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Battle Of The 90s Kart Racer Titans: Diddy Kong Racing vs Mario Kart 64 vs Crash Team Racing

Which 1990s Kart Racer Was The Best?

  • Rare’s Diddy Kong Racing

    Votes: 424 45.0%

  • Nintendo’s Mario Kart 64

    Votes: 294 31.2%

  • Naughty Dog’s Crash Team Racing

    Votes: 224 23.8%
  • Total voters
    942
Grunty

Grunty

Member
Oct 28, 2017
7,337
Gruntilda’s Lair
In the late 1990s, there were three Kart racers released by three of gaming's biggest developers. In 1996, Nintendo released Mario Kart 64, a follow up to their SNES hit and introduced the world to the chaos of the Blue Shell.

In 1997, Rare continued their string of Donkey Kong centered hits, but this time abandoned platforming for an adventure kart racer in the form of Diddy Kong Racing.

And 1999, Naughty Dog released Crash Team Racing, a spin-off of their hit Crash Bandicoot series that sees Crash and company hitting the roads in their own Karts.

So question is era... which of these hit 90s Kart racers was the best?
 
Noppie

Noppie

Member
Oct 27, 2017
13,764
Kart 64. Great tracks, amazing soundtrack and the last time (IMO of course) battle mode was truly solid. I spent a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooong time in Block Fort.
 
Geobros

Geobros

Member
Dec 31, 2018
670
The bad one was Crash! I liked Diddy for the single player but Mario Kart 64 had the best multiplayer!!
 
sir_crocodile

sir_crocodile

Member
Oct 25, 2017
23,480
Diddy has the superb adventure mode
Mk64 has block fortress

that's tough, went for diddy in the end.
 
Phoenom

Phoenom

Avenger
Oct 28, 2017
1,301
We still play MK64 today, so that. The other two are still great games though, could equally likely have been them had we played them first.
 
BassForever

BassForever

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
29,916
CT
I still go back and play MK64 more then I do the other two, I also watch a lot more speed run footage and lore for MK64. It kinda wins by default in 2021 even if I probably preferred DKR as a kid.
 
NekoNeko

NekoNeko

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
18,447
MK64 > Diddy > > > > > Crash

and i say that as someone who thinks MK64 is the worst MK ever.
 
Bishop89

Bishop89

What Are Ya' Selling?
Member
Oct 25, 2017
34,539
Melbourne, Australia
Easily crash.
Fantastic tracks and controls. Best use of hopping/drifting.

Diddy second. I loved the different type of karts.

Mario kart 64 can go to hell with its cheap ass shit blue shell, which spawned from the deepest depths of hell.
 
Kongo B

Kongo B

Member
Sep 8, 2019
727
Europe
Mario Kart 64 is the best game of the bunch, but Diddy Kong Racing was something special that never got a sequel.

Mario Kart 64 got surpassed by its successors.

Diddy Kong Racing is frozen in time, like a sleeping beauty. 🕊
 
Blindy

Blindy

Member
Nov 16, 2017
3,929
MK64 had the best racing but the lack of story has it 2nd for me, CTR is very good but I feel the stages sort of become too gimmicky at times and some of the bosses(COUGHPINSTRIPECOUGH) are more lucky and RNG with the bomb placements. DKR had the best variety and had the best post game content with silver coin challenges and TT Trials. Best combat player vs player too if I recall.
 
PersianPrince

PersianPrince

Member
Feb 12, 2019
1,655
The adventure mode in DKR is peak Rareware. Some of their best work (that David wise soundtrack is great too)
 
topplehat

topplehat

Member
Oct 27, 2017
905
Austin, TX
I feel like CTR has the highest learning curve/skill cap so that makes it more difficult to get into for casual players. MK64 wins probably because of nostalgia more than anything, but all 3 are still great.
 

Deleted member 81119

User-requested account closure
Banned
Sep 19, 2020
8,308
I've never played CTR so I'd go with Mario Kart 64, but for all the shit Mario Kart 64 usually gets, I think the battle mode is amongst the best in the series.
 
Bede-x

Bede-x

Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,384
DKR for campaign, which also included co-op mode, though it got rather difficult near the end.

Mario Kart for multiplayer.

I voted DKR, since I appreciated campaign mode more.
 
Smash-It Stan

Smash-It Stan

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,262
CTR was an actual video game where you needed skill to survive. Others were baby's first kart game. Though CTR will never win any awards as mario karts multiplayer dominated every household back then.
 
Wislizeni

Wislizeni

Member
Oct 27, 2017
720
I only had an N64 growing up, so I grew up with Mario Kart and Diddy Kong Racing, and though I love those games, I have to give it to Crash. That game just felt more tightly designed overall. Content wise, Diddy Kong Racing is on par, but MK64 and DKR suffer from slippery controls. Just not as fun to play as CTR.

All that said, Mario Kart 8 is better than Crash Team Racing. Not sorry.
 
Jimnymebob

Jimnymebob

Member
Oct 26, 2017
19,582
I'd say CTR is the best because it hit the greatest combination of good audio visual presentation, good single player options, deep mechanics, good tracks both layout and varied theme wise, and a good roster of characters: only missing like 3 or 4 characters from the entire series.
Diddy Kong Racing had a great adventure mode (I guess I'd say it's better than CTR maybe?), and the gameplay variety was great, even if it wasn't as technical as CTR, but it suffered from having a kind of awful roster lol, and that's an important part for me. Tiptup is the GOAT though of course.
MK64 is just kinda eh. It looks ugly, the roster is solid but tiny, and outside from having a fun battle mode, you could pick any other 3D Mario Kart and have a much better time.
 
Blindy

Blindy

Member
Nov 16, 2017
3,929
Smash-It Stan said:
CTR was an actual video game where you needed skill to survive. Others were baby's first kart game. Though CTR will never win any awards as mario karts multiplayer dominated every household back then.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
TT Trials are no joke! Post game DKR has a lot of frustrating silver coin challenge placements that also require you to finish 1st in the race despite going way off track to get these coins in a 3 lap race.
 
ghostcrew

ghostcrew

The Shrouded Ghost
Administrator
Oct 27, 2017
30,351
All three of these are fantastic. Picking a winner seems totally arbitrary.

Diddy Kong has the best campaign/single player. Mario Kart definitely has the best multiplayer (4 player, battle mode etc). Crash was the only non-Nintendo platform kart racer that even shone a light to Mario Kart in the 90s.
 

diondiondion

Member
Apr 2, 2020
67
Easily CTR in my opinion, however it came out later than both MK64 and DKR and was able to improve on aspects of both of them, while being more geared toward (single-)player engagement and less toward being as accessible as possible.
 
deep_dish

deep_dish

Member
Oct 25, 2017
941
The answer is the same as it was in 1997:
DKR for single player
MK64 for multiplayer

and if you only has PSX, CTR was pretty fun but nowhere close the N64 racers.
 
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