Diddy Kong Racing's Krunch -- Designing For Frustration

Diddy Kong Racing is just fantastic across the board. Also Krunch is here. While I love the character on the basis of being a Kremling, Krunch is almost tragically shafted by not just his base mechanics, but by Diddy Kong Racing’s design as a whole. A combination of pacing, track design, and his strengths simply not coming together until it’s FAR too late make him one of the most endearingly outclassed and frustrating characters to play in any racer.
Donkey Kong December Playlist: • Designing For: Donkey ...
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Patreon: / designingfor
Twitter: / designing4games
Discord: / discord
Director/Writer/Voice Over/Footage: Tommy Eyler/Pyrrhickong ( / pyrrhickong )
Video Editing/Additional Direction/Script Editing: AuthorMan ( / authorman )
Intro Animation By: / @tarvouldsquest
Intro Theme By: / tracks

[@----x-----]

As a dumb child I didn't realize different racers had different stats and I just picked him because I liked crocodiles, no wonder I found the game so difficult

[@jacklansdale77]

I'm 22 and I would do this, initially out of the same ignorance but after catching on... Spite.

[@ispitinyourface]

I beat the game with Krunch - if you can master his handling, he's a beast. Get Good.

[@Zytharros]

I once played with someone who had mastered Krunch. They were completely unstoppable.

[@Delcat42]

This makes me happy actually, go them

[@CesarTorres61296]

Could they beat all of T.T's Times as Krunch?

[@Zytharros]

@@CesarTorres61296 They had it figured out. I still can't calculate how they did it, but they did. That said, when they STOPPED playing Krunch, it was like watching someone level up FROM that. GEEZ.

[@CesarTorres61296]

@@Zytharros Yeah T.T and Drumstick straight up outclass Krunch.

[@TheAngriestReptileAlive]

He was me

[@LiberalSquared]

When I was a kid, I didn't realize that all of the racers had different stats, so I mostly picked Krunch because I think he looks cool. This could all be fixed and make him interesting if his speed was a 5, and maybe if one of his other stats was 1.5 instead of 1.

[@CysmaWinheim]

If you went with a system of distributing 9 points across 3 stats on a 1-5 scale, you'd have 19 possible configurations even if you ignored the 0.5 increments. DKR's roster could be doubled and they'd still all play differently. It would just be a matter of whether top speed, acceleration, and handling were all equally important.

[@Bladieblah]

@@CysmaWinheim Top Speed is much more important, Drumstick was clearly better than the rest of the cast but has 3 points less in turning/acceleration and only 1-1.5 more points in top speed. The mouse has 5/5 acceleration/turning but 1 in top speed so a lot of stats but doesn't stand out particularly

[@LolTac0Bell]

This was exactly me as a kid. I picked him and Banjo with no concept of there being stats in the characters lol

[@ComradeQuagsire]

I don't know what's worse, when games like this don't display any character stats or when they're just flat out wrong like CTR's stats

[@gameplayxtreme3389]

Do I spot the Horizons logo?

[@itzpeanut9904]

i think you understated the power the npcs can get if they pick krunch. when a krunch bot gets going, *they get going*

[@fleshdadbot6852]

Huh?

[@itzpeanut9904]

@@fleshdadbot6852 the segment around 10:36 is where it's brought up but brushed aside in a few seconds. but boy let me tell you, they stopped a *ton* of my silver coin challenges

[@Mister_Clean]

That 4/5 speed paired with rubber banding is truly terrifying

[@robs1052]

@@Mister_Clean what rubber banding?

[@solidzack]

@@robs1052 rubberbanding means if the npcs get left behind they get a speed boost to catch up (sometimes even teleport and ignore collisions) like there was a rubber band strapped between you and them so they're always closer to you. It's a thing most racers do/did when designing AIs and some games went crazy with it like Mario Kart 64

[@Delcat42]

Nintendo Power defined Krunch's handling as "a buttered snake on ice". I have never forgotten that, and am adding "glacier of molasses with training weights on heading uphill". It brings a tear to the eye 8( Thanks for shouting this back to my eight year old self, who gave up and mained Pipsy

[@drachenzahne9262]

You should read what Prima's guide said about him: "If you really want to be cruel to your friends, invite them over for some Diddy Kong after you’ve convinced them Krunch can be properly controlled by anything but the N64 itself. It can’t be done. OK, maybe after a few years of intensive training, but why would you want to put yourself through that? Krunch handles as if his vehicle has some kind of grim mechanical difficulty. Of course, the computer has no problem whipping him through a hairpin turn, but you’ll have no such luck. You’ve been warned."

[@Delcat42]

@@drachenzahne9262 Oh my God, how many gaming mags/player's guides just went "we disavow" on this poor Kremling

[@CarelessFoolFallsFlat]

"He is _designed_ to make you want him to lose!" Considering what Krunch is, that's accidentally kind of clever. I mean, it's frustrating if you want to win as as the cool crocodile, but it's funny that things shook out that way!

[@MoMoeMoais]

Yeah, even when he's playable the Kremling is really designed for the CPU to beat you with or as an obstacle to overcome

[@fgfhjfhjfbhfghf5771]

Cool motive, still bad design

[@chompythebeast]

@@fgfhjfhjfbhfghf5771 If a game can have broken characters like TT, I think it's cool that it can have broken characters like Krunch. I just remember nobody ever wanting to play him, but now I'm thinking he might make a good challenge run

[@robs1052]

@@chompythebeast I was just thinking of that, I'm going to get my wife to give this game a try with me, I don't want her to get frustrated as she grew up with Mario Kart and I grew up with DKR so this seems like a (hopefully) fun challenge.

[@Kurayamiblack]

They want you to have the full "Gineric Grunt Enemy" experience. Complete with getting bodied by anything that touches you 😁

[@SIFAssassin]

I remember that when I was a kid my friends would always play Diddy Kong Racing and talk about how fun it was, but I didn't like it much thinking the controls were bad. Years later I find out that it's not that the game or controls were bad, I was just always using Krunch.

[@renakunisaki]

I've had similar experiences, discovering that a level that I thought was unreasonably hard is actually fine when you aren't dealing with severe input/display lag or a controller that's so worn out you wonder how it still works at all. Then there's the fun cases where you thought this level is just impossible, only to discover that yes, it was, because you ran into a rare glitch...

[@harrydavey9884]

That's hilarious. I played Krunch once and never again.

[@Larry]

Fun Fact: Krunch was originally called Krash during the game's development, Rare changed it at the last moment. Strangely it wasn't because of Crash Bandicoot either, as there was a Kremling called Krash in the series long before.

[@NewGothOnTheBlock]

Hello you!! 😄

[@indigofenix00]

The funny thing is that when Krunch was controlled by the AI he was almost ALWAYS in the lead. I guess computer-controlled characters get to cheat their steering (as was standard for the time) so unless he got shot or tripped up by a trap he would generally pull ahead by the end of the race.

[@speedyme200]

Rubberband AI

[@kingstarscream320]

@@speedyme200 DKR didn’t have it

[@renakunisaki]

Yeah they didn't really rubber band but they definitely were, for the most part, just following a path and not doing real physics, so they wouldn't have the same difficulty.

[@Eddie_Enfer]

Isn't that everytime you boot the game or visit a location of the island the lead CPU changes?

[@xaviermcknight1510]

Didn't notice this, I was never behind the CPUs 😂

[@GabrielTheMagolorMain]

I swear T.T. deserves his own episode. It's wild how broken he is.

[@SECONDQUEST]

Yess!

[@wildjiggaboo1]

And with good reason. After beating the ghost records for all the tracks, you better get something worth your time.

[@Mitjitsu]

It was a challenge to unlock him so he needed to be broken beyond belief. Albeit Tipsy/Tiptup are still better picks in battle mode.

[@rabbyd542]

I remember the hell of getting TT.

[@TrialzGTAS]

I deserved TT so he better be fast

[@innoc4063]

You gotta play the best DKR of your life if you want to make Krunch work. You cannot rely on regular turning as it reduces your speed, so you need to master drifting to remain in Krunch's slim advantage state of higher top speed. In combination with drifting, you need to make ample use of the brakes to avoid losing all of your speed. Other members of the cast may never need to brake or even drift because their handling and acceleration makes mistakes forgiving or downright negligible. I dusted off the N64 recently and chose to only use Krunch so I could challenge myself. Even with my past experience and grown up knowledge, the run was still a nightmare at times.

[@shadeknight6537]

You wanna know the saddest thing about Krunch? The DKR TAS, the run that uses computers to create exact input and play the game essentially frame-by-frame to create the perfect speedrun, doesn't even use Krunch despite using a fresh file. It uses Banjo instead.

[@skibot9974]

Any reason why

[@shadeknight6537]

@@skibot9974 Handling is probably so poor that Krunch just can't take optimal driving lines, so they have to go for Banjo instead.

[@Altimos]

Drumstick is unlocked BEFORE beating Wizpig for the first time, not after.

[@luigideathstare110]

Yeah you have to complete all the trophy challenges in the first four worlds to unlock him.

[@wildjiggaboo1]

I never knew Banjo's stats were basically the same as the midweights in the game. Makes a whole lot of sense now that he handled so much better than Crunch.

[@lordziz]

I love thinking that all of this was done completely on purpose by the devs just to punish Krunch on account of him being a Kremling.

[@tylerlaunius7396]

It's honestly pretty likely that this was the case, going by how cheeky Rare liked to be with their games. I still wish he was better, though.

[@MRMADASSASSINx]

My brother used to always pick Krunch when we were little. But did nothing to accommodate for his disadvantages. So instead of getting better at the game, or picking another racer. He simply demanded I let him win.

[@TheBeggies95]

Big brain

[@TarvouldsQuest]

This video was successful cause watching Krunch try and turn was a nonstop bombardment of frustration that made that one spot in my head get hot.

[@Rihcterwilker]

God, how i miss the rareware old style. Wish old rare would come back one day, with the simple but remarkable designs, cozy environments and quirky characters.

[@cattysplat]

It's gone and it's not coming back. Like your childhood.

[@Rihcterwilker]

@@cattysplat no, you. Got'em!

[@harrydavey9884]

Yeah, they really fell off after the Microsoft Acquisition. I remember trying that Kameo game and just having no idea what the point was.

[@harrydavey9884]

​@@RihcterwilkerYou served his ass!

[@eishikibahamut]

crunch is really good for the walrus race since its basically a straight away. He's also pretty good for the octopus race as well.

[@elephantmarch]

As a kid I recall this yes. Krunch needed higher top speed, OR the game needed to add more straightaways so he had more chance to catch up.

[@BBWahoo]

9:03 THE MAN, THE MYTH T H E C O C K

[@Lic.Mazapan]

There should be a dkr speedrun category with krunch, it would be interesting

[@frogcap283]

Glitchless tho

[@spindash64]

I think they could have made Krunch a fun but still balanced character by upping acceleration AND speed slightly, and making Drumstick having better handling with worse acceleration. Basically, Krunch takes off like a missile and constantly slams into things, while Drumstick would demand perfect control while offering perfect control

[@drachenzahne9262]

holy shit, i had that exact same idea lol

[@aprinnyonbreak1290]

Agree. Though, iirc, Diddy King Racing DS had Wizpig's stats something like that. Maxed speed, decent acceleration, handling best described as theoretical. They actually did a really good job of tuning Dixie, Krunch, Drumstick, and Wizpig in DS, with Krunch funnily being the most balanced of the heavyweights.

[@DanHoger]

This is Diddy's game and Kremings are enemies of the Kongs, so it makes sense that the game is rigged against Krunch.

[@StevenVillman]

...and that just makes whoever made the decision to make Krunch virtually unplayable in _Diddy Kong Racing_ (the Nintendo 64 version) at Nintendo and Rare *_RACIST/SPECIES-IST BASTARDS_* towards reptiles - specifically crocodilians - and I really, *_really_* don't like it!!! I mean - even Bowser and his Koopa minions are treated with better respect in Mario Kart video games than Krunch is in _Diddy Kong Racing._ 😡😡😡👎👎👎

[@Freezer94]

In the DS version you can unlock Drumstick at the beginning of the game so it's even more insulting.

[@random11]

it was not just the DS version. You dont have to beat wizpig in the n64 version either.

[@harrydavey9884]

​@@random11you don't? How do you do it then? Because for me the Red feather frog only appeared around that time in the game and I must've completed Diddy Kong Racing 30-50 times.

[@k.pliskin3214]

@@harrydavey9884 get gold in all the trophy races

[@escopeto7849]

@@harrydavey9884 Iirc the red combed frog appears after completing the T.T. amulet, which can positively happen before confronting Wizpig.

[@harrydavey9884]

@@escopeto7849 oooh I never knew that. That's cool

[@mauroperez2848]

Krunch always felt weird to control when I was kid attempting to play him. I thought that he was a case of high risk, high reward, but he was simply outclassed in every conceivable way. Not only are there secret characters that are better at what Krunch does (Drumstick and T.T.), there already exists a character in the base roster who is a better heavyweight racer in Banjo. I would argue that attempting to clear the adventure mode using only Krunch is a challenge run in its own right.

[@firstnamelastnamesb]

TT isn't really a direct upgrade over Krunch in the same manner Drumstick is, because TT is a Middleweight (whereas Drumstick is a Heavy). I mean, you could argue TT is an upgrade over everyone since his stats are almost maxed out, but Drumstick is really the one that makes Krunch the most obsolete, since he's literally just a better version of Krunch.

[@mauroperez2848]

​@@firstnamelastnamesb I didn't know that T.T was a middleweight. When it comes directly comparing the heavyweights, Drumstick is basically a better Krunch like you said. Banjo is the better heavyweight racer in the starting roster due to having better acceleration and handling by 1 point. The .5 difference in top speed between Banjo and Krunch really doesn't matter since Banjo has the better advantages that help him overall.

[@Bladieblah]

@@firstnamelastnamesb Yeah TT clearly outclasses the entire cast including Drumstick, being a heavy or not isn't that important, it's funny Drumstick outclasses him in everything though

[@DrCorndog1]

This is exactly the sort of overanalysis of video game minutiae that I'd spend 30 minutes doing in my head for my own amusement.

[@rexrabbiteer]

This was likely intentional. Rare was notorious for trolling. They literally made a game *mr pants* as a joke to see if they could get it to be released and they managed

[@tempporary9914]

Correction: Drumstick is obtainable after unlocking the first Wizpig race. You don't have to beat Wizpig the first time to unlock him.

[@skakirask]

Can confirm, I used him to beat wizpig the first time

[@luigideathstare110]

Yeah. You just have to complete the Trophy Challenge in each world to unlock him. Which you would have to do the Trophy Challenges anyway to unlock Future Funland!

[@MrIntoxicatedMonkey]

I haven't played this game in 10+ years and have never even used any character outside of the little mouse, but i just watched your entire video and loved it. 100% this game was a stupid amount of dopamine, I still have trace amounts left in my brain.

[@JanusHoW]

A little quirk with the hovercraft - it's _easier_ to control it with a heavy character than with a light one. That's why he's much better in it - though generally I chose Banjo in those situations. For everything else, I used Pipsy or Tiptup.

[@aprinnyonbreak1290]

Yeah, heavyweights excel in hovercrafts in terms of handling and, I dunno, "feel", but Krunch's acceleration is actually even more problematic in a hovercraft, where Banjo has enough to get moving again relatively painlessly.

[@BardicLasher]

The line about a game being mean to a character made me think of Chikorita, one of the starters of Pokemon Gold/Silver. By all accounts, Chikorita is mechanically just as good as Totodile or Cyndaquil, the other options, but because of the way the actual challenges in Gold and Silver are set up, a significant majority of important battles have type advantage over Chikorita, giving it significant issues any time the battle actually counts. While Red and Blue were type balanced around the three starters each shining at different points in the game, Gold and Silver's challenges were specifically set up to just be different than the ones in Red and Blue, which results in Chikorita making the game far, far harder if you choose it, while Cyndaquil winds up with far more favorable matchups than unfavorable ones. In fact, the only unfavorable important matches for Cyndaquil are the Dragons that are ALSO unfavorable to Chikorita. As a specific example, the rival, who you fight the most in the game, has five Pokemon strong against Chikorita and nothing weak to it, while he has one only Pokemon strong against Cyndaquil and two weak to it. Totodile gets it more middling with two strong to Totodile but none weak against it.

[@neptuniamarina4924]

In the remakes, The Chikorita line i good against every Gym Johto Leader Ace past Bugsy besides Morty and is surprisely tanky in Kanto

[@CoralCopperHead]

She got a new lease on life in GO, if you don't hate it. Meganium is a huge part of the lower-level PvP meta.

[@BardicLasher]

@@neptuniamarina4924 In what way is it good against Miltank or Kindra? Also, Kanto's mostly a joke. Only Blue and Red are stronger than the Elite Four.

[@FelisImpurrator]

To be fair, Meganium is the cutest, so that's the price you pay, I guess.

[@GenesisSonicN64Mario]

Lol I was aware of this when I was younger watching my older siblings play, but we didn't know we could catch a different pokemon to learn cut so we only got past gym 2 area with Chikorita, and had basically all of the aforementioned problems. Thanks to playing through almost all of Johto with the Chikorita line, I actually have a bias toward it, though I also like the Totodile and Cyndaquill line

[@TomFawkes]

A slogan for my playthrough of this game was "Winners Don't Use Krunch."

[@blackbloom8552]

Dont know if there already a character in the game fulfilling that niche but a character with bad handling but good acceleration that constantly has to stop and slow down to get through the courses did sound kind of neat.

[@DesigningFor]

This is KIND OF what the acceleration style is in Crash Team Racing, albeit that game generally features worse handling outside of its turn-based characters and maintaining speed is a lot more important and flexible in it. But at a starting level, N. Gin and Coco would fulfill that niche for beginners, probably!

[@DrPumpkinz]

Sounds like the Swerve Star in Kirby Air Ride.

[@blackbloom8552]

@@DrPumpkinz yeah i think i remember that one. One of the fastest in the game but the player had to briefly coem to a stop whenever they needed to adjust or turn?

[@DrPumpkinz]

@@blackbloom8552 Yup

[@gabrielcamiloanunciatodeol2566]

@@DesigningFor what are u talking about, ngin and coco have the best handling

[@smashers6971]

Banjo’s my favorite for obvious reasons, I still think it’s pretty interesting that Bad fur day basically made an alternate version of the DKR and Pocket tales Conker, no seriously their backstories are totally different.

[@ZergSmasher]

Using Krunch is actually a nice way to play the game on hard mode. I never did try beating the full adventure mode on Adventure Two, with the Ultimate AI cheat enabled, using Krunch. That would probably be the hardest way to experience the game.

[@Gruntilda-Winkybunion]

I just finished DKR yesterday for my xxx time, i love this game with such a passion and the older i get the more i love to pick Krunch! I love him as a character anyway, but choosing him is such a nice challenge and when you collect 10 bananas with him he is unbeatable! The first wizpig race is almost impossible with him! You should try it!

[@rezthemediaruler3768]

I am with you Grunty! It is really rewarding to manage a Playthrough with Krunch! Greetings from Germany and Merry Christmas^^

[@silverwolfgamer4100]

In the words of Tom Fawkes, ‘Winners don’t use Krunch’

[@vanesslifeygo]

I played Diddy Kong Racing DS. I thought the camera was the worst to exist in any game ever until I realized you can make it to the camera is not always pointing to your left or behind you.

[@tropicalbreeze1164]

I 'm starting to think that Krunch was a joke character on purpose I mean, it is DIDDY KONG Racing and the only other DK character they put in here was Crunch, first to see on the selection screen, right next to DIddy. I think they wanted an enemy of Diddy in the game, but made into an old style 90's bully character: Big, tough looking, smack talker, but pretty incompetent in every way

[@Princess_Leaf]

With a friend, in order to still have some challenge doing this game, we used the coop adventure cheatcode alongside the one that allows you to pick the same character, and we both played as Krunch. That was freaking hard xD But to be fair, the hardest vehicule for Krunch is by far the car, he's actually very decent for hover and plane, and I even find the heaviest characters easier to pick up for Hover than light ones ^^

[@X2011racer]

So N64 Krunch originally had Taj and Wizpig's stats from the DS version (5 Speed, 1 Handling, 1 Acceleration). They "fixed" him by giving him Bumper's stats in the DS version. In fact, you should cover everyone's stat changes from N64 to DS, and why the Balancing between characters felt off, especially when Dixie and Tiny inherited Diddy's stats instead of those of the characters they replaced.

[@firstnamelastnamesb]

No, N64 Krunch didn't even have 5 speed.

[@EWOODJ]

The stats in the DS version are a lie anyway.

[@graveyardsmash2711]

For some reason, the stats in the DS version are fabricated/inaccurate to what they actually are. They listed Pipsy and Tiptup as identical when they really weren't.

[@thejedisonic67]

@@EWOODJ so like CTR with the engines?

[@El_Omar2203]

@@graveyardsmash2711 If I remember correctly, something similar happens in Crash Team Racing and its remake, Aceleration type racers are supposed to have mediocre speed below All-around racers and is shown on the menu screen as such, but internally, Aceleratiok have the same speed as All-around.

[@GameAW1]

You might have convinced me to do a Krunch only DKR Adventure mode run just to throw this man a bone.

[@xaviermcknight1510]

+ Adventure 2 + TIMETOLOSE AI

[@StevenVillman]

*@GameAW* #JusticeForKrunch #ShowKrunchSomeLove

[@MarMaxGaming]

You’re gonna have a dog shit time lol sounds horrible

[@PenguNL]

I always pick Krunch! Hes pretty great, untill I unlock Drumstick ofc. The frog appears when you open the first Wizpig race btw, you can unlock Drumstick before beating him.

[@EWOODJ]

That’s what I did. Of course, you also need to obtain the gold on all the trophy races as well. I used Drumstick to beat Wizpig for the first.

[@2l84me8]

As a kid, I always avoided Krunch because of how he handled.

[@GlowingOrangeOoze]

I was a Tiptup main and one day happened to try Krunch, and I smashed record after record in time trial mode. This threw me into a character crisis which felt very serious at that age. Eventually I would end up going back to Tiptup anyway after failing to make Krunch work in the chaos of real races.

[@blackheartzerotheundergrou3225]

That's yet another nail in the poor Krok's coffin. he's a record-breaking *_beast_* of a racer! ... _but only in situations where there are no other racers on the track to get in his way._

[@krazoasamson9914]

How to make Diddy Kong Racing turn into Dark Souls Racing: Turn on the Cheats: TIMETOLOSE BOGUSBANANAS Play as Krunch and use him to Complete Adventure 2. Also, great video D4! I love your Donkey Kong December videos and I look forward to the rest of it!

[@_SereneMango]

And I thought I was already a masochist by doing all that minus the BOGUSBANANAS code lmfao coin challenge on the hovercraft tracks already feels seemingly impossible. (I don't remember if I made it, I'd have to boot up my N64)

[@chompythebeast]

Will the AI avoid bananas if you enable BOGUSBANANAS? If so that's pretty cool, that game had amazing cheats. It literally hid two-player Adventure behind a cheat lol, that's unthinkable today

[@krazoasamson9914]

@@chompythebeast So far, they don’t but it’s still really damn hard to do coin challenges. I was stuck on Hot Top Volcano for almost an hour. It’s pretty amazing that I had to come up with a strategy and a different route on the track that allowed me to not fall super behind when collecting coins. I’ve only done Dino Domain so I think the rest of the game will be damn near impossible. I already dread doing Greenwood Village… 🤣

[@renakunisaki]

@@chompythebeast they don't, but I don't know if bananas actually do anything to them. (And if so, whether the cheat applies to them.)

[@rezthemediaruler3768]

Played through with Krunch and have one thing that really goes for him. He‘s a BOSS-KILLER! I managed to get in front of every Boss very quick and then hold the Position. My friends didn‘t believe me doing this. Especially the Walrus and the Octopus are no Match for Krunch. Don‘t get me wrong. I got really frustrated with him, but I also wanted him to be a Winner, because he is a bad Character and more importantly a Kremling. I don‘t know how I did it, but I remember making a Playthrough with only Krunch. It was one of the hardest Challenges I ever chose to do for myself, but it felt extremely rewarding. Same thing with Bowser in Super Mario Kart for the SNES. I remember my Dad asking me, why I wanted to win with Characters like them so badly, if I could just use Characters with better Control and acceleration and this was my Answer (I was five Years old at that time): „They loose all the Time and they must be very sad… I don‘t want them to be sad!“ Then he tried to loose on purpose and I remember me getting very angry at him, because of that^^!

[@psychoticmortacarn]

I always picked the heavies in kart racers/sports games for the same exact reason. The poor bad guys always have to lose, and they try so hard! That isn’t fair. 😤Besides, life would be pretty damn boring if the good guys won all the time.

[@DarthDimmadome]

10/10 video, I love the use of the sound effects lol

[@trysta73]

It's interesting seeing this stuff now with no idea how it worked at the time. Krunch was my favorite character on the N64, but starting with him and getting good with him meant I actively found the other characters hard to use by the end of that. He feels so different to play that you have to relearn courses and muscle memory playing as anyone else. Hovercraft levels are a great example, since you basically want to avoid air time altogether with him and instead have to maximize time in contact with the water, meaning what's considered obstacles on the course outright change when you pick him. All the breaking you have to do as him that you don't have to with other characters too. I didn't actually know anyone that knew about unlocking Drumstick till years after it came out cause it was still that era where you either had rich friends with internet, game magazines, or word of mouth if you wanted to learn about game secrets. Sometimes even magazines were outright incorrect or just bolstering some rumor lol

[@dietofsteamedhams670]

I really hope you do a video about some of the amazing and genius level design of Tropical Freeze at some point for this month

[@keithtorgersen9664]

@dietofsteamedhams, “And yet you call these steamed hams, despite the fact they’re obviously grilled.” 😂

[@ParaSwarm]

Dunkey just covered this.

[@bazookabonsai8818]

Oh man, DKR was my first N64 game. I spent hours racing that freaking octopus the second time. I broke so many controllers because of that boss, eventually I went to beating the crap out of my couch to vent my frustration. Lol

[@renakunisaki]

Did you ever get to Adventure 2 Silver Coins? That was when they took the gloves off and reminded you that they know how to design some really sadistic levels...

[@SonplaysMinEcraft]

the only thing i know about this guy is that there's a webcomic shipping him with Dixie Kong

[@Titleknown]

...Out of morbid curiosity, what's the webcomic?

[@SonplaysMinEcraft]

@@Titleknown She's a Monkey by shesamonkey

[@fgfhjfhjfbhfghf5771]

I think i remember seeing that actually it wasn't half bad. Wish I could remember the name or where to find it

[@dreamcastkid3064]

I was always fond of the Kremlings myself. Rareware was crazy

[@WarcheesoProductions]

I used to routinely 100% the game with Krunch, I found his bad handling was actually a benefit in adventure 2's Silver coin challenges

[@King_Luigi]

Anytime I think of Diddy Kong Racing only 1 thing comes to mind... _"Hi, I'm Game Status."_

[@indumatipngtuber2790]

To be fair, I had a guide that told me what the racer's stats were, however, it doesn't tell you that in game. I had an idea of what they meant in terms of playing Pippi compared to Crunch, or really, anyone compared to Crunch. Just from how the dood handled.

[@N0tsaved]

Rest in peace, Krunch mains

[@91whydoesitmatter19]

Well because of this video I spent all day beating Adventure mode with Krunch, the first Wizpig race and the coin challenge for Greenwood Village were the biggest pains..... Overall it was a lot of fun, lol

[@doodoofartman]

The best thumbnail ever. I have watched this video like, 5 times now.

[@grantisshananaa4906]

Diddy clearly pulled some strings after hearing Krunch was going to be in the game.

[@mattb6522]

Great analysis! As a kid, I _always_ wanted to play as Krunch as I loved the Kremlings, but I could never get a handle on him. He just is unfortunately outclassed by pretty much all of the other characters in the game. You might as well just choose Banjo over him if you like heavy racers (unless you already have Drumstick or TT). It is a shame, too, as I genuinely like his character design. I'd love someone to eventually create a rom hack of Diddy Kong Racing that retools character stats and makes Krunch actually viable to race with.

[@renakunisaki]

I hope said hack also adds a character with 5/5 in every stat just for a laugh. (I believe TT doesn't have 5 in handling?)

[@Ergeniz]

T.T. isn't a heavyweight, but a mid.

[@SECONDQUEST]

Holy crap, my brother who didn't play videogames always picked Krunch and it ALL makes sense now!

[@ChompDude]

It was so frustrating as a kid. Looking through characters the first time and you see a crocodile. Cool! I love crocodiles, I'm gonna play as him the entire game. Oh wait...he's hot garbage. I guess...I like turtles too.

[@ShadwSonic]

9:05 Not even! He shows up to be freed once you have all of the Wizpig Amulet. No need to pummel the porker with anyone else.

[@SillyBones420]

I never thought I'd see a video on my favorite diddy kong racing character, after watching this video, it wouldn't be a nintendo game without them doing a Kremling dirty

[@TheMonk3613]

Drumstick is actually available after you get all 4 medallions and unlock the wizpig race. I get him just for the Wizpig race.

[@elcamino6409]

Wasn't expecting to enjoy this video as much as I did, your emotions really brought out my childhood memories playing DKR. Subscribed.

[@soldirix2666]

I remember trying the Krunch challenge. Wizpig's first race was the hardest. I think I had over 100 tries until I beat him. Absolute hell, but fun if you want to beat the game's hardest challenge and truly master it.

[@thenewbgamer6416]

Honestly, I didn't know for sure if the characters had different stats, but I did feel differences between them, good to know that's true.

[@redeemedronin]

I gotta say that this video got me to subscribe to your channel. Now I'm going through your entire videography. 😂

[@tosspot1305]

You're narration is fabulous

[@hlavco]

On our copy of the game, we went through all the trouble of unlocking T.T., and then ended up turning him off in the options menu because we thought he was unfairly good. And kind of annoying. We didn't bother turning Drumstick off because none of us knew how to play heavy characters anyway, so we just thought he was bad.

[@MrUnamazing]

As someone who mostly only picked Krunch because I thought he looked cool, had a jacket as a kid. This explains why I mostly always lost. His car was near impossible to maneuver.

[@TJ-Henry-Yoshi]

And none of this will ever stop me from using him. It has become a yearly tradition to beat the game with Krunch and no one will stop me

[@matheusvasiliauskassoares4361]

There's also the popularity aspect, Krunch has to share his weight class with arguably, the game's most popular character

[@StevenVillman]

Honestly, Krunch should have been replaced with King K. Rool - a much more popular, iconic, recognizable Kremling character in the Donkey Kong video game franchise. (Note: no social shade is meant to be figuratively thrown at Krunch by me.)

[@lovelovemiraclesunsetgirl]

@@StevenVillman k. rool is great, but i think it's cool that they specifically chose to have one of the underlings of his army play a part instead i like that with krunch there's at least a sense of ambiguity about if he'd consider the others friends or have some positive feelings about the adventure by the end of it, since in the end he's a kremling spy just doing his job, but with k. rool it would only really be another villain-teaming-with-nemesis-to-take-on-bigger-threat scenario. which is cool and i actually like the idea of k. rool teaming with dk to fight an invader like wizpig a lot on its own! i just think krunch has more going for him here he fits nicely in a cast of fresh faces while tying back into something familiar about the dk series by being a kritter under k. rool's employ, and there's still not many other unique kremling characters decades later _(and i think even the ones in barrel blast have a lot less context than he gets in dkr)_

[@hatsuneelissu5924]

I still remember if you play Darkmoon Caverns with Krunch in hovercrafts there wil be a part were hes so slow he cant contineu the race going up! good times lmao

[@graveyardsmash2711]

He should get a video talking about how badly the DS version botched the voice acting. /half-joking

[@CysmaWinheim]

If I were to rebalance the racers' stats I would change them to something like this: DIDDY Speed: 2.5 -> 3 Accel: 3 -> 3 Handling: 3-> 3 TIMBER Speed: 3 -> 3 Accel: 3 -> 3.5 Handling: 2.5 -> 2.5 BUMPER Speed: 3 -> 3.5 Accel: 2.5 -> 2.5 Handling: 2.5 -> 3 CONKER Speed: 3 -> 2.5 Accel: 2.5 -> 3 Handling: 2.5 -> 3.5 PIPSY Speed: 1 -> 1 Accel: 5 -> 4 Handling: 5 -> 4 TIPTUP Speed: 1.5 -> 2 Accel: 4.5 -> 3.5 Handling: 4.5 -> 3.5 BANJO Speed: 3.5 -> 4 Accel: 2 -> 2.5 Handling: 2 -> 2.5 KRUNCH Speed: 4 -> 5 Accel: 1 -> 2 Handling: 1 -> 2 DRUMSTICK Speed: 4.5 -> 4.5 Accel: 2 -> 3 Handling: 1.5 -> 1.5 T.T. Speed: 5 -> 4 Accel: 5 -> 4 Handling: 2.5 -> 1

[@EinFritzMitX]

Darn... As much as I like DKR, I wish that you would have been in charge of balancing the characters back in the day. These are very thoughtful, balanced and therefore very fair character stats. Everyone works with the same total amount of points (9), and while this still would lead to certain characters being more useful than others, it would still prevent totally overpowered drivers (like T.T. and his 12.5 total points). Plus I really dig the stats you gave to Bumper, my personal favorite character of the game. I think this way he would actually be my go-to driver.

[@CysmaWinheim]

@@EinFritzMitX One of my favorite mascot racers is Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, and with the exception of the character-specific All-Star powers, each racer has the same total of 12 points split across the other 4 stats. This also applies to their unlockable "mods", which shift their stats around for different playstyles. Of course, you'll probably still find some stats more important than others. Also, I may have made Krunch too powerful as he now has the highest top speed and better handling than Drumstick and T.T., whose only advantage over him would be their acceleration.

[@Anu_Sol]

I agree with video voice guy, Krunch kicks ass!

[@Mattened]

Krunch really sounds like Krusty

[@WhoIsSirChasm]

...wait, Conker and Bumper are the only characters to share stats? I always thought Diddy and Tiptup shared them as well, but looks like I was mistaken. Also thank you for speaking the truth about DKR DS having worse voices. I will never forgive what they did to Taj.

[@EinFritzMitX]

Diddy's speed stat seems to be bugged when it comes to correctly scaling the speed bonus when collecting bananas: From 0 to 3 collected bananas, Diddy is faster than TipTup, just as he should be. But from 4 to 10 bananas both of their max speeds become identical, which means that TipTup becomes the better choice, since he has equal speed + better/ easier handling.

[@gridline]

Krunch being bad serves a couple specific purposes: 1, choosing him serves as a pseudo "hard mode" in the adventure mode, and 2, if you're good at Diddy Kong Racing but you're playing with friends who aren't, you can choose Krunch to even the playing field a bit. Not to mention if you never pick him because he's bad, that means he's usually (always before unlocks) going to be an opponent, which makes sense given he's a Kremling in a Kong game. Also I can't believe you never mentioned how debilitating hills are to Krunch (you can even see it at 5:49).

[@Paul-to1nb]

And I think 3. He's a Kremlin so the designers wanted to joke about Kremlins being bad at things. Between all these reasons, he was totally intentionally meant to be bad.

[@StevenVillman]

@@Paul-to1nb That is something that I'm actually offended about, here - with me seeing as I'm a Kremling/anthropomorphic crocodilian and anthropomorphic reptile fan!

[@graftongazaway5633]

Fun Fact: Apparently you can play as Dixie Kong, Tiny Kong, and Wizpig in Diddy Kong Racing DS.

[@pansthederp964]

You can also play as Taj

[@renakunisaki]

There's evidence that Taj possibly was meant to be playable in the original. Also fun fact, the boss characters are implemented as vehicles, so with hacks, you can be them!

[@pansthederp964]

@@renakunisaki yes there is also a track for him in the character select screen

[@T3hG4m3rz43v3r]

Love this video man!!! Very interesting seeing a video on heavy weight characters.

[@blackheartzerotheundergrou3225]

_"He's one of the first playable Kremlings in the series!"_ Well there you go! At least Krunch can wear that as something to be proud of. _"... If you don't count this one DKC minigame."_ Oh, *_Come On!!_*

[@darkjapan]

This video inspired me to do a Krunch only run. I recommend it, you have to totally relearn how to play when you can barely make most turns. I like the idea of devs including a terrible character that gives the game a whole new challenge.

[@YourCrazyDolphin]

As a kid I mostly played Conker.... And sometimes Bumper. I played literally the only 2 identical characters apparently lol

[@yoshimallow_5121]

I've been watching this over and over since it uploaded it's so good please help

[@JohnPannozzi]

FYI, Krunch is the only character introduced in Diddy Kong Racing that Nintendo owns (because he's a Kremling and thus directly tied to the DI franchise, I guess). And before anyone says otherwise, the credits to Diddy Kong Racing DS says that "certain characters" are owned by Rare.

[@randomperson9799]

This really made me interested in Diddy Kong racing characters and thier stats. In my research my summary of Krunch is, the DKR community actually haves a tier list for the game, Krunch is bottom 1 besides in a plane where he is top 3. So very situational but if you were playing with someone and yall wanted to play planes then Krunch isn't a bad pick but he is more work than its worth if you only want to play Krunch and not lose.

[@JCEmotep]

I recently replayed Diddy Kong Racing on the N64. Picked Krunch and was surprised at the game being much harder than I remember. When I realized all the other characters could actually turn, without breaksliding I was already committed to Krunch. Gave up at Wizpig though, I could for the life of me not figure out how to account for the bumpy track that constantly flicks the direction of your slide, if you even get a bit of air time.

[@KookyKirby]

As someone who grew up with DKR and got reasonably good at the game over the years, I remember I did a playthough of Adventure mode with Krunch once, just to see how bad it'd be. It was... frustrating, but also kinda satisfying at the same time, actually managing to beat the game with such a bad character. It's sad to think that just about the only thing Krunch is ultimately good for is being an improvised hard mode.

[@pkrocker922]

fun fact: As a kid I hated Diddy Kong Racing because I found it hard to control, especially trying to turn. Now I know why, it was cause I was playing only as Krunch.

[@criticalmass7841]

I appreciate your editing style, is like maxor without the visually administered cocain

[@XxDevilXNeverXCryxX]

This was Nostalgic and informative and I love it.

[@StealthyCk7]

He's actually really good in non-car boss fights. He can often outspeed the boss. He's designed for multiplayer when you get to choose your vehicle and the people you are playing with banned the two secret characters.

[@Komory]

As someone how played DKR for an eternity against my father in TimeTrail Mode, I can assure you, Krunch is the best starting char, you just have to be really good at the game. I'm surprised this video never mentions this mode, probably because he never played it, but believe me, he is awsome in this mode.

[@DesigningFor]

By the time I'm trying for Time Trials, I already have Drumstick. And I love my boy Drumstick.

[@mintwax9002]

I remember as a kid my friend's older brother beat the game with krutch. I don't remember why he chose crunch but I believe it had to do with the drifting.

[@draculastraphouse7863]

"You've got 4 known criminals" while the characters are all happily dancing lmao