I was skeptical of this one at first. Not because I thought it would be a bad game, but because I was very disappointed that the first major Banjo-Kazooie mod to preserve all the basic gameplay elements simply reused maps from another game, one that wasn’t designed for platforming at that.

However, the Ocarina of Time maps have been adjusted for Banjo-Kazooie’s moveset so well, that it almost feels as though they were made for the duo. I daresay these maps now fit Banjo-Kazooie better than they fitted The Legend of Zelda. Right now, this is the closest thing you can get to a Banjo-Threeie. Also, it runs circles around Yooka-Laylee, Super Mario 64 in Ocarina of Time, and maybe even Banjo-Tooie.

And not only are the levels perfectly adjusted for the gameplay, they also look better. The texture mapping is so much more vibrant and detailed compared to Ocarina of Time, despite still working on real hardware and running at 30fps as opposed to Ocarina of Time’s 20fps. The graphics aren’t the only thing this romhack has over the real Ocarina of Time either, for Mark Kurko somehow managed to make the Ocarina of Time MIDIs sound even better in the Banjo-Kazooie soundfont than the soundfont they were designed for.

It is incredible that this game has no custom code, considering the genius use of the base assets was so clever that it feels as if it’s packed with custom code. Players will constantly encounter obstacles never seen in the vanilla game. There’s even an entire dungeon with a gimmick that completely changes what you expect the gameplay of a Banjo-Kazooie level to be.

Thank you Mark Kurko, for giving us the real Bano-Threeie in place of what Microsoft and that Kickstarter scam failed to deliver. (AKA: Nut and Bolts and Yooka-Laylee.)

10/10 Stars - We waited almost 20 years for this.