Banjo-Kazooie Revealed

Nintendo has built up a considerable amount of buzz around its upcoming Nintendo 64 title Banjo-Kazooie (set to debut to the press the day before E3), primarily by not saying anything concrete about it. But GS News has uncovered some major facts about the game.

The RARE-developed Banjo-Kazooie is named after its main characters, Banjo (a bear) and Kazooie (a bird that rides in his backpack). Both are country bumpkins, and a country-western theme runs through the music and artwork of the title. Of the two, Kazooie is primarily the character who is powered-up, as he can obtain abilities such as flight (to carry Banjo into the sky), breath-holding (to swim underwater with Banjo), and other special attributes - but a source close to Nintendo indicates that Banjo too will be able to transform in different ways, albeit not necessarily through power-ups.

Banjo-Kazooie is a 3-D explorative title along much the same lines as last year's Super Mario 64. The game's graphics are comparable to SM64, in fact better in some places, with excellent textures. The gameplay is also similar, but with more of an opportunity to interact with non-player characters and explore, as each individual play field (or world) is several times larger than that of SM64. There is also a heavier emphasis within each level on depth of exploration, as a given stage might have a full world above land to explore, as well as a full one underwater. Likewise, other worlds might have considerable Donkey Kong Country style features, where players explore both on land and in tree branches climbing up into the sky.

In Super Mario 64, the player's goal was to collect one star per task with several tasks per stage. In Banjo-Kazooie, players collect golden puzzle pieces and musical notes - sort of a compromise between RARE's traditional Donkey Kong Country style of item collection and Mario's suit changing abilities.

Banjo-Kazooie is expected to be Nintendo's major Christmas release in the United States, and it's currently nearly 75 percent complete. Speculation is that The Legend of Zelda 64 (which would otherwise be considered Nintendo's big holiday item) will be released in Japan in November, if not later, most likely prohibiting the company from having an English translation ready for the Christmas buying season.

The game appears to be specifically designed to appeal to the same group of people who would otherwise consider a Crash Bandicoot or Sonic the Hedgehog game this Christmas, while simultaneously allowing Nintendo a new "all ages" franchise that doesn't require the company to release either a Mario or Donkey Kong game every year.

Expect more information on the game over the next few days, live from the E3 show floor, at our E3 News site.