Rare Ltd.

Rare Ltd.
Founded	1985
First Super Mario game	Donkey Kong Country (1994)
Latest Super Mario game	Diddy Kong Racing DS (2007)
Current president	Craig Duncan

Rare Ltd. (also shortened to just Rare and trade-named Rareware up until Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge) is a British video game developer based in Twycross, Leicestershire. It was founded in 1985 by Chris and Tim Stamper, as the successor company to Ultimate Play the Game. As a prominent second-party developer for Nintendo, Rare created the successful Nintendo Entertainment System games Wizards & Warriors, Battletoads, and R.C. Pro-Am. Rare's only involvement with the Super Mario franchise was creating several Donkey Kong games, beginning with Donkey Kong Country. Since then, Rare has produced other well-known titles such as Banjo-Kazooie, Perfect Dark, and Sea of Thieves.

In 2002, following the release of Star Fox Adventures on the Nintendo GameCube, Microsoft completed its acquisition of Rare, affecting the status of several games of the Super Mario franchise, including Donkey Kong Racing, Donkey Kong Coconut Crackers, and Diddy Kong Pilot. Under the terms of the merger, Nintendo retained the rights to all the Donkey Kong characters along with Krunch, while Rare maintained the rights to its own intellectual properties such as Banjo and Conker, both of whom appeared in Diddy Kong Racing. Consequently, Dixie Kong's hat no longer bore the Rare logo. For a while, Rare developed games for Nintendo's handheld systems, since Microsoft has not entered the dedicated handheld console market. Two of the games, Banjo-Pilot and It's Mr. Pants, were redeveloped from Diddy Kong Pilot and Donkey Kong Coconut Crackers, respectively. After the merger, there was a hard stop to using Nintendo and Rare characters in the same works of media, with even Diddy Kong Racing DS being unable to use Banjo or Conker in the character roster. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate would include one of Rare's properties, Banjo and Kazooie, as playable characters.

Nintendo itself would later publish remakes of a few Donkey Kong titles made by Rare, including the original Donkey Kong Country trilogy for the Game Boy Advance, as well as Diddy Kong Racing DS. While the first Donkey Kong Country was made available on the Virtual Console within a few weeks of the Wii being released, and Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest and Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble! being rolled out there in 2007, all three games were delisted on November 25, 2012, and were gradually re-listed from 2014 to 2015, this time on both the Wii and Wii U, and all releases of the game have remained listed since then to the extent the consoles' online game stores have remained online. The Rare-developed game Jetpac somehow remained intact in the Donkey Kong 64 port for the Wii U Virtual Console.

History involving the Super Mario franchise

Mario Kart series

Rare is listed in the credits of Mario Kart 64 and Mario Kart: Super Circuit as "Donkey Kong 3-D model provided courtesy of Rare U.K."

Donkey Kong 64

Rare appears in Donkey Kong 64 in a few ways, and the company is named "Rareware" in the game. Rareware and Nintendo are the sponsors for the boxing match between the Kongs and King K. Rool as mentioned by the Microphone. Two items bear the logo of Rare: the Rareware Coin and a specific Golden Banana that is obtained from the Banana Fairy Princess.

Diddy Kong Racing DS

Rare appears in Diddy Kong Racing DS with its logo appearing on the coins.

Super Smash Bros. series

In the Super Smash Bros. series, "Rare Limited" appears in the Sound Test of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS, Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate as the original composers of several Donkey Kong songs, although the information clarifies that Nintendo fully owns the copyright to the compositions.

List of Super Mario games

Title	Year released	Console
Donkey Kong Country	1994	SNES
Donkey Kong Land	1995	Game Boy
Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest	1995	SNES
Donkey Kong Land 2	1996	Game Boy
Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble!	1996	SNES
Donkey Kong Land III	1997	Game Boy
Diddy Kong Racing	1997	Nintendo 64
Donkey Kong 64	1999	Nintendo 64
Donkey Kong Country	2000	Game Boy Color
Donkey Kong Country	2003	Game Boy Advance
Donkey Kong Country 2	2004	Game Boy Advance
Donkey Kong Country 3	2005	Game Boy Advance
Diddy Kong Racing DS	2007	Nintendo DS

Notable employees

• Kevin Bayliss (former)
• Grant Kirkhope (former)
• Leigh Loveday
• Eveline Novakovic (former)
• Gregg Mayles
• Steve Mayles (former)
• Chris Stamper (former)
• Tim Stamper (former)
• Mark Stevenson (former)
• Chris Sutherland (former)
• David Wise (former)

Gallery

Logos

• 

  Rare's first logo, used from 1987–1990

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  Logo used from 1990–1994

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  Logo used from 1994–2003 for the "Rareware" trademark

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  Donkey Kong and Diddy with the Rareware logo

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  Logo used from 2003–2010

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  Logo used from 2010–2015

Screenshots

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  Splash screen from Donkey Kong GB: Dinky Kong & Dixie Kong

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  Splash screen from Donkey Kong Country (Game Boy Color)

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  Splash screen from Donkey Kong Country (Game Boy Advance)

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  Unused splash screen from Diddy Kong Pilot (2001)

Logos of canceled games

• 

  Donkey Kong Racing

• 

  Donkey Kong Coconut Crackers

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  Diddy Kong Pilot

External links

• Rare Ltd. on the Rare Wiki