Spiral Mountain

Spiral Mountain
Universe	Banjo-Kazooie
Appears in	Ultimate
Availability	Downloadable
Crate type	Normal
Maximum players	8
Music Bolded tracks must be unlocked Ultimate Banjo-Kazooie series music Main: Spiral Mountain Alternate: Main Theme - Banjo-Kazooie

Spiral Mountain (クルクルやま, Spiral Mountain) is a downloadable stage in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. It is bundled with Banjo & Kazooie as part of Challenger Pack 3 and was released on September 4th, 2019.

Stage Overview

The main platform is the peak of Spiral Mountain. After a warning signal, the plane of gameplay rotates around the centre of the mountain, changing the overall layout of the stage and causing characters and objects on the spiral pathway to be pushed up or down. Wooden platforms and floating patches of ground occasionally appear in the various layouts. Bottles, Mumbo Jumbo, Tooty, Buzzbombs, the Jinjos (which come in groups of one to five), and Gruntilda appear as cameos on this stage, with Gruntilda flying in the background on her broom. Various objects from the original game, such as Extra Honeycomb Pieces and Extra Lives, can be seen in the background.

Ω form and Battlefield form

The Ω form and Battlefield form are set on top of the mountain similarly to its regular form; however, in both forms, the stage is now suspended far above the ground, with the main platform acting as a floating island. The stages are also resized and reshaped to match Final Destination and Battlefield, respectively. The three soft platforms of the Battlefield form are also based on the wooden platforms of the normal form. The background characters still appear and the background still rotates (although the arrows and sound indicating rotation are gone), but since the stage is a flat circle, this does not interfere with gameplay.

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  Ω form in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

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  Battlefield form in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

Hazards off

With stage hazards turned off, the stage doesn't rotate, and stays in the initial form. The layout features two large platforms, one on each side of the stage, floating above the main platform. These platforms float up and away after a certain amount of time, and don't return.

Origin

Spiral Mountain as it originally appeared in Banjo-Kazooie.

Spiral Mountain is the starting area in Banjo-Kazooie and every other game in the series afterwards. Banjo's house is located at the foot of the mountain, and Gruntilda the witch resides in a lair near its peak, connected via a rope bridge. In the first game, it serves as a tutorial area, where Bottles the mole teaches Banjo and Kazooie some basic abilities to prepare them for their adventure. The duo can explore around the mountain, find a set of Extra Honeycomb Pieces and some extra lives, and fight the mountain's living vegetation before heading into Gruntilda's Lair.

In Banjo-Tooie, Spiral Mountain has been trashed by Gruntilda's minions just after her departure; many chunks of the landscape have been broken off and litter the ground. The bridge to Gruntilda's Lair is broken off, and its inside has partially collapsed; only the initial lobby, occupied by Cheato the spellbook, is accessible. The top of the spiral also has a Flight Pad, letting the pair explore more of its surroundings, including a waterfall cave.

Spiral Mountain's updated design in Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts.

In Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, Spiral Mountain is overviewed and briefly explored in the prologue before Banjo, Kazooie, and Gruntilda warp to Showdown Town with the Lord of Games. The duo return there for the final boss fight against Gruntilda, and stay there after their adventure ends. A significant portion of the upper cliffs is able to be explored, though it is simply more land rather than anything of interest.

The design of Spiral Mountain and its surrounding area in Ultimate is largely based on its appearance in the original game, as the bridge to Gruntilda's lair is still open and the landscape is unscathed. There is also some influence from its appearance in Nuts & Bolts, particularly with regards to its color palette and the geometry of various locations, such as the mountain itself.

The characters that cameo in the background each play an important role in the series: Gruntilda serves as the main antagonist of the series, causing trouble for Banjo and Kazooie; Tooty is Banjo's younger sister who gets kidnapped in the first game by Gruntilda; Jinjos are collectible creatures who were kidnapped and thrown into the different worlds in the first game, and forced out of their village in the second game by Gruntilda's drill; Bottles is an intelligent nearsighted mole who teaches Banjo and Kazooie new abilities in the first game prior to his death at the beginning of the second; Mumbo Jumbo is a shaman whom Banjo visits to be transformed into various creatures and objects to help him access more Jiggies; and Buzzbombs are enemies introduced in Bubblegloop Swamp, with one lone Buzzbomb makes an appearance in the intro movie to Banjo-Kazooie.

Gallery

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  Banjo & Kazooie, Mario, Duck Hunt, and King K. Rool fighting on the stage.

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  Gruntilda and Mumbo Jumbo in front of Gruntilda's Lair.

Trivia

A comparison of Banjo's house across its appearances.

• The design of Banjo's house is a mixture of its more detailed appearance in Nuts & Bolts — including Banjo's name written on the door — with its original, undamaged appearance in the first game. Just like in the original Banjo-Kazooie, an Extra Life statue is hovering above the chimney.
• Although a Buzzbomb enemy can be seen flying in the background of the stage, Buzzbombs never appeared on Spiral Mountain in the original Banjo-Kazooie.
  • In Banjo & Kazooie's showcase video, the reason Masahiro Sakurai gives for their inclusion is that their wings allow them to float into the stage, although given the humorous tone of his other statements within the video, it is likely he was purely joking. Instead, its appearance on this stage may reference the opening sequence of the game, which features a Buzzbomb flying in the sky before it crashes into the Rareware logo and falls into a lake in an unidentified grassy area somewhat resembling Spiral Mountain.
• Though still fairly minor, this stage is Tooty's most prominent appearance since her debut in the original Banjo-Kazooie. While she appears in both Banjo-Tooie and Nuts & Bolts in easy to miss cameo photos inside Banjo's house, only this stage and Banjo-Kazooie feature her as an active character.
• The ink left behind by Inkling's Splat Roller will aesthetically rotate with the stage, but its effects on grounded movement remain in place, which causes a minor visual discrepancy.