This TAS was done on BizHawk 1.0 on default settings, with the Banjo-Kazooie (U) [!].z64 ROM. The jiggy cutscene transitions in the game are black and it is unknown how to fix it. The pictures Mumbo shows in the credits are glitchy on Jabo, but Jabo is better overall for Banjo. Glide64mk2 will fix the pictures, but is overall not as good for this game. So I did the TAS on Jabo.
This is an improvement of 24:40.71 over the previous movie. This was possible with overwhelming route changes (and much better route planning ahead), a myriad of new glitches and tricks, and much more optimized movement. Something to keep in mind is that this movie loses significant time to loading zones on BizHawk vs Mupen (on the spectrum of 2~ minutes), so the final time is not quite indicative of how good the run is. With console like loading zones, this would be a 1:57.
I used several other TAS movies to test things rather than using the actual movie to do so. With these taken into account, the rerecord count would be somewhere around 225,000~.
Something to note about the previous movie: The definition of 100% in the speedrunning community for Banjo-Kazooie has never required all note doors to be opened, which Sami's TAS did. Therefore, they are skipped in this run at the end. The current definition is to complete the totals screen, which is all jiggies, notes, and honeycombs, which this movie completes.
- Takes damage to save time
- Abuses programming errors
- Uses death to save time
- Resets mid-run to save time
THIS TAS DOES NOT USE THE FURNACE FUN MOVES GLITCH
Explanation of general tricks and glitches
Flutter cancel – This is when you flutter directly into the ground to cancel another animation and start a new one faster. This is used all over the place, but most importantly for rolling and fall damage.
Ratatat Rap Cancel – If you ratatat rap close to the ground after jumping, you can leave talon trot much faster and start a new move quicker. This is used for shock spring pads and to leave talon trot to hit switches or shoot eggs. Certain things are faster to do out of talon trot such as grabbing jiggies and opening note doors.
Quickdive – If you let go of Z while sliding in talon trot off a ledge, you will fall very fast and leave talon trot at the same time. If you time it well near water, you can sink very fast and immediately start swimming after you are completely out of talon trot.
Midair Jump – My favorite trick! There is one frame at the end of Kazooie’s slide where you can jump even if you are in midair. This allows you to make jumps that weren’t normally possible, perform certain jumps earlier, and cut corners. It also looks pretty swag, so I threw in as many as I could for entertainment.
Slope Glitch – When Banjo’s shadow hits a slope, the game starts an internal timer, and after the end, Banjo will slide down. If you jump off this slope and let your shadow touch flat ground, the timer resets back to 0. You can use this to skip transforming into the termite in Mumbo’s Mountain as well as other various tricks and movement choices. The slope timer is actually shorter if you are in talon trot by a little bit.
Damage Cancel – If you touch an enemy or bounce off of it at the same time you get a jiggy, the game skips the dance, saving 3-5 seconds each time.
Quickclimb – If you jump on a pole and beak bust after you jump, banjo gets a boost upwards on the pole. This saves around .2 -.3 seconds each time it is used.
Void – The programmers decided that if you should break their game, you don’t deserve to be punished for it. If you manage to void out of bounds, the game simply brings you back to the entrance pad of the level, and you retain your notes and jinjos. This can be useful in a couple places.
Spiral Mountain
At the start I make a slightly angled path to the cliff without losing time to manipulate the colliwobble. It could have been better but I did not understand RNG at this point.
Beak barges off the top of the Quarries lets you immediately roll afterwards. At the end of Spiral, I can do a precise jump on the edge of the Bottles platform over to the post of the bridge to skip the Bottles cutscene.
Resetting here is faster to skip the first lair cutscene.
Mumbo’s Mountain
Starting off I use slope glitch to ascend the platforms and add in well-timed rolls and flutter cancels to get up very quickly. After the third set of notes I jump high up on the slope and am able to flutter over the fence with enough height.
In Ticker’s Tower, slope glitch is used to ascend, with flutter cancels and rolls all over the place to make for a hilariously fast room. After I get the jiggy on top, I kill the nearest termite while facing a specific angle. This sets up the Conga egg shooting jiggy and the orange pad jiggies to completely overlap.
In the Conga area I collect the Chimpy jiggy during the cutscene, and I use a small trick where you get into talon trot while starting to talk to Bottles, saving a little time for most moves learned from this point onwards.
Conga is defeated while moving and collecting the eggs and token, since you have to wait in between shots, and I get some distance during the cutscene of the jiggy spawning so I can be right on the witch switch. After the cutscene I land on the 2 jiggies and get them both for the price of one dance.
First quickdive here is used to reach the notes in the water quicker.
I am able to get one egg shot off the next hut into juju from a distance, saving a bit of time. Then I get a damage cancel on the jinjo jiggy using the Grublin from the hut I just broke. I poop an egg into juju for the last hit so that it can defeat him while I am already beak busting for the honeycomb. I get a damage cancel on the final jiggy and get the last notes on the hill to end Mumbo’s.
Lair
With precise jumps, you can boost your way up the slope on the left side and skip having to use the termite. This method is also much faster than backflipping and using slope glitch. You can jump over Bottles and land on the note door to start opening it faster. I also use talon trot while entering the loading zone to skip the animation and I use my first midair jump while entering TTC.
Treasure Trove Cove
There is a trick that does not work on BizHawk but does on console to get the blue jinjo faster. You would get stuck on the outer edge of the fence and it would propel you farther into the water. Sadly I had to resort to the normal strategy.
With a precise spot, you can beak bust, take damage, break the grate, and land in the hull all at once. This is not only faster but helps set up for deathwarping later. Blubber was manipulated (although not optimally, I didn’t understand RNG at this point) to get the jiggy to land on Banjo during the cutscene of the jiggy spawning. I quickclimb for the green jinjo here. A damage is taken on the witch switch, and then 2 more on the hill jumping down to the purple jinjo.
I actually made this chest cycle so early that I had to pause for a few frames to enter the chest optimally. Camera manipulation wouldn’t affect this.
Slope boosting is used to increase speed up the stairs, and I collect the tokens in the chest for a simultaneous “EEKUM BOKUM”.
A couple of quickdives in this section, and I am able to defeat Nipper without taking damage. In the shell, I was able to manipulate the crabs to not be in my way, but it was slower with the extra movement needed to manipulate them.
The nearby tree lets you access the next X immediately, and also lets you save shock spring Bottles for later. After the flying section I manipulate a health to land on me then quickdive onto the token. I use the crab to damage cancel the X jiggy, and I have one health which perfectly sets me up to deathwarp off the black crab in the sandcastle. After the puzzle I grab the jiggy and land on the crab, skipping the dance and bringing me back to the level entrance. Here I use a small trick getting into talon trot while entering the start pad, saving a bit of time in the 4 levels that use it.
Lair
Beak busting up to the enemy here is actually slightly slower but I put this in because it looks funny.
Clanker’s Cavern
This level is mostly based on cycles. Thankfully my routing for this level was spot on as I was able to make the cycles with perfect timing. A midair jump in the starting area allows Banjo to cross to the other side faster, and this ends up saving a cycle on the tooth.
Jumping off the rings inside the stomach saved a few seconds and it looks really swag. After leaving the stomach, a completely different route is used to collect everything on the outside edge of the level, with midair jumps and quickclimbs all over the place. I also collect the honeycomb with a backflip so that I don’t fall down. With these techniques I am able to save yet another cycle on the bolt, one more than I previously thought possible. The rest of the level is pretty straightforward. I had plenty of time to wait for the snippet’s jiggy to spawn so I got as many eggs as possible.
Lair
It is ever so slightly faster to hit the switch on the left after you leave Clanker’s instead of beforehand, so I hit it here. After the 180 note door, I immediately climb the statue and use a clip to get the Bubblegloop witch switch jiggy without hitting the switch. This clip is ridiculously precise and requires a specific camera angle to work. It is also slightly faster to get this jiggy before Bubblegloop instead of after.
Bubblegloop Swamp
The overall major route for this level is unchangeable, but plenty of new tricks and techniques were used to save significant time. The pink egg is significantly faster, and it is actually fastest to just jump directly across the swamp here. The same amount of damage is taken. Here we have the first frame perfect ground pound so we can see Banjo swag jump into the air. Thankfully all the croctus cycles worked out perfectly in this level so I didn’t have to wait for any of them. With a midair jump I was able to land in between where the first two flibbits spawn, so that they die as soon as they land. Also, collecting the jiggy here while it is spawning is faster than getting it as the crocodile. With well-timed precise jumps, Banjo can scale all the huts without leaving talon trot at all. We don’t need to hit the witch switch here, since we already have the jiggy. After the light blue croctus, I was able to get the dragonfly to hit me during the cutscene, which allowed me to move a little bit.
A while ago, I found out that not only does getting damaged during a cutscene allow you to move, but so does bouncing off certain things. In this case, I use Tiptup himself to be able to move while he is talking to me. Then I bounce off him again right after I cancel the text and I am able to start hitting the turtles as they are sounding off. This saves a nice amount of time and looks really cool. The turtle pattern was the best that I could manage with manipulation. The only bad ones were the pink turtles. Ending on yellow is best because with an extremely precise jump and position, Banjo can grab the jiggy as it is spawning.
Throughout the level I collect health so that I have 6 at the start of the swamp “maze” area, and I skip one of the pairs of boots. This way I am at 1 health going into Mumbo’s. I tried to make Vile somewhat entertaining, while also completely wrecking him and collecting every item in the room for resources. The rest is straightforward, and I manipulated the buzzbomb to kill me just after I collect the last note.
Lair
In the room with the statue I found a small shortcut by midair jumping to the right instead of going left as you pass by the statue, saving a bit of time. It is fastest to save the GV witch switch jiggy for later. If you are accustomed to watching typical BK runs (or the old TAS for that matter), this is where you would go to Freezeezy Peak for a short time to learn beak bomb for Gobi’s. This TAS does not need to do that because of a trick later on. So we simply open Gobi’s Valley and go straight there.
Gobi’s Valley
This level is completely rerouted due to new tricks and incorporating a deathwarp. First off, we do not fly through any of the Ancient Ones, or rings for short. The rings have some interesting properties. The game always keeps track of how many you have gone through, and if you leave the main area and return, its position will always be in front of Rubee’s Pyramid. Additionally, it will not spawn until it is on camera. So if you put the ring on camera just before you reach it, you can jump on it as it is rising and go through it in talon trot. Because of this, the level is routed so that we go through three rings in that spot. The other two are manipulated to be in fast locations. One by the boots behind Jinxy, which we can midair jump onto, and the other by the puzzle pyramid, which we can use slope glitch to reach. After all are activated, the jiggy is saved to be collected at the end of the level.
After getting the notes in the sand, the infamous “Jinxy Clip” is done, which allows us to enter Jinxy without shooting eggs in his nose. This clip is known for being rather inconsistent for RTA runs, but no trouble here getting it first try.
Inside Jinxy, I poop an egg into the mouth of the first wall sphinx to make the carpet rise earlier. I also use some midair jumps to get a little bit of extra distance on the edge of the carpets. Before leaving Jinxy I manipulate the ring to spawn near the puzzle pyramid. Inside the matching tile minigame, I avoid killing the Mummy and use it to damage cancel the jiggy.
Next is the trick that allows us to skip beak bomb for this level. First I activate the timer switch and collect some notes leading back to the puzzle pyramid area then use the flight pad in the moat. Then I fly up and collect one note on the pyramid and wedge Banjo between the wall and the door of the top of the water pyramid and clip out of bounds. This is incredibly precise and nobody has done it and stayed out of bounds RTA. From here I can simply fly straight into Rubee’s.
Histup does not start rising until after you cancel Rubee's text when the eggs go in the cup. So I quickly poop the eggs, grab some notes, and cancel the text at the perfect time so I can barely get onto Histup after jumping off Rubee's head for extra height. This way I don't have to wait for Histup to start rising.
Grabba jiggy is gotten with the usual slope glitch method seen in RTA runs. The rest of the level is pretty straightforward. Like the old TAS I skip the maze cutscene completely and save a bit of time in the end room to a weird hitbox on the pink jinjo that let me grab it faster. After the maze I take a damage off a quickdive to set up the deathwarp which is possible because the game thinks you are still on the ground until you enter the swimming animation, and the quicksand at the bottom still damages you if you are in this state.
The final 2 jiggy dances are skipped with the shoes and I can take them all the way to Gobi and end the level there.
Lair
In the MMM puzzle room, it's about a second faster to damage boost with the fish. You can shoot eggs from far away to hit the gate leading to the Mumbo shack, which is significantly faster than ratatat rapping it. I activate the cauldron on the way to MMM to set up for later.
Mad Monster Mansion
Unfortunately this route is now outdated, as it was discovered that it is faster to complete the well as the pumpkin and deathwarp. This has been looked into before but timed incorrectly and was recently improved by Connor75 and KaptainKohl, and myself. I was already deep into Rusty Bucket Bay at this point, and did not want to go back and redo 3 levels.
When climbing the gutters on the house, you can do a jump at a precise spot and clip through, saving a bit of time. Just before the cellar I do a wonderwing dive cancel, allowing the hitbox of wonderwing to be out just long enough to break the door and allow me to instantly move and talon trot into the loading zone. In the cellar I can do a midair jump off the barrel to the shelf notes, skipping a backflip.
On the house, I can do a backflip and clip through the gutter to skip the shock pad. In the bedroom, it is fastest to jump off the chest and skip the shock pad. In the next room it is faster to do it clockwise. Both of these rooms allow for midair jumps as you are leaving the windows. This is a bit more complicated, as for the first frame of leaving the window, the camera is in a default orientation, and then changes to where you actually are in the map. So you have to hold one direction for a frame and then where you actually want to go afterwards.
Napper's room is done the same, I just optimized the dance skip, and found a faster strategy for the door.
In the maze I had planned on damage boosting using a ghost, but it turns out that the hedge next to the 2 notes is a bit higher than the surrounding ones, so I wasn't able to, and damage boosting elsewhere was slower, so I used the beehive to jump over the hedge.
The church graveyard is one of my favorite areas of the whole TAS. The egg bounces were difficult to position and manipulate. It saves a bit of time to go straight to Tumblar after the 4th pot and save the last one for just after the church.
Inside Tumblar, I get a 51, but this is really like getting a 54 on console. Console is a bit laggier and the timer doesn't start right away. After I leave I do a ridiculously precise backflip to land on an invisible extension of the roof and flutter on, skipping the shock pad.
In the well, it is theoretically faster to not beak bust, but the whipcrack cycles did not cooperate and I got hit. The whipcracks are cycle based, as opposed to the whiplashes in Clanker's Cavern that respond to Banjo's presence. Getting the other 2 notes after the well is a bit faster than getting them before.
During the jinjo jiggy skip, I land precisely to collect the token underneath the whipcrack without taking any damage.
In the church I could have held the turbo trainers a bit longer and jumped on the last frame, but I didn't in order to manipulate the ghost to not bother me on the first pew. But once it is following you, it will continue to, so the extra beak bust on the second pew was unavoidable. With a very precise ratatat rap I can skip backflipping onto the music sheet. I use a couple extra feathers and "die" on the witch switch here. This only takes a very small amount of time to set up, and I get a health refill which allows me to jump and fall quickly all the way onto the pew after the honeycomb, saving some time in the end. It also has the added effect of removing the music, which I thought was fitting for the "creepy" level in the game.
I optimized the church roof quite a bit with some new strategies, and am able to make it to Mumbo's without breaking talon trot with a precise jump. There's no difference in the pumpkin section, however I save a bunch of time by jumping up slopes and bouncing down them.
Lair
It is significantly faster to reset the console after hitting the water switch instead of transforming back. It is known that you can beak bust the coffin and the switch will activate at the same time, but nobody knows how or why it works, and I wasn't able to replicate it. After resetting, I can grab the Clanker's witch switch jiggy on the way to the cauldron, and then take that back through the lair to go to FP.
Freezeezy Peak
I am now able to complete this level in one trip. The Boggy kid presents always made this route feel weird having to make a special trip to the igloo for the jiggy, but there's no way around it.
First I set up the tree star, and then learn our final move, beak bomb. I then perform "yolo star" and am even able to skip doing a ground pound by sliding through for the first pass, jumping back for the second, and fluttering for the third. After this I am perfectly positioned to beak bomb up at the pipe and grab the jiggy from the outside and then ratatat rap onto the sled. It has been known for a while that it is possible to manipulate this jiggy to land on Banjo in the cutscene of Boggy leaving by manipulating the jiggy spawn angle. Unfortunately with this route, the tree star cutscene resets that angle to default, so it is not possible to do without losing time.
In the tree I save about 1.5 seconds by quickclimbing, and fall back down to collect everything else. Here I am unable to flutter cancel on the ledge with the notes, as falls from very specific heights will make banjo keep fluttering over the land on one frame, and then take fall damage on the next, so I had to do some weird movement to get into talon trot as quickly as possible.
After the tree is the snowman and buttons flying section which took me 2 weeks to do. I had to test various methods and determine which recoils I needed off each snowman, and due to route changes I was also low on feathers at this point, so I had to collect 2 feathers before taking off to do this flying section optimally. With a precise beak bomb, I am able to get 2 buttons and a snowman in one go. After the last snowman I fly a bit away and then back around to be at perfect distance to talon trot into the loading zone.
As the walrus it is significantly faster to bounce down hills and jump up hills like the pumpkin so I save a bunch here doing that. Splashing in the water also loses about .1 each time so I try to minimize that where possible. However it was still faster to jump in the water to change direction instantly. After a while of testing, I was able to determine exactly what to collect in each race.
Since the walrus moves slower, it is ideal to finish the race as quickly as possible, but also collect some stuff along the way so that you can win the Banjo race. You will lose the race is Boggy is ahead of you by 3 flags and then a little bit of distance. I come within frames of losing the walrus race but then catch up by the time I get up the hill. Later by the presents, I found that I could do a sort of midair jump which also skewed my hitbox and allowed me to collect a note and the token much quicker.
Nothing much to note up until the hat, where I shoot 2 eggs in precise spots to set up the chinker to be in the perfect spot so I can damage cancel the snowman jiggy. Beak bombing to the igloo is the fastest way to return there, and I take a damage off the roof to set up for a deathwarp.
The rest of the level is straightforward until Wozza's, where I jump into the water in talon trot which makes Banjo sink and you can swim through the walrus tunnel to the honeycomb without using the walrus. I can then deathwarp off the nearby chinker.
Lair
The path I take to the flight pad switch is the fastest. After the eye jiggy I can beak bomb into the tunnel with precise aiming. I try to aim as low as possible without landing so Banjo doesn't get caught on the ceiling. I can beak bomb again through the rest of the tunnel once the camera catches up and turns. With perfect movement I almost make it to the loading zone before the shoes run out!
Pooping eggs is a bit faster than ratatat rapping the box for the water switch.
Rusty Bucket Bay
This level uses a different route than RTA up to the blue boxes.
After the first pipe I head to the nearby bedroom instead of engine room. I use a crazy precise egg poop here to break the window, and immediately start sliding by leaving the platform and getting back on just after, so I can slide down into the window without jumping. I also touch the egg on the same frame that the egg breaks the window, which allows me to recollect it.
When leaving the bedroom I can midair jump like in MMM, and land on the nearby slope. This is the first "ledge clip" in the run. Banjo can get sort of stuck on these kinds of ramps, and build up downwards speed until he clips through at the base of the ramp.
After clipping, I swim over and grab the propeller jiggy. With a precisely timed C up input, I am able to collect the jiggy while staying out of bounds inside the ship. I then turn around and swim forwards, where the invisible loading zone for Boss Boom Box lies. This sequence completely skips the propeller and TNT switches.
I am able to damage cancel the Boom Box jiggy after pushing him back with a couple of eggs. However unlike in FP, I am not able to line him up perfectly as he just gets pushed backwards, not diagonally, so I have to wait a short time before jumping at the jiggy.
I now head to engine room which is also done differently, as I do not have to hit the propeller switches. I can completely skip the fan on the right side with a midair jump off the rotating U shaped platform. This is especially useful because I can stay in talon trot, and I can avoid an otherwise unavoidable damage from that fan. After the jiggy I can jump through the fan on the left side and use midair jumps to get to and from the remaining 4 notes.
The witch switch makes this route kind of awkward, but midair jumping back to the boat then climbing the boxes is faster than climbing the crane. The previous TAS used a beak bust clip through the grate above the purple jinjo, but unfortunately that doesn't work on BizHawk (also does not work on NTSC console after repeated testing).
If you jump outward far enough from the slopes on the edge of the level, your slope timer is reset, so I can traverse all the slopes in the level without losing talon trot. The way I climb boxes may seem weird, but it is usually faster to zig zag up them.
Nothing of note until the Captain's Quarters. I can damage cancel the jiggy in this room using the chomp enemy. After leaving I can midair jump directly up to the next ledge instead of using the lifeboat hoist. After the code jiggy I am again able to use a precise egg poop to break the window and recollect it.
Pretty straightforward until after Anchor Room. I know there are 2 frames saveable up to the jinjo, but for some reason when I did this specific movement across the water, I was able to move a half second faster after I jump into the water with the jiggy. I was unable to figure out why and kept this as my fastest segment. In the final honeycomb room, I discovered that it was possible to beak bomb the ceiling and land in the boat, thus skipping the slower drowning death animation, and deathwarping faster than simply beak busting.
Lair
It was not possible on BizHawk to beak bust through the leaf in the CCW lobby. I can’t simply backflip twice as well so I have to flutter cancel.
Click Clock Wood
Ah yes, this beast of a level. This level is an absolute nightmare to TAS, and the final result is not perfect because of the extensive RNG manipulation required.
In the lobby I was able to lure over a buzzbomb and use it to take damage on the frame the Spring door cutscene starts and move blind during the cutscene, saving a couple seconds. I do not get a frame perfect ground pound on the switch here because if I do the buzzbomb flies up into the air and I wouldn't be able to get hit and get into talon trot.
I can easily dodge and slide under the birds on the way up to Eyrie. After the egg I midair jump and fall down so I don't have to flutter. Next comes one of the craziest things in the run that you won't even be able to see half of. First I break the beehive to let the bees aggro on Banjo. Next I can shoot eggs from the edge of the dirt patch instead of poop eggs because the ground is lower there. I take damage from the bees so I can move during the cutscene of the flower growing. I make my way to the nearby ramp and use a clip like the one in RBB to void out and return to the lobby, all while Banjo is off camera (this was very annoying to do but it saves a ton of time). I also die to refill my health, and I don't lose my jinjos or notes because I void out before the death animation finishes.
I spent a LOT of time trying to manipulate the worms in Summer and this is the best I could do. It is poorly understood and they can change positioning when I re-enter the area. They did cooperate for the more important ones though. Most of the leaves can simply be scaled in talon trot with very precise jumps, skipping a bunch of backflips. In the beehive the Zubba's speed and spawn rates are random so I did some weird looking movement to try make them spawn quicker. After the hive you spawn in midair so I instantly flutter and fall straight down onto Gobi and manage to get a frame perfect ground pound as well which I did not know was possible.
Breaking the Gnawty rock with wonderwing is the fastest method by far. Scaling the tree by climbing the leaves looks really cool when optimized. Because the leaves are slightly slanted on both sides, it saved a few frames to jump on the slanting down parts, and I was able to shock spring while falling slightly off the leaf for a bit of extra distance.
It turned out to be a bit faster to get all 4 notes before the summer house jiggy and then midair jump underneath the house back to the bridges. The worm by Nabnut's was the most improvable, which would require redoing all of Summer. It didn't feel worth it to me when the worm behavior is so poorly understood. After feeding Eyrie it's time for Fall.
The Cluckers in Fall are significantly larger, and it is often impossible to slide underneath them while collecting the note and avoiding damage without certain RNG. This is mostly manipulated by what frame the Clucker is aggroed which makes it difficult to optimize. For most of the Cluckers with notes underneath, I had to simply make them bite as quick as possible and swerve around to get the note.
I can grab all the notes in the snarebears using beak bust invincibility. I have to hold jump for just a few frames and go straight across the snarebear in order to not get hit.
Near Nabnut's I can collect the floating acorn with a midair jump across to the other side. After the next acorn I can get into talon trot while falling off the ledge and midair jump to the lower acorn to save a bit of time.
On the nest I position Banjo precisely when I feed Eyrie the worms. When Eyrie falls asleep, his sprite pushes Banjo through the nest and he falls down and I can regain control and collect the remaining 4 notes in Mumbo's hut. Afterwards I jump across the bramble field and clip out of bounds on the ramp to void back to the lobby quickly.
Winter was by far the most difficult season because of the flying sections. Normally you would see a run fly straight up to Eyrie after getting the blue jinjo. Instead, I simply fly straight up to the top door. When going for the witch switch later, I have to jump slightly to the right to avoid the snowman because he is throwing a snowball and his hitbox extends outwards a little bit.
The last flying section is the most complicated in the game. It is possible to grab the notes on the house with a very precise beak bomb. After that I beak bomb around the tree to Eyrie's nest for the jiggy. The route is done this way so that after the jiggy I beak bomb back over to the honeycomb window where I am perfectly set up to beak bomb clip into Gnawty's house from above. After getting the jiggy and honeycomb I clip back out of bounds and void quickly back to the lobby to get back to Spring 2 faster.
In Spring 2 it is actually faster to go up the ramp in the water instead of using the leaves, and I get a free token this way. I can bloom the flower in spring with precise egg poops which skips having to use Gobi in Fall and spawns the jiggy in Spring, but the game softlocks because it is programmed to go back to Fall, so the camera never changes back to Banjo. But you can still make your way to Mumbo’s loading zone which removes the effect of the softlock and I can collect the flower jiggy in Spring on the way into the beehive, skipping the dance. Clipping out of the beehive and voiding brings me right back to the entrance pad.
Furnace Fun
There is heavy RNG manipulation in Furnace Fun. Many things have to be taken into account. Firstly, I want the answer choices to be the top or middle answer (they can be selected on the same frame). You can also answer questions significantly faster if there are fewer characters within the answer choices. This means that the fastest possible questions are those that have single digit numbered answer options. Additionally, picture questions load faster depending on which area of the game it has to load. It seemed to take longer for pictures that had more sprites or animations to load. The two picture questions I got were one frame off the fastest possible question. I got pretty good RNG throughout with only a couple questions that were not great. It is slightly faster to jump on the FF board but only if you get a good question on the first frame you touch the ground, because otherwise you slow down significantly. Jumping simply eliminates the acceleration required for Banjo to start walking after a question. It can also be used to manipulate RNG, which I used on the last blue square.
The reason I take the path over here is for Furnace Fun skip which the old TAS did not know of and saves about 6:30. Getting the question wrong on the death square at a certain position sends Banjo flying but he doesn't quite land in the lava. Because the game assumes Banjo is dead after getting the question wrong, the invisible walls around the squares disappear, and it is possible to simply cross the board and skip the fake credits.
Top of the Lair
I can jump off the cauldron without activating it, saving a little lag and making a straighter line to the door. I then wedge into the corner by the door and clip out of bounds and midair jump around the door. You have to be walking for a certain amount of time to clip down far enough. Otherwise you just jump back in bounds. I don't need the egg refill so I simply jump straight into Dingpot to start the...
Final Battle!
During this fight I collect 23 eggs during the downtime. This in conjunction with the fight itself makes it rather complicated but very entertaining. First off, Grunty will fly to the outer edge of the arena, and turn towards Banjo. You want Grunty to see you as soon as possible so she will swoop down faster, so I jump to the left in between eggs to do just that. I then let her pass through me so I can collect more eggs and skip a text box that would cause me to lose time later. After the second swoop, Grunty is vulnerable only after passing through Banjo or going a certain distance after missing. The former is significantly faster and I use a well timed beak bust after pooping 4 eggs to trigger her vulnerability such that she gets hit early, while also stopping rather close to the edge of the arena, because later on she will need to fly outwards before I can hit her with more eggs.
Cancelling text here triggers the green spell, and I beak bust on the raised part of the castle and explode the spell as early as possible which triggers Grunty to fly outwards. I shoot eggs so that Grunty gets knocked towards where she has to fly next. I only need three feathers for the flying section, because I can fly up high and beak bust on Grunty. If I am high enough, I will immediately go into the falling animation after hitting Grunty, which I can flutter out of and beak bust her one more time for the fourth hit.
I then stand on the nearby egg which allows me to collect eggs during the cutscene, and I immediately get an egg as the cutscene ends as well. Now I simply dodge her shots and poop 3 eggs for the orange jinjo statue for the cutscene skip. Because of how close I am to Grunty, the jinjo hits her immediately, and I am close enough to shoot to the yellow statue, then quickly jump once for the other two. There is a lot of unavoidable lag here which prevents me from flutter cancelling. After getting one more egg I jump up and away from Grunty so that the purple jinjo flies very fast towards me and hits Grunty on the way. Two jinjos hit at the same time which causes Grunty to get knocked in a weird direction. I am unsure if this would be faster or not for the Jinjonator but it was too entertaining to not keep in.
I collect enough eggs to finish the fight and complete the Jinjonator quickly just short of two hours!
Final Game Times
| Level | New | Old | Time Saved |
|---|
| Spiral Mountain | 1:53 | 2:03 | :10 |
| Mumbo’s Mountain | 4:21 | 5:08 | :47 |
| Treasure Trove Cove | 6:15 | 7:01 | :46 |
| Clanker’s Cavern | 7:54 | 8:45 | :51 |
| Bubblegloop Swamp | 11:43 | 12:23 | :40 |
| Freezeezy Peak | 10:11 | 12:04 | 1:53 |
| Gobi’s Valley | 9:31 | 10:03 | :32 |
| Mad Monster Mansion | 8:28 | 9:22 | :54 |
| Rusty Bucket Bay | 7:59 | 9:37 | 1:38 |
| Click Clock Wood | 14:17 | 18:04 | 3:47 |
| Gruntilda’s Lair | 22:32 | 25:58 | 3:26 |
| Game Total | 1:45:04 | 2:00:28 | 15:24 |
Please note that Gruntilda’s Lair game time save is partially from resetting console mid run, some of the Rusty Bucket Bay time save is from skipping both timer questions (Sami’s TAS did Boss Boom Box on one), and some of Freezeezy Peak’s time save is from doing the level in one trip. Gobi’s Valley’s route is actually slower in this run because of Rubee early, but I still saved 32 seconds.
Phew…that was a mouthful, but there’s so much depth to this speedrun. It is a pure display of consistent small timesavers everywhere adding up to massive timesave. Banjo isn't anywhere near dead though! There's still Any% to be made, and there are improvements in this movie due to general inexperience in the first half of the run, and a new MMM route.
Stay tuned for more Banjo!
This would not have been possible if it weren’t for a lot of awesome people!
Sami – For creating the original TAS and inspiring me to make mine!
Isotarge – He made the script I use and does a lot of investigation about BK mechanics. He also does a ton of work for N64 games in general. You can find his work here
https://github.com/Isotarge/ScriptHawk
Stivitybobo - He let me stream the TAS on his channel, and checked some of my WIPs along the way
Almolicious – He helped me find the Tiptup glitch where you can move during the cutscene, which also branched out to other places in the run moving during cutscenes.
Kaptainkohl – Constantly checked my WIPs and provided feedback and helped me a lot with the route.
Benjacastellon - Banjo Kazooie runner who found the winter beak bomb clip I used as well as a few other timesavers.
AnotherUser – TASvideos friend who came up with the winter house beak bomb and a few other time savers.
Weegeechan - For helping me in Mumbo's Mountain at the start of the TAS.
Cronikeys - For finding a large amount of the tricks and glitches used in this run. I researched her youtube for a while trying to incorporate as many things as possible.
Kirkq - He found some info about this game including the jiggy spawn angle mechanic, and wrote a script which helped me TAS on mupen and got me motivated enough to make this movie.
Samsara: Wrangling a 2 hour N64 run sounds like my idea of a good time!
