Nintendo Character Profile | Bottles the Mole Page 1

Nintendo Character Profile | Bottles the Mole

Bottles the Mole
The smart one...

The world of Banjo-Kazooie is full of interesting characters, and talking animals isn't uncommon. As we dive into Nintendo 64 month, we look at a very well known mole in the world of Banjo-Kazooie, that critter being a chap called Bottles, who has been in every major release and one spin off. This mole can teach you a thing or two and now you'll learn about him.

Statistics

Age: If we can guess anything about Bottles' age, we would place him in his mid 30s (by human years). Having been married with a child, killed off and divorced post-resurrection, we can't say he's exactly had a happy life.

Species: Mole, although he's not blind he does wear oversized glasses to compensate for his natural short sightedness.

Location: Originally living at the foot of Spiral Mountain, Bottles has since settled down in Showdown town, working as a guide after the divorce.

Birth: Nothing is known about this mole's birth, or much about his background, all we know is that he was apparently a friend of Banjo's sister Tooty, who calls him "Mr. Mole".

Main Features: Bottles is a short-sighted mole who wears massive goggles that act as glasses for his beady eyes, as revealed in Nuts & Bolts after finally taking them off.

He is known to be very intelligent since he teaches protagonists Banjo and Kazooie a number of moves during the first game, and it seems to run the family since his brother Jam Jars continues the trend in the follow-up. Bottles usually appears through digging holes in the ground and can reach any level in the world by doing so.

Clothing: If there was a way to describe Bottles' dress sense, it would be very well... geeky, with his favourite colour evidently being orange. In the first couple of games on the Nintendo 64 he wears red goggles with a chequered orange waist coat, which is expanded to a jacket with a white shirt and yellow tie in the more recent Nuts & Bolts. Still no trousers or shoes though...

Concept

In reality moles have very poor vision due to not being exposed to light very often (or not at all), this is obviously reflected in Bottles since he really can't see anything without his goggles/glasses. There's doubt he can see anything with them either, since he has a tendency to mix objects up with one another.

Bottles seems to be seen as a "geek", by both his smarts and demeanour as he is constantly bickering with Kazooie throughout the games. She calls him names such as "Geeky, Bogeyes, Short Stuff and Soil Brain"… the list goes on. That said, you could consider this pair being quite close to each other but scared to admit it. In the first two games on the Nintendo 64, bottles was a married man, with his marriage involved in the plot of Tooie, of which Gruntilda kills him and he becomes a ghost. But after being resurrected, his wife and children, named Speccy and Goggles, left him due to the trauma of his apparent act of Christ, though that seemingly happened between Tooie and Nuts & Bolts.

Bottles seems to be a brilliant aeroplane pilot as well, since in the generally overlooked Banjo Piloton the Game Boy Advance = he has the best stats of the entire game, with nearly everything in all 3 categories being close to perfect.

Appearances

Bottles has appeared in most of the Banjo games, with Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge being the only omission. He was also going to be a playable character in Tooie, in a mode dubbed Bottles' Revenge. In this mode player 2 controlled Bottles' ghost who was transformed into Devil Bottles and could posses enemies. The idea was scrapped in the final game, but is still playable via a GameShark. In total he's appeared in four games and here's the list:

Banjo-Kazooie (N64/XBLA)
Banjo-Tooie (N64/XBLA)
Banjo Pilot (GBA)
Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts (Xbox 360)

Best Appearance

Bottles' best appearance was his first one in the orignal Banjo-Kazooie on the Nintendo 64. Throughout the game he acted as a mentor to the game's heroes by teaching them a new move set that would not only help them to attain more puzzle pieces in certain levels, or get to new parts of Grunty's Lair, but also help become useful in helping defeat Grunty herself. His arguments with Kazooie were funny to watch and the little guy even fought alongside the duo in the final battle. If you want someone to rely on, this is the guy to go to, but don't rely on him to try and protect your sister from an ugly, evil green Witch.

Do Not Mention:

Hard to say who not to mention, but if Bottles was to hate anyone, it would be Grunty. Not only did she kidnap his friend Tooty in the first game, she also killed him and spurred a divorce in the sequel. Now if you don't call that unlucky, what is? There also seems to be a general fear of Grunty's power amongst the people of Spiral Mountain, with the witch's home being at the top, they don't know what's going to happen next.

Bottles has been a vital character to the Banjo series and even being used as a major plot device in Banjo Tooie. He's been through a lot in his short life and who knows what will happen to him next, if there is a next time. Let's hope Rare have more in store for Bottles in future installments of the franchise and do justice to the mole who taught Banjo and Kazooie how to fight, fly and shoot out eggs.

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jesusraz 26.03.2012#1

Poor Bottles. He definitely deserved to get his own game...Does anyone remember Mole Mania on the Game Boy? He would have been a perfect fit for a sequel to Miyamoto-san's almost forgotten about game!

Adam Riley [ Director :: Cubed3 ]

UNITE714: Weekly Prayers | Bible Verses

Marzeee 26.03.2012#2

I always thought he'd fit in with the Animal Crossing folk.

RudyC3 26.03.2012#3

Cubed3 Limited Staff :: Review and Feature Writer

jesusraz 26.03.2012#4

I wonder if Microsoft will ever let Rare develop for Nintendo again...after all, there were the GBA games and DKR on DS. Seemingly MS thought the handhelds weren't direct competition to the Xbox 360. I wonder if the same is true of the 3DS?

Wasn't there a mole in Yoshi's Island? Hmm, Bottles making a guest appearance in YI 3DS would be cool Smilie