Ahhh, Gruntilda, what a wonderful old hag you are. It's funny really, Grunty happens to be one of my favorite video game villains of all time if not my very favorite period... yet I do not actually enjoy the series she comes from! I'm sure that sounds like blasphemy but I dunno, Banjo-Kazooie came about in that awkward era of video gaming where it was merging from old school into new school and it hadn't really come into it's own yet. To be honest, save for a few I wasn't a huge fan of most of the Nintendo64 library for that very reason, I still think Super Mario64 is the worst Mario game not necessarily because it's bad, but because it never felt like a real Mario game to me, but instead a game that just happened to feature Super Mario assets... but I'm not here to talk about Mario am I?
Banjo-Kazooie always had a lot of promise to me, while I hate the overall execution as it's just a collect-a-thon clusterfuck, I do really like the characters and themes. It has so much potential that was never utilized well in my opinion and with Nuts & Bolts soundly putting the final nail in the series' coffin any chance of getting an enjoyable Banjo game for myself has been effectively flushed down the toilet... but I'll always remember the good times... and by that I literally only mean I'll remember Gruntilda as the highly entertaining crone that she is!
Yes among all the things I found that were done right about Banjo-Kazooie, Gruntilda was always the one I found perfect. Grunty was that great villainous mixture of both funny, mincing putz to cruel, twisted and intimidating when need be. He old, cliche' witch design immediately brings you into familiar territory and I myself have always loved the look of the crazy old green hag. On top of the fact that she spends a primary chunk of the game just taunting you for the sake of being a little shit, she creates a presence for herself that few other end bosses do, she's not just some final obstacle you know nothing about till the ending, she's there every step of the way making you hate her and making you long to knock her fat ass off her broom... and God I love to hate her, and then just to top it all off the old bitty doesn't even stay down! She literally comes back from the dead MULTIPLE times, fueled purely by her hate. Now that's an accomplishment in villainy! Plus she has one of the best themes ever, I totally commend a villain that can take essentially “The Teddy Bear’s Picnic” and make it malicious!
So I figured it was high time this crusty bitch got put into my Halloween Countdown-(I mean, I'm dressing as her for Halloween this year, so I kind of had to)-and yet again she ranks in the "why haven't I added her sooner", though in truth I have... technically. I added her once in a countdown long ago that I didn't have the time to finish so it technically doesn't count; why did it take me this long to add her in again..? I dunno honestly, but when I looked over this countdown I realized it was severely lacking in actual "Halloweeny" type entrees, it needed something more to kick us all into the holiday spirit and what better then a old school witch? So here she is now in all three of her forms! Yes, even sexy, Game Over bombshell form despite the fact that it disturbs more then even the reanimated witch corpse form... probably because she attains this form by draining the beauty from an underage bear cub... I'd say I think Rareware needs to fess up to some things but I already know Rare is made up of a bunch of wankers! ...I mean if anything, shouldn't she like have turned into a furry or something..? Again, I digress.
I wanted to incorporate Grunty's other forms, namely the skeletal one from Banjo-Tooie as her ability to change per game always intrigued me and I've never drawn them, only her original look. I almost only drew skeletal Grunty because I mean what's more Halloween then both a skeleton and a witch combined? But I couldn't deny the classic look and while I was at it I figured 'what the hell' and tossed in sexy Grunty while i was at it. I didn't bother with the robot form because no one cares or remembers that one and I didn't add in the odd amalgam of real body/robot/skull head because Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts is a travesty of gaming, I don't need to be a fan of Banjo to know that!
So it goes without saying that were Gruntilda to ever place in one of my countdown's she'd deserve no less then a spot among the Final Five. In truth, she was actually going to win this year! I figured her long overdue entry and my love for the character demanded that, but the more I worked on this I thought of better top places, so she got bumped to semi-final... then third... the fourth... almost, fifth, but I kept her here in this spot. Again, figuring out the winners of this year was Hell but I feel I made the right choice in the end.
