I love the Rare devs' methodology, like, "Well, this isn't really working, is it? Let's scrap the whole thing and do something completely different but with the same assets."

This is one of my favorite racing games of all time. I enjoyed it a lot more than Mario Kart 64.

5:35 Maybe the reason why Timber didn't bother to say anything is because he's pissed off at Diddy for taking his spotlight. May also explain why he seems so angry and turns his head at Diddy.

Ohhh yess! Diddy Kong Racing was one of the most mechanically intensive kart racers of the time! I highly recommend people watch speedruns just to see how hardcore it can get. Thanks for this video man!

@16:50, the three missing characters were T.T., Conker, and Diddy. I have a feeling that Diddy is missing because these images were developed before they had decided to use him as the main character. Conker is missing because, if my Rare timeline is correct, his original game "Conker's Twisted Tales" was in development at the same time, so Rare may not have finished his character design yet. These two idea can be somewhat supported by the character tiles for Conker, Timber, and Banjo being name-only at @12:40. At that point, Conker and Banjo's games were probably in development, and they hadn't yet decided whether Diddy and Timber was going to be the main character. T.T. was missing because he probably wasn't an unlockable character yet - they were probably still considering Taj at that point. Edit: Do "Donkey Kong Racing" next, please.

16:46 I have a theory about those Characters Balloons... Perhaps they were Hidden in some Stage and if you happen to find one it would unlock a character.

Man, it was great watching this. This game was my childhood & it has finally provided me with answers for the plethora of questions that I had as a kid. It may sound weird, but thanks. It feels great to finally put many of these questions to rest.

18:55 I feel like those statues might be an early thing for the trophy rush, so instead of getting a trophy in the final, a statue would let you know that you won.

"The Cube of Ultimate Despair" Junko smiles upon the name...

always look forward to your videos Andrew. keep up the good work as always. ya never disappoint.

I'm willing to bet the WizPig door at 16:16 was actually the original way to get to Future Fun Land. It's in the exact spot where you teleport there from the main overworld.

I'm sure there's comments out there...but it's not "A.M.". It's pronounced like the word "am". Pro-am means "professionals and amateurs" (with regard to racing). Otherwise, great stuff!

Time travel and cavemen? Now what game have i heard that concept from before... Was it about a modern stone-age family where 2 characters get captured by an evil scientist that got there by a time machine, but he broke it and a character named Fred has to find pieces for the time machine to get the 2 characters back & it was also a game where people made a bootlegged version of the game and a Popular KZfaqr reviewed it and it has became the most grand meme of all time? and the game was on the NES? Nah, that cant be right.... :)

Alright, I'll take a crack at those stuff without an explanation. Wizpig Door: A door that leads to Wizpig's final challenge. Red Balloon Sign: The developers probably had a few Red Balloons lined up and the signed just marked them or something. 60 / 30 Signs: Probably test signs. Usually they would signify a speed change in reality. Boss Statues: Perhaps, instead of trophies, these were rewarded instead when the player beats the Boss Challenges. Horseshoe Gultch: Perhaps it was meant to serve as the trailer map? It looks somewhat similar. Dino Falls: What probably killed this track (aside from the strange water collision) was that steep ramp. Would've been interesting to race on it, though! Taj's Character Theme: Dude, it would've been awesome to play as Taj! Who wouldn't want to race on a flying carpet! Oh, and Donkey Kong Racing sounds more interesting to me. :)

Diddy Kong Racing is , and always will be, LEAPS and bounds better than Mario Kart 64. Don't get me wrong, I liked MK64, and have tons of fond memories, I just think DKR is a more complete game.

14:10 early version of the covid-19.

"Great tracks, great music.." But they're both tracks, silly

Was just about to head to sleep but I saw this so, I gotta watch this first! :p

Easily one of my favourite games as a kid. I'm glad we got the version we did, but it would be pretty cool if the beta island was still hidden in the cart just like the 'Citadel' was in GoldenEye 007!

Here are the Time Stamps for Diddy Kong Racing. 0:00: Intro 1:00: DKR’s Development Story 1:16: A Game Based Around Time Travel and Cavemen 1:37: They decided to make it a Racing Game 1:42: Wild Cartoon Kingdom 2:03: The Protagonists of WCK 2:14: Pro-AM 64 2:25: Pro-AM 64 was going to feature 3-Wheeled Trikes 2:32: The Protagonist of Pro-AM 64 2:57: Where’s Diddy Kong? 3:04: Pro-AM 64 was on the right track for release 3:23: The Pro-AM IP was not a well-known one 3:32: They had a tough decision 3:49: They knew that having a Nintendo Character in their game would boost sales 4:08: After Accepting the Offer, they had work to do 4:17: Diddy Kong Racing 4:23: Can you guess which character was going to be the main one in Pro-AM 64? 4:43: Poor Guy 4:50: Back to the Present 5:06: VHS Tape Differences 5:12: The Intro is Mostly the Same… Mostly 5:27: Diddy in the VHS gets an Extra Sound 5:53: It’s all the same until we get to Banjo 5:59: When Banjo hits Krunch 6:17: Banjo Hits Krunch Sound Effect Changes 6:43: One More Thing 6:54: Wizpig and Diddy’s Name Text is Missing 7:09: Early Title Screen Changes 7:28: Adventure Mode Intro Change 7:37: Hub World Changes 7:51: Before we Begin 8:08: Let’s Get Started 8:47: A Big Change to Dino Domain 9:06: Other Dino Domain Changes 9:20: A lot of these tracks don’t have any differences, sadly 9:30: Collectible Changes 9:44: Item Icon Changes 10:01: The Change When Finishing a Race 10:18: Snowball Valley Changes 10:24: HUD Map Change 10:37: And Speaking of Colors… 10:51: Greenwood Village Changes 11:11: Boulder Canyon Changes 11:18: Unused Stuff 11:37: Unused Graphics 11:44: Unused Pro-AM 64 Logos 11:57: Unused DKR Logo (You’ve Seen it Before) 12:15: Unused Rare Coin from the VHS Tape 12:25: Unused Pro-AM 64 Character Portraits 12:48: Various Unused Graphics 13:03: Early Versions of Track Logos that appeared in Lobbies 13:22: Early Track Logo of Ancient Lake 13:30: Early Track Logo of “Twilight City” 13:43: How can I say that they’re the same track? 14:06: Unused Thingamabob for Future Funland 14:28: Doors… A lot of Doors 14:44: Unused Mini-Maps of Different Tracks 15:03: Unused Objects 15:10: Unused “Sea Monster” 15:22: “Setuppoint” 15:46: This Character also Appears in Jet Force Gemini 15:53: There are Other Unused Objects in DKR Too 16:08: Leave a Comment Below 16:14: Various Unused Objects 16:25: More Unused Objects 16:31: A Hot Air Balloon 16:44: Unused Character Balloons 17:03: Unused Balloons with Numbers 1 Through 4 17:19: Think About that… 17:37: Unused Balloon Doors 17:43: Before we Look at Them 17:55: A Balloon Door that Requires 0 Balloons 18:08: Its Simply Design Choice 18:21: More Scrapped 0 Balloon Doors 18:30: Unused Spaceship 18:51: Unused Boss Statues 19:04: Tricky the Triceratops’ Statue might’ve been related to Dinosaur Planet 19:20: it Looks to be a Version of Tricky the Triceratops from Dinosaur Planet 19:42: Originally Each Boss would have a Statue for some reason 20:06: Unused Tracks 20:16: All of the Footage of these Tracks is being run on an Actual Console 20:26: “Horseshoe Gulch” 21:06: “Dino Falls” 22:13: Unused “Dino Falls” Mini-Map 22:24: There are Supposedly Two Paths for “Dino Falls” 22:43: Both the Hovercraft and the Plane were meant to be the Vehicles of Choice 22:55: Some Unused Battle Stages 23:00: “The Lagoon” 23:29: One Last Thing 23:39: “Circle of Fire” 24:13: If you saw a Gold Balloon in this Stage… 24:22: One of Two Early Versions of Tracks in the Game 24:37: “Early Tricky Triceratops Race” 25:01: In Order to get this Race to Work… 25:26: The Other Early Track 25:29: “Early Timber’s Island” 25:59: The Team Absolutely Butchered this Place 26:22: Early Hub World Changes 26:52: It’s a Shame that so much had to be deleted though 27:01: Other Hub World Changes 27:13: “The Cube of Ultimate Despair” (An Early Test Stage) 27:30: Unused Music Tracks 27:36: Early Crescent Island Theme 28:19: Unused Character Selection Theme 28:54: It Only Makes Sense for one Character in the Game 29:34: Outro 30:05: The End Card 27:11: (Most Replayed)

Can't wait for the Did You Know Gaming knock off version of this video tomorrow.

Perfect timing to put another one up! Now I can listen to this and fall asleep on my birthday today ^^

16:50 The games development took place while banjo was in development but before conker was thought up. It finished after conker got his official name. Timber was the lead character in Pro Am 64 and was originally going to be the main character with banjo as the guest appearance, everyone else was in the original cast.

Those balloons with the characters on them at 17:00 would have been for unlocking characters on tracks, because much like the keys they would have had them too.

Really cool video. Having played (and owned) the original RC Pro-Am for the NES, it's a bit disappointing to find out that they changed the game. But in the end DKR was still awesome. One thing that bugged me throughout the entire video though, was how you pronounced Pro-Am as "Pro A M". It sounds just like it's spelled: Pro-Am.

Donkey Kong Racing!

Thank you for all your hard work finding the info for this beta, Andrew. I always look forward to your videos.

Great episode. It's cool to see how many things changed in this game.

Great video, I didn't know any of this stuff about Diddy Kong Racing's constantly shifting development. Oh and...I vote for Donkey Kong Racing!!!

Rhythm Tengoku, please. The series needs more coverage

Great video as always, dude! It was a great watch to wind down on my Friday night tonight.

I mean, you KNOW what kind of results you're gonna get by posting that poll on a video like this, right? It's gotta be RHYTHM TENGOKU! Every Diddy Kong Racing fan's OTHER favorite game!

RC Pro-AM was quite literally my childhood thank you very much. :P Still has my vote for best NES racing title. Great video as always friend! I get so excited every time I see a new upload from you!

Horseshoe gulch looks like the intro, where wizpig is chasing the characters, looks like it especially wizpig being present there too, I bet some of these hidden levels have something to do with the intro

These videos are a delight to watch, keep up the good work!

Wizpig Door: Before the ship to get up into space to get to Wizpig, you used that door. Either a placeholder or possibly means to be a teleporter to get up there. Red Balloon Sign: Knowing Rare, the sign was to say "Hit me with the missile".You would get a red missile from somewhere and destroy that sign and something would trigger. That's my guess. 30/60 Signs: I think just meant to act as if as traffic signs to say how fast/slow you should be going in certain areas. Probably realized there's no point to them (or maybe were planned to be used for Twilight/Star City). For the Boss Statues, I would assume they were to unlock something after you beat the boss. As in you see those boss statues there as the first one you would see is Tricky because Dino Domain you would head to 1st... and then you would head to the others and so on and so forth. I would assume the other bosses had one too and after beating each one the statue either disappears or destroyed or whatever to show....... whatever the hell they were meant for to begin with. Horseshow Gulch I would assume was meant to be a cutscene area. Maybe the racers would be shown driving around and then Wizpig comes down and you see that he has come to invade the place. Then the racers then decide to go and face him. And just for some reason you were able to play around with it through patching and such, but it wasn't actually meant to be played in the 1st place.

''Dino falls'' looks really cool would have been awesome if it was finnished

the wizpig door might have been a access point for his boss race. the charecter baloons could have been the way to unlock charecters in pro am 64

I'm glad you covered this game-It's one of my favorites! I used to research this game, since its TCRF page was so surprisingly lacking despite its development history! I didn't find too much, sadly, but this video brings a lot more to the table than I could find!

This game was absolutely perfect between the characters, adventure twist on a racing game, and music! Countless hours of my childhood. Great video!

EVERYBODY'S DIDDY KONG RACING TRY TO KEEP YOUR WHEELS RIGHT ON THE GROUND! *EDIT:* took some advice from a reply which i neglected to take the advice from and changed it and also corrected a mishearing. also added an exclamation mark *EDIT 2:* reworded edit 1 a bit to make it clearer what i meant

You're my favorite youtuber! I love how in depth you go in your videos.

Seriously, this game made me a gamer. It was my first game, my now dead grandparents bought me the N64 with a DKR bundle, and I played hundreds of hours of this gem. The cartridge doesn't work anymore, sadly.

These videos are so well out together! Always love seeing these in my sub box. Great video as always!

Just a quick note, it's pronounced Pro-Am, not Pro A.M. "Am" in this case, is meant to be short for amateur.

Does it sound strange to everyone else when he says "A M" instead of "am?" Everyone I know says "Pro Am" (like "Pontiac Grand Am").

fantastic video and great work digging around for all this information. Alot of this I had no idea about.

What an awesome video! I really loved all the beta info, even the development stuff. Pacing & personality were there too. You obviously did a lot of research, & it made for an informative & entertaining watch. :)

Rhythm Tengoku would be awesome for the next video! I remember importing it years ago back in high school, and it was of course a fantastic game :). Still probably my favourite one in the series.

I wonder if the Mammoth Character from 'Pro-AM 64' served as the Design Inspiration for Taj the Genie?

This video is just loaded - well done. I enjoyed watching it :)

great work mate!!! there's a lots of curiosities on games dev, really love to see someone out there doing researchs around great titles of my childhood! :) conker was so innocent those days lol

Ooh, do Rhythm Tengoku, I love me that game

28:13 i found a lot of the game to be too difficult as a kid so I would spend a lot of time just using the jukebox cheat to listen to all the tracks and sfx, always wondered where this track fit, because of the violin i assumed it was drumsticks theme as i could only ever do the walrus race and never unlocked him.

Beta64 you never fail to deliver great info of your beta covers & I enjoy seeing my childhood games on here, brings great memories, i see you put great effort in your research in your videos, cant wait to see your next one

I get so excited when another Beta64 video gets released and my knowledge gets expanded even more Thanks Andrew

8:38 in the final version the two trees are missing from the early one!

Since I loved Diddy Kong Racing so much, I vote Donkey Kong Racing! After all, it's one of those incredibly cool, rare cases in gaming history.. Won't say much more for anyone who hasn't heard of it, but it'd make a great video!

This is an amazing amount of work here.

Donkey Kong Racing, for sure. Awesome video. An exhausting amount of information, but enjoyed every bit of it!!!

* Opens playing as conker * how did you know my main and how his turns are so awkward that you have to pretty much learn how to play him compared to other racers.

16:18 I think that may be an early final boss door, considering Wizpig is on it... So maybe instead of going in the mouth of the island, you would go through this door instead.

So glad you covered Diddy Kong Racing. It'sone of my favorite games of all time and is, in my opinion, the best kart racing game on the N64.

so glad to see something for the n64 again!!!! getting back to your roots

Calling it "fun" when a clip for a silver coin challenge is playing... lmao

oh shit that squirell was actually conker. dayumn

Impressive and interesting stuff mate! Thanks for the vid!

The doors bit was really well done and made me laugh really hard. I love your writing to death omg

2:45 it Looks Like Snuffy From Sesame Street But With Tusks on Him.

Loaded question maybe? But I'll bite. Donkey Kong Racing.

Dude your channel is epic! im so glad i found you! keep it up :)

Beta64 is pulling an A+Start by putting humor into a complex video style. To be honest, it fits in pretty well. Good Work Beta!

did anyone spot the nintendo 64 coin at 9:39

I think that mammoth is riding a Vespa, not a trike. i mean look: 2:53 the wheels are aligned.

Awesome Video! DKR was one of the games I played the most growing up. As for next video, I'd love to see what there is for Donkey Kong Racing.

Thank you for this exciting breakdown bravo very professional!!

I love d k racing!!!

Woah! Another Beta64 on the beta of an N64 Game?!

Great job on this video! This game was a big part of my childhood, so I'm glad to learn about some of its development. As for the vote, I must say both seem interesting, but I'll have to go for Donkey Kong Racing.

YES FINALLY THANK YOU BETA64! =D

well. I'm interested in the development of Rhythm Tengoku, because of the Unused stuff it has. or the history before it.

Voting for #2, Donkey Kong Racing

WOW! started watching you whn you had only like 10 000 subs. Glad to see you have come such a long way. and a nice video as alwas

Awesome video. Answered the questions I had.

This game is much better than Crash team racing for psx best: Speed Freaks for n64 best: Diddy Kong Racing

do Rhythm tengoku no one talks about the development of rhythm heaven games. I think a lot of us know about donkey Kong racing

What a truly fascinating video, definitely not dragged out. "This thing used to be blue, now its red in the final version". ZZZZZZZZ

I just subbed and all I've seen of the video is less than ten seconds of the intro with remixed Earthbound music. GG

2:08 why

The history of Donkey Kong Racing seems interesting. Last bit of quality Rareware before Microsoft f*cked them

Strange this video didn't show up in my subscription feed, but thanks for the video! Oh, and to answer the question from the video Donkey Kong Racing would be cool.

Great episode! I've always liked this game, and I didn't realize there was so much history behind it. I vote Donkey Kong Racing for the next video.

Donkey kong racing!

Rhythm Tengoku. Go with Rhythm Tengoku since I'm a huge fan of Rhythm Heaven.

Awesome video! I really enjoyed it!

I've love to hear more about Donkey Kong Racing. :)

"pro ay em" *sigh*

Rhythm Tengoku

Awesome video. So many things I've never heard about.

I love your episodes!!!