?
Like it, like you just said, Josh, like you can get to the
end doing I don't know what it is.
Maybe probably 8085% of the jiggies probably get you there.
And it's probably a similar number for the notes because the
notes you need things for the moves that you have to give old
man Groundhog or whatever. So old.
Maasai, Maasai. Yeah, that that's it that that's
that's pretty much all you have to do.
But I, you know what for for a game that I think could have
been like a honestly probably like a complete disaster, they
could have really botched this. This could have been really
messy, really ugly, you know, because on a handheld, on a, on
a system that doesn't quite have what it needs to do what the
original does or the one both that came before it, this could
be really half assed. That could be something that's
really slow, really mucky, doesn't include all the moves or
very many of them at all because it's easier not to and it's hard
to get the sort of depth things going and the height and all
those types of things. I to me, I think it's still
pretty impressive that they managed to pull it off, largely
able to pull it off. Well, honestly, I think the GBA
is a console that has a lot of like surprisingly competent
games like this. Because I think by the time the
GBA came out, it was people viewed it as a portable Super
Nintendo so you could have those quality of games.
Even growing up I thought it was that because I was like, oh,
these are all the games I used to have for the SNES.
Cool like. Yeah, and, and also it's also a
little bit more powerful as well, because there's a lot of
games that try to do 3D stuff with varying degrees of success.
There's even PlayStation one ports on this thing that's range
and quality wild. Yeah.
But but yeah, I think the GBA was was up for the task and and
credit to the the devs for for making it work, you know, like.
I think so. It would have been interesting
if it was like a side scroller, but if it was like a side
scroller it would probably just be more linear because a non
linear side scroller like this probably would have been kind of
lame, you know, so. Well, and then like, you know,
we talk about like, oh, what's the expectations of nuts and
bolts and stuff at this time, especially so close to when Tui
and and the original came out. I think if you just did a, a 2D
side scroller of this franchise, it would be like, this is
definitely not what I want. You know, this is definitely not
what I expected and it's kind of disappointing.
So they, they went for it and I, I agree like you, like you just
said, it's, it's impressive. Yeah, it was a fantastic example
of that exact scenario because Crash Bandicoot had two 2D side
scrollers on the GPA and. They're fantastic, I loved them.
Yeah, like they're great, but but.
Crash is a more linear game than Banjo is.
Yes, because, because if you think about it, the Crash
trilogy on PS1, they're just 2D platformers with a different
camera angle. Yeah, that's.
Right, someone made a joke a while ago that Crash Bandicoot
is what Sonic should have been for a while.
Like Crash Bandicoot is like a slowed down version of what
Sonic 3D should have been. Not 3D Adventure, not Adventure,
but like if you think about it like like what Sonic what I what
like the 2D Sonic games thrive at Crash Bandicoot kind of did
first in 3D, not not excuse me, not before this 2D games.
Obviously I'm just talking about I'm talking about, but so since
Crash already did it and then I don't know what they were trying
to do with the 3D Sonic games, dude, I'm not trying to take
away from that. I know a lot of people love
them, but like they are not anything like in terms of tone.
What 2D Sonic games are right, They're completely different.
For better or worse, whether you love it or hate it, they're
completely different. Yeah, that's true. 3D Sonic, it
went in a different direction, but I think it was it was trying
to evolve the series and kind of give it.
Its own Oh yeah, no, the the T it's not a this is not a
criticism of any or by any stretch.
It's literally. But if you think about like
Crash, it's more of an observation that I can't even
take credit for. I heard it on Retronauts and I
kind of agree with their take where if you just think about
Crash Bandicoot, they just took 2D Sonic, move the camera behind
Sonic and then there you go. That's and slowed it down.
It's much slower than a Sonic. Yeah, I was gonna say my only
contention is that game does not really have an emphasis on
speed, and it definitely wants you to collect things more where
Sonic isn't necessarily about. Using.
I think it's trying to be fast. I think it's trying to be low.
To be fair, neither does to be Sonic 2D Sonic.
Their early levels have an emphasis on speed, but you when
you get farther into those games, you you should not run
fast. You will be killed unless.
It's hard to in my opinion. Well, it, it could just be my
bias, but like, I know those games so well, I can whip
through them pretty quickly because they're just, they're
trial and error. Like the more you play it and
the more you learn the routes and everything you you have to
earn the speed, which I think a lot of people forget about with
Sonic because they just want to hit the boost button.
It's hard. It's hard to.
Do but you have to earn it but. There's a.
Discrepancy then. It is a discrepancy.
You have to earn. Learning speed is the reward.
It's not about speed then. But I I think speed is better as
a reward because if you just have speed without earning it,
it doesn't feel as good. Then you have games like Sonic
Forces. I will say though, that Sonic
won definitely after Greenhill like even going into marble
marble, well, I'm freaking marble zone, marble zone, you go
in it, it focuses more on the stop push this box here like it
is not focused on speed. It is focused on platforming and
slight puzzle solving, not complicated puzzles, just simple
puzzles. Sonic 2 and onward a little more
open, a little more emphasis on actually like going through
loops. And like if you look at like the
levels themselves and the way they're laid out, like they
focused more on what made Green Hill great in Sonic 2, like kind
of the whole way through. So I feel like as you progress
through the series, there's an emphasis on more speed than
there was. And then you get Sonic R, which
is just the culmination of every I.
Like the soundtrack? Oh yeah, we go Super Sonic
Racing. Oh.
Yeah, sorry I I got us off on a on a tangent with Sonic talk.
I mean, I could talk. To you I.
Agree with you, I could talk to Sonic all day, but I mean Sonic
1 if they if if the zones were like mixed around a little bit,
you know like if you didn't go from green hill to marble, like
say you went green hill to spring yard or something, it
would it would flow better. Like Sonic one has kind of a
weird flow that they did fix in the later games.
It's Casino 3. Is casino night zone in in 2?
See that one. I also feel like is very slow,
not in a bad way. It's a very it's a fun level to
play like I love that level, but but there's so many things that
will just like bounce it, bounce you back.
You get stuck. In the in the middle.
Yeah, yeah. But at the end of the day, if
they are platformers just like anybody else, I think people
when they think of Sonic, they think of speed and want to treat
it like a racing game. And it's like no at the.
End. And that's also how they
marketed it too, to be honest. True.
Like, but at the end of the day, yeah, they're just, they're
fast-paced platformers, you know, they're faster than Mario
and they're more focused on like momentum and all that kind of
stuff. But at the end of the day,
you'll still have to do jumping stuff and fight weird Robotnik
bosses that suck like the Casino Night 1 and and you know, it is
what it is. Man, Yep, that's.
And that ain't Banjo. No, that's nothing.
Yeah. That's not banjo.
Banjo is very slow paced. Yeah, it's pretty slow paced.
Almost, almost to a fault. Almost at at points.
At points, sure, yeah. Absolutely.
It's one of the gripes I have about this game too.
It's not particularly the level design, and it might just be
based on the limitations. We talked about the depth
perception and everything, but the actual layout of these
worlds I find frustrating to navigate.
Yeah. Some of them definitely are.
Yeah, there's there's only a handful of like definitive
landmarks that you can really latch onto and be like, OK, this
is where I am. Yeah.
And it's just you have such a small view and perspective of
the actual like entire area. I almost think this will be
really cool if it was on PC and had like, you know, like ultra
wide support and you could just see everything that would be
that'd be dope. Yeah, that's just me throwing
that out there, but. It definitely.
It definitely feels like the level design is just trying to
do what Banjo Kazooie and Banjo Two we did with the big 3D open
worlds. But yeah, as you said, it
doesn't have the real, the screen real estate to make it
work. Yeah, so they they should have.
Done a better job. Yeah, or even maybe like a
little mini map or something to help keep you.
Keep track. Just something even like a
simple mini map, like something I just had, even just some
sprites on it, like just. A very basic thing, yeah, 'cause
there's so many times in this game where you're, you're
running around and you're like, wait, am I here?
I thought I was over there, you know, and you get lost.
Yeah, especially with some of like the outdoor areas where,
yes, depth is part of it, but also everything kind of looks
the same on the ground. So it's a little bit difficult
to figure out. You know, we're watching sort of
an indoor area, which I think was a little bit more defined.
But that's, again, that would be with a lot of games.
Too. I hated the area that we're in.
Right now, so did I, but it was at least you could you knew
which direction you needed to go.
Or at least I I did. I didn't.
I was OK with this with this particular part, but it was the
only issue with this is the whole thing where I mentioned,
like it, you just lose so much health in this area because
everything's on fire and the ground is on fire.
There's lava and it's like, OK, you know, I get it.
Can I just, you know, do something to get around that?
It felt more difficult than it needed to be only because if you
made a small mistake, you're punished more than I thought you
should be. Again, that's that's a
platformer. There's an ice level, there's a
lava level. There's, you know, like all
those types of things. It's all there.
It's just all part of it, right? The person who's playing this
game right now that we're watching, it's definitely not my
playthrough. They're crazy good.
They're they're dodging the
fucking bees. Like get out of here.
This is all they play we. Stitch together a lot of
sections of it, a lot of these long plays all stitch together
their best. I'm not knocking it, but they'll
stitch together. Yeah, their best just.
To play multiple. Just to keep it short, yeah.
You know what? You know what's crazy, though?
We've been talking about it. A lot of the criticisms we have
are like the similar ones I would have to Kirby in the
amazing Mirror on GBA. Oh, OK.
Like. I haven't played it so I can't.
Yeah, I mean I. Haven't played it.
I'll just it's Kirby trying to be a Metroidvania, like an
amazing concept, but I think the execution was not great and for
a lot of the same reasons here we're like the map.
It has a map system, but it's not great.
And very often I was getting lost and be like, where the fuck
do I have to go, you know? But.
In fact, for those who who said they didn't play it, it is on
Switch online I believe. Oh, but I'm.
Pretty sure it is. That's me, the game.
I think is yeah. Grundy's revenge is not.
No. That'd be interesting if it was.
Yeah, it would be. It's it would be a good, good,
yeah. Kirby that's.
Yeah, true. Why?
Not, I mean, they're not putting anything else on GBA, Yeah.
I know, honestly, Jesus, come on, let's let's get to pilot in
a second. But I wanna make sure that we
talk about the boss. So yeah, we, we haven't gone
into like a lot of the we'll just.
We'll just let. We'll just let Josh go.
We'll just let Josh go for it. We haven't gotten into like a
lot of sort of like the the finite details of like, you
know, whatever, but like honestly, it's it's it's a 2.5 D
ish Zelda, you know, just check out the game.
You'll get an idea of what it looks like and stuff and go like
that. But The thing is with the with
the boss is the final boss. I think it's taking ideas from
the other games. I think that's what's trying to
do and mash them all. At least for me, it feels that
way a little bit. And they're trying to mash it
all together in this way too long of a sequence of a final
boss battle that, you know, OK, maybe give, give grunty extra
health or. It has five stages.
That's that's what. It is not needed.
You don't need 5 stages for a four hour platformer.
It would be fine if it checkpointed you.
Yes. But it doesn't checkpoint you.
And to Josh's point, the number, to me, the number one issue with
it is every time you do fail and die, because you likely will at
least once or twice, it's not like it brings you back to the
beginning where you just walk into the door and hey, let's
start this over. You have to, you have to go to
this area of Spiral Mountain. You have to have enough frozen
eggs in order to put out fire that comes back and then you
have to go. I think it has a timer too,
doesn't it? We have to get to the timer in
order to jump to the area that has the the walkway, the doorway
to take you to the boss level. Why do you need to do that shit
just to do the boss over and over and over again?
Because you will need to do that.
That part should not even be part of it.
Like it should not be an aspect of this.
Do it once. Banjo Kazooie make you do this
on North 64. No, no, no.
OK, There is an element in the in Banjo Kazooie, the first game
that is similar to this boss with the quizzes.
Yeah, the Banjo Kazooie and. That's why I'm saying that's
what's getting I. Would argue even fans of that
game are not a fan of the quizzes.
I don't know about you Jaggy. I can't say for all fans, but at
least my perception of even people who like Kazooie a lot,
they're not necessarily a huge, I shouldn't say a huge fan of
the quizzes, but I to me the quizzes are just not great game
design because it doesn't test you on any mechanics that
they've taught you. They test It tests you on your
memory that you didn't know you were being tested on in the
first place. Sound effects and whatever,
yeah. Yeah like what sound does this
thing come from? Like, I don't fucking know.
Like yeah, they all sound the God damn same on an N64 I'm.
I'm the first. I'm the first.
Game exaggerating, but the. First game's furnace fun Furnace
fun, very unforgiving. Like you have to, you have to
get good. Didn't like that as much.
I actually didn't mind two weeks as just sort of like an ending
game gimmick. It's not that bad.
It's just kind of silly. There's also a lot more of like
what level is this? And it's, it's sort of, it's
something I actually started doing on my YouTube channel as
like community posts like texture challenges, where I'm
just like, what game is this from?
Like, let's see if you guys can get it.
And I'll just take like a random like screenshot from a game and
like zoom in on something and like, and it's kind of fun.
What pixel is this game from? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
People. I'm amazed at some people like
how fast they get it. I'm like, how do you know this?
Like Crash, Like Crash 2, it's this level and I'm like.
What the Wow. Like I didn't even know that.
I zoomed in on the dirt texture like this could be any insert
PS1 title like ever. It's just crazy.
I, I don't mind the quiz stuff, mainly because I just like for
me, I, I, you guys were talking a little bit about the sound and
stuff. I I like the sound, I like the
music. I'm OK with that.
I it just. Oh, the music I liked.
I hated the sound effects for the voice specifics.
See I'm totally fine with it. To me it just brings me back.
So I think I just the nostalgia hits me even though I didn't
play this. Specific game what grading your
ears on? No, I just like it.
I like hearing. I like hearing.
I like. I like gibberish, but I I play
this on mute. It's it's trying to be
consistent with the other games in the series.
But yeah. But I understand.
And some are better than others. Isn't as good.
Yeah, some of them are better than others.
Like Grunty sounds pretty good. Banjo doesn't really sound like
banjo sounds really weird. Yeah, but but even that it, I
don't know, It's almost like he only has one sound, whereas
normally, like Jiggy said earlier, they have a couple more
cadences that you kind of play with and his is very, very
monotone, if that's even how it would work when it's gibberish.
But. I don't even know monotone.
Gibberish. Monotone.
Gibberish. My new band name.
That's great. Yeah.
So anyway, so back to the boss. So you do a version.
You start with a version of a boss that you've played already
up until this point where there's a shield.
You run around. I guess we don't really get
quite to the story that much, but Grunty is in a Mecca suit
and has all these like different abilities and stuff.
Mecca grunty. Too bad you didn't like also get
large and like fight like over rooftops or something that'd.
Be sick if you want a brief synopsis.
Yes. Basically Grunty's soul gets
thrown into this Mecca version of Grunty and time travels back
to the past to actually capture Kazooie and like stop.
Like doesn't want Banjo Kazooie, doesn't want Banjo Kazooie to be
together. No, just kidnaps Kazooie, it
locks her up. So you actually have to spend
the first part of this game rescuing Kazooie and Mumbo uses
his magic to send Banjo back in time to, you know, save Kazooie,
save all of time. I guess I don't know.
And it's it's a little like the time thing isn't really that
important, honestly, no. It's.
Are you telling me Banjo is the hero of time?
Banjo is the true hero of time, yes.
No, honestly, this sounds like Banjo's version of the
Terminator. Yeah.
Oh yeah, it. Is sort of like the Terminator,
yeah. Yeah, the banjo Terminator.
Yeah, 100. Percent banjo is are you
Kazooie? I'm looking for Grud.
I'm looking for Kazooie. Come with me if you want to
spring. With me if you want jiggy.
It's it's super interesting too, because it actually caused
another issue with the Mumbo, like being in the past.
In the in the original game, Mumbo's face is a skull because
grunty like was his student and transformed his face into a
skull. And but in the past his face is
still a skull. So that's just kind of like an
oversight. And then they're like, well, we
never really capitalized on it anyway, so everyone just accepts
that Mumbo just always look like that.
And then for some reason, like we have Bottle's grandfather
teaches us moves for being a main person in the series.
Bottles like his role gets diminished like.
He's not even in this. He's basically he's, he's not
even anywhere close to beating this.
Yeah, well. In two weeks.
Because he loves it. Right, That's right.
Yeah. I love that banter stuff.
I love it. That's like one of my favorite
parts of. These games, they took so much
from Tui in this game, right? And it it feels like it needed
to be scaled back significantly. It needed to be more like
Kazooie, less like Tui, but they just kept packing stuff in.
It's like just refine the gameplay that you have.
Right. Up adding mechanics and it gets
a little overwhelming and in the boss fight in the boss fights in
general because there's even boss fights where you have to
use like first person perspective and like.
Yeah, forgot about Target. Yeah, that was yeah.
And I found that pretty easy though, like I got through
pretty quickly but. It's just it's padding, like we
said it earlier, it's padding. It's a lot of padding.
This game is like, OK, we're short.
We're gonna pad the game and we're gonna make things as
difficult as possible, which is all I could think about with the
with the last boss. I'm just like, let's just make
this super difficult to make this game extend just a little
bit longer. Yeah, so so my whole thing with
the with the with the boss was that I did you end up using the
safe state? Cuz even though I do have this
is the only one in the in the franchise where I just have the
cartridge and not the box. Like this is the only one I
cannot find a complete for a realistic price for a realistic
price. So I'm just.
Game collecting. Amazing.
It's just fantastic, isn't it? It's the only series where I'm
like, I gotta get everything. That and some of the Donkey Kong
stuff. But anyways, I ended up using a
safe state for it because. And one of the reasons why is
yes, it's frustrating and pretty annoying, but I've connected my
retro arc to retro achievements. I don't know if thrac, if you've
if you've used that at all. Yeah, it's great.
I. Love retro achievements?
Yeah, it's so good. I'm not usually an achievement
hunter, trophy hunter person. I'm not.
But when it comes to these, it's cool that it adds it to retro
games. So I'm like, you know what?
Every once in a while I'm gonna try to go for the extra stuff,
which is one of the reasons why I tried to go for a couple more
notes, a couple more Jiggies and things like that.
One of the achievements in this is to beat the final stage of
grunty without getting hit and. Nice.
And I did not, I actually did not have a choice because like I
said earlier, I only had one hit left when I was doing the
fishing mini game thing and that happens just before you get to
this point. So whether I had retro
achievements or not and whether I had save states or not, well,
I guess I had to have safe states.
But where I saved it I only had one honeycomb left and I ended
up beating that last part yes trying multiple times but I
ended up being beating that last part without getting hit and I
was. Like I think what's frustrating
and I think what's frustrating with the final boss is that the
actual like when you're when you're not in the quiz sections,
I actually don't hate it. I actually think it's not like
awful, like even the final grunty like showdown, Yeah,
that's I don't think is unreasonable and I don't think
it's completely unfair. I actually think it's a pretty
decent final boss. It's just that it's the, it's
the gauntlet nature of it. All on one health bar, all on
the fact that like, they they, they what a boss is supposed to
be. Is it supposed to test you on
the mechanics that the game has taught you throughout your
experience? Up to that point.
Up to that point, right, the quiz is not a mechanic like
there's no mechanics in the game that like are meant to like
prepare you for this test. If they gave you quizzes leading
up to this, almost like here, here's some stuff that did like
what do you remember from this section?
You just played through? And then by the time you you you
might not you might be a little frustrated in that first
section. So then you go to the second one
and then see when you see see it in the second area, you're like,
oh, so this is just a thing that I'm going to have to do.
Whether you like it or dislike it is up to you.
But like if they if they continue continuously did that,
so by the time you get to the final boss, you're like, well I
gotta be fucking prepared. I have, I, I've taken 5 quizzes
after there. I better know my stuff about the
trivia of this world. But they haven't.
The the game doesn't teach you any trivia mechanics, for lack
of a better term. It's just.
It teaches you platforming mechanics and shooting
mechanics. I think I think they like they
can have quizzes even in general in the game but just leave it
out of the final boss too. Exactly.
So when you get to the final boss and like each section of
the final boss is another test of something that you've done
before. I mean, I'm not a fan of the the
henchman turning invisible, but I think they don't make him
visible for long enough. I think that's a little not
unfair, but it's not very fun because it's like I feel like
I'm playing more guesswork than anything else.
You're like, you know, he'll, he'll disappear.
The dude will disappear. You'll see which direction he
just like as he's walking off. So you go to that direction and
you attack and then you miss him and then he suddenly spawns and
he's on the opposite side of the screen.
So I felt like I was just getting lucky half the time and
not actually like I, I didn't know what to how to infer his
pattern because you can't see him.
You see the direction anyway, but that that's a minor grave
because I was able to beat it. But like those sections, those 3
sections, if it was just three phases of that, I would have
been cool with it. I would have been.
I'm I'm annoyed that they do a section, a quiz, another like
boss mechanic section, and then another quiz an even longer one
and then the final one. Like I actually did not hate the
actual segments of the boss that were the boss, it was just the
quizzes. And then like you also said,
Dave, the lead up to it to literally get to the boss by
having to climb that tower every single time.
And the fact that you needed to have those eggs at the ready,
which you might not. And if you don't have any, they
do have some that will spawn for you but you only get 3 at a time
and three is not enough so you have to get three run off screen
in order to spawn it. I found a way to spawn it faster
is just to go into the honeycomb hive and then come right back
out because if I even if I walked over to the honey home
hive and walked back it, they weren't always there so I just
would just go to honey home. Hive just a stupid idea.
The fact that you even have to do that, it's just dumb.
Yeah, it's just. Dumb so that I think what's
frustrating is that the boss itself is actually a really good
boss for what they teach you throughout the game.
It's just the stuff before and in the middle is the problem.
Yeah, the the filler, like you said, the filler.
So OK, before before we forget, I guess I I think this game is
worth playing. Don't expect anything
incredible, but there are little grapes and stuff that we've
mentioned. But but let's talk about Banjo
pilot because I want to make sure that we're definitely
covering some of this because no, no, because honestly,
because it's. An hour and a half into
recording. Yeah, that's fine.
It is fine. But the reason why one of the
reasons why is because I know that especially for for me and
Jiggy, we absolutely love Diddy Kong Racing and think it's just
a fantastic game. This would have been in Banjo
Pilot, like was mentioned earlier, was supposed to be a
sequel to that or spiritual successor or whatever it might
have been called at the time and just didn't happen for the
various reasons like Microsoft and rights and all those types
of things that that we also mentioned.
But but it's a cart racer with a plane and you know, some some
depth and some you know, up and down mechanics and verticality
and things like that. But it is very much a classic
cart racer at heart. This game was something that
completely passed me by. I don't know if I was done
playing the GBA too much at the time.
I don't know if I just didn't know what existed.
I don't know. I don't know what it was, but I
never played this up until a couple years ago when I picked
up this this cartridge and, and played it and I was like, Oh my
God, I got to get all the Banjo Kazooie games and I'm an idiot.
So I got to go buy it and I got to find it in the box and all
that kind of stuff. And I think it's overall, I
think it's I think it's pretty good overall.
I, I, I enjoy, I am I am enjoying and have enjoyed my
time with it. But just like Grunty's revenge,
I don't think it's a home run for a lot of different reasons,
but I like Banjo pilot and I like what I played with it.
So Jiggy, what what about you? Did you played Grunty's revenge?
Did you play this grown up too? Briefly, briefly.
OK, I did. Yeah.
Oh, of course it's it's Banjo. So I was like, but sorry you
were. What this is?
Oh, this is not one that I liked.
OK. And I, I, I played it now and I
can see some like redeeming qualities, I guess.
I, I was really like, Oh my gosh, this is Jenny Kong Racing.
I'm a Game Boy with Banjo. This is going to be fantastic.
That's how I talked to when I was like 10 or whatever.
You're fucking cool a lot whenever you it's.
Going to be it's going to be really really really great OK
and then it ended up being really really, really mid you
know got. Some in your mouth.
Yeah, you. Know marshmallows?
It's it's interesting. Chubby Bunny.
Chubby buddy. Chubby buddy.
Yes, exactly. You.
You, Dave. You.
Love Did you love Mario's Super Circuit?
I, I, I, I really, we talked about on, I talked about on, on
Josh's show. Yeah, I was going to say you
guessed. It I was trying to, I was trying
to remember it. I I don't think.
I, I don't think I I loved it completely, but I, it's another
game that I also had very little experience before coming on the
show and talking about it. I liked it.
I thought it was pretty good. I thought it was one of the I
was, I was pleasantly surprised. I actually was going to expect
it wasn't going to be very good and I had a pretty good time
with it. I if you want to compare the
two, I've that game's probably better than this in my opinion.
But but yeah, I had AI, had a pretty decent time with it.
I just like, I don't really like that game.
OK. And I don't really, I don't
really care about this game either, to be honest.
OK. And I think what it what does it
for me is the going back to the depth perception we had in
Grunty's Revenge, except this is like all about depth perception,
like going forward and the the pop in that you get for like
items and things. Yeah, that's a problem with
this. It's not bad, it's just it, it
makes me feel like I can't perform as well unless I like go
through and do a lap and I like recognize the track where it's
going. Like I can't like see ahead,
which most racing games. That's how I kind of play.
I'm like, OK, this is coming up, I'm going to go up here.
It's just like a weird like 2DS trying to be 3D sort of thing
because I've got that with the original Mario Kart on Super
Nintendo. It's kind of the same thing.
I'm just not a huge fan of it and but I like F0 so I don't
know what that's about. Right, it's just a better game.
Yeah. It's it's not that F.
Zero is a great game, Yeah, that's no question.
It's not that I dislike this, but it's not something that I
particularly would like to play. This is definitely my least
favorite Banjo game out of all of them.
OK, fair enough. So.
We'll talk about some of the details of, of how it
differentiates itself and stuff too, because I think those are
some of the reasons why I, I thought it was like, OK, at
least it's doing interesting things.
So, Thrack, what about you, buddy?
Well oh real quick, Mario Kart Super Circuit.
Fun fact, it is the highest rated Mario Kart game on
Metacritic. Really.
Shit, what? It's at a 93.
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is a 92. Interesting.
So eat it. Super Circuit, Super circuit.
Super circuit is perfectly fine. Yeah.
Banjo pilot. I've known about this game for a
while, but I never really played it 'cause I'm just like, oh,
it's probably just some stupid racing game, who cares, right?
It's only been in like really since I've been podcasting with
Bill 'cause he's really into racing, but I've been playing
more racing games and I've been getting more enjoyment out of
them. So for this one, I was like, you
know, let's see what the big deal is And and yeah, it's
weird. It's called a cart racing game,
but you're flying. Shouldn't shouldn't it be,
shouldn't it be a prop plane? You know, like the the the cart
no cart equivalent would be a prop.
Plane, prop plane. Yeah.
I think that the reason why it's that is because you're cartoony
characters and you're picking up items and you're shooting them
at other players. That that's it.
That's a cart racer. That's the definition of that.
So, but yeah, you're right, it is a prop plane.
You're right. And there are, there are
actually some pretty good and interesting racing games on the
GBA. Yeah, this isn't one of them.
This is. Like like yeah the pop in can be
an issue but like the track designs are so basic and.
Similar. Yeah, and like the.
You don't like trapezoids? I like trapezoids.
I. Just don't you know what's?
Your favorite shape? What's your?
I have to think about it and. Get back on a 2D plane.
Not on a 3D plane. On a 2D plane.
Yeah, this is strictly 2 DI. Like the hexagon?
There you. Go hexagon A.
Healthy. That's a healthy shape.
That's a good one. Yeah, a naturally occurring
shape too. But but yeah, like the track
designed is very plain, like the items they give you all.
All I really saw was either you could spit out like an ice cube
behind you or you could just shoot a fireball in front or
like a UFO and that. Was that was the UFO thing is
weird. Yeah, yeah.
And it's like the game tries to have rubber banding but it
doesn't really work because there'll be times where I get
swamped with like like I'll be in first and I'll just get hit
with a bunch of items and go back to like 6th and then I just
do like a lap and then I'm back in like second again and I hit
like 2 items. Bungee jumping versus rubber
banding. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's slingshotting. Yeah, it's, it's really weird.
Like it feels like the game is trying to be difficult, but it's
like super fucking easy. Yeah, it's not that hard.
Yeah, it's not that. Yeah, yeah.
And and you have like you can hold R to do a sharper turn, but
like I never really needed it. Yeah, no, you're you handle
pretty like it controls perfectly fine.
If your handling is solid, you don't have to.
You don't skid or anything weird.
Like that and to your point, the tracks, because they're not
super difficult, you don't need to worry about those tight turns
as much as you would in something like Diddy Kong Racing
that has that. As or an F0 even.
Or F0, Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
The only interesting thing is you can adjust your height,
which say for like when you go through the, the the speed
boost, you know, if you're not the right height, you could miss
it. Or if you're trying to get the,
the music notes, you could miss them if you're not high or low
enough off the ground. But that's really about it.
This feels like like a like a vertical slice for what a banjo
racing game would be on GBA. Like it doesn't feel fully
formed. You know, they're like, it needs
more interesting. Yeah, it like it needs more
interesting level design or it needs, it needs something more
and it just doesn't have it. But they're like, hey, let's
just get this out of here because we got to we got to make
cameo or something stupid. So like, yeah, just get this out
the door. You know, we can move on to
that. So it's it's OK.
Like I played it for a couple hours.
I don't feel like I wasted my time, but I don't feel like I
gained anything. Yeah, yeah.
That's fair. That's fair.
Like like if you want to play a really cool cart racing game on
GBA I'd recommend Konami Crazy Racers.
That game is really good. OK, yeah, that was like really
good track design. It's Konami.
So it's got it's, I think it has like Dracula and I think Gray
Fox is in it, you know, but it has really good track design.
It controls better than Super Circuit.
I like how it looks. Yeah.
That's a really cool game they all should check out.
So you're telling me it has more than just trapezoids?
Oh yeah, it's got, it's got all kinds of shapes.
I think there's a Figure 8 in there too.
Oh my God, fancy. Don't be crazy now I know I.
Thought we were just looking for for straight corners in here.
Jeez, you thought Josh turned? My camera off.
Yeah, Josh, you weren't able to to get your time with this and
stuff. Is it ever, was it ever anything
that you were you were interested in at all or is it
kind of just no, no, not really? No, so I am not a racing game
fan in the slightest. The only racing game I've ever
enjoyed in my life is a PS1 snowmobile racing game called
Sled Storm. Really, really like that.
It's really good. It's really good.
I love it.
Racing games are an interesting breed.
So what I will say this, I, I think Thrak, you're right on the
money with this, where it just needed something more.
And the reason I say that I, I, I have no idea how it controls
how it handles because like I said, I didn't play, but I've
been watching literally videos leading up to this.
And so all, all my experiences with just how this game presents
visually, right? I don't even know what the sound
is right now because I've had it muted down.
Well, let's, let's see. Well, why would you do that to
me? No, so the The thing is the
where where the reason why I say it needs more, I think one thing
it actually does really well. I actually think the character
sprites are really good. They they, they, they clearly
did a lot of animation work on them because they'll flip and
tumble and turn and you, they feel fully realized.
When you see that where the game really kind of fall fails and
falters is not even just the layout of the track design, it's
the visuals of the track design. Because it's almost like if you
look at the backgrounds of every single thing, it's like they
took a panoramic shot and it just pans left and right
depending on how you turn the cart.
There's yeah, it feels really weird and it doesn't feel fully
natural. It does, it doesn't, it feels
like a really poorly done sky box, Right.
And it just it. Yeah, Sky.
Box nice. That's yeah, yeah, yeah.
There's a lot of those on the Game Boy Advance.
Poorly done sky boxes. Yeah, I didn't believe it.
I mean, actually, I think one of the most interesting things
about the GBA, this is a very quick side tangent that I don't
have much to say on because I haven't played them all.
The GBA is a bizarre amount of first person shooters, which I
always found super odds like Medal of Honor underground.
You know, Dave and I, I don't want this is coming out in what
may, right Dave? Yeah.
So probably be. Yeah, yeah, everyone will
probably. Hear that episode Our episode
for Punch Nazi month will be out by then so Dave was joined me
for punch and Nazi month to talk about Medal of Honor underground
and for the PS1. It had a GBA version and it's
very weird it's. Very bad like I could do I could
do a whole thing on like all the PS1 ports, the GBA right?
That one from my experience is the worst one by far.
Wow, it's it is terrible. And this is obviously not 3D,
but it's got like, you know, the mode 7 style.
I don't know if it if mode 7 was on the GBA or not, but that was,
you know, the Super Nintendo equivalent.
This does is feels like a poor version of that, and I think
mainly because of the art direction, not because of any
technical issues. It's just the art direction
really felt like they could have just done a little bit more to
mask maybe the the the jankiness of the background visuals.
I also think just in general, the idea of making everything
fly is actually kind of dumb. Not because a flying racing game
is bad, but there's so many portions where it's like they
won't let you fly over the lava because that's a spot where you
couldn't drive over with a car. I'm like, but I'm not in a car,
I'm in a plane. I could just fly right over
this. Yeah, You might as well just put
columns of flames above me, like right there.
So that way I know. Out of the ground.
Fly through that, yeah. Or like if you're flying over,
like I we joked about at the beginning of the episode, you
know, if you fly over grass, all of a sudden you see the plane
start shaking because it's going through turbulence because the
grass is just so grassy. It's just.
It's too green. Silly.
It's blinding my eyes, Sarge. It's just.
Sorry. There's just.
That classic Banjo Kazooie character, Sarge.
Banjo Kazooie Sarge is war. I've seen so many jiggies fall
not. Today, soldiers been in the.
Conquer territory here, yeah. Yeah, that's right.
Yeah. But I'm never made it back to
the frame I'll. Be in, conquer.
I'll be started. But no, I just I think that's
really where this game falters is it's just it's visual
presentation because while the characters look really solid,
especially for AGBA title, the world's feel really kind of like
under bait or the the tracks, excuse me, feel very under
baked. I will give them credit for
trying like a weird boss type of thing at the end of each.
From what I saw, there's like 4 races in each cup and then
there's like a boss race and I'm watching the boss races and it
seems not my favorite type of thing.
But that also just feels like a bit of preference.
It's like it seems like you take turns like you're you'd have a
turn shooting at the boss and then you have a turn dodging
from the boss and you have health bars and that kind of
stuff. It's an interesting idea.
Like I don't think it's a completely it's, it's not a game
devoid of any unique ideas. I just think there's a lot of
elements where it's like, well, you could have put this in the
oven a little bit longer. And I think this there there's
like, you know, the ingredients in this game.
I think you could have made a really nice cake, but you just
let it stay in the you just didn't leave it in the oven long
enough. And that's kind of like, or
maybe you left it in too long, who knows.
I think I think that's a part of.
This is the, this is the definition of 1/2 baked game.
You know, like, like like when you bite and do like a piece of
bread and that's a little bit doughy in the middle.
Like this is. That's the equivalent of this
game. Got you.
I hope I. Don't get an upset stomach after
this. Yeah.
The the the whole, but the whole boss race thing, that's in Diddy
Kong Racing, isn't it? Well, so that so that's The
thing is like the the, the the couple of things that are from
that. And obviously, like we said,
this was supposed to be Diddy Kong Pilot.
So I think they kept that because they needed to change
for rights issues. And also it was pilot initially
and that version because that was one of the unique ways that
you drove around and raced in Diddy Kong Racing.
So they're like, well, we should do that.
That'll differentiate us from a Mario Kart or from a Sonic One
or Crash or whatever was out at the time, right?
So I think that's why they went that way.
And then yes, Diddy Kong Racing has the boss races, which I
really enjoy, but also very difficult in this.
They're not that hard, so I like that they tried to do something
different like I do. I think they're incredible.
No, I think some of them are kind of weird too.
Like you face bottles at one point and he's like pooping out
like lightning bolts or something.
For some reason I'm like, what? What does this have to do with
anything? But you said bottles.
I thought you said balls. I'm like, whose balls?
Is bottles cousin little cousin? Cousin Balls.
Instead.
Of the glasses up here, he has them down, blows waist.
Bottles is like we have, we see the most extended family of
bottles in the Banjo series. It's crazy.
He's got a wife, he's got several kids.
Yep, he's got his his brother jam jars.
He was in the military. His ancestor.
We just learned about him. Grunty's Revenge like he's all
over the place. Yeah, I'm so glad to know
Bottles fucks. Oh, isn't it?
Isn't it very reassuring? It's very reassuring.
Bottles given him if. He can do it.
Anybody can. If he could spending all that
time on the ground and he could still get it done.
Come on. I I, I think you know what?
I feel like I'm the only one who kind of liked this game.
I don't know. I like.
I didn't hate. It I can't, I don't, I can't
really have an opinion on it. I'm I'm basing my like it's
literally all my opinion is based purely off of the visuals,
not off of the. Not like the the feel of it or
whatever. I so I I think that.
It's definitely. Go ahead, go ahead.
It's definitely a game that if I had it as a kid, I would have
played it a bunch and probably had a found this for it, you
know, because it's very simple and all that.
It's just, I don't know, I don't even want to say my racing game
taste is sophisticated, but like I play a lot of Forza Horizon.
So going from that to this is like, you know, but it is
probably fine, but it but it makes me wonder if this was
Diddy Kong pilot and this was like in theory the same game but
Diddy Kong, would it be better or would it be worse?
I think the expectation would be different.
Expectation could be a bit different, which is why I sort
of mentioned like the, the, the pilot, like the the plane thing
and the boss. You're kind of like, Oh yeah,
that's what I expect from this game.
I don't know, 'cause it 'cause it's not gonna feel any
different, you know, Like if, if it, if it was.
And it feels fine. There's something wrong with
that. Yeah, I think it's OK.
I think I have some some problems with sort of how they
they manage the speed when you hit boosts and things.
But I but I think I think what I give, what I give the most
credit to is the is those ideas that it has.
So the boss that the boss races or battles, you can even call
them or at least something different.
I don't think they're incredible, but at least there's
something different. And then there's, if you go
deeper into this one, I think there's actually a decent amount
of races in this, more than I thought there would be.
And then there's these things, I don't know if you guys got to
this, where when you collect enough pages for is it Cheeto?
Is that what it's called Cheeto? Cheeto, who's like the the sort
of like encyclopedia for the franchise that has information.
Which is spellbook. Which is what?
Which is spellbook. Which is spellbook.
That's what it is, I think I. Think, I think, Dave, I think
the Banjo Encyclopedia is here in the call with us right now.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
My mistake. You're not.
You're not wrong. You're not right.
No. No, It's exact.
Yeah. What are you talking about?
Yeah. So like when you do that and you
collect when you win races or when you do time trials or
whatever, you get pages that you can go to Cheeto and and unlock
characters or battle races or these things.
What are what are those called? Jiggy encyclopedia?
What are those called? The little sort of like devil
looking guys. The greblins.
Yes, yes, those. So you can go to Cheeto and get
and unlock those. And what happens is they show up
on certain races and Oh no. No, no.
Globos, Globos, is that what it is?
Yeah, Globos. So when you, when you pick up
one of those, similar to when you pick up one of the notes or
the, OR the jiggies in it, a different boost thing pops up in
the level. And when you go through it, it
gives you, or at least most of them.
You go through it, it gives you like super speed and it steers
for you for almost an entire lap.
And it's kind of a cool idea because you kind of have to
really have to unlock it. First of all, you have to notice
that it's in in the in the stage, which sometimes can be
tricky with the way things pop in.
And then you have to go and get yourself to that boost in that
same lap and it gives you this massive lead.
Then it does try to do the rubber banding.
You usually don't really have too much of an issue, but
suddenly they're right behind you and then the race kind of
continues. But if it is something that you
get in the second or third lap, it makes a huge difference.
That's at least a cool idea. The execution of it is hit and
miss because of the way that they handle speed and depth and
height and things like that. So I think that's kind of the
problem with it. But the, again, the idea of it,
I enjoyed and thought it was kind of cool.
It was one of those things where I looked up to be like, what the
fuck was that thing? I just saw?
Like, what is that? I couldn't quite tell because it
was kind of muddy and in the corner and I was zooming right
past it. But I give it a little extra,
you know, kudos for trying to do something.
A little bit different. This, this, this.
It's just I want this to be Diddy Kong Racing 2 and in my
mind like, oh, banjo themed Banjo Focus.
Diddy Kong Racing 2 sounds even cooler to me.
I was like, but it's got some things like even the the whole
like ready go at the beginning is totally Diddy Kong Racing.
Like there's so many elements of it that I do I want to like so
much. And then the actual gameplay is
just pretty bland for me. It just doesn't do anything
special. I didn't really.
I did play as a few different characters.
I didn't. I can't say that.
I, I mean, it's basically like if I hit boost, I was winning.
So yeah, I don't feel like anyone particularly gave me an
advantage. I played as Kazooie a lot.
So did I. Actually I I never finished
below first place. Yeah, it was.
It was hard to, especially in the early, early ones, It's it's
difficult to not win. Yeah, 'cause you hit, you hit a
couple boosts, like let's say there's two boosts in the entire
lap on some of the early ones, which is pretty minimal.
You'll be fine. You'll probably win if you make
a couple mistakes, maybe you'll come, you'll probably still come
top three. And they're they're pretty
generous with the items they give you with the pickups, which
there are a lot of the timing cart racers that are, are are or
prop plane, plop plane racers. Easy for me to say.
Plane Flyers. Plop.
Yeah, exactly. So, you know, they're, they want
you to win. I think it's, it's a little bit,
it's definitely more forgiving than like, you know, Super
Circuit or the Mario Kart games and stuff.
You can tell this is made for a very young audience.
Yes, yes you can. There's not a ton of depth to it
other than like hey collect the pages, unlock stuff and you'll
get new characters so. Collect a thon.
Listen, I did like that element of it, collecting the notes on
the track like looking for them you.
Know what the notes did? That's a neat idea.
I had to look up what they did. What do they do?
Don't they unlike? The they give you, they, the
more notes you, you don't have to collect them all.
I thought it was one of those things where it's like, oh,
collect all the, you know, whatever, and then you get, you
know, maybe it was coins. I thought maybe it'd give you
more speed or something like that.
It's not. So the more notes you collect,
even if you collect just one, it multiplies how many pages you
get. At the end of the race.
Which I was like, OK, that's also kind of an interesting way
of doing it. The speed and stuff is sort of a
Mario Kart thing, right? So.
You get pages if you don't get the notes.
Yes, you do. Because I never didn't get all
the notes because that's what I spent most of my time doing.
I. Was like, there's a note, I'm
going to get it. The next lap, like the first lap
was just like, I'm just gonna look for all the notes, Yeah.
And the second lap was get all the notes and then the third lap
was hit every boost and win. Yeah, that's that.
That's pretty much a loop. And then they have the Jiggy
challenge thing. I don't know if you guys tried
that. That's essentially like in Diddy
Kong Racing where you have to collect what's it called?
What do you have to collect in Diddy Kong now?
And forget I'm blanking me. You have to go around the lap.
Oh, the silver. Coins.
To collect the silver that there's, there's four or five
Jiggies around it, It completes a little picture in the corner
and then you complete the race. But this is only one-on-one, so
it's not as hectic and crazy. So as long as you again, as long
as you hit a boost and you collect the Jiggies in like 1
1/2 laps, you'll probably be fine.
You know what? You know what also is really
annoying? We go through all these
different banjo stages. Yeah, and none of the music is
from Banjo Kazooie. It's all like original like,
which doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing, but when
you're going in like Treasure Treasure Trove Cove or Gobi's
Valley, like tracks that hit super hard, I would have loved
to have just like, yeah, let's see, let's listen, you know, a
GB AFI version of those tracks. I I wonder if they couldn't
though because Nintendo owned the copyright too.
Well, I guess rare. No rare rings, Banjo.
Rare rings banjo. Yes.
But I don't. But who would have the rights to
to the music specifically could have been different.
I don't know. Yeah, but there's.
But they didn't own, but like, you know, they owned the rights
to Banjo even on the N64. They were independent of
Nintendo. It's just that when they like.
Yeah, they were a second party developer, like Nintendo had a
minority stake so that they would publish their stuff and
had publishing rights. But when?
I'm pretty sure when Microsoft bought Rare they got all those
publishing rights. Yes, that's right.
So. That's why like Banjo Kazooie
got those 360. Yeah, and Rare Replay is only on
on Xbox and like things like. Yeah, exactly.
So that is kind of weird that they didn't put any of the the
tracks from from any of the Banjo game or like the tracks in
there 'cause like they should have had the rights to.
It some of the stages have like hints of it, but it's definitely
not the song, which I think either point would actually add
a lot to it 'cause it would give you that feeling.
You know, even if like the sound isn't great or even if like the
characters don't make the the noises and sounds and tracks
like at least that is there. And even if it doesn't look or
feel like it based on like the visuals.
Music is a huge part of what rare does in their games and all
their really good games like Donkey Kong series is a perfect
example. Even stuff like Killer Instinct,
like great music, but, and obviously Goldeneye is a big
part of that, but like if you don't have that, you lose a lot
of character and that's a huge part of what they do because
it's very cartoony music and sound is a huge part of cartoons
in general. You have to have some of it I
think. The only thing I could guess is
either maybe Grant Kirk Hope didn't want them to use the
tunes or maybe they tried to GB AFI the songs and they didn't
like how they sounded so they just made new compositions for
them. Leading to the half baked theory
that we that we have. Compositions are a little doughy
in the middle. Yeah, a little.
Too dough. Or maybe maybe because this
transition from Diddy Kong pilot, maybe it was like it was
never intended like to just pick, maybe didn't have time,
they didn't have time to do it. And they're just like.
They're basically how. These tunes are what would have
been in Diddy Kong pilot. Yeah.
Yeah, so like you, you asked before, Dave, do we think this
game would have been better if it if it had the Diddy Kong
license or and I'm if I don't think it's necessarily a
question you can answer like if it if you took it directly and
just put Diddy Kong and Donkey Kong characters in this, no, it
would not have made it better just because you still have
nostalgic attachment to the banjo characters just like you
do like like you do to Donkey Kong characters.
And it didn't save it right now. What I do think though, the
reason why I don't think you can actually really genuinely answer
that, is that if this game, like you, like you said Jiggy, was
meant to be a Diddy Kong Racing game that they had to switch
over midway through development or at some point in the.
Very late actually. They only had about like just
over a year to switch this over or under a year to switch.
This. Over so like for GPA?
That's not bad. Doesn't it doesn't.
Maybe, maybe it's not bad, but it doesn't sound like much, you
know? True, but I feel like the
creating this game on that isn't necessary.
Like you, you're not going to be able to you're you generally
genuinely, excuse me, won't know because you don't know what
constraints they were played unless they can tell you
specifically what constraints they ended up getting placed on
because of the chaos of the being bought out by Microsoft.
And now all of a sudden you're switching publishers.
Like who knows what THQ made them do like if if anything,
because even though Mike they were owned by Microsoft, THQ was
publishing this because Microsoft wasn't going to
publish on the Game Boy or the GBA or if Nintendo would even
let them. Like who knows?
Like there's because they were they're a competitor, right.
So who knows if they had to do some weird stuff with it, kind
of like kind of like in the same vein of like how Konami
circumvented the NES is like 5 game a year limit by creating
ultra ultra games or whatever it is.
Like there's weird shit like that like just on the NES.
So I wouldn't be surprised if there was something weird that
happened here. So like, I feel like this game,
yeah, it's half baked from like, once again, from my outsider's
perspective, but I feel like it looks pretty half baked.
But I, I, I honestly, it feels like it just because of the
chaotic, what I would assume would have been a chaotic,
excuse me, development period between all the business stuff
behind the scenes and then having to reconcile all that in
the game in under a year while still trying to figure out the
fallout from like, how how long do you think they had to hold on
developing the game even after the sale?
Right? Like if it happened like a year
before it was released, if the sale happened a year before this
game came out, like does that mean they were actively working
for the full year or were they in a holding pattern until they
could figure out rights? So the.
Game was in development for five years.
It was first announced in 2001, and then the rare the Microsoft
sale was what, 2002? 1002.
Yeah, yeah. So.
Oh, so it only happened a year into development?
They had four extra years. Yeah, basically so.
Yeah, it could have been. A case of they, well, and think
about it, they were also working on Grunny's Revenge 'cause that
came out before this as well. So, you know, that was my
theory. It could have been a case of
they were just juggling a bunch of products and Microsoft was
like not sure which ones to prioritize.
They were also porting all the Donkey Kong games to GBA at the
same time too, like that. That was a big thing.
They are. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
They're great. So I just, I just saw this on
on. Take it for a grain of salt on
the Wikipedia entry for it. Yes, but it says the soundtrack
was composed by Robin Beamland of Rare fame and Jamie Hughes,
and it was unaltered as Rare was unable to implement new music.
Yeah, OK. By the time it was released.
Yeah, so there you go. No, I, I.
Believe that? Throwback to that, Yeah.
Makes sense cuz cuz they're credited in the game and if you
go to the mobi games for Banjo pilot they're right there so
yeah. Yeah, one of the one of the
interesting things too that I don't know which one you guys
mentioned using the accelerometer tilt ometer thing
for the GBA a little while ago earlier in the episode.
For warrior were twisted. That's what it was so.
Yeah, it has a gyroscope in it. Gyroscope.
That's it. So Diddy Kong pilot was also
supposed to have that. That was supposed to be one of
the ways that they were trying to make that could have been
kind of cool. Yeah.
I feel like there's something about using the D pad on the GBA
'cause this is the one that I played on the GBA and not on
with my Xbox controller. Essentially it's what I play.
Corn teaser vendor. I mean, it's just the D pads or
whatever, but but the but the D pad almost really throws you
around the screen a lot more and on a pretty small screen as
well. So I felt like that is part of
the issue this game ran into. If you could tilt it, depending
on how accurate it was, I think maybe that would have actually
helped with some of the control. You know, say what you will
about the excessive motion controls in some games for we or
we you that may or may not have worked, but in this I don't
know. I I haven't played one of those
on the GBA before because there's there's a very few of
them. There's a Kirby game I think as
well that has a. Kirby Tilts and Tumble, you're
giving me, you're giving me mad flashbacks to Kirby Tilts and
Tumble. Because when I did play that on
my GBA SP, OK, once we transition from single screen,
you know, not a flip, OK. But when you have a game like
Kirby Tilts and Tumble, where there's a mechanic of launching
Kirby in the air by going like this, what happens?
The screen flips. The screen flips.
They're gonna say you hit something in the face.
You flip it back and forth, you're like really working that
hinge. It's like, and it didn't fix it.
You know, DS, same thing, same thing.
So like any I I'm not a huge, I'm not a huge gyro fan.
What what's cool with What's cool with tilt and tumble?
On the NSO version you can use the the gyroscope to control it.
Yeah, that's true. Cool.
Oh, I should try that. Remember, it's worth, it's worth
playing it that way. Yeah.
And. Then it's like.
Portable I think even if you do the the joy cons and the little
grips you can do. It that way, that's a pro
controller, that's fun, that's that's good.
Yeah, yeah, it's a fun game. Yeah, I, I, I like those.
I like how Kirby does a lot of different stuff.
So I'm I'm happy. Kirby handles gimmicks really
well. Yes, yes.
That's what Kirby has really, actually turned into, is that
that's really what it's should kind of be known for in in a lot
of ways. But but if you see like
Forgotten land, they can still make a really.
Good like Oh my God, I solid Kirby game.
I just played that two months ago at a friend's place.
He got it for his for his son who just got a switch like his
for his game system is a switch and he's like 8 years old or
whatever. There you go, tilt and tumble.
Also, like, the coolest game cartridge ever, Yeah.
That's nice looking and man I love my forgotten world is
fucking good holy shit. It's my favorite.
It's my favorite Kirby. Game I gotta you know what when
or if let's be honest, when I get a switch to that's gonna be
one of the games that I wanna get for it I'm just gonna play
it on that but man it was fun. I played it.
I don't know we were passing the controller around like oh your
turn my turn whatever for like an hour and I'm like this is
fantastic. This is.
Really 100% of it and it was worth it.
Yeah, it yeah, it's a great time.
It looks great. So Banjo Pilot, give it a shot
if you want. I don't know if you're going to
really get more than a couple hours out of it, but if you want
to play something like this, you can easily just go to the 64 and
play that instead. Or there's other racers, as
we've discussed on the GBA, that yeah, they're not prop planes,
but they're probably turbulent, but they're probably better than
this, yeah. If.
You if you play this game for half an hour, you'll be good.
Yeah, you'll get the gist of it. That's true.
Yeah, that's true. I was gonna say, listen, we we
got here, we didn't, we haven't talked about the GBA very often.
So this obviously it's an N64 podcast.
The fact we talked about the GBA, we went on these, we went
on these little side tangents, OK, to talk about different
games we like different mechanics, different things,
like all about the GBA, like fantastic.
But I think that speaks to the quality of these two games that
we went on these tangents talking about other games we
liked more or different mechanics we liked more.
We're like these games were almost something we liked.
At least Grunty's Revenge was a little more positive.
But you know, there's something there.
But we definitely think there's a lot better titles on the Game
Boy Advance. I don't know.
That's, that's what I'm getting from this.
I I. Think so.
That's part of. It, I think it, I think it's
like if this represents like the middle of the road for the GBA,
that means you have so much more great stuff to go off.
Like it has a really deep library of games.
And a lot of when I was like, exploring it and playing all
these random games, like so many of them surprised me at how well
they were made and just how fun they were.
Because it felt like by this point, most people had figured
out how to do 2D games and make 2D games that were really great.
And the GBA is just jam packed with amazing games.
Yeah. Huge library, huge library.
And also I went from having the original Game Boy to the color
to this. All my games played on it and
like as a kid. That's cool that.
Was awesome and I also loved like.
I played the first Wario game a ton growing up.
I love that game so much. It is amazing now.
No, but I have a lot of nostalgia for it.
Little things where you could just like switch the color
palette or shades or whatever they call them on it.
I had a couple of favorites that I always went to, like that kind
of stuff was it's just cool to have that option, you know?
I have a lot of respect for the Wario Land series.
Yeah, yeah, the first two. Nintendo.
It's Nintendo being unique and actually genuinely
experimenting, which is something that they do less and
less of the further we get into them, you know?
Absolutely around that. Time and Wario Land 4 and Wario
Land 4 is one of the best. It's.
Fantastic on that, on that console so.
Yeah, it's really, really good. Yeah.
And they're doing something weird, which like you said, is
not something they're really known for at the at this moment
anyway, right now. Especially as weird as like
Wario Land. Yeah, like.
Yeah, like some of the things they do in those games feels
very UN Nintendo. And it gets weirder as they go
along, I think, you know, like they really do.
They should be crazy with it. Yeah, and after and after trying
to play, say, Super Mario Brothers Wonder and being kind
of underwhelmed by it, I'm like, Nintendo should just go back to
Wario Land. Like, let them do that.
Wacky. They should anyways, whether
whether that game was a huge hit and people loved it or not, like
Wonder or whatever, like whatever it is, I think they
they should make another, yeah, another Wario game for sure,
yeah. Too many Wario wares, I know.
We've had enough warrior wear. I want warrior land.
Yeah, A. 100% I miss those yeah and and 2D make it 2D just like
wonder was I'm I'm all. For it or Warrior World 2.
Yeah. I've talked about Warrior World
before. I don't, I'm not.
It's a fine game, but it's it's it's own beast.
Wario himself and those games themselves are their own beast,
and that's why we want to see more.
OK, so there's the. Waluigi Game.
Oh my God, maybe that's what Waluigi.
We're. We're sitting here just a
couple. We're sitting here just a couple
days before the Switch to announcement.
This will be coming out far after that, but maybe there'll
be a Waluigi game. Oh, never mind.
Mario that Luigi. Pinball.
Just do Waluigi pinball. Dude.
Why not? Do it, do it.
Pokémon pimple game. Either that or we get AGTA clone
with Waluigi. Yes.
Which is all I've ever wanted. It's all we all.
It's all any of us really need. It's GTA 6, but you're Waluigi.
But you're Waluigi. Yeah, they beat Rockstar to it.
Thank God. OK, So before we get out of
here, Josh, we'll start with you first.
Where can everybody find still loading and this Will, yeah, I
know we're doing this a lot, a lot earlier than it's actually
coming out. But April and May, what's what's
on tap? If you do know that far ahead?
Actually, yeah, I do know. I I've planned out.
I planned out my stuff way too far in advance.
April is Punch a Nazi month over.
It's still loading for no topical reason whatsoever.
We got games being covered or were covered by the time this
comes out. Wolfenstein 3D Medal of Honor
Underground with Dave over here, Dave truly over here and then
wrapping it up with Bionic Commando.
Let's see what else do I have? I think that's pretty much the
big thing that I had going on at the time in April and also
depending on when this comes out, Thrax Co host over at the
3D O Experience Bill is going to be on to talk about infamous.
Oh, nice, nice. Shout out Bill.
Nice. And then March was the.
Hardest working man in podcasting is Bill.
Honestly, holy no kidding. Like making us all look bad, but
in a good way. But in a good way.
I try, I asked to help all the time and he's like I'm good.
I try. It dry and that's that's a still
loading podcast. You can find it all across your
podcast feeds and everything. Still loading pod on most social
media, Most active on Blue Sky and Instagram More on Blue Sky
and yeah at still loading pod at all those at all those
locations. Also, just cuz I I don't
normally shout this out cuz it is like money thing, but just
cuz I've been really enjoying it.
I do at on my Patreon for at the $5 level.
I have a monthly movie podcast which I do some still loading
pun based off whatever movie series I'm to covering right
now. It's the fast and furious
franchise. So it's still family.
And so it's all all the guests who join me aren't just friends,
they're family. We're going through all the Fast
and Furious movies. And I think if this is out in
May, then the movie that we'll be covering in May is the 6th 1.
So we're already we're already over halfway through the series
by the by the time. Well, about halfway through the.
Series. That one's fast 6, right?
That's when they started. Like, you know, it's.
Like half the title. No Fast 5 Fast and Furious 6
Furious 7 That's right, the fate of the Furious is the 8th 1 The
fate a fate of the Furious is the.
They they pulled it off there, but they didn't pull it off with
with anyways. Yeah, I'm waiting for I'm
waiting for Fast and Furious. I'm waiting for Fast and Furious
2 Turbo HD Ultra Mix. And the challengers?
I mean it, it would be Fast and Furious presents because that's
what Hobbs and Shaw is the offshoot 1 Fast and Furious
presents. That's the title.
Fast and Furious presents Hobbs and Shaw and then the final one
is Fast X for the 10th 1 and obviously there's a Part 2
coming out later on. They still focus on cars.
Are they just generic action Movies Now?
They are car. Weren't they always, though?
So here's. No, the early.
Ones do early on. Car culture, the first, the
first, like three. Yeah, here's the weird thing for
stuff. The answer to both of those
questions is yes. Yeah.
Because does it focus on cars?
Yes. Is it car culture?
Not so much anymore, more as cars as an extension of their
bodies, the. Like trans prime.
Prime example of this without going too far into the weeds, in
Furious 7 there is a scene where one of the characters is like
launched off like they're they got launched off of a like.
I forget exactly how, but they they're they fly out out of the
car they're on and they're go about to go all over a Cliff
side right. There's a luckily one of their
friends is right behind them in their own car.
And instead of like stopping and getting out and rushing over to
help them because they would have had time to do that, they
drive over there. They drive over with their car
and they whip the tail the back end of the car around.
So just the rear 2 tires go off the edge of the Cliff.
And since they're going fast enough, they have the momentum
get back on and the person about to fly over the Cliff catches
the spoiler on it. So they don't, they don't
actually use their arms and legs to help their friends.
They just use their cars as extensions of themselves.
Like remember they didn't grab them with their hands, they grab
them with their car. And that is?
Spoiler of their car. The spoiler of their car so
yeah, the. And for anyone who has not
watches movies, if you like action movies, I always tell
people watch the fifth one. If you don't enjoy the fifth
one, you're not going to like the where the series goes from
there. If if the fifth one is like too
insane and over the top for you, don't bother watching the rest
because they don't tone it down at all.
They just get more. Done gets worse.
And go to space with duct tape. I love it, but it's.
Done. I think I need to start watching
these Movies Now. They're great.
They're very entertaining, I will say that.
Like I've watched the later, like the recent releases and I'm
always like, I had fun watching this.
It was so ridiculous. It's amazing.
And Vin Diesel is basically indestructible for some reason.
Wow, it just runs 90? Percent just gets shotgun
blasted in the face. He's like need to face when you
got family. There is.
See, I've been watching a lot of Star Trek recently, so this is
like the complete opposite. Yeah, if.
You if you want something that so Star Trek actually has like
messages and actually has intelligence.
Ethics and morals and all that, yeah.
I mean there's ethics and beautiful one.
One of the weird this is like, oh man, I gotta stop.
I could go off on a tangent. What I will say is.
You should make me watch one of these and come on your show and
I'll be like, what the? Fuck is happening?
What did you just do to me? Would you make me watch?
I love it but I'm so confused. The the The funny thing is, is
that like they just get more and more like how can I put this?
They do get more and more over the top and more and more silly,
but you just can't help but enjoy it there.
There is, there's, there's so much, there was something that
Jiggy said that sparked something.
And now I'm, I've already lost this, my train of thought in the
thread of what I was going to say.
So I'm gonna, if I remember it, I'll jump back in here.
Otherwise I'll jump back in. Otherwise, I'm just going to
continue to ramble. But yeah, if you don't like the
fifth one, don't bother with the rest because they get more and
more insane over time. And I actually always encourage
people to watch them in order because believe it or not,
there's a really dumb plot line between overarching plot line as
the movies go on. But it makes it much more fun if
you watch them in the order they came out and you'll see why
that's like, normally I wouldn't say that's important, but like
it it, it's just dumb, silly fun.
And I love them and they're just, they're silly.
Oh, I remember what I was going to say is we were talking about
like with Star Trek, how it's all, you know, there's these
very like it's trying to say something and have more like
these deep morals. The Fast and Furious movies they
have, like they actually have a really good like familial like,
you know, like you how you are supposed to treat your friends
and have each others backs and like you call each other like
that type of stuff. It actually does a pretty good
job at that, but it has a lot of line deliveries where they they
think they're saying something like badass or deep, but it's
not and it doesn't make any fucking sense.
It's like pseudo intellectual or bro intellectual.
It's. Lower than that it's but like.
Don't eat that chicken, you'll have raging diarrhea.
I don't need diarrhea. I got family.
It's like. The diarrhea is my family.
My my favorite line, my favorite example of this is in this in
the 7th movie. He this is a mild spoiler.
Vin Diesel and another character who I will not name just for
those who have not seen it just because it's it's it's a fun
character. They are playing chicken with
their cars. So they're driving head first at
each other. Neither of them yield and they
slam into each other, arguably going 90 miles an hour minimum,
right slam into each other. Neither of them are wearing
seatbelts, but they don't fly out of the cars for physics.
I don't understand. They get out Vin Diesel looks at
the dudes car and sees that he like reinforced it, right?
Like he he he aligned it with like metal rods and steel and
whatnot and he looks at it and he's like you reinforced your
chassis. It's like going into a ring with
weighted gloves and meaning meaning that you cheated at this
thing we do well, you know, like weighted gloves is cheating in
boxing. So he's accusing this person of
cheating at driving into each other with our cars.
And then they say, what is it? They say the guys like, you
know, I've, you know, I, I didn't grow up on the streets.
You did. I grew up on me, you know, like
me in the streets and you did. I'm not here to play games.
And he he has a library like, well, that's the thing about
street fights. The street always wins.
I don't know what the fuck that means, I don't understand it and
I love every time it's delivered.
Inject more of that into my veins.
Thank you and and rant. That's patreon.com/the little
wing pop I need. To watch, I need to watch these
movies. It's incredible.
So I watched the first 3 and they were they were pretty good.
The first one is just point break with cars.
The second one is like is like early 2000s like action romp it
it's very. There's the Drift is really
cool. I took a rewatch it but I
remember really liking it. It it sticks out because it
feels like it's more focused on the cars than the other ones.
Yeah, the 4th 1 is kind of like sets the formula for what it
will be, but it's a lot more serious.
Excuse me, that one's just called Fast and Furious.
Yeah, the first one is The Fast and the Furious.
Yeah, it's the Fast and the Furious and the fourth one, the
4th 1 is just fast and furious and then the fifth one is Fast 5
and it goes off from there. But I I've already rambled and
ranted too much so. But yeah, patreon.com/still
loading pod still loading 5. Thrac what you up to buddy?
So as you guys are we, I'm a part of the Super Pod network.
So you know, my show, the 3D podcast is on that.
So be sure to check that out. At this point, I don't know what
we just we just kind of fly by the seat of our pants on that
one. And I also occasionally do blogs
on the Super Pod. The most recent one as of this
recording was mine on Medal of Honor, the first one for the
PS1. So you should go read that if
you're interested in punching Nazis.
Outside of that, you can follow me on Blue Sky at Thrac.
I'm on Instagram at Thrac 94 and see other things I'm doing.
I'm currently doing a a big long series with Chris from a novel
console about the Metal Gear series.
So hopefully by the time this is out, the first episode will be
out and we'll probably be working on the second one.
Who knows, Timing on that may be a little iffy, but but yeah,
that that's, that's just what I do, yeah.
Amazing. Thanks for having me.
Of course man, this has been awesome.
And you will. And you will be back, whether
you like it or not. Well, well, we're doing that.
That Army men thing that's. Right.
Yeah, that's it. Yeah, I.
Cannot wait. Jiggy, what about you, buddy?
How's how's things? Things are going great, YouTube
stuff in the works. I actually just dropped a kind
of a people joked it was like a a jiggy look back direct.
I dropped like a little image that said coming soon of just
all the different videos I've been working on because I've
been not pumping out content as regularly as I normally would.
But I've got so many things going on.
I'm gonna be streaming Quest 64, which I've never played before.
Oh. Yeah, yeah.
So I shout out to our boy quest, Yeah.
Yes, so I'm I'm hopping on Friday and gonna start streaming
that every Friday as long as it takes to to beat this game.
It's gonna be fantastic. I've got a mysteries of Pikmin
on GameCube video coming out working on that.
I also have a mysteries of Ape Escape for PS1.
And then I have two wandering worlds, which is a game where I
use a camera tool and go through it's kind of reverse boundary
break. I like boundary break.
Boundary break looks on the outside and like what's off
screen? What can we not see?
And I'm like, let's hyper zoom in on these textures and see
like any small details, see if there's anything weird, you
know? And it's pretty cool sometimes
what you can find, you don't expect it.
So I'm doing one for Smash Brothers Melee that's a
collaboration with another YouTube, and one for Banjo
Tooie, which I'm really excited about, and that one's taking
forever because the world's are huge.
And then, yeah. I have a surprise video that I'm
not announcing yet, but it's gonna be legit and it's gonna
have a really cool update from me about a project.
So that'll come at some point, but it's super excited.
Nice man. And then As for the show itself,
we normally obviously cover the N64.
So that's remember 64 show across show, show media, which
at this point, similar to what the other fellas have said is
Blue sky and Instagram at this point.
And, and also if you want to watch these episodes or if you
want to watch the other videos that I put up every once in a
while when I have a few minutes to make something silly or put
out some gameplay videos and things like that, that's on
YouTube. And you can subscribe to that to
get an idea of every once in a while when I have inconsistent
times to stream games, I don't have that time available to me
as much as I'd like to. Jiggy has a schedule and you
should check out him playing the games like he just mentioned.
So, but if you subscribe, you'll get that little notification of
when I go live and I'll play games like Grunty's Revenge,
which I streamed and sometimes just random stuff they have in
my backlog that I'm playing through on Game Pass or
something like that. Just to sort of sit down and
share my time with the games. That is remember 64 on YouTube
and on patreonpatreon.com/remember 64
show. You can get every single episode
early, sometimes even weeks ahead of time because ones like
this are recorded very early and why not share them to those that
are patrons? You can also get pre show chats.
You can get some other episodes that I'm trying to do again.
Time is tricky sometimes, but other games I'm playing away
from the 64, those would be the little mini audio recordings and
ramblings. I put up a couple of those
recently as well. And also, yeah, I guess give us
a rating on your podcast app of choice as as we always want
everybody to do, to help us get found even further.
And oh, and then one thing I meant to mention, I think I I'm
going to put a little thing at the beginning of the episode,
but I have a new thing that I'm doing.
I want to hear more from people that are watching and listening.
It's called Voicecast and then you can name it after us.
Ours is obviously remember 64, so Voicecasta remember 64.
You can leave a voice message about what you think of the
show, what you think of episodes, games that we've
played, games that are coming up that you want to share your
thoughts on. So you can check social media to
see sort of, you know, what games might be coming up.
And you can say, hey, I played this game or, and I love it or I
hate it or why would you cover this?
It's trash. Whatever, you guys are trash.
I don't care. Tell us what you think.
It could be anywhere from 30 seconds to 5 minutes of a
message. Make it a little shorter.
It's easier to play on the show. And then we'll have that message
say who you are, where you're from, and we'll play the message
on the show and we'll we'll have that included in our recordings,
which is what I want to do going forward.
So that is voice cast dot app slash remember 64 and it is
completely free. You can also find that link in
the show notes and also across social media as well.
So that's it. Everybody is completely free.
What's that? You know what else is
completely? Free.
No. What is it, Jiggy?
Creating this podcast. That's right, right?
Yeah. Is it, is it free?
It it doesn't cost any money to give it five stars.
So there you go. That's right, At least not yet.
Not. Yet not yet.
Smoke them while you got them. Five stars.
Smoke them while you got them kids.
And yeah, so we'll see you next time on the show.
Banjo Kazooie is out there. At this point.
We have Rayman 2 where Josh was on getting back into the swing
of things in 2025 has been awesome.
I I guess almost every episode to start the year, which has
been great and more to come throughout the rest of the year.
So stay tuned. Thanks everyone for listening
and talking some GBA with us. Thanks guys for joining me.
We will see everybody soon. Goodbye, bye.
Bye. The.