In a moment of FOMO-induced delirium back in 2017, I desperately secured a preorder for the Super NES Classic Edition. It's a novelty miniaturized console with 21 SNES games built-in. I liked the thing quite a lot, but the fact that it’s not currently in my house should say something about its longevity. Nevertheless, something was eating at me recently. I have enjoyed most of the console’s must-have classics, but I had yet to fully explore a chunk of the mini’s selection. That’s what I did this month. Only I played them on the Steam Deck, which is a lot more convenient.
Like many people, I’ve spent far more time playing as Captain Falcon in Smash than I have trying any of the F-Zero titles. They always struck me as too intense and punishing. That said, I can appreciate the technical prowess of each entry. The original F-Zero is more of a tech demo than anything, but it’s a strong showing for what the SNES can do. If you jumped from an 8-bit machine, I’m sure that your jaw would go slack at the sight of this blistering Mode 7. The game runs really well, which can’t be said for a lot of SNES titles. The art direction is not a total success, though. I think they’re trying to convey space-age racetracks suspended high above the planet. But they can’t really sell that distance, and the graphics outside the tracks are a muddled pile of pixels. It can look more like a carpet than a city.
My intense and punishing assumption turned out to be mostly correct. Even on the beginner difficulty, I struggled with surviving later tracks. If you hit a corner wrong, your machine can pinball between walls with devastating results. There was one instance where my car wasn’t fast enough to make a jump, and I plummeted to my fiery death over and over. Being the stubborn person I am, I kept reloading until I finally scraped by, using a boost on subsequent laps to send me over safely. Oh yeah, the game gives you the equivalent of a Mario Kart mushroom with every lap you finish. The way these tracks are designed, you can only really use it on rare straightaways. It’s fine for what it is, but the later games’ ingenious use of health as boost dulls the mechanic here. One thing that’s certainly not dull is the music. No one can take away the head-bopping melodies that permeate F-Zero. But while I can listen to the soundtrack forever, playing F-Zero gets stale pretty quickly. There aren’t enough variables or sparks of personality to draw me back, at least for this first game. In that way, it’s very unlike…
Super Mario Kart was a big seller and the start of one of Nintendo’s biggest franchises, but I still classify it outside the SNES essentials today. The bones of Mario Kart are mostly here, but so are plenty of strange choices and inconsistencies. It was made as a follow-up to F-Zero, yet Super Mario Kart ends up highlighting the hardware’s limits rather than its potential. For one thing, the game is permanently split-screen. I recognize that this was to support the new two-player mode, but if you don’t have anyone to play with, you end up wishing you had a better field of view. The bottom half of the screen is an intrusive map that isn’t that useful considering the AI will just rubberband anyway. The SNES also apparently can’t process items fairly. The player will be the only racer throwing out shells and bananas from the roulette. Whoever’s closest to your position will instead periodically activate a character-specific item. And these will affect only you, if the numerous times I saw Bowser hover over his own fire trap is any indication. Even before they invented the blue shell, Mario Kart was finding ways to punish you for doing well.
Despite those quirks and more, I was able to settle into Mario Kart a lot easier than F-Zero. The pace is more easygoing, the tracks are often wider, and items can be a help when they work for you. My biggest piece of advice is to pick the Princess. For one, her acceleration is high, which makes it easier to recover. More importantly, it halves the likelihood of being targeted with shrinking mushrooms, the biggest headache out there. Once I found my character, most of the races weren’t too bad. Unlocking and defeating the special cup was a big challenge, of course. But I really enjoy this version of Rainbow Road, so it was okay. To nitpick some more, there are too many courses in the Mario Circuit and Bowser’s Castle locations, while other themes only have one or two tracks on offer. Also, the character sprites are uncomfortably off-model. Yoshi, my guy, please put the tongue away and close your mouth. But the soundtrack is full of jams and items make the race unpredictable in a fun way. I’m glad elements of this game are preserved in sequels that I’m much more likely to revisit.
Following up an all-time great like the NES Punch-Out is not easy. That’s why the SNES version can be forgiven for having a less notable legacy. Even without that status, it’s still Punch-Out. It’s a thrill to learn the patterns and beat back boisterous boxers. While the control feel is very familiar, there are tweaks to mechanics that don’t ring as either good or bad to me. First, blocking punches is now essential. Opponents, just like you, can throw out high or low attacks, and matching them with your defense will nullify the damage. The perspective makes it hard to distinguish where punches will land, so I just reloaded until trial and error let me learn each sequence. Additionally, the star punch mechanic is replaced with a special meter that fills as long as you do well. I like this change because it simulates the momentum of a real fight. Keep the offense up and you’re rewarded with more power. You’ll need it, because the matches are now one-round affairs, and there’s no winning by decision. That ticked me off a little, but seeing the in-game push towards speedrunning, I can accept that Super Punch-Out has a slightly different focus.
Mechanics aren’t everything in Punch-Out, though. You also need to go against opponents who deserve a good glove to the face. On this front, the SNES game isn’t perfect. There are a few winners, like Bear Hugger and Super Macho Man, who would be improved further in the Wii version. A lot of the cast, regrettably, is stuffed with uninteresting boxers. There’s less chance someone will get offended by national stereotypes, which is a positive, but most of these guys don’t have the stuff. Ending the game with a generic musclehead, then his identical brother, sucks the air out of the room. Despite the graphical leap, the facial expressions sometimes feel less animated than the NES version. The fact that there are good designs here makes the uneven application more disappointing. If you can get past that, Super Punch-Out has many of the strengths common to the series. The snappy controls have proven virtually age-proof. While it’s not the first Punch-Out you should run out and try, it shouldn’t be so overlooked, either.
This was the only game I had strong feelings for before the playthrough. And those feelings were intensely negative. I hated so many things about it. The cheap enemies! The unbearably stiff double jump! The eye-straining slowdown! I never know what emotion I should be feeling with this series. Obviously, I’m supposed to struggle, but am I supposed to soldier on, or are the developers laughing at me? I know there are fans out there, and that’s cool. This kind of game design doesn’t agree with me, however, so I just save-state-stitched my way to a perfect run. When I did this, I got to look past the problems and enjoy the game underneath it all. I could see things I never would have otherwise. The game’s frame rate may dip like a drinking bird, but at least the sprites are big and detailed. Each level’s scenario is varied and offers its own challenge made fun to conquer by the safety net. I got to see the game without wanting to break anything, which is why I love save states.
If you get the knife and the best armor, there’s not much in your way that you can’t melt. Ghosts 'n Goblins infamously makes you do a second run to “finish” the game, and this one is no different. I couldn’t discern much that changed on that loop other than a new weapon you need to find. The true final boss was a step above anything else in difficulty, and I’d really rather not fight it again. Listen, if I could have left Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts off of the SNES Classic, I would have. There’s already a better horror-themed action sidescroller on there, and that’s Super Castlevania IV. But if nothing else, I got a glimpse of what the faithful few like about the series. You masochists.
I have to watch golf for my job, and it’s just about the most vapid and pointless sport out there. Golf video games, on the other hand, are usually a good time, as are Kirby spinoff titles. So, here’s Kirby’s Dream Course. You knock Kirby around these isometric arenas bumping off enemies until the last one becomes the hole. I tried it out numerous times before, but almost always in the fantastic versus mode. Definitely look up some videos of that for some friendship-ending hilarity. The single-player, though, always lost me after a few holes. Perhaps the slow pace had something to do with it. When you sit down and give it the time, Kirby’s Dream Course is pleasant, but it’s more puzzle than sports. Since you can kill enemies in any order, the levels appear to be freeform. In reality, there’s an optimal route planned out for every one. Figuring that out is fun, but screw up a shot and you screw up your run. I found it more engaging to save after every shot and dial in the perfect angle. The amount of control you have over Kirby’s direction ensures that there’s a way out of nearly any spot.
Some enemies will give traditional Kirby powers when defeated. The applications of high jump or fireball to golf is exciting, but these are often liabilities. Unless they’re a prescribed part of the puzzle route, the copy abilities will usually send you into the abyss. It’s hilarious when your friend does it in versus, but not so much on your own. And while the play field is very readable, the graphics are desaturated, losing some of the Kirby appeal. I also recommend you take breaks if you go through the single player. There are some 64 holes, so it drags on after a while. But Kirby’s Dream Course is a neat little game. I would be happy to see it come back since there are more Kirby games coming out than we can keep track of. If you try it, though, make sure to bring a friend.
What’s Next?
I’ve made it through all of the bite-sized games on the SNES Classic. That leaves only two titles I haven’t even booted: Secret of Mana and Final Fantasy III. That’s entirely due to a lack of time, not a lack of interest. I’m going to fit them in somewhere, but I’m pretty confident that I won’t be writing about them. For one, these are some of the most discussed games on the internet, so finding a new angle would be impossible. More importantly, people get really touchy about them. I randomly brought up that I would play them elsewhere, and someone immediately tried to preemptively backseat me. I really don’t need the grief of people in the comments telling me I didn’t… optimize my leveling, or whatever. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time.
Before the flood of new releases starts up again, I took advantage of this lull period to blast away some of my troublesome backlog. I buy games faster than I finish them. However, the joyous feeling of beating games is ingrained in my psyche. I gotta do it! The three subjects of this post earned starkly tiered responses from me. It’s time to write about games everyone else has already played in High! Mid! Low!
Mirror’s Edge had been sitting on my Xbox, installed, for quite a while. I guess it became invisible to me, or else it was never the right time to try it. When I finally booted it this month, it was on a total whim. I thought the game might fit my current mood, but I had no idea how right I would be. Mirror’s Edge hooked me almost immediately and remained a thrill ride that scarcely shows its age.
First-person platforming is rarely done well, but Mirror’s Edge is the exception that proves the rule. That starts with the intuitive control scheme. Once I internalized that the left bumper is “ascend” and the trigger is “descend,” the rest clicked into place. The button mapping is far from conventional, but it’s a good fit in the context of this game. The next pillar is the level design. The developers included a hefty number of parkour interactions. These platforming challenges feel naturalistic, yet tightly designed. One second, you’ll jump on a zipline, then you’ll drop onto a crash pad, make a running leap off a board, and grab onto a pipe. The Runner’s Vision mechanic is what makes this smooth sequence possible. Some players may dislike the “handholding” – and there’s a hard mode that turns off the red highlights – but personally, the guidance let me keep the sense of momentum. It immersed me in the fantasy of a freerunning savant. Not every moment is pain-free. Sometimes, the camera doesn’t lead the eye in the right direction, causing unnecessary confusion. Still, the batting average is shockingly high.
Most of the time, you’re either running on the rooftops or in some building. The former was my preferred environment, but it wouldn’t be as fun without spicing it up from time to time. The various locations intersect in a satisfying way over the course of a mission. More unique settings like the sewers or subway system add variety. The game's stark art style, defined by bright colors and flat detail, makes every place visually appealing. This is one of the best decisions they could have made. Compared to most other games released at the time, the graphics look great. Coupled with the smooth frame rate on backwards compatibility, it makes Mirror’s Edge feel like a modern title. That feeling is reinforced because new releases are still cribbing from this aesthetic. And why shouldn’t they? It’s iconic!
From reputation, I know that people are iffy on the game’s combat sections. I didn’t find them to be awful. Sure, they’re stiff compared to the rest of the gameplay. On the other hand, I think it’s important to have Faith actively fight against her foes rather than running away all the time. There was one section I did have to keep repeating over and over. That, though, was almost entirely due to my own impatience. And it kept playing the very best song in the game, so at least I had that. The story of Mirror’s Edge is not the most well-thought, but it is serviceable. They set up every chapter well. Faith and her radio buddy are sure to explain that they need to find such and such person or get to whatever location. This makes the levels motivated beyond an abstract obstacle course. It's a small thing, but one where a lot of games falter. When you drill deeper into silly things like character motivation and people… being where they are? Does it make sense? Uh… Listen, when certain people appeared on screen, my brain clocked, “they are going to betray us.” And when it was proven right, it didn’t really pay attention to the details.
I thought Mirror’s Edge was an excellent playthrough. I was quickly kicking myself for not trying it earlier. But now that I have, I’m still impressed with how strong of a first swing it is. This should have been a much bigger IP. I know everyone on the internet seems to agree. But we can’t have everything, so we’ll throw it onto the Sleeping Dogs pile of sadness.
What’s Next: I do have the follow-up, Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst, because it was like three bucks recently. I have pretty measured expectations for it. To be honest, I quite enjoy middling open worlds from time to time. I’ll either play that or finally try Neon White.
This is the second of two expansions for Valve’s medium-defining FPS. It’s considered the lesser of the two, but I played it first because I’m the type of person that eats vegetables before anything else. Blue Shift is a side story to the original campaign, tasking you with dinking around even more of the Black Mesa facility. It occupies more space than some countries. Blue Shift is unfortunately a case of been there, done that. You go through all-new level design, but the ambiance is very familiar to the original game. I was always hoping for something new or exciting to justify the five-hour runtime, but nothing tipped it over the edge.
Much of the lacking excitement comes from the expansion’s framing. Gordon Freeman is uncannily good with weapons, and he’s literally worshipped as a savior, but you have to remind yourself that he’s Just Some Guy. Barney, then, is at least 300% more Just Some Guy than Freeman. Anything you do as Barney is necessarily less cool than the first Half-Life. I understand that Gearbox wasn’t about to step on Valve’s toes too much, but it’s not a great concept for a fun expansion. There are no new weapons or enemies to experiment with. No environmental interactions tickled my fancy. All I remember is an aggravating elevator puzzle.
That moment was the only truly frustrating one, I must stress. No high-octane moment is enough to tear your hair out. It’s still Half-Life, so the shooting is solid. There are noteworthy set pieces, even if the overall momentum is inconsistent. Blue Shift is fine. It’s just not essential by a long shot. I know I’m probably the last person to add the Half-Life series to their Steam account. Still, I found plenty of things to latch onto when I played the original some years ago. That was absent in Blue Shift. It’s got a mercenary feeling, made from mostly old assets for a quick buck. We see this type of DLC all the time today, so it’s not that surprising. And I certainly can’t be mad at Valve over this when I can load the rest of my unfinished games onto the Steam Deck and glue myself to it.
What’s Next: Well, there’s still Opposing Force. In essence, the series only goes up from here. I don’t know when I’ll find time to fit it in, but maybe one of these years.
Playing Hitman: Codename 47 today is like going back in time to meet your significant other as a shitty teen. Part of you is horrified that this could be the same person you know. Another part is almost proud of them for maturing so much. Even in the best light, you’re still stuck with an awful version of a person redeemed only by the fact that they will eventually grow into someone you like.
Let me rewind. I jumped onto the Hitman franchise with the World of Assassination soft reboot. It quickly became one of my favorites to return to over and over. Through the eventual trilogy’s highs and lows, IO refined a sandbox where goofing off and masterful play are equally fun. But I had assumed that the gameplay in the reboot was pretty much the same as the preceding titles. It’s why I scooped those games up in a Steam sale years ago. But if we look at the evolutionary timeline, with a fully formed Hit-human on one side, the 2000 release is closer to fish than ape.
Over my many hours with Hitman, I identified the three elements that make a successful level. I want to 1) Explore an exotic and appealing location where I can 2) kill a charismatic target in 3) memorably varied ways. Codename 47 comes up short in each of these criteria. Where locations are concerned, there’s nothing more exciting than typical video game fare. These 23-year-old PC graphics don’t do any favors whatsoever. Assassination targets are painfully basic, and the methods available to you are scant compared to what modern players expect. Every time I tried to play the game as a sandbox, I was slapped in the face and put in time-out.
I tried as hard as I could, but I could find no way to play Codename 47 stealthily. The biggest culture shock is that there’s no way to interact with NPCs nonlethally. I’ve lured countless waiters into bathrooms to steal their clothes in my time. Here, though, you need a bullet or fiber wire to do the job. When I’m used to minimizing casualties outside of the targets, it feels wrong. The detection system here is set off by a hair’s breadth. If the poor waiter makes too much noise as they collapse, you’ll find a small army of guards ready to mow you down in 2.3 seconds. Even when you’ve got your disguise, taking the wrong step or doing required actions will bring the same result. Often, guards will be stationed outside of a door you need to enter. There’s not coin in this game to get them out of the way. If you walk in, they shoot. If you shoot, everyone else will shoot. It’s a no-win scenario. And some aspects of a mission are randomized every try, so you can never truly get comfortable. The death knell of this whole system, though, is the total absence of mid-mission saving. Fail at the very last moment, as I did numerous times? Back to the very beginning and the bathroom. Am I a pampered modern stealth player? I seriously don’t care if you label me so, but you have to try it yourself first. The merciless punishment for failure totally disincentivized any will to experiment… or even to play fair.
I first tried Hitman: Codename 47 two years ago. I struggled through the early missions setting up the first actual assassination. Once I finally got there, I rapidly lost my mind. I became furious at the game’s draconian systems, so far removed from what I knew. Traveling to the target’s hideout only rewarded me with bullet holes. I went through a lot of difficulty repeatedly trying to accomplish the secondary objective, stealing a jade statue and delivering it to a tired racial stereotype. He rewarded me with poison for the target’s meal, which triggered the target and his giant enforcer to enter stage left. I hurriedly donned a waiter outfit and poisoned the food. I was rubbing my hands together when the enforcer unexpectedly taste-tested it for him, keeling over. And then the bullet holes arrived all the same. I was livid that all that progress was thrown away in seconds due to something I couldn’t possibly have seen coming. That was it. I rage quit.
Then, in 2023, I decided that it was time to revisit Codename 47. Don’t get me wrong, I had no intention of playing by the game’s rules anymore. One google of console commands later, and I was an invincible and invisible killing machine running past any possible opposition. What I saw was not encouraging. Following the restaurant level is a needlessly gargantuan jungle you must run between for minutes on end. No cheat can speed that up. The next target was a drug lord whose only personality was spouting lines from (I assume) Scarface. The humorous thing about my cheats was that alerted guards would follow 47 around with their guns pointed, but powerless to actually pull the trigger. I streaked through an assembly of world leaders at a big hotel, a location that held the most promise for a modern reinterpretation of the game. I endured some seriously painful missions at a dark port, where auto-fail conditions punished me regardless of immortality. The game crashed a lot, but considering it was never designed for modern hardware, I’m amazed it managed to hold together at all. Finally, I returned to the asylum where 47 completed the tutorial mission. Because of my… advantages, I felt that this was a fitting climax and an improvement on the rest of the game. While the earlier targets are weak, they at least tie together with the doctor that created 47. You hear him rant at his creation all through the tutorial, so there’s an actual connection with the guy when the time comes to shut him up. There’s drama when 47 walks into his trap, even as I wept for any remaining legitimate players. The events of the first game are still referenced and important to the modern series, albeit retconned heavily. I’m glad I could at least experience them firsthand, even if it’s largely a disaster.
What’s next: Okay, I’m dimly aware that some of Codename 47’s missions were remade in Hitman: Contracts. But they need to pull a Last of Us and remake the remake if they want people to get the context. And, like, make it less gross. As for me, I’m all in. I need to find out when this series gets fun. But first, I’m looking forward to the new mode coming to Hitman 3. That should be the ultimate palette cleanser.
I will never, ever, EVER care about Elden Ring. Those games are 100% not for me, and no amount of online gaslighting will change that! Sorry, I had to get that off my chest. 2022 was another year of positive changes in my life, but we’re here for video game talk. The year wasn’t exactly devoid of big releases, but most of them passed me by. Nintendo’s decent offerings were overshadowed by delaying my most anticipated titles out of the calendar, continued fleecing with every newsports game, and players doomsaying the antiquated specs of the Switch. Have these people not seen a Nintendo console in the last 15 years? PlayStation Studios put out some well-reviewedsequels that were nonetheless too similar to pull me back. Xbox had next to no first-party excitement, but Game Pass is my main draw at this point. Many of the titles on this list were played on that service, which makes me feel good about the whole thing.
I was able to find enough new games to fill out 10 spots well enough. None of them, however, quite hit the same highs as in the past. This isn’t a bad thing, as I used 2022 to set yet another personal record for number of games beat. All told, over 80 sets of credits rolled. I have a lot of big franchises clogging up my backlog, and I finally got sick of it. I cleared many older Sonic and LEGO titles from my plate. I chipped away at retro collections for Mega Man, Castlevania, and Contra. And in my most ambitious project to date, I finally earned every achievement in Rare Replay. My most rewarding moments were with games I missed in 2021. To name a few, Death’s Door, The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles, and Guardians of the Galaxy were all excellent times. After all that work, though, the needle on my backlog hasn’t moved that much. I’m going into next year with an ironclad plan of attack to remedy that. But enough about years that aren’t 2022! It’s time for my 10 favorite games that released in the last 12 months. There’s no Elden Ring.
Oh wait, I forgot to pick a theme for this year… Well, I suppose it’s “reinvention.” A lot the games on this list took a good hard look at themselves and made changes to better suit modern tastes. The open-world structure of Pokémon Legends: Arceus was promising enough to bring me back after disavowing the series years ago. Is Arceus the best it could be? Not at all, but it let me off the leash just enough to really get something out of it. Most importantly, the Sinnoh region is still populated with Pokémon old enough for me to recognize. What I want from this franchise is to be convinced that Pokémon exist as creatures in the world. That ideal gets continually more difficult as they invent new monsters, but Arceus at least makes an attempt. Initially, I was eager to poke around the big environments, filling out the Pokédex and doing side quests. Pretty quickly, though, I had the team I wanted and didn’t feel motivated to do anything else. That’s when I had an idea. How fast could I mainline Arceus? I was already looking away from the screen and mashing through any story-related text boxes. Blasting through the game in 15 hours was the perfect way to get a fast hit of the Pokémon experience.
On a good day, I can remember maybe half of the type matchups that make up the battling basics of Pokémon. Natures, abilities, EVs… I have heard people talk about these before, but they have never once entered my mental calculations while playing. Yes, children literally know more about battling than I do, but in my defense, the games never ask for more than a child’s understanding. But my ill-formed strategy mixed with some suspect game tuning to ultimately return a lost sense of danger. I think somebody screwed up, because in nearly every battle, either I or my opponent’s monster would die in a single hit. I was chronically underleveled, but I was able to squeak by every time. Every fight turned into an exciting samurai duel where the quickest creature won. I would come out the other side with one or two of my guys alive, but that unexpected pushback kept me playing until the end. It was a playthrough that lasted exactly as long as it should have. I know these games always hide a lot of content after the credits, but… I don’t care. I don’t need to know that the obviously evil guy is evil, or whether your character ever gets back to the present (I bet they hadn’t even thought to address it). Truthfully, I would still rather see Game Freak make more titles like Pocket Card Jockey than continue this self-destructive Pokémon cycle. If that can’t happen, at least I was able to find a way to enjoy this one.
When I saw that the two-person team of Analgesic Productions would be releasing another game this year, I made it a priority to check it out. Their previous title, Anodyne 2, was quietly amazing and my 2019 favorite. Sephonie is also a 3D platformer with evocative low-poly graphics and dreamy music. The jumping challenges in this one are a lot more technical and unique, though. The trio of scientists you control have a short dash move that doubles as a wall jump. There’s also a wall run move that I had a hard time getting the hang of. It sometimes feels closer to controlling cars than people, but once you wrap your mind around it, executing Sephonie Island’s obstacle courses feels rewarding. Cheat options are also included if you get truly stuck. These platforming bits are interspersed with block matching puzzle sections, and I don’t know how to feel about them. They are relatively brief and evolve enough to not feel repetitive, but I can’t help feeling that they’re incongruous with the rest of the game. These could be replaced with Minesweeper or Wheel of Fortune and not have much of an effect. The Zelda-like dungeons in Anodyne 2 were a lot better at reinforcing the story themes and offering varied gameplay in my opinion.
The narrative didn’t hit me the same way this time, but you can feel the personal experiences poured into the words on screen. I respect it for that. The main issue is the six-hour runtime. Don’t get me wrong, I adore short games. And in those hours, Sephonie’s platforming and puzzle gameplay develop in a satisfying way. However, I don’t think there’s enough time for the scientists’ characters to shine. After defeating a boss, you see a lengthy sequence detailing some of their backstory in an artful way. I thought these were brilliant, mostly because of the intense specificity in the prose. Sephonie Island is a weird place filled with alien-like creatures, but it’s on Earth, and these characters are from real places. The evocative detail in the writing at these points convinced me that some of it must be autobiographical. Backstory is just that, though, and I was hoping for more interaction between them in the present. What’s there hits the sketches of an interesting arc, but more space to talk would have been appreciated. The ending of Sephonie could be seen as a hard turn, but I think it justifies itself and comes away with a strong contemporary message. So while I didn’t connect with Sephonie as much as Anodyne 2, I know that someone surely will. That still counts as a success in my book.
My excitement for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is limited to the first movie and a few of the comics. But it’s pretty admirable that the franchise has reimagined itself so many times for different generations while keeping the fogeys from the ‘80s happy. Shredder’s Revenge is perhaps best enjoyed in that multigenerational way, in co-op play, but I still had a great time as a single player. Every moment oozes with love, talent, and personality. It’s the idealized look for this version of the Turtles, and you get to see all their greatest hits (plus some lesser characters I didn’t recognize). The fighting in this beat-em-up is solid, with weighty hits and a good flow. But once you realize you can just do a dance and earn charges for your special move forever, some of the nuance goes away. Tweaking this to require more risk would help, I think. The campaign has extra objectives to occupy your time if you so choose. Using them to boost the stats of your turtle is a nice bonus. I would say the game is a bit long to comfortably fit in a single evening of relaxing fun, but each level is some intriguing new environment to keep you playing. I was sufficiently hyped by the end, with bombastic boss fights and sick rhymes bringing it all together. Tee Lopes is a fantastic composer, and the surprising guest artists on the soundtrack make it even better. I don’t think you can leave Shredder’s Revenge without a big smile on your face. For die-hard shellheads and casual ninja appreciators alike, it’s an easy recommendation.
At some point, Netflix added mobile games to its subscription. It’s a bit of a headscratcher to me, but if you have the service, Poinpy is very much worth a try. By the creator of Downwell, Ojiro Fumoto, this very much strikes me as his wanting to make an “Upwell” and changing things piecemeal until it all clicked into place. You’re being chased by this irate cat, and you must appease it by collecting fruit for its desired smoothies. It’s abstract at first. But eventually, you’ll be dialing in your jumps and planning around level gimmicks to execute blistering athletic feats for high combos. It’s all got a bouncy attitude reinforced by the pleasant graphics and Calum Bowen’s quirky soundtrack. Some form of progression is included in this roguelike with unlockable modifiers that enable you to effectively break the game if you use them right. Just as fun is the puzzle mode, where you must think about your bounces carefully to collect fruit, building knowledge that helps in the main game. Poinpy is an addicting timewaster, and as part of a subscription, there are no ads at all. It also has perhaps the craziest ending on this list, which is really saying something. I was surprised there was an ending at all, and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It’s probably unlikely that I’ve motivated you to download Poinpy and play all the way through, but at least do yourself a favor and look up the cutscene. I enjoyed Poinpy so much that I went back to Downwell, which I used to think was insurmountably difficult, and finished that one as well.
Kirby’s 30th year was an eventful one, including a concert, an announced remaster, and a spin-off racing game. But nothing was so momentous as the puff’s first real 3D platformer, Kirby and the Forgotten Land. I’m impressed at how HAL Labs appeared to change so much yet really changed so little. Everything you’ve come to expect from the series is here, including secret-dense stages and extra modes. It’s the added dimension that gives those traditional elements an exciting sheen. The breadth of copy abilities is scaled back, but what’s here has been rethought and tailored to the new style of play. It’s quality over quantity – any given power has an identifiable special use, which wasn’t always the case. This is highlighted in the optional challenge rifts that complement the main stages. Upgrading these abilities is also a fun twist, and I was always looking forward to seeing what utility the new forms would provide. The real star, though, is arguably Mouthful Mode. New Kirby games usually have some kind of gimmick, and this one is very smartly executed. Aside from the novelty, taking over the found objects creates some engaging puzzle moments. For instance, finding the right shape to match an oncoming wall, or ferrying water across a treacherous path. There is a good variety, but the Mouthful objects reoccur enough to build familiarity and escalate challenge. A lot of times, the game will give you the option to retry a set piece moment if you missed goodies along the way. This is remarkably friendly, as I remember the time when Kirby games made you blindly pick between two doors and dangle the treasure you “failed” to get in front of you. Unfortunately, there’s no way to exit a stage mid-run and save your accomplishments. That ultimately made returning for 100% too repetitive to attempt.
For some Kirby fans, the presentation is the primary draw, and Forgotten Land generally does not disappoint. When the Switch’s hardware is increasingly used as an excuse for ugly games, you need only to point to Kirby here to show them how it’s done. There are compromises, sure, but the environmental art direction is very attractive. The new Beast Pack bosses, though… that’s a miss for me. They have some weird proportions and use a design language that unsettles me. I’m sure someone like it, but it doesn’t blend well with the traditional Kirby art. The music boasts some great melodies, as usual, and contextualizing the sound test as a Waddle Dee band is the cutest thing ever. Actually, the whole Waddle Dee town is delightful. I’m not sure why Kirby wants to make friends with the Dees when he's usually happy to eviscerate them. But that’s how Kirby rolls; he can be your pal, or he can destroy you, and one doesn’t preclude the other. After a few years in a sort of slump, I can say that I’m excited to be a Kirby fan again. Forgotten Land was the key to reinvigorating this underrated icon for the decades to come.
“Why does everyone on podcasts love Vampire Survivors so much?”
I was a little confused when I finally tried the game for myself. You just… walk around and watch your weapons automatically kill these mindless hordes of monsters? My first few hours, I was sort of flailing around and dying a lot. But I’m glad I stuck with it. Once I started investing in persistent upgrades and learning what makes a good build, I was on the road of the game’s addicting progression. The sheer content-per-dollar value of Vampire Survivors is astonishing. Just as soon as you think you’ve got a handle on things, an entirely new layer reveals itself. The more characters and items you unlock, the bigger your pool of options becomes, to a transformative degree. Oh, you thought that was it? Look at all these secret weapon evolutions to really power up your run. Oh, you fool! Try out these tarot cards and change everything. Oh, I pity you!! These cheat codes unlock an unfathomable number of novelties so that you shall never reach the end of the rabbit hole. It’s an infectious loop, complete with sparkles and fireworks, that’s been primarily used in modern gaming to con you out of money with microtransactions. In Vampire Survivors, though, everything is in service of engagement for fun’s sake. Once the game hit 1.0, I spent a good amount of time getting every achievement. It’s like popping popcorn! But as soon as I was done, more stuff was added, and a substantial expansion followed. Honestly, I’ve kind of had my fill at this point. Still, Vampire Survivors is undeniably punching far above its weight. It’s proof that high-fidelity graphics aren’t necessary, and a rare “podcast game” that proves to be more entertaining than whatever the podcast is.
Before Pikmin 4 was officially announced, I was jonesin’ for that Pikmin goodness. Tinykin… isn’t that! But it’s amazing all the same. Instead of real-time strategy, you use your miniature army of creatures for 3D platforming. The many rooms of the comparatively giant house are some of the most delightful spaces I’ve explored in a game. That’s all due to how they crisscross to make every possible path an inviting one. Shining pollen calls out from the distance, just begging to be collected. Get enough and you can float through the air longer, letting you reach even more places. Enjoy the beautifully realized furniture that is both naturalistic and placed with a designer’s eye. Even if I didn’t connect with the insect NPCs everywhere, they add so much in retrospect to making the environments feel lived in. They’ve transformed places we see every day into delightful cities and attractions. These nonlinear levels are masterfully designed. And while I hate to say it… I feel like the Tinykin themselves are overshadowed because of it. Yeah, they’re cute, and I liked all their functions. Connecting electrical currents… cool! Making ladders... great! But once you explore most of the room, you’ve just got a bunch of creatures following you around with nothing to do. Part of me feels like they were meant to get people in the door and to make the game stand out. That definitely worked if it’s true. Tinykin is another short game, but there is yet more to do for those with a compulsion for scrubbing every inch for stuff. There’s a decent chance I’ll come back to it, if only to enjoy the feeling of hopping around with my miniature crew. I’ve written some more about it already!
Whoa, plot twist… in a year where I generally stayed away from the “prestige” model of third-person, cinematic, violent releases, the second Plague Tale somehow made it into my top three games. The reason I played it? I thought the rats looked cool. I blasted through the first entry before Requiem came out and enjoyed it quite a lot. Even now, I’m not sure which of the two I like better, but the series is worth trying all the same. In the first few hours, Requiem feels like your standard safe sequel. Like in Innocence, you sneak around deadly zealots, craft alchemical powers from scavenged materials, and manipulate seas of rats with various forms of light. The most fundamental changes stand out only because I played the series back to back, but most of them are positive. For one, stealth-focused areas are a lot more open than before. There are branching paths all over the place, and you’re free to find your own route to the end point. In a genre that so often feels tied to a mandatory script, improvising my own way reinforced the role of scrappy children out of their element. Depending on how you tackle these sections, one of three experience bars matching your playstyle will increase. The abilities earned this way made me feel seen by the game, and they were flexible enough for me to fill two of the three bars by the end. Crafting and scavenging have been streamlined by splitting ammunition and upgrade resources. This alleviated inventory quibbles I had with Innocence. One change I disagree with, on the other hand, is the swap from French accents to British ones by the voice actors. It’s a small thing, and one I got used to, but setting-appropriate accents immersed me strongly in Innocence. Maybe I’ll try the French language option in a future replay.
Once things get moving and Requiem started to differentiate itself, I was effectively glued in place until the credits. The new characters that join Amicia and Hugo were welcome, the various mechanics all gelled beautifully, and the environments were so stunning I popped up photo mode often. The back part of the game is on a single island, and the artists did an unbelievable job selling it as an outward paradise with dark secrets underneath. The performances of the two leads brilliantly sell every twist and turn of the plot. Yet it follows a similar trope as other “prestige” games… namely, that the player is clearly ruining everything by continuing on, and things would really be better if they had just given up. The brutality and suffering are palatable only because it’s about rats flowing like water, which is still kind of funny. I was a little disappointed with player-controlled rat swarms, which was hyped before release. You only have a few occasions to use it, to pretty unspectacular effect, and I actually found that the limited implementation in the first game was more fun. Nevertheless, the non-controlled rats put on a real spectacle in the last moments. A Plague Tale: Requiem is affecting and engaging, and it should find a spot on your catch-up list if you missed out on it.
For the previous eight entries on this list, I could heartily recommend the game to any player. With LEGO Star Wars, though, you have to be a lot like me to get the most out of it. That is, a nostalgic completionist who likes spending tons of time in cartoonish versions of their favorite movies. As I found out online, there are a lot more of us than I realized. After 384 LEGO games from Traveler’s Tales, they finally decided to make some significant changes. They’ve pulled the camera in and more efficiently categorized the hundreds of characters unlockable for play. Most important is the change of balance for story levels versus the open world. Once they started making these vast overworlds with hundreds of special bricks to collect, I lost interest in previous titles. Here, the story missions are slight, and even more emphasis is foisted onto the exploration. There are over 1600 collectibles in the galaxy, and I was compelled to find them all. To my shock, this is the best open world TT has ever done. What changed? The camera helps a lot with putting you in the Star Wars world. And goodies are scattered everywhere, turning the game into a plastic Super Mario Odyssey. The dozen or so explorable planets will intersect on certain side quests, all rewarding a recognizable or deep cut character to join the team. There are complex puzzles (while still being appropriate for a children’s game). You can also use Boba Fett to sequence break a lot of stuff, which always feels great.
If you want the honest truth, the Star Wars setting does a lot of heavy lifting. I had a ball seeing yet another game’s interpretations of these planets. I lit up with glee every time I recognized an obscure character or in-joke from the depths of Wookiepedia. The new voice actors are surprisingly well-cast, and the returning ones from the cartoons are excellent as always. This game was the first time I was exposed to the complete story of The Rise of Skywalker, and it seems like the only palatable version to me. Skywalker Saga is the most fun I’ve had with a LEGO game in at least 10 years. And I played at least 10 of them in 2022 alone! Yeah, they’re something of a weakness for me, but Skywalker’s stunning scope is one I would only have patience for set in a franchise with deep personal roots. I struggle to think of one that would suit this style of game better. The Skywalker Saga doesn’t include the best action of this year, nor the best exploration, not even the best comedy. But it gives the opportunity to explore the Star Wars galaxy for dozens of hours, which is what I’ve wanted to do since I was a youth.
Some of the first games I ever played for myself were the Humongous Entertainment Junior Adventures. They instilled in me a lifelong appreciation for the point and click genre, even if the number of games I can recommend today without reservations is pretty low. I didn’t know it then, but Humongous was co-founded by designer Ron Gilbert, who was in large part responsible for the genre’s boon. Years later, I would try Gilbert’s two Monkey Island games, which still contain humor and inventiveness rarely matched today. I was equal parts surprised and ecstatic that he and other original team members would Return to Monkey Island™ in 2022. Adventure games never seriously died out, they just lost appeal for people outside a small community of devotees. With Return catching the eyes of a more mainstream audience, it’s both a showcase for player-friendly modernizations and a big pile of nostalgia. That duality is reflected in the story, which focuses on uncovering The Secret of Monkey Island™ once and for all.
First, the puzzles and interface. On the console version, bubbles helpfully highlight all interactable objects onscreen. Their prompts are written to have more context than just “look cannon” or what have you, adding functionality and personality. Days of pixel hunting and brute-forcing verbs are behind us. Adventure gamers often love wandering around with no clues, and Return facilitates this well. If you don’t like getting stuck, though, there’s a smart hint system and a lower difficulty option. On the hard mode, I thought these puzzles were wonderfully balanced. The number of things you have to juggle at any given time is always controlled to be manageable. The early game is a fairly linear retread of areas from Monkey Island 1, which eases you in. The latter half is a tangled spaghetti structure of new locales like in Monkey Island 2. These are my favorite moments in adventure titles, where you can pull in any number of directions and find how it all unravels. Aside from a couple of red herrings that had me solidly on the wrong track (you’re telling me “the bite of a thousand quills” isn’t the toothbrush Stan wanted?), I rarely found myself at a loss for ideas. This is puzzle design that has been honed over decades.
The second half of adventure games’ success is story and presentation. One look at the art style and I immediately said, “people are going to hate this.” I kept an open mind, and in the thick of it, the match is perfect. It’s the most vivid form the series has taken. Importantly, the art is readable without being barren. The dulcet music throughout the journey was always enjoyable, though I confess I most enjoyed the moments when they played the old hits. That brings us to the story, the new most controversial part of Return. The trio of Guybrush, Elaine, and LeChuck is nailed again. One look at their motivations here is a microcosm of the story at large. She’s trying to move on to something useful yet boring, all while the boys circle the same meaningless pursuit. Tons of new and returning characters populate the sea, and some are given more depth than previously imagined. Guybrush being an adventure game protagonist, he typically ruins their lives, and the story makes a half-serious attempt to address that. The theming is clear, but the ending kind of fumbles the ball. In its defense, it lets the player map onto it what Monkey Island means to them. But major plot threads are just left dangling and ignored, which I struggle to see as good storytelling. Endings are hard to write. At least this one can be a thinker. No matter your take, Return to Monkey Island is the best form of a genre I still revere. Its reinventions should be applied more broadly to realize ideas that are not easily explored elsewhere in gaming. And Ron, if you happen to be reading this, I’ll reiterate what I said years ago: The world desperately needs another Putt-Putt.
For everyone else, thank you for checking out this list! It’s been a whirlwind year in many respects, but I’m proud of what I’ve been able to accomplish. If you want some further reading over the holiday break, I humbly suggest you bookmark my nine-part series covering every achievement in Rare Replay. It was a project as frightening as it was rewarding, and I would love to get some more eyes on it. Regardless, have yourself a great 2023 and I’ll see you soon.
All for an intangible quantity of bragging rights and accomplished feelings.
I dedicated myself to earning every achievement in 2015’s Rare Replay collection. Why? Because it’s there, and because I love setting huge goals for myself to do “all of X.” What I need to realize is that setting the goal is usually the most fun part. I was new to Xbox until 2021, but I was a fan of Rare’s games on Nintendo systems, my favorite being Banjo-Kazooie. This project seemed like a good way to get my feet wet, catching up on Rare’s output after the Microsoft acquisition while the thrill of popping achievements was still fresh. I basically played each game, in loose chronological order, off and on over 12 months until each of the 200 achievements in the Rare Replay app was mine.
There were lots of moments of genuine fun and equally many of teeth-gritting frustration. Originally, I planned to put some brief writeups of each game on a running list and have that be the end of it. Now, though, I realize that such a journey requires more pomp. It asks for a chronicle unlike any blogging project I have done before: a multi-part epic spanning the first 30 years of the iconic studio’s history.
This is folly, you say. How many times have I seen big blog series go unfinished, you ask condescendingly. Well, folks, I’m here to tell you that I will finish this big blog series. And the reason is extraordinarily simple:
That’s right. The series is already done, dropped all at once for you to binge. More preamble is below, as is the “spoiler” list ranking the games, but first, the links to all of the parts:
Rare Replay has 200 achievements, and that’s the goal. But it does get a little messy. Most of the titles included on the collection are emulated within the app, and each has a set of achievements for various milestones. But the remainder of the games were already on Xbox 360, essentially giving you a license to those games through backwards compatibility. This is awesome, but each of those 360 games obviously uses their own set of achievements. When it comes to Rare Replay, all that matters is that we earn 75% of each of those title’s Gamerscore. That’s how we get the stamps needed to upgrade our ticket and earn all of Rare Replay’s rewards. In other words, some achievements in those 360 games will go unearned. That’s a stroke of benevolence on Rare’s part because we often have just enough wiggle room to get by without worrying about achievements that rely on outdated peripherals or long-dormant multiplayer servers. That’s not to say I’m entirely alone, however. For various reasons, a second controller is required to complete this challenge, so I went out and bought one. Imaginary Player 2 was a real MVP during this process, as I will detail later.
We gotta get that ticket in the top UPGRADED!
What is included in the collection?
Since Rare Replay is a celebration of gaming history, it wouldn’t do to stop at the 30 games. They also added snapshots, which are NES Remix-styled challenges that drop you at save states in the older titles. There are 80 of these, five for every eligible game. There are also snapshot playlists, challenging you to get through a themed group of the snapshots with limited lives. Felling the snapshots is (usually) a piece of cake, and you are showered with Gamerscore for doing so. That’s probably why I was suckered into this situation to begin with. As you progress in the collection’s milestones, you upgrade your ticket with stamps and unlock bonus material to view. This includes developer interviews, concept art showcases, and even teases of projects that were ultimately never given the green light. Viewing these videos was a great reward, and the information colored my thoughts while playing.
Lastly for this section, I want to talk about how well the collection actually represents Rare’s history. The tagline is “30 games for 30 years.” An average of one game every year? That’s a very solid pace of releases. But of course, Rare has made more than 30 games. Wikipedia lists over 100. They put their name on 18 titles in 1990 alone.That’s not counting the dozen or so releases by Rare’s predecessor, the brilliantly named Ultimate Play the Game. Everyone knows that Rare’s work goes far beyond the IP now owned by Microsoft. They were at their arguable peak when working with Nintendo’s characters. Rare was the de facto force behind Donkey Kong, elevating him from a historical arcade icon to a face of cutting-edge 3D technology. They made the follow-up to Star Fox 64, which I would rather not talk about right now. Beyond Nintendo, Rare worked on a veritable heap of other licenses. They spent time on both the kindest and scariest streets in America: Sesame and Elm. They put out two NES games each for Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune. The list goes on, including Roger Rabbit, Mickey Mouse, and a little movie called GoldenEye. Obviously, none of this is showing up in Rare Replay. [Future Jeremy edit: Can you tell that I took too long to finish writing this series?]
A bit sadder is the total omission of any handheld releases. Most of Rare’s big console hits had a companion on the popular handheld of the time. These weren’t always inferior ports, either. Conker’s Pocket Tales is actually the first in his series, showing the squirrel before he got his filthy mouth. Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty’s Revenge is an original adventure set between the first and second games. It’s Mr. Pants is a puzzle game starring one of Rare’s less interesting mascots who nonetheless cameos in many of their other releases. None of them are here to play on the Xbox. The platform spread is limited, focusing on the ZX Spectrum, NES, N64, and Xbox 360, with one arcade ROM and original Xbox game rounding it out. I am not complaining here in the least bit. 30 games is a very high number, and few collections can reach it! I’m sure it was hard porting the games over, and ensuring that the then-new backwards compatibility feature worked right must have been tricky. My only point is that Rare Replay is by no means a complete history of the company. Entire swaths of releases were ongoing in the background throughout these 30-odd years, so we need to keep that in mind when we discuss the unfolding narrative.
Enough about what isn’t here. It’s time to start the journey proper with the pixelated era of Rare Ltd.
Massive thanks to the users on trueachievements.com, who are this kind of crazy all the time and had incredible guides every step of the way.
Rare Replay was made to commemorate 30 years since the company’s founding. Enough time has passed now that all of the games discussed in this post, save one, are at least 30 years old, too. Game design and complexity evolved pretty seriously over this period, but the fact remains: These are some dang old games. This first grouping includes 16 titles, more than half of the collection. It’s a high number because they’re short experiences. In one session of play, I was usually able to knock out two or three of these games at a time. This is thanks to the rewind and cheats features making achievement hunting infinitely easier. If you want detailed impressions on each of these, consult my ranked list. Here, I will give more of a general approach.
You've already ruined it.
The first seven games were created under Ultimate Play the Game, Rare’s precursor. Jet Man the astronaut is the subject of the first two titles, Jetpac and Lunar Jetman. They are both simple arcade-style romps. Jetpac is a single-screen shoot ‘em up where you move your guy around to build and fuel a rocket ship. This type of simple gameplay ages the best in my opinion. The follow-up, Lunar Jetman, adds scrolling, vehicles, and complex objectives that were a lot harder for me to wrap my head around. In Rare’s first sequel, they’re already making things needlessly complicated! Still, the number of moving parts is rather small, so persistence wins the day.
From this point on, though, Ultimate would become synonymous with one of my most despised tropes from old games: mazes. Atic Atac, Sabre Wulf, Underwurlde, Knight Lore, and Gunfright all focus on wandering around identical rooms hoping you run into what you need. This is the case whether the view is top-down, side-on, or isometric. I am the type of player who gets very paranoid about this kind of design. With such limited graphics and colors, there’s no differentiation between areas most of the time. I always worry that I got mixed up somehow and disconnected from the guide’s path. Oh yeah, following a guide by the nose is essential to getting through these titles. The placement of key items is randomized, so you will have to be systematic – or lucky – to make it out.
I can’t say I thought any of Ultimate’s games were fantastic. They were all released in a three-year window, and not even in the order in which they were finished. My favorite was Jetpac for its simplicity. Of the maze games, Atic Atac is my preferred poison. It’s the only one that approximates the charm Rare would come to be known for. Your little guy is cute, and the haunted mansion theming is strong with such limited graphics. You also move fast, and despite some pains with inventory juggling, you’re generally able to keep up with what the game throws you. The absolute worst game of the entire lot is Underwurlde. Horrible 2D platforming control is just the beginning. The game world is the largest by far, and to reiterate, all the rooms look identical. One achievement asks you to reach the very bottom, a whole stratum of the maze that would otherwise be totally useless. It’s a bad enough time using the cheats that disables enemies entirely. Things spiral out of control when they are present, each hit sending Sabre Man flying out of control like a pith-helmeted pinball. This game sucks. All of Sabre Man's games suck. If you want some rawer emotions about these titles, check out the bottom chunk of the ranking list.
I haven't written a part about Cobra Triangle, so I'll just say that it's pretty cool!
Moving on, we can transition eras to the founding of Rare proper and the mind-blowingly popular Nintendo Entertainment System. The next seven titles belong to that console. Most of these are still quick and simple. In Slalom, for example, you’re just skiing along with very little to talk about. However, we did start to see some more complex adventures to tackle. I’d like to focus on two of these: Snake Rattle n’ Roll and Battletoads.
Ascending waterfalls was just one of the unclear mechanics in the game.
Don’t let the zany graphics and catchy David Wise music fool you: Snake Rattle n’ Roll has a cold heart. As a snake, you must lick up dots to extend your body and navigate an isometric world. Even in early areas, I couldn’t get a handle on the controls. Your snake is twitchy and bouncy. Plus, the boundaries of what is safe and what acts as a pit are visually unclear. All this makes the later levels with unforgiving platforming a painful time. With rewind, of course, it’s not insurmountable, but having to rewind every three seconds kind of kills the mood. There is one image that has overridden everything in my brain relating to Snake Rattle n’ Roll, though. Per my past self:
Your snake must lick constantly lick a hopping foot, whose health is restored if you let up for even a moment. That sentence could have been A.I.-generated, but yes, the final boss of the game is LICKING A FOOT. Without infinite lives and time, the game would be in the dumpster for sure.
The sad part is this may not be the most frustrating final boss in the collection.
Moving on, there is only one game from this era that successfully broke out into a franchise, and that is Battletoads. In the internet age, it’s mostly known for brutal difficulty. Modern games have shown the way to retain a high challenge while still respecting the player and communicating good design. Battletoads is decidedly more antagonistic. It puts the ‘Toads in a mess of different scenarios so that skills from one part of the game don’t translate to the next. An intended full playthrough requires as much memorization as skill. It’s not a design ethos I enjoy. And abusing the rewind somehow got me into a soft-lock scenario, forcing a restart. That’s what I get for cheating. Anyone who’s seen the end of Battletoads knows that the infamous Turbo Tunnel is hardly the worst part of it. It’s just the point where everyone gave up. The Tunnel’s reputation didn’t go unnoticed for Rare Replay, though. One snapshot challenges you to last as long as possible in a looping version of the Tunnel. Easy enough, but then I saw an additional achievement hidden away. You have to survive for an entire loop, which is over a minute of perfect play. Even the regular Turbo Tunnel has checkpoints, so this is a new level of crazy. After hours of attempts, I was able to memorize the stage pretty well until the ending. The only way I could match the insane reaction time needed for the last walls was pause buffering like a madman. Even then, it didn’t work most of the time. Of course, I eventually made it through. While it was satisfying, it’s the limit of my willingness to meet Battletoads at its level. More power to you if you’ve been playing it for 30 years, but it’s just not my speed. At least the arcade version is a little better.
I was here... for HOURS!
Well, the first half of Rare Replay’s titles didn’t quite yield amazing results for me. But batting averages were lower for everyone back then. Maybe next time, we’ll find something to latch onto. We’re effectively skipping the entire 16-bit generation and landing at Rare’s arguable peak: The Nintendo 64.
If there's one good thing about this challenge, it's that no bananas had to be burgled.
We’ve hit a three-year time skip, and in that time, Rare has gone from a mercenary studio with ambitions to a cutting-edge partner of the industry’s most iconic company. Rare’s work in prerendered technology in Killer Instinct and Donkey Kong Country positioned the developer as one to watch as the 3D era fully conquered the gaming public. On the Nintendo 64, the company would become seemingly indispensable to the Big N. While historical third parties were jumping ship to PlayStation, Rare supplied a sizable volume of successful titles on the 64. Even without the use of outside IP, that footprint is big enough for seven games to represent the console in Rare Replay. This is the era that birthed everyone’s fondest memories.
That said, this is also where I’m veering wildly out of sequence. I want to break up these seven games into two categories: those contained natively in the Rare Replay app, and those already released on Xbox Live Arcade. The process for the latter titles is a little different, and they are a nice bridge to the controversial events that followed. They will be covered in the next section. Here, let’s go over the remaining four games in order of how much time they demand.
This looks... okay, right? It's not just me?
The breeziest of them all is the fighting game Killer Instinct Gold. I have reiterated this point many times, but suffice it to say I respect the genre much more than I succeed at it. Fortunately, skill is hardly a requirement for these achievements. All we have to do is enter an in-game code to access a secret menu and tweak some settings in our favor. Then, it’s a straightforward checklist of fighting as every character, winning arcade mode, and mashing out a high enough combo to excite the announcer. The biggest catch is the sole achievement – in the whole collection – to require a second controller locally. And it’s more of a technicality. One stage mandates a real player two to access. There’s just no way around it. I found another Xbox controller for a reasonable price at Target, and I’m happy with it. Not only did Imaginary Player 2 save my sorry self many times during this challenge, but it feels nice. It’s become my primary PC controller. I’m looking at it right now.
That one hoop aside, getting through Killer Instinct Gold really is that simple. And there’s more to the appeal than I gave it credit for. Obviously, the vibe is very comparable to Mortal Kombat. Yet the art style itself is substantially different, having a sculpted look that benefits the nonhuman fighters (and only the nonhuman fighters). Of the two franchises, Killer Instinct also has the better theme song. Deal with it. Those are about the only levels at which I can appreciate fighters, so I’m not a well of knowledge here. But playing this version did give me the most fleeting of desires to try the 2013 reboot. At this point, though, I would rather wait for the next reboot, or just appreciate it from afar.
Like I said, we’re going way out of order here. The next N64 game to cover is actually the last Rare released on the platform, and one of the last N64 games in general: Conker’s Bad Fur Day. Starting life as a typical cutesy collectathon, the decision was made to pivot Conker into a crude adult character – one who could swear, drink, and urinate like Duke Nukem. This juxtaposition had been used in other media, but it was novel for video games, especially on a Nintendo console. That unconventionality seemed to have significantly loosened the design ethos around the game. The designers inserted so many brief and disparate gameplay moments that I’m reminded of Battletoads. Both games are far more concerned with putting characters in cool scenarios than building difficulty curves or ensuring that these scenarios, you know, work. With Conker, though, these mechanics had to be built and tuned for the most detailed 3D environments Rare had yet built.
If you’ve followed the blog, you know how much of a red flag this is for me. Platforming games relying on gimmicks like these is one of my pet peeves. They almost always come out underbaked and distract from the core gameplay. The practice has ruined games for me that use it far more sparingly than Conker. That’s to say nothing of the offensive humor the game bandies about, which is a whole separate topic. Still, I went in with an open mind. The temperature towards Conker may have shifted over the years, but maybe something would shine through. Would my good faith be rewarded?
The thing about these cinematic games is that they don’t let you forget it. Conker’s opening goes on and on, introducing you not only to the squirrel himself but also several plot points which won’t advance for hours yet. Even the moment we get control isn’t satisfying, as Conker is hung over and moves like a snail. It’s more cutscenes still until we earn full mobility, meaning this Bad Fur Day is off to a slow start. Seeing as Conker is pointedly focused around comedy – featuring constant fully-voiced jokes – seeing them fumble the element of timing is not promising. In the early game, you’re constantly stopped by unsympathetic characters so they can give their shtick. You can only skip cutscenes once you’ve already seen them, which just enforces the slogging pace.
There's the pot calling the kettle blue.
We have to address the edgy elephant in the room: the game’s style of humor. There’s already a raging debate on what topics can be joked about and by whom, and what the role of comedy is in breaking those boundaries in the first place. Regardless of your stance, it’s true that material that gets laughs sticks around, and vice versa. And since jokes targeting the “different” are so often the most tired and lazy type of comedy, they are also almost never funny. Nearly every character you meet is a garbage person, and the few others are only around to die for shock value. Conker himself isn’t exactly admirable either, going along with all sorts of horrible stuff for the promise of cash. It’s hard to stay motivated to keep playing without anyone to connect with. More than that, after so many years of Adult Swim and the like, the game’s dark sensibilities don’t even feel that envelope-pushing anymore. What’s left? A bunch of movie references, mainly – quite possibly the second most lazy form of comedy. Seriously, there were hundreds of Matrix parodies by this time.
That’s not to say that every joke falls flat. For instance, I think The Great Mighty Poo is a funny little moment. It caps off a whole swath of the game that is nothing but fecal humor, so the presence of a giant poo monster – not especially creative. But making him an opera singer and staging a whole production about it? That’s an extra layer that took a lot of work to realize. It’s all capped off with Conker flushing Poo away and quipping, “Now that’s what I call a bowel movement!” It works, and it’s deservedly one of the most remembered moments from the whole game.
I have to confess now, though, that I never fought The Great Mighty Poo. I was dropped off right after that cheeky line. That’s because at the very start of Poo World, you have to jump up this room of hanging ropes in a silo of flowing poop. I spent maybe five or ten minutes trying to catch these ropes, but the depth perception just wasn’t working for me. I kept falling off, sliding all the way down and out of the room. And at this point, I hit that moment you may be familiar with, the moment you know that this isn’t worth your time. Even if I did clear this challenge, I knew I would have to deal with water levels and escort missions and races if I continued down the path. And I decided that I just wasn’t interested. This is the very last time where we can use game-breaking cheats to skip the game, and Conker has a code that lets you unlock and jump to any scene. The achievements are only concerned that we reach the last part of each chapter – which is often just a cutscene.
Fox's lawyers were asleep at the wheel.
Cheating, in this case, felt unbelievably good. I amazed myself by clearing the treacherous barrel-rolling section at the end of Spooky on my first try. Knowing the It’s War section trailed on interminably, I was thrilled to see none of it. There’s even an achievement for entering a cheat code, so I felt like the people who worked on Rare Replay where subtly pushing me in this direction anyway. The only legitimate challenge left was the game’s final boss, a not-quite legally distinct Xenomorph that comes out of absolutely nowhere and leads to yet another wholly new gameplay style. The goal is to stun it with a few punches, then grab it by the tail and spin it around just like Bowser in Super Mario 64. I appreciate thematically linking one of the last N64 games to the very first in a full-circle moment (no pun intended, honest!). But this fight really got under my skin. Even the guide I was following didn’t have a consistent method of hurting the creature. It would block my punches nearly every time, then knock me down quicker than I could react. There seemed to be no set rules for how many times it could attack in a row, the duration I could stun it, or what it would take for my attacks to even land. I lost track of the time I spent throwing hands, but by the end it was definitely less of a “so long-eh” and more of a “good-eh riddance.”
The remaining achievements are for the game’s varied multiplayer modes. You can get these easily by throwing a few bot matches. I won’t say that the door is permanently closed on a “legit” playthrough of Conker in the future. While my time with it wasn’t a total disaster, I also wasn’t impressed with any of the aspects that had made the game stand out when it released. Anyway… I’ve got other stuff to do.
A subversive mascot is still a mascot. We are hard pivoting again to a game that not only lacks a mascot but confines its only “characters” (read: faces) to tiny thumbnails in the corner of the screen. This is Blast Corps, a game unlike any other in Rare Replay. The premise: a nuke-carrying truck is locked on a deadly path, and it’s safer to destroy everything on that path until scientists can disarm the bomb. Initially, this setup leads to highly enjoyable romps. Making things blow up is one of gaming’s deepest pleasures, and the destructive races against time in which your vehicle levels buildings are great. The truck is slowly drifting towards doom, and in the game’s best moments, you’re eking out just enough time to keep ahead. Of course, sometimes you accidentally bump the truck, and the camera dramatically pans while the fireball erupts. It’s great stuff.
Every screenshot and piece of promo art has this robot in it. It's the best part of the game, but it's also in like two missions.
Puzzlingly, though, these levels are just a small portion of the game. Blast Corps doesn’t know how to keep its fun. That starts with the mixed selection of vehicles. For every enjoyable one, there’s a gimmicky or unresponsive one. There’s a type of cycle that shoots missiles, but aiming its shots is untenable. The worst of the bunch is the Backlash, a dump truck that’s only effective when drifting with its backside. First, the hitbox for the back is unclear. And missing by any amount stops the truck dead, impotently scootching against the building. The number of levels that force these vehicles feels disproportionate, even if only because they took me more tries. Then, there are the later levels which turn the focus more towards puzzles. You will need to use more inventive methods to clear a path for the truck, be it bridging a river, slotting blocks into the ground, or lifting obstructions with a crane. Accomplishing those tasks while running back and forth between vehicles felt like busywork, especially when I failed repeatedly. I couldn’t help longing for the simplicity of the early game.
The vast majority of time with Blast Corps, though, came from bonus levels. You can find items in stages that unlock them, but those stages will also have unlocks, and so on, until the levels select is a confusing trail of lines and circles to unfun challenges. So many levels are races, which, who cares. There are more racing games than any other genre on the N64, and these slot cars are in a game where racing is not the main focus. Why would you think I would want that right now? Then, there are the esoteric ones, like searching out and destroying random spheres or playing Pac-Man, for some reason. Even the stages that uses the main game’s destruction mechanics tend to be needlessly strict and/or use the annoying vehicles. Blast Corps is a game that will not end. Once you save Earth, you go on to levels on the moon. Then – and I’m not kidding – another level on each additional planet! And if you’re wondering if they successfully programmed low-gravity mechanics for these levels, no, I’m pretty sure they gave up after 10 minutes. Props to the developers for including so much value in their game, but I was interested in very little of it.
As for the achievements, it’s insult to injury. We need to explore every inch of every stage, lighting up all the little dots on the ground and blasting anything that can be blasted. Not only that, but we need to get a gold time on every single level – and one platinum time! Some of these are easy to clear, and others are intense. By this point, I was really tired of Blast Corps, which is too bad. For many people, getting 100% often ruins their enjoyment of games. I try not to experience that, so long as the journey remains engaging. Blast Corps should be a fun completion, but it ends up wasting its concept by pulling focus in too many directions. Even if I had only played the story mode, the game’s appeal would end up as a missed opportunity.
That dog is tweakin'.
For the next game, Jet Force Gemini, I had no idea what to expect. Precisely one person I knew once talked about playing it as a kid, but aside from that, no one ever brings it up. Many of Rare’s games around this time implemented shooting mechanics as a secondary gameplay style, but Jet Force is a third-person shooter first and foremost. Rare Replay adds an option for a more modern control scheme, which is what I went with. Shooters have changed a lot since 1999, and the Xbox controller layout is quite different than the N64’s. This touch shows extra care from the Rare Replay team, and I appreciate it.
Compared to Conker, Jet Force’s storyline is far more perfunctory. An army of alien bugs has descended on a peaceful system of planets, enslaving the bear-like Tribals living there. Twins Juno and Vela, along with their dog Lupus, swoop in to save the day. The trio is separated in the opening scene, so the initial objective is to reunite them while blasting ants and saving bears. Knowing that achievements would ask me to do every little thing, I settled in for the most complex N64 title in the collection.
Immediately, I recognized that this would be a playthrough where I would need a guide to lead me by the hand through the whole adventure. If you want my advice, doing so is absolutely essential to getting through Jet Force Gemini. The most obvious reason is the Tribals. I strongly hate how they set it up. If a level has 10 bears, you must save all 10 at once. If you miss one, the rest will all pop back in as if they were never rescued. Have fun going back and repeating all that work. This is also how notes worked in the original Banjo-Kazooie – they were taken away when you died or left a world and recorded as a high score. But that was a design concession based on programming difficulties. Using this system again is even more egregious here because, not to get ahead of ourselves, you must save every Tribal to finish the game! There is no point to a high score system when maxing out the score is required.
There are plenty of big, varied planets to sweep for collectibles.
This choice already made me bristle against Jet Force Gemini and led to further awkward moments of design. In many stages, you won’t be able to save some Tribals because you lack an ability from further in the game. Which means there is no point in saving any until you revisit the level hours later. There are also rare enemies that beeline towards Tribals and try to kill them. If you’re not fast enough to intercept them – or if you accidentally kill a Tribal by other means – go ahead and give yourself a game over. You will have to replay that whole level just for a chance to rectify your mistake. I remember this happening repeatedly at one section, and I felt like pulling my hair out. If Tribals were cumulative, the backtracking would be somewhat more digestible. I hate it.
Once you have all three characters available, you will be carting them around to every planet, not only for the Tribals, but also for the ship parts needed to confront Mizar, the final boss. Their unique abilities are needed to reach certain areas, although keeping track of the sprawling paths in your head is madness. Jet Force Gemini was certainly designed for the strategy guide. Some item chains are reminiscent of older adventure titles, and the signposting within the game is next to none. Effectively requiring three visits to most levels only makes the game feel more padded out. The game throws in some other mechanics to stem the bleeding – racing, disguises, and jet packs to name a few – but these are mostly, um, bad.
As I said, additional weapons and upgrades are littered around the various planets. There are some interesting options to choose from, but many end up feeling weak. The shuriken decapitates most basic troops and can be picked up after. It’s good for efficiently collecting ant heads needed for an achievement. Sadly, most other weapons are fairly standard. My go-to option was running wild with the laser machine gun. Although every character eventually has access to all the weapons, they are not shared between them. I would often get confused as to why I no longer had rockets or what have you, and this is a case where I would prefer a break from immersion to cut me some slack. Handling these guns wasn’t always comfortable on my hands, either. I don’t know if it was the alternate control scheme or my gripping the thing too tight, but it didn’t help my growing aggravation.
In these early-3D shooters, boss fights are often a major pain point that strain the game’s mechanics. For the few bosses in Jet Force, they decided to change things up. Your character is confined to a 2D rail and always facing the boss. I have to imagine this is because full 3D movement in boss fights wasn’t fun, and I approve of the decision. Limiting your options does make the encounters more intense. I just wish I had received more feedback while fighting them. The bosses’ weak points change every phase, and the fleeting moments where they are vulnerable are not always communicated clearly. I did have the walkthrough for advice, and most of them went down without that much trouble. The final fight against Mizar, though, makes Conker’s Xenomorph look cuddly.
Mizar has a laser that can shave down your health in under a second. You only need to get caught by it once before you’re put in mortal danger. When you’re done waiting for his whole extended attack pattern, he will become vulnerable for just a few seconds. I had a lot of trouble figuring out the window for when I could shoot and have the rockets reach him in time. When that scant time is done, it’s back to dodging his barrage until you can get another chance. On top of everything, I did not have enough ammo capacity as Juno to win the fight. After dozens of tries, I finally had to quit out and search around some more for upgrades. I always hate doing that in RPGs, and this was no different. Between Mizar, the Xenomorph, and the Licking Foot, I would have to give Mizar the nod as the most obnoxious final boss in the whole collection. When I looked up video to see just what the heck I was doing wrong, I saw comments saying they never beat him. Could you imagine doing all of that backtracking, saving all of those stupid bears, just to be stopped at the eleventh hour? That pain drove me to finally overcome the gauntlet.
Fighting this boss may induce entomophobia.
If I haven’t mentioned the achievements much, it’s because there’s not much special about them. Jet Force Gemini doesn’t really distinguish between beating the game and getting 100%. You will need every bear and item just to get a crack at Mizar, and everything else will just happen along the way. I could not recommend this game with its current structure. Pointless collecting is kind of this whole challenge’s M.O., but for anyone just wanting a fun third-person shooter, know that it’s mandatory to see credits. I could go on about the frustrating parts of these N64 games, but believe it or not, I don’t like complaining on end for its own sake. I hope that, even if not all of these titles have been complete winners, I have at least been able to articulate why and provide some silver lining.
If this was the B-side of Rare’s Nintendo 64 era, though, it’s time to flip to the A-side. Next time, we will be covering the titles that were popular enough to earn remasters on XBLA. Hopefully, their success equates with how well they hold up.
When Microsoft acquired Rare, they gained both a studio with boundless ideas and a library of IP that had attracted loyal players. We can get a sense of where their head was at in 2002 with the announcement video, which I had not seen in full until now. The video promised that Perfect Dark,Banjo, Conker, and a new character would be gracing Xbox consoles in the future. We’ll get to that last character later, but for now, I want to bridge the gap between Nintendo and Microsoft by focusing on the N64 legacy. Out of the dozens of games Rare had put their name on, these three franchises were apparently the crown jewels. And while the logical decision would be to make those games playable for a new audience, the opportunity took longer to arrive than players may have expected.
Conker was first to arrive on the scene, with a full remake of Bad Fur Day hitting the original Xbox in 2005. That’s way later than I realized! Still, just four years removed from the original release, Conker: Live & Reloaded is a noticeable distance in visuals from Bad Fur Day. It’s also a fairly controversial remake, and not included in Rare Replay. I’m not about to do extra credit for this challenge, so we’ll have to leave it there.
The remaining N64 hits would not arrive on Xbox until even later. As Xbox Live Arcade came onto the scene, smaller downloadable titles became a valuable revenue stream for publishers. Knowing that the window for N64 nostalgia was opening, Microsoft and Rare hired 4J Studios to remaster Banjo-Kazooie, Perfect Dark, and Banjo-Tooie, showing the games in a whole new light. An HD light! When you boot up Rare Replay, you have access to these remasters via backwards compatibility. The mission from there is simple: Get 75% of the Gamerscore in each title and determine if they hold up in the first place.
Banjo resonated so much with me as a kid because the characters leapt off the screen.
That last part might be difficult because Banjo-Kazooie is the only game out of all 30 for which I can’t approach anything resembling an objective stance. It’s a game I’ve played and loved since I was a tyke. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t even be interested in Rare Replay. The buddy-duo dynamic of the twotitular characters is endearing, and the abilities that result are always a blast. Gruntilda is a funny villain you love to hate. Plus, appropriately for a title named after instruments, the music is head-splittingly catchy. I was very much looking forward to completing Banjo again. While I was certainly under the fog of rose-colored glasses, I enjoyed every minute of this replay. To get the most out of Banjo-Kazooie, you need to collect 100 jigsaw pieces, 900 notes, and 45 Jinjo creatures. Unlike Jet Force Gemini, you do have a little bit of wiggle room to miss some stuff, but not as much as you might think. It’s something like 98% completion required to fight the final boss. You might as well. Regardless, the first Banjo can be breezy and comfortable once you get to know it. Most of the worlds are basically circles with things to do dotted around the edges. You don’t need to check a map all the time because it’s intuitively laid out. The actual surface area is usually small, giving a playground feeling to the whole thing.
For a newcomer, there may be some pain points. The engine room Jiggy inside Rusty Bucket Bay gave me a lot of trouble this time around. And despite the cool seasonal gimmick, Click Clock Wood overstays its welcome. Finally, the quiz board at the end can be maddening if you aren’t prepared for it. So many of Banjo’s particulars are etched in my brain that it’s never a problem. Well, I did miss an instant death question at the very end and had to redo the whole thing… dang it. Like I said, though, none of those sections can diminish the warm feelings I have for this game. I blasted through it in two sittings without even paying attention to the achievements that closely. It’s important to hold on to those games that rekindle your childhood joy, and Banjo-Kazooie will always be one of mine.
Everything is a lot more cynical this time around, including the carnival level. I like its atmosphere, though.
Then you get to Banjo-Tooie, and that… well, it kind of blows the whole thing up. I hadn’t dived into Banjo’s sequel before because I didn’t have access to it as a kid and I was wary as an adult. The subtitle for Banjo-Tooie might as well be “bigger is better.” Sure, the total number of collectibles might be close to the ones above. But say we dot all of Banjo-Kazooie interesting stuff on a balloon. Then we inflate the balloon, and that’s Banjo-Tooie: a bunch of empty space between the game parts of the game. Where Banjo-Kazooie used memorable buildings and simple layouts to orient the player, the worlds of Banjo-Tooie are tangled mazes within mazes. They get gigantic by the end, but they have a lot of empty rooms with a tunnel on each wall leading to another such empty room. You’re also asked to switch between characters and forms often, meaning you run back and forth across these worlds, checking your watch all the way.
Strictly speaking, we can't DISPROVE that Klungo was the inspiration for Shrek.
To my surprise, though, playing Banjo-Tooie for this challenge was a lighter task than I expected. All my stamps were earned in a single sitting. It’s all thanks to whoever implemented the achievements into this remaster. Many are for simple tasks accomplished in the first hour or two. Others can be unlocked by completing one out of multiple conditions – something I hadn’t seen elsewhere. I wrapped up my stamp requirements after the fourth world of eight. At that point, the game is just reaching the threshold of becoming annoying. The most difficult and tedious parts of the game can be totally avoided for this challenge – and if it weren’t for that preexisting achievement list, I’m sure that wouldn’t be the case.
Because I didn’t have to worry about every last thing, I was able to appreciate the things Banjo-Tooie succeeds at. Though the execution is poor, crisscrossing paths between levels is an ambitious idea I would enjoy seeing in a refined form. The first game borrows heavily from Mario 64, with each level denoted by a disconnected painting. Here, though, the Isle o’ Hags feels like a cohesive place that exists when the game isn’t on. Speaking of the first game, I love that Banjo and Kazooie keep all their moves from their last adventure. Losing your powers in the sequel is a common trope, one that this snarky series could have easily indulged in. It immediately crystalizes Tooie’s mission statement: using the end of Kazooie as the starting point and adding more and more. The graphics and music are once again aces for the N64’s limitations. There are people who prefer Tooie to the first game, and I guess I can see why with these things in mind. For my money, though, it takes things too far to remain as consistently engaging. Eventually, I went back and finished the game on my own time, just because I was enjoying it. It ended up ranking very high on the final list.
Mumbo's implementation is underwhelming. Good for an achievement, though.
My nostalgic association with Banjo may have colored that experience, but no such association existed with Perfect Dark. Born from a desire to iterate on GoldenEye without the pesky license holders, the game features secret agent Joanna Dark, who would evidently become popular after this debut. The best part of these remasters is they replicate how one might remember the games looking and playing. With graphics far sharper and frame rates far smoother than possible on the N64, these games get to put their best foot forward to any new players. What issues I did have with Perfect Dark were fleeting, and I generally enjoyed Rare’s approach to shooter design here. That makes three for three of these remasters hitting for me.
With these 360 games, I liked to go in with a plan of attack for the Gamerscore threshold. Here, with the assistance of Imaginary Player 2, I wouldn’t have to finish the campaign on anything other than easy. That’s quickly become the way I most enjoy shooters. Enemies were weak enough that I could blast through most stages without too much trouble. When I did die, it wasn’t long before I was back in the fight. These stages don’t have checkpoints, but they don’t need them. While their layouts may be complex, it doesn’t take very long to traverse them. In most cases, it’s very quick to get back to what you were doing. I say “in most cases” because the last stage is a bit of an exception. It’s a linear maze that culminates in a scary boss that’s unlike any other foe. He destroyed me the first time, and I was not happy about starting all the way over. Luckily, I avoided a repeat of Mizar by taking him down on the second attempt. My hair may have stood on end, but I won out! When it comes to the mission environments, I definitely preferred the earlier espionage focus to the following ancient aliens motif. But that was in style at the time. If I really needed to, I think I could have gone back for higher difficulty runs. I very much enjoy how more objectives are added for them. It’s more interesting than basic damage modifiers, and it enhances the spy fantasy. It could get confusing, though, identifying what I did and didn’t need to interact with to finish each level.
Sometimes the game tries to be a dramatic spy thriller. Sometimes Elvis is there. It's Elvis, everyone!
Once my full campaign run was finished, it was relatively easy to mop up the miscellany. Then, it was time for some bot matches. I was awed by the amount of options and scenarios for multiplayer. Had I discovered Perfect Dark earlier in life, I could see it as a go-to option with friends. In 2022, though, I was just there to rack up a bot body count. The easiest way to accomplish my goal was to set up a kill room with laptop turrets and program the A.I. to swarm it. I remember thinking it was a boring task. I had no idea how good I had it then – but that’s a story for later. And that’s about all she wrote for this game. I’m not attached to Perfect Dark after this – in part because the audio balance was too low for me to understand what anyone was saying – but it gets a thumbs-up for design and the improvements in the remaster.
Before I finish this post, though, I’m including a bonus entry that loosely fits the theme of old Rare franchises revived on XBLA. Jetpac Refulled (sic) is a tiny downloadable title that, were it not included in this collection, I never would have even thought about. It’s clearly riding the coattails of Geometry Wars and other titles that shiny up retro gameplay with colorful particle effects. Indeed, Refulled is brighter and more chaotic than the original Jetpac ever was. Its loop is relatively the same, though – build your ship, fuel it up, and escape to the next level. They’ve also added new weapons like an L-shaped beam or a spread shot to counter the ever-increasing mob of alien baddies.
Now imagine the screen with ten billion enemies.
Since Refulled is so simple, the achievements simply have to do with your skill. Score a lot of points, reach X stage without dying… that sort of thing. It also includes the original Jetpac, with Gamerscore to earn for clearing all 16 levels. This was a harsh wake-up call that I suck at Jetpac without the cheats I had become accustomed to. Clearly, that wasn’t going to happen, and I also wasn’t about to drag anyone in for online multiplayer. My only choice was to finish all 128 screens of Refulled. Thankfully, you get a permanent checkpoint every four stages, but succeeding in later levels is truly a crapshoot. As I alluded to, enemies envelop the screen ferociously. I’ve been playing a lot of Vampire Survivors recently, and that’s the level of chaos we’re talking about here. They sometimes spawn on top of you, so successfully maneuvering Jet Man to the pickups can be herky-jerky. The art direction doesn’t help either. With a flat cartoony style and zoomed-out view, it’s inevitable that you won’t see a little goober that causes your doom. But the only remedy is to keep plugging away at the thing. I felt like I was playing roulette most of the time, but the checkpoints gave me the willpower to keep making progress. And since none of you will follow suit, I’ll say that the ending screen reveals that the whole time, Jet Man was… stealing from his company and going on the run? A weird wrinkle to a game that otherwise has no story, but I kind of like it.
Anyway, Jetpac Refulled is a weird slice of a gaming trend that would fall out of fashion. A few years later, they would have made it a mobile game. Nowadays, I don’t think they would bother making it at all. Even with something as seemingly cheap to produce as this, the market has to be right for a company to devote those resources. Even then… I get the feeling that Jetpac Refulled wasn’t as warmly received as the other three games we just discussed. Enough about the old days, though. Next time, we’re looking at the new franchises Rare launched under its new ownership. Will they blow the lid off this Xbox, or will they fizzle into obscurity? The only way to know for sure is to read the next installment of Rare Replay Relay.
Keeping Dinosaur Planet as-is probably would have been better for everyone.
We have officially crossed the 20-year anniversary of Microsoft’s purchase of Rare for 375 million dollars. If you count Ultimate Play the Game as the start of the company, Rare has now been under Xbox’s green umbrella for as long as it hasn’t. Despite that, the quantity of games shipped in the past two decades is tiny compared to the early years. General sentiment has also dictated, almost from day one, that the quality of these games dropped off a cliff. I wasn’t willing to take that attitude at face value anymore, so I entered this latter half of Rare’s history with an open mind. Before I get to these subjective judgments, I think I’ve gleaned enough understanding to theorize why Rare’s design mentality didn’t translate easily to the new paradigm.
Notoriously, Rare’s games in the glory days often underwent massive changes before hitting shelves. Project Dream, an isometric SNES title about pirates, underwent the Ship of Theseus and came out the other side as Banjo-Kazooie. Conker was infamously pivoted from a typical cute platformer into a raunchy parody of one. These characters were front and center in that announcement video we looked at earlier, indicating that this process could get results for popular, desirable titles. It is not, however, one that scales well with technological advancements. Entering the sixth console generation, everything needed to be bigger, prettier, and more intricate. And with the growing pains of early 3D gaming largely finished, expectations were a lot harder to meet.
Massive shifts during development would be much riskier at this point, yet circumstances forced it to happen repeatedly. The sprawling would-be N64 game Dinosaur Planet was legendarily mandated - by Mario’s father himself - to be retrofitted into the Star Fox universe. Rare’s first and last release on the Nintendo GameCube has its fans, but as someone who still enjoys Star Fox 64 regularly, I hope I never have cause to play it. Nearly simultaneously with Star Fox Adventures’s launch, the ink was dry on the Xbox deal. Canceled: Banjo-Threeie, Donkey Kong Racing, and more, creating some of the most tantalizing entries in the company’s long list of what-ifs. Moved from GameCube to Xbox: The next three games we’re talking about… only one of which would actually make the 2001 machine its final resting place. The others were moved yet again to the Xbox’s HD follow-up – but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Discounting the Conker remake, the only new game Rare would ship on the Xbox would not draw from the announcement video. This was a totally new franchise – one that would barely rise before falling back into the grave.
Whatever I’m about to say, that theme song that plays on the title screen is catchy. Anyway, Grabbed by the Ghoulies is more emblematic of past game design trends than of an exciting new generation. At its core, it is a beat ‘em up about a young couple trapped in a haunted mansion. We’ve already done the part where I lambast Battletoads for playing scattershot with its genre(s) and ultimately underdelivering for me. Well, Ghoulies has the opposite problem. It really is nothing more than a series of rooms with a bunch of enemies to kill. For all its attempts at variety, there is a very limited set of interactions here. At the genre’s peak, shallow mechanics weren’t a big deal because, ideally, beat ‘em ups could be finished in less than an hour. Ghoulies is significantly longer than that – around four or five hours – which is still significantly less than a typical player at the time would want out of their purchase. The game does not advance its ideas meaningfully enough to fill its length.
The primary element to set Ghoulies apart is its control scheme. It plays almost like a twinstick shooter, wherein the direction of the right stick orients Cooper and his direction of attack. You can master it, as I did by the end of my journey, but I always felt a small amount of impreciseness even then. It never felt natural. In the wrong situations, you can quickly get stun-locked and demolished by enemies. I assume the designers took too long settling on the fighting and quickly had to fill a whole game with it. It would explain why the best they could come up with for variation is a truckload of modifiers. Each room has a condition to fulfill to open the way forward. You may need to kill X number of Ghoulies, kill one type but not another, protect objects, attack only using weapons… there is no shortage of these, but they always feel like an inconvenient stipulation instead of a fun challenge. Failing these objectives does not result in an immediate game over, though. Instead, it summons the grim reaper, who instantly kills anything he touches – fellow enemies included. I did enjoy the risk/reward element introduced with him, especially when you decide to take your chances instead of playing “properly.” Sometimes Cooper will be given semipermanent weapons for a few rooms, which feel poor and limiting. Beyond that, each room also alters your maximum health. The whole thing reeks of a transparent attempt to spice up one-note gameplay. It all comes off as arbitrary.
The story is presented in this comic book style. Budget-friendly, but the animation isn't great.
To veer into the positive, the visual style is generally well-aged. The generational leap was clearly freeing for artists who were already doing a lot with a little. Cel-shading brings out the personality even more, and in 2022, it’s still readable and evocative. Characters can be hit-or-miss, though. Cooper is a flat nothing of a design. The only traits I can pick up are that he gets scared a lot and probably roots for an awful soccer club. Friendly NPCs aren’t inspiring, either, fulfilling well-worn archetypes without much invention. Ghoulies could be ugly or not depending on your taste. I like the look of the shambling Igor type, but the imps are Jinjos under a different name, and the coffin-bound vampires are disturbing in a not-fun way. Even the best designs are undermined by the incessant vocalizations from everything on screen. It was cute in Bano-Kazooie, but it’s a bridge too far now. Don’t ask me to pin down the difference.
This fight against a mutated Amber was a real wake-up call.
As far as achievements go, there aren’t so many hoops to jump through. Really, it’s just one massive hoop. The primary thing to watch for as you hop along the manor is each room’s bonus book. I missed a handful, but you can jump back to individual sections and make up for your errors. I was not expecting a 2003 game to be so granular with its chapter select, but it was much appreciated. Filling out the set of books unlocks additional challenges to complete. Doing so to gold standard is not that hard, but the extra final challenge that acts as the reward certainly is. It’s another run through the entire game, this time as Cooper’s girlfriend Amber, with a permanent maximum health of just 5. This makes certain rooms nightmares, especially the boss fight against… Amber. Always weird when that kind of thing happens. Whenever possible, the preferred course of action is to summon the reaper and kite him the best you can. I wasn’t happy that a single achievement once again stretched out my time with a game. On the bright side, I can easily claim myself to be in the top 2% of Grabbed by the Ghoulies players on the planet. Yay? If there’s one thing I wish Ghoulies had taken from classic beat ‘em ups, it’s co-op play. That would only make things harder on myself, I’m sure, but even the most mediocre titles are bolstered with a buddy. While beat ‘em ups were no longer prestigious in the early 2000s, they were still prominent. They made up the loads and loads of licensed tie-in games for kids. Pretty dubious company, and the fact that Grabbed by the Ghoulies was never listed on the Xbox store for individual purchase tells me that everyone involved is also ready to move on. As the kids say… it’s thoroughly “mid.”
Just as we were getting to know the Xbox, it’s time to say goodbye. I did a double take the first time I read that two Rare games launched with the Xbox 360 in 2005. That would be like Ratchet and Clank releasing alongside Miles Morales for the PlayStation 5. This tells me that despite a shaky first few years, Microsoft still had a lot of faith in Rare to sell their brand. This would be a double-edged sword for Rare, though. The bonus features for both these games tell of increased scope and pressure, ending with a sentiment that any release after moving consoles twice is miraculous. Despite the developers’ resolve, neither Kameo: Elements of Power nor Perfect Dark Zero seem remembered that fondly, if at all. This is especially true for Kameo, a game I consistently forgot about while working through this project. Perfect Dark is at least a sequel to a popular N64 game. Kameo had the misfortune of releasing as an ambitious new franchise, only to be overshadowed by a game from the same studio. Maybe that’s why we don’t see this strategy so much anymore. Not to pile on, but I do have a lot more to say about Perfect Dark than Kameo – so much so that the former earned a blog entry all to itself. Still, there is more than enough to dissect with what could have been Xbox’s Zelda under different circumstances.
This is a nice place for Rare to flex that HD horsepower.
In this mystical land, there is a raging war between the ugly trolls and the pure elves. That’s elves, Xbox gamer bros. Ignore the wings, these aren’t wimpy fairies, they’re cool, badass elves! Okay, whatever you say. As the chosen princess, Kameo inherited the ability to transform into a host of elemental warriors. After an opening level in media res, she loses her powers, and subsequently must reunite with each warrior to confront her turncoat sister and bring about peace. It’s a frankly barebones plot, with additional details of backstory received throughout adding little worth retaining. Rare’s storylines have always played a supporting role at most, and if there was any place for that to change, it would be in their big fantasy tale. But perhaps it’s better that they didn’t bite off more than they could chew for that specific aspect.
Kameo’s personality may be on the undeveloped side, but fluttering about with her glide move feels nice and airy. That said, she’s not terribly useful beyond that. Her only attack is a low-damage flip kick that’s nonetheless always accompanied by a dramatic slow-down effect. Much of the time, you will instead embody one of the elemental warriors. The three warriors in the opening level are a nice cross-section of how the mechanic works. The Yeti creature can climb ice walls and throw icicles at far-off foes or switches. The plant can burrow under gates and spring up to uppercut enemies. The armadillo can imitate a certain hedgehog’s spin dash to zoom up ramps and act as an improvised pool ball. You can have three of the 10 warriors equipped at once and swap between them with the face buttons. The rest can be reassigned from the menu. Yeah, it’s lifted straight from Zelda. Longtime Rare fans are surely overjoyed to skip the soul-draining treks to a tag barrel to change characters. Even still, I got a little impatient with how often I needed to pause. Some warriors will spend a lot of time on standby, while others will be practically forgotten.
There is one trait that every warrior shares, though: being unbearably ugly. I don’t know what happened with these designs. They look like rejected Sewer Sharks bad guys. Unappealing colors, strange proportions, and even more amateur vocalizations kibosh any sense of excitement for these characters. They even draw attention to it by presenting the elementals in a “baby” form, then subjecting you to a speed-puberty sequence where limbs contort and eyes go bloodshot. Fortunately, you will spend most of the time looking at the creatures’ backs, but that only lowers your guard for the next time you see them in full. I would say that Kameo herself, with a redesigned outfit compared to early promotional material, is the only appealing design in the game. The other NPCs are just as off. Fellow fairies have totally different body styles, and other races are hard to even parse. The juxtaposition is eerie.
Each and every one of these freaks is disgusting.
To give the graphics some credit, when they are focused on smaller areas, the art direction is strong and shows off some of the power you would hope for from a console launch game. The loop is exploring these village spaces until you recover an elemental warrior that will lead you into a dungeon. Compared to a Zelda dungeon, the puzzles are light, in the realm of using a dragon’s fire breath to light torches. The focus is more on linear combat encounters and set pieces. You will switch forms often to traverse, but combat will rely on whatever warrior has the best damage output, making fights largely one-note. These dungeons serve another purpose, which we’ll talk about later. Finally, there are sections set in the Hyrule Field equivalent, bearing the most obvious scars of a troubled development cycle. A massive battle with thousands of creatures is endlessly transpiring, but on your first visit, you are literally told to ignore it all and rush to the destination. Only some brief defense-style moments ever make use of this setup, one that must have been a massive technological hurdle.
The game continues shifting between these modes for a while, concluding with a rather easy boss fight and a tease for a sequel that would never leave pre-production. The images for a grimmer Kameo 2 in Rare Replay’s bonus features are interesting nonetheless. Accumulating the needed 750 Gamerscore here is a tale of highs and lows. Merely finishing the story will award 600! This will be easy, right? Not necessarily, depending on your skill. Kameo’s dungeons are unusual in that they can be replayed in score attack for higher ratings. That is where the bulk of the remaining achievements are tied up. During the campaign itself, you would be forgiven for forgetting a scoring system exists at all. It’s always lurking at the top of the screen, but it serves no purpose whatsoever. The only explanations of the system’s intricacies are hidden on the side of a room you don’t even need to enter. Basically, you iterate your combo by killing enemies and get penalized when taking damage. Build the number high enough and land attacks fast enough, and you enter a bullet time mode where high-point value enemies spawn. Your only real path to an A rank is maximizing the number of baddies killed in this mode, one you would only likely activate by accident naturally.
This sprawling showpiece doesn't have much impact on anything.
Based on my calculus, I would need at least one A rank no matter what. I decided to focus on the opening level. It would have both the easiest enemies and the fewest moving parts to stress over. I ran through the 10-minute sequence a few more times, but while I raised my F to a low C, it was clear that I needed better strategies, and I really should have just looked at a video to begin with. There’s a part near the end where, minutes after you’ve already cleared an encounter of trolls, a few dozen more jump out. This is the ideal spot for point grinding, and it’s not a scenario you could find unless you were specifically looking for it. Even with the new knowledge, it was not smooth sailing. It took a few runs to even work up the skill for staying in bullet time with the armadillo. There’s also a part where you’re in a narrow corridor with a fire troll – getting set on fire eviscerates your combo and effectively kills the run. I was very sick of the level by the time I finally secured the A rank, but ultimately thankful I didn’t need to chase any others.
Then, I had to clear every dungeon again in Kameo’s stapled-on co-op quest. Yet again, Imaginary Player 2 was the best ally I could ask for. I was not enjoying the repeated playthroughs, though. I got disconnected from the Xbox network at some point and had to do one stage again for the achievement to pop. Lastly, I returned to the postgame to track down every collectible in the land – a smaller number than I had feared. Just in the course of playing, I had acquired something like 75% of them. But in doing so, I had unknowingly shot myself in the foot. The game doesn’t keep track of which items were found where, and I certainly wasn’t either. That meant I had no idea what I still needed when I pulled up a guide. I had wanted a break from playing with one eye on a walkthrough, but I really should have been more organized here. I ended up visiting every location where I might have missed something, ultimately doing a lot of unnecessary backtracking and growing a stony hatred for the snow village’s nonsensical layout. Process of elimination ultimately got me there. It was an anticlimactic ending to this leg of the journey, but hey, a win’s a win.
Upwards of an hour of playtime was spent trying to navigate this village alone.
Kameo is a unique fusion of sixth- and seventh- generation design. It makes use of the 360’s added power, but the moment-to-moment actions are very in line with earlier trends. To play it now is to experience an end of an era before the HD standard would enforce a lower-risk, and typically less experimental, method of development. Were I not recording the major moments of this journey, I’m sure Kameo would have faded out of my memory like so many others. But beneath its compromised final presentation, a good idea rests at the core. Next, we’re looking at a game that launched on the very same day but earned a notoriety that endured a fair bit longer.
Whatever you heard about Perfect Dark Zero is probably true. It’s a below-average shooter that, while still playable in 2022, fails to match the unique vibe of Perfect Dark One. There are no aliens, of course, and that’s less of a sticking point for me than you may think. More importantly, the futuristic and light cyberpunk elements of the first game’s world have been stripped back to a point where the game feels more like an Elseworlds version of Perfect Dark than a chronological prequel. Whatever connective tissue is present has been stretched thin. Joanna has a different hairstyle, personality, and accent compared to her debut. Carrington and Datadyne are the drivers of the plot, but they’re portrayed as warring private armies instead of spy agencies. Knowing the two games are supposedly set a few years apart, reconciling them together just doesn’t make sense. It’s better to think of them as separate universes (and maybe the new Perfect Dark is, too).
You can't convince me this is supposed to be the same world as Perfect Dark One.
Much of the disparity can be linked to the awkward year of 2005 in which Perfect Dark Zero launched alongside the Xbox 360. This is a period of shooters post-Halo, but pre-Modern Warfare. The original game’s style of console shooter is out of fashion, but no other games have re-set the template for this genre yet. This has cover and health regeneration, which are both clunky compared to what would come just months later. Your weapon wheel has been replaced with swapping in the field. But in a more old-school design choice, there is a maximum of one checkpoint per stage, none on harder difficulties. The game is an awkward adolescent released just prior to shooters’ renaissance and oppressive dominance over the generation.
Likewise, Perfect Dark Zero arrived before the Bond reboot Casino Royale, firmly entrenched in the period of looking down the nose at the classic spy genre. While the game was, surprisingly, concepted in a cartoony art style, fan backlash changed the direction to increased realism. Both sides had a point. That concept art is actually very bad. Also, the final presentation has aged abhorrently. How is it that Joanna fights through a mountain palace death match, a ruined jungle temple, and a freakin’ underwater lab with a space shuttle on it, yet none of it leaves any impression? Textures are muddy and oddly shiny. Character animations look stilted without any of the exaggerated charm of the original. The only exception is the hilariously unstable ragdoll system. As a generation’s launch game, Perfect Dark Zero enjoyed the allure of new fidelity. But that generation has not been treated kindly by age, and this game has suffered the worst. The artists didn’t do any futureproofing to resist it.
While it's not needed, I did miss the weapon wheel from the last game.
So, aside from curiosity, I can’t think of a single reason to recommend a playthrough of Perfect Dark Zero in 2022. That doesn’t mean, however, that it isn’t any fun. Obviously, I was committed to seeing the game through due to the Rare Replay pact. I went in with guarded expectations, and I have to say that a casual playthrough on the easiest difficulty is perfectly enjoyable. It’s not an inspired game by any means, but it’s still competent. Certain weapons actually do retain sci-fi attributes, and experimenting with their firing modes is neat. One SMG has a detective mode that plasters the screen orange with red highlights. It quickly became my weapon of choice, for better or worse, allowing me to easily identify targets like the Predator and feed them my wrath. Vehicle and escort missions are here, but they are not nearly as bad as you may fear. In one particularly unusual moment, driving a bouncy hovercraft over an open snowfield, my brain was momentarily tricked into thinking this was Halo. Limited regenerating health and optional waypoint lines really do ease the frustration. The first playthrough isn’t great by any means, but it’s easy to see the ways in which it could have gone much, much worse.
The despair finally set in when I turned my eye to the achievements. I can’t fully hate the way achievements are implemented in Perfect Dark Zero because it was one of the earliest titles to ever have them. That said, it doesn’t get much less creative than this. Achievements are in one of two categories: clearing the campaign on each difficulty and multiplayer milestones. Firstly, I want to applaud the choice to not require online play for any achievement. Split screen and bot matches will work just fine, which makes my journey actually possible. Especially since no one in their right mind should be playing this game online in 2022. That’s where my enthusiasm ends, though, as marathoning through 750 of the game’s 1000 Gamerscore is clearly not what the designers intended. If you were all-in at the 360 launch and played for months on end, you could conceivably reach 1000 deathmatch games played naturally. But that’s definitely something that makes me feel sick and full of regret. There are tiers of milestones in every game mode, most on that level of obnoxiously high. Grinding these challenges out is time-consuming, tedious, and pointless, but at least it’s not difficult. Guides are freely available for good farming setups, and then you can watch TV while your number ticks up invisibly.
If you totally exhaust the competitive multiplayer achievements, you’re looking at a fat 720 Gamerscore for your profile. But for the scholars at home, that’s 30 points shy of the number we need for the Rare Replay stamps. That means dipping back into the campaign. 180 points are locked behind a secret super-duper level of difficulty, which would be moot because we’d pass the threshold anyway. And I am not quite so evil as to force another human player into playing the game co-op with me. I’d rather play Halo and keep the friendship. It looks like the choice is made for us: Complete the game on hard to get those points and move on with my life. As you surely expected, though, things could never be so simple.
I wished someone would just do that to me and get it over with.
In my professional opinion, each difficulty in Perfect Dark Zero is ranked one too low. The easiest I would classify as an appropriate challenge, the second seems to be a little unfairly balanced, the third is rather torturous, and the secret fourth probably gives you the red ring of death, I don’t know. The damage scaling on hard (or “perfect agent”) is severely punishing. I know this because I couldn’t make it past the second stage. You see, I didn’t start out on the easiest difficulty, but on perfect agent. Sorry for misleading you. I spent upwards of half an hour getting through the tutorial stage, and while I’m sure I could breeze through it now, I was very frustrated at the time. Joanna is made of paper here, and the ending shootout destroyed me and sent me back to the start again and again, sometimes inches away from finishing. This is where I first internalized the game’s cruel checkpointing. But I did make it past that challenge, and I still held a degree of confidence that I could finish the rest of the campaign.
Then the nightclub mission happened. It’s the only one I experienced where stealth is mandatory. You start by finding specific enemies and looking at them until a bar slooooowly fills up. But, in a nod to the original Perfect Dark, higher difficulties mean more mission objectives. In this case, each level adds an extra thug to peep until you can play without fear of auto-failure. I’m sure I restarted this mission hundreds of times, playing out the motions again and again. In the process, I discovered just how stupid the AI can be in stealth mode. You can headshot folks in the open with no consequences most of the time. Most of my mistakes were missing a shot, which then prompted an alert and a restart. On hard, the extra challenges would inevitably cause the scene to pop off, evaporating the health needed to stand a fighting chance. Ascending the nightclub means battling guy after guy, highlighting early this game’s bad habit of flushing the system with enemies. It didn’t matter how carefully I played. Some guy would inevitably get the jump on me and take me down in one blast. Remember, on this difficulty there are no checkpoints, so back to the slogging stealth section I went.
I spent a ton of play sessions just beating my head against this one early level. Could I come back with better weapons and skills and finally overcome it? On a long enough timescale, anything is possible. But that would just be this one level. It’s actually one of my preferred levels, since meeting a contact at a nightclub is an appropriately spy-like setup. But in the endgame, when the game becomes poorly paced Call of Duty? This was plainly not going to work. With so many options cut off from me, there was only one path left: Get a little help from my invisible friend. First, I completed the campaign on normal difficulty. This alone was challenging to the point where I knew I was making the correct decision. Then, I plugged in the same old companion who helped me numerous times already. I now needed to somehow play two characters at once to reach the last stinking five points to mathematically secure my stamps.
In a cool touch, the second player will be control of the AI helper in certain missions. Other times, they're just... another Joanna.
Shockingly, not only was this a relatively simple tasks, it turned out to be the most fun of my three campaign playthroughs. Here, you can play the game like a rubber band wherein one character goes on like normal until hitting a roadblock that requires the other to catch back up. I was playing on easy again, so the bullet sponge enemies of the past were firmly a memory. Most happily, there’s a revive mechanic. If my lead character went down, I could simply send the other one in their footsteps, mopping up any enemies I missed, reviving player one, and repeating. I’ve heard that co-op is the best way to actually enjoy Perfect Dark Zero. I can add that this is the case even without another live human! Had this game put more thought into its achievements, I might have enjoyed going for silly challenges and playing the game in new ways. Instead, I just squeaked by with enough points to get my stamps with resignation.
Perfect Dark Zero is without question the game that racked up the highest hour count of the 30. Even at the heights of my time with it, my enjoyment never exceeded a six out of ten. It’s hard not to feel a lingering disappointment, even as someone who first played Perfect Dark One immediately preceding it. Rare went the wrong direction from the outset, in the process watering down everything that made the first game worth remembering. Here, we’re left with a game even more entrenched in its time, one that doesn’t exactly wound but still leaves us with what-ifs and a preposterous number of bot matches logged.
[Editor’s note: Please forgive the lack of “ñ” in this post. I didn’t feel like using it.]
Wait, this game had a PC release? I wish I could have played that!
By this point in the challenge, I had conquered all sorts of heinous tasks. I battled disgusting design, crappy controls, and egregious grinding. Despite my victories, I was still trepidatious when it was time for Viva Pinata. This kind of simulation game would be nothing like what I had done so far. Ordinarily, I actually love sim games. But I never play them because I know they would destroy my free time. There are two Viva Pinata games included in Rare Replay, and I had a feeling they wouldn’t be a good match for this challenge. To rush through a management game and try to minmax achievements is already counter to the point of the genre. Doing so for two similar titles could only exacerbate that.
After a string of difficulties under team Xbox, Rare is seemingly back to its old self with Viva Pinata. Any sense of self-seriousness from the 360 launch is shed in favor of what the studio does best: cheekiness. This gaggle of paper animals is packed with personality as well as candy. I was most impressed by the animation work. Each pinata identifiably moves like the creature it’s based on. At the same time, they are all super goofy, and it’s fun to just watch one do its thing. The attention to detail is best seen in the romance dance cutscenes. Each pinata species has its own little routine with a different type of music, and it’s a delightfully silly way to represent reproduction with an E rating. Multiply that care and attention by the seemingly limitless number of species in the game, and you’re always on a treadmill waiting for the next new thing. Every humanoid NPC’s look and writing also comes from the Rare catalogue: irreverent and occasionally unsettling. It’s funny to compare the actual game’s tone with its intro scene, which comes from the tie-in cartoon. That is all about animals screaming and/or partying, which was kinda the baseline for any cartoon made in the 2000s. The contrast between that and Rare’s quieter British humor shows a remaining divide between creators and owners, even for characters this marketable.
I promise, my gardens looked nowhere near this attractive.
In this first Viva Pinata, if you play it, achievements will come. There’s not anything extraordinary that requires hard work beyond the game’s normal progression. That progression is open-ended. It’s up to you to grow plants, decorate, and fill your garden with pinatas to level up. Then, you unlock more things and continue on. The achievements are nice mile markers along that path. I was not prepared for how much of the process would resemble Harvest Moon, though. Experience is awarded for each variety of plant you can successfully keep alive. Even more is available for feeding it the right fertilizer three times. I had to invest in a green space because accruing a menagerie of paper animals is actually very challenging. The other way experience comes down is, of course, for every new species of pinata, then for making them get busy a bunch of times.
But the requirements for new visitors are increasingly arcane. You may need particular objects, plants, or even other pinatas before a new species even deigns to visit. When they finally show up, you hover over them like an over-eager party host, asking if the furniture is to their liking. While your owned pinatas can be directed towards places (when that decides to work), these noncommittal pinatas have their own priorities. I would repeatedly drop their favorite food in front of their faces, only to be ignored time and again. Play this way long enough, and any semblance of an attractive garden is destroyed. My plots were filled with rotting fruit, half-grown dried-out vegetation, and a dysfunctional mess of food-themed animals. Much respect goes to sim players who use the tools to create gorgeous art pieces, but that has never been my strength.
I spent way too much time navigating this multilayered menu.
Playing so manically also meant I was navigating menus constantly, most often for Costalot’s general store. I grew the muscle memory to instinctively input the sequence to get there, but on a good day it still takes five to seven seconds. Picking out what you need from the many subcategories takes even longer, plus Lottie’s multiple dialogue boxes of quips to skip through. Having to deal with this so often, I did not appreciate that the most important NPC in the game is explicitly ripping you off. And it’s her favorite thing to talk about. To finance this operation, I had to maintain a separate plot of land as a designated farm for lucrative chili plants. After some number of hours, I was sitting on a disastrously ugly garden that nonetheless contained high value pinatas and items. The penultimate achievement I needed was for a garden worth 100 thousand coins. The last was to have those coins on hand. You can see the economic path here. The only logical thing to do was scorch earth and sell every last thing I could. I was now the owner of a barren wasteland, but I had what I needed. I didn’t get into the pinata game for the love of it. I did it for the Gamerscore.
I knew that immediately moving on to the sequel would be a bad idea, so I took a little break at this point. In retrospect, it probably should have been a big break, because Trouble in Paradise burnt me out hard. Internally, Rare had debated making this content as an expansion or a full sequel. I would agree that there’s (barely) enough new stuff to justify the latter, especially since there’s a new Madden every year. If I could change anything about Trouble in Paradise, I would have it recognize my save from the last game and unlock all the stuff I had. I know they could do it, most of the code has got to be exactly the same. Instead, you must unlock everything you worked so hard for once again – but this time, the game is not impressed anymore, so no achievements for you. All the achievements center around the added content, which is kind of sprinkled around the edges of what was already there. I was scared because my magic margin for the Rare Replay stamps was razor-thin this time. A healthy portion of Gamerscore is tied up in online modes and a defunct card-reading accessory for the Xbox 360. Developers know that these choices will destroy achievement freaks years after release, and they think the pain is funny.
The most prominent additions to Trouble in Paradise are the new desert and arctic areas. These spaces are empty squares traveled through by thematically appropriate wild pinatas. You can buy and bait traps to hopefully poach these pinatas for your own garden. To make them stay, though, you’ll need to replicate their preferred environment. That’s one of the big reasons I was juggling five to six gardens at once while trying to muscle through the game. There are also a pair of new minigames, a race and a pageant. I felt that the best way to engage with these was to hope for the best. Imaginary Player 2 was a huge help once again, letting me tilt the randomness ever so slightly more in my favor. They also satisfied some achievements just for sticking around for a few hours. What a great pal – I’m sorry to see them go.
Not only are the contests unintuitive, I don't even know who this guy is.
While everything from the first game is still present, Trouble in Paradise does contain a more structured progression, albeit one that can be taken at any pace. There will always be representatives of three countries asking for a specific pinata at their party. When you possess a matching creature, you feed them candy and send them off temporarily to entertain the children of the world. Each country has around half a dozen of these requests, and there are quite a lot to contend with in total. Achievements are doled out for satisfying the challenges on each continent. However, nothing can be so simple. The requests start innocuously enough, but before long, things get very particular. What color does the pinata need to be? What tricks must it know? What accessories must it wear? The calculus becomes a mess because the path to unlocking all this junk is not clear in game. I was constantly crosschecking multiple guides and wikis, and I felt dizzy. Pinata A needs three of fruit B before it will come to the garden. I can’t unlock fruit B until I reach level X and have 7 of pinata C to clear the path, then I need Y amount of sand in my garden to attract pinata D to scare away creature Z…
I could not wrap my mind around this, and to be fully honest, I was more stressed at this point than at almost any other part of the challenge. Each of my gardens was its own microclimate that had even more of a disastrous layout than before. Even with the last true cheat code in the challenge that effectively gave infinite money, I was anxious managing the hundreds of other variables. In retrospect, the presence of three challenges at once pulled my brain in multiple directions simultaneously, keeping me from focusing on any one of them for long. I would try to put the game down for the day, then I would come back minutes later because maybe the thing I needed would show up soon. Playing in the game’s order was driving me up the wall, so I resorted to a “catch ‘em all” approach where I compiled every pinata on a list and crossed them off when they finally appeared. As I madly typed their ridiculous names, it brought to mind an insane horror villain scrawling “Galagoogoo” and the like on a wall.
Pengums!! Cute!!!
All the while, opponents were interloping. I haven’t talked about the enemies of these games yet because I felt their presence much more intensely in the sequel. Sour pinatas show up at level gates to poison your creatures, ruin your plants, and otherwise just be a thorn in your side. You can and should turn them good like any other pinata, but they always appeared far before I had the means to do so. The humanoid enemies have even more ways to ruin your day, and they’re more persistent. You can hire security guards who don’t feel like doing their job half the time, and you’re pretty helpless otherwise. If you’re not on top of the antics these cronies get up to, it can become an expensive headache. Their boss, Professor Pester, is the worst of the lot. He targets high value pinatas and blows them up while you try in vain to stop him. Now, there is a surefire way to keep Pester out, and that’s to simply build a fence in front of his house. For all his presenting intellect, he can’t figure that one out. This is pretty clearly an unintended solution, but I couldn’t find another way of dealing with him. Was the design really to have him constantly ruin everything you’re working so hard on? Since I was bouncing between gardens so often, I forgot to build the barrier each time. On the very last pinata I needed, moments before becoming free, I watched the scene play out in slow motion, helpless. My polar bear went kaput. Perfect freakin’ ending.
Trouble in Paradise, though a more feature-rich entry, is decidedly less friendly with its achievements. The more relaxed vibes of the first game were much preferred. But blame can only go so far when you play a genre in the objective wrong way. I liked playing around with the pinatas and finding some of their hidden talents for miscellaneous achievements, and the steady flow of unlocks was nice when I could get it. It was only when I tried to take control of the game’s pace that the rough edges became utterly abrasive. Next, we’re bringing it all home with the final game of these chosen 30 – and it’s the one I was most excited to try.
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