Early development footage of two Rare N64 games has surfaced. Various videos have come in for Conker 64/Twelve Tales, which went on to become Conker’s Bad Fur Day, along with an early look at Banjo-Kazooie.
All of this comes from the Video Game History Foundation. This week, it added a ton of materials from the Electronics Entertainment Expo. A lot of the content was not widely accessible previously.
For those that are unaware, Conker’s Bad Fur Day turned out to be very different compared to what Rare was initially planning. Initially, the game was envisioned as a family-friendly platformer. evolved into an M-rated comedy that stood apart from nearly everything else on the Nintendo 64.
Eventually, Rare went with a tone shift – Conker’s Bad Fur Day is still a 3D platformer, but a much more mature one at that. The company saw criticisms of it being another cutesy platformer and also understood that it had Banjo-Kazooie, so there was a need to do something different.
We have the opening cutscene for Twelve Tales below. It shows Conker waking up, a character selector (between Berri & Conker), a wind-up cuckoo bird named “Knowit,” and the scarecrow who would go on to become Birdy.
Opening Cutscene
And here are some additional videos:
Additional Footage
As mentioned above, we also have an early look at Banjo-Kazooie. A prototype build was showcased during an E3 1997 Nintendo press conference.
Here’s a look at that:
Prototype Footage
DrAwesomeX points out the following differences compared to the final version:
-The N64 logo intro was very different, featuring it hopping on a black background, as Banjo’s in-game model runs past it, followed by several bulls
-Features original musical intro (similar to the one we got but with a different smaller darker forest background)
-Mumbo’s Mountain looks different, has different music, and features a more linear setup
-The speaker describes the plot of the game as, “some major giant dude has stolen your girlfriend and you’re gonna try to work your way up into his castle in the clouds-“ 3:32
-Unused enemy that look like Mumbo Jumbo
-One of Kazooie’s unused moves has her legs just grow longer…?
-Mumbo Jumbo has a different design
-Treasure Trove Cove has a different design and music
-One of the paintings in Mad Monster Mansion ironically showcases Windmill Glade, the first level of Twelve Tales: Conker 64
-Another painting in Mad Monster Mansion seems to show an eyeless Banjo…? 8:11
-Brief showcase of the cut Temple stage, commonly referred to as Giant’s Lair (which given the commentator’s description of the early plot definitely gives credence to its namesake)
-Dramatically different design for Gobi’s Valley, simply referred to as the Sphinx Level
-Different design for Spiral Mountain
-A random monkey (possibly Chimpy?) is seen running, with the commentator saying “we know him,” and “he’s off to his next game,” suggesting it could’ve been Diddy Kong? (Considering DK64 came out a year after BK, maybe?)
Banjo-Kazooie would release for the N64 in 1998. Conker’s Bad Fur Day followed in 2001.
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