Rare Replay

If you are considering buying Rare Replay for Xbox One, I want you to ask yourself a few questions first:

• Am I a fan of Rare’s large lineup of games from the past thirty years?
• Do I like to play games not just for immediate, current enjoyment but also for historic curiosity purposes?
• How much of my love of Rare stems from the Donkey Kong Country series?
• How many of Rare’s Xbox 360 games do I already own (i.e. Banjo-Kazooie, Viva Piñata, Perfect Dark)?

Your answer to any one of these questions could change my recommendation from “You should definitely buy Rare Replay!” to “You’re probably 100% okay skipping Rare Replay.” Thus, the task of reviewing this game is exceptionally difficult unless you understand these points.

First off, what is Rare Replay? If you are unaware, Rare Replay is a collection of thirty games from UK-based developer Rare (also previously known as Ultimate or Rareware) and its thirty-year history since its time as a small producer of ZX Spectrum games all the way up to games last published for the Xbox 360 in 2008. What makes this collection fairly odd is the fact that from around 1986-2002, Rare was primarily recognized as a Nintendo developer (especially in 1994 with the release of the acclaimed platformer Donkey Kong Country and its sequels).

Thus, while there is a wide variety of interesting games to delve into, Rare Replay is missing some rather essential parts of Rare’s history. Rare was purchased in 2002 and is now wholly owned by Microsoft. Therefore, some of the most widely loved Rare games are notably missing from the collection. This is simultaneously a colossal bummer and a completely understandable situation due to licensing. Even though it’s understandable, the following well-known, critically acclaimed games are simply absent:

• Donkey Kong Country/2/3
• GoldenEye 007
• Diddy Kong Racing
• Donkey Kong 64
• Various portable titles such as Conker’s Pocket Tales, Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty’s Revenge, Sabre Wulf, Banjo-Pilot, and It’s Mr Pants

For its part, Rare Replay manages the emulation of its various games admirably. Games like Knight Lore and Jetpac look crisp (and pretty crusty) and control as well as one might expect. The first NES game of the bunch, Slalom, controls more naturally since it was designed for a traditional gamepad rather than a computer keyboard. Still, there are only a handful of games that elevate past the “novelty” factor prior to 1997 – and even then, you’ll have to ask yourself how forgiving you are of the antique design of games like R.C. Pro-Am (released some five years before Super Mario Kart) or the brutal, choppy design of Battletoads.

The real gems of this collection are the myriad N64 games included. These were released in Rare’s heyday (which ran from about 1994-2001) and include such hits as Banjo-Kazooie (still my favorite 3D platformer of the N64/PlayStation era), Banjo-Tooie, the quirky Blast Corps, the excellent shooter Perfect Dark (which was a spiritual sequel to GoldenEye), the crass but oddly creative platformer Conker’s Bad Fur Day, and Jet Force Gemini (which I feel was stronger in concept than execution but was probably inspirational to such series as Ratchet & Clank).

Rare’s final game on a Nintendo home console was 2002’s Star Fox Adventures, which for obvious reasons is not included. Also missing is the Xbox remake of Conker, known as Live & Reloaded. Perhaps the poorest Rare game of the 90’s-00’s, Grabbed by the Ghoulies, is included and has the honor of being the only game in the collection actually properly ported to the Xbox One console and not emulated in any fashion. It wasn’t good to begin with and hasn’t aged well either, though it’s again a fascinating historical game to have present and it looks clean and colorful. It had the dubious honor from a handful of review sites at the time as the most well-produced bad game of all time. So there’s that.

The final games in the collection are all 360 games – Kameo: Elements of Power and Perfect Dark Zero, both Xbox 360 launch window games that haven’t aged terribly well, Viva Piñata and Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise, which are both excellent lighthearted sim games along the lines of Harvest Moon or Animal Crossing with a fun collection element, and Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, the strange and creative vehicle building, objective-based game that was notably not a platformer (and my least favorite in the series, though others have expressed the exact opposite). Also included is the Xbox Live Arcade title Jetpac Refuelled, which oddly enough includes a version of the original game (so you have two copies there). Most of these games work well on the Xbox One, though Nuts & Bolts seems to have a lot of framerate and resolution issues that will hopefully be ironed out with time.

It’s a fairly robust package of games, especially for $30. Just a few of these games alone would be worth that amount, again assuming you don’t already own them in some format. But keep in mind that the following games were all originally on the Xbox 360 in some fashion and will be fully compatible with the fall Xbox One update:

• Banjo-Kazooie
• Perfect Dark
• Banjo-Tooie
• Kameo: Elements of Power
• Perfect Dark Zero
• Viva Piñata
• Jetpac Refuelled
• Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise
• Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts

If you own most of those (or all of the ones you actually want) you may be in the same position that I am in questioning whether this collection was even worth the bother. That’s nearly a third of the collection, with a full other third being non-Nintendo computer games that just don’t hold up at all. Those nine games also don't have new achievements tied to them - they simply use your existing Xbox 360 achievements list for them and base the Rare Replay rewards on how many of those achievements you have. It’s an interesting quandary, especially since the presentation of the collection is quite nice, and the incentives and challenges put together with various achievements, stamps, special unlockable videos and more are neat touches. I would’ve liked to see the Killer Instinct arcade ports that were included in the Ultimate Editions of both seasons of the Xbox One fighting game, but I guess they’re already somewhat available to those that actually want them. (hint: the new game is far better than the old ones ever were anyway)

Rare Replay is an awfully strange collection. I would recommend it to anyone who doesn’t have the games included already and can look past the rougher edges of its older games. There’s a lot to this package and it’s presented very well. It’s just going to depend on your personal preferences and interest in the types of games here whether you should buy it or not.

Final Verdict:

Four Stars – Most folks will probably get something out of this package, specifically those that don’t already own a large number of the Xbox 360 releases. At the very least you’ll get a good, if incomplete, history lesson on one of gaming’s most well-known classic developers.