Banjo-Kazooie’s Stop 'N' Swop feature showcased on actual N64 hardware

Those who were alive and playing games back in the N64 days probably remember the promise of the Stop ‘N’ Swop feature for Banjo-Kazooie. Long story short, the mechanic was supposed to let you yank Banjo-Kazooie out of your N64 while it was still on, plop in Banjo-Tooie, and then unlock special items you could use to access secrets back in Banjo-Kazooie.

Countless fans held onto their copies of Banjo-Kazooie to utilize this Stop ‘N’ Swop feature (myself included), but sadly, it never came to be. Since the feature required users to swap cartridges in the very short amount of time to take advantage of the N64 retaining game memory RARE eventually had to remove it, as Nintendo deemed the swap too risky.

While dataminers have already dug up and unlocked all the extra goodies and secrets Stop ‘N’ Swop was meant to open up, most of the magic has been dead for years now. What hasn’t happened is anyone actually using the Stop ‘N’ Swop feature as originally intended. That is, until today… (h/t VGC)

Hacker Skawo has put together a video showing Banjo-Kazooie’s Stop ‘N’ Swop feature in action as originally intended, albeit with a little flourish. The video above showcases Stop ‘N’ Swop in action, thanks to a flash cart and a custom version of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. While the end result is the same as hunting down these items through datamining, it’s still amazing to see this feature realized on actual hardware decades later.