retr0pia: “THE BOTTOM LINE – Although it suffers from overcomplexity and a childish tone, Diddy Kong Racing is still a fun time nonetheless.”.NintendoBound: “Diddy Kong Racing is able to, with a great deal of charm and creativity, lift itself above the generic building blocks it uses.”.Just a richer experience than what most racing games give. When it comes to variety, you just can’t compete with Diddy and his friends. There are additional time trials, hidden characters to unlock, and a mode where all the race tracks are reversed. It’s time to move onto the next world and repeat the process. Finding this key unlocks a battle mode where you have to beat out three other computer players.īy the end of this process, you have thoroughly conquered each map and know intimately every nook and cranny. If that wasn’t enough, a hidden key is placed in each world. I swear to God badger if you think i’m just going to let you get away with this, you are very mistaken. By the end of the four races, you better be in first or you’ll have to repeat it all again. Akin to Mario Kart, each place nets a certain amount of points. Instead of individual, solitary tracks, this mode puts all of the races together to create one series. This unlocks the chance to race for a trophy. Winning the race leads you to be congratulated by derpy animals with deep voices. In early stages the coins are easy enough to get and easily come in first, but as the game progresses, the coins are spread out in very far off places requiring complete knowledge of each race course and having the requisite skill to make up lost ground.Īfter this, you return to the boss and repeat your previous race with some slight change that skews the race in their favor (head start, increased speed, etc.). Winning is easy…but winning and getting 8 coins? That’s tough. Victory then kicks you back to repeat the world but with a caveat: you have to now collect 8 silver coins in each stage WHILE coming in first. Then, you face the boss of the world in a 1-on-1 match. First, you have to beat each level outright.
From here, you start to find doors that lead to the racetracks.Įach world consists of a similar tier of challenges. This immediately leads to exploration as you start to navigate the nooks and crannies of Timber’s private island. Instead of just selecting racing tracks from a menu, you are dropped off on an island. If variety is the spice of life then DKR provides more basil than your homemade sauce can handle (get the hell out of here Bumper - it’s not for you ). I’m not sure how Taj, the racially insensitive Indian Elephant, gets involved. Strange behavior except compared to Bumper who eats things out of trash cans. An intergalactic pig (?) ruins it for everyone though and puts the four guardians of the island in bondage and demands complete allegiance. He invites his friends over ( ) and instead of throwing a rager, they have a friendly game of go kart racing. Timber the Tiger is left alone to his own devices on a private island.
As the game continues to tie your hands behind your back, you have to get more skilled and adept - no star power ups to save you here.Īnd it has adorable creatures to boot…except that piece of trash badger. While Mario Kart 64 is just a straight up race for first, DKR has multiple-layers where it ratchets up the difficulty one notch at a time. And my angry thoughts about Bumper the Badger.ĭiddy Kong Racing (DKR) is everything you could want from a racing game.