Banjo’s font size fixed – typeface ruined
Gamers will now go blind... for other reason
Just in time for Christmas, Microsoft released today a patch for Banjo-Kazooie Nuts & Bolts with the intention of fixing the font size issue that several users with SDTVs were suffering since the game was released. A “Large Dialogue Text” option is now available under the “Display Settings” menu.
And, yeah, sure, they have fixed the problem! …but at the expense of torturing thousands of innocent gamers’ retinas with a repulsive change of typography.
The abominable Comic Sans, which was removed from Nuts & Bolts in later stages of the game development process, has returned; and unfortunately it’s here to stay. With this movement the typeface that we enjoyed for a month (the informal but still well-balanced Andy) disappears; but we’ll also miss the loveable mechanic interface for dialogues, which has been replaced for the traditional bubbles from the BK series. At least, they could have kept the Andy font for gamers playing Banjo in high definition!
The decision of recovering the Comic Sans probably found its roots in what Nuts & Bolts director, Gregg Mayles, explained some months ago in an especial interview with all the main Rare fansites: “Comic Sans is a good choice for games as it is easy to read on High def and standard def screens. The old font [from the N64 games] was one we invented and it’s just not possible to do that [recover it for Nuts & Bolts] when there is about 10 million languages to translate it into. We tried lots of others but they weren’t clear enough.”
It appears that the comic book fever, so present in theaters nowadays, is not only damaging the movie industry. Just imagine how corny the world would look as seen through the Comic Sans’ prism. Would anyone take Microsoft Game Studios seriously if their logo was based on this tasteless design? What about Rare? Sometimes, things just don’t work. The Comic Sans fails because it looks simply shabby and ghetto.
We won’t deny its inherent quality for being easy to be read in different definition screens, though. But we bet there were other many bolded fonts that could have been chosen so we wouldn’t have to go blind when reading texts with the worst ever designed typo.
Yeah, probably now everybody can easily read Kazooie’s jibber jabber, but some of us won’t want to read her dialogues anymore.
Somehow related news
- A font size fix for Banjo is in the works ()
- Nuts & Bolts and Banjo-Kazooie XBLA out now ()
- Various Banjo XBLA bugs, fixed ()
- The fifth Piñata Accessory Pack can now be unlocked ()
- ‘Bean’ gives credit to Perfect Dark XBLA rumour ()
11 Comments
I personally love the new font. It makes it great to read. And I love the return of the bubbles. Gives it that classic feel. So I’m now completely satisfied with the game 100%.
Comment by Mr.Patch — 22.Dec.08 @ 4:12 pm
I don’t have a problem with the font, it’s easier to read, but like it was said before, you can’t scroll through text to read the other half.
Comment by Grant McLachlan — 22.Dec.08 @ 6:46 pm
Yay!!! Finally the fix is in. =) Now I can actually play the game that I pre-ordered (haa haa). Sadly I have yet to install the update as I was busy prepping for the holidays, but FYI, I like Comic Sans. 
Actually it looks just like the original text except it’s not tilting slightly to the left.
the fact that the font is better doesn’t change the fact that the game sucks
Comment by billy — 23.Dec.08 @ 12:08 am
billy shut the f*** up
Comment by saicambanjo — 23.Dec.08 @ 9:07 am
The length that people take to whine about is really sad.
Reading this article here, on this website is especially sad.
Two thumbs down for Mundorare.
I think Comic Sans is acceptable when it’s written/typed in all caps. I dunno if it’s just me, but when used that way it doesn’t have the same shabbiness as something with lower-case letters would.
Maybe Microsoft will look at this as a good money-making opportunity and offer alternate fonts on the marketplace for 500 MSP a pop. >.>
Comment by RawkHawk2010 — 24.Dec.08 @ 12:43 am
So explain to me what the problem is because I see no problems with the text.
Comment by Hudson — 25.Dec.08 @ 1:11 am
Does anyone know how to get the font size patch? I contacted xbox support but they seem very confused and don’t know what I need to do to address the small font size on SDTV.
Comment by crocman — 29.Dec.08 @ 1:44 am
I sent Rare an email about it, before Nuts & Bolts was released (but not before it would have been into mass production). I notified them that typeface the original Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie used is called Comicrazy Regular by Comicraft. Rare have previously claimed that the original Banjo font was custom and couldn’t be carried over.
It seems nobody paid attention, or Microsoft enforced the quick fix of Comic Sans, which was probably already accessible via the game engine as it was used in the beta demo versions.
I’m disappointed they couldn’t implement Comicrazy, but we should all be happy that, at the very least, the indecipherable Andy MT was vanquished.
Comment by ConEAP — 06.Jan.09 @ 6:25 am
For me now the biggest issue if you play in a standard def TV is that de dialogue is split if it doesn’t match the bubble, and you can’t scroll downwards to read it when you finish the first half, you have to wait for the game doing it automatically (and its pretty slow), that hurts; also a few times i just pressed A by instinct and missed some good lines :/
Comment by Àlarik — 22.Dec.08 @ 3:02 pm