When Rare Replay was announced at the E3 2015 event, fans almost popped a vein out of sheer excitement. If you were looking for a blast from the past, search no further. Rare packs 30 games from its backlog into one single title. Rare Ltd allows gamers to take a glimpse at a by-gone era and sink their teeth in insanely popular titles such as Perfect Dark, Killer Instinct, Banjo-Kazooie, and Conker’s Bad Fur Day, Viva Pinata, Battletoads and many others.
Arguably, it’s one of the best Rareware collection of games on one disc.
The Rare video game company promised a lot to gamers and expectations are sky-high. Let’s see if we have a reason to sharpen our forks and set our torches ablaze.
Check our GameSniped Video Game Review where we take a look at these classic video games.
GameSniped Video Game Review – Rare Replay Collection
The game welcomes you with a short opening video that takes you through Rare’s history, showcasing their most popular games along with a few others that you’ve probably missed.
Simply put, it’s a celebration of gaming.
The moment you dive into these classic games time stops in place – 30 games that stretch back in time for the same number of years.
They are exquisite, and your inner child will thank you from the bottom of his heart, but take them with a grain of salt. They are outdated and some, like the Jet Force Gemini, aren’t constructed for our modern gamepads.
Not because your Xbox controller isn’t compatible with the game, but because back then the notion of axis reversal was highly disregarded. The system input schemes are different and there isn’t much to do in this case.
Wonky sounds that equate into audio artefacts rarely present themselves, but still, it’s worth noting.
Framerate drops don’t occur that often. But, you may notice some drops once you dig a bit deeper into the collection.
Older games, like Snake Rattle N Roll and Cobra Triangle, are amongst the company’s first titles. They are hella’ fun but also infuriatingly annoying. They are unnecessarily hard, staying true to the almost forgotten age of gaming which barely helmed checkpoints. If you find them to be a too big of a bite, you can toggle on cheats in the main game to make the experience much more enjoyable.
Take Rewind. This will allow you to manipulate space and time a la Prince of Persia. Unfortunately, not all the games sport this awesome new addition.
Regardless, you’ll get a few hundred hours out of them. Also, you’ll observe how Rare evolved as a game-maker – from their early pre-NES days to developing Xbox 360 titles.
A plethora of games is great and all, but Rare adds more features to entice young’uns and old veterans alike.
Snapshots are a new feature that extends the life of titles. They are challenges that will rank your score on leaderboards for all the world to see how great you are at a game – or how much you suck.
Challenges include beating a level under a certain amount of time, vanquishing particular bosses that have increased stats and different patterns and so on and so forth. Of course, you also have the chance of playing that infinite Battletoads tunnel that riled up gamers across the world.
Snapshots offer the perfect excuse to play that game you just don’t like, but you own it because it’s in the collection. You can easily access snapshots via Game Menu, or Playlists.
However, not all of the titles are Snapshots enabled. Killer Instinct and basically everything on N64 and upwards aren’t challenge-friendly. You just have to take them as they are.
Verdict
85/100
The bottom line is that the Rare Play Collection is outstanding. Regardless of whether you are a hard-core or casual gamer, you really should check these games out. If you played these games back in the day, this is a wonderful, nostalgia soaked trip to the past. At USD30, your ‘ticket to ride’ is pretty affordable! Even if it’s for nostalgia’s sake, or because you want to see how your old pappy gamed.
Platform
- Xbox One
Where can I buy it?
Take a look down below for the complete Rare Replay Game List.
Rare Replay Game List
Battletoads (NES), Banjo-Kazooie, Perfect Dark, Conker’s Bad Fur Day, Jetpac, Lunar Jetman, Atic Atac, Sabre Wulf, Knight Lore, Underwurlde, Gunfright, R.C. Pro-Am, Slalom, Snake Rattle N Roll, Cobra Triangle, Solar Jetman, Digger T. Rock, R.C. Pro-Am II, Killer Instinct Gold, Battletoads Arcade, Jet Force Gemini, Blast Corps, Banjo-Tooie, Grabbed by the Ghoulies, Perfect Dark Zero, Jetpac Refuelled, Kameo: Elements of Power, Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts, Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise, Viva Pinata.