In 1997, Diddy Kong Racing arrived on the Nintendo 64. The game sold 800,000 copies in the two weeks leading up to Christmas that year, which at the time made it the fastest-selling game of all time, according to Guinness World Records. Who knew that Diddy, Timber, Tiptup the Turtle, and that band of relatively unknown misfits would be so marketable?
Incredibly, this record-breaking hit never received a true console sequel. Rare was in the process of making one titled Donkey Kong Racing - which would've been released on Gamecube, but that was cancelled after going through different iterations and changes. Climax Studios also tried its hand at making a sequel called Diddy Kong Racing Adventures around 2004, but again it didn't come to fruition.
Yet despite not getting an actual sequel, Diddy Kong Racing surpassed Mario Kart 64 in just about every way (apart from sales, despite its fast start). It expanded on the mascot racing genre by implementing multiple features including an expanded roster, a mode called Adventure Mode which contained an actual story and explorable hub-world, multiple other modes, an upgradeable weapons system, and multiple types of vehicles - boats, planes and of course karts.
Unlike Mario Kart's roster which only contained eight racers until Mario Kart: Double Dash was released in 2003, Diddy Kong Racing's roster was comprised of eight immediately playable characters. Now, most of these characters were relative unknowns at the time, but the fact that it gave debuts to Banjo and Conker, who would go on to headline their own hugely successful games in the coming years, makes it fascinating to go back and see where they all began. Banjo actually talks here, while Conker isn't yet the foul-mouthed rodent he'd go on to become in Conker's Bad Fur Day, but the fact remains that both of them would go on to become N64 heavy hitters!
The game's two secret characters - T.T. who becomes playable after you beat all of his course records, and Drumstick who you unlock by running over a certain frog - bring the total amount of racers to 10. Like Mario Kart, the racers in Diddy Kong Racing were broken up into classes - light, medium, and heavy.
Once you select your character, that is when the game really starts to pull ahead of the pack of Mario Kart, because you can go into Adventure Mode and take part in an actual story, with voiced dialogue and everything! The game's story involves an intergalactic pig wizard named Wizpig who invades the gang's island and it is up to them to reclaim it. You then are greeted by an Elephant Genie named Taj who could change your vehicle from a car to a hovercraft, or an airplane. Each vehicle grants you access to different parts of the island and the game's five different worlds, each containing multiple tracks. It gave an almost Metroidvania-like sense of exploration to the whole thing!
In order to gain access to certain worlds and tracks, you'd need to unlock the prerequisite amount of gold balloons, with each area requiring a different amount. Each race in Adventure Mode utilizes a certain vehicle that all of the racers use - other modes allow you to freely choose the vehicle type as long as it's compatible with the track - racers would still use the same vehicles.
You had pretty granular control over your weapons too, and throughout each race, you could choose what types of weapons and upgrades you wanted to equip. Red balloons contain missiles, blue balloons are boosts, green balloons are traps, Rainbow balloons are magnets that pull you closer to the racer in front of you, and yellow balloons act as shields - you can also collect bananas to increase your top speed.
But where this system really shines is that you could upgrade your weapons and boosts using balloons of the relevant color. One red balloon will give you a single rocket, which like a green shell in Mario Kart uses manual accuracy to hit a target; two balloons get you a homing missile, and three get you a 10-pack of non-homing rockets, which is the max for each balloon. It allowed for a bit more strategising about which pickups you'd go for, and the thrill of building up your balloon count to make those pickups as powerful as possible.
At the end of each world, you take part in a 1v1 boss race against characters like Tricky The Triceratops, Smokey The Dragon, Bubbler The Octopus, and more. That's right a mascot racing game with boss battles! After winning each boss battle, you'd then take on Wizpig himself, who races against you on a giant rocket. These goliaths you'd race really added a 'wow' factor to the game.
Diddy Kong Racing added something racing games desperately needed, which was more strategy - some method to the 'get to the front of the pack and smash everyone out of your way' madness.