Rareware, or just Rare as they are more frequently known are the famous British game development studio owned by Microsoft which were once upon a time a second party developer for Nintendo. Heading further back in time they were known as Ultimate Play the Game and released games mainly for the Spectrum but also for machines like the Commodore 64.
In recent years they are known for Sea of Thieves on Xbox, but they are unquestionably best known for their run during the mid-1990s when they worked with Nintendo as a second party developer to release games on the Super Nintendo and the Nintendo 64. It can’t really be understated how big a deal their contribution was to the extended longevity of the SNES with the Donkey Kong Country trilogy and Killer Instinct, or how they really were side by side with Nintendo to deliver just as many of the N64’s big hitters as Nintendo themselves.
Whether fair or not, a lot of people look at Rare in this era and say that clearly it was the collaboration with Nintendo which helped ensure their portfolio of games ended up as high quality as it did. Nintendo are known for the excellent quality of games and with their input it certainly must have helped raise the bar at Rare to meet Nintendo’s high standards. You can even look to Rare’s output since being bought out by Microsoft in the early 2000s as the sign that they never really hit the same quality again.
But this brings us to the main subject of our discussion today. Was Rare’s success just built off the back of Nintendo templates? This is a subject that has been on my mind for years and thought we should explore a pattern in Rare’s releases that frequently could be seen as taking something Nintendo did, and just doing it again with sharper graphics and some googly eyes added.
Now, just to be clear, I’m not saying that all Rare did was copy Nintendo ideas, and there were certainly games released by Rare that don’t have an obvious Nintendo franchise that they were following in the steps of. But let’s look at the ones that did.
In 1994 Rare released Donkey Kong Country which wowed the world with its groundbreaking visuals for the time, great characters, gameplay and music. As a 2D platformer released by Nintendo this game was filling a void that Super Mario would normally fill. Super Mario World had come out a few years earlier and Super Mario All-Stars had since released the original Super Mario Bros games as a graphically overhauled collection to bridge the gap until the next main Mario platformer would be ready. That game would be Yoshi’s Island but wouldn’t be ready until 1995.
Nintendo gave Rare the opportunity to take their Donkey Kong character and make a game with him. The results put Donkey Kong in a Super Mario Bros style game. But heck this was the mid 90s and most games were 2D platformers. But it’s that the game took Donkey and put him into a playable role for the first time in a game which could have been designed for Mario and Luigi. Add to this that like Mario and Luigi riding Yoshi, Donkey and Diddy could also ride animal buddies like Rambi and Expresso. Also add that where as Mario battled a big roundish turtle dragon monster in Bowser, Donkey and Diddy would battle a big round crocodile in King K Rool.
It’s easy to start seeing that Rare just took the Mario template. And yes, I know you could say that just because there were these similarities it doesn’t mean much. Heck, the fact you have Donkey and Diddy on screen together could be said to be like how you’d have Sonic and Tails together. Collecting bananas is both like Mario collecting coins and Sonic collecting rings. Even Dr Robotnik is similarly rotund just as King K Rool and Bowser are. Tropes are tropes.
But the comparisons between one game and another doesn’t begin to scratch the surface here. It’s not just that one Rare game is the same genre as a Nintendo game, or that both contain similar elements. No instead, it’s that there was a definite pattern of Nintendo putting out a game and a little while later Rare would put out a similar game.
It was kinda like the Disney Pixar and Dreamworks situation. Don’t know what that is? Let me briefly explain.
Pixar movie studio became a big deal with the release of Toy Story in the 1990s, and it didn’t take long before Dreamworks was their first big rival in the CGI animated movie business. However it came about, the two companies spent several years where they each would release a conceptually identical film.
After Toy Story, Pixar released A Bugs Life. This released shortly after Dreamworks put out Antz. Two CGI animated films within a year both about Ants.
Next up Dreamworks put out Shrek which mocked a lot of Disney films like Pinocchio and Disney Princesses whilst Pixar put out Monsters Inc starring the Shrek sized Monster Sully.
After this Pixar released Finding Nemo whilst Dreamworks released Shark Tale.
Then Dreamworks released Madagascar whilst Disney released The Wild, both of which focussed on a group of animals escaping from a zoo.
Sometimes Disney Pixar would release a film first and sometimes Dreamworks would, so maybe they were copying each other, but either way both studios released films in this order where the themes were ants, monsters, fish and escaped zoo animals. All within a year of each other.
In this instance, these were a sign of competition between each other, but with Nintendo and Rare, I feel that maybe it was an intended strategy. Where as Sega would give us new Sonic games each year, and there would be a new Crash game each year on the PlayStation, Nintendo is known for taking their time with games to make each sequel something innovative and special rather than more of the same.
So, what if Nintendo were happy to release more of the same? But just use Rare to follow up some of their big hitters with similar experiences of their own?
After Donkey Kong Country followed the template of Super Mario World, even down to having a geographic quantity in the title, Rare would release the Game Boy Donkey Kong Land. Super Mario Land had been on the Game Boy and the use of ‘Land’ was to indicate that it was smaller than the Super Nintendo Mario ‘World’. Rare took the same approach with Donkey Kong Land on the Game Boy being the smaller deal than the Super Nintendo Donkey Kong Country.
Then the Nintendo 64 released and Nintendo released what many called the best game ever created up to that point in Super Mario 64. This 3D reimagining of Super Mario had you able to run around levels collecting coins, changing the camera around Mario as he platforms and collecting yellow power stars rather than looking for an end exit for a level.
Enter Banjo-Kazooie. Playing as Banjo the bear, you’d run around 3D levels and collect music notes, moving the 3D camera around exactly as you did on Super Mario 64 and seek out the golden jigsaw pieces.
Also plot wise just as Mario would have to rescue the damsel in distress Princess Peach from the previously mentioned green turtle dragon thing, Banjo was out to rescue his damsel sister from the similarly stubby green witch Gruntilda.
With the 3D platformer being a really new invention with Super Mario 64, it did set most of the rules and gameplay mechanics for the genre. This just further highlights how Rare once again followed the Nintendo template with Mario and used it wholesale with Banjo.
Next up Mario Kart 64 to Diddy Kong Racing. Keep in mind that at the time of its release Mario Kart 64 was only the second ever Mario Kart. And whilst the Super Nintendo Super Mario Kart had inspired the likes of Street Racer and the Game Gear Sonic Drift titles, the kart racer wasn’t as popular a genre as it has become.
Mario Kart 64 would soon enough inspire the likes of Crash Team Racing and Bomberman Kart and others on the PSOne. But Diddy Kong Racing was the first non Mario Kart Mario Kart type game to cross the finish line to release. Nintendo and Rare were establishing a sense of a one two punch where Nintendo would put out a game and then bam! Rare releases a similar game to keep players interested.
Diddy Kong Racing is a good example of what Rare often did and what makes all the games I’m talking about today seem special and have that Rare magic. Not only did Diddy Kong Racing scratch that Mario Kart itch, but it expanded upon it. Diddy Kong Racing took what Nintendo did with Mario Kart and combined it with the hub world and adventure of Super Mario 64 and also added hovercrafts and planes as well as karts to make something that fans could actually debate was better than Nintendo’s original output.
As a comparison, Naughty Dog just took what Rare did with Diddy Kong Racing and did the same thing with Crash Team Racing. Just as Rare took Super Mario World and made DKC stand out with incredible visuals, people could look at the more textured graphics in Banjo compared to Mario 64 or the fully 3D characters of DKR compared to the DKC style rendered sprites in Mario Kart 64 and once again say that Rare one upped Nintendo at their own game.
Now that I’m on a roll with these comparisons my theory does admittedly take a slight hit, but it’s very far from derailed.
Conker’s Quest, later known as Twelve Tales Conker 64 and eventually Conker’s Bad Fur Day was another 3D platformer which started life as a 3D platformer before Banjo-Kazooie did. You could say that originally Conker was the first direct inspiration from Super Mario 64, but in the world of game development many games get cancelled or retooled and evolve which is the theme of this middle section of our discussion.
Conker arguably became its own thing which was more influenced by South Park, and movie references than being a riff on Nintendo’s formula. Gameplay wise it was of course another 3D platformer, but dipped away from that genre into others and is a true sign of Rare’s creativity and innovation.
Coming back to Banjo for a moment, for those that follow Rare’s history will of course know that Banjo started life as the Super Nintendo RPG game called Project Dream. That game initially had similar 2D sprites rendered from 3D models that Donkey Kong Country and Killer Instinct had, but looking at what little footage there is of the game you can’t massively say that Project Dream was aimed to be Rare’s Zelda attempt.
You could make the case that the main character Edson was a sword wielding plucky young lad who wore green and evolved from having reddish to brown hair, and that this is similar to Link. Or you could note that when the game moved to the N64 the 3D visuals looked like an evolved top down Zelda game, but again we’ve only seen a little of this and so won’t die on the hill that this was Rare’s Zelda.
Rare’s Zelda was absolutely Dinosaur Planet. After Ocarina of Time released on the Nintendo 64 Rare started working on the game that would eventually transition to the Nintendo GameCube and gain the Star Fox license to become Star Fox Adventures, after first being shown as Star Fox Adventures: Dinosaur Planet. Just as Rare had been trusted to bring new life to Donkey Kong, they were now tasked to shepherd Fox McCloud to new glory.
It must be pointed out that as far as Star Fox and Zelda on the GameCube are concerned, it was Star Fox that came out first, which could break my theory. But…keep in mind that Star Fox Adventures had started life as Dinosaur Planet for the Nintendo 64 and was therefore absolutely Rare just doing their Zelda Ocarina of Time. With similar gameplay Rare once again upped the ante on presentation with fully voiced characters and flying sections where you’d ride a dinosaur.
There was also Jet Force Gemini which has been acknowledged as filling the 3D Metroid gap before there was a 3D Metroid. Of course, when 3D Metroid did come out it was the first person Metroid Prime, but you can absolutely see how Jet Force Gemini bridges the gap between 2D Metroid and Metroid Prime. It just so happens that Nintendo didn’t release their 3D Metroid during the N64 era.
But coming back to Star Fox Adventures for a moment, I’m sure it’s not news to anyone that at this point in Rare’s history it was where Rare would break away from Nintendo and go to the dark side of Microsoft. Microsoft now owned Rare, but that isn’t quite where our tale ends.
Rare had announced a slew of projects for the Nintendo GameCube, but only Star Fox Adventures would release a short while after the announcement was made. Rare had announced several games for the GameCube including Donkey Kong Racing which would have continued where Diddy Kong Racing left off, but evolved things further where you’d now race on animal buddies rather than just in vehicles.
Banjo-Threeie and Perfect Dark Zero would continue those franchises that had been released on the N64, and Rare also showed off a new franchise in Kameo Elements of Power.
None of these games would release on Nintendo’s purple cube of joy, but nor would they release on Microsoft Xbox.
Instead, we got two games, which once upon a time was just rumoured to be one game. Soon after the release of Conker’s Bad Fur Day, I remember reading that the sequel was in the works and that its title was Conker: Grabbed by the Ghoulies. Now, as we’ll be aware, this was just conflating two games as what we got was a remake of Conker’s BFD in Conker Live and Reloaded and we got Grabbed by the Ghoulies which was its own franchise.
Here’s the thing, Conker: Grabbed by the Ghoulies would have made perfect sense for the name of a Conker game. With it’s more risky humour ‘grabbed by the Ghoulies’ perfectly is the double entendre of being grabbed by the balls with Ghoulies being a very British term for one’s bollocks.
Instead, the game Grabbed by the Ghoulies was Rare’s Luigi’s Mansion. In both games you play as a somewhat frightened dude wearing green as they venture through a haunted house facing ghosts.
Gameplay wise, Nintendo had made Luigi’s Mansion a twin stick focussed game where the left analogue stick would control Luigi’s movement and the right stick would control his vacuum cleaner. The main guy in Ghoulies didn’t suck up the ghosts and instead and much more blandly, brawled with them. But the direction of your attacks was still controlled by the right stick for yet another sense of deja vu.
Kameo Elements of Power would eventually release for the Xbox 360, and although fairly far removed gameplay wise, is still Rare’s take on Pokémon. Both games see you on an adventure collecting monsters for battle and use their different elemental abilities for different fights and puzzles.
It has to be said that if Kameo had any influence from Pokémon, it couldn’t be said that Kameo would have scratched the Pokémon itch in the same way that Banjo filled the gap for Super Mario 64, but clearly Rare were evolving, and this Nintendo shadowing may have been coming under some strain. Case and point being that Rare left Nintendo for Microsoft.
But up to this point Grabbed by the Ghoulies, Kameo and even Perfect Dark Zero were all Rare games on Xbox that had been known about during the time Rare were still with Nintendo.
On the Game Boy Advance Nintendo worked with Rare to see the DKC games rereleased with changes, tweaks and additions. Again DKC would fill the gaps between Super Mario Advance releases.
And Rare even did their own things on GBA, but again this were all legacy things that had been announced when Rare was with Nintendo, but needed changing in places to not have Nintendo characters. Diddy Kong Pilot was to follow Mario Kart Super Circuit, but was delayed to eventually become Banjo-Pilot. It’s significant here that whilst a direct follow up to Diddy King Racing, the series went backwards in time to be a game similar to Super Mario Kart rather than be completely following its predecessor in DKR.
Coming back to the Xbox 360, we got Viva Piñata. A game that Rare started some work on whilst still at Nintendo, but was not announced until much later. The game certainly has its own identity and gameplay style, but comparisons of it being Rare’s Animal Crossing aren’t unwarranted.
Sequels for Viva Piñata came out and included the Mario Party like Viva Piñata Party Animals, which yeah…was Rare’s Mario Party. Fairness to Rare though is that they didn’t directly develop this game as it was handed over to Krome Studios in Australia, but certainly a Rare game and franchise was used as the basis for a Marty Party type game.
And at this stage, yeah I do feel aware that one could argue that Rare made a lot of games, and it could be seen that I’m just finding whatever Rare and Nintendo made in the same genre and saying Rare ripped them off. That’s not what I’m doing. There is a definite pattern of many Rare games, following in the footsteps of a Nintendo counterpart. But I’m not saying it’s all of them.
Killer Instinct is clearly in the same wheelhouse of Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, but just because Rare made a one on one fighting game it doesn’t mean Rare stole it from Street Fighter and weren’t innovative in their own right. The closest I can think of a game like Blast Corps was maybe Rampage, or Anarchy for the Commodore 64, and there’s really not been too much like it since.
Goldeneye was a first person shooter, but was groundbreaking in its use of stealth gameplay before Metal Gear Solid did it.
But despite all their innovations and excellent quality games it doesn’t change that Rare were Nintendo’s shadow for a long period of time and that meant there is a pattern of Rare games building upon Nintendo innovations.
DKC followed the formula that Super Mario Bros built.
Diddy Kong Racing directly followed up Mario Kart 64 when there were few examples of the genre.
Banjo was the next Super Mario 64 before pretty much anything else had the chance to be the next Mario 64.
Dinosaur Planet was in the 3D Zelda mould.
Grabbed by the Ghoulies was just Luigi’s Mansion in the alternative Xbox reality.
And Kameo and had you collect and battle elemental monsters just as Pokémon had and Viva Piñata was both their Animal Crossing and Mario Party equivalents.
Yes, Rare made fighting games and First Person shooters, and everyone would end up making platformers and kart racers, but all of the examples are of games where Nintendo was responsible for the genres.
There were no kart racers or party games before Mario did them, and Pokémon and Animal Crossing were really uniquely Nintendo when they first arrived.
If this is to be seen as all completely coincidence then why cannot I point to Rare’s Resident Evil, or Rare’s Final Fantasy or Rare’s Metal Gear Solid or Gran Turismo. Because Rare wasn’t following in the footsteps of what was happening on PlayStation.
Where was Rare’s Virtua Fighter? Or Rare’s Nights into Dreams and Panzer Dragoon? Rare weren’t following Sega.
Rare were Nintendo’s right-hand man and gave the world some Nintendo like experiences which I believe weren’t intended as rip offs, but rather as that one two punch to follow up Nintendo’s innovations with their own take and the true magic is that their take could often be seen as better. This isn’t really something you can say about many games from other developers who took a leaf out of Nintendo’s books.
As much as PlayStation or Saturn fans may have wanted there to be a Super Mario 64 beater on their platform of choice Crash, Spyro, Croc and Nights weren’t seen as toppling Mario despite their coming out after. Crash Team Racing and Sonic R weren’t seen as Mario Kart beaters. And they had nothing to out Zelda Zelda. Rare we’re the closest and I believe that was by design with their close association to Nintendo.
It just so happens that the Nintendo influence…the Nintendfluence, continued for a good while after Rare was now at Microsoft.
Rare had innovated with Goldeneye and Perfect Dark, but the use of Perfect Dark Zero as a launch Xbox 360 title is the closest you can say to Perfect Dark following in the footsteps of Microsoft’s Halo franchise.
Rare didn’t release their Halo, nor did they release their Gears or War or Forza. They were Nintendo guys and continued to be so.
After the Viva Piñata franchise Rare was put in charge of Kinect Sports. Kinect Sports of course being Microsoft’s take on Nintendo’s Wii Sports. This was a while into the life of the Xbox 360, and you really have to believe this was truly the first game we’ve discussed that couldn’t have been being worked on whilst Rare worked with Nintendo.
It was on the Xbox 360 and directly followed in the footsteps of Wii Sports which was the big launch game packaged with every Wii. We do know that Nintendo had originally considered the Wii remote as a new controller for the GameCube, but saw the huge potential in it and so based it’s whole Wii strategy around motion controls and so included the remote with every system. A smart move as it would ensure that the Wii Remote was owned by every Wii owner, where as if they had released it as an optional controller for the Cube it would have ended up in dance mat or light gun territory where support for the peripheral would drop off.
But because Rare left Nintendo so early into the GameCube’s lifespan I can’t believe that Rare would have had much chance of having any insight into the Wii Remote or therefore Wii Sports and motion controlled gameplay.
Rare also worked on the Avatars for Xbox 360 and these of course were the Xbox version of the Mii avatars you’d create on Wii.
To me both Kinect Sports and the Xbox Avatars are signs that Rare were assigned by Microsoft to do their Nintendo-esque magic and be the ones to continue to replicate the Nintendo innovations long after they were broken up from their Nintendo marriage.
And then…Rare went dark. Other studios within Microsoft are credited with bringing back Killer Instinct and eventually there was a new Battle Toads, but that’s the first time I’ve mentioned the toads in this discussion as they were a Rare creation before they were formally dating Nintendo. Again that Rare’s original creations such as Battle Toads, and Sabre Wulf completely were skipped in the Nintendo-Rare era shows how much focus was put on following in Nintendo’s shadow.
Most Rare fans would agree that Rare was never the same after being bought out by Microsoft and the quantity and even quality of Rare games seemingly took a massive hit once they no longer that that Nintendo quality control tagging with them. Maybe that’s unfair and gives too much credit to Nintendo for their run of awesome games as it may have been down to the individuals who worked at Rare who at times moved on.
Some evidence of this comes from Free Radical making the well received Time Splitters games and Playtonic Games giving us the Banjo-Kazooie like Yooka Laylee and it’s DKC inspired sequel. These latter games are still a sign that Rare was at its best when they were adding their googly eyed spark to Nintendo style games.
Rare Replay eventually came out to remind everyone of the good old days, and we now do have Sea of Thieves which is undoubtably it’s own thing. Of course the pirate theme does harken back to Donkey Kong Country 2 and Project Dream, but by the time we’re at around 2020 is it still fair to say that Rare is doing a Nintendo? Without even the Rare founder Stamper brothers still at the company it can’t be much more than a shadow of what it was during the 1990s.
The one thing I found amusing in recent times was seeing that The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom has the new innovation of Link being able to combine random elements from
his environment to build vehicles and upon seeing the trailer I was given chills of Banjo-Kazooie Nuts and Bolts which was definitely a Rare innovation in their attempt to make Banjo less Super Mario 64 and more whatever the hack that game was.
I have a huge love for Rare’s games and I’m sure some will interpret that this comparison and pointing out a pattern is meant to diminish Rare’s work in some way. It’s not, but rather to recognise and explore the relationship between Rare and Nintendo and look back fondly on a working relationship where two powerhouses of game development inspired one another to innovate and build upon innovation. Whatever Nintendo did, Rare was going to put their Rare stamp on things to attempt to out Nintendo Nintendo. In a lot of instances I think they achieved it.
With Microsoft working more with Nintendo in recent years we’ve seen Banjo in Smash Bros being introduced by the DK crew in acknowledgement of the Rare links to Donkey Kong and we’ve seen Banjo and Goldeneye rereleased on Nintendo platforms.
Whilst fans still pine for Rare to somehow reunite with Nintendo or turn the clock back and us see some more of their collaborative magic, the truth is that time has probably passed.
Spiritual sequels and doses of nostalgia are probably still going to be the order for the day for a while to come, but Rare will continue to set sails on their own path with Sea of Thieves and we can look forward to their next original game Everwild…which to be honest kinda looks like Rare is making their Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild. The reveal trailer for the game showed a very Breath of the Wild like art style and with its focus on nature and scenery of fields and mountains and the wind gusting with goats and little animals running around…yeah it looks like Rare are continuing their tradition of being one step being Nintendo in their shadow. And from what I hear the game won’t have combat which obviously is a huge part of what Zelda is, but this doesn’t change that this still looks just like Rare’s Breath of the Wild. I mean for pity’s sake it’s even got the word ‘wild’ in the title!!!
Rare Replay? More like Nintendo Replay?
And of course I say that in jest as I look forward to whatever Rare may bring us in the future. But yeah, Rare are to still to Nintendo what they have been since the first Donkey Kong Country.
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