Banjo-Kazooie -- Initial Impression.

I know I'm overdue on an update for Valkyria Chronicles but this entry is the initial impression of Banjo-Kazooie on the Xbox 360 via Xbox Live Arcade. Those people who preordered Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts were treated to a great preorder bonus. A code that enables you to download the original Banjo-Kazooie for free on Xbox Live Arcade a couple weeks before it's made available to the public for fifteen dollars. The title is a port of the Nintendo 64 game. The game has been bumped up to high definition resolutions. They've also reworked the controls for the Xbox controller. They've made some cosmetic changes along the lines of replacing the Nintendo logo on the xylophone in the opening with that of Microsoft Game Studios and the like. However the third save file slot still features a character playing a GameBoy. And they've finally enabled the near mythical Stop 'n' Swap. Back in the day players knocked themselves out trying to figure it out. Originally Banjo-Kazooie was supposed to connect to the sequel Banjo-Tooie by hot-swapping cartridges and sharing data that would unlock items but Nintendo revised the Nintendo 64 hardware and removed any such ability to pull it off. Those with an original model Nintendo 64 would have been able to do it but plans were scrapped because Rare thought it would be best to not fragment the user base. Stop 'n' Swap has been enabled with Banjo-Kazooie and Nuts & Bolts. The upcoming Xbox Live Arcade version of Banjo-Tooie will also unlock items in Nuts & Bolts via Stop 'n' Swap. Beyond those few differences, it's the same classic 3D platformer. My recollection is that at the time I considered Banjo-Kazooie a better game than Mario 64. It'll be interesting to see how it holds up these ten years later.