Konami Krazy Racers

Start Your Engines!

JP release: 21st March 2001
NA release: 11th June 2001
EU release: 22nd June 2001
Developer: Konami Kobe
Publisher: Konami
AKA: Konami Wai Wai Racing Advance
Eurogamer Review: 8/10
Platforms: GBA
Version Played: GBA

This was one of the games I got with my Game Boy Advance, so this was technically my first experience with anything Castlevania related. Other than playing a small amount of the original Metal Gear, this was my first experience with any of these franchises. Even so, when I was a kid, I really enjoyed the game, especially the unlockable characters of Bear Tank (from Rakugakids) and Vic Viper (from Gradius). It’s a kart racer and was the first “Konami Wai Wai” game to be released outside of Japan.

The game borrows heavily from Mario Kart and isn’t afraid to show it. It’s the same style of kart racer, and the items are all very similar. Luckily, Konami picked some decent items as a replacement as the icons all make sense and are easy to remember – I’ve played some where the icons just feel random. Another similarity is the characters having different stats – generally smaller characters are slower with more acceleration, while larger characters are slower with worse handling. Dracula is the castlevania representative in the game and is essentially Bowser. He’s not a character I’d usually pick, but I still had fun.

There are four cups with four tracks each (standard for the time). The two Castlevania tracks are called Magma Castle, set in a lava field with the castle in the background (because Dracula is the Bower stand-in, I guess). The first one is great, with narrow bridges over pits, and lots of hazards, although the second felt a bit more basic. There’s a lot of other tracks that feel great to play on. On top of the cups, there’s a licence to unlock, which is a bunch of challenges, which does help make the game feel more substantial.

There’s a few other modes, which can be played in multiplayer as well. Bomb Chaser is a kart version of Hot Potato where you have to drive into another player to pass on the bomb, while Chicken is incredibly simple yet kind of addictive: accelerate and boost along a straight track then slow down to a stop to get as close to the edge as possible. Great stuff.

Konami Krazy Racers was a third party kart game on a Nintendo console that was a launch title, but it really is a better game than Mario Kart Super Circuit was when it came out a few months later. It’s one of the top GBA games Also, the music is top notch, with a version of “Beginning” being the Castlevania music.

Great

Konami Krazy Racers is a tremendous game to sit down with on the tube, or play while perched on the couch suffering in the gap between your two favourite TV programs. It’s debatable as to whether or not Mario Kart will do much to usurp it; they are virtually the same, but at least in the mean time you have no real excuse for denying yourself this game.
Tom Bramwell, Eurogamer

Remake or remaster?

A re-release would be wonderful. A new one would be good.

Official Ways to get the game

There’s no official way to get Konami Krazy Racers.