Banjo-Kazooie (universe)

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Banjo-Kazooie (universe)
Developer(s)	Rare
Publisher(s)	Nintendo THQ Microsoft
Genre(s)	Platformer
Console/platform of origin	Nintendo 64
First installment	Banjo-Kazooie (1998)
Latest installment	Banjo-Tooie (XBLA) (2009)

Banjo-Kazooie is a series of 3D platformers developed by Rare, Ltd. The games task the player with collecting various items in open worlds in order to progress.

Description

File:Banjo and Kazooie.png

Official artwork of Banjo and Kazooie from Banjo-Kazooie.

Following the massive success of Donkey Kong Country in 1994, a game famous for its pre-rendered CG graphics created on Silicon Graphics workstations, the game's developer Rare wanted to produce more titles utilizing the advanced graphics technology. Among the new games in production was Project Dream (also known as Dream: Land of Giants), a role-playing game which was to be Rare's masterpiece on the Super NES. The game starred a human boy named Edison and his dog Dinger, in a fantasy/pirate-themed adventure. Because the game was getting too large for a SNES cartridge, and the Nintendo 64 was on the horizon, the team decided to move the project to the Nintendo 64. In an attempt to appeal to a more mature audience, the game's fantasy themes were de-emphasized and its pirate themes strengthened. As development progressed, the team decided to replace Edison with a different protagonist, swapping in a rabbit, and eventually Banjo the bear, whom they gave a backpack to store his items. The development team soon realized their game was getting too ambitious, so they chose to retool it into a linear platformer. Soon, the concept of wings and legs sprouting out of the backpack emerged, thus birthing idea for a character living in the backpack , who is Kazoooe the breegull . When the team saw an early build of Nintendo's Super Mario 64, they realized it would set the standard for 3D games and make their Dream look outdated, so they once again restarted the development, using Mario 64 as the basis for their new project, which eventually became Banjo-Kazooie. To help promote the upcoming title, Banjo was added as a playable character in Diddy Kong Racing.

Banjo-Kazooie was released in 1998 to strong sales and critical acclaim, with critics praising its detailed graphics, dynamic soundtrack, and arguable improvements over the foundation Mario 64 laid. A direct sequel, Banjo-Tooie, released in 2000. The Banjo intellectual property was fully transferred to Microsoft after they bought Rare in 2002. Rare developed two spin-offs for the Game Boy Advance, Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge and Banjo-Pilot. After a long absence on consoles, a brand new game, Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, was released for the Xbox 360 in 2008. Though it received mostly positive reviews, it was highly controversial for its focus on building vehicles to traverse the game's worlds. This game was followed up by downloadable HD remasters of the two N64 titles. In 2015, all three console games were included in Rare Replay, a compilation of Rare games for the Xbox One.

In Super Smash Bros. Melee

Based on responses from fan questions confirming that Banjo would not be appearing in Super Smash Bros. Melee, a popular rumor of Banjo being cut from the game manifested, claiming that Banjo (along with James Bond from GoldenEye 007) was planned for inclusion but ultimately cut because Sakurai could not secure the rights from Rare. However, Sakurai only said that the characters would be difficult to include, not that he had planned to include them.

Trivia

• This is the first third-party universe, and the first character-based universe overall, to consist soley of playable characters that originated outside of Japan.
• It is also the second third-party universe to belong to a current console rival of Nintendo, in this case Microsoft.