To say the Nintendo 64 years were a period of transition for Rare seems silly. The company had already moved from the arcade to home computers in the early Eighties and then hopped into bed with Japanese giant Nintendo to produce console titles later that decade. Yet the Nineties did see big changes for Rare, as it got to grips with new hardware platforms, explored different game genres and fully embraced 3D.
Before Rare began making its N64 masterpieces, though, it was busy revisiting its arcade roots. Having already worked on the coin-op , artist Kevin Bayliss was delighted to stay in the arcade for another scrap. “I’d wanted to work on my own arcade beat-’em-up since the day I arrived at Rare and would spend hours drawing fighting characters in an isometric view on paper,” he grins. “Once we had the cool new SGI machines to play with, I wanted to make a 3D versus fighter and Nintendo wanted us to develop one for their upcoming, super-secret 64-bit machine. I was over the moon when they gave the go-ahead to create a fighting game for the arcade,
