In some ways, a critical review of Rare Replay, the new 30-games-over-30-years-for-30-bucks compilation on Xbox One, won't matter to its target audience. So many of Rare's biggest video games—Battletoads, Donkey Kong Country, Banjo-Kazooie, Goldeneye 007—filled gaming magazines of old, the ones whose critical matrices hinged on graphics and "bang for the buck," and they all scored stupid-high numbers. The buck only bangs louder on a content-loaded set like this; if you told an old GamePro or EGM magazine editor that one day, they'd get most of Rare's hits on a single, cheap disc, they might call you a witch and tie you to a stake.
Yet Rare Replay not only anthologizes its source developer, it also memorializes it. Let's face it: Rare technically still exists but only as a shadow of its former self. Founding brothers Tim and Chris Stamper left the company in 2007, and coincidentally, this collection comes to an abrupt halt with a game that launched in 2008, just before the company took a major Kinect Sports detour. This is current company owner Microsoft coming not to praise Rare, but to bury it. (And Since Microsoft is doing so, that means a few major games have been left off the roster as well).
As a result, the compilation's best attributes, as much as its worst ones, come less from offering a bunch of games and more from its capacity as a Rare time capsule.
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