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LTTP - Diddy Kong Racing
- Thread starter MegaManTrigger
- Start date
Speedway was a clusterfuck, we had very little time to work on it so most of the coding time was spend getting the battle mode in. The art guys had it worse, originally the levels were supposed to be more stylised but we ended up just throwing a load of "realistic" scenery in as we had leftovers from the original mech game prototype. Think the whole game was developed in 10 months. We also found out late on it was way too difficult for the intended audience. Sorry kids
The engine went on to become jet force gemini.
I feel like the second race is easier than the first because it's by plane, so you can find easier short cuts than in a car where hitting any amount of water or grass kills the run entirely.
Rare had some really damn good sound designers back during the day, for some reason I always took note of it and it felt like it added onto the feedback of every game - especially Jet Force Gemini.
Speaking of, weren't some of the DKR staff involved with that game as well?
sammyCYBORG
Member
It was the best kart racing game ever until it's spiritual successor (Sonic All Stars Transformed) topped it.
I always wondered what was up with this game. It went by pretty unnoticed and didn't review very well. I mean, all of Rare's other N64 games were very high profile, except maybe KI Gold and Blast Corps, but Blast Corps was at least excellent.
Why wasn't Speedway given the time it needed?
ScottSullivan
Member
I remember being a kid after obsessively playing this with friends, we'd be in the back seat of the minivan or whatever, and we'd imagine wizzpig was chasing us from behind as one of the cars and we had to keep moving before the car behind us stopped as well
Same programming team, they pulled some of us off JFG to finish speedway.
My guess is Nintendo wanted a Disney exclusive, and they figured it could be done on the cheap by reusing assets.
Milly Osworth
Member
Call up Miyamoto and demand you can make a sequel!
Spukc
always chasing the next thrill
Don't worry i did notice it and i was only 15 at the time.
I miss stuff like this in modern games
They cancelled the sequel already.
Miyamoto didn't like tiptup either. Guy has an issue with turtles.
Milly Osworth
Member
😬😬
Diddy Kong
Banned
TheDinoman
Member
Really saddens me that this game is seemingly forever lost to the ages.
With Rare's DK games (DKC Trilogy, DKL Trilogy, 64), if I wanted to play them today, I could go ahead and buy them on one of Nintendo's eShops. With Rare's other games (Banjo-Kazooie, Conker, Perfect Dark, etc) I could just play them on Xbox One through Rare Replay.
With Diddy Kong Racing (and Goldeneye for that matter), however, there's no such luck. It can't really appear on Nintendo's stores due to the fact that it prominently features what are now Microsoft characters, and ergo it obviously can't be on Microsoft's stuff due to prominently featuring Nintendo characters. It's just kinda stuck in copyright hell.
It seems like the only way we're ever see this game in its original, purest state is for either Microsoft or Nintendo to go third party and work with each other to bring the game to either Xbone/Windows 10 or Switch. That, or Microsoft goes crazy one day and randomly sells off the Banjo and Conker IPs to either Nintendo or other third parties willing to work with Nintendo (Playtonic and Gory Detail, perhaps)...which will never happen, lol.
And no, Diddy Kong Racing DS really wasn't a good substitute for the original. Nintendo will also probably never do anything with it ever again, especially since the Switch is very unlikely to have DS Virtual Console games.
With Rare's DK games (DKC Trilogy, DKL Trilogy, 64), if I wanted to play them today, I could go ahead and buy them on one of Nintendo's eShops. With Rare's other games (Banjo-Kazooie, Conker, Perfect Dark, etc) I could just play them on Xbox One through Rare Replay.
With Diddy Kong Racing (and Goldeneye for that matter), however, there's no such luck. It can't really appear on Nintendo's stores due to the fact that it prominently features what are now Microsoft characters, and ergo it obviously can't be on Microsoft's stuff due to prominently featuring Nintendo characters. It's just kinda stuck in copyright hell.
It seems like the only way we're ever see this game in its original, purest state is for either Microsoft or Nintendo to go third party and work with each other to bring the game to either Xbone/Windows 10 or Switch. That, or Microsoft goes crazy one day and randomly sells off the Banjo and Conker IPs to either Nintendo or other third parties willing to work with Nintendo (Playtonic and Gory Detail, perhaps)...which will never happen, lol.
And no, Diddy Kong Racing DS really wasn't a good substitute for the original. Nintendo will also probably never do anything with it ever again, especially since the Switch is very unlikely to have DS Virtual Console games.
gingerbeardman
Member
Agreed
Lunafreya Nox Fleuret
Member
My hopes and dreams are eternally crushed. D:
Nocturnowl
Member
Only thing that gets me about this game really is the actual challenge of the CPU, when you think of the things that made this game tricky as a kid it's never so much actually just winning a race, it's more of the boss battles or silver coin challenges.
That last one basically being "to make the opponents more of a threat please keep taking these slightly longer turns and go off course to nab the coins and then win".
In any case though a very solid game.
That last one basically being "to make the opponents more of a threat please keep taking these slightly longer turns and go off course to nab the coins and then win".
In any case though a very solid game.
NipplesAndToes23
Member
What really, it was because of fucking Tiptup? Wasn't he a Banjo character too?
MegaManTrigger
Banned
Greenwood Village is notorious for this. I had to re-do the silver coin attempt 5 times to get a solid idea of how to tackle the track and its coin placements. Spaceport Alpha was annoying but I was able to get through the painful coins by using the bumpers, and exploiting the fact that the AI doesn't use sharp turning to avoid getting walled by the S-curve that connects the track.
Though funny enough, you can get out-of-track coins and still get pretty good speed thanks to the bananas giving you somewhat of a speed boost. This is also why I thought unlocking T.T. wasn't difficult, save for tracks like Whale Bay and Pirate Lagoon. I'm sure I did something wrong, but what annoyed me was how good T.T.'s handles were in those tracks' ghosts, whereas I struggled and lost momentum when I turned/sharp turned.
daTRUballin
Member
Banjo Kazooie released in June 1998. Was that not a great game?
How is that possible when JFG came out a year before Speedway though? Maybe you meant to say JFG's engine went on to become Speedway?
Nocturnowl
Member
Tiptup was the best though. But of course Miyamoto hates turtles, there's a reason Koopas are Mario's foot fodder.
Well Tiptup was the best when I was a kid at least, if I'm playing now it's all about Bumper, I mean how many playable Badgers are there in games?
Well Tiptup was the best when I was a kid at least, if I'm playing now it's all about Bumper, I mean how many playable Badgers are there in games?
One of my favourite games of all time and part of an annual tradition (story incoming)...
So, my best mate and I both got N64s for Christmas 1997 and I was lucky enough to get this game and fall in love with it. The following Dec 23rd in 1998 as we counted the hours down to opening our copies of OoT that we'd asked for, we held a sleepover during which I did DKR adventure 1 in a single evening whilst my mate did Goldeneye on agent. Fast forward all these years later where we're well in to our thirties with families and the like and we still have the tradition where we'll leave work early, head round to whomever's turn it is to host, get pissed, watch Christmas episodes of our favourite BBC comedies and play these games off the original carts that we got back in 1997.
I truly love this game. It IS Christmas for me.
So, my best mate and I both got N64s for Christmas 1997 and I was lucky enough to get this game and fall in love with it. The following Dec 23rd in 1998 as we counted the hours down to opening our copies of OoT that we'd asked for, we held a sleepover during which I did DKR adventure 1 in a single evening whilst my mate did Goldeneye on agent. Fast forward all these years later where we're well in to our thirties with families and the like and we still have the tradition where we'll leave work early, head round to whomever's turn it is to host, get pissed, watch Christmas episodes of our favourite BBC comedies and play these games off the original carts that we got back in 1997.
I truly love this game. It IS Christmas for me.
ThatStupidLion
Member
Loved this game. Ahead of its time imo. Improved the kart genre and mario kart should have inherited what dkr did well
thomasmahler
Member
Still one of the best Kart-Racers ever made. It's a WAAAAAY better game than Mario Kart 64 was, design-wise.
I still play it to completion once a year or so. Just a super solid, super well designed game.
I still play it to completion once a year or so. Just a super solid, super well designed game.
MegaManTrigger
Banned
You're not alone. I thought the exact same thing too.
NipplesAndToes23
Member
She's right. Also you can slow him down incredibly with missiles.
Nocturnowl
Member
It has some bizarre changes
- Turbo starts require touch screen stuff which is just awkward
- Silver coin challenges replaced with on rails first person balloon shooting, yep
- Tiny Kong (for a positive though we get Dixie)
It works but it just ain't quite right.
There's four new tracks which are okay, one is a messy gimmicky maze like track though which I can never imagine making the cut in the original.
Also the strange track generator which is just kinda there and pretty bland.
thomasmahler
Member
Can you say anything about Donkey Kong Racing? The few bits and pieces of information that are out there about it seemed like they're pretty weak (jumping from animal to animal, etc., feels like you folks completely lost your focus on that one). Diddy Kong Racing was absolutely brilliant, I wonder if you guys ever had a prototype of Donkey Kong Racing that actually felt good to play.
Bakkus
Member
One of my favorite games ever. Up until MK8, no Mario Kart could rival it, especially not the one on the same console.
Tips for the silver coin challenges: The grab box is disjointed, you can obtain them without even touching them with a single pixel of your vehicle. Keep this in mind for the ones you have to make hard swings for.
Tips for the silver coin challenges: The grab box is disjointed, you can obtain them without even touching them with a single pixel of your vehicle. Keep this in mind for the ones you have to make hard swings for.
Piston Hyundai
Member
What was the game like in its Pro-Am 64 days? Did it always have animals in it, or was it closer to the NES games with RC cars?
Is there any particularly interesting stuff that ended up being cut from the game?
AuthenticM
Member
Keep at it; I'm joining you.
That would be 7 months later, and oh my goodness gracious no.
Alex_Mexico
Member
The best kart racing game of its generation (suck it MK64 and CTR truthers) and Rare's best non-SNES soundtrack of all time.
Too bad this game has so much red tape that a rerelease even on VC seems impossible.
And don't even mention the inferior DS bastardized "port".
Too bad this game has so much red tape that a rerelease even on VC seems impossible.
And don't even mention the inferior DS bastardized "port".
I've never heard about this, is there anything to tell about the original mech version?
IIRC, Speeway ran at a pretty solid 30FPS unlike pretty much everything else Rare put out, did someone put their foot down in this instance or was it a case of not having enough time to implement anything with enough ambition that it might effect performance?
I wasn't involved at the start, but there were two possible directions for it to go in. One being cartoon based, the other being pilotable transforming mechs/robots. Nintendo suggested we injected donkey Kong, so the robot concept got axed and the theming was adjusted to fit. In foresight I think it was the right move, but at the time we liked our mech idea.
The cartoon racer concept was very similar to the final game, just with less crab joke.
Mudron
Member
Diddy Kong Racing was the first N64 game I owned (it was gifted to me just days after I bought the console), and holy shit, did my friends and I ever beat that game into the ground.
The choice of vehicles, the world hub, the music - man, that game was such a blast that when I rented Mario Kart 64 weeks later to switch things up a bit, my friends and I only played maybe 90 minutes' worth of it before kicking it to the curb and diving back into DKR again (though of course all of this was eventually supplanted by Goldeneye, but whatever).
Anyway, yeah, DKR was easily the best kart racer of its generation, with easily the most fuckable characters (one friend of mine loved to freak people - and his own girlfriend - out by feverishly talking about how much he wanted to fuck Timber the tiger while doing a weird TipTup impression).
AND THAT GODDAMNED THEME SONG. No lie, we'd sing it in the car while on beer & Blockbuster runs. Hell, the Frosty Village music still makes me think fondly of the Christmas we couldn't stop playing the game 20 years ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCvYlD-S4DQ
The choice of vehicles, the world hub, the music - man, that game was such a blast that when I rented Mario Kart 64 weeks later to switch things up a bit, my friends and I only played maybe 90 minutes' worth of it before kicking it to the curb and diving back into DKR again (though of course all of this was eventually supplanted by Goldeneye, but whatever).
Anyway, yeah, DKR was easily the best kart racer of its generation, with easily the most fuckable characters (one friend of mine loved to freak people - and his own girlfriend - out by feverishly talking about how much he wanted to fuck Timber the tiger while doing a weird TipTup impression).
AND THAT GODDAMNED THEME SONG. No lie, we'd sing it in the car while on beer & Blockbuster runs. Hell, the Frosty Village music still makes me think fondly of the Christmas we couldn't stop playing the game 20 years ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCvYlD-S4DQ
thunker 9000
Member
Best kart racer of all-time bar none. It's the full package.
I remember I was like 11 and I couldn't find the last golden key hidden in one of the tracks. I decided the right thing to do was to call the 1-800 tech support number on the back of the cartridge.
The tech support dude told me he could only help if it was a hardware problem, but then looked up the location and told me where it was. Late 90's Nintendo *Highfive*.
I remember I was like 11 and I couldn't find the last golden key hidden in one of the tracks. I decided the right thing to do was to call the 1-800 tech support number on the back of the cartridge.
The tech support dude told me he could only help if it was a hardware problem, but then looked up the location and told me where it was. Late 90's Nintendo *Highfive*.
Chittagong
Gold Member
If I remember correctly, Diddy Kong Racing was something of a stealth release. We were expecting "Dream" from Rare, but it got delayed and suddenly the Xmas lineup got rather barren. Then, out of nowhere, came Diddy Kong Racing to save our Christmas sales.
TheUnsunghero26
Member
One of the first games I have ever played, and still among my favourites. The best kart racer.
Can you comment on any cut content? Anything you guys really wanted to put in but couldn't?