Diddy Kong Racing - Definition

Diddy Kong Racing is a racing game for the Nintendo 64 developed by Rareware. It was released in 1997 and 800.000 copies were ordered in the two weeks before Christmas 1997 according to Guinness Book of World Records.

A karting game like Mario Kart, DKR also had a distinctive adventure part. The game featured characters from Rare games, some of which had yet to be released. Diddy Kong Racing was partially intended to help introduce some of Rare's future franchise characters at an early time, so gamers would recognize them when they appeared in future titles later on.

Plot

The plot of the game centred around an evil intergalactic pig wizard named Wizpig who attempted to take over the peaceful Timber's Island.

Characters

The re-occurring characters were:

• Diddy Kong the monkey from the Donkey Kong Country series (released in 1994).
• Banjo the bear from the Banjo-Kazooie series (released in 1998).
• Tiptup the turtle from the Banjo-Kazooie series.
• Conker the squirrel from Conker's Pocket Tales (released in 1999).
• Krunch was a Kremling, the antagonists of the Donkey Kong Country series. His clothing style was carried over to several of these enemes in Donkey Kong 64 (released in 1999).
• Tricky the triceratops was a non-playable boss character whose origins were later explored in Star Fox Adventures (released in 2002).

The other playable characters were:

• Drumstick the rooster
• Bumper the badger
• Timber the tiger
• Pipsy the mouse
• T.T. the stopwatch

The other non-playable characters were:

• Bluey the walrus (a boss character)
• Bubbler the octopus (a boss character)
• Smokey the dragon (a boss character)
• Taj the genie (an ally character)
• Wizpig the genie (the final boss)

A screenshot from Diddy Kong Racing.

One additional character, known only as "the Yellow Dinosaur", appeared only in the introductory FMV and not in the actual game, and has become a minor injoke due to this obscurity.

None of these characters have appeared in any other Rare or Nintendo games to date, although Taj was scheduled to appear in a GameCube sequel, Donkey Kong Racing. The game was aborted when Rare was bought by Microsoft in 2002, although it's rumored to reappear as an Xbox title called Sabreman Stampede. A portable sequel to the franchise, Diddy Kong Pilot, was also in development, which would have seen the return of Krunch. It too was redesigned following Rare's buyout as Banjo Pilot, and it will now be starring Banjo and characters from his franchise.

Legal ambiguities

The legalities of Diddy Kong Racing are now open for debate due to the situation involving Rare and Nintendo. Nintendo retained the rights to Diddy Kong and Krunch, while Rare owns Banjo, Conker, and Tiptup. The ownership of the other characters is unknown, although most assume Rare made off with them. Tricky is the biggest mystery, as his younger self became a character in Nintendo's Star Fox franchise, while the older version that was in DKR may belong to Rare.