#rareware
Samus Aran Origins: Metroid’s Influences Beyond Alien | Hardboiled History
My new video is about the origins of one of my favorite video game characters. Everyone knows Metroid was inspired by the movie Alien, but what about its other influences?
Other questions explored include: Who did “Samus Is A Girl” before Samus? Why does Adam call Samus “Lady” in Metroid Dread? Were Metroid and Zelda inspired by Rareware games? Why does Samus fight a Mother Brain? Where does Samus’ first name come from? What does “Metroid” mean? What is a “bailey”? Who was the first character with an arm canon? And why can’t Metroid crawl?
Here is my completed extremely self indulgent Banjo Kazooie series I made between 2019-2020 because I miss them so much.
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Probably old news by now, but did you know that there’s an unused eye texture for Conker? You can still see it if you hack.
It’s only mapped to two expressions, but we forgot to get the other expression. His ears are slightly lowered, that’s how you know he’s mad! I wonder what this was going to be used for, but it makes for a nice October post!
Selfie with the ancestor!
Ever since discovering there was a bat that Conker was supposed to befriend cut from the beta’s intro, I wanted to design them! This is Russet.
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I really am cursed with knowledge.
So while trying to find differences between the two betas and the final, my friend died during a boss fight.
In the final, when Conker gets crushed to death, his body remains flattened like this.
But in both betas, something different happens. Not only does it play his normal death animation (him lying on his back and reaching up before collapsing on his back again) it also has something extra. Something completely unused, and I don’t think this has been documented before. It isn’t on the tcrf page, that’s for sure.
So my friend and I found this by accident, we were fighting the Big Big Guy and she died by getting crushed and I noticed something next to Conker before the screen faded out. I asked her to die again and let the screen remain on Conker. This was the result, gore warning.
That is an unused texture of Conker’s intestines. I can assume it went unused because most of the time we died, we couldn’t get it to face the correct way. The blue part of the texture I think is supposed to be Conker’s jacket torn open? I’m not too sure. We did get a few screenshots of it looking as we think Rare intended it to show. Oh yeah, his heart and another organ would also pop out of him upon dying, so you’ll see those on the ground next to him.
I’m certain it wasn’t removed for being too gruesome, considering some of his other deaths. I always thought his crushed death was tame in comparison to getting shattered into chunks or getting sliced in half.
If this was kept in, I feel like it would be a combination of the final and this, where he would be flattened and have the guts texture.
Oops, she’s goth now.
Berri redesign… 2!!!
The first design’s jacket color was color picked from her Twelve Tales design, but I didn’t realize it was so eye burning until looking at it on my phone. This is why I don’t like my laptop’s colors :( They’re different from some devices, but I can’t help that.
Anyway, what changed? Her fur is a little darker, I’ve given her more eyelashes, she has earrings now, her gloves are black, her shoes are black and red, and her jacket is a darker red. I’m more satisfied with this design than the previous one!
Also, being goth while dating a vampire, that’s gotta be awesome for her!
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New friend spotted
For those who can’t tell, that’s a bat! One of the brown ones who attack you in the barn and bats tower. It looks like at one point, Conker was supposed to become allies with one. I can’t confirm for sure, because the ending cutscene might not exist yet in this build. For all I know, this one could just be there for decoration. But his dialogue is the same in the opening cutscene, where he implies he knows everyone around his throne, I would think that includes the bat.
Conker’s new reference!
Design changes are very minor but include: Changing his body color to a redder shade, adding the freckles from his kid design (as well as making them a little darker), making all white on his outfit have a blue tint and making his proportions smaller. Fangs are now visible in the reference.
I’ve been drawing his kid design more often than his adult design for a project that’ll hopefully be done before the year is over, and I grew very attached to the freckles! As for making him shorter, he’s 3 feet tall, I wanted him to look it.
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Talking about the beta, usually in It’s War, Conker is in what I call “serious mode” where he won’t do any idle animations except one when his guns are out. Apparently this hadn’t been implemented yet, because I caught him doing some while standing next to Rodent.
I theorized that maybe it’s because Conker didn’t have his cigar, so I loaded an area where he had it but he still did idle animations.
I wonder why they took these out? Maybe they really did think it was too serious of a section for him to do fun little idle animations.
Bonus: Rodent really wants some chocolate milk.
Been getting into the beta of Conker’s Bad Fur Day (sadly not Twelve Tales, we all know that hasn’t been released yet. I’m hopeful one day, though!) and since I know the game well enough, I can spot differences.
One difference I wanted to bring up was this, since I found it interesting enough to talk about.
Before getting into Rock Solid, Conker has to learn the password from one of the cavemen. He mishears him, and says a wildly wrong word. In the beta, the word actually gets censored along with a beep and Conker covers his mouth and looks guilty. Conker doesn’t like swearing, after all!
In the final, they uncensored it. He still looks concerned though.
The beta scene was restored in Live and Reloaded, funny enough. I remember they promised to restore changed scenes, so I wonder if this was actually a higher up decision from Nintendo. Maybe a higher up didn’t understand the joke and wanted it uncensored?
First updated design and art, Honker!
Design notes: His scar now affects his eyebrow, his coat is longer and I’ve changed his shoe color. Also I have his teeth showing so his tooth gap is visible, because I wanted to show that he has that. His hair is also fluffier, and his ponytail is so fluffy it can be seen from both sides when he’s from front view and semi-side views! He is also visibly chubbier because he was always intended to be chubby. His eyelashes are also different.
Not too much changed really, but I’m happy with him!
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This is Knowit! He would’ve helped you in Twelve Tales as a little tutorial owl guide! While it seems he was a robot/mechanical owl in canon, I’ve made her an organic owl.
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The Fabled Panther King.
I’m pretty happy with how he turned out! He looks as menacing and regal as I think he should look.
I measured him compared to Conker and he’s 10 feet tall! :)
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The orthros from Twelve Tales my beloved
You beautiful two headed Doberman you
A design that isn’t changing much, but a character that’s getting quite the overhaul! The Professor!
This cyborg has a tail now!
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“How’s it going down there, short stuff?”
“You have until the count of three before I peck both your shins, nut breath.”
So I bought the Banjo and Kazooie plush, very adorable, but uh. I was surprised how small they are! Especially compared to the Conker plush! Kazooie is so small I’m scared I’m going to lose her, so she might stay full time in Banjo’s backpack.
I thought this was so funny that I decided to draw them real quick interacting at this size. Conker would be delighted to be tallest and get payback at all the times Kazooie was mean to him. In mine and @polarpace ‘s AU, Kazooie is actually the tallest!
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oh no… he’s still alive!
just a bit of my cbfd brainrot
It’s a new year with new discoveries!
If you’re an artist/animator and are interested in volunteering, apply here: https://goo.gl/forms/3uOwe6V8kZsqoVUw2
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A year ago today, mod Shadow was inspired by a Conker stream to make an AU/rewrite of Conker’s Bad Fur Day on the blog @conkerrewritten
Not too much time later, mod Polar wanted to do the same for Banjo-Kazooie. Putting our minds together, we came up with Rairverse. And what a fun time that’s been!
It’s hard to believe a whole year has passed since we started on this project. We’ve come up with so many concepts and so much lore, it’s been hard to keep it to ourselves! Maybe that will change soon.
Happy birthday RAIRVERSE!
-mod Shadow
But wait, there’s more?!
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