Game 117: Banjo-Kazooie: Gruntilda's Mask Oct2025 Kurko mods are honestly the most interesting rom hack developer I know about. Not exactly because I know a lot of rom hack developers, but because Kurko adds a lot of polish to the games they make that I honestly feel they are just a few steps shy of an actual sequel game.
Gruntilda's Mask does a great job of establishing the Kurko brand while at the same time having a lot of charming jokes and dialogue to match thru out. There isn't anything particularly new here, but the way the resources effectively get managed and form entirely new puzzles and experiences is really just great for 3D platformers like this. If you are at all familiar with Majora's Mask and/or Banjo Kazooie you'll recognize a lot of the map and game design choices from both respectively. The way Banjo Kazooie effectively gets stripped down to having to relearn all their moves again is also a pretty inspired choice as it lets players explore the majority of the town in smaller bites that overall make it feel bigger than it once was. Majora's Mask Atmosphere is truly shining here, and Banjo Kazooie's paired 3D platformer puzzler nature really helps squeeze all that you can out of this cross over formula. Some of the stuff here can be trick to figure out, but thankfully the game does have a hint system. Really the only thing that stops Gruntilda's Mask from hitting it out of the park is simply not going a little more in on the cross over idea. No cross boss stuff or even NPCs from the Zelda series.
Still, Gruntilda's Mask does have a pretty neat remix of Zelda's music with a Banjo Kazooie-esque tempo to it, and if you enjoy either games this rom hack is using than I feel you will have a bit of a nostalgic trip when you play it. Overall, it's just a really good rom hack that will please either fan of the series it uses, and could probably fool a few people into thinking it's official.
