Banjo-Kazooie

Left to right: Mumbo Jumbo, Banjo, Kazooie.

A seminal Platformer series, created by Rare for the Nintendo 64 and fondly remembered by many children of the 90's, the Banjo-Kazooie series (sometimes simply referred to as the Banjo series) tells the tale of a lazy bear, his avian best friend, the nasty witch who likes messing with their lives, and lots and lots of shiny golden puzzle pieces. Traversing many strange and improbable worlds, the dauntless duo of Banjo the honey bear and Kazooie the breegull go about Saving the World, with the help of moleish mentors, cute bird-anteater... things, and a very liberal helping of British humour.

Games in the series:

  • Banjo-Kazooie (1998, Nintendo 64)
    • Banjo the bear, his little sister Tooty, and Banjo's loudmouthed best friend Kazooie live peacefully in the tranquil Spiral Mountain. However, the ugly, witch-shaped form of the witch Gruntilda's lair lurks overhead. Grunty sees that Tooty is the fairest in the land, and Grunty envies that beauty! She kidnaps Tooty and absconds to her lair. Now Banjo and Kazooie must brave the depths of her labyrinthine lair to save Banjo's sister.
  • Banjo-Tooie (2000, Nintendo 64)
    • Two years after Grunty's defeat (and subsequent imprisonment beneath a rock), her sisters Mingella and Blobbelda come with a fancy new tank to save her. Grunty's been beneath the rock for so long, she's only an animate skeleton. But her witchy sisters have a new machine that can suck the life energy out of anything, and they plan to use it to restore Gruntilda! Banjo and Kazooie once again set out to stop her, and prevent her from turning the whole world into a zombie wasteland!
  • Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge (2003, Game Boy Advance)
    • A midquel that takes place between Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie. Grunty's faithful sidekick Klungo builds her a Mecha-Grunty suit, and her spirit inhabits it from beneath the rock. With her evil magic, she kidnaps Kazooie, and flings Banjo into the past, attempting to stop him and Kazooie from ever meeting! Now Banjo (and Kazooie, once he's rescued her) must stop Gruntilda from destroying the past!
  • Banjo Pilot (2004, Game Boy Advance)
    • A racing game spinoff, this game features the Banjo-Kazooie cast racing around in airplanes. Gruntilda does appear, but poses no real threat.
  • Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts (2008, Xbox 360)
    • This somewhat Contested Sequel changed the game's mechanics from regular platformer to vehicle-based platformer. Set many years after their last adventure, Banjo and Kazooie have gotten fat and lazy from no adventures. Then, a strange, TV-headed spirit calling itself the Lord of Games shows up. He intends to have Banjo and Kazooie resolve their old issues with Gruntilda's skeletal head by... throwing them into a new video game. Well, whatever works, right?
Tropes used in Banjo-Kazooie include:
  • Abnormal Ammo: One of Kazooie's signature abilities is firing eggs like bullets. Out of her mouth. And her butt.
  • Absurdly Spacious Sewer: Clanker's Cavern certainly seems to be a sewer of some description. It's full of pipes, anywho. Then there's the Clinker's Cavern sidequest in the second game where you shoot at... faecal blockages in the... air conditioning?
  • Abusive Parents: Mrs. Boggy seems to approve of Banjo beating her children, and is even seen giving Moggy a smack herself. Boggy himself is just extremely neglectful, abandoning his children at Christmas in order to go sledding instead of buying them presents.
  • Adventure Duo: Banjo and Kazooie, of course.
  • Aliens Are Bastards: In Banjo-Tooie, you find a UFO in the bottom of a lagoon, power their ship back up for them, bring one of them back from the dead after a nasty fall, warm up one of their children stuck on a icy, high cliff, find another two alien kids encased in ice, one of which you had to bring back to life as well, and to top it all off, only for two Jiggies. After all that, the alien dad states he has to exterminate you for taking so long. He doesn't do it because he didn't have his ray gun at the time, but the fact that he had intentions of wiping out the main characters after they did all that shows how badly that aliens are bastards.
  • Alliteration:
    • Mumbo's Mountain, Clanker's Cavern, and Mad Monster Mansion in Banjo-Kazooie.
    • Cloud Cuckooland and the Golden Goliath in Banjo-Tooie.
    • Trophy Thomas in Nuts & Bolts.
  • Already Done for You: Unlocking Stop 'N' Swop in the XBLA version of Banjo-Kazooie. Stop 'N' Swop involved ridiculously long cheat codes to unlock it in the original release.
  • Alternate History: The plot of Grunty's Revenge, which was originally supposed to take place in an alternate future from the one in Banjo-Tooie, though it was since changed to be set between the first two games. This would normally make it an Alternate Continuity, until the Timey-Wimey Ball rolls into town...
  • Always Night: Mad Monster Mansion and Freezeezy Peak in Banjo-Kazooie and Witchyworld in Banjo-Tooie. Bubblegloop Swamp has a pitch-black "sky", but it's not clear whether it's supposed to be night.
  • Ambiguously Gay: Jolly Roger. The menu in his... bar does not help matters.
  • Ambiguously Human: Gruntilda and Humba Wumba.
  • Animate Inanimate Object: So much so in the first game! If it didn't outright move and talk, it would have googly eyes slapped on it. Examples include: a totem pole, boulders, a leaky pail, acorns, musical notes, honeycombs, eggs, feathers, exploding mines, life preservers, oranges, trees, cauliflower, stone sphinxes, ice cubes, snowmen, cacti, cauldrons, cowl ventilators, onions, exploding boxes, flying broomsticks, treasure chests, beehive boxes, carrots, a toilet, golden jigsaw pieces, and a book of spells that flies by flapping its pages, just to name a few! The first game takes it to logical extremes in the Freezeezy Peak level. The first time you fall into the water, it talks to you, warning you of how cold it is. This game seems to have turned the Animate Inanimate Object thing into Rareware's shtick, as it got carried over into Conkers Bad Fur Day and, to a lesser extent, Jet Force Gemini.
  • Art Evolution: The art subtly evolved through the first few games. In particular, between Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie, Mumbo's look softened and became slightly friendlier when he ascended to the role of playable character. In Grunty's Revenge, all of the characters became slightly more cartoonish, with Klungo being the most apparent. But then, in Nuts & Bolts, the series underwent...
  • Art Shift: Nuts & Bolts has a far blockier style than the previous games, to the point where Banjo looks blockier on the Xbox 360 than he did on the Nintendo 64.
  • Ascended Extra:
    • Klungo. In Banjo-Kazooie, he only appeared in a cutscene at the beginning of the game and during the Game Over sequence, and Banjo and Kazooie never even meet him. In Banjo-Tooie, he becomes a recurring boss and even gets some character development!
    • Mr. Fit. He begins simply as a throwaway character worth a single Jiggy in Banjo-Tooie, and then evolves into part of the main cast in Nuts & Bolts.
    • Jolly Roger was the "primary" character of his level in Banjo-Tooie, but it was still only one level, and he didn't have any impact on the game's overall plot. However, he was an unlockable character in Banjo-Pilot (with all the other characters being the series' staples) and was also upgraded to main cast in Nuts & Bolts, with his new disguise as the "Jolly Dodger".
  • Asteroids Monster: Boss Boom Box, from the first game.
  • Awesome Backpack: In Banjo-Tooie, Banjo's backpack could carry things more than twice its size (when Kazooie's not in there) and also heal the bear.
  • Aw, Look -- They Really Do Love Each Other:
    • In Banjo-Tooie, separating the pair and then attempting to go to a radically different area leaves the left-behind character to lament how lonely it is by themselves. Despite their griping at one another, Banjo and Kazooie are loyal to each other 'til the end.
    • In Grunty's Revenge, when Kazooie picks up the Distress Ball, Banjo is seriously upset over her going missing. When the two of them reunite in the second world, their happiness at being together again is tangible. Awww.
  • Back From the Dead: Bottles and King Jingaling.
  • Badass Boast: Grunty, especially in the first game, they even rhyme!
  • Bag of Spilling:
    • Quite famously averted in Banjo-Tooie, where every move you had at the end of the last game carries over, aside from the mostly-useless Claw Swipe (replaced with another pecking attack by Kazooie).
    • Nuts & Bolts used this, but justified it by showing that Banjo and Kazooie had gotten fat and out of shape over the years, thus forgetting how to perform their old moves. Because this is a Banjo-Kazooie game, this is frequently lampshaded every time one of the characters points out that an obstacle would have been much easier to clear using one of their old moves. They even beg the resident Deus Est Machina to grant them their old moves back, Puppy Dog Eyes and all, but he adamantly refuses because this is a game about vehicles. Then he finally relents at the end of the game, for a nice fat Sequel Hook for the fans that wanted a non-vehicle game.
    • Played straight in terms of the health and supply amounts in Banjo-Tooie, as they're reset to their starting carrying capacity from the first game, with one exception: due to the increased focus of flying (to the point where an entire boss fight revolves around it), the supply of feathers remains at 100 (which can be further doubled to 200).
  • Bayonet Ya: Kazooie can learn the Beak Bayonet for use in first-person areas (and the FPS deathmatch multiplayer mode). Or is it Banjo who's learning it, since he's the one who hauls her around to attack...?
  • Be Careful What You Wish For: All Tooty wanted to do in the first game was go on an adventure...
  • Berserk Button: The "Tick the Mole Off" part of the game very early on. All you have to do is claim to know all the moves and then bother Bottles until he actually threatens to erase your game pak.
  • Big Boo's Haunt: Mad Monster Mansion.
  • Big Eater: One of Gruntilda's possible party tricks is eating a bucketful of beans.
  • Big, Thin, Short Trio: In Banjo-Tooie, Gruntilda is the Big, Mingella is the Thin, and Blobbelda is the Short.
  • Bizarrchitecture: Mumbo Jumbo's house.
  • Black Comedy: Quite a bit in Banjo-Tooie. Bottles dies in the intro, yet his lingering spirit hovering over his charred body continues saying hilarious things. Jingaling is zombified, and continues to say hilarious things while lurching around the room trying to kill you. The Gray Jinjo family's epitaph: "Passed away tragically when their house was crushed by a giant tank." And you play hacky-sack with Grunty's severed head in the ending.
  • Blackout Basement: The Generator Cavern and the Power Hut Basement in Glitter Gulch Mine, and the Haunted Cavern in Witchyworld.
  • Blood Is Squicker in Water: The boss battle with Lord Woo Fak Fak in Jolly Roger's Lagoon, when you blow up his boils. Yes, in an E-rated game.
  • Boss Banter: Gruntilda, pretty much every time you fight her. In the final boss fight of the first one, she has multiple possible phrases for every time she'll say something. Actually, most of the bosses tend to do this when you're fighting them.
  • Boss Remix: Every boss fight, apart from Cloudcuckooland (which remixes the Mumbo's Skull theme instead) remixes its level's theme. Particularly noteworthy examples are Gruntilda's (Grunty's Lair, of course), Mr. Patch (Witchyworld), and Weldar (Grunty Industries).
  • Boss Subtitles: Parodied.
  • Braids, Beads, and Buckskins: Humba Wumba in Banjo-Tooie.
  • Brain In a Jar: Grunty in Nuts & Bolts, who's actually a skull in a jar (which seems prone to falling out).
  • Bubblegloop Swamp: Trope Namer in the very first game, and Bad Magic Bayou in Grunty's Revenge.
  • Bullet Seed: Kazooie's eggs already count as Abnormal Ammo, but the secret "Golden" eggs, found hidden in some areas, allow her to fire them very rapidly... and she'll have an unlimited supply, but only for a short period of time.
  • Buried Alive: The fate of Gruntilda at the end of the first game. She stays buried alive for two years until she the boulder is finally moved (no thanks to Klungo). Turns out, she's still alive! Despite the fact that her flesh has rotted away!
  • Butt Monkey: Quite a few.
    • Kazooie seems to have it in for the universe. The universe retaliates by showing her no mercy.
    • Gobi the camel is horribly abused by the main characters.
    • Though, Bottles wins this one out. Killed, revived and kicked out by his wife? Really?
    • Poor Klungo suffers this fate in Tooie, being repeatedly beaten by the main duo only to be sent back to Grunty and, it's assumed, punished for failing.
  • By-The-Book Cop: At first, the Kickball Stadium Guard in Banjo-Tooie fits this: he won't let the heroes in without a ticket, refuses to let them play as only a Stony can join, and is downright offended when they offer to bribe him... later subverted though, when the guard lets the duo in when they are in Stony form, knowing full well who they are and that they are cheating.
  • Cain and Abel: In the original game, the witchy Grunty was at odds with the fairy godmother-esque Brentilda. Come Banjo-Tooie, it seems that Brenty is probably the only good egg in that whole family, with Grunty and her other two sisters being every bit as repugnant.
  • Canon Discontinuity: Grunty's Revenge, while originally meant to be an alternate follow-up directly from the first game, has since become an interquel, set between Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie. Despite this, it and Banjo Pilot are not acknowledged in Nuts & Bolts, which Microsoft identifies as the third game in the series. As a side note, in the "L.O.G.'s Lost Challenges" DLC, Kazooie describes the amount of games in the series as being "at least three".
  • Car Fu:
    • In Nuts & Bolts, this was an option. It was of varying effectiveness depending on what you put on your vehicle.
    • In Witchyworld in Banjo-Tooie, you can have Wumba turn you into an armored van, which also gives you invincibility while transformed.
  • Cats Are Mean:
    • Piddles the Cat in Nuts & Bolts. Justified in that Grunty's first action was to kick Piddles sky high.
    • The Moggies in Banjo-Tooie's Mayahem Temple stage are cats. And all they do is try to hit you with their clubs. Just by the by, "moggy" is a British slang term for "cat", generally implying a mongrel.
  • Cephalothorax: The Glowbos, which are basically just heads with legs.
  • Chekhov's Gunman:
    • In Banjo-Kazooie. The Jinjos seem to be not much more than Distress Ball-carrying NPCs for you to collect. But at the end of the game, they turn out to be crucial in turning the tide against Gruntilda, and the final blow is delivered by the mighty Jinjonator.
    • Also, in Banjo-Tooie, the leader of the Jinjos gives you your first Jiggy (for free, no less) and opens the way to the first world (then he gets zombified).
  • Christmas Episode: Freezeezy Peak, complete with holiday advent calendar entrance. It even comes with a few Saving Christmas challenges, such as rescuing Christmas lights from being eaten, and collecting Christmas presents for sad children.
  • Chuck Cunningham Syndrome:
    • Banjo's sister Tooty, the Damsel in Distress whose kidnapping drove the plot of the first game, is nowhere to be seen in Banjo-Tooie, except as a missing person on a giant milk carton in Cloud Cuckooland, and in a picture in Banjo's house (it is one of the few things in the house that wasn't completely destroyed). Hacking the game cartridge and early beta screens shows that at some point she was intended to be in the game, but no explanation for her disappearance has been offered aside from Rare's explanation that she was hauled off by the "Rubbish Video Game Characters Police". She's vaguely referenced in Nuts & Bolts, such as for a store named "Tooty Fruity" and a joke about scrapped levels including "Tooty Land".
    • Gruntilda's nicer sister Brentilda also vanished after the first game, aside from a portrait of her appering in Pawno's Emporium. Her sisters don't even mention her.
  • Circus of Fear: Witchyworld in Banjo-Tooie.
  • Cloudcuckooland: The penultimate stage in Banjo-Tooie is called this; however, it's more of a BLAM Level than a proper example, partly because of the trope below. Moreover, the entire world could count as Cloudcuckooland.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: It's hard to find a character in these games who doesn't fit this trope. One of the stages is even called Cloudcuckooland.
  • Collection Sidequest:
    • All of the games play out as a giant version of this, and throw all kinds of things at you that you don't even have to collect to complete the game.
    • Parodied and Lampshaded in Nuts & Bolts; L.O.G. even goes as far as to call them "useless objects".
  • Convection, Schmonvection:
    • Grunty's Furnace Fun in Banjo-Kazooie, as well as a few other regions of Gruntilda's Lair.
    • Hailfire Peaks (Lava Side) in Banjo-Tooie.
  • Corrupt Corporate Executive: Gruntilda is quite the entrepreneur. She owns a fairground (replete with deadly rides), a polluting factory and a dockyard. Presumably, her employees are not union.
  • Cuckoolander Commentator: Gruntilda during the game show at the end.
  • Cutting Off the Branches: In the first game, "Winkybunion" was just one of three potential Embarrassing Middle Names Gruntilda could have. In later games, it ascended to being her actual last name instead.
  • Darker and Edgier: Banjo-Tooie compared to the first game, though it's arguably even more self-aware and silly despite that.
  • The Dead Have Eyes: Gruntilda in Banjo-Tooie... they do sometimes fall out though.
  • Deadly Gas:
    • Glitter Gulch Mine and Grunty Industries.
    • The Hag 1 from Banjo-Tooie has this as a form of attack.
    • Several mini-games from the Grunty Industries world in Banjo-Tooie will leak a suffocating gas if you botch them.
  • Deadly Rotary Fan: Clanker's belly contains rapidly-moving fans with serrated blades, while the Rusty Bucket is fitted with deadly propellors. They return in Banjo-Tooie as part of the pipelines leading from Jolly Roger's Lagoon to Grunty Industries and Glitter Gulch Mine. The only way past them is to freeze them with Ice Eggs.
  • Deadpan Snarker:
    • Kazooie, though any number of characters will engage in this. A Running Gag is how she will respond to various enemies' Badass Boasts with a dismissive "that's nice".
    • Banjo starts to do it in Nuts & Bolts as well. He's lived with Kazooie for years, so it's no wonder he picked it up. Heck, he does a little bit in Tooie, too.
  • Death Is a Slap on The Wrist: Starting with Banjo-Tooie, you have infinite lives, plus the note score was removed (which was later added to the Live Arcade port of the original game), meaning you don't have to collect them in one go.
  • Defeat Means Friendship: Old King Coal, Terry and Klungo in Banjo-Tooie.
  • Dem Bones: Grunty in Banjo-Tooie.
  • Denied Food as Punishment: Inverted. After Kazooie fires the Big-O-Blaster's blowback input on Bottles to revive him, Bottles rushes home after realizing that he's late for dinner, and that Mrs. Bottles will kill him for it. He arrives home, and he is stuck at the table with a very burned meal of what is apparently fish and chips while his wife, beating the roller on her hand, is telling him that it won't matter how burned it is, as he is still going to eat it, dismissing Bottles' excuse that Gruntilda killed him and he was just brought to life until after King Jingaling and Klungo arrive to back him up and celebrate.
  • Derivative Differentiation: The first game was a good Super Mario 64 clone, but after people tired of that particular formula, the later games diverged increasingly more, with Nuts & Bolts abandoning most of the Platform Game hallmarks altogether.
  • Determinator: What does Gruntilda do after the events of Tooie when her defeat leaves her waaay out in the Isle O' Hags on the top of her tower as nothing but a skull? She spends eight years hopping all the way back to Spiral Mountain to challenge the heroes once again.
  • Deus Ex Machina: The Mighty Jinjonator.
  • Difficulty Spike:
    • After a mostly easy game, with little if any danger of getting lost or getting killed... Gruntilda in the final battle of the first game is vicious. But epic!
    • The eighth world in Banjo-Kazooie, Rusty Bucket Bay, has the engine room puzzle. Arguably, the level itself compared to the others—thanks to water that makes you drown on the surface.
    • Mr. Vile in Bubblegloop Swamp is probably the first time the game provides a spike in the challenge; prior to this, most Jiggies are pretty straightforward or out in the open, and then you run into this guy who forces you through not one, not two, but three challenges with increasing difficulty for a single Jiggy.
  • Disc One Final Boss: Grunty's quiz game in the original game.
  • Disproportionate Retribution: Think about it for a second. Grunty kidnapped Banjo's sister; did she really think he wouldn't come after her? She forces him to undertake a huge, dangerous quest and fight for his very survival, sending minion after minion to attack him relentlessly, all the while threatening him with bodily harm and outright demanding that he come up and face her, all because he's being a good big brother. Then, in the final fight that she herself pretty much begged for, it's not even Banjo and Kazooie who deliver the finishing blow, it's the Jinjonator who takes her down. And she doesn't even die! And for THAT, she murders Bottles, burns down Banjo's house, wipes out an entire Jinjo population (literally, to the point of extinction, although that may have been the fault of her sisters, as they were the ones who drove the vehicle to Spiral Mountain to revive her), and terrorizes the whole Isle o' Hags? I mean, yeah, she's an evil witch, but still... holy crap. It's also hinted in the instruction manual that it wasn't even Tooty that she was interested in surpassing in terms of the beauty department, but her sister Brentilda, and all Tooty's looks were to her was an excuse to finally use the machine that would allow her to grant this goal.
  • Distress Ball: Kazooie, in the very beginning of Grunty's Revenge.
  • Dolled-Up Installment: The GBA spin-off Banjo-Pilot was a remodeling of the canceled Diddy Kong Pilot following Nintendo's selling of Rare.
  • Double Jump: One of the duo's most basic moves, utilizing Kazooie's wings to flap for more height.
  • Down the Drain: Clanker's Cavern, which also has shades of Absurdly Spacious Sewer.
  • Drill Sergeant Nasty: Jamjars, in marked contrast to his brother Bottles.
  • Dropped a Bridge on Him: Gruntilda's sisters are rather unceremoniously smashed by weights in her Tower of Tragedy Quiz.
  • Dumb Is Good: Banjo. Boy howdy, Banjo. He seems to have smartened up a bit in Nuts & Bolts. He did a bit in Banjo-Tooie as well, though that could be due to having to make a lot of the dialogue shared by either character if they're Split Up.
  • Dummied Out: Stop 'N' Swop and Bottles' Revenge in Banjo-Tooie. Stop 'N' Swop eventually came back.
  • Edible Bludgeon: Some of the enemies in Cloud Cuckooland use sausages and candy canes as weapons.
  • Embarrassing Middle Name: Gruntilda Winkybunion is randomly given one in the first game for use in the Pop Quiz at the end. Also, in Banjo-Tooie, it is revealed that she has an embarrassing last name, which Banjo and Kazooie poke fun at her about.
  • Enter Solution Here:
    • Even if you already know all of Cheato's codes in Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie, you still can't use them until you've earned them. Rusty Bucket Bay also has a puzzle where you need to use a code written on the side of the ship, though you don't have to seek it out like with Cheato.
    • By using the Internet (or just plain luck), you can find out that you can still use the cheats if you enter "CHEATO" in then the cheat backwards, rendering the poor book useless. Of course, you won't know the cheats unless you collected them all or have Internet access, meaning he can still be useful.
  • Eternal Engine: Grunty Industries, Freezing Furnace, Nutty Acres and Logbox 720.
  • Even Evil Has Standards:
    • Grunty's Code Vengeance is a sign that she hates when the player tries to cheat using codes not already learned from Cheato, and threatens to erase the Game Pak if the player doesn't stop. She doesn't actually delete the whole pak, but the file you've been playing when putting the cheat will be gone.

Grunty: Stop this cheating, Grunty says, or your Game Pak I'll erase! [player disregards warning] You didn't listen, I'm amazed, so now your Game Pak is erased!

    • The Gruntbots from Nuts & Bolts may be mindless mooks trying to destroy you, but even they wouldn't be so impolite as to interrupt you while you're speaking to someone.
    • Speaking of Grunty, you could also say Even The Disgusting Have Standards. Grunty enjoys cuddling a loogie-filled handkerchief in bed, wearing streaky brown undies, and blowing bubbles out of her butt at parties, but when the heroic duo venture into a talking toilet to collect a Jiggy from Mad Monster Mansion's septic tank, that's where she draws the line!

Grunty: I can't believe you went in there, wash your hands now, filthy bear!

    • And in an "Even Jerkasses Have Standards" moment, at one point in Banjo-Tooie, Kazooie has to hatch a baby pterodactyl egg. One of them is so fat, it can't fly. Her father asks if Kazooie can't just shoot it with a grenade egg, causing Kazooie to immediately chastise him for his heartlessness (he's joking, mostly, and says later he'll try to come up with an exercise program for her).
  • Everything Fades: Averted with dropped items in the first game. Don't need that honeycomb piece yet? You can come back to it any time as long as you haven't left the level. Played straight with Mooks though.
  • Everything's Better with Bob: The life-sucking B.O.B., or Big O' Blaster.
  • Everything's Better with Dinosaurs: Played with in Banjo-Kazooie, when Mumbo was going to turn the duo into an awesome Tyrannosaurus Rex transformation, but then decided it was too good for the game and would save it for the next one. Played straight then in Banjo-Tooie with the appearance of the aforementioned T-Rex transformation, as well as Terrydactyland.
  • Everything's Deader with Zombies: King Jingaling in Banjo-Tooie.
  • Everything's Even Worse with Sharks: Subverted. Snacker the shark is rather antagonistic, but the massive cyborg Clanker is a Gentle Giant.
  • Everything's Worse with Bears: Inverted. Banjo is very likable.
  • Everything Talks: If it's an item and has eyes, it can talk.
  • Everything Trying to Kill You: Just the tip of the iceberg: cauliflower, amusement park workers, life buoys, being chased down a by fanged, pissed off beehive (without bees), paper-craft goblins that swat at you with candy canes, flowers, and sausages, or bloodthirsty shovels.
  • Evil Laugh:
    • Gruntilda has one of the most impressive ones in video game history, especially when you hit the "Save and Quit" option in Banjo-Kazooie.
    • She also laughs evilly constantly during the final boss battle.
    • And, the first game works an evil laugh into the beginning of the "Grunty's Lair" theme and all its variants, which restarts every time the music loops back to the beginning.
    • Every other minor enemy has one as well: Sir Slushes, Grublins and Tee-Hees from the first game, and Dragundas and Hotheads from the second in particular.
  • Evil Twin: Mingy Jongo to Mumbo Jumbo and the Minjos to the Jinjos (Rare really has a thing for fitting "minge" into evil twins' names).
  • Excuse Plot:
    • Really, it's all just an excuse to make Banjo and Kazooie run around collecting Jiggies.
    • This is especially so in the intro to Nuts & Bolts: a New Character Ex Machina appears to help Banjo, Kazooie and Grunty "settle their differences", by... throwing them into a new video game.
    • In fact, L.O.G. initially tosses them into a minigame in which the point is to collect more pointless objects than your opponent. Naturally, this scene unlocks an Achievement called "Pointless Collector".
  • Eye Poke: Repeated eye-poking is the method needed to defeat a giant hermit crab in Treasure Trove Cove.
  • Face Heel Turn:
    • Mumbo Jumbo pulls one of these for Gruntilda in the Game Over cutscene in the first game; good thing it's not canon.
    • Bottles was supposed to have one of these as well in the Bottles' Revenge game in Banjo-Tooie, but as we all know, that feature of the game was scrapped.
  • Fairest of Them All: Gruntilda's plot in the first game is to suck the beauty out of Banjo's sister Tooty with a special machine.
  • Fairy Godmother: Brentilda's a mix of this and Glinda the Good Witch.
  • Fantastic Voyage: Banjo and Kazooie end up walking around larger creatures' insides surprisingly often.
  • Fat and Skinny: Blobbelda and Mingella. Also Banjo and Kazooie to a lesser extent.
  • Fate Worse Than Death: Happens to Gruntilda, who gets trapped under a boulder for two years... and yet she survives (albeit as a skeleton).
  • Feather Fingers: In the ending of the first game, where Kazooie holds a mug, and again in Nuts & Bolts, where she holds a wrench.
  • Feed It a Bomb: The boss Weldar in Banjo-Tooie. Shoot Grenade Eggs at him when he starts Sucking-In Lines.
  • Final Exam Boss: Gruntilda in every game. All the main games have a literal final exam right before the final battle, at that...
  • Fire, Ice, Lightning: In Grunty's Revenge, you have Fire, Ice and Battery eggs. In Banjo-Tooie, you only have Fire and Ice: the other two "special" egg types are bombs.
  • Fishing Minigame: Grunty's Revenge has several, albeit with a very... Banjo-esque twist sometimes. There's your usual fishing, and then there's fishing for sheep...
  • Floating Platforms:
    • Not that common in the series, but examples include the vicinity of the treehouse in Click Clock Wood from Banjo-Kazooie (seriously, there's planks of wood just floating there) and any of Cloud Cuckooland from Banjo-Tooie. Even the mountain in the middle of the level appears to be floating.
    • In the Icicle Grotto in Banjo-Tooie. You can shoot some of them off of the ceiling, and they stop in midair.
  • Flunky Boss: Several in the second game. Terry periodically summons "Mucoids" (small, slimy enemies), and Weldar populates his battlefield with nut-and-bolt enemies from elsewhere in the level.
  • Free Sample Plot Coupon: The very first Jiggy Banjo and Kazooie collect in the first game, right at the entrance of Gruntilda's Lair, tells them that the objective of it and the other Jiggies in the game is to open new levels. Good thing that Jiggy was instantly available, and that the first world only requires one.
  • Friendly Playful Dolphin: There's a dolphin that's trapped under an anchor in grimy toxic water. Swimming up into the ship and slamming the button to drag the anchor off of him causes him to thank you by leaving behind a Jiggy.
  • Frothy Mugs of Water: Played with. The tavern in Jolly Roger's Lagoon sells ginger beer, which is a soft drink similar to ginger ale, but generally with a stronger taste. However, that doesn't prevent one of the customers from being a "seasick" pirate, complete with water cure.
  • Fun with Acronyms: One of Banjo-Kazooie's "Disinformation Central" rumors is about about Gruntilda going back in time with her giant T.I.T (Time Interfering Truck). Here's the link.
  • Gainaxing: Out of all the female characters, Blobbelda has this. As well as Humba Wumba and Mrs. Boggy, the polar bear.
  • Gag Penis: Invoked subtly with Mr. Patch, an anthropomorphic blow-up doll boss whose blow-up port is located on his crotch. It reminds one a lot of a scrotum and comes undone when he's defeated, adding a long... tube to go along with the bulge.
  • Gang Plank Galleon: Treasure Trove Cove and Jolly Roger's Lagoon.
  • Genre Savvy: Everyone.
  • Getting Crap Past the Radar: Numerous instances. Basically the whole series is a foil of subtlety to Conker's audacity. If you don't want to read a whole other page, just see the two part video series!
  • Giant Enemy Crab: The original game's Treasure Trove Cove has one... although he only became an enemy because of Kazooie's big mouth...
  • Giant Foot of Stomping: The Stomponadon in Terrydactyland.
  • Giggling Villain: Gruntilda. She's one of the few that pulls both this and Evil Laugh off perfectly.
  • Golden Super Mode: Although Banjo and Kazooie don't turn gold themselves, using their Invincibility Feathers covers them in golden glimmers.
  • Good Witch Versus Bad Witch: Brentilda and Gruntilda. Their designs are based on Glinda the Good Witch and the Wicked Witch of the West.
  • Gosh Hornet: The beehives in the later levels.
  • Gotta Catch Em All: Jiggies and notes are the main collectibles in the games, but Jinjos, empty honeycombs, Cheato pages, Mumbo tokens and other items appear everywhere. 100% Completion can be a pain in this series.
  • Green Aesop: Subtle, but appears in all three main games. In Banjo-Kazooie, the oily water in Rusty Bucket Bay is so polluted, it makes you drown while swimming on the surface (you drown twice as fast when you swim underwater)! In Banjo-Tooie, Grunty Industries has completely ravaged the environment and the nearby quagmire with its toxic runoff and smog. Finally, in Nuts & Bolts, Gruntilda plans to take the duo's beloved Spiral Mountain and turn it into a polluted industrial resort, and the point of beating her (and the game) is to stop that from happening.
  • Green Hill Zone: Spiral Mountain, Mumbo's Mountain, Mayahem Temple and Cliff Farm.
  • Grievous Harm with a Body: The secret move Breegull Bash in Banjo-Tooie, in which Banjo uses Kazooie as a club.
  • Grimy Water:
    • You can use a special Power-Up to cross it.
    • Rusty Bucket Bay. The water is so ass-nasty that on the surface, you're forced to hold your breath, and underwater, your air runs out twice as fast.
  • Ground Pound: Like basically all of his other moves, it involves Banjo's backpack.
  • Guest Fighter:
  • Guide Dang It: Canary Mary. See That One Sidequest in the YMMV page for details.
  • Hailfire Peaks:
  • Halloween Episode: Mad Monster Mansion in Banjo-Kazooie, especially since Mumbo's transformation there is a Pumpkin, which is one of the most iconic symbols for Halloween.
  • Heart Container: The Empty Honeycombs.
  • Heel Face Turn: Klungo in Banjo-Tooie.
  • He Knows About Timed Hits
  • Hello, Nurse!:
    • Believe it or not, Gruntilda in the "game over" cutscene from Banjo-Kazooie. Almost makes you not care about rescuing Tooty. Almost.
    • Also in the artwork for the "Hero Klungo Sssavesss Teh Universsse" minigame in Nuts & Bolts. Unsurprising, as that would appear to be Phillip M Jackson's work. It's entirely possible the man's head would explode if he tried to draw an ugly woman.
    • Humba Wumba, let's just say huba huba.
  • Hornet Hole: Parts of Click Clock Wood in the first game and Cloudcuckooland in Banjo-Tooie.
  • HP to One: Getting crushed in Banjo-Tooie, with a brief period of Mercy Invincibility before it's possible to get crushed a second time and killed. This serves as part of two puzzles, where Banjo must go solo and use the Snooze Pack move to recover between these hits.
  • Hub Level: Gruntilda's Lair in Banjo-Kazooie, Isle O' Hags in Banjo-Tooie, Spiral Mountain in Grunty's Revenge, and Showdown Town in Nuts & Bolts.
  • Hulk Speak:
  • Idle Animation:
    • Kazooie pecking Banjo on the head, which itself had two variations: Idle once, and Kazooie pecks Banjo and giggles before returning to the backpack. Continue to idle long enough, and Kazooie will peck Banjo again, but then Banjo catches her by the neck and throttles her a bit. Revenge is sweet, no? Or Banjo playing a Gameboy.
    • In Banjo-Tooie, when split up, Banjo pulls up his shorts, while Kazooie seems to peck at the ground eating; also, when playing as Mumbo, his idle animation is playing with his shaman stick by tossing it into the air and catching it when it falls back down.
  • The Igor: Klungo.
  • Implacable Man: Grunty survives falling off her tower, getting decomposed after two years, getting blown up in HAG 1, her now-disembodied head being the kickball for Banjo and friends, getting back to Spiral Mountain with just that head (which takes eight years), being attacked repeatedly in vehicles, and finally getting her vehicle blown up in her battle against Banjo and Kazooie. In the end, Grunty, who couldn't be killed off, ended up spending the rest of her days working in a video game factory.
  • Incredibly Lame Pun: In the first world of Banjo-Tooie, you save a cow woman's crop by destroying all the flies ruining it. After you finish, she exclaims:

"A-maizing! I corn hardly believe it! You wheatly sorted out those pesky flies!"

Honeycomb: Mmmm... I'm sticky tasty honey energy!

  • It's a Wonderful Failure: The infamous Game Over sequence from the first game.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Again, Kazooie. And to a certain extent, Mumbo Jumbo. And Jamjars.
  • Jungle Japes: Mumbo's Mountain and Mayahem Temple.
  • Karma Houdini:
  • Kill Steal: In Nuts & Bolts, L.O.G. actually does pause the game to 'steal the kill' from the heroes by sending Gruntilda to work in his video game company.
  • King of All Cosmos: The Lord Of Games.
  • Lampshade Hanging: Tons of it, even on the tropes within the game itself ("character ability pads", for example, have their trademark Simlish phrases written on them).
  • Large and In Charge: King Jingaling.
  • Ledge Bats
  • Lethal Lava Land: Grunty's Furnace Fun and half of Hailfire Peaks. In the GBA titles, we have Freezing Furnace (which is basically Hailfire Peaks in Eternal Engine flavor), and Steamy Vents in Banjo-Pilot, which is exclusive to that game.
  • Let's Play:
    • All of the console games have been or are presently being done by Rooreelooo of Something Awful. The portable game was LP'ed by someone else.
    • You'd be lying if you didn't think Nintendo Capri Sun did a good job with the first two games.
    • Darkmindedsith did a great job as well.
    • Cypheron48 did pretty well with the second game.
  • Let's Split Up, Gang!: One of the main gimmicks of Banjo-Tooie.
  • Level Ate: Cloud Cuckoo Land has some aspects of this, with the giant cheese wedge, jelly castle and all.
  • Life Energy: The Big Ol' Blaster in Banjo-Tooie sucks up life energy. Or restore it. Alternatively, one of Mumbo's spells, "Life Force", can generate life energy.
  • Live Item: The Jinjos and Glowbos, and practically everything in the first game.

Random Collectable Orange: Yum... oranges are nice!

  • Loads and Loads of Characters: And how. The cast of main characters is pretty average, but add in the huge supporting cast, and... wow.
  • Lost Forever: The Mumbo Token in the water-logged pyramid in Gobi's Valley (once you drain the water, it's gone) and the Amaze-O-Gaze Goggles (once you beat the Tower of Tragedy Quiz, you are locked out of Bottles' House and can't get in). Subject to debate are the grille that connects the Mad Monster Mansion and Rusty Bucket Bay puzzles (though it's not commonly seen and mistaken for a dead end), and the track "Sad Jinjo Houses" in the jukebox, and the "Zombie Throne Room" track.
    • Part Game Breaking Bug: On the XBLA, completing the Bottles Bonus Puzzles before completing Mad Monster Mansion and Click Clock Wood can make some of the notes in those levels impossible to collect. This has been fixed in an update form Xbox Live.
  • The Lost Woods: Click Clock Wood.
  • Magical Native American: Humba Wumba.
  • Magicant: Cloudcuckooland.
  • Mayincatec: Mayahem Temple.
  • Medium Awareness: Everyone knows very darn well they're in a video game with a silly Excuse Plot.
  • Messy Pig: Inverted with the pigs in Banjo-Tooie, who want you to clean up the mess in their swimming hole. Played straight in Nuts & Bolts with Pikelet, and to a lesser extent the the many generic pig characters in Showdown Town.
  • Metroidvania: Banjo-Tooie is a rare 3D example.
  • Mini Game Credits: The ending credits of Grunty's Revenge send you down a slide to collect tokens. The tokens let you replay minigames at the arcade machine in Spiller's Harbor.
  • Morphic Resonance: All the transformations still have Banjo's shorts and backpack.
  • Ms. Fanservice: Humba Wumba in Nuts & Bolts is basically a Native American Daisy Duke. Honey B. in Banjo-Tooie fits this well.
  • Musical Theme Naming: Banjo, Kazooie and Bottles are all named after musical instruments. Tooty was originally named Piccolo (probably a good thing they changed that), but this instrument seems out of place with the others anyway, as it doesn't belong in the Deep South.
  • My Name Is Not Durwood: King Jingaling.
  • Mythology Gag:
    • Nuts & Bolts includes numerous shout-outs to other Rare games. One level is nothing but game boxes that reference fictional sequels to classic games such as Killer Instinct and Battletoads.
    • There's been many a Shout-Out to other Rare games since the beginning: as well as Sabreman's appearance in Banjo-Tooie, there are plenty of subtler ones, such as posters of characters from Conkers Bad Fur Day and Jet Force Gemini, Mr. Pants being worked in anywhere he'll fit, and a toy Donkey Kong.
  • Never Say "Die": Played straight in Banjo-Kazooie, but averted in Banjo-Tooie, where Bottles is killed in the intro, and other characters make direct references to death; King Jingaling becomes a zombie after his life energy is drained, Roysten says he'll die if he doesn't get to water, Lord Woo Fak Fak sort of dies after being defeated (and even goes belly-up, though he can still speak to you), and Mingella and Blobbelda are crushed by weights in Tower of Tragedy.
  • Never Trust a Trailer:
    • The original teaser for the third game showed what would appear to be new key and weedwhacker moves for Kazooie, implying that the game was more like its predecessors. Apparently, this was the original plan for the game before it got scrapped.
    • The trailer for the XBLA release of Banjo-Tooie showed the long-absent Bottles' Revenge, though it didn't appear in this release after all.
  • Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Grunty seems to be more guilty of this trope with each subsequent game. In Banjo-Tooie, she's a Zombie Witch, in Grunty's Revenge she's a Ghost Robot Witch, and to top it off, in Nuts & Bolts, not only is she by default by this point a Robot Zombie Witch, but during the final fight, she attacks the heroes on a Pirate Galleon, making her, briefly, a Pirate Zombie Robot Witch.
  • No Fair Cheating: There are three kinds of "Cheats" in the original: "Cheats" which are just item capacity upgrades, which you get from Cheato anyway, "Infinite Item" cheats which give you unlimited Feathers/Eggs/air/whatever, and special "Bypass" cheats that let you get through parts of Grunty's Lair. But be warned—using more than two of the "bypass"-style cheats will result in Grunty deleting your game. And then there's the "Special Items" cheats, which relate to the above-mentioned Stop 'N Swop.
  • No Fourth Wall: Part of the humor of the franchise.
  • Non-Mammal Mammaries: Honey B. She's a bee!
  • Nostalgia Level: Nuts & Bolts's Banjo Land is a mishmash of levels from previous games.
  • Odd Couple: The titular duo. Banjo is very lazy and easygoing, Kazooie... not so much.
  • Offscreen Teleportation: Brentilda appears in no less than 10 different locations throughout Gruntilda's Lair, and you never see her move from any of them. Perhaps justified, since she's some sort of fairy god mother.
  • Oh Crap: Gruntilda gets one of these when she faces The Mighty Jinjonator.
  • Old Save Bonus: The purpose of the long-lost Stop 'N' Swop feature, properly implemented in the XBLA rereleases.
  • Only Sane Man: Banjo himself.
  • Opposites Attract: Although Banjo and Kazooie are complete opposites in terms of personality, they seem to get along pretty well.
  • Our Founder: The giant statue of Gruntilda in the depths of her lair.
  • Oxygenated Underwater Bubbles: One area in Clanker's Cavern has a huge pit you need to swim into, but it's very, very deep. A friendly fish named Gloop appears down there who spits out oxygenated bubbles
  • Palmtree Panic: Nutty Acres is a rare mix of this and Eternal Engine.
  • Panty Shot: Blobbelda.
  • Paper-Thin Disguise: Grunty is an evil witch who wants to destroy the heroes. Madame Grunty is a fortuneteller who gives the heroes free items, and sometimes beatings. Completely different person!
  • Perpetual Molt: Using the Red Feathers to fly has takes this form.
  • Pet the Dog: Kazooie and frozen alien baby in Hailfire Peaks. Though she quickly backtracks and tells him to quit whining.
  • Pickup Hierarchy
  • Platonic Life Partners: Banjo and Kazooie. It helps that one is a bear and one is a bird.
  • Playable Epilogue: In both the original and Banjo-Tooie, you could play even after slaying Grunty. In the first game, you could even dance on her still-moving grave.
  • Polluted Wasteland: Grunty Industries in Banjo-Tooie and Clanker's Cavern and Rusty Bucket Bay in Banjo-Kazooie.
  • Pop Quiz: Grunty's Furnace Fun in Banjo-Kazooie and the Tower of Tragedy in Banjo-Tooie and Grunty's Revenge. Both quizzes take place near the end of the games. And a completely meaningless one at the end of Nuts & Bolts that features such stumpers as "What is the name of Banjoland?".
  • Port Town: The "above water" section of Jolly Roger's Lagoon resembles one of these.
  • Power-Up Motif: Using the Wonderwing power changes the background music for the duration.
  • Precision F-Strike:
    • Grunty gets one after Cheato gives up the last code to Banjo. And then there's her comment about making Spiral Mountain hell.
    • The Saucer of Peril in Banjo-Tooie says "Bleep" a lot as part of its character quirk, but when you beat its challenge, it tells you you've won two bleeping prizes.
  • Prehistoria: Terrydactyland.
  • Public Domain Soundtrack:
    • The theme of Grunty's Lair is actually a particularly eerie remix of "Teddy Bears' Picnic" (appropriate, since Banjo is a bear). That doesn't make it any less fitting though.
    • In Banjo-Tooie, the music in Bottles' house is based on "Funiculi, Funicula".
  • Punch Clock Villain: Weldar from Grunty Industries. When the duo first meet him, he quotes company policy codes on bears in the factory.
  • A Pupil of Mine Until He Turned to Evil: Gruntilda to Mumbo, though this isn't mentioned much; it's really only in the manual of the first game and a few easily-missable comments Mumbo makes when you first meet him.
  • Purely Aesthetic Era: In a world with Game Boys, Nintendo 64s, widescreen television and amusement parks, not to mention the BFG pointed at the Isle O' Hags in the second game, in Banjo-Kazooie there are pirates (in the traditional yo-ho sense) hunting treasure. Banjo-Tooie has what looks like a Gold Rush-era gem mine. Then there's Terrydactyland. Without even going into upset palaeontologists, the dinosaur land has a train station with bone tracks (which connects to a factory and the aforementioned mine and theme park) and a sidequest there involves getting fast food for cavemen. Another involves retrieving a Mayincatec priceless relic thing from another caveman tribe. Rule of Funny is in full effect here.
  • Put on a Bus: Tooty and Brentilda from Banjo-Kazooie, Honey B. from Banjo-Tooie she did appear in the Midquel though. Tooty's disappearance is even lampshaded in both Banjo-Tooie and Nuts & Bolts.
  • Racing Mini Game: Boggy the polar bear, Canary Mary... Not to mention much of Nuts & Bolts.
  • Rain Dance: Done by Mumbo in Banjo-Tooie's Cloudcuckooland.
  • Recurring Riff: Tons of it. The main title song and the Grunty's Lair song are the two themes that get remixed the most throughout the series.
    • In fact, practically every level theme in the games had remixes that played when you traveled to different areas, including the respective games' Hub World.
    • The soundtrack for Nuts & Bolts is made up of virtually nothing but orchestrated remixes of previous Banjo-Kazooie songs, and bits of tracks from other Rare games. Not that anyone's complaining...
  • Recurring Traveller
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: Kazooie is the aggressive Type A, Banjo is her level-headed foil. When they get the Split Up ability and have to learn solo moves, Banjo starts out with no attack (despite being a friggen bear), gains only a slow nigh-useless one, and most of his skills are defensive or passive in nature... Kazooie starts with her entire egg arsenal intact, moves really fast, and gets a melee attack that goes off quickly and hits everything around her. And learns to hatch eggs.
  • Retcon: In the original game's manual, it was said that Gruntilda was Mumbo-Jumbo's pupil, and that she turned his head into a horrible metal mask when she turned evil (Mumbo alludes to their past in the Game Over screen). However, come the later games, it seems that Mumbo's head has just always been that way and Gruntilda got her learnings elsewhere.
  • Rhymes on a Dime: Gruntilda, in the first game, speaks entirely in verse. In the second game, she quits after her sisters point out how annoying this is... But in Nuts & Bolts, she goes back again. Most likely because her sisters are dead and aren't around to tell her to stop rhyming.
  • Ribcage Ridge: Terrydactyland.
  • Ridiculously Cute Critter: The Jinjos.
  • Right-Hand-Cat: Piddles the Cat. Subverted in that she and Grunty hate each other immediately (or at least one millisecond later after Grunty literally kicks her), and it's implied that she's a Punch Clock Villain in the epilogue.
  • The Rival: Mumbo Jumbo and Humba Wumba both claim to be "Best Shaman in Game" in Banjo-Tooie, much to the chagrin of the other. However, it seems that they've settled their rivalry in the 8 years leading to Nuts & Bolts.
  • Robot Me: Mingy Jongo to Mumbo Jumbo.
  • Rubber Band AI: Canary Mary. See also: That One Sidequest and Guide Dang It. Banjo-Pilot also has this.
  • Sand Is Water: Gobi's Valley is full of "quicksand pits", and even a few "sand waterfalls".
  • Scars Are Forever: Klungo's face is still visibly messed-up from the beatings Gruntilda gave him in Banjo-Tooie when you meet him again in Nuts & Bolts.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Klungo at the end of Banjo-Tooie.
  • Secret Keeper: Brentilda knows all of Gruntilda's disgusting personal secrets. She's more than happy to share them with you.
  • Self-Deprecation: Rare, as a British company, naturally indulges in the popular British pastime of poking fun at themselves in the games.
    • Nuts & Bolts has some references to Grabbed By the Ghoulies being a commercial failure and admits that the bird and bear don't have as many games as "that Italian gentleman".
    • "Easy to make boat, add floaters and propellers. Heavier vehicles need more floaters, or boat sink like this game at retail." Yeah. About that...
    • The Lord of Games in Nuts & Bolts claims to have had great pleasure in making the Canary Mary sidequest.

"Remember Canary Mary? Did you have fun racing her? How I laughed when I was setting up those levels. I'm still laughing!"

  • Self Deprecating Humor: As seen by Gruntilda in the final battle after you've rescued Tooty, in possible reference to her being unable to restore her beauty.

"What was that, you got me now, you've really angered this old cow!"

  • Sequel Difficulty Spike: Banjo-Tooie is a lot more challenging than its predecessor.
  • Sequel Hook: At the end of every game. Banjo-Kazooie has Mumbo pop out of a tree and show pictures of the infamous Stop 'n' Swop items, saying that you would find out what they were for in Banjo-Tooie. At the end of Banjo-Tooie, Gruntilda threatens "Just wait until Banjo-Threeie!" (Threeie, of course, was never made, though it was the working title of the project that became Nuts & Bolts). Grunty's Revenge has Banjo about to call Bottles and Mumbo over for a game of cards, setting up for Banjo-Tooie. As for Nuts & Bolts? Kazooie asks L.O.G. to give them their old moves back, saying they might need them for the next game. L.O.G. does so, though warning them that the next game may not happen. Gruntilda, of course, threatens "Just wait until the game I make!" while working in L.O.G.'s video game factory. The XBLA release of Banjo-Tooie includes an as-yet unexplained Stop 'N' Swop II feature, promising to be used in a future title.
  • Shifting Sand Land: Gobi's Valley, complete with the Sand Is Water sandfalls.
  • Shout-Out: Mostly to other Rare games.
  • Shovelware: In Nuts & Bolts, the loser of the competition will be forced to make these for L.O.G.
  • Show Within a Show: Remember when Klungo went off to "make ssstupid games" after being defeated for the last time in Banjo-Tooie? In Nuts & Bolts, Klungo has indeed made his own game, Hero Klungo Sssaves Teh World, which is a playable mini-game. It is basically a poor man's Super Mario Bros..
  • Silliness Switch:
    • An Easter Egg Mini Game in the original would give you several cheat codes that changed Banjo's appearance, ranging from giving him a giant head to making his body long and skinny. The final one turned him into a washing machine.
    • You could also occasionally be accidentally turned into a washing machine via standard use of Mumbo.
    • Believe it or not, but there was actually a point to completing that Easter Egg Mini Game. You could perform a cheat that went like this: Skip being transformed in Mumbo's Mountain, complete all of Bottle's puzzles, and enter the Washing Machine code on the Sandcastle floor, and then go back to Mumbo's Mountain, and the transformation would be free, not requiring a single Mumbo Token at all. In the second game, the washing machine was a regular transformation (specifically for Grunty Industries). Oh, and to add more silliness, the washing machine fired underwear and operated service elevators.
  • Singing Simlish: The music to Mayahem Temple: "ONG ANG OOK YA OOK. ONG ANG OOK YA OOK. EEK YO EEK YO ONG EEK OOK."
    • This was actually supposed to sound like "Come and have a go, if you think you're hard enough."
  • Slippy-Slidey Ice World: Freezeezy Peak, the Winter Click Clock Wood, and half of Hailfire Peaks.
  • Snark Knight: Kazooie.
  • Sound Off: Jamjars describes new moves using cadences.
  • Speaking Simlish: So iconic of the series, it's so famous, in fact, they decided to keep it in Nuts & Bolts. A Rare Scribes column even joked about how horrible the reaction to actual talking would be if the reaction to driving cars was any indication.
  • Spiritual Successor: Banjo-Pilot is a spiritual sequal to Diddy Kong Racing... well, it is a Dolled-Up Installment.
  • Sssssnaketalk: Gruntilda's right-hand man Klungo. Also, the Snippet Mutants in Banjo-Kazooie, as well as the minor character Ssslumber in Banjo-Tooie.
  • Stealth Pun:
    • In Banjo-Tooie, Banjo learns the Snooze Pack move, which lets him take a catnap in his backpack to restore health. Thus making his pack a literal Nap Sack, or Sleeping Bag.
    • This exchange between Kazooie and Scrotty houses an easily-missed pun:

Scrotty: Look at my eldest, Scrat. He's very sickly and needs a doctor urgently.
Kazooie: Which doctor?

Scrotty: I don't care. Any doctor will do.

  • Strange Syntax Speaker: Talk like Yoda, Cheato does. And Mingella and Blobbelda so do. It comes across as imitating Grunty's own awkward syntax (used to allow for her rhymes), but without the rhymes.
  • Stylistic Suck: "Hero Klungo Sssavesss Teh World" in Nuts & Bolts, which is... actually, compared to most of Newgrounds, not that bad, but still hilariously awful. You play as Klungo, who is literally carrying the world, as he automatically runs from left to right, only allowing you to jump at one fixed, unchanging height. To his credit, there are some very tricky timing puzzles centered around making the best use of that jump. It should also be noted that, while the game itself is awful, the box art is totally brutal.
  • Super Drowning Skills: In Grunty's Revenge, most of Banjo's transformations—all but the octopus—can't swim. You'll die instantly if you touch the water as one of them.
  • Super Not-Drowning Skills: Many of the transformations in the Nintendo 64 games. Some are justified (Walrus, Crocodile, Stone Statue, inanimate objects); others, like the Termite, not so much. Although notably, the bee in Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie will just fly back up again when it approaches water.
  • Swamps Are Evil: The hazardous Bubblegloop Swamp from the first game, although some of the inhabitants are friendly.
  • Take That:
    • Chatting up the Lord of Games in Nuts & Bolts reveals that he has interesting opinions on the state of the video game industry (and Video Game Tropes in general) at the present:

"For my next trick, I may take that Pinata franchise down the Survival Horror route. What do you think? They go bad, trap you in a cabin, and you have to fend them off with a shovel handle."

"Yes, there is a Lady of Games. Not that it's any of your business. She invented the first games to feature pony-riding, lovely kittens, and ninjas being blown up with rocket launchers."

"I invented the First-Person Shooter, you know. Wish I hadn't bothered now. Have you seen how many of the things there are? I expect there's even a Space Marine in this game somewhere."

    • Humba Wumba takes a bit of a pop not only at the Gamer Chick character in the second level, but almost actively calls out the Frag Dolls, with her own all-girl clan, the "Hag Trolls". Banjo comments that he can "smell cynicism".
  • Temple of Doom: Mayahem Temple.
  • Tempting Fate: The aftermath of the "Tower of Tragedy Quiz" in Banjo-Tooie:

Banjo: Right! C'mon, Kazooie, let's go and see where that door that's just opened leads to.
Kazooie: Do you reckon that's the end of the game?
Banjo: I doubt it. We've not had the credits yet.
Kazooie: That's true. Okay, let's go!
(Banjo enters the doorway... roll credits!)

  • Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: Kazooie suddenly became a lot curvier in Nuts & Bolts, and grew much more prominent eyelashes.
  • That Poor Cat: In the first game's file select screen, selecting the first file will occasionally cause Banjo and Kazooie to get flung out the window. Cue cat noises.
  • Theme Naming: The moles are all named for various slang words for the thick glasses they sport (see Animal Stereotypes above), such as Bottles, Jamjars, Speccy (arguably a reference to the ZX Spectrum computer too) and Goggles. Several other characters are musically themed; see Musical Theme Naming above.
  • Thriving Ghost Town: Jolly Roger's Lagoon. Jolly's pub is a very popular place, but the town itself is depicted as very small, and has few inhabitants.
  • Tomboy and Girly Girl: Gruntilda sort of and Brentilda.
  • Too Awesome to Use: Lampshaded in the first game: Mumbo Jumbo has this unstoppable Tyrannosaurus Rex transformation... but decides it's too awesome for the game and saves it for the next one instead.
  • Too Much Information: Grunty loves to mix these in with her Badass Boasts. Could also be said of all of Gruntilda's revolting secrets Brentilda likes to share.
  • Treasure Room: Banjo-Tooie has the Treasure Chamber in Mayahem Temple, which is filled with piles of gold. You can't take any of it though.
  • Tsundere: Kazooie, who, rather than fitting into either category listed on the trope page, is both caustic and sentimental at the same time, all the time.
  • Underground Level: Clanker's Cavern and Glitter Gulch Mine.
  • Underwater Ruins: The Atlantis section of Jolly Roger's Lagoon.
  • Undying Loyalty: At the start of Banjo-Tooie, you see that Klungo has been trying to push that boulder off Grunty for two years!
  • Unexpected Gameplay Change: The Breegull Blaster move in Banjo-Tooie, which turns the game into a first-person shooter with Kazooie as the gun. Interestingly, as it was by the same people, the levels for these stages were copied from the multiplayer mode of GoldenEye, just with a different paint job.
  • Updated Rerelease: Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie were rereleased on the Xbox Live Arcade.
  • Variable Mix: Every overworld and level. Ever. But for starters, every level with an appreciable amount of water has an underwater version in the form of a muted harp.
  • Victory Pose: Every time you collect a Jiggy (and open a note door) in Banjo-Kazooie. Removed in Banjo-Tooie, possibly due to the open-endedness and all the transformations that would need such an animation.
  • Video Game Cruelty Potential: The ending of Banjo-Tooie. The heroes have just defeated the witch, how do they decide to celebrate? They take the Big Bad's helpless severed head and start kicking it around like a soccer ball, all while talking about how much fun this is over the sounds of the witch screaming in pain.
  • Video Game Flight: Kazooie can fly, but only with Red Feathers, and you can only launch from Flight Pads. And in some levels, getting up to them is a hassle in and of itself. To be fair, you don't NEED the red feathers to actually fly. You need the launch pads for sure, but you can stay in the air for a small amount of time without the feathers.
  • Vitriolic Best Buds: You'd be forgiven for wondering why Banjo and Kazooie hang out in the first place, given that there are times when it seems like Banjo's only around to prevent Kazooie from chewing everyone out. Then again, given the way they react when separated in Banjo-Tooie ("Don't leave me here, Banjo! It's lonely without you..."), maybe there's something there after all.
    • Then there's the fact that Banjo constantly uses Kazooie as eventually from a gun to a bat...
  • Voice of the Legion: The Jinjonator at the end of Banjo-Kazooie, which booms "Jiiin-joooo!" when it's released from its stone prison.
  • Wabbit Series
  • Wacky Racing: Banjo-Pilot, which is a racing game based on flying tiny, adorable planes.
  • Wall Master: Several. Especially in the first game.
  • Warp Whistle:
    • The colour-coded cauldrons in Banjo-Kazooie's Hub Level, Grunty's Lair, the silo network in the Isle of Hags in Banjo-Tooie, and the teleport pads in Showdown Town in Nuts & Bolts.
    • The teleport pads inside worlds in Banjo-Tooie.
  • Weirdness Censor: For starters, the Skivvies in Grunty Industries don't seem to bat an eyelash at a sentient washing machine with shorts and a backpack. But then, nearly everything seems to be sentient in Banjo's world, but that still doesn't make the shorts any less weird.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: Tooty. The whole point of the first game was to rescue her from Gruntilda's clutches. Then, from Banjo-Tooie on, everyone seems to pretty much have forgotten she existed (though her disappearance is lampshaded in Banjo-Tooie).
  • When All You Have Is a Hammer: Parodied ludicrously when Banjo is turned into a washing machine in Banjo-Tooie, which goes on to be possibly the most useful transformation in the game.
  • White Sheep: Brentilda, when you look at how the rest of her siblings turned out.
  • Wicked Witch: Gruntilda.
  • Witch Doctor: Mumbo Jumbo and Humba Wumba both fit this trope.
  • Womb Level: The inside of Clanker in Clanker's Cavern in Banjo-Kazooie, and the belly of a giant fish in Jolly Roger's Lagoon and a dinosaur in Terrydactyland from Banjo-Tooie.
  • You No Take Candle: Humba speak like this.
  • Zombie Apocalypse: Averted, but if B.O.B.'s effect on King Jingaling in Banjo-Tooie was any indication, this was what was in store for the Isle O' Hags if Grunty had won.
  • Zombie Gait: King Jingaling in Banjo-Tooie after being hit by the B.O.B.
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