Thanks to Wolfman for helping with edits.
Super Mario 64 is important. When game developers were wrestling with how to navigate three-dimensional spaces, Shigeru Miyamoto and his team delivered a platformer in 1996 that tackled them with such aplomb my mouth was left agape. Today, it’s a definitive text for the medium, one virtually every 3D platformer takes notes from (there’s a reason the late Michael Berlyn, lead designer on Bubsy 3D, reacted to it the way he did).
As an impressionable elementary school kid, Mario 64 felt like the future. Like gaming had reached its pinnacle, and for years it proudly stood as my favorite game of all time. (Image: Source Gaming)
Merely two years later, developer Rare responded to Miyamoto’s Nintendo 64 launch title with Banjo-Kazooie (the studio has a history of taking ideas Nintendo pioneered and offering their own spin on them, like how Donkey Kong Country drew inspiration from the Super Mario Bros. series). Both 3D platformers whisk you through colorful, cozy sandboxes full of treasure. Although both subtly guide you along through clever environmental design, you’re ultimately given free rein in how you tackle each course. At a casual glance, they’re quite alike. I was introduced to Banjo-Kazooie by a video rental store clerk, who said it’s similar to Mario 64 when recommending it. Nintendo Power also invited such comparisons, as did my friends. Even Miyamoto has sung its praises. This was simultaneously a huge compliment to Banjo-Kazooie and a daunting standard for it to live up to.
Nevertheless, the talent behind the two games have different sensibilities, something immediately conveyed by their opening cinematics: Mario 64‘s is short, meaning you jump almost immediately into the action, whereas Banjo-Kazooie‘s lengthy one is meant to sell its cast and world. To be honest, my first crack at Kazooie ended not long after I hit Mumbo’s Mountain, its first stage. Today, though, I rank Banjo-Kazooie among the Nintendo 64’s best alongside the plumber’s genre-defining classic. And I began feeling that way once I hit its second world, the exotic Treasure Trove Cove.
Jiggies, gold puzzle pieces that grant access to new stages after you deposit them on these portraits, are Banjo-Kazooie‘s main collectible. The hub, Grunty’s Lair, and each level house ten each for a total of one hundred. Generally, they’re well-hidden or require clearing specific objectives to obtain. (Image: Source Gaming)
Only two Jiggies are necessary to unlock Treasure Trove Cove. The portal to it is a giant treasure chest, one a few rooms over from its portrait. In a startling shakeup from the earlier landscapes, the Cove places an incredibly heavy focus on verticality that benefits from many looping, interconnected pathways. Its initial beach area subtly implies that beautifully. Upon entering, your view of the island is partially obscured by some rocky walls. They look thick, sturdy; perhaps we’ll get to walk atop them? Moreover, Mumbo’s Mountain had a small, straightforward stonehenge-esque monument to scale. It stands to reason the Cove might contain a similar but grander structure.
Anyway, your first act upon entering is obvious: collect the four nearby Notes. One hundred Notes grace each stage, and you’ll want to grab as many as possible because they open deeper areas of Grunty’s domain. Jarringly, the Nintendo 64 version of Banjo-Kazooie only tracks your highest Note record in each level, so even if you miss only one, you’ll have to nab every individual Note again plus that final one to obtain a perfect score (sequel Banjo-Tooie changes them into a one-and-done deal, an amelioration Kazooie’s Xbox 360 remaster kindly keeps). And their purpose extends beyond that: Rare places the Notes strategically across each course to help guide you. When also accounting for each stage’s thoughtful landmark placement, you’re unlikely to get lost.
An energetic, infectious tropical theme greets you upon entering Treasure Trove Cove. Its variants—Banjo-Kazooie’s score is adaptive, changing depending on where you are in a stage—are also excellent. (Image: Source Gaming)
Then Treasure Trove Cove presents you with three options: you can walk to the left, right, or in front of you (which leads to a pirate ship and diverges into further left and right routes); it lacks a single, clear starting path and asks you to make a choice. It’s an exciting break from Mumbo’s Mountain, whose environmental design and camera work initially nudges you towards its jungle area.
Or you can do what I did after collecting the four Notes: jump off the pier. What the world (and almost all of Banjo-Kazooie) lacks in bottomless pits it partially compensates for with Snacker, a giant shark that’ll munch on ya if you dawdle in the ocean for too long. It’s a clever escalation in difficulty: danger is more present, but only in parts of the stage and you’ll never lose a life in one fell swoop. Conversely, Mario 64’s filled with ethereal voids—its second course hovers over one—meaning one misstep can prove fatal. And where previous Kazooie areas let you swim, doing so is effectively unavoidable here. You’ll want to take a dive to nab some treasure, though. The warm, yellow sand strongly evokes treasure, the Notes and Jiggies and honeycomb pieces. It practically implores you to explore!
As the map’s nexus point, the beach and shipwreck contain over fifty Notes. Some of the sand is darker and textured differently, identifying walkways to marshal you along. (Image: Source Gaming)
After grabbing the underwater Jinjo—five lurk each level and reward you with a Jiggy once they’re all rescued—you’ll walk back on the beach and take notice of the palm trees. You’ll probably instinctively try climbing one, an act that leads to discovering a new goodie, red feathers (these feathers also lurk the room housing the portal to the Cove, an early tease). Some of these trees even let you reach that elevated Note-ridden route, which teases two new abilities, one involving weird, green pads and another for red ones. The former depict Kazooie’s feet and the latter those red feathers, suggesting the bird’s going to be the MVP here. That’s enough tantalizing details for now, though. Let’s hit the road.
I usually choose the left path first, which leads to a giant hermit crab named Nipper. He’s appropriately crabby, especially after chatting with the crude Kazooie, and retaliates against us. Nevertheless, he poses little threat: he’s stationary and his only attack is swiping his claws, which are large but easily avoidable. You might intuit that Nipper’s big, shiny eyes are his weak point; the asymmetric black irises are eye-catching. After hitting them three times with Kazooie’s midair beak attack, Nipper withdraws into his shell. Then we can walk inside and discover a few Notes, enemies (smaller crabs roam the Cove, as do some clams), and a Jiggy. Minutes in and the stage has already yielded a prize!
Mumbo’s Mountain had a boss, the irate gorilla Conga, but you gun him down from a safe distance. Nipper forces you to get in close, another small way the Cove rises in intensity. (Image: Source Gaming)
Afterwards, I finally satiate my curiosity and explore that elevated pathway. Again, the beach is the Cove in a microcosm: the upper and lower routes nicely loop around and use Notes to nudge you along. You’ll stumble upon Bottles up here, who teaches the Shock Spring Jump; now those green pads become tangible and let you perform a high jump. And if that beached pirate ship escaped your attention up until this point, Bottles’ molehill offers a scenic view of it. So let’s head there, meet its owner, and reunite with our mole ally to learn how to fly—yes, you can learn both of Cove’s new, Kazooie-centric moves within minutes of arriving. Handy!
Rare populates stages in this series with thematically-fitting, often hapless weirdos. At the Cove’s center lies the Salty Hippo, a pirate ship manned by Captain Blubber. He asks us to retrieve his two piles of gold, both of which are stuck within the vessel’s submerged chambers. These are potentially the first rooms players will visit that require them to dive underwater, and Rare designed them accordingly: they’re extremely compact and, since you can always easily swim up to catch your breath, the danger of drowning is negligible. Moreover, while you cannot adjust the camera when underwater, its positioning is helpful, offering a clean view of the cubbies. After retrieving the treasures and returning to Blubber, he coughs up another Jiggy.
The portal to Treasure Trove Cove isn’t the only chest you’ll backflip into! These aggressive boxes contain goodies, including valuable Notes. (Image: Source Gaming)
For now, let’s backtrack to the left side of the Cove. By using the nearby palm trees, Shock Spring Jump pad, or by approaching it from the elevated pathway, you’ll discover a series of cliffs to scale. Each cliff has a Shock Spring Jump pad to help you reach the next, and you’ll also discover a violent treasure chest and four small pools of water, each housing a sentient mine. If you draw them towards you, you can hop back on land and safely detonate them with Kazooie’s egg projectile… or you can just let them hit you. That’ll cost two health wedges, though! A conveniently located beehive rests nearby; breaking it spawns three honeycombs to restore as much health, so this dangerous area has a safety net. And these pools contain items, with the top one hiding a Jiggy, meaning you gotta get your feet wet and work around at least one explosive.
Behind that final pool is a few flights of stairs. While descending them, you may notice a few alcoves and crates floating in the water off to the side. This is the new benchmark for Banjo-Kazooie’s platforming, one that iterates on the forest from Mumbo’s Mountain. Falling there safely plopped you back on terra firma; doing so here dumps you in Snacker’s turf. The platforms are also smaller and farther apart, but hardly unmanageable—and carefully jumping across leads to another Jiggy. By the way, Snacker’s unavoidable if you seek one hundred percent completion, as a submerged honeycomb piece also lies near here; collecting six extends Banjo’s health by one full honeycomb wedge (the second fragment rests atop a floating crate on the opposite side of the map. It’s always the last collectible I nab. The draw distance makes it hard to see!).
The HUDs in Rare platformers only emerge briefly when necessary, whereas those in their Nintendo-made cousins are always present. The Twycross-based studio excels at making naturalistic environments, a quality this furthers. (Image: Source Gaming)
On the bottom of the stairs, you now have two options: swim and hop atop the crates along the right to loop back to the Salty Hippo, or continue ahead and keep circling the course. The latter loops back to the rightmost side of the beach, home to angry treasure chests and a walkway to the Spiral Tower, whose sole pitfall makes it a little less welcoming than earlier, similar structures. At its peak is a flight pad and a red X; ground pound it and an arrow appears, pointing out the next X. Fly towards it, ground pound it, and eventually you’ll reach a large, otherwise inaccessible pillar with the penultimate X. After pounding it, the final X appears on that small, empty islet nearby. Pound it, then the talking treasure chest that emerges, and your counterclockwise island tour concludes with another Jiggy.
On the right side of the beach lies a series of evenly elevated footholds that contain Shock Spring Jump pads. Many players probably saw and leaped right towards these after learning the technique. It’s a safe playground to practice aiming your jumps; the terrain is flat and enemies are sparse (Mario games, including 64, often let you acclimate to new mechanics in a similar manner). This section also highlights a big difference between Super Mario and Banjo-Kazooie’s philosophies: several of the latter’s moves are situational, requiring mechanisms to activate. While I still prefer the potential for freeform experimentation that the plumber provides, Rare’s approach is equally valid and powers its best puzzles and minigames. Anyway, an outlying pillar features a few Notes… and offers a nice view of a pad-ridden path on the cliff. At the top is, of course, a Jiggy.
Cove carefully divvies up its Jinjos. The green one’s atop the Salty Hippo’s mast, while the orange one’s on the upmost level of the left side’s cliffs. The purple one’s stuck on a platform on the right side of the stage, conveniently on a Shock Spring Jump pillar. (Image: Source Gaming)
A pool containing a submerged sandcastle will also catch your eye here, and a nearby ledge—which is, conveniently, accessible from where you learned the high jump—hides a sentient paint can, Leaky. Tossing two eggs into him inspires Leaky to drain the water, granting access to the sandcastle, another small room. Inside is a talking crab and an admittedly underwhelming “puzzle:” simply ground pound the letters to spell out “Banjo Kazooie” within one hundred seconds. Claim the puzzle piece and leave before this invulnerable crab nips ya.
I imagine most people first flew right after learning how; I certainly did. It’s liberating and renders all of Treasure Trove Cove easily accessible. Another Jiggy rewards your excitement, as two alcoves are reachable by flying straight off the Salty Hippo’s flight pad. The left one contains a particularly aggressive, chomping chest. He’s slightly faster because he’s protecting Grunty’s personal treasure, a Jiggy. The opposite alcove features an entrance to the lighthouse and a lone Note (to be honest, this Note stumped me my first time through. I immediately flew up towards the lighthouse as soon as I could, completely overlooking the stairs).
Mayles and company blessed Kazooie with atmosphere. Alongside its adaptive music, different places within the same stage can boast distinct architecture and colors, accentuating the joy in wondering what’s around the corner. (Image: Source Gaming)
However you tackle the course, the lighthouse is imposing, towering over everything. Another venue through which World 2 increases the difficulty is the greater risk of fall damage; Spiral Mountain, the ant farm in Mumbo’s Mountain, and even the Cove’s own Spiral Tower offer safety nets; falling down the middle one doesn’t hurt you while transformed and the other two are surrounded by water, breaking your fall. The spiral ascent up the lighthouse, however, is steep enough to hurt Banjo should you slip. Atop the building is another Jiggy, near the base is Cove’s Witch Switch (ground pounding it causes a Jiggy to erupt in the hub), and the final Jinjo—and, by extension, Cove’s final Jiggy—is on a nearby palm tree.
Treasure Trove Cove flaunts a blue ocean and sky, and palm trees, but its palette is otherwise warm, imbuing it with a striking, exotic flair. Spiral Tower and the leftmost cliffs don a rustic, waterlogged green, implying their age and harsher nature. Conquering the lighthouse, the highest reaches of Banjo-Kazooie so far, only to discover green grass is oddly pleasant, however. We’ve seen grass elsewhere; I mean, it’s grass. But this outward local being enveloped in it complements the Cove with a comforting familiarity. Green is a calming color, and watching over the stage on a relatively mundane lighthouse along a grassy plane while the music dims allays any tension one might feel. Just don’t dawdle for too long, though. Grunty still has Banjo’s little sister in captivity, y’know?
Unlike Mario 64, Banjo-Kazooie doesn’t kick you out of a stage after grabbing a gold MacGuffin. Rare doesn’t want to interrupt you, enhancing their organic backdrops and sense of exploration. (Image: Source Gaming)
Like its predecessors, you can clear Treasure Trove Cove within twenty minutes. Altogether, it’s a fun, breezy time—although it doesn’t always feel that way. Those crustaceans are more aggressive than anything heretofore fought, and their companions, the dim Yum-Yum clams, can pilfer your feathers or eggs. Entering and exiting the clamping treasure chests demands fairly strict timing and punishes mistakes. Snacker will bite you, and I imagine plenty of kids accidentally slipped off the lighthouse their first time visiting (I did). That building also isn’t as ubiquitous a guiding force as either of the Mountains’ central landmarks, even if the interlocking, round structure ensures that players aren’t likely to get lost. More than anything else, clearing this world always feels like a distinct accomplishment, one that left me eager to discover what further challenges lurked ahead.
Treasure Trove Cove isn’t Banjo-Kazooie’s best or most interesting level. Nevertheless, it’s my favorite one and sold me on the game all those years ago. It embodies the value in Rare’s values, smartly iterates on Kazooie’s ideas, and is no less compelling than Mario 64’s jungle gyms. And Cove has, rightfully, cemented a place for itself within the series’ iconography. Entering any of Kazooie’s unlockable cheat codes requires returning to the sandcastle (which was also a pivotal facet of the cut Stop & Swap mechanic, indirectly imbuing the Cove—which conveniently hides the Pink Mystery Egg—with a certain mystique). The Cove reappears in Banjo-Pilot. A Salty Hippo replica decorates the Banjoland level in Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts. Recent Rare success Sea of Thieves draws from the Cove. And a remix of its theme accompanied Banjo & Kazooie in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, renewing its place in the Nintendo ecosystem. Whether you own a hard copy of Banjo-Kazooie, its HD remaster, or the Nintendo 64 – Nintendo Switch Online app, I urge you to dive into this scenic island.
A stepping stone to prep you for greater heights and deeper depths, Treasure Trove Cove whisks you up and down along its considered, circular map. I’m glad it only takes two Jiggies to enter—everyone should savor its sights. (Image: Source Gaming)
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