Hello everyone and welcome to a new GBAtemp Series by yours truly, the GBATEMP FIGHT CLUB!
​

Here's how Fight Club throws down tempers and temptresses. I'm going to take either two franchises, 2 characters, 2 specific games, or 2 of SOMETHING gaming related, and I'm going to pit them against each other for your enjoyment. But how do we declare a victor you may ask? That's where you come in!

The way this will work is I will give a brief synopsis of the two rivaling entities, and leave it up to all of you to vote and debate which one is the better being, and why that is. A combination of the poll votes, and the arguments made in this thread, will determine the victor! I will take poll votes into account for the most part, but the supporting arguments will also heavily decide who the victor will truly be.

This will be an attempted weekly act every Monday, where a victor will be chosen and a new round will begin, so you will have one week to argue and determine who or what the better of the two is. So without further ado, let's get to our competitors this week:

SUPER MARIO 64 VS. BANJO KAZOOIE

​

Two of the most iconic collectathon adventure games of all time on the Nintendo 64. If you haven't played the one, you probably played the other, or even played both as a kid, but both are the most beloved of their genre.

Super Mario 64 pioneered the 3D adventure genre with superb gameplay, an enormous ammount of content, a memorable world with unforgettable environments, and the establishment of gaming mechanics utilized to this day.

We can thank Super Mario 64 for the use of 360 degree analog control, dynamic cameras, and a sense of real gaming freedom we hadn't experienced before. We can also thank it for giving us an unforgettable gaming experience that is regarded as the greatest adventure game of all time.

So what of the competition?

Banjo Kazooie took what made Super Mario 64 a juggernaut, and expanded upon it. It took colorful and expansive environments, and enhanced and improved them. It took level design and exploration and broadened its horizons even farther. Boasting wonderful textures, solid frame-rate, and fantastic sound design, critics then referred to it as the biggest competitor and successor to SM64.

With these sentiments in mind, let's begin the arguments! Which one deserves to be called the better of the two? Can you make a solid case for why one is better than the other? It's all up to you!

If you have a suggestion for what the next fight should be, leave a post on my profile page!

 

[Selim873]

To me, they're both completely different games, despite fitting the same genre. You know what I'm saying? Although, I've never actually beaten Banjo Kazooie, but that's not gonna put my vote on Mario 64. I'm setting my vote as "Indifferent".

EDIT: Meaning, I'm not gonna vote. Don't add a third option either, I want to see a winner in this discussion.

 

[HaloEffect17]

I would sound quite pompous if I said Super Mario 64 wins based on pure nostalgia and didn't provide any other additional reason. But then again, I've never played Banjo Kazooie, so I also wouldn't dare to bash it. However, nostalgia aside (and really, it's hard for me to do!), if we actually sat down and considered which one laid the foundation of 3D gaming and platforming in its early polygonal stages, I would be pointing towards Super Mario 64. It's iconic to the gaming industry and set a standard to which all other games that wanted to find success, had to match or better it. And yet, while many argue that Banjo Kazooie did do just that and even more, one has to give credit to what started it all and gave a strong understructure for the N64 to reach critical acclaim.

That's Super Mario 64.

 

[WiiUBricker]

lol @ the smackdown logo. Wrestling fan, eh?

 

[grossaffe]

Mario 64 represents, for me, the pinnacle of 3D platforming. However, I'll abstain from voting as I have not played Banjo Kazooie. I should pick that one up.

 

[injection18]

To me Super Mario 64 is far better than Banjo.
It's really about platforming, whereas Banjo is more about exploration.

That is the feeling I got.

 

[FAST6191]

Mario 64 was a very nice tech demo and had some reasonable level design, or if not level design then I was impressed by the things it pulled off creatively within the limits of the engine.

Banjo I really have to properly play the 360 or xbone ports of -- perfect dark on the N64 I would not suggest people play, the XBLA port/remake though I still hold to be one of the finest multiplayer shooting games ever made and holds up to this day. I saw some footage of Xbone banjo the other day though and I could go it. It suffered a bit on the slightly unpolished/unrefined design of the day -- the collection of what 5 different things was not always the best, even if it did have some quite high notes (hah).

Now if you wound in tooie, donkey kong and conker's to this N64 platformer fight then Mario 64 is the once great but now old man that should not have been in the fight and I have no idea where the rest will go.
Relevant at this point


"pinnacle, for the N64"
Is that like the pinnacle of medicine, for the 16th century?

 

[Originality]

I own both, and beat both multiple times, but which do I remember more? ........ Mario 64. It gets my vote.

 

[shaunj66]

Mario 64 is more memorable to me. It's a far more iconic game and takes the crown because of that. Banjo had far more to offer in terms of gameplay but the world of Mario 64, the simplicity of the controls and the music and how it paved the way for every other 3D platform game to follow are the clear winner for me.

 

[FAST6191]

I own both, and beat both multiple times, but which do I remember more? ........ Mario 64. It gets my vote.

I would have gone the other way, at least in terms of characters. Mario 64... I guess there was the king bomb on the first level, the similar concrete slab guy a few levels later, the penguin and its chick, the eel and maybe that rabbit in the underground part of the hub and after that it is talking about hidden yoshi or something. None of those are especially well characterised either. For Banjo you had a whole bunch and I reckon even for the one offs in a level that I might have since forgotten I would probably be able to recall in a few seconds.
Levels... I will give you Mario for that one, though I will openly wonder if it was because they were so oft revisited for the new stars.

 

[UltraHurricane]

if i had to choose i kinda prefer Mario 64 only in that it's a lot tighter and didn't relay so much on the tedious collect-a-thon backtracking that both Banjo and DK64 where REALLY notorious for

and idk but there's something about Banjo's style that i just couldn't get into, Mario 64 was just more charming and subtle at atmosphere and music that resonated with me better nostalgically then the goofy saturday morning cartoon aesthetic of Banjo

 

[LittleFlame]

Flame war incoming
3,2,1

Spoiler

they're both not even that good

plz don't kill me
i lied i actually like Super mario 64 i just really dislike banjo <3

 

[Deleted User]

I can personally play Banjo Kazooie a lot more than I can Mario 64, the characters don't feel generic and empty, the worlds are a lot prettier and unique, and the collecting actually feels worth while and enjoyable over Mario 64 which felt like a chore with little to no payout. Like other people have said above, Banjo Kazooie just took what Mario 64 did good and built upon it.

 

[Prans]

Mario 64... coz... Mario?

Really though, Mario for me because he's an icon, recognizable generations over. And the huge transition from 2D to 3D is so astonishing and genre-defining that it deserves the win.. Every other games of this genre are mostly adapting and modifying the mechanics.

 

[TecXero]

I don't think Super Mario 64 holds up that well, but it was great for its time. I never really liked Banjo nor any Rare games, besides Battletoads. So I'll have to go with Super Mario 64.

 

[FAST6191]

Flame war incoming
3,2,1
[nospoiler] they're both not even that good[/nospoiler]

Of course; they are both N64 games. Compare them by the merits of what we have today, which I would argue you have to do if you are going to consider them, and even though we are rather lacking in this style of game this last 5 years or so the N64 hardware will drag them right down and probably kneecap them a bit further on the design front as the devs had to design to it. Ports, assuming they manage good controls (No, SM64DS; even the three pronged monstrosity did it better.), still suffer a bit from this.

*awaits this becoming another of those enjoyable "The N64 was not a failure and was, in fact, amazing for its time and to this day" threads*

Edit. Just so I do not have to search for it later if such a thing comes to pass I will link this video

Such promise, such disappointment.

Edit 2. The same show did a follow up later as things looked less shiny

 

[Issac]

This is a hard one for me, just like the OT say: Super Mario 64 set the standards. Bajo-Kazooie took it and made it better.

In my humble opinion though, Banjo-Kazooie wins. While Super Mario 64 may have been more important, Banjo-Kazooie was a better game (still in my opinion).

The humor was there, there were more stuff to collect and explore. I remember reading rumors online that Luigi could be found if you did something special in Super Mario 64, and I tried time and time again and had fun doing it. In Banjo-Kazooie, you were rewarded for exploring more, without reading internet rumors.
Super Mario 64 had amazing music, and it's still very nostalgic to me. Banjo-Kazooie had a more intelligent music design. Especially the seamless transition of style and instruments in the same song when visiting different areas of Grunthildas lair. That's what I call polished!

EDIT:
Also, looking in hindight, comparing to the gaming world of today: Banjo was a more unique experience. Sure there were Conker, DK64, Banjo-Tooie on the N64. But when I look back over all these years... I've played a lot of Super Mario 64-ish games. I haven't played a lot of Banjo-Kazooie-ish games.

EDIT2:
This is a good explanation on the music design I mentioned:

 

[Bimmel]

Banjo Kazooie:

- Collect the shit (And I mean THE shit. If you are done there is nothing left in that stage) out of a place, then move on.
- Controls are a bit stiff
- Everything has eyes
- The same instruments in every level, the same theme warmed up like it's stuck in a microwave
- Cool dialogues and funny commentary

Mario:

- Collect stars and some red coins, other things are optional
- Awesome controls, many options of how to solve something (triple jump, far jump, wall jump - it's a jump and run after all)
- Funny music, at least more appealing to me
- No real story
- Not really dialogue
- Cool level design

 

[Jwiz33]

I've played both, and Super Mario 64 was a little better, IMO.

 

[bjaxx87]

Grant Kirkhope alone is enough reason to vote for Banjo-Kazooie. Every single piece of music is stuck in my head forever and expands the experience in such a great way! Huge and colorful worlds that you really want to explore, British humour, lovely characters, smooth gameplay, charming collectibles (Jinjos!) - this game is just perfect. I loved Super Mario 64 and it was a true revolution, but Rare easily surpassed it.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Looking objectively at it, Banjo Kazooie is a much more polished and well made game. SM64 was in the infancy of 3D platformers, and you can tell that they hadn't quite figured it out yet, with annoying, slow underwater controls, certain levels that seem haphazardly put together from bits and pieces they had left over and didn't know what to do with, textures that don't fit together or make sense, and so on. The bosses (boss) were uncreative and all you had to do was to repeat the same move of spinning and throwing. Still a great game nonetheless.

Banjo Kazooie however got 3D platforming right, each level is carefully designed so that nothing seems out of place or haphazard and everything fits the theme, textures are designed to fit together more seamlessly (as much as the N64 will allow), they still hadn't quite figured out underwater controls, but didn't have many long underwater sections so it was less of a problem there. There was more variety in the levels, and in the ways you had to get collectibles. Bosses were more creative than Super Mario 64 (though this can be a bit subjective.) Although both games only really had one boss that was recurring, I thought the quiz in Banjo Kazooie was creative and you never really got to fight Grunty head-on until the end, making the final battle that much more interesting. The wide range of moves you could obtain gave a lot more variety to the gameplay as well.

The rest is mostly down to personal preference. I loved having 100 notes to collect on each level as it encouraged me to explore the entire level and find things on my own, rather than Super Mario 64 where it gives you an often easy hint, making it obvious where you are supposed to go, plus the levels are much smaller so there is not much to explore in the first place. It gave me something to do while looking for that next Jiggy, but I know some people dislike having that many collectibles. The music was so atmospheric and fit the levels perfectly, Grant Kirkhope is a god among video game composers. And I loved the little minigames that you had to do for certain Jiggies.