Banjo-Kazooie: Ranking Every Level From Worst To Best
1. Click Clock Wood
Click Clock Wood is not only the best level in Banjo-Kazooie - it may very well be the best level in any 3D platformer.
Can it be frustrating at times? Absolutely. It's the last level of the game, so it expects a lot from the player. Hell, I'll admit that falling off of the tree (which I did a lot) inspired a heck of a lot of colorful language on my end. But despite how maddening it can be to have to go through all the seasons over again after dying, the fact still remains - Click Clock Wood is a masterpiece.
Aside from having the best music and the most pleasing aesthetics in the game, it's one of the coolest, most creative concepts for a level in any video game. Spanning all four seasons of the year, your actions in one season inform the events of the following season. One example sees you hatch an eagle in Spring, feed it 5 caterpillars in Summer, feed it 10 more in Autumn, then collect a Jiggy from the full-grown eagle in Winter. This gameplay element was well ahead of its time for 1998 (especially for a platformer) and it still holds up just as well today.
Yes, it's a hard level that can be wildly frustrating, but it's so well designed, so conceptually innovative, and so appealing to the senses that the difficulty doesn't even matter. Click Clock Wood is an infinitely-replayable work of art.