THE GOOD:-Vehicle system it near flawless, you really can create anything you can imagine though less so in multiplayer
-Good variety of challenges that test your favorite designs and challenge you to make specific designs
-Same old Banjo humors and faces
THE BAD:
-The lack of platforming and exploration is pretty heavy
-Multiplayer is completely barren as of now
-Game is a little on the short side
SUMMARY:
Gameplay:
Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts promised a new Banjo games in which you can create any vehicle you could imagine and you really can.
The game starts you off fairly limited but you can quickly gather parts and built some really interesting machines. You can build a giant airship with homing missiles and a deployable flying bike or you can bring a giant sphere that's spring propelled. There really is no limit to what you can do.
My hat goes off to Rare because vehicle creation and play is a blast and it's always fun to do.
However the game lacks in being a Banjo game. The franchise has been long revered for it's well executed platforming which the game heavily lacks. Yes, Jiggies return but there's no exploration involved. In every level you follow your radar which points to Jiggy icons. This leads you to some familiar character who gives you a task for a Jiggy. It's simple enough but it lacks an incredible amount of depth.
Part of the fun of old Banjo games was traveling through diverse environments and just hunting for Jiggies. Here it's entirely straightforward.
Really the only place any platforming goes on is the hub world, Showdown Town which I felt was the best part of the game. Here you have a relatively big colorful world where the only limits on where to go are your vehicle and platforming prowess. It features a Day and Night system, mini-games, and a lot of distraction which makes it enjoyable. Showdown Town makes it possible to bypass certain limitations by some excellent platforming and it's great fun to do. Before actually playing a level, I collected 14 Mumbo part crates just by exploring.
Here the system works great, you use your vehicle to travel and maybe jump up or something to that effect and then you dismount and proceed on foot. It's a great setup that's really enjoyable and it's a shame that the other levels don't follow suit. Your vehicle, initially a junky trolley, is upgraded by beating your nemesis, the witch Grunty, in challenges you unlock by collecting Jiggies. It serves as a decent driving force but it doesn't make the actual levels much better.
In fact, the levels are for the most part much drier than Showdown Town. Some levels like Banjo Land, LOGBOX 720, and the Terranium of Terror are big and diverse but Nutty Acres and the Jiggoseum, while they have their charms, are mostly bland. Nutty Acres is basically some hills with a Volcano off to the side while the Jiggoseum is really nothing short of a big dome.
Some of the levels are great and fun to experiment in but the others are just big piles of empty and with only 5 worlds it's really just unacceptable.
Interface is also sometimes an issue. For example, some gadgets and weapons need a button press to be used but you can't easily set those buttons. It's possible to do simply enough but it lacks the ability to set defaults which is agitating. I don't want to set my buttons every time I pull a vehicle out.
Additionally there's a lack of maps or a free fly camera to get the feel of the level. Take the Terranium of Terror, it's gigantic but it's all very samey and some of the missions require you to go all over the place. In a level that big, the radar doesn't prove to be much help and it just feels cumbersome.
Graphics:
Graphically the game is very pretty. The artistic style is effective and it generally looks great. There is some frame rate stuttering now and then though and it can be a little annoying.
The only impeding factor on graphics is again, the lackluster design of some of the levels. Some of them are in dire need of redesign.
Music:
Music is orchestrated and works great. Every area has its mood accurately conveyed and there's not much more to ask. Sound follows Banjo tradition with no voice acting which bothers some but I wouldn't have it any other way.
Downloadable Content:
Apart from inevitable parts collections, the big notable is Banjo-Kazooie for XBLA which comes with Stop n' Swop functionality. This lets you collect special items in the XBLA game to reveal parts crates in Nuts and Bolts.
Really it's not worth it. The parts you get are just for show and don't serve any purpose. If you're considering getting Banjo-Kazooie solely for parts then don't. If you're considering Nuts and Bolts for just Stop N' Swop then I advise against it as well. Yes, they're both great games and there's good cause to own them both but the Stop N' Swop isn't a huge selling point.
Overall:
Nuts and Bolts is a fun game especially for $40. The amount of creative power it gives you is nothing short of unrivaled so if that's your sort of thing then you'll love this.
For Banjo fans it's a mixed bag. Yes, Showdown Town is great and you will love it but the rest of the game is questionable. Yes it takes some creativity but it gets jaded and has virtually no exploration. The desire to upgrade your Showdown Town trolley does provide motivation but its easy to lose interest in the game.
The main issue with Nuts and Bolts is it lacks depth and focuses too much on the vehicles. Really Rare pushed that aspect much too far. Making levels that played more like Showdown Town would have been a great way to introduce the vehicles and would have felt right at home with the interspersed platforming. However too much of the game relies on vehicles and it loses value for it.
I can't say I don't want to see vehicles again, they were undeniably fun but if another Banjo game is in the works I want to see more variety in levels and more ways to get Jiggies than challenges.
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