Five characters who did nothing wrong

Some characters in Rare's games and the extended media aren't exactly bad guys, but they do get punished severely for something they can't help... or didn't even do. I decided to focus on some of those poor saps in this particular issue.

5. Roysten the goldfish

We owe a lot to Roysten. His fishy self merely appearing somewhere manages to make works take place in the same universe, and his rhythmic knocking against his bowl is music to my ears. But he performs a thankless job and always ends up on the barbeque.

In Banjo-Tooie, you graciously save him from death by suffocation by dropping him off in Spiral Mountain's moat. He even teaches you how to swim faster and gives you extra air to make swimming easier. But in the end? He just ends up on Bottles' plate, burned, alongside his chips. Yeesh.

Oh yes it is.

4. Eddie the Mean Ol' Yeti

I mean, c'mon. He's obviously just a guy who has anger issues and likes his peace and quiet. Even when he keeps everyone awake by banging against the walls, he's not doing it to bother anyone. He's just being cranky.

In one episode while trying to woo Candy Clone by singing a song, sublime in its simplicity, about how he likes snow and ice and wishes to fornicate with the robotic ape lady. But in the same song, he reveals he isn't even old, nor is he really that mean.
This is proven that he only gets mad when some apes from the jungle come to steal the barrel that rained down on him. Even when they propose to trade, he burns his hand on a match. Eventually he gets pumelled by a bunch of Kritters as well.

Even worse is when you consider that in a world without Donkey Kong as shown in the subtly-titled It's a Wonderful Life, he's a friendly Guardian Angel Yeti. This means that somehow, DK made him how he is. It's not explained, but the implications are concerning.

I feel the same way when I see that old Fox Kids logo. Nostalgia is a powerful thing.

5 wonderful, little hidden details you probably didn't notice

There's a lot of stuff hidden in these games, but some of them aren't as regularly pointed out as others. Yeah, we all know Conker started out kid-friendly and that Stop 'n' Swop isn't as real as we hoped it would be. But there's some other stuff I noticed that make these games a little more than just games...

5. David "Bon Jovi" Wise

Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze is a wonderful game, and the soundtrack only makes it even better. David Wise's work goes from atmospheric to melodic to hardrock. Yes.
One such music pieces, entitled Punch Bowl, plays at the final battle of the second-to-last world. The polar bear boss is a threatening guy, but that's only because DK made him drop his popsicle.
The music sounds like something from Bon Jovi, might I add. David Wise has a tendency to subtly reference existing songs, and it's pretty rad, but this is the first time it's another band I really like from the get-go. The polar bear's name is Bashmaster the Unbreakable, and it just so happens that Bon Jovi has a song entitled Unbreakable.

Coincidence? Probably. But the last time we had a polar bear in the extended Rareniverse, he was named Boggy.

"Kids crying? Nah, I'm gonna sled. Priorities, man."

4. Kazooie! Meinem Schwester ist Verschwunden!

Banjo-Kazooie is notorious in having bad translations. The humour is so incredibly British, that any attempts to translate it to anything else fall flat. Since I'm almost trilingual, I can afford to play the games in English, Dutch, and German. Which would be kinda rad, if not for the decrease in quality...
In the German translation of Banjo-Kazooie, the jokes are mostly absent. Instead of the all-famous "How's your nuts, bark breath?", Kazooie says the much less suggestive "Warm, oder?" as in, it's warm. Yeah.

The German comics, however, did everything right. Kazooie totally says there that the house reminds her of the house in Psycho. And she makes a really good point, 'cause it does.

And let's not even mention the Dutch version of Banjo-Kazooie Nuts & Bolts. Let's skip over the fact that the translator had little to no knowledge of Banjo lore and that Kazooie is a pleemeeuw ("toilet gull") rather than a breegull, but Jolly Roger/Jolly Dodger, our favourite flamboyant frog, is referred to as Piet Piraat. Which translates to Pete the Pirate, but we already have a completely unrelated character with that name, courtesy of Studio 100 from Belgium. ...Oops.

E3 2014 Rareniverse coverage

Not much happening this year. Donkey Kong appears as a cool new figure for Nintendo's new Amiibo feature, and Diddy will undoubtedly follow. New playable characters in Super Smash Bros. are Palutena, Pac-Man and every Mii imaginable. Once again, K. Rool has been snubbed, but I'm afraid there'll be no way to predict if he really is not in the game until it actually releases. At least there's the Kremlings. Schrale troost.

Don't worry, K. Rool. I'm not in Smash Bros. either.

...Wait.

And of course, best of all -- Conker's back.

Definitely the highlight of Microsoft's otherwise pretty dull conference, the game's called Project Spark, where you basically create your own worlds, levels, games -- and he's a playable character. It's not a Bad Fur Day 2 (thank LOG!) but he's a DLC, and he looks amazing. The rest of the game, even without him, looks like a lot of fun as well. He sounds like Conker as well.
Sources are being vague, but right now it's not sure if Chris Seavor voiced him or not. Additionally, some sources thought for a moment that it was my dear boyfriend Bryant instead, and it honestly wouldn't have surprised me. Bry does a pretty damn accurate Conker impression. We were both in a Skype call, watching Microsoft's conference and not having much faith in it, together with another friend of ours when he came on screen. The reactions, all of our reactions, it was amazing. I wish I had recorded it.

Why I love Conker's Bad Fur Day

(I was gonna do this as a video, narrating it, as a subtle jab to another video I don't even deem worthy of watching -- but my dumb deep Dutch vocal chords don't allow me to do anything without sounding like a complete moron. Boo hiss.)

Conker's Bad Fur Day was my most favourite thing three years ago. The game was so dear to me because it was made by Rare - I'm betting that if Rare had no involvement, I never would've picked up the game in the first place.

Truth to be told, violent and/or questionable things couldn't interest me less at the time. I got into some anime about dogs killing each other... because it was about dogs. Similarly, I got into Conker because he wasn't some buff, muscular, middle-aged guy, but instead, a cute little squirrel.

Well, really, that's the catch; he looks cute and fuzzy, but in reality, he's got a severe drinking problem and ends up depressed.

Assorted over-analyzations of the piñata kind (AKA headcanons)

Whoa, it's been ages since I've been here. This blog is my personal ranting space, as long as it's relevant to Donkey Kong or the surrounding games somehow. Where have I been? To the distant and the dangerous, thinking that I am a pathetic fool. Also, watching a lot of Viva Piñata, whining about the fact that I'm broke and there's so many cool things I want to buy, and chatting with my friends.
Oh, and wallowing in self-pity for some reason. Also drawing things and working on stuff I'm actually supposed to be working on, like homework. And my original story, which I'm certain I'm gonna publish someday. I hope, at least. As well as--... nah, that's a story for another time!

Well then, I have obviously neglected this blog for too long and will now attempt to make up for it by sharing some more of my far-fetched headcanons and theories that border on the weird and the whimsical and happen to concern Viva Piñata some way or another. When this is published, though, I have found out that my frantic obsessing over piñatas has quieted down a little. So this is probably the last post in a loooong while. Bear with me.

1. The Big Boss and LOG are one and the same.

Also pictured; Langston Lickatoad, who is awesome. He also basically makes both the Viva Piñata show and the games canon.

This might need some clarification, since both characters are rather recent.

Resources

We all know Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong wear clothes. Same for the Kremlings. And Banjo-Kazooie and Conker are even more blatantly clothing-wearing than DK and pals, so there you go. They also use a lot of items made of wood, steel, even rock, possibly taking after the citizens from the Mushroom Kingdom that attempted colonizing their isles all those years ago.

Now you might wonder; why the hell is this a blog post? Well, here you go; where do they get their resources?

I mentioned power sources not too long ago, but I mean, stuff like DK's television and K. Rool's PC didn't just fall out of thin air, now did they?

But the resources they have... where do they go?

I am presuming the Isle o' Hags, as large as it is, has some specialists whom buy the resources in bulk and in turn make objects of it.

Resource 1; Wood

Wood is abundant and necessarily for life nearly everywhere. Chop down a tree and you can make stuff with it. DK Isle abounds in wood, obviously, but it's mostly tropical. No, the real deal is the Northern Kremisphere.

A mainly forested region, abundant in large, stately, ominous redwood trees. (sequoias?) Most notable in the Kremwood Forest. The little isle in its centre provides a place for the Mekanos factories. They, presumably Kremlings, chop down the trees for use as fuel, building material, and suchlike, if the level Ripsaw Rage is of any significance.
So, they ship the wood to the Isle o' Hags where it gets changed into useful appliances. The Kremlings have a cutting-edge scale of technology for some reason with large airships... which brings us to our next subject;

Take a look at Death

...And no, not at Gregg. Only if you feel like getting cussed at.

Have we ever realized how many characters die in Rare's games? Not just "game over", but just plain die, never to return, with sometimes irreversible results? Few games have the guts to actually show it, but like usual, there's always exceptions.

Conker's Bad Fur Day
Characters die by the dozen here, but we never really care, do we? Well, I know I didn't. When Conker died, he got confronted with a pint-sized Grim Reaper called Gregg who possessed a colourful vocabulary, who claimed Conker's got as many lives as he thought he'd get away with, to which the squirrel usually ended up unharmed.

Death wasn't really taken seriously in this game. I just laughed at those poor Uga Buga cavemen who were to be devoured by some deranged Yoshi-clone with sharp teeth. But near the end, I couldn't help but weep. Why? Berri, of course. Conker's girlfriend, ruthlessly killed by a mob boss's gun. As she lay on the ground, Conker tried to wake her up, but it was too late.

Later on, the airlock opened (they were in space or something) and she got sucked out into the endless abyss of space. So to this day her lifeless body is floating around in space. I wonder how Mario will react if he sees her on his space adventures like in Super Mario Galaxy.

Where is the LOVE?

Love is a word with a lot of different meanings. Alas, that should be known - but nowadays, most people seem to think it's just a synonym for wanting to screw each other. For shame! As it should be noted, I am a sucker for romance... and let's say most Rare games have a lot of it. However, let's start with the usual.... lovey-dovey romance stuff.

Alright, first things first, we'll start with Conker. Conker and Berri are officially and canonically boyfriend and girlfriend. However, we never really saw 'em actually being kind to each other.... save for a throwaway line by Conker that was mostly to get himself out of a jam. However, they make an unlikely couple for sure. I mean, Conker is a normal red squirrel, and Berri is a chipmunk with dyed fur. And she's about thrice as tall as her boyfriend. I don't wanna know how those two.... ahem, have their business. Considering the game is rated M however, it's rather strange they didn't do so... I mean, really.

Alas, moving on! Let's go to the DK crew. As early as the first Donkey Kong Country, a girl by the name of Candy Kong was called DK's love interest. However, apart from the cartoons they didn't acknowledge each other as an item. And as today I still think that Candy takes more of a liking towards Funky as opposed to DK. However, in Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest we got introduced to Dixie Kong, Diddy's supposed girlfriend. They didn't really act very lovey-dovey either, but the love somehow was there. Mostly in fan-art, though..

Banjo-Kazooie wasn't about rescuing the main character's girlfriend... instead, his sister. Some people may argue that Banjo and Kazooie love each other in a romantic way, but I still don't know if it's platonic or romantic.

And as for Fox and Krystal... Welp, I haven't really got far enough in Star Fox Adventures... still haven't! So I don't know how they feel about each other. However, I somehow picture them having an Avatar-like relationship with each other later on, what with Krystal living on Dinosaur Planet, teehee.

And now for something completely different - platonic friendships! I'll be discussing Donkey Kong Country Returns' ending as well, so beware of spoilers!

The king is dead

It was a few days ago, but I feel like I can never live it down.

For Rare has just given most of the permanent art team the boot. This means that we will possibly never see either Conker or Banjo ever again. The thought saddens me deeply. They didn't even get a noble swan song. Nothing. This is a Rare fan's darkest hour since the buyout.

I think this song portrays my sorrow well enough. Yep, we'll never see Kameo again, either. Nor the inhabitants of Timber's Island, or all those other googly-eyed critters that inhabited the various isles in the Rare isles chain.

Except for Diddy Kong.

You see, I see Diddy as the link between Rare and Nintendo, as the link between Donkey Kong Country and Banjo-Kazooie and Conker. Because he was made by Rare, but during the buyout, stayed with Nintendo just because he belonged with DK. If he wasn't affiliated with the ape he'd have gone over to Microsoft. So now, safely under Retro Studios' care, and what with Returns, he's back again and about time too.

But Banjo nor Conker have shown their faces for over a year now.

Goodbye, my friends. May you continue to have adventures beyond the games. Let's all hope that the people who left still have a bit of that Rareware magic in them, and will show the world how much better it could be at their new jobs.

Speaking of art, some fellow Rare-fans have started a new blog - Rarevive. The point is to submit art once in a while, out of pure love for the franchises Rare had created. I know I will contribute some as soon as I find out how.

Good luck, guys. Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong, thank you for defining the beauty of experiences in platform games. Banjo and Kazooie, thank you for all those memories of romping through Spiral Mountain. Conker, thank you for being the first M-rated game I could play without feeling bad about it. Viva Piñata, thanks for all the colorful experiences in my garden. Kameo, thank you for showing me the beauty of the Enchanted Kingdom. Fox and Krystal, thank you for introducing me to the Star Fox saga and the wonder that is Sauria in the most brilliant ways possible.

Thank you, Rare. Thank you.

In the future

We all know and love DK, Conker, Banjo, etc, etc... but I've been thinking lately - how would they look and act like ten years from now? Conker as a family-guy in a midlife crisis, Diddy and Dixie happily engaged, Banjo and Kazooie having kids - wait, let's not go there.

Considering what Conker did to Bloopy, the young raptor that he had hatched back in Bad Fur Day - the poor fella even called him mommy... and if my ears don't deceive me, I do believe he said something that sounded like 'Luigi' too. It's mama Luigi all over again... 'cept with Conker.. but anyway, so I can't see him as a mom. Er, dad. And Berri spends most of her days jumping around listening to music and being a porn star. Can't see her as a suitable mother either.

Conker would be such a bad poppa. (not to mention his and Berri's child would look freakish.)

Like I said, Conker and Berri would be two bad parents if I ever saw them. But for some reason or another, them somehow getting a kid is likely. Well, you know Conker likes getting drunk, right? And he's a king, right? So, one faithful night, he was drunk, forgot using protection while he and Berri were, ahem, having fun (let's pretend he brought her back after a talk with Gregg after Bad Fur Day), thus he knocked Berri up, if you catch my drift. She doesn't believe in abortion, and a chipmunksquirrelkid is born. Poor kid would never know it was an accident. Likewise, it's the heir to the throne, and the red squirrel bloodline is kept up. Moving on...

Female roles and how they affect the games

As it should be mentioned, I rather like it if anything in the media, be it games or books or movies, has a female character who isn't just useless. Yet, most female roles get downgraded as fetish fuel or damsels-in-distress, or maybe both. I find that rather useless, to be honest. Because I am a girl myself, I strongly appreciate female characters that actually do something, and aren't just there as a piece of enjoyment for the strong male hero to feast his eyes on. Or as something that needs rescuing, for that matter.

It seems to me that Rare is one of the few game developers who actually uses female characters in a place that could easily be filled up by a male. There are some exceptions, but most of their video game girls have strong personalities. They could have easily been male, but they weren't.

First and foremost, I'll be discussing Banjo-Kazooie.

what all female birds should look and act like.

A rather cheerful faerie-tale-gone-wrong game about a bear and a bird who save the bear's little sister from a rhyming witch. Well, Kazooie, the red-crested Breegull, is a rude, sharp-tongued bird who gives everyone nicknames yet also somehow cares about her bear buddy. Yes, her. Kazooie's a she? Why, she sure is. But she isn't very feminine, isn't she? Not at all. Back then, this led most kids who couldn't read to believe that she was a he.