But there are definitely some glaring omissions from the collections. Obviously, a large majority of the Nintendo titles that made Rare truly famous are missing, but some versions of the games (like Conker’s Bad Fur Day on Nintendo 64 rather than Conker: Live & Reloaded) may leave some fans disappointed.
Thankfully, however, Rare have not skimped out with the games they have managed to include. Most (if not all) of the Xbox 360 titles come packaged together with all their released downloadable content. Perfect Dark Zero has its iconic Facility map, Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts has its L.O.G. Challenges too. In fact, Rare have even gone the extra mile and included the arcade version of Battletoads which has been quite hard to come by if you didn’t live in Europe. They’ve even tweaked the original Battletoads to be slightly more approachable if you so wish, but more on that later.
The whole thing is presented like a gallery of sorts with a carnival aesthetic. Every character you love and remember from these games has been deconstructed and altered into puppets who jump and animate across the screen from time to time. Each game you select has a “game stage” constructed to capture the feel and aesthetic of the game it’s representing, and it’s a small yet fantastic touch that really highlights how much love and care has gone into crafting Rare Replay.
Each game’s menu also has a unique little tune composed either from or paying homage to already existing music or from scratch, as some of these games didn’t even have soundtracks when they were first released in the early 80s. The attention to detail here is fantastic, and any fan of Rare will recognise the tunes from years past just from a few seconds of these new tracks. There’s even a quirky opening number that references all the characters and games in the compilation – think the DK Rap but with more charm (as if it wasn’t hard).
When you first boot up Rare Replay you’ll be greeted with three options; Rare Revealed, Game Gallery and Snapshots. Game Gallery is exactly as it sounds – exhibiting the thirty games in the collection either in chronological release or alphabetical order. It’s here where you’ll be spending most of your time so it’s nice to see the menus are intuitive and easy to navigate, for the most part. Games can be loaded into and exited out of wherever the player wishes, with the added benefit of autosaves and save staters for the older games. For those who lack the skill to even think about getting through Battletoads, it even has a rewind function. Those who fear the games original difficulty has been compromised need not – everything is just as it was all those years ago.
But what is baffling, however, is how clumsy and awkward the transitions are between Xbox 360 games and the rest of Rare Replay. Not only do these games install separately to the rest of the package, but launching between the Xbox One’s built-in 360 emulation and the normal Rare Replay package did, on a few situations, mess around with our save files. A proper reboot of the game solved the problem, but it’s something that’s worth mentioning. It is, however, impressive that any cloud saves will automatically work and that the online for these games is cross-platform enabled. But only games that were online previously are online here – there’s no new added online multiplayer for any of the other games in the Rare Replay package.
To keep things interesting, Rare Replay is wrapped around a ticket system where stamps are awarded for completing certain milestones in-game. These can be as simple as playing or finishing a game or more complicated, with the 360 games having their milestones being tied to their Gamerscore. Did you finish Perfect Dark Zero? Rare Replay will retroactively reward you for achievements gained in old 360 achievements too, which is great. Fill a card with stamps and you’ll rank up, and unlock more scintillating behind the scenes looks at the inner workings of Rare, both past and present, in Rare Revealed.
Rare Revealed is the other major component of the Rare Replay package. It is, once again, a glorified gallery, but it features a lot of new and never before seen video content talking about Rare as a company. From things as simple as reflection on what makes a Rare game, to specific behind the scenes featurettes, players can expect to see hours of cool footage that any fan would appreciate. There’s certainly some nostalgia at play here, but the content is especially intriguing for those who are new to Rare’s catalogue or simply revisiting it.
The games themselves all run and perform like you remember. Some better than others, of course, but the team at Rare have done a great job at emulating the Nintendo 64 titles which, bizarrely, would be the hardest thing to do. Grabbed By The Ghoulies, while not Rare’s most loved title, has been entirely rebuilt from the ground up to run in 1080p, which is a feat in its own. From arcade games to fighters to shooters to platformers, there’s a large variety of games in Rare Replay that’s bound to appeal to anyone. And a large majority of them still play great too.
The third and final section of Rare Replay is the Snapshot and Playlist modes. They’re a rather minor offering but they bolster an already strong offering. Snapshots are short challenges that give the player a goal to complete and rarely last more than a few minutes. Playlists group together similar Snapshots (ie. All the ones that require the player to survive) to extend the snapshots idea. They are admittedly quite shallow offerings but they are perfect for when you just want to pick up and play the game, earn some stamps but not sink a few hours into everything else.
Rare Replay is clearly a love letter to the fans of Rare that they’ve accumulated across the last three decades, and it’s even clearer that it’s been put together by people who have nothing but respect and care for both their fans and their own catalogue. There’s a wide variety of games (with an open possibility for more) as well as a wealth of options whether you want to play with your friends or by yourself.
But the only thing that stops Rare Replay from being a truly great game is the awkward transitions between the Xbox 360 titles and the rest of the package, as well as some more questionable choices in the titles. Killer Instinct 2 exists for the Xbox One with online functionality, why not include this instead of Killer Instinct: Gold? Where is Conker: Live & Reloaded? These are subjective yet bizarre missteps – but regardless of these Rare Replay represents excellent value for money and will be one of the benchmarks that all compilations should aspire to.
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Another reason to own an Xbox one. Microsoft has been hitting it out of the park lately. Keep it up!
Ben Luigi Smart
Only reason to buy an xboxone but still not enough to justify buying this console