Mickey's Speedway USA | Racing Under the Radar

Mickey's Speedway USA is a strange game, particularly where its legacy is concerned. This is an N64 game developed by Rare, released during the height of their relationship with Nintendo... and yet, it’s fallen into total obscurity. Even during retrospectives on Rare as a company, it’s left as a mere footnote; as just “that other game built on the Diddy Kong Racing engine” and nothing more.

With a reputation like that, I had no reason to think the game was worth playing, so I paid it no mind for years. That was until recently, when two YouTube videos spotlighting the game and its supposedly ruthless difficulty caught my eye: the first from Pyrrhickong of Designing For, and the second from Ray0ken.

That was enough to convince me as a lover of challenging games, and while I didn’t struggle with it quite as much as I anticipated (probably thanks to Huey’s overpowered stats), I still discovered a real gem of a kart racer!

Mechanically speaking, Mickey’s Speedway USA feels like a combination of the system’s two most beloved racers: Nintendo’s Mario Kart 64 and Rare’s own Diddy Kong Racing, with the item and progression systems taking after Mario while the general feel of the driving sticks closer to DKR. This does leave the game without much of a mechanical identity, but it manages to inherit most of its inspirations' qualities!

The steering and especially the drifting feel just as satisfying as they did in DKR, and while the item system leaves something to be desired, the Mario Kart-esque structure of difficulty rising alongside vehicle speed results in some genuinely thrilling races, especially near the end when the courses start featuring tougher turns and more opportunities to fall behind.

Speaking of which, I think the courses really help give this game its identity. Rather than leaning into fantasy like Mario and Diddy did, the courses of Mickey’s Speedway USA are all cartoony approximations of American states, as the cast race around the US to save Pluto from a gang of weasels.

This does result in some samey environments at its worst, but at its best (which the game often hits), it can result in setpieces and scenarios not seen in other racers of the era! A few of my favourites include the neon city streets of Las Vegas and Seattle, the boost-heavy yet swampy Everglades, and a visit to the White House in Washington DC.

 

And as to be expected from a Rare game of the era, the soundtrack's fantastic! This is one of the few composing credits for Ben Cullum, but he manages to deliver a score on-par with the company’s best. The compositions are jaunty and fun in the way Rare's lighthearted songs usually are, while the instrumentation captures the jovial whimsy Mickey and his pals have come to represent.

My favourite song’s the one used on the New Mexico course; its melody hits me in an oddly nostalgic and wistful way, almost feeling like a personification of summer days gone by. It should be unfitting for a song from a Mickey Mouse game to make me feel this way, but the track’s bouncy melody and sweeping feel keeps it from feeling too out-of-place.

Another audio element I really enjoyed was how vocal the characters were. Rather than remaining silent with some occasional nondescript yells, Mickey and the gang will directly react to current events, whether that’s getting hit with an item, being passed by another racer or crossing the finish line in a bad position. It makes the races feel so much more lively, although I can see why the constant chatter would get annoying for some folks; there is an option to disable it if you really want, but I never felt inclined to.

I wasn’t expecting too much out of Mickey’s Speedway USA, which made it all the more shocking to discover how great it was! There’s certainly better and more nuanced racers on the N64, but if you’ve exhausted those games or simply want something new to play, I’d highly recommend this one.

It really doesn’t deserve to have been forgotten in the way it has, but if there’s any silver lining, then it’s proof that Rare really was on fire during this era. If even their most forgotten games shine with this much passion and fun, then I think that’s the mark of an amazing studio.