Diddy Kong Racing/YMMV

• Broken Base: The DS port. On one hand, it adds a ton of new content, like new tracks, new modes, new characters, new music, and even new fun doodads to mess with (like the Sound Recorder). On the other hand, the new quickstart is a Scrappy Mechanic, the hovercraft is much more difficult to control, Banjo and Conker are lost to the copyright gods, and trophy races and battle modes are no longer possible in single player. Fans are very divided.
• Crowning Moment of Awesome: The ending after you beat Wizpig the second time.
• Crowning Music of Awesome: The Intro theme in all of its glory.
  • Spaceport Alpha's theme is very awesome, which is good because you'll be playing the Silver Coin challenge quite a lot.
  • Darkmoon Caverns, one of the most infectious and varied pieces in the soundtrack. Doubles as the credits theme.
• Ensemble Darkhorse: Pipsy was used by most people, male or female, because she combined adorable characteristics with a simple and effective style for racing. Also Tiptup, who had slightly higher top speed and slightly lower acceleration and handling, and went on to cameo in Banjo-Kazooie (where, contrary to this game, he is considerably bigger than Banjo.)
• Excuse Plot
• Fridge Logic: Why does Taj the helpful genie have all the balloons you need to win the game (and withhold them from you until you win a race)? Wizpig stole them all.
• Game Breaker: If you unlock T.T., practically every race becomes a joke.
• It Was His Sled: There is a fifth world, Future Funland.
• Nightmare Fuel: This cutscene that plays when you go back out into the main hub area after collecting all the pieces of the Wizpig Amulet.
• Padding: One gets this feeling given that the single player mode requires you to, for each world, race on all the tracks, beat the boss, collect silver coins in each track, beat the boss again, and then face Wizpig when this has been done with all worlds. If you want the real ending, you need to enter a grand prix to win a trophy in each world, beat the bosses again, and rinse and repeat the initial and coin races in a new world before facing Wizpig one more time.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: The DS remake rescued Tiny Kong, as it introduced her older Ms. Fanservice redesign.
• That One Boss: Bubbler the octopus. And the second race against Wizpig himself.
  • Wizpig is somewhat excusable, given his role as the Final Boss. The second race against Tricky... argh.
    • Tricky's not too tough if you know where the shortcut in the mountain is.
  • Bubbler's second race is considered by many people to be the toughest race in the game, next to Wizpig's races on Adventure 2.
  • The first race against Wizpig is damn near IMPOSSIBLE unless you know what to do. You need to use the zipper trick (Let go of the gas before getting a boost) to beat it. Unfortunately it's quite possible for players to never to get this bit of info, since it only shows up randomly after bosses.
• That One Level: Many of the normal levels during the Silver Coin Challenge, but especially Greenwood Village.
  • This gets much worse in Future Fun Land, particularly Spaceport Alpha.
• That One Sidequest: Unlocking T.T. as a playable character requires beating his best time on every track. And he's good. In the original, this means unlocking the fifth and final world... In the remake, this means both unlocking the final world and buying all the tracks in the D.K. Jungle world. Of course, once you get T.T., you have no excuse for losing to anyone ever.
  • In the remake, getting all the balloons in the "Balloon Touch Challenge" can be frustrating for some courses. In fact, it is oftentimes the courses that are otherwise the easiest to race on where they are the hardest, since those courses are shorter and so there are more balloons in one area, forcing you to tap like mad to get them all before they pass by for good.
• Too Good to Last: 14 years, one game, one contested remake, and that's likely all we're ever going to get. Even worse is that on release it was widely considered to be better than Mario Kart 64, and the game ends on a blatant Sequel Hook for a game that will never come.