8th October 2021, 4:01 PM
(This post was last modified: 31st March 2022, 8:10 AM by Dark Jaguar.)
After two decades, I finally got the last of the big three cart racers on the N64 and the last Rareware N64 game I didn't own. Long ago, I recall a lively discussion on this game and questions on it's quality especially compared to the likes of Mario Kart 64 and Diddy Kong Racing.
Graphics: Visually, this game looks great, for an N64 game I mean. In fact, I'd say as far as graphical prowess, on a technical level it looks better than Diddy Kong Racing. This is to be expected, since it was such a late release. Rare knew how to really push the N64 by this point, and it shows. Mickey and the gang are nice and big and detailed and the animations are well done. The carts themselves show a lot of that "billboarding" technique that other cart racers on the system used, but that's no mark against it since the visual trick is done well. Beyond that, the house of Mouse are all lively, animated well and reacting to things happening around them. The animations of impact and item use are well done, and the details of the levels are nicely done too. The big criticism here is on an artistic level. I'll return to this later, but the decision to set this game in various US locations hurts the level of creativity they could have shown. The levels are just kind of dull and a bit too realistic. I'll give props to a few choices like turning the statue of Liberty into a mouse but otherwise they certainly could have done better. Mickey's Speedway Disneyland would have been far more interesting.
The game keeps a very solid 30FPS which keeps the racing smooth and responsive. F-Zero X managed 60FPS famously, and in that regard this one falls short but what it does manage it does well and the tradeoff in graphical fidelity may well have been worth it.
Sound: The music is fine- but hardly exceptional. Nothing is all that grating, but most of the tunes feel like they'd fit a platformer better than a racing game. There's just a lot of energy missing from a number of the tracks. A few of the tunes are memorable, and they're all competently done, but I can't even credit the composer because the game's very short list of credits omits the composer or simply doesn't put them in their own category. The sound effects are well done and have a good sense of impact or speed when needed, but then there's the voices. Let me be clear here. They used Disney's own voice talent, so every one of the characters are extremely well acted and the banter between them comes off entertaining. That's what I would say, except as we all know by now this was the start of a long era where constant "banter" was becoming an expectation in games. Mickey's Speedway is no exception. The banter is CONSTANT to such a degree that for the first cup, I could barely even hear the music. It's so bad I have a compliment to the game's option menu. You can turn off the character chatter without shutting off other sound effects. Do this. The game and the music become a lot more enjoyable without the voice samples. It's a shame. Had they just scaled things back a heck of a lot, we could have enjoyed the samples a lot more in the rare moments they did appear.
Controls: This is a Rare game, a Rare racing game, coming at the tail end of a pedigree that started with R.C. Pro Am on the NES. The controls are absolutely amazing and smooth like butter. Every single input you put in is reflected as you intend on screen. I'd even say the controls manage to beat out Mario Kart 64, but for one thing. There's no turbo boosts. Now, this doesn't kill the game at all, but sliding turbos as innovated by Mario Kart 64 added so much to the sub-genre that this is the only one since then I can think of that forgoes the convention. As a result, the skill cap is lower than it could be (nearer to Super Mario Kart than Diddy Kong Racing). You'll master this game quick, but then there's very little room to grow. To break it down, there's acceleration, braking, using an item, and the "power slide" button (no hop).
Gameplay: Everything you need is here, but nothing more. There's multiple cups adding up to a standard number of tracks. There's a time trial mode complete with developer ghosts and racing your own ghosts. There's a battle mode complete with CPU opponents (something I don't think I've ever even seen outside Mickey's Speedway), and there's solid 4 player multiplayer besides.
Much like Diddy Kong Racing, the items are the standard set lifted straight from R.C. Pro Am. You've got oil slicks, missiles, nitro boosts, and a shield to temporarily protect yourself. Beyond that, there's additional items inspired by the things Mario Kart brought to the table, like a homing missile (remote control car) and an invincibility powerup that also makes you more responsive and powerful for a limited time. Like Super Mario Kart and Diddy Kong Racing (but unlike Mario Kart 64) the track is littered with a golden collectible (in this case medals instead of coins or bananas) that boosts your max speed by a small amount for the duration of the race for each one you snag (maximum of 20).
Tracks are relatively straightforward, but again come off as a little dull visually with very few gimics. There's a few shortcuts, and enough twists turns and obstacles to allow you to plan an ideal route that shaves the most time off. Beyond that, nothing that stands out. None of them are designed for different vehicles, because there are only carts in this one. They didn't provide the variety of Diddy Kong Racing.
The game is incredibly easy at low difficulty, but quickly scales up becoming that special breed of "Rare Hard" at the highest level. Without drift boosts, you'll really need to learn every last aspect of each track to win by that point. It's challenge is "mostly fair", but it does use AI rubberbanding like many racing games do. An understandable necessity, or the game wouldn't be challenging at all.
Completion: This game is a lot closer to Mario Kart 64 in terms of completion and unlockables than to Diddy Kong Racing. That said, there's a few things of note. Firstly, while the game doesn't track your "end score", completing every track in first place on a cup grants you a rainbow trophy over and above the standard gold. Full completion means getting first in every race in every cup. This becomes especially challenging at higher difficulties. There are also a few simple unlockables. They're all done by completing cups, and include a few unlocked characters and cheats (the cheat codes are standard Rareware classics like "Rainbow goo"). One character in particular is locked behind the transfer pak. This is that "DLC unlock" stuff that frustrated back then. While Perfect Dark gave you in-game ways to unlock everything, there is no way to unlock one of the three duck nephews without linking up the GBC version of the game. To date, the only game that used the transfer pak as more than a way to "gate" content behind an additional purchase were the Pokemon Stadium games. That still remains the sole good use of the accessory.
Story: The Weasels dognapped Pluto for his diamond collar and e-mailed Mickey and the gang bragging about it. Mickey gets his scientist goose friend to lend him and his friends carts so they can follow the clues and rescue Pluto. So... the plot makes no sense. Not since Mr. Burns kidnapped maggie just to get the diamond she was sucking on (in the Simpsons Arcade Game) has a villain been so pointlessly evil. Just take the collar/pacifier and go! Why add the extra headache of dealing with a dog/baby on top of it? What's worse is this plot does a terrible job of setting up a reason of any sort to actually race. Just- get where you're going then hop out and grab those weasels. Why are you racing each other? On tracks that just go in a circle? There are so many well established tropes to get this thing underway. Aliens invade and threaten the earth into a racing competition because they're THAT obsessed with sport. Races are magically tied to ancient powers in whatever strange location you're in and that's how you defeat some evil wizard. Everyone just felt like racing and even the bad guys want to win out of pride. Literally any of those do the job just fine, because racing games don't need a plot! In short, there's really no point at all because this game doesn't have a full on single player campaign like Diddy Kong Racing or Crash Team Racing. It's just a set of cups with no connective hub world, so why even bother with a story? You don't even get to race the Weasels.
So that leads to the final verdict on this one. Mario Kart 64 was and still is an amazing kart racer, and as far as multiplayer is concerned it still is the best on the N64. However, for single player Diddy Kong Racing set an entirely new bar that Nintendo STILL hasn't matched with their own series since then. Diddy Kong Racing had three completely different vehicle types and tracks that were specialized for all three, but usable with all three types anyway! It had bosses, unique creative challenges like coin hunts, all kinds of unlockable cheat codes, and a truly incredible and addictive sound track to match all of that. Both it and Mickey's Speedway are impossibly adorable and- (to use a term I haven't heard since the late 90's/early 2000's) "kiddy", and they make that work for them well, but Mickey had the misfortune of coming years after Diddy Kong Racing, and thus it sadly lives in it's shadow, and heck back on Playstation we had Crash Team Racing which took everything Diddy Kong Racing added to the genre and expanded on it even more, with a unique boost mechanic that still feels amazing to this day with it's recent remaster (available on Switch if you please).
Here's the thing, it's entirely understandable. Diddy Kong Racing and Crash Team Racing were both made by much larger teams than Mickey's Speedway USA. It's a common phrase these days (especially talking about Dark Souls development), but this is a distinctly "B Team" endeavor. I hate that term (and in Rare's case it's not even fully accurate, since they actually had more than two projects going at any one time), but what else do you call a team that's intentionally limited in scope and spending making use of talent that weren't exactly Rare's "rockstars" (another term I hate). Fact is, this was the team normally relegated to Rare's Gameboy offerings at the time, and this was their fist shot at an N64 title. Considering how much more work goes into developing a 3D game than a 2D one- especially in the art department- that they managed to churn out such a beautiful looking game that also played so well is a testament to their skills. Maybe if they'd been given a bigger team and a bigger budget (and more time), we really could have seen what they could do. As it stands, I can say this. If Diddy Kong Racing didn't exist, or if this game had come out first, it would have been much better received than it was. It isn't a bad game. It's a good one that deserves to be counted, but it forever lives in the shadow of Rare's earlier masterpiece and the likes of Crash Team Racing. It just can't stand up to it when compared. It was also marred by a few bad decisions, like not including power slide boosts and the odd decision to make the tracks a tour of America rather than of the Disney-verse (if I want to race across America on my N64, I have Cruis'n USA).
Do I recommend it? I do with that caveat. If you really want to see all that Rare had to offer, it's still a very well done game. Approach it the same way you would any of Rare's portable renditions of their properties from the time and I think you'll enjoy it. Just don't expect it to outshine Rare's eternally wonderful Diddy Kong Racing.
Graphics: Visually, this game looks great, for an N64 game I mean. In fact, I'd say as far as graphical prowess, on a technical level it looks better than Diddy Kong Racing. This is to be expected, since it was such a late release. Rare knew how to really push the N64 by this point, and it shows. Mickey and the gang are nice and big and detailed and the animations are well done. The carts themselves show a lot of that "billboarding" technique that other cart racers on the system used, but that's no mark against it since the visual trick is done well. Beyond that, the house of Mouse are all lively, animated well and reacting to things happening around them. The animations of impact and item use are well done, and the details of the levels are nicely done too. The big criticism here is on an artistic level. I'll return to this later, but the decision to set this game in various US locations hurts the level of creativity they could have shown. The levels are just kind of dull and a bit too realistic. I'll give props to a few choices like turning the statue of Liberty into a mouse but otherwise they certainly could have done better. Mickey's Speedway Disneyland would have been far more interesting.
The game keeps a very solid 30FPS which keeps the racing smooth and responsive. F-Zero X managed 60FPS famously, and in that regard this one falls short but what it does manage it does well and the tradeoff in graphical fidelity may well have been worth it.
Sound: The music is fine- but hardly exceptional. Nothing is all that grating, but most of the tunes feel like they'd fit a platformer better than a racing game. There's just a lot of energy missing from a number of the tracks. A few of the tunes are memorable, and they're all competently done, but I can't even credit the composer because the game's very short list of credits omits the composer or simply doesn't put them in their own category. The sound effects are well done and have a good sense of impact or speed when needed, but then there's the voices. Let me be clear here. They used Disney's own voice talent, so every one of the characters are extremely well acted and the banter between them comes off entertaining. That's what I would say, except as we all know by now this was the start of a long era where constant "banter" was becoming an expectation in games. Mickey's Speedway is no exception. The banter is CONSTANT to such a degree that for the first cup, I could barely even hear the music. It's so bad I have a compliment to the game's option menu. You can turn off the character chatter without shutting off other sound effects. Do this. The game and the music become a lot more enjoyable without the voice samples. It's a shame. Had they just scaled things back a heck of a lot, we could have enjoyed the samples a lot more in the rare moments they did appear.
Controls: This is a Rare game, a Rare racing game, coming at the tail end of a pedigree that started with R.C. Pro Am on the NES. The controls are absolutely amazing and smooth like butter. Every single input you put in is reflected as you intend on screen. I'd even say the controls manage to beat out Mario Kart 64, but for one thing. There's no turbo boosts. Now, this doesn't kill the game at all, but sliding turbos as innovated by Mario Kart 64 added so much to the sub-genre that this is the only one since then I can think of that forgoes the convention. As a result, the skill cap is lower than it could be (nearer to Super Mario Kart than Diddy Kong Racing). You'll master this game quick, but then there's very little room to grow. To break it down, there's acceleration, braking, using an item, and the "power slide" button (no hop).
Gameplay: Everything you need is here, but nothing more. There's multiple cups adding up to a standard number of tracks. There's a time trial mode complete with developer ghosts and racing your own ghosts. There's a battle mode complete with CPU opponents (something I don't think I've ever even seen outside Mickey's Speedway), and there's solid 4 player multiplayer besides.
Much like Diddy Kong Racing, the items are the standard set lifted straight from R.C. Pro Am. You've got oil slicks, missiles, nitro boosts, and a shield to temporarily protect yourself. Beyond that, there's additional items inspired by the things Mario Kart brought to the table, like a homing missile (remote control car) and an invincibility powerup that also makes you more responsive and powerful for a limited time. Like Super Mario Kart and Diddy Kong Racing (but unlike Mario Kart 64) the track is littered with a golden collectible (in this case medals instead of coins or bananas) that boosts your max speed by a small amount for the duration of the race for each one you snag (maximum of 20).
Tracks are relatively straightforward, but again come off as a little dull visually with very few gimics. There's a few shortcuts, and enough twists turns and obstacles to allow you to plan an ideal route that shaves the most time off. Beyond that, nothing that stands out. None of them are designed for different vehicles, because there are only carts in this one. They didn't provide the variety of Diddy Kong Racing.
The game is incredibly easy at low difficulty, but quickly scales up becoming that special breed of "Rare Hard" at the highest level. Without drift boosts, you'll really need to learn every last aspect of each track to win by that point. It's challenge is "mostly fair", but it does use AI rubberbanding like many racing games do. An understandable necessity, or the game wouldn't be challenging at all.
Completion: This game is a lot closer to Mario Kart 64 in terms of completion and unlockables than to Diddy Kong Racing. That said, there's a few things of note. Firstly, while the game doesn't track your "end score", completing every track in first place on a cup grants you a rainbow trophy over and above the standard gold. Full completion means getting first in every race in every cup. This becomes especially challenging at higher difficulties. There are also a few simple unlockables. They're all done by completing cups, and include a few unlocked characters and cheats (the cheat codes are standard Rareware classics like "Rainbow goo"). One character in particular is locked behind the transfer pak. This is that "DLC unlock" stuff that frustrated back then. While Perfect Dark gave you in-game ways to unlock everything, there is no way to unlock one of the three duck nephews without linking up the GBC version of the game. To date, the only game that used the transfer pak as more than a way to "gate" content behind an additional purchase were the Pokemon Stadium games. That still remains the sole good use of the accessory.
Story: The Weasels dognapped Pluto for his diamond collar and e-mailed Mickey and the gang bragging about it. Mickey gets his scientist goose friend to lend him and his friends carts so they can follow the clues and rescue Pluto. So... the plot makes no sense. Not since Mr. Burns kidnapped maggie just to get the diamond she was sucking on (in the Simpsons Arcade Game) has a villain been so pointlessly evil. Just take the collar/pacifier and go! Why add the extra headache of dealing with a dog/baby on top of it? What's worse is this plot does a terrible job of setting up a reason of any sort to actually race. Just- get where you're going then hop out and grab those weasels. Why are you racing each other? On tracks that just go in a circle? There are so many well established tropes to get this thing underway. Aliens invade and threaten the earth into a racing competition because they're THAT obsessed with sport. Races are magically tied to ancient powers in whatever strange location you're in and that's how you defeat some evil wizard. Everyone just felt like racing and even the bad guys want to win out of pride. Literally any of those do the job just fine, because racing games don't need a plot! In short, there's really no point at all because this game doesn't have a full on single player campaign like Diddy Kong Racing or Crash Team Racing. It's just a set of cups with no connective hub world, so why even bother with a story? You don't even get to race the Weasels.
So that leads to the final verdict on this one. Mario Kart 64 was and still is an amazing kart racer, and as far as multiplayer is concerned it still is the best on the N64. However, for single player Diddy Kong Racing set an entirely new bar that Nintendo STILL hasn't matched with their own series since then. Diddy Kong Racing had three completely different vehicle types and tracks that were specialized for all three, but usable with all three types anyway! It had bosses, unique creative challenges like coin hunts, all kinds of unlockable cheat codes, and a truly incredible and addictive sound track to match all of that. Both it and Mickey's Speedway are impossibly adorable and- (to use a term I haven't heard since the late 90's/early 2000's) "kiddy", and they make that work for them well, but Mickey had the misfortune of coming years after Diddy Kong Racing, and thus it sadly lives in it's shadow, and heck back on Playstation we had Crash Team Racing which took everything Diddy Kong Racing added to the genre and expanded on it even more, with a unique boost mechanic that still feels amazing to this day with it's recent remaster (available on Switch if you please).
Here's the thing, it's entirely understandable. Diddy Kong Racing and Crash Team Racing were both made by much larger teams than Mickey's Speedway USA. It's a common phrase these days (especially talking about Dark Souls development), but this is a distinctly "B Team" endeavor. I hate that term (and in Rare's case it's not even fully accurate, since they actually had more than two projects going at any one time), but what else do you call a team that's intentionally limited in scope and spending making use of talent that weren't exactly Rare's "rockstars" (another term I hate). Fact is, this was the team normally relegated to Rare's Gameboy offerings at the time, and this was their fist shot at an N64 title. Considering how much more work goes into developing a 3D game than a 2D one- especially in the art department- that they managed to churn out such a beautiful looking game that also played so well is a testament to their skills. Maybe if they'd been given a bigger team and a bigger budget (and more time), we really could have seen what they could do. As it stands, I can say this. If Diddy Kong Racing didn't exist, or if this game had come out first, it would have been much better received than it was. It isn't a bad game. It's a good one that deserves to be counted, but it forever lives in the shadow of Rare's earlier masterpiece and the likes of Crash Team Racing. It just can't stand up to it when compared. It was also marred by a few bad decisions, like not including power slide boosts and the odd decision to make the tracks a tour of America rather than of the Disney-verse (if I want to race across America on my N64, I have Cruis'n USA).
Do I recommend it? I do with that caveat. If you really want to see all that Rare had to offer, it's still a very well done game. Approach it the same way you would any of Rare's portable renditions of their properties from the time and I think you'll enjoy it. Just don't expect it to outshine Rare's eternally wonderful Diddy Kong Racing.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)