The N64’s big Christmas 1997 release has been delayed and Nintendo are in a pickle... Luckily we have a young chimp ready to save the festive season.

The salty wind is blowing through my hair as I happily bounce and splash from wave to wave, collecting balloons and taking in the jaunty music but wait... what’s this?! A stray tentacle approaching! Veering left, I try to dodge the incoming calamari but crash into a fairy-liquid type spherical chamber. Now encased in a bubble, vulnerable and unable to move I wonder... is this the end? What does it want with me?! ...The world dims, my surroundings fall silent, until, “Tough luck kid, maybe next time! Come back whenever you’re ready.”

Yes, it’s the world of Diddy Kong Racing and what a wondrous world that is. Taking everything great about Mario Kart 64 (namely 8-player kart racing on crazy courses) and improving it in every way, 3D characters (instead of this pre-rendered nonsense), a beefy single-player world to explore and a cast of animals so lovable they went on to spawn their own titles, it's the pinnacle of racing in the 64-bit era.

Diddy Kong Racing takes a different approach to the usual style of completing tracks in Grand Prix cups. Instead, it boasts a fun adventure mode that has you gaining balloons from races to unlock new areas, in what could almost be described as Mario 64 on wheels, and what race-tracks they were - all brimming with character, whether you're weaving in-between the legs of a giant moving dinosaur in Ancient Lake or screeching past ghostly floating pig heads in Haunted Woods, there’s never a dull moment, just pure action-packed racing haven.

Alongside the awesome tracks, you'll be pitted against a bunch of unforgettable boss races such as a camp dragon that you’ll have to glide past in your plane whilst dodging fire balls or a portly seal that can barely speak coherent English flopping his way down an icy path as you follow in your hovercraft, trying to overtake his mass of blubber without being squashed.

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Upon beating each of the worlds four tracks and boss, you must place first in each level again whilst also collecting 8 silver coins, some of which are placed in devilishly awkward places making it an incredibly challenging task. There's also a hidden key within one of the tracks of each world which unlocks a battle mode for each area.

Helped by the happiest blue elephant you'll ever encounter named Taj, you’ll be racing your way to victory over five worlds to collect enough balloons to finally face off against the fiendish Wizpig who is hiding in a secret rocket on the island.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2IYgyhQUCA

Timber’s RC Racing

With 800,000 copies ordered before Christmas, Diddy Kong Racing was the fastest selling game of all time in 1997 but it could have had a different fate if it wasn't for the tardiness of a certain bird and bear. 

Banjo-Kazooie was set for the Holiday 1997 release but fell victim to delays so Nintendo had to look elsewhere for their Chrsitmas hit - and Rare had just the thing. Initially starting off life as a remote-control car racing game by the name of RC Pro-Am 64 with Timber as the lead character, the title was re-worked into a kart racer with hovercrafts and planes.

The team at Rare had a meeting with Miyamoto and he suggested Diddy Kong become the lead character for this new racer. Initially skeptical, the team eventually warmed to the idea and Diddy Kong Racing was born. Original headliner Timber was added as an alternate character, joined by an entire roster of lovable faces that would be used in later games, including Banjo himself.

Roll Call

The worlds first introduction to these characters comes in the form of this Nintendo Power issue (courtesy of DK Vine). The idea behind the character roster for Diddy Kong Racing was to get fans used to these characters before using them in their own games. Timber was once billed to have his own title but nothing much is known about that. The real stars come in the form of Banjo and Conker, both of whom would form successful series later on in the N64’s lifetime.

 

This Nintendo Power issue shares a few interesting nuggets of information – such as Krunch being one of the Kremling crew and also giving an insight into the turbulent production of Conker’s 64 debut. As Conker says in the image, "Ah, nuts. I was supposed to star in Rare's first game."

Conker was originally set to star in a platformer akin to Banjo-Kazooie in 1997 (the reason the BK team went for that play style in the first place was after seeing the progress the Conker team had made) but after running into a few problems and unsure where to take the title, Rare scrapped the game. Finally in 2000, after yet another scrapped build, Conker was re-imagined into the drunken, foul-mouthed squirrel he is now in Conker's Bad Fur Day.

Where Are Ü Now

Diddy went on to become a big Nintendo star and whilst he was never the main character for a title again, Diddy Kong Racing DS aside, he is now a staple of the Nintendo classics, often appearing alongside Mario and Co in the Mario Kart, Sports and Smash Bros. series.

Banjo saw great success on the N64 with Banjo-Kazooie and Tooie in the later 90's and eventually went HD with the 360 release of Nuts & Bolts in 2008 as well as starring alongside Sonic and AiAi in the 360 version of Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing.

Conker got a lick of paint and online features for the original Xbox in Conker: Live and Reloaded and more recently featured on Xbox One title Project Spark for a big reunion.

Banjo and Conker also saw a return to their 64 roots in Rare Replay earlier this year on the Xbox One while the rest of the bunch haven't had as much luck and have faded into obscurity, both in the world of Nintendo and Rare, though they did briefly reappear for Diddy Kong Racing DS in 2005.

Outside the Diddy Kong bubble

When the world wasn't engulfed in Diddy Kong Racing, 1997 was a crazy place. Duke Nukem Forever had just started production (and we know how that finally ended) and the radio was blasting out Barbie Girl whilst R.Kelly’s ‘I Believe I Can Fly’ was a monster hit, no doubt elevated by Michael Jordan and the Bugs Bunny crew.

In Japan, the Pokémon anime was under fire as the infamous Porygon episode was aired in December, causing over 600 Japanese children to have seizures. The episode was taken out of circulation in Japan and not aired when the series released over here in 1999.

The Playstation had recieved the critically acclaimed Finaly Fantasy 7 earlier in the year and was enjoying sequels to some of its big hitters like Crash Bandicoot and Tomb Raider whilst N64 gamers spent the summer blasting one another to smitherines on Goldeneye 007.

 

Endgame

Diddy Kong Racing was my first kart game, having missed out on the SNES Super Mario Kart (or eye-burning pixel torture as I know it) and not experiencing Mario Kart 64 until a later date. As a result, Diddy Kong Racing was the level at which I’d base every racer to follow and what a task that was. It’d be like having Zac Efron as your first love and trying to follow that on with a string of random guys from Gindr, nothing is going to fill that void.

With awesome world themes such as racing alongside dinosaurs and flying through space, Diddy Kong Racing really pushed the Nintendo 64 to its limits and melted my 8-year old brain. The controls, level designs and characters are still all as wonderful as ever, though time has not been quite so kind to the frame rate and multiplayer aspects of this game, all of which chug along just a bit too slow these days.

Still, as a kart racer this is one of a kind and one that you should definitely dig up (as long as it isn't the DS port that does not do the game justice). Remote control cars can be fun, as seen in N64’s Re-Volt, but of all the crazy suggestions Miyamoto has ever had, this is one of his finest.

Transforming from a fairly low key RC racer but turning into, thanks to a bunch of mistakes, last minute changes and ingenuous game design, the best racer to grace the N64 and the saviour of Christmas in 1997, the story of Diddy Kong Racing and its characters is a complicated but great one. And if it wasn't for this, Nintendo would have had to put out a bare-bones Mario Tennis game or something... It doesn't bare thinking about.