Banjo and Kazooie go back(pack) in time.
"With the Mecha-Grunty Klungo's made, Banjo's favor will be repaid. I'll steal Kazooie, and in a blast, I'll use my suit to change the past. Without his bird, Banjo's lost. I won't give up at any cost!"
—Mecha-Grunty
Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge is a Platform Game developed by Rare (and published by THQ) that released on the Game Boy Advance in 2003. The third game in the Banjo-Kazooie series, the title is an Interquel set shortly after Gruntilda's defeat in Banjo-Kazooie but before her revival in Banjo-Tooie. Being on a handheld system, the game is much smaller in scale in comparison to the console entries, but manages to maintain much of the series' trademark style and feel.
After failing to lift the heavy boulder off of Gruntilda, her henchman Klungo builds a robotic body to house her soul until Gruntilda's sisters arrive to save her. Mecha-Grunty then devises a plan to stop Banjo and Kazooie from ever defeating her in the first place; she travels back in time and kidnaps Kazooie to prevent her and Banjo from ever meeting. Unfortunately for her, Mumbo the shaman sees it all happen and sends Banjo back in time to chase after Grunty, foil her evil plot, and rescue his friend.
Tropes:
- 100% Completion: Grunty's Revenge sits somewhere in the middle between Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie, requiring 50 of the game's 60 Jiggies and 470 of 600 notes to reach the final boss. Collecting all the Jiggies gets you a good ending, but collecting the rest of the collectibles only changes your star rating on the ending screen.
- Alliterative Name: Breegull Beach.
- Alternate History: The plot of Grunty's Revenge, which was originally supposed to take place in an alternate future from the one in Banjo-Tooie, though it was since changed to be set between the first two games. This would normally make it an Alternate Continuity, until the Timey-Wimey Ball rolls into town...
- Ascended Extra: Gruntlings and Whiplashes go from one level enemies in Kazooie to all-world enemies.
- Art Evolution: In Grunty's Revenge, all of the characters became slightly more cartoonish, with Klungo being the most apparent.
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: In Grunty's Revenge, when Kazooie picks up the Distress Ball, Banjo is seriously upset over her going missing. When the two of them reunite in the second world, their happiness at being together again is tangible. Awww.
- Bag of Spilling: This game takes place chronologically before Tooie, so Banjo and Kazooie naturally haven't learned skills like Breegull Blaster and Bill Drill. On the other hand, they also need to re-learn familiar moves from the original game, even basic ones like Flapflip Jump and Rat-a-Tat Rap. This is barely explained (apparently it has something to do with the trip back in time).
- Battle Theme Music: The game uses the same theme for all bosses (albeit remixed for the Ghost Pirate's battle), being based on a part of Gruntilda's battle theme in the first game (which in turn is based on the level theme of Mad Monster Mansion).
- Blackout Basement: Some areas, particularly in Bad Magic Bayou, are too dark for Banjo to explore unless he's been transformed into a candle.
- Big Bad: Gruntilda, as per norm. Her plan in this game is to change history by messing with the past events that led to Banjo and Kazooie reuniting.
- Bubblegloop Swamp: Bad Magic Bayou, the third world. It is a large marshland that features several log bridges and floating tires that are needed to traverse the green, poisonous Grimy Water (though Banjo and Kazooie can swim in it safely if they're transformed into an octopus by Mumbo). There's also a large mansion with advanced machinery that can be powered up with Battery Eggs.
- Call-Forward
- The treasure-loving little hippo Banjo meets on Breegull Beach is Cap'n Blubber as a kid.
- The game ends with Gruntilda asking Klungo to send a message to her sisters, Foreshadowing their arrival at the start of Tooie.
- Canon Discontinuity: Grunty's Revenge, while originally meant to be an alternate follow-up directly from the first game, has since become an interquel, set between Kazooie and Tooie. Despite this, it and Banjo Pilot are not acknowledged in Nuts & Bolts, which Microsoft identifies as the third game in the series. According to Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts on the Xbox 360, Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie are the characters' only previous adventures. Banjo Land, a museum-themed level from the same game that features several props and characters from the Nintendo 64 games, also has nothing from Grunty's Revenge. In the "L.O.G.'s Lost Challenges" DLC, Kazooie describes the amount of games in the series as being "at least three".
- Distress Ball: Kazooie, in the very beginning of the game. It's actually the result of time travel. You have to rescue her (and a bunch of other trapped Breegulls) from the second level before you can use her powers. Even the manual says "She just wants to get back to her best friend and back to kicking Grunty's butt."
- Doppelgänger Attack: Gruntilda employs this tactic, after her Mecha Grunty suit is destroyed.
- Early-Bird Cameo: The Gruntling challenge at Bad Magic Bayou has the last two Gruntlings be from Spiller's Harbor and Freezing Furnace which can't be accessed yet.
- Eternal Engine: Parts of Bad Magic Bayou and Freezing Furnace have machinery with gizmos (such as pipes and moving platforms) and parts that can be powered up with Battery or Ice Eggs.
- Final-Exam Boss: The final battles against Gruntilda and Klungo are harder versions of their previous fights against you, and you also have to answer questions and complete minigames during the intermissions between said battles.
- Fire, Ice, Lightning: The types of eggs that can be used in this game besides the normal one are Fire, Ice, and Battery. This contrasts the Fire, Ice, Grenade and Clockwork Kazooie variants in Tooie.
- Fishing Mini Game: The first one has Banjo using grass to lure sheep out of a sheep dip. Later levels like Bad Magic Bayou and Freezing Furnace have a more traditional usage of fish.
- Flat-Earth Atheist: During the Freezing Furnace level, Banjo expresses surprise at a talking bucket of coal... despite having met plenty of Animate Inanimate Objects in his adventures up until that point (including a sand bucket).
- Funny Octopus: The octopus transformation.
- Ghastly Ghost: Grunty's ghost controls the Mecha Grunty suit that Klungo builds for her. During the final battle, Banjo must first hit Mecha Grunty to expose Grunty's ghost, then hit said ghost to damage it. When the Mecha Grunty suit is destroyed, the last phase of the battle involves Grunty summoning two clones of her ghost. Banjo must hit the real ghost (indicated by the shadow below it) twice to defeat Grunty and win the game. If Banjo hits one of the clones, he takes damage.
- Golden Ending: Achieved by collecting all the jiggies. Banjo decides to call up Mumbo Jumbo and Bottles for a (ill-fated) card game later. Otherwise, Mumbo's time-travel magic goes wrong and ends up creating temporal clones of Banjo.
- The Goomba: Gruntlings and Whiplashes appear in every level and are incredibly easy to beat and can only damage the player by contact damage. Gruntlings do appear in colors in later levels that allow them to take more hits but they're still pretty easy.
- Gotta Catch 'Em All: Typical of a Banjo game. There are 60 jiggies and 600 musical notes to find in all. Furthermore, each level has five Jinjos and seven level-specific doodads to find, ranging from baby chicks to gold nuggets. Collecting every collectible changes your star rating on the ending screen.
- Green Hill Zone: Cliff Farm, which employs a farm theme, is a lush grassland that features stacks of hay bales that can be used as platforms, apple trees and mills, a gentle hen who asks you to retrieve her lost eggs, and another who asks you to find her lost chicks.
- Hailfire Peaks: Freezing Furnace combines Slippy-Slidey Ice World, Lethal Lava Land, and Eternal Engine.
- Haunted Technology: Klungo created Mecha-Grunty specifically so Grunty's ghost could take it over.
- Heart Container: Like in Tooie and unlike in the first game, Empty Honeycombs cannot increase Banjo's Life Meter on their own. Instead, Banjo has to give them to Honey B so she uses them to do the job. Each honeycomb unit requires a specific amount of Empty Honeycombs to be added: 2 → 4 → 8 → 12.
- Hub Level: Spiral Mountain, unlike in the console installments (where it's merely a tutorial area preceding Gruntilda's Lair, Isle O' Hags and Showdown Town respectively), grants access to all main levels in this game.
- Interquel: Is set between the first game and Tooie, given Grunty's references to her sisters and that she's still trapped under the rock.
- Lethal Lava Land: Part of Freezing Furnace takes place within a volcanic cavern that features a large lake of lava that is fueled from machinery that has been built inside. There's a part of this lake that can only be traversed with a moving platform.
- Logo Joke: When you start up the game, Banjo walks in from the right side of the screen, then Kazooie Bill Drills the floor, bringing down the THQ logo. The duo are then chased away by some Gruntlings who appear from the right side of the screen. The duo return from the left side and chase the Gruntlings away with the Wonderwing ability as the Rareware logo appears from above.
- Mad Eye: Bozzeye, Bottles's ancestor. Kazooie often makes rude remarks about it.
- Make Wrong What Once Went Right: Grunty's entire plan boils down to this; by going back in time and preventing Banjo and Kazooie from ever meeting in the first place, she'll erase her defeat at the duo's hands from history completely.
- Meaningful Name:
- Mr. Ripovski the seedy businessman, and Alfred P. Cock... the peacock. Get your mind out of the gutter.
- Bozzeye's name comes from the term "boss-eyed", a British synonym for "cross-eyed". Very fitting considering he has Fish Eyes.
- Mighty Glacier: The tank transformation. It can shoot a huge projectile that can break steel doors and kills pretty much any enemy in one shot, but can't jump and dies if it falls from any height.
- Mini-Game Credits: The ending credits send you down a slide to collect tokens. The tokens let you replay minigames at the arcade machine in Spiller's Harbor.
- Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: In Grunty's Revenge, Gruntilda is a Ghost Robot Witch.
- Palatial Sandcastle: One appears on the beach in Spiller's Harbor. Only Mouse Banjo can go inside, but it contains a maze and a series of switch puzzles.
- Palmtree Panic: Breegull Beach is a coastal palmtree jungle with rocky pillars that can be used as platforms, an extended sandy landscape, and a sea surrounded by a coral reef. The edges placed in the inner side feature caverns.
- Platform-Activated Ability: Unlike in the previous games, the Wonderwing ability can only be performed when Banjo and Kazooie stand onto red-colored pads (showing a Gold Feather) and the A button is pressed. Also, as with all the other special moves present in the game, it has to be relearned because the overarching Time Travel led the duo to forget it.
- Polluted Wasteland: Spiller's Harbor. Once a beautiful resort, then Gruntilda and her minions came and turned the place into an oil refinery.
- Pop Quiz: There are two quizzes in-between the three boss battles in Grunty's Castle.
- Public Domain Soundtrack: During the mini-games, the music is a possible remix of "Mars, The Bringer of War" from Holst's The Planets.
- Port Town: Spiller's Harbor used to be a healthy, popular harbor city until Gruntilda and her minions turned it into a Polluted Wasteland. There are many areas in the water tainted with oil, as well as a lighthouse, an ice cream truck, and pipelines colored red and yellow.
- Robot Me: Mecha Grunty is a robot suit created by Klungo that resembles Grunty. Grunty's ghost controls the suit, which is how Grunty antagonizes Banjo and Kazooie throughout the game, due to her regular body being trapped under a boulder.
- Save the Princess: Subverted. You'd think you can't rescue Kazooie until the very end of the game, but you actually get her back in the second level, Breegull Beach. The duo stays together throughout the rest of the game, and most of the moves you learn involve Kazooie.
- Sequel Hook: Grunty's Revenge has Banjo about to call Bottles and Mumbo over for a game of cards, setting up for Tooie.
- The '70s: If Mumbo's happening bachelor pad (sporting lava lamps, tiger skin rugs and a disco ball) and the interior decor of the two houses in Spiller's Harbor is any indication, this is the decade this game takes place in.
- Shout-Out: Mecha-Grunty's chest plate looks quite a bit like Darth Vader's.
- Slippy-Slidey Ice World: Half of Freezing Furnace takes place in a snowy tundra next to a lake whose water is harmful upon contact due to its low temperature. Some parts of the floor are slippery as well.
- Status Quo Is God: Being an interquel, everybody ends up in more or less the same spots as when the game started.
- Super Drowning Skills: In Grunty's Revenge, most of Banjo's transformations — all but the octopus — can't swim. You'll die instantly if you touch the water as one of them.
- Underground Monkey: Very common due to the system's limitations. Different Gruntling colors indicate varying levels of strength. Bad Magic Bayou and Freezing Furnace also have recolored Bigfoot (possibly Skunk Ape, due to the marshy setting) and Yeti enemies.
- The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: Grunty's Castle, a version of Gruntilda's Lair, composed of three battles (Gruntilda, Klungo, and Mecha-Grunty) with a quiz show separating each.
- Virtuous Bees: Like in Tooie, Banjo and Kazooie meet Honey B, Mistress of the Honey. When they collect enough empty honeycombs, they can trade them to her for extensions to their life bar.
- We Can Rebuild Him: Gruntilda, although instead of being revived as a cyborg, she transfers her soul to a robotic body while she is trapped below a rock.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: In Bad Magic Bayou, there's a Gruntling Commander on a tree stump who mistakes Banjo for a Gruntling and disappears, leaving Banjo and Kazooie to deal with Gruntlings from all of the levels including the currently inaccessible Spiller's Harbor and Freezing Furnace. The Commander never comes back after you grab the Jiggy.
- Who's on First?: At one point, the game features* this conversation:Bozzeye: You must be Banjo. A letter about you appeared in a flash, like you just did. Came from some Mimba Jimba fella.
Banjo: Mumbo Jumbo!
Bozzeye: No, it's true, I tell you! - You No Take Candle: As usual, Mumbo talks like this. And not only if he refuses to transform you into the Candle.
