Diddy Kong Racing Review

By Keza MacDonald Published 12 April, 2007

King of the karts?

Version tested: DS

What's worse: a lazy, direct port of an older game to a handheld console, or an older game that makes a valiant effort to fit in with the hip younger crowd on its new platform, but ends up worse for it? Depends on the game, I suppose; I'd rather have put up with the enormous proliferation of near-unchanged-but-excellent SNES ports than seen them all mangled by botched attempts to bring them 'up-to-date' by replacing all the turn-based battles with minigames. The DS, though, has suffered exactly the opposite problem with what few N64 conversions it has enjoyed; Super Mario 64 was a game so perfectly created for its original console that its control system rather suffered in the transition, and SBK (in happier times, once known as Snowboard Kids) insisted upon ruining everything by teenagering up its lovably deformed protagonists and making you blow and yell at the screen every two minutes for no reason whatsoever.

Diddy Kong Racing manages to incorporate the worst of both worlds. It is exactly the same sickeningly cute, single-player centric racer as it was ten years ago on the N64, but with enough pointless and inappropriate new features shoehorned in to sour the experience for anyone who might have enjoyed it back then. DKR was pretty unique as a multi-vehicle 'adventure-racer' in 1997, and it remains so now, but its visual style and design have aged rather badly, and the repetition inherent in its gameplay grates rather more today than it did back then. Its focus on single-player also means that the online multi-player falls rather flat, especially next to Mario Kart's riotously competitive racing. Worse, the touch-screen features range from mild irritation to insurmountably broken.

'Diddy Kong Racing' Screenshot 1

Rare's character design has always been a bit hit and miss, hasn't it?

DKR was something of a testing ground for Rare's N64-era heroes. Banjo and Conker both featured here before starring in their own games - Banjo without his backpack-dwelling companion, and Conker as a fresh-faced, irritatingly cute, squeaky-voiced annoyance devoid of any of the personality he later found in Bad Fur Day - but they've both been replaced here by Dixie and Tiny Kong (who I always thought were the same person, cunningly rebranded, but you live and learn). What's left is the dregs; Bumper the badger, Pipsy the mouse and a selection of other inconsequential characters with the customary differences in speed, control and acceleration. It was never the world's most inspired character design, but the years have not exactly been kind to it. The courses, too, now fall into the category of 'woefully cliched' - we've got Water World, Jungle World, Ice World, Medieval World and the secret Space World.

Working through these worlds in Adventure Mode involves racing all the courses and finishing first before facing a special boss - a giant walrus, say. In the N64 version, you were then challenged to do all the races again whilst collecting eight coins, but here, you're thrown into an on-rails minigame where you float around each course, popping balloons with the stylus. This is the first of the completely incongruous stylus features; it's inoffensive, but completely out of place and horribly repetitive after a while. After that, you race the boss, again, and then you race all of the tracks in order, again, to win the world's trophy, and after that the boss challenges you to a completely broken, stylus-based race that's like a cross between Kirby Canvas Curse and Mario Kart; you have to draw a path for your kart on the touch screen, periodically spinning a little tyre in the corner to keep up speed. Sadly the kart almost never follows the desired path, and spinning the wheel prevents you from being able to steer; the races are near-impossible to control, impossible to win and absolutely no fun. At least they aren't mandatory.

'Diddy Kong Racing' Screenshot 2

I mean, the Kongs are pretty bearable, but Pipsy the Mouse and the other rejects found here are just HORRIBLE.

To make all this repetition worse, Rare has introduced a new feature - unlockables. These must be bought with coins collected in races, and cost a fortune, meaning that you'll have to race the courses even more times if you want to buy anything good. There's a lot of stuff in there, from new courses to vehicle upgrades to miscellaneous things like a sound effects recorder, which enables you to record yourself shouting various creative obscenities for every in-game effect. Sadly, that might just be the best thing about the game

Despite remaining, after ten years, the only 'adventure racer' that I can remember appearing on a Nintendo console, Diddy Kong Racing still manages to feel unoriginal. Insipid character and course design married with inherently repetitive gameplay, obsessive collecting and an array of horrible touchscreen features make this feel like a waste of time. It's got plenty of content, and is a perfectly serviceable, occasionally competitive kart racer, but there's not much distinguishing about it. Ten years ago, I rather enjoyed this, but in retrospect, it probably belongs back in 1997.

5 / 10

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About Keza MacDonald

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Comments (26) Latest comment 5 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Floppy #1 5 years ago

    "Despite remaining, after ten years, the only 'adventure racer' that I can remember appearing on a Nintendo console"


    You mean... apart from 'Beetle ADVENTURE Racing' in 1999? :)

  • dr_faulk #2 5 years ago

    Sux 2 B Raaaaare!

  • trevd72 #3 5 years ago

    Is there to be an article entitled "The Rise and Fall of Rare: How to Blow it Big Time."

  • LetsGo #4 5 years ago

    Ok, don’t get be wrong, im not defending this game as I’ve heard bad reviews from across the board.

    However, why doesn’t the online element feature in reviews anymore? FIFA; there was no mention of the 2v2 online (the first football game to do it??) and in this I believe its 8 players online (the first DS game with 8 players online??) and again, no mention.

    Id like to hear about how it plays online…..
    Edited by 1 at 12/04/07 @ 09:03

  • Keso #5 5 years ago

    I loved this for the N64, and I think accusing it of being unoriginal is a bit unfair, this was one of the better MK clones, and tried to do something much more then just copy it, by adding secret areas, boss battles, a hub area, different vehicles and such.

  • Wash #6 5 years ago

    @trevd72 - See Viva Pinata.

  • AcidSnake #7 5 years ago

    I still remember the stupid noises they made when you selected racer and deselected them...

    My naaame's Drumstiiick!...Pukkaaa...
    I'm tipsy...Squeek!
    Timbeeee(r)....Raargh...
    Aaaaiim Baaaanjoooh...Whoaooo!

    Played this a lot, but strangely enough I don't have the urge to play it again...I really liked it back then, but it seems my brain has already figured out how it has aged...

  • jonsaan #8 5 years ago

    This game was shit back in the day too if you ask me. Floaty driving model and a mere shadow of Mario Kart. Nothing has changed.

  • knocker #9 5 years ago

    Most importantly - where's the big blue turban wearing elephant on a flying carpet ? He was the best thing in this game.

    Unless I imagined him.

  • Nova5lag #10 5 years ago

    Yep Mario Kart was, is and always will be king of Nintendo Kart games.


    Slurpy J... Go get Animal Crossing and actually Age of Empires and EG would sugest that slitherlink crap too. ;-p

  • Subquest #11 5 years ago

    don't rise to the bait novaslag.

  • Lemming81 #12 5 years ago

    Conker's first more kiddie friendly appearence. I thought this game was ace. If cutesy characters bother you, you wouldn't have a DS, tbh.

  • dragz #13 5 years ago

    Absolutely loved this back in the day. I thought a port of this game couldn't fail, but from what I've read here and pretty much everywhere else.. it has.

  • gingerlink #14 5 years ago

    *waits for phantom hourglass, probabbly going to be the last good ds game...*

  • rhinoxious #15 5 years ago

    Bsaed on the conclusion a 5 seems generous.

  • rudedudejude #16 5 years ago

    The Hovercrafts ruled!

  • rolika #17 5 years ago

    we've played this an awful lot on n64
    fourplayer was amazing

  • freedumb #18 5 years ago

    Yes 4 player was amazing, especialy the multi-level ice structure map. Single playe was original in some ways, first it had 3 different vehicles, a proper sinlge player with secrets and boss battles. Was one of Rare's best on the N64. I managed to lose it though, can't find it anywhere.

  • skybluesam86 #19 5 years ago

    Shame. I loved this on N64, it was easily one of my favourite games for it. Preferred it to MK64.

    Like Freedumb, though, I managed to lose it. Haven't seen it in years ;_;
    Maybe it's a game that wanders off on it's own...

  • hokuto_no_rob #20 5 years ago

    This game always sucked. Except the egg-stealing game in multiplayer. That was genius.

  • Keza #21 5 years ago

    The big blue turban-wearing elephant is still there. His name is Taj. BUT: inexplicably, they've taken away his comedy Indian accent, and now he's just got a bog-standard, ordinary British voice.

    Political correctness gone wrong?

  • JetSetWilly #22 5 years ago

    The most disappointing game I bought for my N64. No surprise to find this version is shit also.

  • Hendo #23 5 years ago

    The main game is actually really good, it's the touch-screen "extras" that have broken this. The touch boss battles are beyond ridiculous.
    Still, worth it if you see it cheap.

  • CitizenGeek #24 5 years ago

    Not surprising.

  • numptyboymatt #25 5 years ago

    "Political correctness gone wrong?"

    Not an argument for here, but has it ever been RIGHT???

  • Duds2k #26 5 years ago

    Yeah we wouldn't want you to have to actually read the reviews. You might strain something.

    One of these days they're going to start hiding the score in the text and putting fake scores at the end.