If you’ve been keeping track of the scene as of late, you’ll know that we’ve been eating good when it comes to delving into Rare’s past. We’ve seen the likes of the Project Dream SNES prototype appearing in the wild, and previously unused content being uncovered while preparing Banjo-Kazooie for Evercade.
Now, another piece of the Rare puzzle is finally getting its time in the spotlight, as the infamous Bottles’ Revenge mode will be playable in the upcoming Evercade version of Banjo-Tooie.
Bottles’ Revenge finally gets an official release
If you’re not particularly familiar with Bottles’ Revenge, this was an experimental two-player mode originally intended for Banjo-Tooie back on the N64.
What was interesting about this planned inclusion was that while Banjo and Kazooie were on their adventure, Player 2 would take control of Devil Bottles, allowing them to possess nearby enemies, making Player 1’s life as difficult as possible.
Rare unfortunately decided to cut the mode before release, explaining years later that there simply wasn’t enough time to properly test and debug the feature. Allowing another player to control bosses also caused problems with enemy attack patterns, essentially breaking the game.
Like plenty of other titles, though, plenty of stuff was left in the files and delved into years after the fact.
The necessary code, dialogue, and other assets were buried inside Banjo-Tooie, with the Rare Witch Project eventually getting the mode running using GameShark and Action Replay codes back in the day.
But, until now, there’s never been a normal way to unlock it in an officially released version of the game. That changes with the Banjo-Kazooie Double Pack for Evercade, where Bottles’ Revenge will be included as an unlockable bonus.
It makes a lot more sense when you think about how these new versions have been made. Instead of simply chucking the original N64 ROMs into an emulator, Blaze was given access to Rare’s source code and has created native Evercade ports, making things basically as authentic as possible while adding in a bunch of new improvements.
If you’re interested in diving into Bottles’ Revenge or just want to get another playthrough of Banjo-Tooie in, the collection launches on October 30 for $29.99 (£24.99), and is also bundled with the Evercade Nexus.
