What Could Have Been / Banjo-Kazooie

An early 90s radical version of Banjo.

The game went through a lot of herbals and changes from its original concept.

Pre-Banjo

• Banjo-Kazooie started out as an isometric RPG for the SNES, named Dream: Land of Giants. At the time, the protagonist was a human boy named Edson, who got tangled up with a pirate crew led by Captain Blackeye who were finding a magic dust called floaty that would make their pirate ship fly to take over other lands. The game was moved to the Nintendo 64, where they redeveloped it as a 3D RPG akin to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. The Nintendo 64 couldn't handle the game's environments, so they redesigned the game again, this time into a platformer inspired by Super Mario 64. Edson was deemed too generic of a protagonist, so Rare chose a new one from the pool of Funny Animals who were going to be secondary characters in Dream. After rejecting a dog and a rabbit, they decided on a bear, who they named Banjo. Rare then dropped the pirate theme and story entirely in favor of a more fairy-tale style story, which was about Banjo and his girlfriend Piccolo (who eventually became his sister Tooty) watching a concert at Spiral Mountain when a giant (who became Gruntilda in the final version) came, scared everyone off, and kidnapped Piccolo while Banjo was knocked out. An egg which Kazooie hatched from would have told Banjo about the events concerning the giant's attack while he was out cold. Also, the Giant's Lair looked much different than Gruntilda's Lair. Meanwhile, Tiptup, Captain Blackeye, and Stomponadon made it into the final products as minor characters, and the pirate theme of Dream was eventually retooled into Sea of Thieves.

Banjo Kazooie

• Stop 'N' Swop. Originally, there were items (The special eggs and the Ice Key) that you were meant to collect in Banjo-Kazooie, then transfer over to Banjo-Tooie via Stop 'N' Swop; you'd have to save the game in a particular way, then turn off the console and quickly swap the Kazooie cartridge for the Tooie cartridge, to transfer the items (Hence the name "Stop 'N' Swop"). However, this proved impossible due to new revisions in the N64 hardware released in 1999; you'd originally have ten seconds, during which the data from Kazooie would remain and be ready to be transferred, but following the revisions, the data was only kept for one second, making it impossible to perform the maneuver; plus, there were concerns about any hazardous effects towards the players' save files or data. In the end, the items were made inaccessible via average means (you can get them via exceedingly long codes, though they are useless as is), yet the ending of Kazooie still teases three of them as if they were obtainable. Worse, the Ice Key is in plain sight behind a transparent but indestructible ice wall in Wozza's cave. Remnants of the original plans were even found in Donkey Kong 64; unused text in that game suggests that the Ice Key was supposed to appear, most likely via Stop 'N' Swop. It is also worth noting that you still would have gotten the exact same rewards you got in the final product of Tooie^note the Breegull Bash move, the homing eggs cheat, the multiplayer character Jinjo, and Dragon Kazooie, except for the fact that only three eggs ended up being in the game. What the three rewards that had to be scrapped would have been is still a mystery.
  • Early in development, the game was intended to combine 2.5D and linear 3D segments, in what the development team later described as a mix of Yoshi's Story and Crash Bandicoot. It also would have had puzzles centered around fruit houses and sports balls as power-ups. This idea was scrapped when they saw an early build of "Super Mario 64" and decided to center the game around that gameplay style.
  • Also originally Banjo was designed as a skateboarder and his animations would reflect that aesthetic.
  • Originally, Kazooie wasn't even a part of Rare's original plan for the game, but Rare wanted to give Banjo some more moves and have them make sense, such as double jumping and traversing steep slopes. Since Banjo still had a backpack, it was decided to put a bird (who would become Kazooie) in there in order to let Banjo perform those moves in a way that made sense. More humorously, Steve Mayles specified in an interview that Banjo originally only had feet and wings sprout out of his backpack to do certain moves, until it was decided for those to be developed into a new character.
• Several levels were planned, but in the end were either scrapped or repurposed:
  • Gobi mentions going to "the lava world", referred to as Mount Fire Eyes in early material (he finally makes it to the Lava Side of Hailfire Peaks, which is a retooled version of the original concept, in Tooie). The Rare Witch Project Wiki states that one theory is that it could have been an early version of the entirety of Hailfire Peaks instead only the Lava Side, as "Fire Eyes" sounds somewhat like "Fire-Ice". This could be a coincidence though, as not only does the released concept art feature absolutely nothing related to ice, but Nintendo Power volume 100 only mentions a volcano and not snow/ice in the section that discusses the level in question.
  • One picture in Banjo's house is widely rumored to show him in Fungus Forest, a forested area full of mushrooms (eventually reworked as Donkey Kong 64's Fungi Forest, so sayeth Rare), but the picture is actually a screenshot from a later build of "Project Dream".
  • Hammerhead Beach was once in the works (with it, along with an early Mumbo's Mountain, having some screenshots in early material, such as Nintendo Power volume 100), but it apparently wounded up being merged with, or heavily modified and renamed to, Treasure Trove Cove. Given that there's a cheat to unlock Treasure Trove Cove even though the cheat room is there, the former case would indicate that it could be that Hammerhead Beach originally held the cheat sandcastle while Treasure Trove Cove came later.
• Wumba was also supposed to be the original role for Mumbo.
• Originally, Gruntilda's final spell before being knocked off the tower was supposed to turn Banjo into a frog and the player would control Tooty to collect enough Mumbo Tokens to change him back. This was cut due to time constraints.
• According to Howard Lincoln, the former chairman of Nintendo of America, the game was planned to have a spotlight and toys for a promotion at Taco Bell. Due to the game missing its original deadline which was instead filled in by Diddy Kong Racing, the promotion was scrapped and a promotion centered around the Nintendo 64 console was done in its place.
• Originally, the Start/Exit pads were going to have Banjo and Kazooie's faces colored in. This is still seen in the Nintendo Power promo tape.
• Originally, there was going to be function that allowed you to exit to Grunty's Lair while in the middle of the level. This is still seen in the instruction manual.
• Conga the gorilla was originally going to be named Congo. He still refers to himself as such if you approach him as a termite.

Banjo-Tooie

• Originally, there was to be a 2-player mode which many called "Bottles' Revenge" where the second player controls an evil Bottles to take down the other player with the two players swapping places when Banjo dies. However, due to it proving impossible to make boss fights fair for the players controlling Banjo, the concept was cut from the final product. Although hacking shows the concept is still in the game and functional to a degree.
• According to the Lord of Games in Nuts and Bolts, originally the Canary Mary races were to be won by rotating the Control Sticks. This was likely canceled due to the infamous lawsuits and damage claims with the mini-games in Mario Party.
• Cauldron Keep was originally meant to be a full world with 10 Jiggies to collect like the others, but had to be severely cut down due to time restraints.

Other

• Banjo-Kazooie nearly had its own cartoon series. Concept art exists of designs for the titular characters and Mumbo Jumbo. Having been in development since 2007 it was intended to coincide with the release of Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts, with development said to be similar to the Viva Piñata cartoon. However, it was ultimately scrapped.

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