Gregg Mayles the creative director of the Banjo series answers some questions.
YES - But a lot has changed since 2000. What have Banjo and Grunty been doing for all these years?
Q: Is there any multiplayer component planned?
YES - Not like Banjo-Tooie's though. No FPS sections, either. I think there are enough FPS games out there!
Q: Is this new Jiggy system gonna stray too far away from the old one?
YES and NO - The 'not 100' Jiggies are still used to progress through the game, but the way they are obtained and used is different. Also expect changes to the Notes and Jinjos (oops, I think I may have answered a couple more questions there!)
Q: A lot has changed since the original Banjo-Kazooie came out, which was almost ten years ago. Games today, in my opinion anyway, seem to stray a lot from core, simple gameplay elements and focus too much on other things. One thing I loved about the original game is that you guys got the story out of the way pretty much first thing. Witch is ugly, Witch needs to remove ugly, Witch steals cute little Bear-girl, game starts. After that, it was pretty much 100% game until you got to the end and knocked the old hag off her own tower. It was simple, and it set the player up with what they needed, a reason, to play through the game.
Not that story isn't important, but when 40% of a game these days is spent watching rather than playing, it makes me wonder where the "game" part of "video game" went
Basically, the original game relied on much of its own charm. The lushness of the worlds, the characters, and the rich array of abilities and puzzles. So... my question is: Does this remain?
YES - Don't worry, we may be introducing something different to the Banjo universe but this remains a Banjo game.
Q: You said the gameplay had evolved some time ago and it would not be like it was before. Have we seen this new style of gameplay in another game?
NO (Well, I don't think so. Let's just say you certainly won't have seen it in a Banjo game!)
Q: Will there be any old levels remade in the game?
YES - But probably not how you expect!
Q: Will Grunty bring back her loveable rhyming again in this game?
Her silly comments will be a pain, yes the witch will rhyme again.
"Banjo's new look resulted from Rare's opinion that he needed an update. The previous games were very young-looking and the industry has moved on. Even younger gamers do not want their games to look overly young. We think the updated look has a distinctive style and really suits the whole theme of the new game (of course this means absolutely nothing to you at the moment as we haven't revealed what it is)."
Q: What rating are you aiming at for Banjo 3? Other than the stealth kills and decapitations I would rate it pretty harmless to a kid, just wondering, 'cause ya know what happened to Twelve Tales... Secondly congrats on your return to form Rare! (Don't kill me.) Viva Piñata and the sequels and now Banjo 3, great job!
"Have no fear – Banjo will remain E-rated and Banjo fans will be pleased to know the same 'rough around the edges' humour will remain. Although recent Microsoft directives have decreed that all games must have at least 20 guns to choose from and include a gritty level based in a real life city. Only joking. Make the most of our 'return to form' as after Banjo we're going to be doing rubbish again."
Q: Anyway, I must now get to the main point of my letter. It has now been over a year since you showed us that short but oh so sweet Banjo trailer at X06 (am I the only one who likes the new graphical style?). I must ask, can you please, please, please give us some information about it? Anything will do. And I mean anything. Just as long as it isn't something along the lines of "the green monsters on the Isle o' Hags who run around and attack you will return". Come on, please?
"How about this for Banjo information? 'There are no green monsters in the Isle of Hags and there is no Isle of Hags.' OK, perhaps that wasn't much. Oh, and you might be interested to know that Banjo and Kazooie haven't got many of the abilities that they used in previous games. Now that's confused you, hasn't it?"
Q: Finally, and which is the reason why I'm writing you, I've heard tales that the Banjo team has confessed that past Banjo games were extremely difficult and the team was considering making the next installment 'easier'. I'm here to write, ask, demand and plea that you keep this Banjo game crazy-hard like its brethren. One of the biggest reasons I love BK is because of its overall challenge in terms of puzzles, controls/manuevers, levels, etc. So, can you give some word on how the overall gameplay and difficulties are compared to past games? (Just don't dull it down because a handful of people griped that past BK games were too hard. All I hear from that is, "Boo-hoo.")
"I wouldn't consider the Banjo games extremely difficult, unless of course you're like Banjo's musician Grant who lacks any semblance of hand-eye co-ordination," insists Gregg. "We tried to pitch the Jiggy tasks in the previous games so that they varied from simple to difficult, so if you came across one you couldn't complete you could miss it out and try another. The new game, Banjo-Needsanamie, adopts a different approach due to its core gameplay mechanic. It will all become clear when we actually reveal what we have been up to these last few years, but for now all I'm going to say is that the player will determine the difficulty level by how they approach the Jiggy tasks. The same task could be really simple and take just a few seconds for some players, but others may find it very hard and take hours. That's given the game away – it's Banjo-Sudoku. Further suggestions to drive sales into the millions: attach the Gundam licence somehow and throw in a few brain/eyesight-training minigames where you count up blurry Jinjos and that"
Q: So, is the 360 finally powerful enough for you to do all you want in the Banjo world, or can we expect some of the usual ingenuity for fixing "Crap our game's so powerful it blew the system again!!!" problems?
Handing over to the team for their thoughts on TEH SYSTAM POWAR: "Contrary to what others may tell you, it doesn't matter how powerful the system is, developers will soon find a way of taxing it to its limits and wanting more. Having said that, the 360 is extremely powerful and without it we would not be able to take the approach to the new Banjo game that we have (that should make the PR guys happy)."
Q: Id like to ask a question about one of the things you said where rare is going to use the same spiral mountain from Banjo Kazooie and place it into the new game. Like a copy paste thing but Im not sure if you were being sarcastic about it because you usually have sarcastic remarks. So could you just confirm if the copy past (as some people say) is true because I dont really think rare would do that. Now I say that because in the BK3 trailer when banjo gets out side of the house it shows the spiral mountain as being an actual spiral. So whats up with that. I like the spiral concept and I hope rare makes the mountain the way it was in the trailer.
"In addition to the answers somewhere above (or below if Leigh craftily reorders everything), I can dramatically confirm with appropriate fanfare that Spiral Mountain will return, it will be an all-new shiny model with a gazillion polygons and we will be using it differently than in the previous games. So if that doesn't satisfy your spirally cravings, I don't know what will."
Comment