30 Minutes of Conker Twelve Tales Gameplay

If you were a die-hard Rare fan in the 90’s like I was, you most likely know the twisted road of Conker. He was originally going to star in a 3D platformer called Twelve Tales: Conker 64, which played and looked like Rare’s other forays in the genre at the time. Some critics that previewed the game loved it, but others believed that it was too similar to Banjo-Kazooie and the like.

Close to its release, Rare decided to can the finished game and start on something with more of its own identity, and one we came to know and love in the form of Conker’s Bad Fur Day. Trailers of the original game from E3, SpaceWorld, and the like have surfaced on YouTube before, but it hasn’t been until now that we’ve seen almost 30 solid minutes of gameplay, courtesy of IOnEI Falcon, who runs the fansite Rare Minion.. Take a look at it for yourself, and I’ll provide some analysis after the break.

First, let’s take a look at the game itself. One of the first apparent things is that Conker is considerably more acrobatic than his BFD counterpart. He can long jump, backflip, and swing from trees to go great distances. He also had a digging ability and an uppercut. Conker would also have a number of tools in his inventory, including a slingshot, a parasol, a magnet, a shovel and a key. In terms of levels, it looks like Conker would have visited a Jungle, the Old West, a Colosseum, a Windmill, a Volcano, and a snowy Mountain Village. There appears to be significantly less collecting in this game than in other platformers of the time, as was the case with the final product- the only items the squirrel picks up are acorns for ammunition and golden letters, which likely were the game’s answer to Banjo’s Jiggies. One very notable thing about the game was the amount of camera control the player has. You can look all around Conker in a dynamic fashion. Already known was the fact that Berri, Conker’s girlfriend, would also have been playable. Rather than focus on running and jumping, Berri was to have more puzzle oriented gameplay centered around the purple dinosaur she controls.

Some remnants of Twelve Tales made it over to Bad Fur Day, and this additional footage provides a lot of insight into that. As was previously known, both the Windmill and Colosseum levels made it into BFD, as did some of the characters from those locales, albeit much raunchier. While most of the music was never used again, the song playing during the zip-lining segment also made it into Bad Fur Day as one of the themes in the battle with the boiler.

Some assets even became a part of future Rare titles. A number of Conker’s animations and voice clips were re-used for Donkey Kong 64. They look and sound identical to the things Tiny Kong did in that game(the voice clips were probably altered in pitch for the transition). Furthermore, some of the sound effects, such as the ground pound noise, showed up in DK64 too. The theme for the Colosseum level became the main theme for Jet Force Gemini.

So, what do you think of Twelve Tales? Was it good the way it was? Or was Chris Seavor’s mature overhaul something the game needed? I think that while Rare ultimately made the better decision by changing the game into Bad Fur Day, Twelve Tales still would have been a lot of fun to play.