Replaced Rare?

[Jumpin]

mZuzek said:

Jumpin said:

Not even close. GE007 and DKC were both groundbreaking and generation-defining games; Metroid Prime and DKCR were not.

If anything, DKCR was more of a retro revival game, not even close to the revolutionary and cutting-edge masterpiece that the original DKC was. DKCR's sales success is mostly owed to the series reputation Rare established 15 years earlier, not Retro. Metroid Prime lacked the multiplayer, lacked the success, and lacked the influence on the genre that Goldeneye 007 had; and it also lacked industrywide recognition as the best game of the year of its release (which AIAS awarded to GE007 even though it was up against incredibly stiff competition that year, which included FF7). GE007 was the second highest unbundled game of the 32/64-bit generation (below FF7) while DKC was the highest selling unbundled game of the 16-bit generation. They were basically to the 16 and 32/64-bit generation that GTA was to the PS2 generation.

Another way to put it is that Metroid Prime and DKCR could vanish from history; it wouldn't have much to any effect on Nintendo or the industry; they are, at best, minor classics. If DKC and GE007 disappeared from history the loss from Nintendo, and the whole of the industry, would be nothing less than profound. 

That's why I was talking about quality and not importance. You do seem to think of those two very similarly though, with many of your seemingly favorite games being also very successful and prominent.

I'll be honest I haven't played too many Rare games, but the ones I did play didn't impress me too much. I'm not a fan of GoldenEye or Conker's Bad Fur Day, and Star Fox Adventures has to be up there among the most insufferable games I've ever played. Even the best game in the original DKC trilogy (2, of course) is not a lot better than DKCR (which is by far Retro's worst game), never mind coming close to Tropical Freeze which is by and large the best DKC game ever.

Also, just because Metroid Prime didn't win all sorts of GotY awards and sell 8 million, it doesn't mean it wasn't relevant. It is to this day a very cherished game that did leave a mark on the industry, it's just stupid to say it had no impact. Maybe it wasn't "generation-defining" like GoldenEye, but that's because it is still a great game almost 2 decades later, unlike GoldenEye which has dated horribly and is definitely only a product of its own generation. If anything, even from Rare fans I hear GoldenEye is way overrated and nowhere near as good as Perfect Dark, so... yeah.

1. What is Metroid Prime's impact? You have to clarify this.

2. You're also going to have to clarify "better" - if your argument comes down to using more up to date development techniques and more up to date hardware, then it is altogether meaningly - on those metrics, newer studios are always going to have the advantage. Can you argue that DKCR, DKC:TF, and Metroid Prime were better in their times than GE007 and DKC?

3. You state that more people play Metroid Prime today than Goldeneye 007. Fair enough, but GE007 is currently only available on N64, if it were re-released, I can guarantee you MANY more people would be interested in it than Metroid Prime - even the shoddy attempt at a remake by Activision outsold Metroid Prime. Also through that argument thread, I can claim that MANY more people are playing Donkey Kong Country today than DKCR or Tropical Freeze simply due to much wider availability; also, looking up let's play for the franchise on youtube shows many many times more let's plays than DKCR or TF: https://www.youtube.com/results?sp=EgIIBA%253D%253D&search_query=Donkey+Kong+Country+Lets+Play
Incidentally, running a similar investigation, despite GE007's handicap. It seems that almost as many people are let's playing Goldeneye 007 than Metroid Prime 1 and 2 combined
https://www.youtube.com/results?sp=EgIIBA%253D%253D&search_query=Let%27s+Play+Metroid+Prime+Gamecube
https://www.youtube.com/results?sp=EgIIBA%253D%253D&search_query=Goldeneye+007+let%27s+Play+N64
And splitting out Echoes: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Let%27s+Play+Metroid+Prime+Echoes+Gamecube&sp=EgIIBA%253D%253D
It seems that GE007 is actually being played MORE than Metroid Prime alone, and more than Metroid Prime 2 alone

4. If you're claiming that people playing Metroid Prime today mean its better (despite the fact that GE007 hasn't been available on any new platforms) then similarly, DKC from the SNES is played by MANY more people today than DKCR and DKCTF combined thanks to millions of Virtual console sales and millions of SNES Classic sales. Also, top videogame lists of all time never have DKCR or Tropical Freeze on them, but many have games from the original trilogy including

5. Where are these so-called Rare fans saying GE007 is overrated and sucks? Where is this majority of people saying Perfect Dark is better than GE 007? A quick google search isn't showing this at all:
https://www.destructoid.com/20-years-later-goldeneye-007-is-still-the-greatest-nintendo-64-game-454953.phtml
https://www.ranker.com/list/rare-games-list/reference
http://www.craveonline.com/entertainment/884153-rare-replay-top-10-best-rare-games-ever#/slide/10
http://www.digitalspy.com/gaming/feature/a661811/ranking-rares-10-best-games-from-goldeneye-to-donkey-kong-country/
http://time.com/4458554/best-video-games-all-time/
6. Similarly, who is saying DKCR and Tropical Freeze are the best of the franchise? No one seems to be saying this.
https://www.thegamer.com/ranking-every-donkey-kong-game-from-worst-to-best/
https://kotaku.com/the-best-donkey-kong-country-ever-made-1683495417
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.946436-Poll-Whats-the-best-Donkey-Kong-Country-game

You have to back up your statements, otherwise, your argument falls apart.

In Summary (or TL/DR)
* More people play DKC today than DKC:R and DKC:TF combined
* Despite not having a re-release since the N64, Goldeneye 007 sees more people playing today than Metroid Prime
* Rare did better with GE007 in 1997 than Retro did with Metroid Prime in 2002.
* Rare did better with DKC in 1994 than Retro did in 2010 and 2014.
* Accepted point: GE007 and DKC by Rare are more important games than Metroid Prime or DKC:R & DKC:TF
* Accepted point: Rare made A LOT more games than Retro did.

In closing: Retro is a great studio! No denying that. But Rare was outstanding, an industry leader in both quality and sales, and a major support pillar of Nintendo from 1994 until around 2000. During that time, most gamers were trying to decide who they liked more between Rare and Square as their #1 non-first party. Rare was arguably as important as Nintendo EAD during many years of the later SNES and N64 lifecycle. Can the same be said about Retro? The answer is no.
Has Retro replaced Rare? Maybe a small percentage of Rare; but overall? no.

Last edited by Jumpin - on 13 December 2017