Best of Rare's N64 platformers?

[jonebone]

I went with Banjo Kazooie. But I'll admit, I've only played it and Conker on the list. I've even played and beaten BK twice, but still haven't gotten around to Tooie... hopefully one day.

Conker had tons of humor and was definitely worthy of the Mature badge, but it seemed a bit gimmicky / contrived at the time. Still fun, but didn't have the lasting appeal that BK did.

The levels in BK were so varied, and the Mumbo transformations were awesome. Being the pumpkin at the spooky house is just funny, and being the alligator in the swamp was just plain fun. These were varied enough to keep the gameplay fresh and interesting without becoming too repetitive. And for those of you completionist, plenty of jingos / notes to collect.

Great game and I loved it just as much as Mario 64.

[Rob2600]

I feel like with Conker's Bad Fur Day, the people at Rare took everything they learned from their previous games - cherry-picking the best parts and avoiding the boring ones - and combined them into one of the ultimate N64 masterpieces.

Rare utilized every trick and technique they learned and produced a beautiful game all around. The level designs, texturing and texture effects, real-time lighting and shadows, animations, digitized speech, music, draw distance, framerate, etc. in Conker really show what the N64 could do. Conker and Perfect Dark were Rare's swan songs.

[Xtincthed]

Conker all the way.. that game is so much fun and so funny

[BetaWolf47]

Well, I'm getting close to beating Banjo-Kazooie. I just need 5 more Jiggies. I must say, this is getting to be almost as tedious as Donkey Kong 64.

Needing 94/100 jiggies to beat the game is insane. Super Mario 64 only required 70/120 stars, and Donkey Kong 64 only required 80/200 golden bananas! It's got the steepest requirements I have ever seen in a platformer. Plus, near the end, you can get rewards for having a lot of notes. That wouldn't be a problem if it didn't reset your total per level every time you died.

[jdc]

By sheer co-incidence I just finished adding a mint copy of Conker Live & Reloaded to my Backloggery, which contains a suped up version of Conker's Bad Fur Day for the Xbox. I feel that all Rare N64 games are equally brilliant...but Conker gets the nod for Rare's having the balls to produce it after Nintendo's asking them not to. One of my most prized possessions is the official walk through guide for the game. It's also rude as hell and a riot to read. I also own a complete set of Conker's Bad Fur Day beer coasters that were given by Rare at the launch of the game.

[Aussie2B]

Your memory is a little mixed up. You got a gold banana by completing it once. You got the token for completing it on hard. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

Yeah, I could've very likely mixed up the rewards, but my memory of the rest is good.

I always wonder if people who have trouble with Donkey Kong in DK64 use the D-pad or not. I very quickly thought to check if it was compatible, and it made a big difference to me. That's where I think being a younger gamer hurt too because those who were kids back then might have never played games much prior to the analog sticks of the N64 and Dual Shock, so they wouldn't have the experience to realize that 2D gaming generally works better with a D-pad (of course, the original machine has a joystick, but that functions far different from the N64's nub). Granted, the N64 has a pretty sucky D-pad, but even with its cheapness, it still made controlling Mario so much better.

[Rob2600]

I just finished adding a mint copy of Conker Live & Reloaded to my Backloggery, which contains a suped up version of Conker's Bad Fur Day for the Xbox.

Souped up or not, critics in general regard the N64 version more highly than the Xbox remake. And interestingly enough, the N64 version is *less* censored than the Xbox version.

[BetaWolf47]

I always wonder if people who have trouble with Donkey Kong in DK64 use the D-pad or not. I very quickly thought to check if it was compatible, and it made a big difference to me. That's where I think being a younger gamer hurt too because those who were kids back then might have never played games much prior to the analog sticks of the N64 and Dual Shock, so they wouldn't have the experience to realize that 2D gaming generally works better with a D-pad (of course, the original machine has a joystick, but that functions far different from the N64's nub). Granted, the N64 has a pretty sucky D-pad, but even with its cheapness, it still made controlling Mario so much better.

I used the dpad. Thing is, I never really had the chance to play pre-90's arcade games, except the common Namco stuff. To someone who grew up on Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario World, the jump physics and game itself seemed primitive, terrible, and difficult at the time. I was about 11 then.

[Dred]

I'm still surprised, why so many people like Conker. Don't get me wrong, the gameplay was awesome, but that kind of humour... I mean, is piece of s***t flying everywhere that funny? It's disgusting!

My vote goes to Banjo-Kazooie. Probably one of the best games on N64.

[buzz_n64]

I'm still surprised, why so many people like Conker. Don't get me wrong, the gameplay was awesome, but that kind of humour... I mean, is piece of s***t flying everywhere that funny? It's disgusting!

My vote goes to Banjo-Kazooie. Probably one of the best games on N64.

Ummm... Didn't Banjo also use poop as a weapon? Just saying.

[maxlords]

Why is Jet Force Gemini not an option? That was really the only one I could tolerate.

Agreed. And I could barely even stand that one. I can't stand ANY of Rare's stuff aside from Goldeneye. Hey...why the hell isn't bloody friggin GOLDENEYE on the list???? I guess it's not a platformer tho....

[Rob2600]

I can't stand ANY of Rare's stuff aside from Goldeneye.

Which N64 platformers did you like? Super Mario 64? Rayman 2? Glover?

[Greg2600]

Incidentally, a Glover 2 (unreleased) prototype has surfaced.