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Banjo & Kazooie: the duo many welcome home
The series that was long forgotten due to time returned to the spotlight as the second character revealed at E3 2019
All right.
. The sole speculation favorites to actually make it through by FP1.
Their inclusion may not have anything to do really with recent games - unlike fellow E3 2019 reveal Hero - but hey, they were arguably one of the biggest beneficiaries of the relationship-building Nintendo and Microsoft have done. It helps that they're Rareware's most well known original characters and tightly connected to the N64 days, meaning that there's a lot of nostalgia associated with the duo. And hey, they have an unique position: Sakurai's recommendations during their presentation helped to get the Xbox trending in Japan briefly.
Their competitive results have not been amazing though. Initially the reception was mildly positive: Tweek picked them for a major tournament as a test run and performed admirably, securing 5th in a stacked bracket. Despite him dropping the duo opinions about B-K remained mildly positive helped by a decently significant playerbase. However, 2020 saw a decline in their competitive fortunes - the vurnerabilities they have plus a lot of their prominent playerbase dropping them did them no favors, nor did a perception about their playstyle. That said, they did gain their current flagbearer -
Brood, a wily Brawl veteran whose known for consistency and occassional deep runs - during this time as well, and their playerbase remains dedicated.
Sure, their results have not been as great as some B-K fans might have hoped. But considering that Brood did manage to take 2nd at a national Japanese tournament - Umebura SP 4 - using
and has achieved consistent results with B-K it's far from over for them.
Their moveset does hew very close to the expansive moveset in the N64 duology, and it shows primarily in their Specials. Both Egg Lay / Breegull Blaster are good at discombobulating approaches and in the latter case can set up for more technical combos / chases. Rear Egg is arguably similar in some regards, although they're also useful as a mindgame / recovery aid. Wonderwing might be seen as the duo's "gimmick move" partly because of its resource management aspect - but it's also a helpful recovery move, meaning that it's good to prioritize using them for recovery in many situations (the only exception here might be command grabs like
). Their Up B helps mend the duo's lack of double jump height nicely.
The normals complement this to a large degree, although they also give B-K much needed CQC options. In fact, while a lot of focus has been on the eggs themselves the CQC options have quite a bit of utility. Yes, they're not great at comboing / KOing on stage, but the steady damage afforded by the normals are still worth noting. Moves like F-Tilt and D-Tilt are good if the B-K player needs to space. B-Air and N-Air are good multi-purpose moves that work as both combo tools, for harassing and edgeguarding. F-Smash and U-Smash are highly commital but potent if they hit, thus they are the primary ways to secure stocks on stage. They're very versatile and adaptable in this regard.
(In fact, a pet peeve I have is that there's IMHO been too much focus around the eggs in Serious Business play. See
this post by
DougEfresh, which I highly recommend.)
While they're standard in many ways, their stats are surprisingly all over the place. Banjo's initial dash is one of the slowest but Kazooie's run ranks up there as the 11th fastest - making the duo the only character who start out slow but take off. They might not have amazing aerial drift, but have good ability to maneuver around the air thanks to multiple jumps and mixups.
Their weaknesses are worth noting: Their damage output and KO potential is not amazing, and they themselves are heavy with a wide hurtbox - meaning that they're susceptible to combos. As such they'll have to ensure they don't get out-damage'd, especially vs. characters / people who can lay on a lot in one go. Their grab game is barely adequate, with down throw being the only viable option (and even then it's not as consistent as K Rool's) They don't have a solid OoS game either, meaning that a B-K player has to be careful not to get trapped in shield.
Casually they're a stable character - while people may be tempted to spam Wonderwings to their hearts content the duo's versatility allows a casual B-K player to work around a lot of different situations that may present themselves. They're not going to get flashy kills most of the time, but they're also very good at staying in the FFA fray for quite a while. Their recovery helps here, especially since people are less likely to aggressively contest recoveries in FFAs.
As for the Challenger Pack itself: Spiral Mountain's an okay stage - although the fact that it's rotating can be a bit disorientating at times. The cameos are nice though, especially Grunty and Tooty running around. In fact..:
You could say that Tooty's Missingnomore.
Grant Kirkhope did really well with the remixes he got to do, with the only question mark being no Grunty track. The Spirits themselves are also a nice package, nothing to complain about there. The Jiggy spirit did take some time actually beating though.
Weird character interaction sidenote: You ever wanted to play the Mr. Patch boss fight as Mr. Patch? No? Well, too bad, because anytime a
plays vs. a
it risks turning into this boss fight in practice. The B-K player will want to avoid Rest confirms and aerial shenaningas at all costs, while Jigglypuff cares about diagonals so much that a Puff player will want to avoid getting hit by what B-K brings. This matchup might be kinda even if slightly B-K favored, but it risks devolving into... not a fun time for either.
(**** I forgot Hero's stage and music - stage is perfectly fine and an interesting take on "FD" esque stages, while I'm gonna blame the relative lack of music and the fact they're MIDIs on Sugiyama it's not bad - but still mediocre, which is a major shame. The Spirits are fine choices too, my only complaint is that Luminary's party members should've been individual Spirits instead of awkwardly grouped together.)
The last character won't open any gate though. It will close them for good...
Just like how they close Kingdom Hearts at the end of KH1 hehehehehehe
insert me singing an half broken credit version of Simple and Clean because I have a sore throat
So if Sora says that Kingdom Hearts is light at that game's end, does it mean that the entire KH plot took place inside Galeem?
Wait, sliced Galeem in half... Which means...
.
