HANDS ON THE WHEEL, DIDDY. Yeesh.
Fun fact – Diddy Kong’s verse in the “DK Rap” notes that “He’s back again,” and that “this time, he’s in the mood.” I had to learn that, and now so do you.
Diddy Kong Racing was released in 1997 by Rare, one of Nintendo’s closest partners at the time (they’re now owned by Microsoft, which has been…ehh, fine, I guess). The development history of this one is, as the internet likes to say, mildly interesting – the project began as a StarCraft-esque RTS featuring a bunch of wild animals, after which it evolved into a few different racing game concepts (including one based on DisneyWorld). When their other project, Banjo Kazooie, got repeatedly delayed, they decided to turn their other project into a known property to have a surefire hit for the 1997 holiday season. It made for a great game to play after you went and saw Titanic for the 8th time.
Wait a second, that’s the Troye Sivan and Charli XCX video that parodies Titanic. Honestly, that’s better anyway. You should watch that instead, but then still play Diddy Kong Racing.
If you’re a big Donkey Kong fan and want to play as one of your favorite Kongs, well, I hope your favorite is Diddy, because all the others are nowhere to be found, replaced with a bunch of odd one-offs.
Dang it, why isn’t Drumstick the chicken in Smash Bros? I’m just kidding – I know why. A couple of soon-to-be ubiquitous characters made appearances in this one, too – Banjo of the soon-to-come Banjo-Kazooie, and Conker, who began as another cutesy Rare-made animal character, but took…a different path.
I really appreciate that Diddy Kong Racing takes the time to have a story, because as a kid-friendly racing game based on a hugely popular property, it really doesn’t need to. It goes something like this – Diddy Kong and his weird friends are all having a nice time when a wizard pig named WizPig (ugh) comes and ruins everything. Because all of the world’s problems are solved by racing, you have to do that a bunch. I think that’s about it.
And then there’s racing! There’s a lot of racing to do, with a bunch of different courses/challenges, along with a number of different ways to play them – each course allows for some combination of cars, hovercrafts, and airplanes. Each of these controls quite differently, as you’d expect, meaning there are different ways to experience a lot of the courses. That level of variety is definitely quite welcome in a game from this era.
The obvious comparison to make here is with Mario Kart 64, so let’s make it – this one isn’t as good, but it’s still certainly worth your time. Diddy Kong Racing offers a bit more varied gameplay by way of multiple vehicles types – it took Mario Kart another 15 years to do that! Slackers. Both games control fairly well (though I’d say MK64 has the advantage), and each have a handful of different multiplayer modes. If you have an N64, I’d recommend owning both (but let’s face it, you probably do already). I’d say Diddy Kong Racing might also be a tad more “kid friendly” if that matters to you, but it’s not like Mario Kart is jam-packed with fatalities or whatever. Unlike some kart racers…
That’s a real screenshot, by the way – “Motor Kombat” is a mode of the fairly mediocre Mortal Kombat: Armageddon. It’s kinda fun.
Anyway, Diddy Kong Racing is a good and fun game and you should play it. If you enjoy the genre of “Like Mario Kart, but different,” this is among the best of them.
Holy crap, that makes 75 Retro Roulettes! I kinda didn’t think I’d still be doing this after that many weeks. Thanks to everyone who reads these weird things. Next week’s game is an early NES release that I hear is good. There’s a buff-looking guy in the art, so maybe come back for that? Yeah, we’ll go with that. See you next week.