Konami Krazy Racers (known in Japan as Konami Wai Wai Racing Advance) is a 2001 Massively Multiplayer Crossover Mascot Racer for the Game Boy Advance which reunited many Konami franchises into a Kart Racing Game. It is an offshoot of the earlier Konami Wai Wai World for the Famicom in 1988 and its 1991 sequel Wai Wai World 2: SOS!! Parsley Jō, which similarly featured multiple Konami characters and IPs, and serves as the eighth entry of the broader Wai Wai
series. (Hence why the lyrics to the opening theme go "Wai wai wai wai, wai wai racing!")
Seen as Konami's answer to Mario Kart, Krazy Racers received generally positive reviews (if not as favorable as Mario Kart: Super Circuit, which released a few months later) and remains a rather valid kart racing game years after its initial release. It would later receive a sequel in 2009 for iOS and Android called Krazy Kart Racing, which included more racers such as Frogger, Sparkster, and Pyramid Head.
Compare with DreamMix TV World Fighters, a crossover Mascot Fighter between Konami, Hudson Soft, and Takara.
This game includes examples of:
- Apologetic Attacker: Pastel always apologizes when she hits somebody. Nyami does as well, although she always says it in Gratuitous English as opposed to Japanese.
- Batter Up!: When Power Pro summons Yabe, Yabe hits a baseball as a homing projectile. He is one of the two cameo characters with a detailed animation for firing their projectile (the other being Dino), as most of the others just transform into it with a shared morphing animation instead.
- The Cameo: Every character has a companion who floats around them if the item roulette lands on the extremely rare Assist Character slot. They are as follows:
- Goemon and Ebisumaru: Sasuke
- Pastel: TwinBee
- Ninja/Gray Fox: a helicopter, presumably the Hind D piloted by Liquid Snake
- Nyami and (The) KING: Dino
- Dracula: Death
- Power Pro-kun: Yabe
- Moai: three glowing Moai, possibly Laser Moai or Moai Я due to their coloration
- Takosuke and Vic Viper: Michael
- Beartank: a randomly selected one from above, appears as a "?" in the HUD
- Cute Little Fangs: Befitting for a cat girl, Nyami has little canines visible whenever she smiles in-game.
- Damn You, Muscle Memory!: If you want to choose a racer, you must press left or right (read: go either clockwise or counter-clockwise); then you have to choose the track, and in order to do so you have to press up in order to scroll down the index and vice versa.
- Excuse Plot: The opening is the plot. Various characters receive a mysterious e-mail from "Konami Man" which invites them to a kart race. That's about it.
- Expy: The default roster in Krazy Racers can be best described as a parallel to that of Super Mario Kart's, with four varying weight classes and two drivers in each.
- Power Pro-kun and Takosuke = Toad and Koopa Troopa (Lightweight)
- Pastel and Nyami = Princess Peach and Yoshi (Light-Middleweight)
- Goemon and Ninja (Gray Fox) = Mario and Luigi (Middleweight)
- Dracula and Moai = Bowser and Donkey Kong Jr. (Heavyweight)
- Forced Transformation: Instead of shrinking opponents, you can turn them into pigs to slow them down in Krazy Racers. Both games do have a more traditional Lightning ersatz as an item that either shocks opposing racers or burns them to a crisp, however.
- Game of Chicken: The Chicken Race minigame has players driving over a long straight road towards a pool. The one who manages to stop closest to the pool wins. On the contrary, getting too greedy and sinking is an automatic loss.
- Go-Karting with Bowser: Go-Karting with Dracula and Pyramid Head, for just two examples.
- Guide Dang It!:
- Unlocking two of the four Secret Characters in Krazy Racers (Vic Viper and KING) requires the player to, on two specific tracks (Moon Road and Sky Bridge 2) in Grand Prix mode (and only Grand Prix), jump off from a lane of jump panels at an angle then fire off a turbo boost from a Blue Bell to reach a secret island holding a giant gem that unlocks the characters. The courses' minimaps do not show the islands these gems are located on. Comparatively speaking, the diamond in Cyber Field 2 needed to unlock Beartank can be seen in plain view near the end of a lap.
- To unlock Ebisumaru, you must set a record on both Goemon courses (Ganbare Dochu 1 and Ganbare Dochu 2). The game does hint at the locations of the diamonds but only vaguely alludes to Ebisumaru's presence with a mention that he "was seen driving a kart."
- Hair-Raising Hare: Robbie the Rabbit appears as a representative of the Silent Hill series in the mobile version. Aside from removing the red stain, no attempts were made to reduce his creepiness.
- He Who Must Not Be Seen: Konami Man, who previously appeared in both Wai Wai World games and made cameos in other Konami titles, only gets a brief mention as the one that starts the racing tournament all the characters participate in, but does not compete in the GP himself or otherwise appear in-game.
- Hot Potato: In the game mode "Bomb Chasers", one player gets a Cartoon Bomb. When it blows up, the other three players win. One can pass the bomb by bumping another kart; this will raise the timer to at least 30 seconds, so the victim has a chance to pass the bomb again.
- Inconsistent Spelling: Power Pro-kun's name is spelled as "Pawapuro-Kun" in the Krazy Racers manual, "pawapuro" simply being "power pro(s)" not fully translated into English.
- Lighter and Softer:
- The first game includes in its roster a fat, Laughably Evil version of Dracula as well as "Ninja", who actually is a chibi version of Gray Fox.
- Krazy Kart Racing, meanwhile, features characters such as Pyramid Head (recycled from New International Track & Field) and Robbie Rabbit, with Robbie in particular lacking the blood around his mouth that he has in his other appearances (for obvious reasons), instead basically looking like a cutesy bunny. There's also Evil Rose, who hails from the very provocative Rumble Roses series of wrestling games. Though the Super-Deformed style doesn't do much to tone down the fanservicey elements of her design, her bio doesn't allude to her mental state in Rumble Roses proper and her facial expression is a lot softer/happier than one of would expect of the character.
- Mascot Racer: One for most of Konami as a whole, covering a lot of their most popular franchises.
- Mythology Gag:
- As in other Wai Wai titles, the use of red and blue bells in Krazy Racers as substitutes for the Item Boxes found in Mario Kart is lifted straight from the Bell Power-Ups found in TwinBee; the blue bells provide a temporary burst of speed much like how they raise a ship's speed in all the TwinBee games, while the red bells provide racers with offensive items (an approximation of their function in TwinBee 3, whereas the red bells typically provide a barrier in most installments).
- Dracula has been cutefied like he's come out of the Kid Dracula setting. His voice clip when successfully blasting other racers with items or overtaking the player (when controlled by the CPU) is an Evil Laugh reminiscent of the ones he belts out in Castlevania from Rondo of Blood onward.
- On the Power Stadium track in Krazy Racers, we can see the illustration from the box art of Power Pro Kun Pocket 1 on the floor. The mole item and the moles seen as an obstacle in that track are the mascots of the Moglers team that appear from Power Pro Kun Pocket 2 on.
- Put on a Bus: Of the 12 racers featured in Krazy Racers, only four of them returned for Krazy Kart Racing — Goemon, Dracula, Power Pro-kun, and Tako(suke). They'd instead be joined by Frogger, Pentarou, Sparkster, Pyramid Head, Robbie Rabbit, Evil Rose, Dewy, and Ming Ming.
- Rare Random Drop: Every character has a very rare Assist item that increases their top speed for a while and then becomes a missile that targets whoever holds the next position (if the user is in 1st, the 8th place racer is targeted instead), essentially functioning as a cross between the Star(man)/Super Star and Spiny/Blue Shell in Mario Kart.
- Rule of Cool: Even with their original tones softened, being able to race as Dracula and Gray Fox is certainly saying something.
- Secret Character: Four per game, bringing the total roster up to 12.
- Sidelined Protagonist Crossover: While most of the franchises are represented by their protagonists/mascots, there are a few exceptions.
- Downplayed with Gradius; one of the Moai enemies is a default racer in Krazy Racers, but the staple Vic Viper ship is a hidden character.
- TwinBee is represented by Pastel, with TwinBee himself being her Assist Character. Light, on the other hand, is entirely absent.
- For Castlevania, it's the Belmont clan's Familial Foe and series Big Bad Dracula who's playable, whereas none of the Belmonts (not even popular/recurring members like Simon or Richter) appear in any capacity.
- For Metal Gear (specifically Metal Gear Solid), Gray Fox — in his Cyborg Ninja appearance from MGS1 — appears as the playable rep for his series instead of main protagonist Solid Snake.
- Silent Hill has representatives from both the second and third games, none of whom are Harry Mason or Heather/Cheryl Mason. Instead, you have Pyramid Head (pretty much the Mental Monster of the franchise) and Robbie Rabbit (who's been marketed as a mascot both in- and out-of-universe since his SH3 debut).
- Rumble Roses is represented by neither the main heroine (Reiko Hinomoto) nor the other babyface postergirl (Dixie Clemets), but by Evil Rose. Granted, she's one of the more important wrestlers overall in-series as she's Reiko's older sister Fujiko, having been brainwashed to serve as The Dragon to Anesthesia.
- Songs in the Key of Panic: As with Mario Kart, the BGM changes to a faster tempo and different pitch upon entering the final lap. Power Stadium is the sole exception, switching to a different (but faster-paced) song entirely.
- Super-Deformed: Both games go for a chibi art style to fit the Lighter and Softer tone. For series that already had a cutesy art style (TwinBee, Parodius, pop'n music, Power Pro-kun Pocket, etc.), the effect isn't quite as noticeable.
- The Voiceless: While the Power Pros generally aren't silent protagonists, they never get voiced lines, a trait applied both in this game and in DreamMix TV World Fighters.
- A Winner Is You: Clearing the final set of missions just plays the staff roll.