Banjo-Kazooie

A big-nosed bear whose backpack has room for a cheeky red bird — and suddenly you hold in your hands one of the most endearing duos a platformer ever produced. Banjo-Kazooie from Rare arrived in 1998 as an answer to Super Mario 64, and in many respects it pushed that formula to absolute perfection.

The game ranks among the peaks of the so-called „collect-a-thon" — a genre where your main task is to explore sprawling 3D worlds and gather all manner of curious items in them. Golden puzzle pieces (Jiggies), musical notes, red feathers, eggs for Kazooie's beak-cannon: every corner is stuffed with rewards and secrets that pull you onward. What's ingenious is how Banjo and Kazooie work together — the bird acts as Banjo's weapon, double jump, gliding flight and running turbo, so every new ability changes the way you perceive the world.

Rare was at the height of its powers at the time, and you feel that juice in every detail. Worlds like the marshy Bubblegloop Swamp or the frozen Freezeezy Peak have their own personality, Grant Kirkhope's music shifts dynamically depending on where you step, and the whole game overflows with British humour — the chatty witch Gruntilda speaks in rhyming verse and the characters comment on events with infectious cheek.

Technically it was one of the prettiest titles on the Nintendo 64; colourful, smooth and full of animation gags that made the console shine. And the characters' charisma wasn't merely cosmetic — Banjo and Kazooie quickly became one of the brand's iconic faces and later even earned a guest spot in the fighting game Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, which speaks clearly to their cult status.

The sequel Banjo-Tooie is even larger and more cleverly interconnected, but it's this first outing that has that unforgettable spark of discovery, where everything is new and every world surprises. If you want to understand why people remember the era of 3D platformers with such love, start here.

Why play it: A textbook collect-a-thon full of humour, inventive worlds and an unforgettable pair of heroes — Rare at its very best.