Banjo-Kazooie is one of my all-time favorite franchises. The original two games on Nintendo 64 are some of the finest titles from the 90s, and easily the pinnacle of 3D platformer collectathons. In my opinion, Rare’s dynamic bear and bird duo certainly earned their place amongst gaming greats. But after 2000’s Banjo-Tooie, the franchise basically fell off a cliff. Microsoft’s purchase of Rare really changed the trajectory of their games. Everybody remembers Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts for the Xbox 360, and some even say this was the nail in the coffin for Banjo. While there might be some merit to that argument, Nuts and Bolts wasn’t actually the third game. In fact, Rare released another Banjo game for the Game Boy Advance not long after the acquisition, and many people never really had the chance to play it. As a Banjo-Kazooie fan, I owed it to myself to finally play the real third Banjo game: Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty’s Revenge.

As a side note, Nuts and Bolts isn’t a bad game per se, it just was not really what the fans wanted. But I will leave that conversation for another day. For now, let’s focus on Grunty’s Revenge.

Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty’s Revenge takes place between Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie. Gruntilda, the evil witch, uploads her spirit into a Mecha-Grunty robot built by her henchman, Klungo. She then proceeds to kidnap Kazooie, and go back in time to prevent Banjo and Kazooie from ever meeting. Banjo, with the help of old friend Mumbo-Jumbo, follows her to the past to rescue Kazooie and defeat her again. Basically, it’s a typical story for a Banjo game, although the time travel trope is really underutilized. Besides the map clearly being a past version of Spiral Mountain, and a mole that is supposedly an ancestor of Bottles from the first game, there really isn’t much about the game that implies it’s taking part in a different time period. It doesn’t necessarily hinder the game’s appeal, but it is a questionable story choice.

The gameplay, on the other hand, is actually pretty good considering the isometric perspective. For a 32-bit adventure, Grunty’s Revenge plays surprisingly faithfully to the 3D platformers it is based on. Once again, Banjo is collecting Notes, Jiggies, and Honeycombs, learning moves from a friendly mole, and even transforming into other animals and vehicles with the help of Mumbo-Jumbo. Many moves from the N64 games are also recreated on the GBA, such as Talot Trot, Flap Flip, and Shock Spring Jump. Although not as tight of control, the game does feel like a real Banjo game. How natural this felt came as a bit of a surprise to me. I’ve played the isometric GBA versions of other 3D platformer/action games such as Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon and neither of those ever felt quite right. But Grunty’s Revenge feels like a return to form for Banjo (even though it came out years before Nuts and Bolts). It might have been a short journey – I finished the game with 100% completion in under 3 hours – but I enjoyed every minute of it.

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised with Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty’s Revenge. I sometimes find the Game Boy Advance era of games to be hit or miss. There were lots of ports and adaptations of other familiar franchises and many of them miss the mark. Grunty’s Revenge though, while imperfect and at times unpolished, made for a very enjoyable evening. It showed me that the Bear and Bird could still crush it when given the right formula. So come on Microsoft and Rare! Give us Banjo-Threeie you cowards!

Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty’s Revenge is another fairly inexpensive game, selling for around $25. Any fan of the Banjo franchise should absolutely considering adding this one to your collection!