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Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts is a 2008 platform game developed by Rare and published by Microsoft Game Studios for the Xbox 360. Set eight years after Banjo-Tooie (2000), Nuts & Bolts follows Banjo and Kazooie as they compete with the witch Gruntilda for their homeland Spiral Mountain. Although Nuts & Bolts retains the structure of previous Banjo-Kazooie games—collecting jigsaw puzzle pieces to progress—it shifts the focus to vehicle construction. The player designs vehicles, including automobiles, boats, and aeroplanes, and uses them to complete challenges across various worlds. In multiplayer modes, players can share their vehicles or compete over Xbox Live.

Nuts & Bolts entered production following the completion of Grabbed by the Ghoulies (2003) and was developed by the same team behind the Nintendo 64 Banjo games, led by the designer Gregg Mayles. It began as a remake of Banjo-Kazooie (1998) but was repurposed as an original game. Rare sought a broad audience and, wanting to evolve the platform genre, introduced vehicular gameplay to take advantage of the Havok physics engine. The customisation elements originated from the Rare co-founder Tim Stamper's suggestion for a game similar to connecting Lego bricks. The soundtrack was composed by Grant Kirkhope in his final work for Rare, Robin Beanland and Dave Clynick.

Nuts & Bolts was released in November 2008. It drew criticism from fans for departing from the Banjo-Kazooie gameplay, but received generally positive reviews. Critics considered the vehicle editor robust and praised the visuals, music, and creativity, though they found some challenges tedious, and some questioned the new direction. Nuts & Bolts was a commercial disappointment, selling 140,000 copies in the United States by the end of 2008. Afterwards, Microsoft laid off staff at Rare and restructured them as a Kinect-focused developer.

In the decade following its release, Nuts & Bolts reputation improved, though it remains divisive. Some reappraised it as the best Banjo-Kazooie game, while others felt it failed to provide the series' gameplay. Nonetheless, its focus on construction and player freedom has been considered ahead of its time, predating popular games such as Minecraft (2011) and Fallout 4 (2015). Nuts & Bolts was among the 30 games included in Rare's 30th anniversary compilation Rare Replay (2015) and one of the first added to the Xbox One's catalogue of backward-compatible Xbox 360 games. It remains the most recent Banjo-Kazooie game, despite fan interest in a continuation.

Gameplay
Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts is a 3D platform game in which the player controls the bear-and-bird duo of Banjo and Kazooie across six themed worlds. It primarily focuses on vehicle construction and manoeuvring; the player collects parts to construct vehicles, which they use to traverse environments and complete challenges. The story begins eight years after Banjo-Tooie (2000). Banjo and Kazooie have stopped adventuring and become lazy and overweight. Their archenemy, Gruntilda, returns to their homeland Spiral Mountain for revenge, but as she, Banjo, and Kazooie begin to fight, they are interrupted by the Lord of Games (L.O.G.), the creator of all video games. He restores their physical fitness and decides to settle the conflict by devising a competition featuring vehicle-based challenges. The winner will receive ownership of Spiral Mountain, while the loser must work in L.O.G.'s video game factory for eternity.

The player starts in the hub world, Showdown Town, a city where they can explore and converse with non-player characters (NPCs). Showdown Town houses Mumbo's Motors, a workshop where the player creates vehicles. The player must collect vehicle parts and blueprints, which are scattered throughout Showdown Town or earned through challenges. They can also purchase preset blueprints and parts from Humba Wumba in Showdown Town. Players can build vehicles including automobiles, helicopters, submarines, hovercrafts, boats, and aeroplanes. There are more than 1,600 different components, and after designing a vehicle, players can test drive it to determine how to improve it.

A factory in the hub dispenses globe-shaped tokens whenever a certain Jiggy total is reached. Placing a token onto a special stand unlocks a world, where the main gameplay takes place. Like previous Banjo-Kazooie games, the player must collect Jiggies, golden jigsaw puzzle pieces, to progress. To do so, the player partakes in Jiggy Games, minigame challenges they must complete within a time limit. They include races, combat, deliveries, transporting NPCs, and Hero Klungo Sssavesss Teh World, a parodic side-scrolling video game featuring the character Klungo. The challenges feature multiple solutions depending on the vehicle the player uses. They reward the player with a Jiggy, which is claimed from a dispenser in Showdown Town. Players who surpass a best score are rewarded with a trophy; collecting four trophies earns them an additional Jiggy. There are a total of 131 Jiggies.

Nuts & Bolts removes the exploration-based platforming that characterised its Nintendo 64 predecessors, but the player may disembark from their vehicle to explore on foot. Banjo and Kazooie can grab ledges, swim underwater, balance on tightropes, and jump. They do not retain their abilities from prior games, but Kazooie has a spanner that can be used as a melee weapon. Their agility and the spanner's attack power can be upgraded at a gymnasium. Scattered around the worlds are collectible musical notes, which serve as currency to purchase items such as blueprints, parts, and access to advanced vehicles. Musical notes vary in value as determined by their colours (gold, silver, or bronze).

A game mechanic, "Stop 'N' Swop", allows players who own Nuts & Bolts and the Xbox Live Arcade (XBLA) version of Banjo-Kazooie (1998) on the same system to unlock bonus content. Collecting multicoloured eggs and the Ice Key in Banjo-Kazooie causes crates to spawn in Nuts & Bolts hub world; these contain items, such as novelty vehicle parts. Multiplayer modes allow players to compete in challenges, such as races and association football, and battle opponents cooperatively. Players can compete using custom or pre-made vehicles and share vehicle blueprints over Xbox Live.

Conception


Rare began discussing ideas for a third Banjo-Kazooie game following the release of Banjo-Tooie in 2000. They knew that they were not finished with the series, having teased a third game, Banjo-Threeie, at the end of Tooie. Microsoft acquired Rare in 2002, making them part of Microsoft Game Studios, and gained the Banjo intellectual property rights from Nintendo, which had held a large minority stake in Rare during the first two games' development. Rare's head, Mark Betteridge, said the Banjo team determined the third game needed to feature game mechanics that were impossible on older hardware, and designer Shaun Read said that it was not until the Xbox 360's release that they felt it was possible to build a worthy successor.

What would become Nuts & Bolts entered development after the completion of Grabbed by the Ghoulies (2003), their first game for Microsoft's Xbox. The team comprised 71 developers led by Gregg Mayles, including the core members of the Nintendo 64 Banjo team. Nuts & Bolts began as a remake of the first Banjo-Kazooie featuring cooperative gameplay, an idea suggested by Rare co-founder Tim Stamper. However, staff felt the effort it took to re-create the environments would be better spent on a new game and feared that audiences would dismiss the remake as a rehash. They retooled the project into an original game and decided to diverge from the series' gameplay because they perceived that audiences were disinterested in traditional platformers.

Rare settled on featuring Banjo and Gruntilda in a competition. The initial concept was a platform game whereby an AI-controlled Gruntilda would interfere with the player's progress. As developing such sophisticated AI would be difficult, they shifted to exploring how to make traversal as fun as obtaining objectives. Vehicle gameplay was introduced after Rare, in a departure from their previous reliance on proprietary software, acquired the Havok physics engine and added cars to environments to take advantage of it. When Stamper suggested making a game that was like "an interactive Lego set", Rare built a prototype to customise vehicles with blocks and added them to a level they had developed for the remake. From there, Nuts & Bolts began to take form, and development continued for the next two years. Nuts & Bolts working titles included Banjo 3, Banjo-Buildie, and Banjo-Threeie. Buildie was Mayles' preference, but he decided it sounded too similar to the previous games and did not convey the appeal to non-fans.

Design
Rare developed Nuts & Bolts using a modified version of their Viva Piñata (2006) game engine. It was their first game developed specifically for the Xbox 360 and the first Banjo-Kazooie game developed without Nintendo, though Mayles said that this did not change Rare's development process. Rare wanted to reach a broad audience of players old and new. Animator Elissa Miller and technical artist Neill Harrison said they avoided overwhelming the player with vehicle components, made the progression open-ended, and provided vehicle blueprints for beginners while tailoring replay value and the vehicle editor for experienced players. While Miller said the team did not feel pressured to match previous games, Rare sought to stay faithful to the series. Mayles and Betteridge said the humour, characters, structure, and feel remained the same, and they still considered Nuts & Bolts a platformer despite the focus on vehicles.

Mayles felt that the platforming genre had stagnated and wanted to evolve it. He noted that platformers were no longer as popular and wanted to position Nuts & Bolts as a fresh start for the franchise. Mayles reflected that the first two games (especially Tooie) had overlong tasks and so opted for "a simpler, cleaner approach". He thought vehicles would make travelling and exploration more fun, and that reaching objectives was often the weakest part of platformers; the game design grew from this. The approach necessitated larger worlds and extensive playtesting, which took months due to the number of parts and possible combinations. Harrison said balance was difficult in comparison to a linear game, since each tester approached objectives differently, though the game did not change much during the testing phase.

Rare defined and programmed the primary vehicle parts early on, and the programmers Paul Mountain, Scott Sims, and Robert Masella ensured they worked with the physics engine. After the programmers were satisfied with the vehicle physics, they altered them to fit Banjo cartoonish tone. Because of the way objects interacted with the environment, Rare departed from their traditional sound design and instead developed what they described as "a physics-based sound effects system... allowing sounds to be grouped by physical attributes and triggered by physical events." For the online multiplayer, the programmers developed systems to predict where players would be to account for the unreliability of the internet.

Developing a game in which players can build any vehicle they desire proved challenging. The user interface posed particular difficulty, as Rare wanted to make building in 3D simple and understandable. Early editors required players to keep parts attached to vehicles or they would fall. Miller said this was changed out of a desire for building to feel like a Lego set: "[The player would] be able to lay out the blocks in front of [them] on the floor, or wherever, and then decide where they went." Rare named the ability to unlock vehicle parts by owning the XBLA version of Banjo-Kazooie "Stop 'N' Swop" after a scrapped feature from the Nintendo 64 games, which had been the subject of intense fan speculation, as an in-joke for Banjo fans.

Like previous Rare games, Nuts & Bolts features "a game within a game" as one of its missions. The 8-bit-style Hero Klungo Sssavesss Teh World was designed by Steve Malpass, with graphics by the concept artist Phillip Jackson. The idea came from Mayles, who desired an unprofessional, amateurish game that felt as if it had been developed by the unintelligent Klungo himself. Jackson was pleased with the final product since, as a concept artist, his work is rarely featured in released games.

World and characters
As with Viva Piñata, Mayles wanted Nuts & Bolts to look distinct. Levels reflect the vehicle-building theme, with gears in the sky, clouds hanging from cables, and patchwork covering the ground. Rare initially re-used Banjo and Kazooie's design from the Nintendo 64 games, but they thought it lacked charm as a high-polygon model. Several redesigns were proposed; the team chose artist Ed Bryan's suggestion for a blocky design with sharp edges reminiscent of an upscaled low-polygon model, which Bryan felt fit Nuts & Bolts direction. Ryan Stevenson redesigned Banjo and Kazooie and Mayles' brother Steve modelled them.

Malpass created the hub world, Showdown Town. Rare knew the third Banjo hub world would be a singular area, unlike Banjo-Kazooie and Tooie modular design, before the focus on vehicles had been decided. They chose Malpass to create it because he suggested design ideas and had worked on Tooie level design. Unlike the main levels, the hub was designed to look real; Malpass drew inspiration from Tenby, Wales, and Saint Malo, France, as "there's something about their layout and topography that makes you want to explore, such as little winding paths and streets that make you want to see what's round that next corner". Other inspirations included the Globe Theatre, Montmartre, Venice, and the Royal Crescent. Since Nuts & Bolts features six worlds, Malpass divided the hub into six districts, each featuring an entrance to a world. He made the divisions between districts unclear to maintain realism.

After designing the map on paper, Malpass received approval from Mayles and sent it to the background artist Steven Hurst, who rendered a rough 3D model to determine the feel and scale. About halfway through development, one level was cut, requiring a portion of the hub be redesigned. Malpass allowed players to use only one vehicle in the hub to make events easy to determine, and added structure through blocked-off areas accessed via vehicle upgrades. He described designing the hub around such restrictions as difficult. He had to keep track of every hub element and ensure the execution aligned with his intent. He said: "There'll always be modifications and tweaks required to make it all fit together and flow and feel right, although Showdown Town required more than most... The official document of modifications went through 20 versions and ended up over 50 pages long by the time the Town was finished." After the model was finished, objects and characters were implemented via an in-game editor. Because the model was so big, several elements had to be scrapped so Rare would not run out of memory. It was not until the end of development that hub gameplay ran at a good frame rate.

Leigh Loveday wrote the Nuts & Bolts script, which features self-deprecating humour referencing other Rare games and the state of the video game industry. Loveday, who had not written for a Rare game since Jet Force Gemini (1999), had to balance the distinctive speech tics of the Banjo cast with making gameplay details clear and was required to write in American English rather than British English. Rare used Comic Sans for the dialogue since it was readable on both high-definition and standard-definition displays. Mayles ensured that the script retained the series' humour, and Banjo-Kazooie programmer, Chris Sutherland, provided Banjo's voice. The team considered using full voice acting instead of the series' usual mumbling voices, but Mayles felt this "would have ruined the Banjo charm".

Music


Nuts & Bolts score was composed by Grant Kirkhope, who composed the previous Banjo games, alongside Robin Beanland and Dave Clynick. Performed by the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra, it comprises rearrangements of Kirkhope's tracks from Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie alongside new material. Kirkhope incorporated references to past compositions in new tracks and said determining how old music would fit was fun. His first track was a rearrangement of the Spiral Mountain theme; Kirkhope used a real banjo Rare had recently purchased and recorded it using Pro Tools. He intended the rearrangement to sound "a little rough round the edges, [imagining] Banjo sitting there trying to remember how he played the banjo all those years ago".

The Nuts & Bolts soundtrack was Kirkhope's final work for Rare, having worked there since October 1995, and he described it as "a very upsetting time for me". Given the popularity of his first two Banjo soundtracks, Kirkhope felt it was fitting that Nuts & Bolts was his final work. Though Kirkhope had hoped to handle the Nuts & Bolts sound himself, this was unmanageable as he was also composing Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise (2008). Beanland and Clynick joined to help compose, and the sound design was handled by the rest of Rare's music team.

Marketing
Microsoft announced an Xbox 360 Banjo-Kazooie game was in development at its X06 conference on 27 September 2006. They showcased an animated trailer, but did not provide a release date or gameplay details. Rare's Lee Schuneman confirmed Mayles and the rest of the original Banjo-Kazooie team were working on the game in March 2007, and teased that it would bring unexpected elements to the franchise. Rare remained silent about the project throughout 2007, to the point that in November they had to deny a rumour that it had been cancelled. Mayles later clarified Rare did not want to show off the game before they felt it was ready. In February 2008, Microsoft Game Studios head Shane Kim announced the game would be released around the 2008 Christmas shopping season. Rare launched a website in March 2008, and on April Fools' Day released some potential plot premises, challenging fans to guess the real one. After screenshots leaked on 11 May, Microsoft formally announced Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts during its Spring Showcase event on 13 May.

During its E3 2008 conference, Microsoft showcased a Nuts & Bolts trailer and provided a demo to attendees. VG247 named Nuts & Bolts among the best games showcased at E3 2008, and IGN wrote Microsoft and Rare tailored the E3 demo to show that it was a natural continuation for the franchise. They felt it retained the series' core elements while introducing "fresh ideas to a genre that has fallen out of favor with gamers". Conversely, 1Up.com was left unconvinced that the shift in direction was for the best, finding vehicles difficult to control and the level of freedom daunting. The game won IGN Xbox 360 Best of E3 Special Achievement for Innovation award alongside nominations for Best Platform Game, Best Artistic Design, and Game of the Show, as well as a Best Platform Game nomination for their Overall Best of E3 Awards. Microsoft invited journalists to its UK headquarters in Reading, Berkshire to play Nuts & Bolts in September, and Rare released a demo via the Xbox Live Marketplace on 28 October.

Fan response
The X06 reveal led to excitement from Banjo-Kazooie fans, but the proper Nuts & Bolts announcement was met with a mixed reception. While some found the possibilities offered by vehicle construction exciting, the new direction confused others. Banjo-Kazooie fans had desired for the first Xbox Banjo-Kazooie game to build on its predecessors' gameplay, and Nuts & Bolts departure from the series' style left many angry; Hardcore Gamer said the new direction was seen as "a giant middle finger to fans".

Discourse surrounding Nuts & Bolts became adversarial. GameRevolution said the release "was undeniably defined by the cries of longtime fans feeling as if they had been wronged... it was impossible to read about Nuts & Bolts without hearing how upset Xbox 360 owners were that the game wasn't a traditional platformer". They noted part of the discourse was rooted in console war sentiments, as some backlash came from Nintendo fans who remained bitter over Microsoft's acquisition of Rare. Nintendo World Report advised fans that it was worth giving Nuts & Bolts a chance despite their misgivings over the gameplay changes.

Sales
Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts was released in North America on 11 November and in Europe on 14 November. Those who pre-ordered Nuts & Bolts received the XBLA version of Banjo-Kazooie for free. Nuts & Bolts sold 140,000 copies in the United States during its first month on sale, and sold over 100,000 copies in the United Kingdom. It was added to Microsoft's Platinum Hits budget line in January 2010, indicating sales of at least 400,000 copies within nine months of its release. Despite this, Nuts & Bolts was considered a commercial disappointment. Fable II, another late 2008 Microsoft game, sold 1.2 million copies in the United States within the same timeframe as Nuts & Bolts 140,000. GameZone attributed the lacklustre sales to poor marketing during a holiday season filled with high-profile releases. In August 2009, Rare design director George Andreas confirmed Nuts & Bolts did not meet Rare's sales expectations but they remained satisfied with the released product.

Reception
Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts received "generally favourable reviews", according to the review aggregate website Metacritic. Critics considered Nuts & Bolts a unique experience,  which IGN and Eurogamer said would satisfy gamers willing to invest time in playing it. Rare's reputation had declined in the years following their acquisition by Microsoft. 1Up.com said Nuts & Bolts "puts the ailing developer on the road back to relevancy", with Game Informer adding it proved Rare was still capable of innovation.

Reviewers praised the writing and humour. They found the jokes hilarious, parodying Rare's reputation, game clichés, gamer culture, and the Xbox 360 hardware. Game Informer said the writing "deftly blends legitimate laughs with a compelling commentary on the state of video games", and GamesRadar+ appreciated Nuts & Bolts levity in a landscape full of somber games. GameSpy considered the jokes targeting Rare's failures, such as Grabbed by the Ghoulies, particular highlights.

The visuals were commended; the game world was described as big, cartoonish, colourful, and varied. VideoGamer.com and Wired singled out the scale and quality of Showdown Town for particular praise, and Gameplanet and GameSpy favourably compared the visuals to Viva Piñata. Some criticised the frame rate for its occasional instability, which GameSpot said protracted some challenges. VideoGamer.com said Nuts & Bolts would be the best-looking Xbox 360 game were it not for the unstable frame rate. The soundtrack was praised; IGN and VideoGamer.com said it was fitting, and GameSpot liked how it adapted to the player's surroundings.

Many considered the vehicle editor a highlight. Critics found it deep (to the point that Game Informer considered it "a game in and of itself" ), absorbing, and well designed, requiring players to use their imagination and conceive crafty solutions to problems. 1Up.com considered this Nuts & Bolts heart, and Game Informer and IGN compared constructing vehicles to building with Lego bricks. However, Eurogamer and Wired felt the concept failed to amount to consistently fun gameplay, while IGN and GameSpy—though overall enjoying the gameplay—found it complex and potentially limiting the appeal to less-experienced players. GameSpot and GameSpy criticised the vehicles as difficult to control. GameSpy called this particularly frustrating given how significantly the vehicles factor into the experience. The online multiplayer mode's integration of the customisation was consistently praised. Eurogamer said it was where Nuts & Bolts best qualities were consolidated, and 1Up.com enjoyed observing how different players overcame the same situation. Conversely, IGN thought it worked better in theory than in practice, finding the amount of strategy it required off-putting for inexperienced players.

Reviewers enjoyed exploring the worlds;  1Up.com and GameSpot thought Rare made exploration fun and not a burden necessary to find minigames,  which GameSpot said was a problem in the previous games. Eurogamer and Wired considered the Hero Klungo Sssavesss Teh World minigame a particular highlight. Some questioned whether Rare's departure from the previous' games platforming was for the best. GameSpy described Rare's decision to forgo traditional platforming as brave but said Nuts & Bolts did not live up as a sequel, while GamesRadar+ said it was unrecognisable as a Banjo game aside from some fan service. Eurogamer wrote Nuts & Bolts lack of platforming made its flaws more obvious, as "a traditional platform game could survive a sequence of poor levels". IGN said that players should not ignore Nuts & Bolts just because it diverged from its predecessors and that it was "a great change of pace from the usual Xbox 360 fare".

Though they enjoyed completing challenges, critics felt Nuts & Bolts became tedious as it progressed, crowded by an abundance of racing minigames that prevented players from experimenting. VideoGamer.com said the best missions featured "some of the most ingenious next-gen gameplay we've seen", but overall their quality was inconsistent. Eurogamer thought Nuts & Bolts failed to resolve Viva Piñata problem of a needlessly protracted tutorial that could have been avoided with experimentation and trusting the player's intuition. They also felt the game suffered from repetition, as players could overcome most challenges by simply upgrading their engine. Game Informer and GamesRadar+ added that while the script mocks Rare's reputation for making "collect-a-thon" games, Nuts & Bolts still requires players to spend considerable time collecting items.

Additional content
Following the Nuts & Bolts demo's release, players with standard-definition televisions complained that the dialogue font size was too small to be readable. Rare initially said the problem would be too expensive to fix, but quickly reversed their stance and pledged to develop a patch to make the font size bigger. The patch was released on 22 December. On 31 March 2009, Rare announced the L.O.G.'s Lost Challenges downloadable content (DLC), which adds 12 objectives, seven multiplayer modes, and new achievements. After completing every challenge, players unlock a new version of Hero Klungo Sssavesss Teh World. The DLC was released on 7 April for 400 Microsoft Points.

On 18 December 2008, Rare announced a contest in which players would upload screenshots of their custom Nuts & Bolts vehicles to the internet, and they would choose the seven best for inclusion in the game. The contest ran from the announcement until 4 January 2009. The winning designs were added through L.O.G.'s Lost Challenges and the XBLA version of Banjo-Tooie, released on 29 April. By using the Stop 'N' Swop items in Banjo-Tooie, players who purchased L.O.G.'s Lost Challenges receive the vehicle blueprints for the winning designs.

Other media
The Nuts & Bolts soundtrack was released through Sumthing Else Music Works on 30 June 2009. The Xbox 360 version of Sumo Digital's kart racing game Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing (2010) featured Banjo and Kazooie as playable characters with a vehicle from Nuts & Bolts. Sumo Digital executive producer Steve Lycett said Rare provided them with the models and audio. Rare also provided Audience Entertainment with Nuts & Bolts assets to create a Banjo-themed tech demo presented at the SXSW Gaming Awards in March 2015.

Nuts & Bolts was among the 30 games included in the Xbox One compilation Rare Replay, released to coincide with Rare's 30th anniversary in 2015. The Rare Replay version runs via an Xbox 360 emulator and includes L.O.G.'s Lost Challenges. Rare dedicated one of its Rare Revealed documentaries to the development of Nuts & Bolts, which they uploaded to their YouTube channel on 14 September 2015. Nuts & Bolts was also one of the first games added to the Xbox One's catalogue of backward-compatible Xbox 360 games on 12 November. It is Xbox One X enhanced, allowing it to run at a 4K resolution.

Legacy
Journalists continue to characterise Nuts & Bolts as divisive, and Xbox: The Official Magazine wrote that it is commonly described as the black sheep of the Banjo franchise. According to Hardcore Gamer, while Rare's reputation had already declined following the Microsoft buyout, it was Nuts & Bolts that "solidified the negativity of the company", its departure from the series' roots seen as a betrayal that eroded fans' trust. In February 2009, Microsoft restructured Rare in response to the lacklustre performance of Nuts & Bolts and their other Xbox 360 games, directing them to shift focus to Xbox Live Avatars and the motion control-based Kinect peripheral. Nuts & Bolts was Rare's last non-Kinect game for several years; GamesRadar+ wrote that following its release, Rare was "continually hit with layoffs, further diluting the brand and reducing the studio's output to minigame collections and the occasional Xbox Live Avatar outfit".

Nonetheless, Nuts & Bolts reputation improved in the years following its release. GameRevolution wrote that fans began to judge it on its own merits rather than for what it was not. It was included in the reference book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die in 2010. Kotaku, revisiting Nuts & Bolts that year, praised it as a brave game that challenged conventional game design by letting players deal with a problem in any way they wanted rather than simply solving it. Likewise, Eurogamer wrote in a 2012 retrospective that the customisation tools provided versatility that meant it held up well. After Rare Replay release, GamesRadar+ expressed pleasure players would be able to experience Nuts & Bolts without the discourse that encircled it in 2008. Reviewers singled it out as one of the compilation's best games, and praised its unique gameplay. GameRevolution opined that whereas the Nintendo 64 Banjo games had not aged well, Nuts & Bolts still felt fresh a decade following its release, with accessible-but-advanced customisation tools and a script that remained funny a decade later. Polygon said Nuts & Bolts distinctness made it difficult to remain upset over the shift from traditional platforming.

Some retrospective reviewers have reappraised it as the best Banjo-Kazooie game, describing it as innovative. Its emphasis on player freedom and construction has been described as ahead of its time. GamesRadar+ noted that in the years following the release, construction-based games, such as Minecraft (2011), Kerbal Space Program (2015), and Fallout 4 (2015), became popular, and credited Nuts & Bolts with pioneering customisation technology that later games would incorporate. Malpass and Mayles considered Minecraft similarities to Nuts & Bolts striking. The 2019 sandbox game Trailmakers was inspired by Nuts & Bolts, featuring similar vehicle customisation tools and design elements.

Not all retrospective assessments were positive. GamesRadar+ and Hardcore Gamer said that while Nuts & Bolts was great when judged individually, fans' dislike was not meritless. GamesRadar+ said it was "a game with an identity crisis", unable to find a balance between continuing the Banjo series and delivering new gameplay, and Hardcore Gamer said it failed to provide Banjo gameplay despite its attempts at fan service. Hardcore Gamer suggested that it should not have featured the Banjo intellectual property. Xbox: The Official Magazine felt Nuts & Bolts came at the wrong time and would have been better received if it was released after livestreaming platforms became popular, due to its focus on clever problem-solving.

In a 2012 appearance on Game Grumps, Kirkhope expressed dissatisfaction with Nuts & Bolts. He felt it was a mistake and Rare should have made a platformer in the style of the previous games instead. He said the decision to focus on vehicles, which he protested, had been motivated by fears a traditional platformer would not sell. In 2019, Kirkhope clarified on Twitter that he considered Nuts & Bolts a good game but believed it should have featured an original intellectual property rather than Banjo. Gregg Mayles echoed these sentiments in a 2020 Xbox: The Official Magazine retrospective. While he still felt Nuts & Bolts was a proper continuation of the series, Mayles admitted that "maybe it was too radical a departure. Perhaps we should have taken an even bigger risk by removing the game from the Banjo world and building it as something else".

Nuts & Bolts remains the most recent Banjo-Kazooie game. Despite fans' resentment of Nuts & Bolts, journalists have noted they remain interested in another instalment. Former Rare personnel established the independent studio Playtonic Games in 2014 to develop a spiritual successor to Banjo-Kazooie, Yooka-Laylee (2017). Additionally, fan requests for Banjo and Kazooie's inclusion in Nintendo's crossover fighting game series Super Smash Bros. led to their addition to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (2018) in 2019. Steve Mayles said the enthusiastic responses to their addition could convince Microsoft to commission another Banjo-Kazooie game.