When I was kid I adored the Donkey Kong Country games and used to think Rareware was a kind of seal of quality! I also had Donkey Kong 64 and Banjo-Kazooie, but I never made it very far in the games.
Over the past couple years, though, I've been playing through Rare's 3D platformers and I've come to the realization that they just... aren't very good. They all seem to suffer from really janky controls. Your jumps are really floaty, and running is kind of slippery, and you always have to be at a standstill to do the special moves. You compare that to Mario 64 where jumps, attacks, and slides all flow into one another, and the simple act of moving around feels good.
I'm going to talk briefly about each of the games I've played to the end now:
Donkey Kong 64 - The best word to describe this game is tedious. You have to play through the entirety of each level no less than five times because each kong has their bananas scattered throughout. Often you have to do the exact same thing with each kong and run across the map to get a banana. Gameplay is broken up by near universally boring mini games. The controls are not good.
Banjo-Kazooie - I think it's better than DK64, but not by a whole lot. It's still pretty tedious, but at least you only have to do the levels once (as long as you don't fall down that one bloody bottomless pit and lose all your notes eleven million times!) Also it's not quite as long as DK64. The controls are really bad.
Conker's Bad Fur Day - This is what sparked the thread, since I just finished it. Actually, it's probably my favorite of the bunch, so that's saying something. The voice acting is weird as heck, but it's kind of charming in how juvenile the "mature content" is. The control is absolutely abysmal, though! Conker can't fall more than 5 feet without hurting himself, can't jump while carrying something, can hardly attack, and getting around is generally a chore. That isn't even talking about when he's drunk or hungover. Also there is a hoverboard mission where you hold up to go faster! The z button is completely unused here, and yet you have to hold up while trying to steer away from instant death with left and right! The game also has a habit of not giving any hints as to where you are supposed to go or what you are supposed to do. This wouldn't be bad if things didn't randomly become available at certain times or what you were supposed to do wasn't so bizarre, so I'd walk around to every area trying to find the one thing I haven't done yet that will open up the rest of the game. Thankfully the game is mercifully short, so I guess it kind of balances out.
I could have gone into much more detail on each game, but nobody wants to read that much. Yet despite all those glaring flaws, and being generally unfun to play, these games are celebrated classics and Rare had a glowing reputation before being devoured by Microsoft, what gives? Can anybody explain why these are actually good games?
For more topic, what do you think of Rare and Rareware games?
Over the past couple years, though, I've been playing through Rare's 3D platformers and I've come to the realization that they just... aren't very good. They all seem to suffer from really janky controls. Your jumps are really floaty, and running is kind of slippery, and you always have to be at a standstill to do the special moves. You compare that to Mario 64 where jumps, attacks, and slides all flow into one another, and the simple act of moving around feels good.
I'm going to talk briefly about each of the games I've played to the end now:
Donkey Kong 64 - The best word to describe this game is tedious. You have to play through the entirety of each level no less than five times because each kong has their bananas scattered throughout. Often you have to do the exact same thing with each kong and run across the map to get a banana. Gameplay is broken up by near universally boring mini games. The controls are not good.
Banjo-Kazooie - I think it's better than DK64, but not by a whole lot. It's still pretty tedious, but at least you only have to do the levels once (as long as you don't fall down that one bloody bottomless pit and lose all your notes eleven million times!) Also it's not quite as long as DK64. The controls are really bad.
Conker's Bad Fur Day - This is what sparked the thread, since I just finished it. Actually, it's probably my favorite of the bunch, so that's saying something. The voice acting is weird as heck, but it's kind of charming in how juvenile the "mature content" is. The control is absolutely abysmal, though! Conker can't fall more than 5 feet without hurting himself, can't jump while carrying something, can hardly attack, and getting around is generally a chore. That isn't even talking about when he's drunk or hungover. Also there is a hoverboard mission where you hold up to go faster! The z button is completely unused here, and yet you have to hold up while trying to steer away from instant death with left and right! The game also has a habit of not giving any hints as to where you are supposed to go or what you are supposed to do. This wouldn't be bad if things didn't randomly become available at certain times or what you were supposed to do wasn't so bizarre, so I'd walk around to every area trying to find the one thing I haven't done yet that will open up the rest of the game. Thankfully the game is mercifully short, so I guess it kind of balances out.
I could have gone into much more detail on each game, but nobody wants to read that much. Yet despite all those glaring flaws, and being generally unfun to play, these games are celebrated classics and Rare had a glowing reputation before being devoured by Microsoft, what gives? Can anybody explain why these are actually good games?
For more topic, what do you think of Rare and Rareware games?
