Diddy Kong Racing

Released on November 24, 1997 by Rare for the Nintendo 64, Diddy Kong Racing features both single and multiplayer 3D cart racing with a vast overworld and more than 20 tracks.

For whatever reason, the Nintendo 64 has no shortage of kart racing games. These are games generally featuring more arcade driving mechanics and more outlandish tracks and scenarios. Perhaps they just fit the N64's mood. Or maybe its because Nintendo 64 games come on...carts.
Sorry.
Whatever the cause, the system backed up this quantity with quality...and Diddy Kong Racing is challenging for the front of the pack.

Starting with its font game.

Diddy Kong, that rambunctious monkey, got his start in the 1994 Rare SNES platforming classic, Donkey Kong Country, as a sidekick, then starred in the 1995 sequel Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest. He makes his N64 debut in Rare's 1997 kart racer, Diddy Kong Racing, with his old buddy, Donkey Kong, nowhere in sight. This time Diddy's the star of the show, with a new cast of Saturday-morning cartoon-style kart racing characters in tow.

Just look at these jokers.

Diddy Kong Racing first and foremost feels like a Rare-developed N64 game. There's a big, bright, and beautiful overworld connecting all of the game's distinct areas and their respective courses. Areas within the overworld, along with their corresponding races, can only be accessed by collecting a certain amount of balloons, which are gained by winning races (with several balloons being cleverly hidden around the overworld). Yes...collecting items to gain access to new areas--it's the blueprint for many Rare N64 games to come...and like in nearly every one of those games, it's the blueprint for a formula that works.

Except for in the game starring a Kong not named Diddy.

Of course, none of that would matter if Diddy Kong Racing's racing mechanics sucked. Fortunately, they're awesome.
Diddy Kong Racing's controls feel spot-on and intuitive. You get your choice of heavy characters, like the then soon-to-be-starring in his own classic platformer, Banjo the bear. Heavy characters are tough to control and accelerate slowly, but have high top speeds. There are light characters like Pipsy the mouse, who can speed up quickly and turn on a dime, but have a low top speed. Then there are the more balanced characters, like Diddy Kong himself. Also, Conker, the foul-mouthed, drunken squirrel who received his own platformer several years later, is in this game, but in Diddy Kong Racing, he is just a cute, G-Rated, fluffy-tailed rodent.

A cute, G-Rated, fluffy-tailed rodent who is currently eating my dust.

The tracks themselves are near perfection, belonging to themed zones like a prehistoric area (featuring enormous dinosaurs who lumber over the tracks), a wintry area, an island/lagoon area, a medieval theme park, and...I'll let the last one be a surprise. Certain tracks in each area even feature boat and plane racing (when you've accomplished enough, boats and planes became available for nearly every race), and these two vehicles control quite differently from the game's usual karts. Each track contains numerous boost/acceleration pads, and item balloons, which contain items like missiles, mines, and acceleration rockets. These items are helpful, but they aren't the "I was in last place, and this item sent me all the way to first" saviors from other racers like Mario Kart.

Who needs a Bullet Bill when I've got a whale!

Yes, Diddy Kong Racing generally helps those who help themselves, meaning that to beat the other seven racers, you'll generally want to master the layout of each track (including a few shortcuts!), pick up course-scattered bananas that increase your top speed, make sure you drive over every boost pad, hit every corner just right, and master the game's controls. While the controls follow the basic kart racer "A to accelerate, B to brake" blueprint, you'll also hit the Z-trigger to use items, and the R-shoulder button to slide around corners (tapping B while doing so will make you turn even more sharply). Sliding also works a bit differently from other N64 kart racers in that it's useful, but not a surefire way to quickly boost yourself to the front.

No, Conker, you're getting last place!

Ultimately, the controls satisfy. The only bumps in the road come from just how small the hit box seems to be when you're trying to pick up an item or banana, or attempting to drive over an accelerator pad. You'll get use to where you need to be, but the process doesn't come with some frustration. Conversely, the hit box can sometimes seem awfully large when you get jammed on the corner of a tunnel entrance. Unfortunately, perhaps the biggest flaw is that on some courses, one mistake can totally take you out of the running, as snagging on a doorway can take so long to correct, everyone else takes an insurmountable lead over you. A very small handful of courses even have little points where you can fall off the track with no hope of getting back up. These are frustrations that seldom occur, but occur enough to frustrate.

Kind of like the amount of times I've been blasted off the road by a UFO. Why is it always me?!

So the general gameplay is a blast, with just a few small flaws. However, there's far more here than just the general gameplay. Each area of Diddy Kong Racing features its own boss race--and they're delightfully difficult. Each area also features a battle royale arena that can only be unlocked by finding a key hidden in one of that area's races. Yes, it's a Rare game! Even the battle royales mix it up, diverging from the basic "fight to the death" mechanic at times to such inspired lunacy as "get all the pterodactyl's eggs, while stopping the other racers from doing the same," or  "get eight bananas the fastest." I mean, when in real life do you get to fight people for bananas, while driving a rocket-firing go-kart?

Looks like I'm about to take a death-rocket from a tiger baby. Oh, well. At least I killed Conker.

Once you've completed all the races in an area and beaten its boss, you can race all its courses again, this time having to collect all the silver coins strewn across it, in order to collect even more balloons. Oh yeah, and I should mention, to get any of a course's balloons, you have to finish that course in first place, even when you're doing a silver coins challenge. Also, you've got the trophy races, essentially a "cup" gameplay mechanic where you race through each area's courses back-to-back in an attempt to win the most points. There's gameplay here for days, much of which needs to be completed to fight the game's final boss (for the second time!) and see the game's final ending! Plus, you can play all of these modes in a fun and thrilling up to four-player multiplayer mode, too! There's even a time-trial mode! Plus, once you finally beat the whole thing, you unlock a mirrored-track version of the game that's even more ridiculously hard to fully complete. There are also two additional characters to unlock...and one of them...let's just say he's an anthropomorphic clock that's going take a lot of time to earn...

Think I'm gonna fly off into the sunset on that pun...

Finally, Diddy Kong Racing's production values, particularly for a game released in just the N64's second year, are excellent. The tracks feel big, vibrant, and full of character, and the game runs them smoothly. The overworld features plenty of fun, lively details, butterflies and frogs flying and hopping around everywhere. Nearly all of the in-game models are rendered in 3D. Music is upbeat and catchy. Characters have those awesomely goofy-sounding Rare voices. Even the game's menus are sharp and eye-catching. This is a premium game. As far as N64 kart racers go, Diddy Kong Racing is among the cream of the crop.

9.5

Graphics

Eye-popping, smoothly running 64-bit glory.

8.5

Music and Sound

Nice, catchy tunes, with fun sound effects and the usual charmingly silly Rare voice-acting.

9.3

Gameplay

Near kart racing perfection, with excellent controls, well-designed tracks, a large overworld to explore, and an incredible sum of of fun stuff to do.

9.5

Lasting Value

There are so many things to unlock, and so many things to conquer and accomplish, on top of 20+ tracks, multiple boss fights, and multiplayer.

9.3  FINAL SCORE