A Good Game is Rare: The Rise and Fall of Monkey Mountain

Back in the SNES era of videogames there was a friendly/heated rivalry with Sega. It was the non-sports enthusiast's alternative to My Team vs. Your Team. This being the days before the internet, the rivalry was sorely limited to outlets like the magazine letters column and game store banter, but it was definitely there. My favorite example was on the underrated SNES game Uniracers, which would garner you a protest from the programmers if you dared try to use the name 'Sonic' as your avatar.

Suffice to say, Mario emerged as the mascot with the better career, and it looked like he was going to be unstoppable during his N64 period. But then Nintendo backed out of their deal with Sony and their disc based system. Sony, being understandably angry, decided to release their hardware anyway, and the Playstation was born.

The Nintendo/Sega rivalry carried over into the next generation, intensified by bad blood. For example, Sony's whole marketing strategy with Crash Bandicoot was to have the costumed character calling out Nintendo from the parking lot with a megaphone.

To make matters worse, Squaresoft had been one of Nintendo's biggest cash cows on the SNES, with the Final Fantasy series, Chrono Trigger, and the much beloved Super Mario RPG. But Sony worked out exclusivity with Square, which led to the Playstation only Final Fantasy VII (and this unprecedented love affair with boring, brooding Cloud Strife).

The N64 started hurting very quickly. Super Mario 64 was available right out of the gate, and was awesome. And Wave Race to this day remains the greatest jet ski game in history. But Zelda got delayed for over a year, and Nintendo's third party developers really had trouble with the cartridge-based system. The game library was noticeably sparse.

And then there was Rare.

Nintendo's primary ally in the nineties may very well have kept Nintendo in business. I've always wondered why Nintendo turned down the deal to buy out Rare completely going into the Gamecube. When you think of Rare, you think of the Rare of the nineties. And this week's blog is my personal experience with the game company from the United Kingdom who could do no wrong.

Until they did.

Every Secret of Monkey Island

We really have to start with the Donkey Kong Country series on the SNES. They had some hits prior to that, notably the Killer Instinct franchise, which for me (merely tolerating the one-on-one fighting genre) was random button bashing and a bunch of noise and B. Orchid. But it was the return of the iconic ape that really pulled you into this fantastic world.

DKC was a platformer, in the vein of the Super Mario Brothers series, but something about the jungle beat and the grunts that the reptiles made as you trounced them just made you feel the gorilla. Donkey had a personality now. He would occasionally mug the camera or beat on his chest like he was subtly hoping for the player's approval. He had a brotherly fondness for a Curious George type sidekick named Diddy. He endured the cartoony abuse from his elder. And when he saw his bananas were stolen he hung his head in sadness. Donkey Kong was a real character now.

Of course it didn't hurt that the gameplay was solid, both satisfying and frustrating in all the right ways. And when DK stepped out of the spotlight for the sequel it opened up a position for Dixie Kong, one of the greatest (neglected) female game characters on consoles of the time.

Donkey Kong Country 2 is rightfully hailed as one of the most perfect games ever made. There were a lot of secret areas in DKC1, but 2 implemented a system to let you know whether or not you'd found them all, and gave you an alternate ending for the added effort. It's also funny, looking at Diddy and Dixie together. We know from the manual that they are dating, but nothing about their behavior indicates that except for the amount of comfort they have with each other. Even amidst hornets and phantasms trying to kill them, Dixie can't resist tasting the honey-lined walls she's climbing and Diddy has to put his hands up on the roller coaster of death.

Then comes Donkey Kong Country 3, which gets a bit of flack. Some of it is deserved. No gamer wants to deal with a damn baby. When Dixie takes a hit and starts crying, you want to put your arms around her, but when that God awful Kiddy Kong throws a tantrum you just want to drown his ass.

The gameplay is just as good as in its predecessor, and some of the level designs are truly creative. In fact, there's not really anything to complain about if you take the game as a solitary experience. It's when you compare it to DKC2 that the weaknesses start showing up. Mainly, while each individual level is fun in its own way, there's not really the sense of overarching mood that the past game had. In DKC2 you really feel like you're going in one pirate ship and out another, through a theme park and a beehive and back out. DKC3 comes across as a later season of a TV show you've invested in where the ongoing story arcs are abandoned in favor of a more episodic format. It's not bad, just a little disappointing.

Party Like it's 1997

If memory serves, Donkey Kong Country 3 was the last SNES game released to which anyone paid attention. Eyes were on Nintendo's newest system, which came out of the gate roaring and then stalled and stayed there. Rare rolled out a new Killer Instinct, but it wasn't until the following year that they started giving us their A-game.

First came Blast Corps, which is a gem of a concept that I haven't seen duplicated anywhere else. There is a computer controlled transport vehicle carrying a nuclear bomb, which malfunctions and has to head straight to a shelter before it explodes. Unfortunately, there are several towns worth of empty buildings in the way, and you have to bulldoze/shoot/ram them out of the way. It's the idea Michael Bay wishes he could have. The learning curve is easy, but the difficulty ramps up REAL QUICK. You're not meant to rent this game, you're meant to own it, and pull your hair out in frustration until that damned dump truck finally swings in the miracle arc without stopping.

And on the heels of Blast Corps came GoldenEye 007. Now I'm also not a fan of first person shooters, but I fully understand what people who are see in this game. On top of being a movie-to-game adaptation that people actually liked, the mayhem and death count really was fun. And that of course carried over into the multiplayer. It was just simple enough and complex enough to find that perfect balance.

And finally Diddy Kong came back with a Mario Kart emulation that added collection quests, an adventure element, and Lord knows how many challenges. What Mario 64 did for running around, Diddy did for driving. It was fun and it was hard, and so worth the effort. Of note was the appearance of both Banjo and Conker as playable characters before either of them had there own games on the market.

Dueling Banjos

The following year was Banjo-Kazooie, a title that looks like nonsense but may have been the most perfect 3D platformer ever created. It's been almost twenty years and this game is still great. I can't think of another game that feels as rewarding of exploration as Banjo-Kazooie. There are so many times where you're just going, "I wonder what's over here -oh, awesome!" Even the nuisance level Rusty Bucket Bay comes at the right time and is really not as bad as people claim it is. This whole game feels like one big Easter Egg hunt, quite literally when you finally go into hacker mode.

At the end of the game, Mumbo the shaman reveals that there is going to be a sequel, insisting that it is going to make Banjo-Kazooie look like a joke. So expectation were high for the sequel. Banjo-Tooie hit the shelves two years later.

Eh.

It probably had more fun bits than I remember, but the game just seemed to be more work than play. Fetch quests weren't satisfying anymore. It was more, "Oh wait, I can't open that door yet because I haven't hit this button on this other world, but I need that ability first and I've got to get rid of Kazooie and somehow get back on top of the mountain." The game was bigger, but Rare filled the space with tedium.

Part of the problem was that the developers were starting to throw all their tricks into each game. Hance, every Banjo-Tooie level has an obligatory first person shooter challenge, a vehicle mini-game, and way too many timed events. I'm actually convinced that Rare was beginning to develop a negative attitude towards gamers, as we were being given challenges to just keep us busy.

Striking the Kong

There were some other ttitles Rare released that people seemed to like, which I frankly haven't played. Jet Force Gemini got a positive response and was hailed as the spiritual successor to Blast Corps, while Perfect Dark filled the kind-of-next-GoldenEye void. And then there was Donkey Kong 64.

Dear God, I get exhausted just thinking about this abomination. Take the frustrating elements of Banjo-Tooie, having to swap characters out at specific locations, and then imagine it with five characters. It starts out fine, but it gets old by the second level. So since I've wasted too much of my life playing this game I'm going to sum up.

1. I like Tiny Kong, but why no Dixie?

2. Lanky was cool too. Chunky was unneeded.

3. They killed Wrinkly for no damn reason.

4. The best was when DK had to play his own arcade game. That's not a good sign Rare.

5. Holy hell Candy! Were you trying to one-up Lara Croft?

6. The DK Theme is stupid, but it is the greatest stupid theme song. Ever.

Rated M For Misuse of the Word 'Mature'

Fun fact about me: I NEVER throw video games away, or trade them in for that matter. I will probably never see Attack of the Timelord! or Quest for the Rings brighten up the TV screen in front of my Odyssey 2 again, but damn it, I'm holding on to those cartridges from now until the flying spaghetti invasion. But there is one isolated time I have ever considered returning a game to the store.

Conker's Bad Fur Day.

You know, it's honestly my fault. All the warning signs were there. The game was being touted as "Nintendo grows up" which in retrospect I take to mean "made it into...seventh grade?" Scatological 'humor' everywhere. Obscenities beyond gratuitous. Violence that was deliberately mean spirited. And my God! Chris Seavor's voice just makes me want to choke him so many times over. I hate this f**king game.

But it was from Rare, a company whose work I had respected, admired, and overlooked the monotony of when it happened. I thought, how bad could this game be? It was worse than I could have imagined. Conker's inability to jump, swim, or speak with any finesse still makes me want to pull my hair out. The game's movie parodies were essentially reference humor, so prevalent movies like Meet the Spartans. The rest of the humor was completely devoid of actual humor, apart from the one joke "I can't believe they said THAT on a Nintendo game!" told over and over.

And to make matters worse, this piece of shit developed a very loud cult following, of which I seemed to travel in the online circles. I still see this game pop up on "funniest games of all time" lists and I die a little more each time. It's not funny, it's just pushing infantile buttons; button mashing them even.

Memories of three amazing Donkey Kong Country games on the SNES can't trump Conker as the first game that comes to mind when somebody mentions Rare, and I'll never forgive them for that.

Stop 'n Swop

I played Star Fox Adventures on the Gamecube, which was Rare's final Nintendo hurrah. It wasn't bad, just not very memorable. I know Fox got shoehorned in at the eleventh hour, but the game was honestly mediocre already. Then Microsoft bought Rare, and, I guess they're still relevant.

Maybe game companies have creative peaks and valleys just like individuals. It seems like Rare honestly blossomed brightest with Banjo-Kazooie. For all I know, Conker may have been an intentional self-destruct button, because it really felt like they no longer cared about their players.

Today I feel about Rare the way I feel about that friend I was really close to in my younger days, but either they changed or I grew up and they didn't. It was a fun relationship while it lasted, and if Rare sends me a friend request I'll accept it. But I've no reason to comment on their posts.