Out of all of the different series that Rare has created, none of them will ever be as interesting to me as Conker. Starting with a cutesy Zelda-like adventure game called "Conker's Pocket Tales" on Game Boy Color, Rare's next entry into the series was going to be a 3D platformer akin to Banjo-Koozie, Super Mario 64, Glover, and other such 3D platformers of the era. This game was to be "Twelve Tales: Conker 64" and was incredibly different from what we eventually got with "Conker's Bad Fur Day".

After a bit of backlash about Conker 64 being yet another cartoony, kid-friendly platformer in an incredibly saturated market, Rare decided to completely revamp the game to be more adult-oriented. Luckily, the game wasn't entirely scrapped. They reused a lot of assets other mechanics from Conker 64 in Bad Fur Day.

It's interesting to think that Conker was almost an E-rated, family friendly series. Ask anyone about Conker these days and they'll respond with something along the lines of "isn't that the game with the singing poop and the swearing squirrel?". Anyway, Twelve Tales: Conker 64 was going to be a collect-a-thon 3D platformer where Conker and Berri work together to recollect 100 presents that were stolen from them. Looking at some screenshots, you can tell that Conker's Bad Fur Day retains a lot of the cartoony nature and character designs that were intended for Conker 64.

Scarecrow and Berri have such wildly different designs here than in Bad Fur Day.

Image source: Unseen 64

Gameplay

As mentioned earlier, Twelve Tales: Conker 64 was going to be a collect-a-thon 3D platformer, much like a lot of the others on the market. Conker's moveset in Conker 64 is so drastically different from what we got in Bad Fur Day. As you can see in the videos below, Conker was going to be much more agile, much like Super Mario 64. You had a slide move, a brief mid-air dash, double-jump, a roll attack, and a whole lot more.

Unlike Bad Fur Day, Conker 64 was going to include co-op multiplayer, with one player controlling Conker, and the other controlling Berri. There were also different tools that you could collect and use for combat and exploration. This was definitely going to be a much more open game than we got with Bad Fur Day.

Time travel was going to be another big part of the game. At one point, you're in a Roman arena and Conker is wearing a gladiator helmet and fighting a cyclops. There's even a prehistoric dinosaur world, full of lava, a baby triceratops, and a lush green jungle.

This full 30 minute gameplay is the most that we'll ever see of how the game was played.

Source: http://rareminion.com/twelvetales.html

Visuals

The visual style for Conker 64 looks to have bled through to Bad Fur Day. Lots of color, lots of googly, cartoony eyeballs on random objects, and Conker's model looks almost the same in Bad Fur Day as it did in Conker 64. As you can see if the leftmost image below, even the flowers have little eyes.

Quite a few things from Conker 64 did make the transition over to Bad Fur Day, like the windmill, scarecrow, and that cyclops that I briefly mentioned earlier.

Everything looks freaking fantastic. The waterfalls, the fish that swim around in the lake in the hub area, even the birds that fly all over the skybox. It absolutely fits the theme that they were aiming for.

It's great that so much of Conker 64 was reused to make Bad Fur Day.

Image source: Unseen 64

Final Thoughts

It's just so wild to think that we almost got an innocent, child-like Conker, instead of the greedy alcoholic that we know now. While I do enjoy Conker's Bad Fur Day (most parts of it, anyway), I would give anything to be able to play Twelve Tales: Conker 64 just one time. What was almost a kid-friendly, collect-a-thon 3D platformer instead became a puzzle-oriented, M-rated 3D platformer.

I can't even begin to fathom what the sales and overall reception of Conker 64 would have been like. Just the brief snips of gameplay that we've gotten make it seem like it could've pretty damn good. It looks pretty on-par with Banjo and Mario, in terms of exploration, collectibles, and the acrobatic moveset.

What do you think? I'd love to hear from you readers about what you think Twelve Tales: Conker 64 could've been like.

PEACE THE HECK OUT.