Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty’s Revenge (GBA)
In 1998, Rare gave us the classic collect-a-thon Banjo-Kazooie, and in 2000, the 3D platformer received a much larger sequel in the form of Banjo-Tooie, but the adventures of the bear and bird duo were meant to have an adventure in between those two entries. In 1999, a game for the Game Boy Color went into production called Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty’s Curse, but despite some initial planning, the game was eventually shelved. Strangely though, come 2003, we would receive Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty’s Revenge on Game Boy Advance, it’s story positioning it as an adventure in between the previous two Banjo games much like Grunty’s Curse would have been. While different in concept from the original planned game in quite a few ways, this top-down platformer ends up feeling like a story told too late to be relevant, especially since it doesn’t even pay too much attention to the idea it is set between those two games anyway.
Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty’s Revenge takes place after Banjo and Kazooie managed to trap the evil witch Gruntilda under a giant boulder, things peaceful for a while until her servant Klungo realizes he can make a mechanical body for his master’s spirit to inhabit. Grunty’s revenge does get off to quite a start, the witch managing to capture Kazooie and travel back in time to try and keep her and Banjo from teaming up, although she does frame it as the pair never meeting up despite never interfering with the past versions of the characters. Luckily, Banjo knows the shaman Mumbo Jumbo who can send him back to the past to save his companion, although things get a little strange in the past in that rarely does the time travel element seem to matter. Mumbo’s place has some disco accoutrements and you’ll hear a reference that Gruntilda was only just starting to build her evil layer, but then you have Banjo interacting casually with characters like Master Jiggywiggy and Honey B who he wouldn’t technically meet until Banjo-Tooie. At least Blubber the hippo is a child when you meet him here, but the time travel feels like it’s remembered only sporadically and to little effect while new characters don’t really have much of a personality to show off save for a small family of sentient feces with its precocious children.
Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty’s Revenge tries to play a bit like the original two Banjo games on N64 but the GBA doesn’t exactly handle free-roaming 3D as well as a true 3D system. While the visuals try to mimic 3D models, the actual action has to be viewed from above, limiting the degree to which you can see the areas you explore. Rather than seeing something interesting ahead to draw you towards a neat objective, Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty’s Revenge relies a lot more about plunging forward a bit into the unknown and seeing if what lies ahead is something you’re looking for. The major collectable here are Jiggies, there being 60 golden puzzle pieces in total with the player actually needing most of them since 50 are required to access the final confrontation with Gruntilda. Spread across the five worlds and the hub area Spiral Mountain, these Jiggies are often rewards for unique interactions, minigames, or assisting people you find in some way. Some of these characters will in turn require you to find other special objects like seashells, and similarly, colorful creatures known as Jinjos are often placed as rewards for small platforming or ability challenges, getting all five netting you one Jiggy.
One immediate element that hinders Jiggy objectives though is again the presentation’s impact on the play. Over the course of the adventure you will collect music notes that can be used to learn new abilities, and while Banjo spends some time alone at first, eventually he and Kazooie will join back up and gradually accrue a range of techniques. Kazooie for example can fire eggs from her mouth, but since the screen is so small and firing off-screen would be confusing, oftentimes egg firing is just used to activate specific switches, even future egg types like Battery and Fire still primarily used just for very simple purposes. There are minigames where you are shooting your eggs with more freedom, some Jiggy objectives and even boss battles having you move a cursor around to fire at pertinent spots, but those are more devoted experiences rather than tests of your ability uses. Other techniques learned include more mundane things like climbing ladders, doing a high jump, and swimming underwater, it sometimes feeling more like you’re acquiring the basics rather than expanding your options. The Talon Trot where Kazooie pops out of the backpack and sprints for higher movement speed at least opens up the game a bit, a great many of the toughest Jiggies actually coming down to rapidly hitting switches and the dash to safely get from location to location tests how well you can string together your movement abilities despite the monsters in the area or the need for precision jumps.
Wandering around a new area and collecting notes along the way still can be a bit satisfying, the range of areas pretty decent. Bad Magic Bayou’s piers above dangerous swamp waters and Freezing Furnace’s mix of icy outdoor trekking and a hot industrial area definitely stand out and provide some more unique obstacles than more straightforward places like the beach. Sometimes the visuals will let you down a bit though, it not always clear what you can stand on when it comes to the game trying to imitate a 3D presentation. Items like music notes and even enemies can sometimes end up blocked from view, this mostly just an issue when you’re hunting down everything for 100% completion. Similarly, most every world can be cleared in its entirety on a first visit, although Bad Magic Bayou must be returned to later for a short unnecessarily delayed challenge involving a transformation. Mumbo is willing to help you out with a few transformation spells once you find his tokens, Banjo able to turn into things like a candle or octopus for some more diverse objectives than usual. Interestingly, while the transformations often can’t roam too far from Mumbo’s place, you can turn into any form in any world, opening up a unique problem solving solution in the cases where it’s done well.
Minigames actually come in quite a variety of forms, from fishing games to rides down slides where you need to grab specific items or manage your speed to win a race. The minigames definitely help break up the action a good deal, Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty’s Revenge sometimes feeling rather plain when all you’re doing is platforming, especially since missing jumps can come down to the edges of a platform not being completely clear. While Spiral Mountain doesn’t get too adventurous with Jiggy goals, the worlds can at least end up with a solid mix of minigames, ability trials, unique tests tied to the area theme, and possibly something related to a Mumbo transformation, the difficulty level rather low for the most part but the action doesn’t end up feeling repetitive or samey thankfully. Bosses though, like many things in this game, are a bit of a mixed bag and often rehash ideas since it’s mostly just Klungo and Mecha Grunty, although the final battle is at least quite a test of your skills and even makes good use of things like the alternate egg types. Even a 100% run will likely only take you a couple hours though, this helping keep even the plainer moments brisk while also meaning you don’t ever find yourself dwelling in an area too long unless a note or two is truly vexing you with its poor placement.
THE VERDICT: The overhead perspective in Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty’s Revenge really limits this collect-a-thon platformer’s creativity and ability to test your movement. Already you might miss easy jumps or misread what can be stood on every now and then, but the screen size means it can’t lay out anything too complicated for skills like egg shooting. The simple joy of constantly collecting things helps a touch though and a mix of minigames and special segments like long underwater swims do shake things up some, even repetitive elements like boss designs never sticking around in this short adventure. The amount of little productive tasks, even if they’re sometimes plain, help keep you busy and an occasional involved moment spices things up, but it still feels like the platforming design hampered the range of actions this game could even expect the player to handle and so it plays it too safe.
And so, I give Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty’s Revenge for Game Boy Advance…
An OKAY rating. There’s a reason most 2D platformers are viewed from the side. The top-down view here limits the potential for interesting navigational challenges and because the ability designs weren’t quite adventurous, Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty’s Revenge finds itself having to lean more often on elements like minigames to serve as Jiggy goals. That does inherently inject some needed variety, and there are at least a few moments like the Talon Trot sprints that feel like they better test your ability to navigate around an area. Otherwise, you’re often reacting to the immediate area, some enemies a bit pesky but not really enough to make scooping up notes or Jinjos a particularly engaging tasks. There’s still some enjoyment to be found in knowing you’re gradually reaching 100% and the game asking for 50 Jiggies to face Gruntilda and over 500 notes for all abilities at least asks you to really consider every area you’re in if you stick with the adventure. Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty’s Revenge can almost lose you at parts with its slow ability rollout or Jiggies that don’t ask much from you, but then you’ll reach a unique section, get a Mumbo transformation, or the play will change for a bit with a minigame. It’s able to reignite your curiosity a bit by scattering around moments where something does come together a bit, but it feels like even before you get into issues like your depth perception’s strained relationship with the platforming, the areas just can’t be the size they need to host more exciting activities.
Perhaps on a larger screen with more to display, Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty’s Revenge could have really given your abilities a run for their money, maybe set up some more fearsome foes or real puzzles to diversify the action a bit more. Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty’s Revenge feels a bit minimal because it can’t stretch its legs, it still trying to prop up the action where it can but it also needed bolder ideas than battery eggs or the unique Mumbo transformations if it wanted to find great ways to spice up its style of play. Its stumbles are small but it needed bigger hooks to draw a player in and keep them playing beyond basic collect-a-thon thrills. Simply being another Banjo-Kazooie adventure isn’t really a reason to give a look at this curious portable adventure that was essentially revived from the dead and crammed into new hardware like Grunty herself was.