For fighter info, seeBanjo & Kazooie (SSBU).

Kazooie
Official artwork of Kazooie fromBanjo-Tooie.
Universe	Banjo-Kazooie
Debut	Banjo-Kazooie (1998)
Smash Bros. appearances	Ultimate
Most recent non-Smash appearance	Rare Replay (2015)
Console/platform of origin	Nintendo 64
Species	Red-crested breegull
Gender	Female
Place of origin	Breegull Beach (birthplace) Spiral Mountain (surrogate home)
Designed by	Steve Mayles
Voice actor	Chris Sutherland
Article on Wikipedia	Banjo & Kazooie

Kazooie (カズーイ,Kazooie) is one of the two titular protagonists of theBanjo-Kazooie series, the other beingBanjo.

Origin[edit]

Kazooie is a red-crested breegull, a fictional species of bird known for their fast running speed and flight capabilities. In contrast to Banjo's gentle and kindhearted temperament, she is a brash and snarky loudmouth who speaks her mind with no regard for civility, traits which get the duo into trouble more often than not. Despite this, she is fiercely loyal to Banjo and willing to help with any situation that comes their way. Kazooie spends most of her time inside Banjo's backpack, residing in his house near the foot ofSpiral Mountain.

The first mention of Kazooie is in the instruction manual ofDiddy Kong Racing, although she does not appear in the game. Her official debut was inBanjo-Kazooie. In this game, Kazooie alerts Banjo that his sister Tooty is being kidnapped by the evil witch Gruntilda, who wants to steal her beauty, but Banjo wakes up too late to respond. Once he awakens, the duo set out to rescue her from Gruntilda's Lair, a complex cavern in Spiral Mountain with links to many disparate worlds. Along the way, Bottles the mole teaches Kazooie a variety of powerful abilities, including beak attacks, egg shooting, flight, and even invulnerability. After the pair get through the lair and confront Grunty at its peak, they ultimately summonThe Mighty Jinjonator to push her off the tower to her doom; she crashes into the ground and is buried by the ensuing debris.

Two months later inGrunty's Revenge, Gruntilda's ogre-like minion Klungo creates a robotic body for her spirit to possess while her body remains underground. This newly-built "Mecha-Grunty" kidnaps Kazooie and travels 20 years into the past to stop the two from meeting, thus preventing her defeat. Kazooie is quickly rescued by Banjo, whom their friend Mumbo Jumbo has sent back in time to chase down Grunty. Via Bottles' ancestor Bozzeye, she re-learns some of the moves that she had forgotten due to the time displacement. The duo eventually send Grunty's spirit back to the future into her real body, restoring the timeline mostly back to normal.

Two years later inBanjo-Tooie, Gruntilda's sisters appear to rescue the now-skeletal witch, who promptly attacks Banjo's house and kills Bottles. Banjo and Kazooie set out again to chase down the witches, who are attempting to restore Grunty's flesh by using their Big-O-Blaster to suck the life out of the entire Isle O' Hags. Bottles' brother Jamjars helps the duo learn to work independently, which is a huge boon to Kazooie; without Banjo weighing her down, she can move significantly faster and jump higher, while retaining almost all of her offensive abilities. Jamjars furthers her skills by teaching her first-person egg shooting, wing attacks, free gliding, and the ability to hatch eggs; however, she cannot swim underwater or grab ledges as Banjo can. Banjo and Kazooie triumph over Grunty once again, and use the B.O.B. to revive Bottles.

Eight years later inNuts & Bolts, the duo has become lazy and out of shape from their lack of exercise, having forgotten their moves from the previous games. Grunty reappears as just a skull and attempts to start a fight, but before they can, they are interrupted by the Lord of Games (L.O.G.), the supposed creator of all video games. He creates a robotic body for Grunty and a series of vehicular challenges for Banjo and Kazooie to go through. Kazooie continuously complains about being given the shaft in the game; her only use comes from a magical wrench Mumbo has given her, which allows her to carry objects and utilize simple attacks. The pair eventually battle and defeat Grunty, who is forced to work in L.O.G.'s video game factory, and earn back their old moves.

InSuper Smash Bros.[edit]

Although Banjo & Kazooie do not make any sort of appearance inSuper Smash Bros., the game's Japanese website included them in a poll to gauge interest for potential playable characters in a sequel.^[1]

InSuper Smash Bros. Melee[edit]

In the Japanese version ofSuper Smash Bros. Melee, Kazooie's name, as well as Banjo's, can be randomly generated on theName Entry screen.^[2]

Despite Banjo & Kazooie collectively being the second-most requestedRare characters in the aforementionedSSB sequel poll (surpassed only by theGoldenEye 007 version ofJames Bond), they were not included as playable characters.^[3] According toSuper Smash Bros. series creatorMasahiro Sakurai, "Incidentally, including a character from Rare in Smash would be difficult for various reasons. I know there are some people who think that Banjo & Kazooie are an obvious inclusion, but that's unlikely for a variety of legal and financial reasons."^[4]

InSuper Smash Bros. Ultimate[edit]

As a playable character[edit]

Banjo & Kazooie, as they appear inSuper Smash Bros. Ultimate.

Banjo & Kazooie make their debut asnewcomers inSuper Smash Bros. Ultimate, with their and theHero's inclusions being announced during the E3 2019Nintendo Direct on June 11, 2019.^[5] She and Banjo are collectively the thirdDLC characters ofFighters Pass Vol. 1, and were released on September 4, 2019.^[6]

Like inBanjo-Kazooie andBanjo-Tooie, Kazooie provides the majority of the duo's maneuvers, such as the Talon Trot for theirdash and Feathery Flap for theirtwo double jumps, before quickly retreating into Banjo's backpack in order to avoid retaliation. Despite adhering to a tag team-oriented playstyle like theIce Climbers andRosalina & Luma, Kazooie usually does not possess a hurtbox like the partner climber and Luma do. As a result, she essentially functions as a disjointed hitbox, and will only gain a hurtbox while dashing or using up tilt.

According toMasahiro Sakurai, Banjo & Kazooie were heavily requested characters for a long time even leading up toUltimate's launch, particularly in the West. Even after character reveals likeRidley andKing K. Rool, requests for Banjo & Kazooie still kept coming in.^[7] Sakurai later mentions that the duo placed closely behindSora in theSmash 4 Fighter Ballot (with the latter being the overall winner).^[8][9] While their inclusion would have been a natural one in the past, this was complicated byMicrosoft's purchase ofRare Ltd. in 2002, during which it was originally thought that Nintendo shouldn't collaborate with their console competitors.^[10][11]

However, thanks to Rare and Microsoft's cooperation, the rights to Banjo & Kazooie were easily secured, as Microsoft had developed a strong third-party relationship with Nintendo leading up to their reveal inUltimate.^[12] Phil Spencer, the head executive of Microsoft's Xbox division, had actually voiced his support for their inclusion in 2015 and then again in 2018.^[13][14] Soon after their official reveal, Spencer said, "There wasn't anything kind of CEO-to-CEO that had to happen" in order for Banjo & Kazooie to joinUltimate, courtesy of Microsoft's increasingly positive relationship with Nintendo's third-party team.^[15]

In their gameplay showcase on September 4th, 2019, Sakurai openly acknowledges the fact that theBanjo-Kazooie intellectual property is completely owned by Microsoft. He also acknowledges Rare and Microsoft's cooperation in bringing the franchise intoSuper Smash Bros. Ultimate, as they were happy to see the duo in the game and saying Rare welcomed Nintendo with open arms. He even notes that if those interested in the series want to play the original titles today, they should do so inRare Replay on theXbox One.^[16]

Spirit[edit]

Names in other languages[edit]

Language	Name
Japanese	カズーイ,Kazooie
English	Kazooie
French	Kazooie
German	Kazooie
Spanish	Kazooie
Italian	Kazooie
Chinese	阿卡,Kazooie
Korean	카주이,Kazooie
Dutch	Kazooie
Russian	Казуи

Trivia[edit]

• Banjo and Kazooie are one of only four foreign-created characters to be playable inSmash Bros.: they alongsideDiddy Kong andKing K. Rool were created by British developerRare Ltd., andDark Samus was created by American developerRetro Studios. They are the first third-party fighter to be created outside of Japan, and the first fighter in general to belong to a completely foreign franchise.
• Banjo and Kazooie are one of only three playable characters inSmash to belong to a non-Japanese company, that beingMicrosoft;Steve (also from Microsoft) andSora (fromDisney) are the only other characters with this distinction.
  • Banjo and Kazooie are the only playable characters to have once been part of a second-party franchise, partially owned by Nintendo, before becoming third-party.
  • They, along with Steve, are the only fighters to hail from a current console rival of Nintendo.
  • Banjo and Kazooie are also the only third-party characters to have been created by the same company as first-party characters. Banjo, in fact, debuted within theDonkey Kong franchise inDiddy Kong Racing; Kazooie was not playable, but she was mentioned in the instruction manual.
• Banjo & Kazooie and Dark Samus are the only playable fighters whose games of origin were neither released first in Japan nor simultaneously worldwide, with both (Banjo-Kazooie andMetroid Prime 2, respectively) releasing in North America first.

References[edit]

External links[edit]

• Kazooie on Jiggywikki

v • d • e Banjo-Kazooie universe
Fighters	Banjo &Kazooie (SSBU)
Stage	Spiral Mountain
Other	Jinjo ·The Mighty Jinjonator
Spirits	Spirits
Music	Ultimate

• Characters
• Banjo-Kazooie universe
• Banjo & Kazooie
• Third-party characters
• Microsoft
• Spirits