Konami Krazy Racers

Konami Krazy Racers also known as Konami Wai Wai Racing Advance (コナミ ワイワイレーシング アドバンス, Konami Wai Wai Rēshingu Adobansu) is a kart racing video game published and developed by Konami for the Game Boy Advance as a launch title. The game features characters and elements from Castlevania, Parodius, Metal Gear, TwinBee, Power Pros, Legend of the Mystical Ninja, Pop'n Music, and Rakugakids.

Why It's Krazy

 * 1) At first glance, it may seem like a cash-in on the Mario Kart series only with Konami's IPs. However, it's a lot different from Mario Kart due to the differences the game has.
 * 2) The gameplay is basically what you expect with Mario Kart. You have your usual Grand Prix, time trials, and a free run. You know the drill when you see those typical kart racer modes.
 * 3) The menu theme is so clever. You have a navigation menu that resembles a computer menu complete with icons that look close to the icons you see in real computers.
 * 4) Unlike Mario Kart: Super Circuit, this game has more characters which consist of 12 characters in total. 8 are starter characters while 4 are unlockable. The roster is also most diverse in terms of Konami franchises. You got characters like Goemon from the series of the same name, Dracula from Castlevania, Gray Fox from Metal Gear, Power Pro-Kun from Power Pros, just to name a few.
 * 5) *The unlockable characters consist of Bear Tank from Rakugakids, King from Pop'n Music, Vic Viper from Gradius, and Ebisumaru from Legend of the Mystical Ninja.
 * 6) License is present in this game. You obviously know about the driver's license in real life so this license element is a fictional thing. Go to the license center and all you have to do is take various tests just to get a rank. Ranks are useful for getting more tracks.
 * 7) Though minimal, there are two battle games available. They are Bomb Chaser and Chicken. Bomb Chaser lets you smash your opponents with bombs. Chicken lets you drive on the brink yet stop on the brink when ready
 * 8) A good variety of items that are pretty useful in the long run.
 * 9) *Eye Wrap: You can disappear in front of your enemies
 * 10) *Pig: You can turn opponents into pigs
 * 11) *Time Bomb: The bomb explodes in 3 seconds. After that, the bomb will explode.
 * 12) *Electric Battely: All enemies attacked with an electrical charge
 * 13) *Ice Crash: Pillars of ice come crashing down to earth
 * 14) *Red Missile: The missile will follow the enemy
 * 15) *Blue Missile: These missiles fly in a straight path to their target.
 * 16) *Barrier: Protects drivers from enemy attacks
 * 17) *Scooper Drill: This mole digs holes in the ground
 * 18) Compared to Mario Kart, the item boxes are depicted as bells. The red ones give you an item while the blue ones give you a boost in speed.
 * 19) When getting an item, you will see a meter that partially films. That meter shows how many times you can use the current item you have. The item shop tells you to buy up to two of any items. The shop lets you know that the items you buy will allow you to use that particular item more than one time when you get the item.
 * 20) Before each race, you can get a boost by waiting for the 4 stone heads to turn red. Before the last one turns red, you must hold down the A button to boost which is helpful.
 * 21) Colorful graphics that have a cartoony art style. Even some of the stages still look nice.
 * 22) The stages appear to have various themes consisting of Ganbare Dochu, Cyber Field, Magma Castle, Ice Paradise, Sky Bridge, Moon Road, Poppin' Beach, Space Colony, and Power Stadium. Not to mention that they take place in those Konami IPs.
 * 23) You can still play multiplayer and it's pretty fun when you play with other people just like what you expect with a kart racer.
 * 24) Decent soundtrack. Most of the soundtrack feels 8-bit which does feel pretty nostalgic for the most part. But then you got the menu theme which is worth a jam.
 * 25) Each character has an Ally Spark which is a special item exclusive to your character. For instance, Dracula uses Death while Power Pro-Kun uses a batting player.
 * 26) The credits scene does have credits that feature the characters in various situations which appear to be images. Basic yet colorful and clever.
 * 27) Even though the audio is digitalized due to the GBA hardware, the sound effects still sound tolerable. Also, the voices are not repetitive as well.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) The stage themes seem to be repetitive at times except for how the tracks are.
 * 2) At the time, most of the characters (apart from Goemon, Dracula, Grey Fox, Vic Viper, and maybe Beartank and Ebisumaru) were unknown outside of Japan, due to most of the franchises not having games localised,
 * 3) For some reason Gray Fox is referred to as Ninja. To be fair, however, he was called Cyborg Ninja when he was reintroduced in Metal Gear Solid.
 * 4) The controls are slippery much like in Mario Kart Super Circuit. This is blamed due to the GBA's lack of an analog controller.
 * 5) For some reason Mimi from Pop'n Music appears in the credits despite not being playable.
 * 6) Hazards on the track that constantly appears can be awkward to avoid. You may think you can easily avoid them when you might make a mistake. The baseballs in Power Stadium and the fireballs in Magma Castle is good example of this.
 * 7) Due to how fast you are going, you might speed up too fast in the wrong way that you might make a mistake in falling off the track or crashing into a wall.
 * 8) Some stages can be a pain to go through.
 * 9) *Ice Paradise is notorious for bringing slipperily and can easily be confusing that you need to rely on your map.
 * 10) *Space Colony 1 has a lot of holes as well as sharp turns and long jumps. You can still hop over the holes though.
 * 11) *Magma Castle 1 has a lot of hazards like fireballs, spikes, and narrow bridges.
 * 12) *Stages like Poppin' Beach 2 and Magma Castle 2 have turns that are tough.

Reception
The game got favorable reviews on Metacritic. It was ranked #10 on a top ten list of the best Game Boy Advance games in Electronic Gaming Monthly, beating Mario Kart: Super Circuit, another Game Boy Advance kart racing game. Nintendo World Report gave the game a 9/10 while AllGame gave the game 4 out of 5 stars. Nintendo Life gave the game a 7/10.

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