I think the last level is absolutely rubbish though. It's just not fun to play at all. I've got literally everything else, and need the notes and 5 jiggies from the level, but just can't be bothered wading through it.
I kind of lost interest after opening up Jolly Roger Lagoon and Terrydactyland. The first three levels were OK, but there's just way too much of...
...making your way to a switch - meeting the condition to activate the switch ('be' Banjo or Kazooie separately, 'be' Mumbo Jumbo, be transformed by Humba Wumba, etc., etc.) - activate the switch, which opens up some new section of the level (or another level) - get to this new section of the level (or another level) - find there is another obstacle there that stops you from progressing - get terribly frustrated because this has happened already ten times before.
The actual challenges that give you the jiggies are, granted, mostly pretty good. It's just that it takes you so much time and frustration to get to them. That's not playing, that's working...
I've been playing this again recently, and it's been an odd experience. With Banjo-Kazooie, I'd replayed it at least four or five times on the N64, so knew everything inside out and had it all in a self-contained nostalgic bubble.
But Tooie, I was a little older when I first played it in 2001 (whereas B-K was my first 3D platformer) and I've only completed it the once. I really enjoyed it back then, but still favoured the original. As a result, it's not been the smoothest of playthroughs, as I'd completely forgotten most of the game outside the main things. On my first run through Jolly Roger's Lagoon, I only got about 3/10 jiggies off the bat and couldn't for the life of me figure out how to get the stuff in the transparent fish - I thought you had to use the torpedo move but forgot how fast you need to be going.
Ashamedly, I've been using the "Jiggy Tips" to help refresh my memory, something which my younger self would have been disgusted at but it's eased my frustration of wandering around the massive levels aimlessly. As I bought Tooie on launch and didn't have access to the Internet, I went through it all by myself.
It's also been odd because a lot of my opinions have been reversed. I used to love Jolly Roger's Lagoon and find Grunty Industries hopelessly annoying. Now, I found JRL really frustrating and had a new love for Grunty Industries. I liked how you had to go through the level again as the restrictive washing machine and figure out new routes, how the split mechanic is used better as you have to figure out how to get Banjo to the battery-slots and the ace puzzle at the beginning when you realise you need to use Chuffy to enter the factory properly.
On the other hand, Hailfire Peaks wasn't as good as I remember it, and it seemed a lot smaller too. The lava side is just annoying. But, then again, Witchyworld wasn't as annoying as my memory recollects either. It's been an odd playthrough.
Part of me thinks that it is a better game than Kazooie, as it's much more involved. Instead of many jiggies being easily obtainable, Tooie makes you work for them. Take that dinosaur family jiggy in Terrydactyland: Kazooie would just have made you collect the three siblings across the level, but Tooie makes you go to Witchyworld, then back to the Isle O'Hags and then finally to use Mumbo and Banjo's sack pack move. It's far more substantial and spans different characters as well as entirely different levels.
That's Tooie's trump card, really. I love the way the levels aren't all self-contained little islands but all connected, even if it is by only the odd tunnel or train route. I think Rare could take this idea a lot further with the added power of the 360 if they decided to go back to the 3D platformer - you could have the whole game would connected in a more much elaborate way. As it is, it's a great achievement for a game almost a decade old. It still looks great and, with the smoother frame rate and higher resolution, looks more like an early PS2 title than an N64 one.
The only downside, is that it has picked up a few of Donkey Kong64's bad habits, namely backtracking and an overloaded inventory of items and moves. It's not quite as bad as I remember though, as at least you're only remembering moves for Banjo and Kazooie instead of five different Kongs (Mumbo, sadly, only ever needs to stand on a switch, which could have been expanded a bit more). The backtracking has, admittedly, been made worse due to my poor memory of where to go, but it still grates occasionally - you'll find a switch for Mumbo or Humba's transformation, head to the skull/wigwam, change character, head back to switch but then need to transform back into Banjo. The game sometime suffers from giving you a clear indication that you need to visit the later levels first, before coming back. Look at that Pig's Water Pool puzzle as an example, as you can't get the jiggy for that until the very last level, nor does the game always make it obvious when you need an untaught move to do something.
As a result, though I've reappraised Tooie in quite a few respects, I'm still unsure if it's better than the original. That just felt a lot purer and streamlined, even if it's not quite as big or exhaustive. Nostalgia will always mean B-K has a special place in my gaming memory, but Tooie's perhaps not as far behind as I once thought it was.
EDIT - As a disclaimer, I'm saying I've yet to attempt Cloud Cuckooland, which I originally thought was far and away the worst level, even if it it did have the neat idea of letting you affect the world below. I wonder what I'll think of it now.
In my playthrough of this I've got up to Grunty Industries, remembered how that level angry as a youngster and subsequently turned it off. I'll go back to it soon...
