6 Rare Limited Games You Forgot Were Awesome

Rare Limited got its start in 1985, quickly becoming one of Nintendo’s most-trusted second-party studios. That partnership helped the young company grow relatively quickly, and gave fans all-time classics like Donkey Kong Country, Banjo-Kazooie, and GoldenEye 007. In 2002, Rare joined Microsoft and kept cranking out hits like Viva Piñata and Sea of Thieves. While the studio is known for its high-profile releases, it also has quite a few hidden gems in its extensive catalog. These games might not get the love they deserve these days, but have at least one feature that hardcore fans will remember.

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Here are six Rare Limited games that you likely forgot about.

6) Killer Instinct

Killer Instinct grabs this last slot because it got a relatively recent reboot in 2013. That said, Rare wasn’t too involved with that game, as it was working on other projects. Either way, the original Killer Instinct is one of the great cult classic fighters of the ’90s. Going up against heavy hitters like Mortal Kombat 3, the original Killer Instinct impressed in the arcade and on home consoles.

Visually, KI was an absolute treat, looking better than many other games, especially on the SNES. The combo system rewarded players who stuck with it, but also made it tough for new players to get into. Thankfully, its wild character design helped get plenty of players through the door, offsetting those issues slightly. It doesn’t get much better than seeing a cyborg fight an alien or velociraptor-human hybrid, after all.

5) Donkey Kong Land

You’ve undoubtedly heard of Donkey Kong Country on the Super Nintendo, but Donkey Kong Land took that basic formula and turned it into one of the better Game Boy games of the era. You wouldn’t call it a perfect port of the DKC experience, but for a handheld game, it got enough right that players still remember it fondly.

Importantly, the controls still felt great, so even if it didn’t look as good, you’d still have a blast. Add in the excellent soundtrack from David Wise and Graeme Norgate, and you have the beginnings of a new Game Boy series. There were two more sequels on the console, each adapting the newest DKC game on SNES.

4) Grabbed by the Ghoulies

Grabbed by the Ghoulies is the first Microsoft game on this list. It launched for the original Xbox in 2003, after originally being planned for the GameCube. Granted, Grabbed by the Ghoulies gameplay is relatively simple, and it is, for better or worse, firmly in the “family games” category. However, there’s still a solid game here.

If you can get past the repetitive gameplay, you’ll find a gorgeous-looking game that uses cel-shaded graphics and a comic book-like style to hook you in. It’s also just spooky enough to be a great gateway game for young horror fans. Grabbed by the Ghoulies is far from the best game on this list, but it’s worth checking out to see its neat visual design.

3) Kameo: Elements of Power

Kameo was one of the two launch games Rare had for the Xbox 360. Perfect Dark Zero is both a better game and much more memorable, but Kameo should still get some love. Rare’s action-adventure romp was in development for years, originally planned for the Nintendo 64. In fact, Kameo‘s development started after Rare wrapped up Donkey Kong 64 and was originally planned to include elements from the Pokémon series.

As you’d expect for a game that was in development for as long as Kameo, things changed dramatically. Still, it had a great launch, selling respectably on store shelves and earning praise from developers for its visuals. In some ways, Kameo was an early demo for how good an Xbox 360 game could look. The morphing gameplay was also a highlight, but Kameo was ultimately let down by relatively easy, repetitive combat. Unfortunately, that was kind of a theme for Rare during the 2000s.

2) Jet Force Gemini

Jet Force Gemini is a weird one from Rare. The studio had made a landmark console first-person shooter with GoldenEye 007 two years earlier and was working on its follow-up, Perfect Dark. However, Rare’s Blast Corps team was working on its own shooter, which took players back to third-person in an attempt to recapture the arcade glory of the ’80s.

It worked well, blending pulse-pounding action with devilish level design. You did have to awkwardly switch between control styles, which led to confusion, but once you locked in, it wasn’t too bad. Toss in a few of the most challenging boss encounters on the N64, and you have a great game that players should still go back to.

1) Ken Griffey Jr.’s Winning Run

When Ken Griffey Jr. was at the height of his powers, there wasn’t a cooler baseball player in the world. And with the Seattle Mariners having such a close relationship with Nintendo (whose North American studios are based in the nearby area), it’s no surprise that The Kid had several great games launch on the company’s platforms.

What might be a surprise is that different studios worked on most of those games. For example, Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball was developed by Software Creations, while Angel Studios tookover for Ken Griffey Jr.’s Slugfest. However, the best of the bunch was put together by Rare. Winning Run was not only one of the better baseball games of its era, but Rare took extra steps to add to the realism.

Each team had alternate jerseys, and you could unlock the expansion Tampa Bay Devil Rays and Arizona Diamondbacks a few years before they joined the league. It didn’t have the MLBPA license, but when the gameplay is this good, that doesn’t matter.

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