If you could take Banjo-Kazooie and drop him into an RPG, what would it look like? One artist played around with the concept, and hot damn is it something.
Jon Davies, an artist on Cave Story, Binding of Isaac and more games, took an idea from a fellow gamedev and put it into action. With an iconic, upbeat sound and a Mario RPG isometric interface, we can see what it would be like if Banjo was given the RPG treatment.
What would Banjo-Kazooie look like as a Mario RPG-like game… BUT NOW IN MOTION?!
(Original concept by @atbigelow
) #pixelart #banjokazooie@RareLtd pic.twitter.com/ksQ3iG5lC2— Jon Davies (@SovanJedi) April 14, 2020
There obviously would be so much more required to bring this to life. But if you’re at Rare, having worked on the game all those years ago, watching all this – the sound, the animation, even the slightly rough puzzle piece transition – must surely put a smile on your face.
Just the way Banjo leaps forward and does a one-two uppercut is ridiculously adorable. There’s some gameplay questions on what you can do when the freedom of movement is so restricted, but clever designers could totally make this work.
Like designers employed by Rare. At a Microsoft-owned company. Which has lots of money to fund cool prototypes like this.
Just saying.
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