Kazooie

For fighter info, see Banjo & Kazooie (SSBU).

Kazooie
Official artwork of Kazooie from Banjo-Tooie.
Universe	Banjo-Kazooie
Debut	Banjo-Kazooie (1998)
Smash Bros. appearances	Ultimate
Most recent non-Smash appearance	Rare Replay (2015)
Console/platform of origin	Nintendo 64
Species	Red-crested breegull
Gender	Female
Place of origin	Breegull Beach (birthplace) Spiral Mountain (surrogate home)
Designed by	Steve Mayles
Voice actor	Chris Sutherland

Kazooie (カズーイ, Kazooie) is one of the protagonists of the eponymous Banjo-Kazooie series, being created and designed by the UK-based studio Rare Ltd.

Origin

Kazooie is a red-crested breegull, a fictional species of bird known for their fast running speed and flight capabilities. She is a brash, snarky loudmouth with a deadpan wit and no filter, traits which cause trouble more often than not. However, she is fiercely loyal to Banjo and willing to help with any situation that comes their way. Kazooie spends most of her time inside Banjo's backpack, residing in his house near the foot of Spiral Mountain.

In Banjo-Kazooie, Kazooie alerts Banjo that his sister Tooty is being kidnapped by the evil witch Gruntilda, who wants to steal her beauty, but Banjo wakes up too late to respond. Once he awakens, the duo set out to rescue her from Grunty's Lair, a complex cavern across Spiral Mountain with links to many disparate worlds. Along the way, Bottles the mole teaches Kazooie a variety of powerful abilities, including beak attacks, egg shooting, flight, and even invulnerability. After the pair get through the lair and confront Grunty at its peak, they ultimately summon the Jinjonator to push her off the tower to her doom; she crashes into the ground and is buried by the ensuing debris.

Two months later in Grunty's Revenge, Grunty's ogre-like minion Klungo creates a robotic body for her spirit to possess while her body remains underground. This newly-built "Mecha-Grunty" kidnaps Kazooie and travels 20 years into the past to stop the two from meeting, thus preventing her defeat. Kazooie is quickly rescued by Banjo, whom their friend Mumbo Jumbo has sent back in time to chase down Grunty. Via Bottles' grandfather Bozzeye, she re-learns some of the moves that she had forgotten due to the time displacement. The duo eventually send Grunty's spirit back to the future into her real body, restoring the timeline back to normal.

Two years later in Banjo-Tooie, Grunty's sisters appear to rescue the now-skeletal witch, who promptly attacks Banjo's house and kills Bottles. Banjo and Kazooie set out again to chase down the witches, who are attempting to restore Grunty's flesh by using their Big-O-Blaster to suck the life out of the entire Isle O' Hags. Bottles' brother Jamjars helps the duo learn to work independently, which is a huge boon to Kazooie; without Banjo weighing her down, she can move significantly faster and jump higher, while retaining almost all of her offensive abilities. Jamjars furthers her skills by teaching her first-person egg shooting, wing attacks, free gliding, and the ability to hatch eggs; however, she cannot swim underwater or grab ledges as Banjo can. Banjo and Kazooie triumph over Grunty once again, and use the B.O.B. to revive Bottles.

Eight years later in Nuts & Bolts, the duo has become lazy and out of shape from their lack of exercise, having forgotten their moves from the previous games. Grunty reappears as just a skull and attempts to start a fight, but before they can, they are interrupted by the Lord of Games (L.O.G.), the supposed creator of all video games. He creates a robotic body for Grunty and a series of vehicular challenges for Banjo and Kazooie to go through. Kazooie continuously complains about being given the shaft in the game; her only use comes from a magical wrench Mumbo has given her, which allows her to carry objects and utilize simple attacks. The pair eventually battle and defeat Grunty, who is forced to work in L.O.G.'s video game factory, and earn back their old moves.

In Super Smash Bros.

Although Banjo & Kazooie do not make any sort of appearance in Super Smash Bros., the game's Japanese website included them in a poll to gauge interest for potential playable characters in a sequel.

In Super Smash Bros. Melee

Despite Banjo & Kazooie being second-most requested Rare representative in the aforementioned SSB sequel poll (surpassed only by the GoldenEye 007 version of James Bond), they were not included as playable characters. According to Super Smash Bros. series creator Masahiro Sakurai, "Incidentally, including a character from Rare in Smash would be difficult for various reasons. I know there are some people who think that Banjo & Kazooie are an obvious inclusion, but that's unlikely for a variety of legal and financial reasons."

In Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

As playable characters

Banjo & Kazooie, as they appear in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

Banjo & Kazooie were announced as playable fighters, alongside the Hero, during the E3 2019 Nintendo Direct on June 11, 2019. Like in Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie, Kazooie executes the majority of the team's maneuvers, such as the Talon Trot for their dash and Feathery Flap for their two double jumps, before quickly retreating into Banjo's backpack in order to avoid retaliation. Despite adhering to a tag team-oriented playstyle like the Ice Climbers and Rosalina & Luma, Kazooie does not possess a hurtbox like the partner climber and Luma do. As a result, she essentially functions as a disjointed hitbox, and will only gain a hurtbox while dashing or using up tilt.

According to Masahiro Sakurai, Banjo & Kazooie were heavily requested characters for a long time even leading up to Ultimate's launch, particularly in the West. Even after character reveals like Ridley and King K. Rool, requests for Banjo & Kazooie still kept coming in. While their inclusion would have been a natural one in the past, this was complicated by Microsoft's purchase of Rare in 2002, during which it was originally thought that Nintendo shouldn't collaborate with their console competitors.

However, thanks to Rare and Microsoft's cooperation, the rights to Banjo & Kazooie were easily secured, as Microsoft had developed a strong third-party relationship with Nintendo leading up to their reveal in Ultimate. Phil Spencer, the head executive of Microsoft's Xbox division, had actually voiced his support for their inclusion in 2015 and then again in 2018. Soon after their official reveal, Spencer said, "There wasn't anything kind CEO-to-CEO that had to happen" in order for Banjo & Kazooie to join the Super Smash Bros. series, courtesy of Microsoft's increasingly positive relationship with Nintendo's third-party team.

In their gameplay showcase on September 4th, 2019, Sakurai openly acknowledges the fact that the Banjo-Kazooie intellectual property is completely owned by Microsoft. He also acknowledges Rare and Microsoft's cooperation in bringing the franchise into Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, as they were happy to see the duo in the game and saying Rare welcomed Nintendo with open arms. He even notes that if those interested in the series want to play the original titles today, they should do so in Rare Replay on the Xbox One.

Spirits

• Banjo and Kazooie.png

  1,337. Banjo & Kazooie

Trivia

• Banjo and Kazooie are one of only four foreign-created characters to be playable in Smash Bros.: they alongside Diddy Kong and King K. Rool were created by British developer Rare Ltd., and Dark Samus was created by American developer Retro Studios. They are the first third-party fighter to be created outside of Japan, and the first fighter in general to belong to a completely foreign franchise.
• Banjo and Kazooie are one of only three playable characters in Smash to belong to a non-Japanese company, that being Microsoft; Steve (also from Microsoft) and Sora (from Disney) are the only other characters with this distinction.
  • Banjo and Kazooie are the only playable characters to have once been part of a second-party franchise, partially owned by Nintendo, before becoming third-party.
  • They, along with Steve, are the only fighters to hail from a current console rival of Nintendo.
  • Banjo and Kazooie are also the only third-party characters to have been created by the same company as first-party characters. Banjo, in fact, debuted within the Donkey Kong franchise in Diddy Kong Racing; Kazooie was not playable, but she was mentioned in the instruction manual.
• Banjo & Kazooie and Dark Samus are the only playable fighters whose games of origin were neither released first in Japan nor simultaneously worldwide, with both (Banjo-Kazooie and Metroid Prime 2, respectively) releasing in North America first.
• Kazooie is the second female third-party fighter, after Bayonetta.
• Kazooie is the fourth playable bird in the Super Smash Bros. series, following Falco, King Dedede, and the duck in Duck Hunt. She is the first female bird, and the first to originate from a third-party franchise.

External links

• Kazooie on Jiggywikki