Published 01/06/2024

Diddy Kong Racing

Now, two decades on, there’s a lot of argument of who was the king of the kart racer back in the Nintendo 64 era - an era which many see as its apex. Sure, sure, Mario Kart 8 is incredible and made all the money in the world, but as I’m so heavily biased towards the Nintendo 64, that’s where my praise is sticking. Anyway, the bulk of the discussion was between the two big rivals of the time - Mario Kart 64 for Nintendo, and Crash Team Racing, over at Sony. Now, I’m not gonna make the claim that Diddy Kong Racing was a forgotten ‘le gem’ of the time, but in all these arguments, I feel it was always ‘third place in a contest of champions’ kinda deal. For me, though? Diddy Kong Racing blows past these giants. It may not always hit the highs of certain elements of its competitors, but it has a heart and soul that’ll pull me back again and again and again without fail. Beautiful, challenging, and utterly mad, Diddy Kong Racing is a top pick for one of the best racing games ever made… but also holds sentimental value to me beyond comparison.

What is there to say about the Nintendo 64’s greatest hits? There are few consoles with as good first party support (yes, I’m aware of how bad it’s third party support was) as this one, and amongst these greatest hits, Rare arguably produced the very best the console had to offer. Banjo-Kazooie, Conker’s Bad Fur Day, hell, GoldenEye revolutionized an entire video game genre! And amongst Rare’s incredible run, Diddy Kong Racing will always be the one that jumps to mind first. I’ve played the game to death over the years, but until the last week or so, I’d only beaten it once, despite probably dumping hundreds of hours in as a kid. Finally going back to it, years on, made me want to review it - not just to rave about what’s good, but why it means so much to me.

In the same vein as kart racers of the day, Diddy Kong Racing is pretty stock standard in its basics. First, you’ll be able to pick a chosen racer, each of who has their own (unseen) stat spread. Some of them you’ll know - the titular Diddy Kong; Banjo and Conker, who interestingly enough, make their first ever appearances here; and a suite of other zany animal friends who pretty much underline Rare’s character design work in the last 90s. The cast is roughly balanced, though there are few - like Tiptup the turtle or Pipsy the mouse - who have certain advantages over the other, but without a doubt, you can beat the game with whoever takes your fancy the most.

Across ~20 tracks, you’ll do three laps of varied, high-speed race tracks, though Diddy Kong Racing notably was set apart by having three different kinds of vehicles; karts, planes, and hovercrafts (boats, essentially). Each track generally has a certain vehicle in mind, design wise, but a pretty decent chunk can be played with multiple vehicles, giving the game even more variety in the same tracks. Beyond that, it’s pretty standard fare - you can pop balloons spread across the tracks to gain power ups - missiles, speed boosts, shields, magnets to pull yourself to opponents, and traps to take down rivals behind you. It certainly doesn’t boast the variety of powerups games like Mario Kart 64 or PS1 rival Crash Team Racing have, but it makes up for having a far more arcadey, cartoonish style of racing. Seriously, whilst Mario Kart 64 has a lot of flat tracks and Crash Team Racing has a greater focus on drifting and whatnot, the only way I can describe Diddy Kong’s racing is bombastic.

Nearly every tracks has a cavalcade of jumps, hills and valleys, bounces and general *lack* of flatness that you never really feel 100% in control whilst, simultaneously, almost always still being in control once you get to grips with the controls. And no, I’m not forgetting about the planes, as even these ungrounded tracks have their fair share of twists and turns that’ll keep you on your toes. Look, I’m not gonna lie and say that Mario Kart 64 and Crash Team Racing aren’t incredible games in their own right, but I think they succeeded in different departments. Mario Kart 64 is a prime, top-tier multiplayer experience, with pitch perfect performance and the perfect balance of skill and power-up management. Crash Team Racing is a far more skill-based affair, with a lot of emphasis placed on nailing drift boosts and finding shortcuts and whatnot. Diddy Kong Racing inhibits a chaotic middle-ground, hosting decent multiplayer - with some pretty nasty performance issues, by the way - and its own brand of skill, but there really isn’t anything in these games as chaotic as Diddy Kong Racing feels. But of course, if there’s one thing that Diddy Kong has that blows past anything else it’s contemporaries - and, in some cases, future kart racers - is the sheer amount of emphasis it places on its single player content.

Taking place across a hub world that branches into a variety of different sub-zones, Diddy Kong Racing pits your chosen racer against the Wizpig, who’s just some asshole pig who likes to make your life hell. Divided across five worlds, you’ll have to collect a few dozen balloons, defeat each area's boss, win some tournaments and beat the Wizpig. With the way the game doles out balloons, which are required to unlock worlds and the race tracks within, it kind of divides the game into ‘phases’, for lack of a better term, and I feel these phases are a great way to gauge the rather sharp, challenging difficulty curve Diddy kong Racing is so well remembered for.

You’ll start with just winning races; nothing crazy, just run the track three times, come first, easy as. It’s only the last few worlds where you really need to lock in and know what you’re doing, but still, this first run is pretty trivial. After beating each of the four tracks, you’ll unlock a ‘Boss Race’, where you must beat a hilariously voiced animal buddy around a track where they’ll do everything in their power to trip you up. These are *fantastic*, to say the least. Brutal, at times, but they’re so far away from everything else going on, it’s such a good addition. Again, nothing crazy, but more challenging. Then, you’ll need to beat all four tracks in a world again, coming first WHILE also collecting eight silver coins placed across the map. This’ll force you to strategically dart to and fro along the course, locating and frequently going into terrain that’ll slow you down. These are not insurmountable by any description, but you’ll probably spend a few retries working out the best route and whatnot. After that, you’ll have to beat the bosses again, a few others… little challenges… some tournaments, and you’re home.

Well, except for the entire second, mirrored, harder story mode. Oh, and the time trials, to unlock the best character in the game. Oh, oh! And the Developer times.

Why the hell does Diddy Kong Racing have so much content, and why is it so damn hard to do it all!?

As a child I remembered Diddy Kong Racing kicking my ass to town and back. Everything past the first boss fights - so basically, silver coin challenges onwards - being nigh impossible, taking hours and hours and hours to overcome. This is to say nothing of the game’s greatest challenges, like the Wizpig, who I’d rank as amongst the most challenging ‘boss fights’ in all of the Nintendo 64’s catalouge. Overall, though, I think Diddy Kong Racing’s difficulty curve, whilst brutal to uninitiated, is actually pretty good. If you’re not a lunatic who *needs* to finish everything you play, Diddy Kong has so many ‘marks of difficulty’ that everyone can enjoy. Normal races, silver coins, time trials; play until you’re not having fun, basically. Enjoy the races, but tap out if the silver coins frustrate you. Want to do everything ‘normal’, but hate time trials? Sounds like me! Just play what you enjoy, don’t feel like you need to 100% it. Seriously, don’t do the Dev Times. Absolute insanity. I’m not a big fan of the time trials, and I’ve never felt the full Adventure Two playthrough is worth it for the struggle, but it’s cool that it’s here!

Full disclosure, I didn’t play this game on original hardware, and thus, was using my trust 8bitdo Pro 2 controller to play through this. Genuinely? Outside of some of the toughest coin challenges and the second round of the bosses, my time with the game was pretty breezy, leading me to believe that I think a lot of this game’s difficulty can be attributed to how *bad* the N64 controller was for a game like this.

This all culminates with the first encounter with the Wizpig, the source of nightmares for many a young, likely millennial, gamer. The amount of people I’ve seen and read having described how he stonewalled any further progress in the game is immense. For the record, even with the easier control scheme I had to grapple with, I still think Wizpig is an overtuned challenge. His speed, ability to stun you if he runs you over, coupled with jumps and boosts you *must* hit to have any chance of outrunning this porking bastard, it all blends together into one of the Nintendo 64’s greatest challenges - especially if, like me, you spent most of your time racing him when you were still a preteen. Sure, there are harder things to do in this game, like the T.T Time Trials, or if you’re a lunatic, the Dev Times, but as a pure guardian of the game’s ending? Few titles on the N64 had anything on the Wizpig. Taking down this challenge requires you to utilize everything you’ve learnt along the way - for the love of god, remember to let *go* of the A button when you hit a boost! - and there are genuinely few experiences on the N64 more exciting than finally beating the Wizpig. It genuinely makes Diddy Kong Racing incredibly memorable, to say the least.

But for me? It’s not the difficulty I think of most. I don’t think much on the beautiful world, nor the frustrations I had as a kid with the silver coins, or why I was losing so much as Krunch (he really is that bad, isn’t he?). No… Super Mario 64 might be the most important game on the system for me, as it was the very first game that was my very own. Banjo Kazooie might be the game I view as the best on the console, as it’s stood up to the test of time and is probably one of my favorites of all time. For me, Diddy Kong Racing is the beating heart of the Nintendo 64, because it was my Mum’s favorite game. Fair warning, we’re gonna get a little gloomy.

Twenty-two years ago, my mother passed away. I was only six; three quarters of my life have gone by since then, and the memories I shared with her are beginning to grow faint. But I’ll never forget how much she loved Diddy Kong Racing. I remember, on days I came home from kindergarten, watching her in raptured attention as she tried brutal silver coin challenges again and again, never growing angry, but pushing on with single-minded determinedness. I remember her overcoming bosses, time trials, tournaments… but none of us could beat the Wizpig. He was a wall to all of us, but still, me and my mum played Diddy Kong Racing together again and again - versus mode and whatnot, starting over a save file and trying again. Diddy Kong Racing might’ve been the game that got me into gaming - there’s an iconic family photo of me as a two year old, having fallen asleep watching my uncle and cousin playing it - but there’s every chance I wouldn’t have fallen in love with gaming if not for watching and playing with my mum in Diddy Kong Racing. Writing this, beating the Wizpig, hell, playing the game at all - my heart aches over this game, and the memories of my mum from so many years.

I dunno what the point of this section was, but I still think it’s important. It’ll always be important.

Here’s to you, Mum. I knew I’d beat the Wizpig one day.

Probably the most uniform thing about the Nintendo 64 was anything made by Rare was far and away the best looking stuff on the console, and Diddy Kong Racing is no exception. Whilst I’m obviously biased, with it being one of the first games I’d ever played, this game just exudes childhood joy. From the stock children’s laughter in the intro, to the bright, eye-catching level designs and delightfully silly animal cast, everything in this game just brings a genuine grin to my face, and a feeling of genuine peace and safety, something that I need quite a bit these days. It’s the same with the soundtrack, which perfectly fits every single track in the game; the moment the first few notes hit me, the whole tune emerged from the recesses of my mind, and I was six all over again. Maybe that was why I didn’t feel too frustrated with the more brutal moments of this game; how could I be mad with all the tunes from the winter-themed levels?

As a multiplayer title, I think you’d have more fun in Mario Kart 64, but as a singleplayer game it blows the vast majority of its peers - past, future, and present - out of the water. Dripping with content, ranging from basic races to hardcore challenges that’ll push even the best players to the test, Diddy Kong Racing is for the long haul. Beautiful, challenging, but rarely frustrating, this is one of the titles that has aged the best from the Nintendo 64. No matter how far you want to push yourself - just enjoying the races, or a hardcore completionist - you’ll find something that’ll work for you. Finally playing through it again to completion, so many years on felt real, real nice. Maybe it’ll become one of those games I play every year - for my Mum, at the very least.