Diddy Kong Racing kind of sucks - I was wrong
Mario Kart 64 is the vastly superior N64 kart racer
Look, I was wrong. Diddy Kong Racing isn’t a better game than Mario Kart 64, especially not in 2025. Maybe it was pure nostalgia or the fact that Diddy Kong Racing was the first Nintendo 64 game I bought with my own money in 1998 when I was about nine - who knows?
Either way, Diddy Kong Racing is borderline hot trash. I’m sorry for the several tirades I’ve gone on over the years where I’ve confidentially stated that it’s the definitive N64 kart racer.
But let’s get back to why I’m even thinking about Diddy Kong Racing in the first place. The reveal of Switch 2 launch title, Mario Kart World, immediately made me think of Diddy Kong Racing. Instead of jumping between purely just races, Rare’s N64 kart racer has players exploring an overworld chock-full of secrets, interacting with a probably-offensive elephant genie that rides a magic carpet, and unlocking races and challenges with gold balloons, Super Mario 64 style. It was a mindblowing concept for a racing game back in the day that I’m surprised has never really been attempted again with a kart racer. It makes sense for Nintendo to reach back into the archives for Mario Kart World, a game that seems like it features an open world ripe for exploration.
Naturally, once I made the Mario Kart World-to-Diddy Kong Racing connection in my head, I decided it was time to dive back into the former game to see how it has aged. I loved it as a kid, so there has to be more than just nostalgia there, right? Well, sort of.
While I appreciate the exploration aspect, racing games — even arcade-focused kart racers — live or die by their controls. Unfortunately, Diddy Kong Racing feels like a muddy, unforgiving mess compared to Mario Kart 64. For example, I didn’t believe my partner when she told me Krunch the Kremling handled like an unwieldy boulder rolling down the track. Then I gave Krunch a shot and was shocked by how my kart seemed to have a mind of its own. These controls get even wilder when you step into the cockpit of a plane or hop on a hovercraft. Some characters like Diddy Kong, for example, are snappier, but something still feels a bit off about how they handle when you’re driving a plane or hovercraft, especially after playing the very responsive Mario Kart series for so many years.
It’s not just that, either. Diddy Kong Racing is hard — like insanely hard, and going back through each world’s races to collect coins, all while also winning the race, just isn’t fun (no, I will not “get gud”). With a few exceptions, tracks are also forgettable (Pirate Lagoon is solid and I’ll never forget Ancient Lake, just to name a few standouts).
Still, in my brief time with the N64 game, there were a few things I enjoyed. While AI racers rarely make mistakes, they feel like fair competition because the rubberbanding the Mario Kart series is known for isn’t part of Diddy Kong Racing. The power-ups are less wacky and more balanced than Mario Kart’s, too, which I appreciate. I also like the Zellers brand-inspired characters like Tiptup the Turtle, Pipsy the Mouse, and Timber the Tiger (screw Banjo-Threeie — give me Tiptup the Turtle’s Great Adventure. Nintendo seems to be opting for a similarily odd character strategy with Mario Kart World, and I’m here for it (you can race as the cow from Moo Moo Meadows).
As far as I can tell, most of these no-name, Rare creations were never featured in another video game. There’s also Banjo without Kazooie, offering an early look at the iconic bear that would soon be joined by his loudmouth bird friend, and a friendlier version of Conker, who would soon get an M-rated makeover in Conker’s Bad Fur Day.
I still think we’ll a lot of Diddy Kong Racing’s core DNA in Mario Kart World, though, especially regarding secrets and exploration. Given the game’s emphasis on social and online features, I can see players being tasked with hunting down an item like Stars and various Forza Horizon-like tasks being strewn throughout its sprawling world. There are also more obvious comparisons, like Mario Kart World’s planes and jet skis (that look like they’re pulled right out of Wave Race), throwing back to Diddy Kong Racing’s planes and painfully unwieldy hovercrafts.
With all of this in mind, if you’re like me and Mario Kart World brought up fond memories of Diddy Kong Racing, revisiting the title probably isn’t worth your time, though I did enjoy taking down Tricky the triceratops all over again (that boss race up the mountain is infuriating).