"Right then, girls. Let's blast the whole island!"
— Gruntilda, planning to use B.O.B. to kill the entire Isle O' Hags for the heck of it rather than the few lives needed to restore her body.
Gruntilda is back for blood, and to prove it, she lays waste to the Isle O' Hags in ways that can only make one's skin crawl.
- The game starts with a lich-like Gruntilda chasing Mumbo Jumbo with energy blasts, before destroying Banjo and Kazooie's house and killing Bottles as a revenge, with the others barely escaping. The poor mole's charred corpse and ghost lays there during most of the story, and what's left of the house would shame a dynamite.
- The zombified throne room. Banjo and Kazooie just met a cheerful ally King Jingaling, and Grunty wastes no time in Life Draining his entire palace, leaving him as a zombie who attacks them on sight and reducing his pet to ashes and a pair of eyes. All with horrifically depressing music.
Comedic villain she might be, but Grunty is not messing around this time. Also, he keeps on saying very weird, random things that just sound spooky. As you progress through the game, you learn that the things he was saying were warnings about various important enemy characters you encounter in other worlds! - Did you think the drowning animation was bad? Well, say hello to what happens to Banjo if you run out of air in a poison gas area in Glitter Gulch. You're treated to the sight of him clutching at his throat, gasping for air, his gasps rising in pitch, signifying how desperate he is for air... before giving a final cough and collapsing. In other words, he chokes in a very realistic manner. (Kazooie, Mumbo and any transformations will only go through their regular death animations.)
- Atlantis, hidden under Jolly Roger's Lagoon, is pretty unsettling to discover and explore even as an adult - it's accessed through a narrow underwater tunnel, feels very claustrophobic, and features alien environments that just feel unsettling. Especially frightening are the puffer fish who rapidly inflate when they get near you in a Jump Scare! And don't forget about Inky, the giant octopus that flails his tentacles wildly. Even worse, he can't be killed. At most, just temporarily frozen.
- Basically what happened to Gruntilda. After being thrown off her tower in Banjo-Kazooie, she falls straight into the ground ...and then a rock squishes her. Klungo comes and attempts to pick up the rock. Cut to the sequel, where he's still trying 2 years later. Once it's removed by her sisters, Grunty doesn't have any skin. Forget what she ate, she just wasted away down there for 2 years. No organs, heart, just a living skeleton. Her second defeat isn't that great either. After being brought down to 0 hp, Gruntilda drops her highly explosive spell which blows up the tank. All that's left of her is her head. Still sentient, and in the ending her head is kicked around by the gang. While she complains that she'll be back in Banjo-Threeie.
- Glitter Gulch Mine has the Power Hut Basement and the Generator Cavern, two areas shrouded in almost complete darkness that require you to light up the pathway in order to see where you're going. The area takes place over a pitch black void that acts as a bottomless pit, and the music that plays in these areas is low-key, ominous and has psycho strings in the background.
- Witchyworld. All of it. From the bastardized carnival music to the aggressive carnival mascots, carnival staff (especially the nasty "Blaaaah!" noise they make when they spot you), and carnival objects to the overall unwelcoming feel. Doesn't help that the non-aggressive staff are lazy and unhelpful.
- Terrydactyland has Stomponadon, an absolutely humongous dinosaur where we only ever see her giant foot stomping down in the Stomping Plains. We never see her in full, and every time she brings her foot down, it's punctuated with a loud, monstrous roar. And yes, she can and will kill you if you're unable to avoid her. The first time you get stomped, you're left with a Last Chance Hit Point, but after your invincibility wears off... a second stomp will outright kill you. Not only is it difficult to get through the Stomping Plains without dying, it's also incredibly nervewracking, as you don't know why the hell this giant dinosaur is so deadset on crushing you - she just does it anyway, and keeps doing it while you're there.
- Grunty Industries is one hell of an Eternal Engine. Right away you're greeted with toxic sludge all over the place, where the same creature that lurked in the slime of Terrydactyland returns here to devour you if you step in. The building proper isn't any better, as it's a cramped warehouse environment filled with kill-happy security bots and easily agitated employees with massive wrenches. Some areas of the building (like the attic, or the basement) have the normally bombastic and quirky music become nearly completely sapped of character, sounding desolate and empty, which only highlights the feeling of isolation in one of Grunty's strongholds.
- Let's not forget Weldar, the boss of the zone. A giant welding torch with the nozzle having a snake-like neck, he easily makes an impression when the doors in his arena open and show him slowly, grindingly drag himself into view... and then suddenly force himself upright to tower over the duo. Despite his immense size, he can easily hop around to try and squash you flat, and when he's not doing that, he's either taking time to spit fireballs at you to take you down from afar, hocking up nut and bolt enemies to harass you, or inhaling you into his mouth to harm you with the flammable gas inside his body before spitting you back out. Halfway through the fight, he makes things worse by electrifying parts of the floor, giving less room to avoid him with! And even when he finally goes down, it's still rather unsettling - only his head remains after his body explodes, and he outright states he's in a lot of pain after that. Even with the comical undertones of his intro, he's still a pretty scary boss.
- Mingy Jongo, the boss you fight in Cloud Cuckooland, is basically a Terminator android impersonating Mumbo. While that's intimidating enough on its own, the real scary part is how the fight is instigated, especially if the player isn't prepared for it. There are two Mumbo skull huts in this world - one with the real Mumbo and the other with Mingy - so there's always a chance that the player will wander into Mingy's hut first without realizing there's another one in the world. Worse, Mingy's hut is always the one with a Jinjo in it whereas the real Mumbo's ironically has the Jinjo-impersonating Minjo in it, giving the player a false sense of security. After saving the Jinjo, Banjo and Kazooie will find "Mumbo" asleep on his chair, triggering a cutscene where the shaman wakes up and declares he has a big surprise for the bear and bird. The "surprise" ends up being him attacking them with his staff, revealing his true identity and initiating the battle with him, locking the stairs off to trap them in battle.
- Speaking of Minjos, they can be unnerving in their own right. They look no different from your typical Jinjo, even calling for help. But the moment you get close, they suddenly attack, catching the player completely unaware. At most, Minjos are usually found in easy to find and easy to reach locations, but players can still find themselves being cautious when approaching what they suspect to be a Jinjo. Worse, Minjos respawn like normal enemies (and unlike Jinjos), so the more Jinjos you collect, the more likely the next one you run into will be a Minjo, until eventually, the Minjos are the only ones left.
