It hasn’t even been two months since Rare Replay debuted at E3, and now it’s available, and for only $30, too. It seemed like a fantastic compilation, and having now spent several days with it, I can confirm that, yes, it is exactly that. Rare is one of gaming’s greatest studios, ever. That much is undeniable, given not only their longevity, but their accomplishments through thirty years of development. And they aren’t just making the same games over and over, by any means. As evident in this compilation, the diversity of gameplay and art design is truly amazing, and I don’t think we’ll ever see another studio manage to do what Rare is done.
Praising Rare is easy once you have played some of their games, and no I’m not saying every game they have ever done is amazing and not even every game on this colleciton is. But they have a creativity and production quality for most of their games that’s right up there with Nintendo’s HAL Laboratory. In my youth, I was all PC and Sega, and Rare has traditionally been a Nintendo and Microsoft developer, so I missed many of these titles when they launched either from being too young or not owning the right platform at the time. Actually, most of the older games included here I had never even heard of, like Jetpac, Cobra Triangle, Digger T. Rock, and Gunfright. Howeverothers I have very fond memories of, like playing Battletoads back in elementary school, Killer Instinct Gold at a neighbor’s house, and Kameo: Elements of Power (Rare’s first launch title) was one of my very first Xbox 360 games ten years ago this November.
Playing through all of these games in a few days is impossible, even with the built-in save games and cheats that you can toggle for the older games. A really cool feature for most of the older titles is the ability to rewind, instantly, up to ten seconds to change your fate. You can also create save states for the pre mid-90’s stuff, which is super cool and very useful. There are also cheats you can toggle from the pause menu, and in fact, infinite lives is enabled by default for some games. I think the inclusion of saves and cheats was a great idea by Rare as, let’s face it — you don’t really have the time nor the interest to play through some of these old games without some of the modern conveniences like savegames. Even with aids like rewind and infinite lives, these games are still challenging and fun, it’s just that you save a lot of time by being able to skip restarting levels over again. I’ll be honest, without some of these aids, most of the older games like Jetpac, Atic Atac, and Cobra Triangle go from retro cool and fun to being a grind fairly quickly.
As I worked my way through the years and decades, starting with 1983’s Jetpac and culminating in 2008’s Viva Pinata sequel, I marveled at the game design. I mean you look at Jetpac, which yeah, is not much to look at graphically, and you would think it was going to be some crappy Atari 2600 game that you couldn’t stand to play for more than a few minutes, no matter how much you wanted to. Instead, you get the simple mechanic of an astronaut trying to re-assemble and fuel up his space ship so he can escape the screen and move onto the next challenge where yet more aliens await to thwart him. That’s literally all their is to the concept, and the controls are just as basic, but it’s addictive and pretty cool, actually. Jetpac Refueled, from 2007, was a XBLA title release and it’s exactly what it sounds like, a modern remake that is super fun and looks great. I completely missed it when it first came out, but it’s become one of my favorites in this compilation.
Atic Atac and Sabre Wulf were released soon after Jetpac and are actually a lot more enjoyable. Atic Atac has three character classes and the object is to navigate a large mansion trying to find items and keys to get the heck out because it’s haunted. Objects are randomly placed too. Similarly, Sabre Wulf will test your 2D spatial awareness because like Atic Atac, the level design is intentionally maze-like, requiring you to pay close attention to which doors you go in and out of. Mini-map? Pssh. Underwurlde in 1984 saw the return of the Sabreman character introduced in Sabre Wulf and it’s Rare’s first platforming title. I haven’t spent a great deal of time with it or Knight Lore or Gunfright, but I have gotten a bit hooked on Cobra Triangle released in 1989. This single player game features a speedboat, racing, disarming mines, and I don’t know, it’s pretty damn fun in spurts. The same goes for most of the other titles from that late 80s/90s era like Battletoads, which is still tough and still best played with a friend.
Moving in the the 2000s, looks like my sealed copy of Perfect Dark can safely remain that way with it being included on Rare Replay. Perfect Dark was legendary in dorms across the US when I was in college. Goldeneye was beloved as well, but, due to licensing issues it is not included in Rare Replay, and likely won’t be a DLC game either, but you never know. Of course you have some of the best 3D platforming ever in Banjo-Kazooie and and Banjo-Tooie, as well as 2008’s not-as-great Nuts & Bolts. It’sawesome to see all three of those here. For as much as these games pushed 3D platforming to new heights, Conker’s Bad Fur Day wasn’t shy about mature humor, but it’s goofy enough to work out.
The Xbox 360 titles are all downloaded separately and are launched from the main dash along with your other Xbox One titles. They’re ran inside a virtual Xbox 360, just like how the other backwards compatible titles are handled. I mentioned Jetpac Refuelled earlier as a fun arcade title, and Kameo is still a standout title just shy of ten years of its original release. It no longer looks as amazing as it did when I played through it in 2005, but I’m pleased to see it in this compilation, it’s one of my personal Rare highlights. Meanwhile, the Viva Pinata games’ colorful vibrance holds up well, almost like the visual quality of a CG animated film.
The games themselves are absolutely worth the price, you’re literally talking about $1 per game and several hundred hours of gameplay on the high end, probably a few dozen on the lower end depending of course on what all appeals to you. Every game in this set deserves at least a chance, and you might be surprised how many stick with you. The simple, addictive nature of some of the older ones may not look the part, but I couldn’t help but notice the similarities to some modern indie or mobile titles in that they have a pretty basic concept and addictive qualities to keep you coming back.
Rare Replay has plenty to offer right up front with all thirty games available in full just as soon as the colorful and cheerful opening musical act cutscene that introduces the compilation plays out. Rare used a light-hearted design of an old movie house to act as the ‘lobby’ for their games, complete with red curtains and signage and wording that you would see in an old theatre. Players even get stamps on their tickets to confirm that they have played a game or achieved some milestone within it. The whole movie-goer setting is nicely done and it does a lot to tie the sprawling compilation together. Load times are quick and exiting and re-entering games is as simple as holding a button for a few seconds, which beats some other compilations I have played where you literally had to exit back to the console and re-launch.
As you play the games and get more stamps, you unlock quality featurettes that star Rare developers and workers in a series of candid and really interesting interviews. All of the ones I have unlocked to this point have been really neat as you get these honest, open thoughts about Rare and their philosophies and so forth, not to mention lots of behind the scenes peeks at the offices of Rare and old designs, etc. In addition to Achievements and high scores, these videos are another enticing reason to keep playing.
Speaking of stamps and high scores, the Snapshots and Playlists offer reason to challenge yourself. Eight snapshots are included and give you a specific task to complete in a game, which might make some of the games you are not as interested in playing seem like less of a chore. Playlists are require completing multiple Snapshots in a limited amount of time but net you a lot of stamps upon completion. These extra goodies and the presentation as a whole is a part of what makes Rare Replay such a gem of a release. The games will speak for themselves, and lesser compilations have relied solely on past merits, but Rare, as is typical for them, went the extra mile here.
To the summary…