While Rare is best known for creating the likes of Donkey Kong Country, GoldenEye 007 and Sea Of Thieves, it has some lessor-known titles in its library – one of which is the 2004 GBA puzzler It's Mr. Pants.
Conceived by Tim Stamper and Gregg Mayles and designed by Justin Cook and Paul Machacek, the game began development prior to Microsoft's purchase of Rare and was shown off at E3 2001 under the title Donkey Kong Coconut Crackers.
When the sale went through, the Donkey Kong IP was removed and in its place, Mr. Pants took centre stage – the character was designed by Leigh Loveday and had previously featured on the company's website; he later would cameo in several other Rare games, including Jet Force Gemini, Banjo-Tooie and Grabbed by the Ghoulies.
While It's Mr. Pants received only average reviews at the time of release, it's something of a cult classic in Rare's history, and Machacek has shared an interesting nugget of info relating to its development on social media:
It's Mr. Pants was included in a four-game publishing deal between Rare and THQ, and, according to those who worked on it, could be one of the rarest of the company's titles – it had a print run of around 20,000 copies, as THQ didn't think it would be commercially successful.
While we have your attention, it's a good time to point out that we're asking you (yes, you) to vote for your favourite Rare games so we can compile the definitive list – so head over here to do just that.
We'd also recommend you watch this video, which was released around the same time as Rare Replay: