Do You Hear Banjos? The Banjo-Kazooie Thread

[SymbioticToxin]

Back in the heyday of Rare, before they stopped being good, they made some pretty great games. Various Donkey Kong games, the infamous Conker's Bad Fur Day, Killer Instinct, and many more. But of their entire catalog, one of them really stood out. It was a strange yet thrilling tale of kindly bear, his snarky bird-partner, and their quest to gather puzzle pieces and fight a witch.

This is the Banjo-Kazooie thread. Come and reminisce about the old days, your fond memories of this game series, your grievances, or even tal about Rare itself before the dark times.

 

[Tron Bonne]

How does one here something?

 

[Matt Mortem]

I'd reminisce, but the hurt is too deep. Banjo is dead to me. Microsoft killed him. Banjo-Kazooie could be one of Nintendo's greatest franchises, but noooo, Rare had to go and get bought. Banjo in Smash would be so flipping amazing. ****ing Microsoft.

 

[the_ultimate_evil]

I'd reminisce, but the hurt is too deep. Banjo is dead to me. Microsoft killed him. Banjo-Kazooie could be one of Nintendo's greatest franchises, but noooo, Rare had to go and get bought. Banjo in Smash would be so flipping amazing. ****ing Microsoft.

agreed id love a conker franchise

 

[SymbioticToxin]

Yeah, the B-K franchise stops at Banjo-Tooie for me. I was excited for Nuts & Bolts until I saw gameplay for it and just...sighed.
Conkers...I have yet to play that. It's on my list, though.

 

[Matt Mortem]

Nuts and Bolts is the biggest piece of **** I've ever played. It's horrifying.

 

[Lily Adler]

Last I heard most of Rare's employees and better developers have left, so all MS has is their name and are just sitting on all their IPs. I believe MS was also hoping Banjo & Kazooie would become the new kid-friendly mascots for the Xbox like they tried with Blinx the Time Sweeper.

 

[Tron Bonne]

A lot of the big talent for Rare left quite awhile before MS bought. Most people speculate that the reason Nintendo didn't buy Rare when they were offered was precisely because of this fact. It was a still a mistake on their part, I think, but an understandable one.

MS did give a try to revive Rare's franchises, though, so you have to at least give them that.

 

[Thundercrack85]

Still waiting on Perfect Dark.

If they're ever going to revive that, now would be the time.

Though it's not like they're really lacking in the FPS department.

I think Banjo would be the more useful franchise. Or Conker, though that didn't sell particularly well. Still, diversity wouldn't hurt.

 

[Tron Bonne]

They did revive Perfect Dark, and it sucked, so I don't care if they try that one again. The Killer Instinct revival seems to have gone well, though. About the only one of their attempts to be worth anything.

 

[Thundercrack85]

Not sure I'd call that a revive.

Zero had been in development for a long time, originally for the Gamecube. Then obviously Microsoft bought Rare. Most of the development team left, the game then reworked for the Xbox. The development then shifted to the 360, and by that point, the development team was down to like 20 people.

Considering that insane development process and the size of the final development team, it's a surprisingly good game. First game to have online coop, from what I recall.

The original was one of my favorite games of all time. I really think it deserves another shot.

 

[Tron Bonne]

Wasn't aware of that, but eh, I still thought it sucked. Don't have much faith in a Perfect Dark revival or whatever you want to call it after that.

 

[Thundercrack85]

Yeah, probably not. Still a man can dream.

A new Crimson Skies is my other pipe dream. Though that isn't Rare, but owned by Microsoft Studios.

 

[XtremelyBaneful]

so is this thread for all things banjo? shouldn't it be in the mS forum?

phil spencer thinks it would be cool if he joins smash
https://twitter.com/XboxP3/status/584023190692737024

 

[Matt Mortem]

Banjo in Smash would be amazing. Microsoft may be open to working with Nintendo on it, but is Nintendo open to having Banjo back for Smash?

 

[Tron Bonne]

Eh, I liked these games and all, but there would be so many other characters I'd want to see in Smash before this.

 

[hippie_hunter]

I would love it if Microsoft just sold most of the Rare IPs to Nintendo. Microsoft has just been squandering Rare, both the studio and their IPs, and it would just be a better fit for Nintendo IMO.

 

[Matt Mortem]

That was one of Nintendo's bigger bonehead moves, losing Rare.

 

[Tron Bonne]

Well, at the time, I understand why Nintendo passed. Most of the big talent from Rare had already left and would eventually form Free Radical, and there was a lot of issues with Rare's management at the time. Had they had more foresight into how potentially important those properties could've been, if for no other reason than to resell them on the VC, I think they would've probably bit the bullet and bought them. But you know, the industry changed so fast in a relatively short time frame.