RARE REPLAY RELAY, PART 8: What Did We Learn?

Well… this is the part where I’m supposed to break down, right? “I played every Rare Replay game and went CRAZY” should be the title of the video, shouldn’t it? I was waiting for that shoe to drop, but that’s not what happened. Once I launched the app, cashed in my final stamps, and played the credits, I felt happy and accomplished. I attribute that mostly to the order in which I finished the games. Nuts and Bolts was breezy with its light requirements. I enjoyed it more than I expected, and more importantly, it let me play how I wanted to. I experienced that pained feeling numerous times during the challenge, so if I finished with Perfect Dark Zero or Jet Force Gemini, I’m sure my attitude would be different.

To be clear, this is not something I recommend to anyone without a lot of time on their hands. You could be doing anything else, like contributing to society. Still, I learned a lot about the history of an important game studio and got some fun stories out of it. It was always going to be a good feeling when I deleted the various Rare titles from my Xbox. But instead of a “good riddance,” it was a thankful parting of ways. Plus, any rando who looks at my profile now is going to do a double take. That’s fun to picture.

Here are a few ways in which my beliefs were challenged in the midst of the journey:

1. Rare is not a monolith. From the outside, it’s easy to generalize about the company’s games, usually involving its “charm.” Looking deeper, though, that charm has several distinct flavors. Depending on who is leading the art, music, writing, and design decisions, the whole experience changes. I learned to differentiate the Rare that gave me warm feelings from the Rare that ticked me off.

2. It’s okay to cheat at old games. I often held onto residual thoughts that beating a game with save states or other “enhancers” doesn’t count. I went into this a while back, but I changed my tune. Whatever gives you the most fun is the best way to play, as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone. Could you imagine playing Underwurlde without cheats? You would die in real life. Games like that allowed me to let go of those gatekeepy feelings. Some old games are just terrible, and you don’t need to respect them if they don’t respect you first.

3. It pays to have friends. I’m not just talking about Imaginary Player 2, but also about the hundreds of other lunatics online who had guides just waiting on TrueAchievements. Without those resources, the challenge would have been over before it started.

4. Maybe I’m more of a Banjo-Kazooie fan than a Rare fan. The three Banjo games were my favorites of the 30, and I had grievances with most of the others. Ten years ago, everyone lauded Rare’s glory days, then they started tearing down a lot of those games. The original Banjo-Kazooie has held up the best in my opinion, whereas the concept of Donkey Kong 64 makes me break into a sweat.

5. Gamerscore still makes me happy. What can I say, big numbers are great.

We have to talk about the other side of the journey now, that being the arc of Rare itself. The collection stops at 2008, and the releases since then has been mixed, to say the least. After Nuts and Bolts, the studio put out three Kinect Sports games. I’ve never seen a Kinect in real life, much less used one, but I feel comfortable saying that those games weren’t what most people wanted to see, and it didn’t help the narrative of Xbox not having a clue. In most people’s eyes, Rare was languishing, bearing no resemblance to the company Microsoft bought. I remember people getting pumped when Rare Replay was announced, though. Maybe a look backwards would inspire better use of their IP. If nothing else, it would be fun to have them all available on modern hardware. That excitement stuck with me, drawing me to the collection as one of the first things I installed with my console.

After Rare Replay came Sea of Thieves, a live service game that helped establish the story that genre often goes through: It started kind of empty but bounced back and landed in a healthy place. Every E3, Microsoft makes sure to add a segment about all the new stuff added to the game. Unfortunately, Sea of Thieves never interested me. Rare has been cramming pirates into most of their games since Donkey Kong, so it’s great that they get to realize that theme in a big way. I’ll always be a single player first and foremost, though, so even with Game Pass access, I just don’t see myself ever trying it out. With the only posts on Rare’s website this year dedicated to Sea of Thieves, it’s hard for me to get excited.

Rare is working on another game, though. Or… was? I’m talking about Everwild, revealed in the pre-pandemic days and disappeared since then. A Grubby individual said that the project has been scrapped and restarted with leadership changes. That being the case, I don’t even see reason to dig up the trailer and speculate about it. It’s kind of a phantom game. I tried clicking on it on Rare’s site, but it just took me back to the homepage. Maybe it comes out and is great, maybe it never resurfaces. It is what it is, but I wish I could be more optimistic about the studio’s future output.

As for Rare’s historic franchises, everyone agrees that they aren’t getting the attention they should. Microsoft owns a staggering amount of gaming IP, but resources aren’t unlimited. No matter how much sense it makes to bring something back, you need peoplepower and money to make it happen. They could gut everything next year and make it a Call of Duty studio, we don’t know. In a slightly more ideal world, though, Microsoft is more interested in taking advantage of its catalogue. I’ve ranked the stars of Rare Replay by how much sense a comeback would make – from least to most.

IP From the 80s: The most iconic elements of Rare’s Thatcher era are Sabre Man and Jet Man. Even they are perhaps less iconic than Rare thinks. Jetpac Refulled was the way you revived old games in that era. Now, the gaming public has focused more on 90s properties and later for its nostalgic fix. Revitalizing the 8-bit era is kind of played out now. Nintendo has had success with its 99 series. I can see a Jetpac 99 game in my head, but Microsoft is never going to fund that. For these guys, I think Rare Replay was their swan song, and that’s maybe more than they deserve.

Jet Force Gemini: Hahahahahahah…. No.

Grabbed by the Ghoulies: When Nuts and Bolts, of all games, is ridiculing the idea of a Grabbed by the Ghoulies 2, the prospects aren’t looking good.

Kameo: Xbox could benefit from having another character in the spotlight, especially a female one to contrast its muscly space marines in green armor. But Kameo’s fantasy world is both too generic and unattractive, and that action-adventure style doesn’t fit in the portfolio naturally right now. They also have multiple flavors of fantasy between Fable, Elder Scrolls, and Avowed. Yes, I had to look up the name of Avowed.

Blast Corps: When I imagine modern Blast Corps, I just see Teardown. And if Teardown exists, do we need Blast Corps? I could only see it if we wrap back around to destruction powered by The Cloud.

Conker: Conker has a little bit of value as a mascot, because you can never have too many of those. But you know those people who say all the great comedies “couldn’t be made today?” Well, in this case, that’s correct. They put Conker in Project Spark, which failed, and greenlighting a full Conker game today would be an insane idea. Conker is nothing if he isn’t offensive, and corporations the size of Microsoft do not want to be offensive. Open and shut.

Battletoads: This is awkward. The Battletoads reboot that released just a few years ago had all the impact of a pine needle in a swimming pool. I didn’t touch it, and I only heard from people who didn’t like it. I’m sure some folks enjoyed it, but I don’t think the game met expectations. Beat ‘em ups have become a weirdly crowded genre in recent years. If you’re getting a few friends together to play through one of them, you are absolutely going to pick Streets of Rage 4, Shredder’s Revenge, or Scott Pilgrim before Battletoads even crosses your mind. You have to be great to stand out as a beat ‘em up. I don’t think Battletoads was ever going to get there. I just hope it didn’t send a message against other Rare series.

Viva Pinata: Okay, this one actually makes way too much sense. When I was playing Viva Pinata, I sometimes thought that it would be much better with a mouse and keyboard. With Microsoft now pushing Windows gaming as much as console, this is a great opportunity. Unlike beat ‘em ups, the simulation genre just keeps getting bigger. When Viva Pinata was coming out, the industry viewed casual gamers differently. The audience is now even bigger and more engaged than ever. We saw dozens of trailers for farming games this summer! If Microsoft had their own in-house take with those marketable characters, it would be a gigantic success. I will do anything to get an audience with Phil Spencer to pitch this. The only thing they would have to change for today’s market is the ability to marry your pinatas.

Killer Instinct: The seesaw tilts back again; the FGC is an incredibly tough market to penetrate. It’s even harder to stay in rotation. Your mechanics have to be solid from the jump, your online must be functional, and a roadmap of updates is essentially required. The last Killer Instinct in 2013 pretty much followed that model with seasonal characters including guest fighters. From what I can gather, it ended in a pretty good place, and there was a groundswell of demand for a new entry in the last year or so. It would benefit Microsoft to have a fighting game in the spotlight again. Smash is obviously gigantic, and with Sony behind EVO, Xbox seems behind in the fighting department. Like I said, though, doing it right is not easy. I hate to say it, but Killer Instinct is not as iconic as Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, which can have new entries every few years. Without the data from the last game, I don’t know what the move is, but it could pay off in theory.

Perfect Dark: Out of every Rare franchise, Perfect Dark is the only one confirmed to be in any kind of development. We saw a flashy announcement trailer, but like Everwild, there has been uncertain progress. If they keep throwing money at it until something ships, it will probably still be pretty fun. I’m expecting a linear campaign (hopefully better than Perfect Dark Zero’s) and a big focus on multiplayer. Looking at that trailer again, I see a serious tone, red-haired Joanna, and no aliens in sight. Safe to say this won’t be like the original Perfect Dark. If it’s not in continuity with any previous game, it would make three totally different interpretations of spy shooter. You have to wonder what actually defines the series behind a catchy name and a logo. Will it even be like the trailer? I would like to play it, but I’m not anticipating it for years.

Banjo-Kazooie: Yes, I’m putting a new Banjo-Kazooie ahead of a game that actually exists. You can clearly see why in my rankings. But it’s not just me that thinks this way. Every year, people get their hopes up for Banjo and Kazooie to come back. The characters are still appealing, and more family games would be a boon to Xbox. Once again, I have to squint at the signals reaching Microsoft and deduce how they’re interpreted. Did they see Yooka-Laylee and assume that everyone who would buy Banjo played that and got their fill? What about Banjo and Kazooie coming to Smash? Did they not read into the massive demand for that deal to be inked? Did they not see everyone lose their minds with excitement when they were revealed? Do they just think Minecraft is enough for the kids? Banjo still won’t go away after all these years, and I just want them to give it a chance. People have floated Toys for Bob as a potential developer for it. They’ve shown excellence working with two very different styles of 3D platformer: Crash and Spyro. They could do Banjo well, but I think there has to be a certain cheeky quality to it. That’s what made Rare stand out at its height, and you can’t just copy it in a different studio. I don’t know the best way to make it work. I just know that if it ever happens, I will be there.

After everything, I bought a copy of Rare Replay on disc secondhand. There is no practical reason to do that. But one day, when my hair is gray and my Game Pass subscription is long gone, I may get nostalgic for this absurd year in my life. Maybe I’ll pop it in and revisit my favorites… or maybe I’ll check out the franchise’s worst games again and wonder why I ever put up with them. And I might have to dip back in once GoldenEye gets added, damn it.

Thank you for reading my biggest blogging project to date. I hope you have a fantastic day. Once again, here is the ranked list of my experiences in this crazy adventure.