Rare Replay Review - IGN (2024)

Rare Replay has set a new bar for video game compilations. Though they range from all-time greats like Banjo-Kazooie to forgettable missteps, the 30 games included in here tell the story of not only a single studio, but of the past three decades of video game history. From the early days of home console gaming with Jetpac, to the rise of the console shooter in Perfect Dark, all the way to a pair of Xbox 360 launch games, Rare Replay’s breadth and depth is consistently impressive.

From the moment Rare Replay boots up, it’s evident that this isn’t just some haphazard collection of ROMs and emulators. The theatrical presentation, complete with a fantastic musical number and charming transitions, lend a playful sense of place and character to the collection. It’s loaded with awesome extras, ranging from unused music and concept art, to fascinating documentaries on the making of classics like Conker and Killer Instinct, as well as some looks at some of Rare’s unreleased games. There’s a level of detail and quality here that we don’t see often enough in compilations like these.

Of course, all of these great extras wouldn’t amount to much if the games themselves weren’t worth revisiting. Thankfully, a solid chunk of the 30 included hold up as great experiences, even in 2015. For example, the original Banjo-Kazooie still remains one of the best 3D platformers ever made. The characters are charming, the music is incredible, and the levels are some of the most varied, smartly designed stages the genre has ever seen. Plus, Rare Replay includes the XBLA version, meaning that its strong art direction gets the benefit of HD resolution.

Further back in time are lesser-known, but incredibly innovative games like Jetpac and Snake Rattle ‘n’ Roll. The former still provides a simple-yet-entertaining mix of an arcade shooter with resource management, while the latter is a strange isometric platformer that feels like what would’ve happened if you gave Marble Madness a story.

Rare Replay also includes a handful of the studio’s strangest, most unique experiments. Blast Corps, for instance is an insane action-puzzler where you have to destroy everything in the path of a nuclear warhead being driven through a variety of settings. If the nuke comes into contact with a single thing, the whole world explodes, lending a really great sense of tension to each stage.

On the complete opposite side of the tension scale are the two Viva Pinata games, which are about as calming as games can be. Clearing out your field, planting your garden, and watching colorful critters start to populate your world still feels just as good as it did back in 2006.

Then there are those that have failed to withstand the test of time. For every Banjo, there’s a very boring Grabbed by the Ghoulies. For every influential console shooter like Perfect Dark, there’s the hand-holding frustration of Perfect Dark Zero. But I appreciate that Rare Replay didn’t go down the revisionist-history route by omitting its mistakes, and instead provide a real, honest portrait of the studio’s work.

It’s not quite a complete look, however, as some of the most famous games Rare has made aren’t here due to legal issues. Nintendo’s everlasting death grip on the Donkey Kong Country trilogy and Goldeneye 007 mean they won’t likely ever appear on the Xbox One. Fortunately, the rest of Rare’s work is great enough to stand up without those classics.

While most of the games in Rare Replay are presented as you might remember them from decades ago, there are some much-appreciated additions of modern convenience that made my trip back through the ‘80s and ‘90s much more tolerable than it would’ve been if I’d just dusted off an old NES and SNES. You’re able to quickly use save and load states in any pre-Nintendo 64 game, which means you can slowly chip away at simplistic-yet-fun games like R.C. Pro-Am and Cobra Triangle without long trips back to save checkpoints after each death. Even better, the ability to freely rewind the action to any point in your last 10 seconds of play without any punishment means that the infamously hair-pulling Turbo Tunnel stage in Battletoads can now be completed by those of us who aren’t terrifying video game savants.

Rare Replay also includes dozens of fun, self-contained minigames based on specific scenes in the pre-N64 games called Snapshots, which unfold a bit like those in NES Remix. Things like seeing how far you can get in an endless version of Turbo Tunnel, or trying to keep a civilian safe for 60 seconds in Cobra Triangle are bite-sized and addictive score-based challenges that doubles as a smart way of introducing you to the core mechanics of the lesser-known Rare games.