Banjo Kazooie Game Review

[Guest awarner [MVP]]

Banjo Kazooie Mobile by In-fusio

For Smartphone 2003 OS

Summary :

Banjo-Kazooie are back on mobile! Challenge Gruntilda the witch and rescue your long lost and feathery pal Kazooie!

The Story :

Presumed dead, the evil Gruntilda is back and Banjo's famous companion Kazooie has disappeared…To rescue her, Banjo must explore 5 different worlds (15 levels in total), and meet many hilarious characters who will either help him or harm him along the way.

Meeting the Mole, Master Jiggy Wiggy and other characters, Banjo will collect many different items (music notes, puzzle pieces,...) which he can then trade in order to learn the special abilities he will need to complete his mission (mainly attacking skills).

Banjo Kazooie Mobile is based on the GBA game of the same name.

You play the part of Banjo the bear who has to travel across different terrains trying to rescue your best friend Kazooie the bird, so as a team you can defeat the evil witch Gruntilda. As you travel through the game you have to collect numerous different items ranging from musical notes to jiggys which are used to free Kazooie and also unlock other levels.

Similar to the Zelda "heart" theme you can also collect empty honey combs which can increase your life points so you can survive more attacks.

As you progress through the game you learn special abilities, these range from learning to climb up ladders to defending yourself with either a big mallet or firing eggs that you can collect on your travels.

Actual Gameplay

Initially I was unsure what to expect with this game as the only experience with Banjo Kazooie was a ten minute play on the original N64.

The actual game play I initially thought was a bit juddery due to its scrolling nature but I soon became used the way the game handled, and also freeing up some physical memory also helped. I found myself losing track of time as I became engrossed in the adventure and explored more or the surrounding areas.

The game starts with you only being able to move around and jump, but soon enough you find you are armed with your trusty mallet which you use to defend yourself against various enemies. As the story evolves you find yourself travelling back and forth to return to places that were once inaccessible, but can now be reached due to ability power-ups.

Life energy is in the form of a series of honeycombs, every time you get hit by an enemy the honeycomb empties until when drained you die and have to return to the beginning of the section you are in. As the game progresses the enemies also get harder to defeat which keep the difficulty of the game in check.

Controls

The controls for the game are interesting, because of the multipress issue with the C500 I found myself swapping between the joystick and the keypad for certain directional jumping moves rather than jump then move. This does not happen too often and on other devices will not cause a problem.

On the C550 the game has much more vibrant colours and because the screen size is reduced looks much better and smoother than on the C500 even though game speed is identical.

The only problem with the C550 is that the splash screens and all text instructions during the game can not be displayed properly and it was only by playing on the C500 I discovered when I should be pressing the soft keys to move the text along. This is ok as such but it does spoil the game as you miss the story line.

Summery

Over all I like Banjo Kazooie and I am having great fun trying to complete it, I am about half way through now (at a guess).

If you like Zelda type scrolling games then this one game that would make a good addition to your collection.

If I hear any news about an update for the C550 I will post it here.

Available from www.clickgamer.com

Cost is $12.95 | £7.03 | €10.33

To by the game or more details visit ClickGamer

I would like to add that screen shots do not really give the game justice due to the small character graphics.

[Guest Confucious]

There's no demo which is a shame. Have you tried it on a C550 with the TomTom reg hack? that cures text problems in at least one other prog.

[Guest awarner [MVP]]

To be honest I'm not interested in doing reg hacks to downgrade my C550. The only problem with playing the game on the C550 is because you do not see the text you have to guess when you recieve and also how to use your new abilities.

Graphically I prefer the C550 because of the improved colours and control wise the C550 is better because there are no multipress issues.

[Guest Animefan]

Why do I have to pay +17.5% in vat cause I live in Denmark at clickgamer?

Its not like they are gonna send me anything? Im paying directly with creditcard and juts getting a darn link to download from?? WHY?? :shock:

And is there any plus discounts for clickgamer?

[Guest awarner [MVP]]

The tax is a standard procedure unfortunately.

EDIT for the C550 comment above, I have just noticed that unfortunately you do not get the full available image so you can walk off screen and not see what you are doing.

[Guest awarner [MVP]]

One note, don't make a mistake and press New Game when you are about to complete the game, as it wipes your existing game and you have to start from the beginning again :cry:

[Guest smartphone-web.com]

You can buy the game also on www.handit.com for 10 € with correct VAT. ;-)