When Banjo-Kazooie was revealed to be the 3rd character in the Smash Ultimate Fighters Pass, many fans were surprised with even people who were part of development on the original game not expecting it.

In an interview with YouTube channel Shesez, the character designer for Banjo-Kazooie Steve Mayles said that he was surprised Nintendo didn’t redesign the character but is glad they were faithful to the original design.

Check out what he said below:

I think it’s very true to the original concept,

I was surprised that they hadn’t made any tweaks, because with the K. Rool model they gave him a bit of a nip and tuck and he came out looking as good as he’s ever looked.

But with Banjo they seem to have been very careful to make sure that he looks almost exactly the same as the N64 promotional model that I did, which is a great honor for me.

If I was doing it I would’ve made a few changes, but I can completely understand why they copied the N64 model, because that is the model the fans love,” he explained. “If they made too many changes, you’d have people saying, ‘it doesn’t look like Banjo anymore!

He always needs his tight shorts! The proportions of the new Smash model are similar to the very original Banjo that nobody ever really saw that was in Project Dream.

His head is a lot smaller, because when he made the transition from the adventure game to the 3D platformer that we know and love, I scaled his head up and made some changes to his proportions as well so he’d better fit the more cutesy style of the platformer. But this one has gone back a little bit to that adventure style game Banjo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnTdb5wgV2g

Here’s a comparison of how the redesign and the original design look:

What do you think? Let us know in the comments.