Rather unorthodox RPG. I'll explain why I think this later.

Kinda a Snow White and the six bears storyline. Ugly witch seeks pretty young girl to drain youth and beauty from. She happens to pick Banjo's young sister Tootie. (where did Rare get these names?) Banjo wakes up from a long deep nap and finds his sister missing. The mole that lives outside his house tells him that she's been kidnapped and taken to the witch's lair. Banjo desides (in a moment of either bravery or stupidity) to retrieve her. When Banjo gets to the lair, he collects items from various magical realms to break the certain magical spells guarding the witch.

Very basic plot. Much like an action game. However, what I believe sets this game just over into the RPG catagory is this: You romp around in 'dungeon-like' realms collecting magic items to open doors to other realms that will eventually lead you to the main antagonist. Sounds kinda like the Zelda series and some parts of the FF series. You can also gain new moves by finding bottles the mole in places in the first six levels. Like Tales of Phantasia's combos and Zelda2. You collect tokens to allow you to transform into other animals. Kinda like the masks in Majora's Mask. You get a double energy meter with 884 notes (±2) and at least 98 total puzzle pieces. Again, Like Zelda64.
I think all that adds up to equaling a basic RPG.

I think this is probably one of my favorite N64 games. Colorful worlds, great music that changes with the scenery (kind of like change of smell), good low-lag controls, and many places just dying to be explored. I wish this was emulated correctly. My best time for clearing the game is just shy of eight hours. I have it on VHS somewhere. It's fun to watch even though I know what's about to happen. There are some things that you want to hold off doing until the end of the level. (Most noteworthy being the notes in the engine room of Rusty Bucket Bay. If you've ever played that level, you know what I'm talking about)
You know the phrase "Remember this now, there's a quiz on it later" Well there is in this game. My favorite thing in the game to do has to be Grunty's Furnace Fun. I go through each of the question squares because they're just fun to answer. They're usually simple questions, but there are some questions that you'd almost never know the answer to. Like how many eggs does it take to break open the chest in Grunty's room. (Mad Monster Mansion, top floor) The answer is 20, but I've never been able to break it. Even after firing over 50 eggs at it!!