Saturday, September 13, 2014

Level Up: Diddy Kong Racing

The Mario Kart series is something to be admired. No offense to all of those who like the other types of racing games, but before Super Mario Kart came out in 1992, a lot of them seemed rather boring and too realistic. Mario Kart changed that with wacky weapons galore, more emphasis on the racer and not the car and just simply the fun that comes with Mario. It wasn’t long before it not only took off as a series, but was also getting copied left and right. Which is why I don’t feel guilty copying my intro from Mario Kart: Double Dash for this game. Here’s Diddy Kong Racing for the Nintendo 64.
Calling Diddy Kong Racing a Mario Kart copy might not be accurate to its true origins (especially since it was published by Nintendo). As weird as it seems this game might have had its origins in an RTS game that Rareware started to develop but was quickly scrapped. Some of the aspects of the game, which was caveman themed, were reused for a racing game that was originally called “Wild Cartoon Kingdom”. This was going to be based around a Disney World type amusement park where you could go in different sections with themes. This idea of themed worlds did stick and it might explain why the first world is a pre-historic level. Eventually this project was given a few more titles, and was even supposed to be a sequel to Rare’s NES game R.C. Pro-AM at one point. Apparently it was Shigeru Miyamoto that suggested Diddy Kong. Despite some initial resistance, this idea stuck in order for Nintendo to strengthen the Donkey Kong brand and allow Rareware to create some new characters for future series.
The adventure concept of the game is likely the defining feature. It’s actually less like Mario Kart and more like Super Mario 64. The game has a map for you to drive around, and doors for races that are locked until you earn a certain amount of balloons. Most of the balloons are earned by completing races, but there are others that you can find while adventuring around, giving this game a completionist aspect to it too.
The second most defining feature is that there are multiple vehicles to race in. You can choose to race in cars, airplanes or hovercrafts on most stages. They all control very differently, and they do a good job to put a new spin on the tracks. You can adventure around in them too.
Speaking of adventuring, in each world there is a key to find to unlock a bonus mini-game. These are sometimes a mission, like collecting or stealing certain items from your opponent, or battles where you try to hit your opponent without getting hit yourself. These, like the rest of the game, take a game play element that seems limiting at first, but offers a creative spin to it.
Even putting all that aside, Diddy Kong Racing finds a way to mix up the basic races. After completing a set of tracks, you are allowed to race the world boss, which is a much different 1 on 1 race that feels like a racing battle. After you beat him, the previous tracks are changed to silver coin challenges: race around the track collecting silver coins found throughout and still win. After that, there’s another boss challenge for a piece of an amulet that you need to face the final boss.
And this is still without mentioning the items, tracks, racers and other typical stuff that varies among racing games. That shows how far that the makers went to in order to make this game unique.
While it’s easy to write off Diddy Kong Racing as a Mario Kart clone for babies on first impressions, it is so much more than that. This continues Rareware’s trend of not inventing a certain game play style, but perfecting it as I believe this game to be a better single player experience than most Mario Kart games. Beyond simply being a creative use of an already existing game play style,  this game helped introduce the Kritters used for the Donkey Kong 64, Banjo (of Banjo-Kazooie), Conker the Squirrel. I don’t know how many more ways I can say this game is great: turning racing into an adventure was simply inspired. There’s a reason why this game was eventually remade for the DS too. I give Diddy Kong Racing for the Nintendo 64 10 levels out of 10.

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