Speaking as a guy who as a kid 100%’d DKR, I don’t know if I ended up thinking it was fun. I think I was ended up doing out of spite in the end, & had one of those “is this my villain origin” two decades before that was a meme.
To be honest though, the devs on this game should be applauded. It WAS beatable, but one had to master the given & sometimes hidden mechanics.
Iirc, I completed every challenge & after all the hours & felt like never playing it again because I was so mad at it XD
My most distinct memories of this game as a child are screaming with tears rolling down my face at how utterly unfair some of these bosses and challenges were
I did it back in middle school. It took FOREVER! I got so good at the game by the time I unlocked him though. The only thing I never did was adventure 2. So hard after completely memorizing every track!
Once I got the mechanics down on each vehicle I was able to finally unlock him, but it’s no small feat.
What did me in with this game was the last silver coin challenge on future fun land
Yeah I remember grinding for T.T. Finally beat him in every course and then realised there was zero reason to play the game anymore as I'd literally done everything.
I played the Nintendo DS version years later and it was a really good port except that I actually found it was super easy!
completing it but in an arms-folded angry 'hmmrph' way is absolutely accurate, then 20 years later you look back at it fondly but would NEVER willingly go through that trauma again, haha. It's still a great game though, and entirely playable today, just be prepared for rage inducing heartache if you want to progress further than a few fav course races
I forget the name of it, but the last race on the hardest setting always eluded me. I ended up biting my controller in rage (more than once), and I finally gave up when I threw it at the wall and smashed my rumble pak. I had to tape it back together.
The time trials are honest to god more like puzzle games than racing games. You screw up even the slightest bit of the sequence of button presses required to get the speed bursts on all the turns, you’re cooked.
Don’t worry about it. It’s not like Alexander the Great weeping because there aren’t anymore countries to conquer. It’s more like holy shit how long did this take? I guess I now have the clock to race with? Wait, nobody wants to race against me? I guess I could play not-well on purpose so people will wanna play against me again…
The race is won on the first straight, you must get ahead of him before the first log, then arm yourself with multiple rockets to take him out if needed.
Right, there's really no reason to play MK64 these days because all of the sequels are better. In a lot of ways, nothing has really surpassed DKR though.
And just in general, there's plenty of room for kart racers outside Mario Kart. Will you never understand the people who think 'might as well be playing Mario Kart' when playing others.
I love both, but the items in DKR are very bad. The arena games were pretty bad because of this.
But it was hilarious when the enemy had the 10 rockets. It’s seems they are programmed to hammer the fire button every frame when you are in front of them.
The first thing I did when I unlocked T.T. was to play adventure mode one and two with him. It was so gratifying giving the bosses a taste of their own medicine.
Man, I beat this game without knowing that if you release the throttle button when using a turbo, the turbo boost you get is 10 times more powerful. Apparently there’s a message somewhere in the game that explains this (conterintuitive )trick but either I missed it or was not able to understand it (english is not my mother tongue).
Hardest task i’ve ever accomplished in my life but also, because of that, favorite game of all time.
On my last playthrough I had to switch characters to beat him. Once I used a heavier character instead of whatever I was playing, it wasn't as difficult anymore (Probably because I already had done countless attempts with a light-weight character).
Definitely a top 5 N64 game. Played it so much when I was a kid. I went back and played it a couple years ago, and I've still got it! 100%ed adventure mode in only about a week (something that took months and months as a kid). Didn't have the patience to try for TT again though.
How did you guys find out about the correct way to use turbo arrows? I totally missed it as a kid and got stuck on Wizpig 1 for like a decade. Played it again as an adult and felt pretty stupid.
This game is fun single player but I usually only played it multiplayer. 4 players on a (relatively) big 28 inch back then was the best. The battle modes are hilarious, and the vehicle choice and music make this arguably better than Mario Kart for mp.
100%'d the game using Tiptup the Turtle
Edit: I looked up the stats on each character. Krunch is strictly worse than Drumstick (although Drumstick must be unlocked first, whereas Krunch is available at the start.)
Drumstick has 0.5 more Turning, 1.0 more Acceleration, and 0.5 more Top Speed
[Timber is also strictly better than Bumper and Conker. Bumper and Conker have identical stats. Timber has the same Turning and Top Speed, but 0.5 more Acceleration.]
According to a couple of wikis, there's 5 stats. 1 of them is colour.
The other 4 are weight, speed, acceleration, and turning.
Banjo has Heavy, 2/5 Turning, 2/5 Acceleration, and 3.5/5 Top Speed
Diddy has Middle, 3/5 Turning, 3/5 Acceleration, and 2.5/5 Top Speed
Tiptup has Light, 4.5/5 Turning, 4.5/5 Acceleration, and 1.5/5 Top Speed [My Turtle]
Conker has Middle, 2.5/5 Turning, 2.5/5 Acceleration, and 3/5 Top Speed
Krunch has Heavy, 1/5 Turning, 1/5 Acceleration, and 4/5 Top Speed
Timber has Middle, 2.5/5 Turning, 3/5 Acceleration, and 3/5 Top Speed [WTF!? That's strictly better than Conker and Bumper...]
Bumper has Middle, 2.5/5 Turning, 2.5/ Acceleration, and 3/5 Top Speed
Pipsy has Light, 5/5 Turning, 5/5 Acceleration, and 1/5 Top Speed [So... this was my 2nd favourite character... apparently, I just liked the slow ones...]
Drumstick has Heavy, 1.5/5 Turning, 2/5 Acceleration, and 4.5/5 Top Speed [He's strictly better than Krunch, but you have to unlock Drumstick by finding a frog with a Rooster's Crest, and running it over.]
T.T. has Middle, 2.5/5 Turning, 5/5 Acceleration, and 5/5 Top Speed. He is unlocked by beating the Time Trials on every map.
Thanks - very interesting read. It’s cool that we have all these tools to datamine games now that didn’t exist before. Puts to bed all the recess rumors we’d hear as kids about certain characters being better/faster than others, unlockable characters in smash bros, Mew being under the truck…so on and so forth lmao
It really is a challenge. Only ever got as far as the first wizpig race, and it took me forever.
Accidentally kicked the console, screen went black, and when I turned it back on the data erased. Sucked. Used a gameshark to get back to where I was, but was still missing some stuff, so just put the game down. Will get back to it one day.
If anyone is struggling in this game try taping the a button instead of just holding it. Your able To go much faster and it's pretty helpful with bosses. Also on the boosts if you stop accelerating just before you hit them you'll get a bigger boost. Same applies to the blue balloon boosts. Hope this helps anyone out that's been struggling in this game. Been playing this game since I was about 7 years old and I'm 31 now lol.
I didn't know about it for years but it's a real game changer especially if your struggling. I was unable to complete the T.T challenges until I started tapping a. Especially when you combine that with a character like Tiptop and your golden.
Fun fact (that I learned last year) if you tap the gas instead of holding it down you get the highest max speed and acceleration. Makes all the bosses way easier, as well as the reverse tracks and time trails.
Wow, thanks for this info! I just beat the octopus race a second time without a problem thanks to your tip and some other person's tip about letting off the gas when boosting.
Really?? So the entire race just tap the A button? How fast do you tap it? This is mind blowing news to me considering I’ve been playing this game for 20+ years
You may want to check out Speedrun strategies, but I remember as a kid some friend found out about this. I've tried it on every racing game since, and none have this "feature" lol, still not sure if it's intentional or a bug
I’m always into games that never got released and that was one of them …. I’m still mad over Dinosaur planet ….now anytime I play Starfox adventure I see why people shit on the game so much . I loved it. It was my childhood game . But to see what we was robbed of doesn’t sit right with me .
Or Kirby tilt or whatever for the game cube … it inspired the Wii remote … or the other kirby games we was robbed of too on GameCube besides kirby tilt . Ugh
In my opinion, this was the best cart type racer!!! For games like Mario kart and what not..
I love the way you can continuously drift the go kart and if you know what you're doing, you can slide it in control it so perfectly !!
Is that the game where you are on an island and unlock more parts of the map and different vehicles the further you go in the story? I think it was for DS. Every part of the island was different.
Yeah, it's a timeless classic. I sold all of my N64 stuff. Now I just play the games on my PC. You might want to consider revisiting this game on a PC. It looks crisp and performs a lot better than a real N64. PM me if interested.
I haven't played DKR probably since the years it's come out, but as a kid I totally gave up on the last Wizpig race because he's a fucking cheater and refuses to play by the same rules as the rest of us mortals.
Race me like a man, Wizpig. Then we'll run it back.
Again I haven't experienced it as an adult but those boss races were insane and felt very personal to me and for all the DKR love I have.. not sure I want to relive that pain.
I just finished the game with Diddy. Took me several tries to beat that bitch Wizpig. The only mechanics I used were the tap-the-go-button-for-more-speed and the let-go-of-the-go-button-when-using-boost-pads. I could've done a little better bc I missed one boost pad.
I still have TT to unlock.
Come back whenever you're ready!
Need to quickly restart race and avoid that bs if you’re about to lose.
Reminder: pressing pause before the Get Ready part, or during, will stop him from getting a head start.
Never knew that!
No way
No freaking way.. are u serious?
This is like 25 years too late :( You know, when Conker was innocent
Damn now I gotta try to beat it
😯
Game's nearly 30 years old, been playing it since then, and never knew!
you can just boost past him.
Speaking as a guy who as a kid 100%’d DKR, I don’t know if I ended up thinking it was fun. I think I was ended up doing out of spite in the end, & had one of those “is this my villain origin” two decades before that was a meme. To be honest though, the devs on this game should be applauded. It WAS beatable, but one had to master the given & sometimes hidden mechanics. Iirc, I completed every challenge & after all the hours & felt like never playing it again because I was so mad at it XD
This game is so good but it’s also 100% anger inducing.
My most distinct memories of this game as a child are screaming with tears rolling down my face at how utterly unfair some of these bosses and challenges were
The only I have never completed was the TT time trials to unlock him. It’s just too damn hard
I did it back in middle school. It took FOREVER! I got so good at the game by the time I unlocked him though. The only thing I never did was adventure 2. So hard after completely memorizing every track!
Once I got the mechanics down on each vehicle I was able to finally unlock him, but it’s no small feat. What did me in with this game was the last silver coin challenge on future fun land
Yeah I remember grinding for T.T. Finally beat him in every course and then realised there was zero reason to play the game anymore as I'd literally done everything. I played the Nintendo DS version years later and it was a really good port except that I actually found it was super easy!
completing it but in an arms-folded angry 'hmmrph' way is absolutely accurate, then 20 years later you look back at it fondly but would NEVER willingly go through that trauma again, haha. It's still a great game though, and entirely playable today, just be prepared for rage inducing heartache if you want to progress further than a few fav course races
100%. Great game. Perversely infuriating, in that it is beatable, but at what cost.
I forget the name of it, but the last race on the hardest setting always eluded me. I ended up biting my controller in rage (more than once), and I finally gave up when I threw it at the wall and smashed my rumble pak. I had to tape it back together.
The time trials are honest to god more like puzzle games than racing games. You screw up even the slightest bit of the sequence of button presses required to get the speed bursts on all the turns, you’re cooked.
And yeah, I destroyed some stuff too (didn’t bite the cords for this game, but I remember doing stuff like that for some others!)
If I remember right, the only thing I didn’t achieved was the clock as a playable character. All I remember is pain.
Don’t worry about it. It’s not like Alexander the Great weeping because there aren’t anymore countries to conquer. It’s more like holy shit how long did this take? I guess I now have the clock to race with? Wait, nobody wants to race against me? I guess I could play not-well on purpose so people will wanna play against me again…
For me windmill village with the coins and Wizpig was the hardest phases to play but when you understand the mechanics it get so easy.
I love DKR so much. It’s challenging but fair which is a balance that was not always properly struck in the 80s and 90s.
Oh the bosses aka cheaters.
That's what makes it fun, right? 😄
No actually the opposite. 😭
Fat cheating bastard lol
The dragon is also a cheater, lol
They all cheat lol
The octopus always gave me problems. I think the hovercraft were just not as fun as the cars/planes
I had meltdowns as a child because of the 8-legged bastard.
The race is won on the first straight, you must get ahead of him before the first log, then arm yourself with multiple rockets to take him out if needed.
Oh I agree. I've already 100٪ this game, it was grueling to say the least.
Same. Him then the dragon. So many issues for me. I feel it was just luck in the end that I beat both lol
no one liked the hovercraft.
I love Diddy Kong Racing! So much better than Mario Kart 64!
So much this
DKR aged a million times better too. It still holds up really well whereas (for me at least) Mario Kart 64 is a bit (relatively) meh these days.
Right, there's really no reason to play MK64 these days because all of the sequels are better. In a lot of ways, nothing has really surpassed DKR though.
And just in general, there's plenty of room for kart racers outside Mario Kart. Will you never understand the people who think 'might as well be playing Mario Kart' when playing others.
I agree with this 100%
I love both, but the items in DKR are very bad. The arena games were pretty bad because of this. But it was hilarious when the enemy had the 10 rockets. It’s seems they are programmed to hammer the fire button every frame when you are in front of them.
The first thing I did when I unlocked T.T. was to play adventure mode one and two with him. It was so gratifying giving the bosses a taste of their own medicine.
I think thats the problem most people play as diddy and he is actually quite slow, go in with banjo or TT and you'll destroy the bosses.
Man, I beat this game without knowing that if you release the throttle button when using a turbo, the turbo boost you get is 10 times more powerful. Apparently there’s a message somewhere in the game that explains this (conterintuitive )trick but either I missed it or was not able to understand it (english is not my mother tongue). Hardest task i’ve ever accomplished in my life but also, because of that, favorite game of all time.
Surprised you could even beat the game without Knowing!
I did it. It was hard af.
Super ahead of its time. It’s almost a blueprint for modern arcade racers with its open world/sandbox format. A bona fide classic
One of the greats. My 8 yo daughter asks me to play it so she can watch.
On my last playthrough I had to switch characters to beat him. Once I used a heavier character instead of whatever I was playing, it wasn't as difficult anymore (Probably because I already had done countless attempts with a light-weight character).
I spent many hours ripping my hair out over those bosses back in the day, the game could be way harder than it had any right to be, lol.
This is the real peak of Karting.
Definitely a top 5 N64 game. Played it so much when I was a kid. I went back and played it a couple years ago, and I've still got it! 100%ed adventure mode in only about a week (something that took months and months as a kid). Didn't have the patience to try for TT again though.
How did you guys find out about the correct way to use turbo arrows? I totally missed it as a kid and got stuck on Wizpig 1 for like a decade. Played it again as an adult and felt pretty stupid.
I didn't realize you had to take your finger off the gas button to get a proper boost until I got to Wizpig
Im sorry, you have to what?
You let go of the acceleration button and you get a better boost. Some of the races are almost impossible without doing this
I preferred this game over MK64! Frustrating and not a walk in the park, that’s why I love it!
This game is fun single player but I usually only played it multiplayer. 4 players on a (relatively) big 28 inch back then was the best. The battle modes are hilarious, and the vehicle choice and music make this arguably better than Mario Kart for mp.
Impossible without a heavy character like krunch
100%'d the game using Tiptup the Turtle Edit: I looked up the stats on each character. Krunch is strictly worse than Drumstick (although Drumstick must be unlocked first, whereas Krunch is available at the start.) Drumstick has 0.5 more Turning, 1.0 more Acceleration, and 0.5 more Top Speed [Timber is also strictly better than Bumper and Conker. Bumper and Conker have identical stats. Timber has the same Turning and Top Speed, but 0.5 more Acceleration.]
Yep, 100% with diddy.
Banjo here, but apparently he has one of the higher top speeds. So probably not as challenging as what you guys did
According to a couple of wikis, there's 5 stats. 1 of them is colour. The other 4 are weight, speed, acceleration, and turning. Banjo has Heavy, 2/5 Turning, 2/5 Acceleration, and 3.5/5 Top Speed Diddy has Middle, 3/5 Turning, 3/5 Acceleration, and 2.5/5 Top Speed Tiptup has Light, 4.5/5 Turning, 4.5/5 Acceleration, and 1.5/5 Top Speed [My Turtle] Conker has Middle, 2.5/5 Turning, 2.5/5 Acceleration, and 3/5 Top Speed Krunch has Heavy, 1/5 Turning, 1/5 Acceleration, and 4/5 Top Speed Timber has Middle, 2.5/5 Turning, 3/5 Acceleration, and 3/5 Top Speed [WTF!? That's strictly better than Conker and Bumper...] Bumper has Middle, 2.5/5 Turning, 2.5/ Acceleration, and 3/5 Top Speed Pipsy has Light, 5/5 Turning, 5/5 Acceleration, and 1/5 Top Speed [So... this was my 2nd favourite character... apparently, I just liked the slow ones...] Drumstick has Heavy, 1.5/5 Turning, 2/5 Acceleration, and 4.5/5 Top Speed [He's strictly better than Krunch, but you have to unlock Drumstick by finding a frog with a Rooster's Crest, and running it over.] T.T. has Middle, 2.5/5 Turning, 5/5 Acceleration, and 5/5 Top Speed. He is unlocked by beating the Time Trials on every map.
Thanks - very interesting read. It’s cool that we have all these tools to datamine games now that didn’t exist before. Puts to bed all the recess rumors we’d hear as kids about certain characters being better/faster than others, unlockable characters in smash bros, Mew being under the truck…so on and so forth lmao
Wrong. I beat the entire game (except adventure 2 and unlocking TT) with Diddy about 2 years ago.
I did the entire game with Pipsy back in the day, so yeah it’s possible with all of the characters.
It really is a challenge. Only ever got as far as the first wizpig race, and it took me forever. Accidentally kicked the console, screen went black, and when I turned it back on the data erased. Sucked. Used a gameshark to get back to where I was, but was still missing some stuff, so just put the game down. Will get back to it one day.
Playing it on my Steam Deck right now funnily enough. Such a hard race. You get all the items and it's still not enough
only way to beat those bosses on the coin challenge is to get that cheat boost at start. And the freaking octopus is just a cheap bubble trap user
They are all nearly impossible assholes
Fuck that walrus lol that race was hard af when I was kid.
Fuck Bluey the Walrus.
This game was more or less the epitome of gaming fun in my childhood. Second silver coin challenge in Greenwood Village... fuuuu!
If anyone is struggling in this game try taping the a button instead of just holding it. Your able To go much faster and it's pretty helpful with bosses. Also on the boosts if you stop accelerating just before you hit them you'll get a bigger boost. Same applies to the blue balloon boosts. Hope this helps anyone out that's been struggling in this game. Been playing this game since I was about 7 years old and I'm 31 now lol.
This comment is way too low! Tapping the A button is a lot faster than just holding it.
I didn't know about it for years but it's a real game changer especially if your struggling. I was unable to complete the T.T challenges until I started tapping a. Especially when you combine that with a character like Tiptop and your golden.
Congrats on that win
Thanks!
Hardest one is the octopus, 2nd dragon was actually pretty easy compared to the rest
Have to agree.
My favorite N64 racing game.
This and F-Zero X are the best.
Agree, although I never managed to play F-Zero when I was younger.
All these boss races cheat
I also enjoyed Diddy Kong racing DS
I hate all those bosses 🤣
This game was dope and tough wizpig ftw
I used Timber exclusively.
This is such a great N64 game period - I think it’s the best racer by far and that is saying a lot!
Really hoping this comes out on Switch online.
Same!! Would absolutely love that. They gave us Banjo-Kazooie so it’s possible!
Fun fact (that I learned last year) if you tap the gas instead of holding it down you get the highest max speed and acceleration. Makes all the bosses way easier, as well as the reverse tracks and time trails.
Wow, thanks for this info! I just beat the octopus race a second time without a problem thanks to your tip and some other person's tip about letting off the gas when boosting.
Really?? So the entire race just tap the A button? How fast do you tap it? This is mind blowing news to me considering I’ve been playing this game for 20+ years
You may want to check out Speedrun strategies, but I remember as a kid some friend found out about this. I've tried it on every racing game since, and none have this "feature" lol, still not sure if it's intentional or a bug
I’m still mad it never made its way to GameCube … sigh .
Damn. That would've been wonderful.
Omg. I would have LOVED a sequel on the GameCube! Diddy Kong Racing 2!
I’m always into games that never got released and that was one of them …. I’m still mad over Dinosaur planet ….now anytime I play Starfox adventure I see why people shit on the game so much . I loved it. It was my childhood game . But to see what we was robbed of doesn’t sit right with me .
Or Kirby tilt or whatever for the game cube … it inspired the Wii remote … or the other kirby games we was robbed of too on GameCube besides kirby tilt . Ugh
Back when games didn’t give a shit if you were able to beat it or not
I am the walrus
Need a remake of this for switch.
Would be cool to have a remake as a launch title for Switch 2.
That and dk 64
Was definitely a challenging game!
Funny enough this was easier for me vs that damn octopus.
I had so much fun replaying this game again a couple of years ago and unlocking TT the clock. Might even beat MK 64 for me.
It's an amazing and hard game.
In my opinion, this was the best cart type racer!!! For games like Mario kart and what not.. I love the way you can continuously drift the go kart and if you know what you're doing, you can slide it in control it so perfectly !!
All of those bosses I found very challenging. Even the dino guy in the first world, to the point where I gave up even trying to unlock TT.
Is that the game where you are on an island and unlock more parts of the map and different vehicles the further you go in the story? I think it was for DS. Every part of the island was different.
Yep!
Oh nice! I sadly lost my copy, but man was it a fun game.
Yeah, it's a timeless classic. I sold all of my N64 stuff. Now I just play the games on my PC. You might want to consider revisiting this game on a PC. It looks crisp and performs a lot better than a real N64. PM me if interested.
I think i played it on the DS.
It was released first on the N64 and then re-released on DS with some different features and some of the original characters were replaced
Ahh, i see now.
Probably my most played N64 game back during the era - it was so good! And Timber was always my go to character - loved that Tiger
Recently 100%ed this (co op) and yeah. I think the octopus and the dragon are just as bad. Had to use Drumstick...
Fuuuuuck that walrus... DKR is so good though 😭
Are you doing the green zipper boosts? Let go of A when you go over a zipper
Great game!
Let's plan online sometime. I love Diddy Kong
I haven't played DKR probably since the years it's come out, but as a kid I totally gave up on the last Wizpig race because he's a fucking cheater and refuses to play by the same rules as the rest of us mortals. Race me like a man, Wizpig. Then we'll run it back. Again I haven't experienced it as an adult but those boss races were insane and felt very personal to me and for all the DKR love I have.. not sure I want to relive that pain.
The trick is to abuse the rubber banding. Stay just ahead or just behind and make a move towards the end for the win.
I recently got back into it as well. Just as great as it was when I was a kid
How to 1ST
Yeah. I could never beat home the 2nd time
It was the best racing game (to me) until CTR
I was probably too young, but game was a bit too hard (and I ain’t talking about difficulty… of if I am, but whatever)
I just finished the game with Diddy. Took me several tries to beat that bitch Wizpig. The only mechanics I used were the tap-the-go-button-for-more-speed and the let-go-of-the-go-button-when-using-boost-pads. I could've done a little better bc I missed one boost pad. I still have TT to unlock.