For anyone who grew up during the reign of the Nintendo 64, Banjo-Kazooie is likely a household name. The Bear and Bird did 3D platforming better than Mario himself, perfecting an already enjoyable formula with a number of tweaks and revisions that are still being implemented today. While the series has fallen on hard times as of late, Banjo-Kazooie and its sequel remain some of the finest 3D platformers ever created, bar none.
But Banjo-Kazooie wasn't always a platformer. In fact, it didn't always star a bear, nor was it planned for the Nintendo 64 or even playable in 3D. No, when Banjo-Kazooie first started out, it was a completely different game: Project Dream.
Game development is a tumultuous ride from start to finish, but few games go through as many revisions as Project Dream did. What started out as an isometric action-RPG starring a young boy and his sword somehow became the musical 3D platformer that we all know and love today — but how did all that happen? Well, thanks to the team behind the recent Rare Replay collection, fans finally know:
All things considered, Project Dream looked pretty good. It's definitely a product of its time (would you just look at that hair), but it represents something of an unseen middle ground between the Super Nintendo and its follow-up. With digitized sprites and a pseudo-3D background, it's almost as if the best parts of both consoles were squished into one game ... but Project Dream was simply never meant to be.
To be honest, it's probably for the best: SNES-era RPGs starring a young boy discovering adventure in a mystical fantasy land weren't exactly rare (pun intended), and Banjo-Kazooie turned out so well that it's hard to lament the loss of Captain Blackeye and his gang of pirates.
You don't have to worry about Rare's pirates, either: the studio is currently hard at work on Sea of Thieves, an open-ended action-adventure due out sometime next year.
