Among N64 games I place this behind only the two Zelda adventures. Every few years for twenty-five years now I've tried to figure out what exactly it is that made J. F. G. A masterpiece standing so completely outside of time despite being on the surface a game mostly about mowing down giant bipedal ants and collecting cutesy monkeyfolk. One key seems to be the score combined with the many vast landscapes and technoscapes, which together often speak what seem odes to a great and lost splendor. Sekhmet, Anubis and the Lost Island are among the best examples of this.
Another key is simply the scope and sheer beauty - often majesty - of its worlds. I don't know how it is that Rare excelled in lighting details, gradations and effects so far beyond any other gaming company and regardless whether they were working in Super Nintendo, N64 or their famously unparalleled promotional renders, but excel they did. And never more than here. They put in the extra grief and sweat to make every last hidden nook look totally unique. The game is a meditation on light and shade. I've also never seen lens-flare effects used anywhere skillfully as here. The Lost Island area alone should've won some sort of Oscar for breaking new ground in video-game beauty.
This game is one of desperate few games I can think of that were known well to everyone when they came to us, but now seem very nearly forgotten. And this a profound travesty, Jet Force being so much greater an achievement than the Banjo games and all else Rare made for the system. I've always thought a sequel made on GameCube graphics would've fit its fabric so well. May it be accomplished one day.
More would I, but life is short and words are cheap and great works like this one beckon us on in our shrinking time. Boom shanka.
