Banjo-Kazooie was Once a Dream

By Jorge Ba-oh 23.12.2015 2

Banjo-Kazooie was Once a Dream on Nintendo gaming news, videos and discussion

Did you know that there was a bloke with a sword before Banjo-Kazooie?

The tale of a cheeky bear and a sarcastic bird in Banjo-Kazooie is arguably one of the most successful projects from British studio Rare, but before the two animals paired up, the game was originally a fairy-tale inspired project called Dream: Land of Giants.

In a new video from Rare, designer Gregg Mayles, artist Ed Bryan, and engineer Paul Machacek explore the back-story behind Dream and how a boy suddenly became that little bit furrier.

Image for Banjo-Kazooie was Once a Dream


Dream had used similar technology to Donkey Kong Country, and had a boy called Edson and a pet dog, Dinger, in the starring role. The concept was then shifted onto the Nintendo 64 as a 3D game with different characters designed to step into the lead's shoes. One of them ended up being a bear, and Banjo evolved into a linear, side-scrolling 3D project.

Nintendo then released Super Mario 64 and given how successful it ended up being, Rare decided to scrap it all and pen Banjo-Kazooie instead.


 

Should the studio bring back Dream as a single-player game? Sea of Thieves is probably the closest fit from Rare at the moment.

Box art for Banjo-Kazooie
Developer

Rare

Publisher

Nintendo

Genre

3D Platformer

Players

1

C3 Score

Rated $score out of 10  9/10

Reader Score

Rated $score out of 10  9/10 (18 Votes)

European release date Out now   North America release date Out now   Japan release date Out now   Australian release date Out now   

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RudyC3 is offline. RudyC3 26.12.2015#1

OMG the version of Dream for the SNES looked amazing !! I really wish they went ahead with it, it would have been the best looking SNES game, the definitive one! Though I wonder how they could have fit a big world to explore within the constraints of a SNES cartridge with that level of detail in the levels. Maybe the cart would have contained a special graphics compression chip to fit it all? Like the SDD-1 (Star Ocean, Street Fighter Alpha 2) or SA-1 (Super Mario RPG, Kirby's Dream Land 3, Kirby's Fun Pak, etc) or maybe a 48Mb cart (Tales of Phantasia) or even a combination of both ideas like Star Ocean which with a SDD-1 and a 48Mb cart held enough graphics to actually fit a 96Mb cart when uncompressed... Or even a 64Mb cart, like the SNES version of FFVII was going to use, according to legend, but that would have been super expensive to produce, and the price likely to put off potential buyers near the end of the system's life when most people were moving on to the newer platforms.

The first version of Dream for the N64 looked really bad XD. I'm glad they scrapped that. From the footage of that version, I sort of get the idea of the tech used, mentioned a different interview of the team. It said that the 3D landscape programming was unlike anything else Rare ever made, were it would generate landscapes on the fly, with little hills and so on, a far from flat world to run around in... Until the saw Twelve Tales Conker 64, developed by a different team at Rare alongside Dream, and looking much better visually with that other project moving forward much faster than Dream did. They changed the way their engine was working to help them make faster progress in designing their levels and this can be seen in the first version that used Banjo.

I love that later version, it looks more faithful to the original SNES concept. It looks great in my opinion, perhaps even better than the fully 3D worlds they eventually made in the style of SM64? Due to the limited camera look they could fit more detail onto one screen, which speaks to me better than the style they went for in the final version, though gameplay-wise and potentially fun-wise too, the final version is certainly much better by comparison. Although part of me still wishes they went the other way cause early on in the N64's life there wasn't really any adventurish game out there whereas there were plenty of platform games already out. Plus, the change of direction means they had to start from scratch and that delayed the project even more, when the system could have used such a great game early on to help sell more units.

I like how they reused the idea of the stomping dino foot coming from the sky in Banjo Tooie haha, way to recycle an old concept Smilie !

( Edited 26.12.2015 10:31 by RudyC3 )

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Marzeee is offline. Marzeee 26.12.2015#2

OMG the version of Dream for the SNES looked amazing !! I really wish they went ahead with it, it would have been the best looking SNES game, the definitive one!

Yeah, the animation is amazing and something that really took me by surprise were the shadows cast on the character from the leafs on trees. Pretty incredible to see!

( Edited 26.12.2015 14:42 by Marzy )

 

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