Rare
Founded	1985[1]
FirstSuper Mario game	Donkey Kong Country (1994)
LatestSuper Mario game	Diddy Kong Racing DS (2007)
Current president	Craig Duncan

Rare Limited (also shortened to justRare and trade-namedRareware up untilBanjo-Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge) is a British video game developer based in Twycross, Leicestershire. It was founded in 1985 byChris and Tim Stamper, as the successor company toUltimate Play the Game. As a prominent second-party developer forNintendo, Rare created the successfulNintendo Entertainment System gamesWizards & Warriors,Battletoads, andR.C. Pro-Am. Rare's only involvement with theSuper Mario franchise was creating severalDonkey Kong games, beginning withDonkey Kong Country. Since then, Rare has produced other well-known titles such asBanjo-Kazooie,Perfect Dark, andSea of Thieves.

In 2002, following the original North American release ofStar Fox Adventures on theNintendo GameCube, Microsoft completed its acquisition of Rare, affecting the status of several games of theSuper Mario franchise, includingDonkey Kong Racing,Donkey Kong Coconut Crackers, andDiddy Kong Pilot. Under the terms of the merger, Nintendo retained the rights to all theDonkey Kong characters along withKrunch, while Rare maintained the rights to its own intellectual properties such asBanjo andConker, both of whom appeared inDiddy 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 andIt's Mr. Pants, were redeveloped fromDiddy Kong Pilot andDonkey 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 evenDiddy 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 publishremakes of a fewDonkey Kong titles made by Rare, including the originalDonkey Kong Country trilogy for theGame Boy Advance, as well asDiddy Kong Racing DS. While the firstDonkey Kong Country was made available on theVirtual Console within a few weeks of theWii being released, andDonkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest andDonkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble! being rolled out there in 2007, all three games were delisted on November 25, 2012,^{[citation needed]} and were gradually re-listed from 2014 to 2015,^{[citation needed]} this time on both the Wii andWii 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 gameJetpac remained intact in theDonkey Kong 64 port for the Wii U Virtual Console.

History involving theSuper Mario franchise[edit]

Mario Kart series[edit]

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

Donkey Kong 64[edit]

Rare appears inDonkey 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 theKongs andKing K. Rool as mentioned by theMicrophone. Two items bear the logo of Rare: theRareware Coin and a specificGolden Banana that is obtained from theBanana Fairy Princess.

Diddy Kong Racing DS[edit]

Rare appears inDiddy Kong Racing DS with its logo appearing on thecoins.

Super Smash Bros. series[edit]

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

Appearances inSuper Mario games[edit]

• Dixie Kong's hat is occasionally pinned with Rareware's logo. This can be seen clearly in someDonkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest andDonkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble! promotional artwork.
• One artworkMedia:Wrinkly Save Cave DKC3 group art.jpg ofWrinkly's Save Cave forDonkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble! has Rareware's logo framed.
• Timber has a cap with Rareware's logo on it. This was changed to theNintendo DS logo forDiddy Kong Racing DS, and theNintendo logo forTimber's Balloon Pop.
• The Rareware logo appears onBanjo's backpack inSuper Smash Bros. Ultimate.

List ofSuper Mario games[edit]

Notable employees[edit]

Gallery[edit]

Logos[edit]

• 

  Rare's first logo, used from 1987–1990

• 

  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[edit]

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  Splash screen fromDonkey Kong GB: Dinky Kong & Dixie Kong

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  Splash screen fromDonkey Kong Country (Game Boy Color)

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  Splash screen fromDonkey Kong Country (Game Boy Advance)

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  Unused splash screen fromDiddy Kong Pilot (2001)

Logos of canceled games[edit]

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  Donkey Kong Racing

• 

  Donkey Kong Coconut Crackers

• 

  Diddy Kong Pilot

References[edit]

External links[edit]

Rare coverage on otherNIWA wikis:

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Lylat Wiki

NintendoWiki

SmashWiki

StrategyWiki

• Rare on the Rare Wiki

• Developers
• Companies

• Articles with unsourced statements