Diddy Kong Racing: The Best ’90s Racing Game for the Nintendo 64

Though nearly everyone who has played video games has undoubtedly played a version of Mario Kart at some point in their lives, back in the late ‘90s, another racing game was released for the Nintendo 64 that was similar but in many ways, arguably better. If you had an N64, you probably know the game we’re talking about: Diddy Kong Racing. Diddy Kong himself made his first appearance in 1994 as Donkey Kong’s young sidekick in Donkey Kong Country, a great game for the Super Nintendo. You’d think that Donkey Kong would be the more likely choice for a new game within the franchise, so how did Diddy get his own game?

The story is actually pretty interesting. Rare, the developer of many awesome games for Nintendo during this era, had a team that just wrapped up work on the arcade release of the fighting game Killer Instinct II in 1996. While some of this team would transition to working on Killer Instinct Gold (the N64 port of Killer Instinct II), the remaining team members started brainstorming ideas for a new N64 game. With other teams within Rare already developing Goldeneye 007, Blast Corps, and Banjo-Kazooie, this new team realized the company didn’t have a racing game in their current N64 repertoire. So, they decided to resurrect their RC Pro-Am series — Rare’s innovative racing game previously released for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and Game Boy.

What made the original RC Pro-Am series so innovative when it came out during these “olden” NES days of 1988 was that it was not just a competitive racing game — RC Pro-Am also featured vehicular combat. Hmm. Wait a minute — racing plus combat, that sounds similar to Mario Kart. But the first Mario Kart, Super Mario Kart, debuted in 1992 on the Super Nintendo, years after RC Pro-Am. That’s right, while many might think Diddy Kong Racing was a knock-off of Mario Kart, Rare’s RC Pro-Am is actually considered a precursor to Mario Kart! Oh what tangled webs we weave.

So now you’re saying to yourself — wait a minute, I’ve never heard of an RC Pro-Am game for the N64, how did this become Diddy Kong Racing? Well! While the team quickly developed the racing game they internally called Pro-Am 64, even creating new characters and fully 3D models — things took a sudden turn in July 1997. At the time, the N64 game that was meant to anchor the 1997 holiday season was Rare’s own Banjo-Kazooie. But, the Banjo-Kazooie team wanted to work on their game more so that it would measure up to the behemoth that was Super Mario 64. So, Banjo-Kazooie got delayed.

Banjo-Kazooie’s delay, coupled with a bunch of other games also getting pushed back out of the 1997 holiday season, meant that the only N64 game that seemed like it could be ready in time was Pro-Am 64. But, there were doubts within Rare that the Pro-Am brand was strong enough to really get consumers’ attention. So, for better recognition, Rare decided to rebrand the game to the Donkey Kong franchise — so why was it Diddy Kong that got the starring role? It’s pretty simple, really — Rare had created the character of Diddy Kong for Donkey Kong Country, and since it was up to them to decide who starred in their game, they went with their own creation.

Now that Rare had settled on Diddy Kong, it was time to change up the game’s visuals and story, which the team had less than six months to do to meet their deadlines. But they managed to do it, and with the full marketing power of Nintendo behind the game now that it was their only 1997 holiday release, Diddy Kong Racing did gangbusters. But it wasn’t just because of advertising that Diddy Kong Racing was a success, it was also because the game was innovative and fun. Not only could you race around in the typical kart, but you also had the choice of zooming past your friends in a hovercraft or an airplane. And to top it off, there was a snazzy adventure mode about the group of racers working together to defeat the evil Wizpig.

For many, Diddy Kong Racing was a much more satisfying game than Mario Kart 64, and while Diddy Kong himself has stood the test of time (he was most recently featured in the Nintendo Switch game Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze), we never did get a sequel to this beloved N64 game. Will we ever see another version of Diddy Kong Racing, aside from the DS remake in 2007? We’ll just have to wait and see.

But what about you? Did you play Diddy Kong Racing? What are your favorite racing memories? Let us know in the comments, but first check out this commercial to get you in the spirit:

Diddy Kong Racing featured two characters that would go on to have their own games, Banjo the Bear in Banjo-Kazooie, and Conker the Squirrel in Conker’s Bad Fur Day. Both characters were unveiled to the public before Diddy Kong Racing, though their games were released after Diddy Kong.
Within three weeks of its release, the game had sold over 1 million units in the United States, and would go on to sell 4.5 million units worldwide, making it the eighth best-selling game for the Nintendo 64.
There’s a strange rumor floating around online that Diddy Kong Racing actually started out as a real time strategy game with a caveman/time travel theme, but Lee Musgrave, a 3D artist on Diddy Kong Racing, confirmed that’s not true in an interview with Nintendo Life.
Diddy Kong was originally conceived as an updated version of Donkey Kong Jr. (Donkey Kong’s son). But, Nintendo didn’t like the changes that Rare had made to the character, so Nintendo asked Rare to either make him more similar to DK Jr. or to make him an entirely new character. They obviously went with the latter route, and Diddy Kong was born.
Diddy Kong has appeared in all of the Super Smash Brothers games since Super Smash Brothers Brawl for the Wii in 2008, including the most recent Switch title Super Smash Brothers Ultimate in 2018.

Diddy Kong Racing featured two characters that would go on to have their own games, Banjo the Bear in Banjo-Kazooie, and Conker the Squirrel in Conker’s Bad Fur Day. Both characters were unveiled to the public before Diddy Kong Racing, though their games were released after Diddy Kong.
Within three weeks of its release, the game had sold over 1 million units in the United States, and would go on to sell 4.5 million units worldwide, making it the eighth best-selling game for the Nintendo 64.
There’s a strange rumor floating around online that Diddy Kong Racing actually started out as a real time strategy game with a caveman/time travel theme, but Lee Musgrave, a 3D artist on Diddy Kong Racing, confirmed that’s not true in an interview with Nintendo Life.
Diddy Kong was originally conceived as an updated version of Donkey Kong Jr. (Donkey Kong’s son). But, Nintendo didn’t like the changes that Rare had made to the character, so Nintendo asked Rare to either make him more similar to DK Jr. or to make him an entirely new character. They obviously went with the latter route, and Diddy Kong was born.
Diddy Kong has appeared in all of the Super Smash Brothers games since Super Smash Brothers Brawl for the Wii in 2008, including the most recent Switch title Super Smash Brothers Ultimate in 2018.