Nintendo's announcement that Nintendo 64 games would soon join Nintendo Switch Online's library of games sent shockwaves through the fanbase. Now, fans everywhere want to know what N64 games have a chance of joining NSO after the additions that Nintendo has already teased. While there's plenty of Nintendo original titles to consider, there's plenty of other N64 exclusives that could show up on the service. For instance, maybe Nintendo will revive Interplay Games' ClayFighter 63 1/3 for the sake of nostalgia. The ClayFighter series may not be one of the most successful fighting game franchises in history, but it still has tons of fans who enjoyed it for its wacky humor and fighting game parody.
Aside from their sense of humor, the ClayFighter games set themselves apart through their unique art style. Each playable character was rendered from a clay figurine, giving the franchise the vibe of a stop-motion claymation fighting game. On top of that, though, ClayFighter's legacy is defined by ClayFighter: Sculptor's Cut, a special edition of ClayFighter 63 1/3 that's notoriously expensive and hard to find. As such, one has to wonder if Nintendo is considering bringing ClayFighter: Sculptor's Cut to Nintendo Switch Online, and if so, how that could affect the famously rare game's price.
The Story Behind ClayFighter: Sculptor's Cut
Interestingly, ClayFighter: Sculptor's Cut owes its rarity to the now-defunct Blockbuster Video. Blockbuster built its fortune on renting home movies to customers, but it notably offered video games for rent as well. Thanks to this inroad into video games, Blockbuster teamed up with Interplay Games to distribute ClayFighter: Sculptor's Cut, an improved version of ClayFighter 63 1/3 that featured fresh plotlines, quality of life upgrades, new characters, and other adjustments. Fans generally agreed that Sculptor's Cut was a superior version of the game and proved eager to visit Blockbuster and give the new game a try.
However, there was a notable catch to Interplay and Blockbuster's teamup. As one would expect from Blockbuster's business model, ClayFighter fans couldn't buy the game. Instead, they could only rent it. The only way to permanently obtain a copy from Blockbuster legitimately was to enter a contest that distributed copies of ClayFighter: Sculptor's Cut to a few lucky fans. However, there were never many to go around. Interplay Games only printed 20,000 copies of ClayFighter: Sculptor's Cut, making the game hard to find to begin with, and even more precious to win in Blockbuster's contest.
More than 20 years have passed since ClayFighter: Sculptor's Cut premiered on the N64, and in retrospect, there are a few clear reasons that Sculptor's Cut is so rare. There's the obvious explanation that fans had very little means to become owners of a copy, and there's the limited number of copies printed overall. On top of that, rental copies of movies and video games don't always survive the duress of changing hands constantly. As such, many copies of ClayFighter: Sculptor's Cut simply haven't survived to 2021. That means it's extremely hard to find functioning copies of Sculptor's Cut, as well as undamaged copies of the game's instruction manual.
ClayFighter: Sculptor's Cut's Present and Future
Today, anyone interested in buying a copy of ClayFighter: Sculptor's Cut can search for it online, but buying it is no small feat. Working copies of Sculptor's Cut or its manual frequently sell for well beyond a thousand dollars, making it prohibitively expensive for anyone but the most passionate game collectors. One wonders if that could change through Nintendo Switch Online. If a ClayFighter game comes to the N64 expansion of NSO, it'd make sense for Nintendo to bring the extremely valuable Sculptor's Cut to NSO, rather than its base version. Making the game available this way may cause Sculptor's Cut's online prices to plummet, but then again, availability on NSO won't reduce the rarity of the original physical cartridges. For now, Nintendo seems focused on putting its own N64 games on NSO, but there's certainly some hope for a surprise ClayFighter revival.
ClayFighter 63 1/3 released for the Nintendo 64 in 1997.