Why Rare Can't Escape Nintendo's Shadow Documentary: Rareware from Donkey Kong Country to Everwild

[@ExtremeImprov]

I’d love if they released Diddy Kong Pilot on the Switch

[@VGamingJunkieVT]

I think the problem is Microsoft was hoping they'd just get Rare to print easy money, sort of like Disney acquiring things like LucasFilms and Fox, actually. They even mistakenly thought they owned Donkey Kong. I'm actually baffled why they censored Conker's Bad Fur Day beyond the N64 version.

[@GeekBattleGaming]

Yeah Microsoft have never had any idea what they were doing with Rare. It should have been like Disney with Lucasfilm and let Rare pump out games, but after Nuts and Bolts they were relegated for years just to do Kinect sports and people forget they existed

[@MaikonGarcia]

Microsoft did not think they owned DK, one exec thought that, and that was It.

[@diegomedina9637]

​@@MaikonGarciathen why does Rare entire Xbox work feels like they're being punished for no reason?

[@orangeslash1667]

@@diegomedina9637 Nintendo refused to buy Rare, so Rare needed someone who would.

[@DarkChaosElfilis45]

The title's kind of stretching it. Rare used to be a second-party developer for Nintendo until September 2002, when they were bought out by Microsoft exactly a day after the release of Star Fox Adventures (to be fair, Star Fox Adventures was released on September 23rd, 2002, exactly a day before the buy-out from Microsoft).

[@GeekBattleGaming]

How is the title stretching it? They were sold to Microsoft in September 2002 and both before and since then to this day, their games are still mostly just following the pattern of Nintendo games

[@DarkChaosElfilis45]

@@GeekBattleGaming Yeah, but I say that it's a stretch because they were on top of the gaming world before Microsoft took them away. They got all the deserved recognition years ago.

[@TBoneTony]

The agreement between Nintendo and Microsoft was already confirmed but kept secret via NDAs early 2002. They kept it industry secret from at least May E3 until September when the buyout was announced.

[@diegomedina9637]

I think the difference between Nintendo's Rare and Microsoft's Rare was that Nintendo constantly encouraged them to be better than themselves, while Microsoft always wanted to be the top dogs and no one else's.

[@GeekBattleGaming]

Quite possibly. I think Microsoft just had no idea what to do with them. Just wanted Rare to be their Nintendo which they aren’t

[@orangeslash1667]

@@GeekBattleGaming The good news is former rare devs formed Playtonic Games. They both make games and collaborate with other companies to publish games like Elsie, and Victory Heat Rally.

[@cola_1899]

The reason why Microsoft failed with Rare is that when it acquired the team, it thought it had acquired Nintendo and was treating the studio as such, hoping that Nintendo fans would move to the original Xbox and 360. When its plan failed, Don Mattrick decided to enslave the team and make it develop garbage. For Kinnect, when Don Mattrick left, Spencer wanted to close the studio, but he gave them a chance to develop their dream game, Sea of ​​Thieves, and they were surprised that it somehow succeeded

[@jamesprumos7775]

5:20 - in one of his interviews, David Wise said that Rare would often try to "out-Nintendo" Nintendo themselves, so that makes sense.

[@CyberFoxy87]

Loved when Rare made Nintendo games The Donkey Kong Country games on that 16bit system was mind-blowing

[@TheCartoonGamer8000]

Ghoulies and Luigi's Mansion are two very different games covering two very different genres - Ghoulies control scheme was originally built around the Gamecube, but fact they both take place in a haunted house is purely coincidental. To quote Ghoulies designer Gregg Mayles on whether the game took inspiration from Luigi's Mansion: "We didn't know about Luigi's Mansion when we started Ghoulies. I never played it, either" - in a Tweet made in October 2020.

[@GeekBattleGaming]

The two games are thematically the same with similar twin stick controls. I don’t buy that this wasn’t part of Rare’s usual pattern. They always just followed Nintendo’s lead. It’s just a shame that without Nintendo’s influence Microsoft just left them to rot for years

[@TheCartoonGamer8000]

@@GeekBattleGaming They both use twin stick controls yes, but one is more a puzzle game, the other a beat-em-up. The twin stick controls were done in an attempt to simplify the moveset, where most other beat-em-ups have several different attack combinations. Rare has definitely looked at what Nintendo (and others in the industry-including themselves) have done, but I have no reason to believe Mayles was lying when he said the team didn’t play/weren’t aware of Luigi’s Mansion. He’s been more than open about other game’s inspirations, and in Ghoulies’ case, it was the likes of Scooby-Doo, Keystone Cops and old British actors. Some say Luigi’s Mansion is a Resident Evil knock-off for the same reasons, even though they’re worlds apart as well.

[@GeekBattleGaming]

@@TheCartoonGamer8000 I think there’s zero chance that anyone at Rare wasn’t aware of Nintendo’s launch GameCube game. Whether coincidence or not, it still fits the pattern of first Nintendo do a game and then Rare did a similar game. Just like DKR was RC Pro Am originally, the way it evolved was definitely influenced by Mario Kart in the end

[@TheCartoonGamer8000]

@@GeekBattleGaming Someone at Rare might’ve been aware, yes, but the Ghoulies team specifically was not. Back when multiple teams at Rare made games, they weren’t even aware what another team was making with very few exceptions. They were basically locked off from the outside world in many cases. There’s also games like Killer Instinct, where Nintendo had no equivalent. RC Pro Am is another case, where it debuted before Mario Kart and featured upgradeable power-ups, which were still seen in DKR.

[@GeekBattleGaming]

@@TheCartoonGamer8000 they were kept separate from each other to keep competitive but not locked away from the outside world. Zero chance that they weren’t all very aware of Luigi’s Mansion which was showed at Space World 2000 publicly by the time Grabbed by the Ghoulies launched in late 2003

[@adamlodge8093]

Good vid. But some of these are a stretch

[@concreteman03]

They could in my world because I spent a lot of time on Live and Reloaded, Nuts n bolts, and Replay but yeah there is a good chunk of people that will always associate Rare with Nintendo

[@GeekBattleGaming]

Nuts and Bolts is the only original game there. Replay is is mostly things from the Pre Microsoft era and Live and Reloaded was a remake of the N64 game

[@Zilch93]

All HardCore Fans Of RareWare / Rare knows that they belonged with Nintendo but its all Money at the ending of the day and since then Microsoft seems to rather lost the understanding or just dont care for rare except for Sea of Thieves it just seems Microsoft buys all these iP's and does nothing with them its a shame

[@orangeslash1667]

Rare said they runout of ideas for Banjo, and want to move on.

[@Kafei01]

And that's why Microsoft is a shitty owner for Rare. Nintendo would have never allow Rare to abandon Banjo. There is always new idea for plateformers, this is a poor excuse.

[@orangeslash1667]

@ Fun Fact: the reason the Earthbound series ended is because Shigesato Itoi runout of ideas and wanted to move on, Nintendo respected his wishes. There’s the truth, the reason banjo is dead is because banjo wasn’t even supposed to exist. Rare‘s original intention was to make a game called Project Dream. It was originally going to be on the SNES but then they had to move it to the N64. When they did, it wasn’t working for some reason? Then they saw an early build of Mario 64 and said(we should make something like that.) Thus Banjo Kazooie was made. However the N 64 era is over, so now Rare wants to make large worlds that wasn’t possible back then. How do I know this, Sea of Thieves and the upcoming Ever Wild are directed by Greg Mayles. Who is he, he’s the creator of Banjo. This further gives me reason to believe that banjo was only made because of hardware limitations. The good news is that collect a thon platforms are still a thing in indie games.

[@mesogot]

I am still baffled that MS did not announce a Banjo 3 past Banjo announcement and success in Smash. Like, that was a free wagon and Microsoft did not took the HYPE train.

[@GeekBattleGaming]

Yeah I don’t understand any of Microsoft’s handling of Rare since day 1 - as soon as Perfect Dark Zero wasn’t a hit they gave up on them

[@TicoLeak]

Not to mention, Crash and Spyro are now owned by Microsoft, due to their buyout of Activision. And just recently, Crash Bandicoot 5 was canceled and was meant to be a crossover with Spyro the Dragon.

[@orangeslash1667]

Rare said they runout of ideas for Banjo.

[@christopherlandaverde9397]

fix ur mic

[@MaikonGarcia]

4:46 Following this logic, Nintendo copies BK: N&B with TLoZ: TotK The longer the video's time, the weaker your arguments become. Next video u gonna say that Halo is Bungie's Zelda cause Chief is green

[@GeekBattleGaming]

Nah, watch the whole thing and I even mention the Nuts and Boots Tears of the Kingdom thing. The gameplay style, genres and game themes keep repeating first Nintendo then Rare. Always in that order