Walt Disney World Quest: Magical Racing Tour is a kart-racing video game released in 2000 for PlayStation, Dreamcast, and Game Boy Color, and 2001 for Microsoft Windows. The PlayStation and Windows versions were developed by Crystal Dynamics, while the Dreamcast and Game Boy Color versions were developed by Prolific Publishing; all versions were published by Eidos Interactive.
As the name implies, the game takes place in the Walt Disney World Resort. The game features an adventure mode (the "Quest" that the title alludes to) narrated at the beginning by Jiminy Cricket. He says that backstage at the Magic Kingdom, there's a magical machine that produces the amazing fireworks that go off every night. One morning, the ever-curious chipmunks Chip 'n Dale found the machine, but got a little too close to it; Dale dropped some of their acorns into the machine, ruining the machinery and causing it to explode, and the parts spread all over Walt Disney World. It's up to you, Chip, and Dale, to find all the parts of the machine and put it back together before the fireworks begin at night.
Unlike most other licensed Disney games, most of the playable characters are original, with only the aforementioned Chip, Dale, and Jiminy Cricket appearing. Disney refused to let any other characters appear, which led to the creation of new characters who've never been seen before or since. While the lack of established characters was a common criticism, the expies do have their fans.
Compare Mickey's Speedway USA, where the concept is inverted; established Disney characters racing around in very un-Disney environments. Also compare Disney Speedstorm, which also has established Disney characters (including Figment) and environments.
The game's tracks are inspired by the following attractions:
Magic Kingdom
- Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
- The Haunted Mansion
- Jungle Cruise
- Space Mountain
- Splash Mountain
- Tomorrowland Speedway
- Pirates of the Caribbean
Epcot
Disney Studios Floridanote
- Disney Studios
- Rock 'n' Roller Coaster
Disney's Animal Kingdom
Water parks
- Blizzard Beach
- Typhoon Lagoon
TV Tropes Quest: Magical Troping Tour:
- Adaptation Distillation: Chip and Dale are based on their classic appearances personality-wise, but their designs use their Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers outfits.
- Adventurer Outfit: Oliver Chickly III's got the pith helmet, cargo shorts, and boots.
- Artistic License – Geography: Walt Disney World is compressed in the console and PC versions to fit all the parks and the drivable tracks on one selection screen, cutting out roads, most unplayable attractions, the resorts, Bay Lake, Disney's River Country,note and Downtown Disney (today Disney Springs). Additionally, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad is inexplicably moved to Mickey's Toontown Fairnote north of Tomorrowland on the east side of Magic Kingdom Park.
- Bewitched Amphibians: One Power-Up you can get is The Frog Spell; using it turns all your opponents into slow-hopping frogs. It wears off after a few seconds.
- Bonus Stage: Test Track, Typhoon Lagoon, and Disney Studios essentially serve as this. They are not standard race tracks, but rather courses where you have to drive around a small open area collecting thirty coins within a time limit. Completing them earns the player a trophy in the form of a car wheel, a life preserver, and a clapperboard, respectively.
- Character Catchphrase: Jiminy Cricket introduces himself with his iconic introduction, "Cricket's the name, Jiminy Cricket!"
- The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: The Frog Spell, essentially the game's equivalent of Mario Kart's Lightning, turns all the racers into frogs for a short time, greatly reducing their speed. In theory, it wears off the same as Lightning as well, with the player farthest behind returning to normal first and the furthest ahead last. The thing is, it only works that way if the AI racers are off-screen - if they're on-screen (i.e. within distance of the player), it wears off for everyone at the exact same time.
- Oh, and the AI will spam this item a minimum of twice per race, often within seconds of the last one wearing off. The player will be lucky to just get this item once per race. Picking up Lucky Fairies during the race can help increase your chances of getting better items; better make sure you get them before your opponents do!
- Dressed to Plunder: Polly Roger, who feels right at home at Pirates of the Caribbean. She's definitely on the side of good, though.
- Excuse Plot: The story is only explained at the beginning of adventure mode and used as a set-up as to why you're driving karts all around Walt Disney World. How racing around and collecting coins is supposed to fix a fireworks machine is anyone's guess.
- Extremely Short Timespan: The events of Adventure mode take place in the course of one day at Walt Disney World, as reflected by the changing sky in the track selection screen which turns from sunrise to sunset.
- Haunted House: The Haunted Mansion, of course.
- Inconsistent Spelling: Is Oliver's last name Chickly, or Chickley? The PlayStation, Dreamcast, and PC versions go with the former, the Game Boy Color version with the latter.
- Original Generation: All characters in the game except for Chip, Dale, and Jiminy Cricket.
- Over 100% Completion: The game goes up to 105% completion, which requires winning all races and collecting everything in Adventure mode.
- Perpetual Frowner: Tiara Damáge, a teenaged duck who cosplays the Evil Queen from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. She always has a nasty scowl, on and off the race track.
- Product Displacement: At the time of the game's release, Disney's Hollywood Studios was called Disney-MGM Studios. Since Disney could not use the MGM name in certain marketing contexts, it was renamed the "Disney Studios" in the game, much like how The Walt Disney World Explorer called the park "Disney Studios Florida".
- Punny Name:
- One assumes Baron Karlott has no issues finding a parking space.
- Moe Whiplash.
- Recycled Soundtrack: While most of the tracks use music from the rides they're based on, three tracks had songs recycled from other, completely unrelated games. The Dinosaur track uses the theme from the Prehistory Channel level of Gex: Enter the Gecko. The Blizzard Beach track uses a slightly rearranged version of Totally Scrooged from Gex 3: Deep Cover Gecko. The Rock 'n' Roller Coaster track uses the theme from the Aqueous Major level of space shooter Total Eclipse. All four games were developed by Crystal Dynamics.
- Secret Characters: Amusingly, despite being called "secret" characters, the manual clearly tells you who they are. They also regularly appear as CPU opponents and on loading screens right from the very beginning, meaning you'd have to REALLY not be paying attention to be surprised by their presence. To unlock them...
- Ned Shredbetter, a Totally Radical dog affiliated with Blizzard Beach and Typhoon Lagoon, is unlocked by completing the trophy challenges on all nine Adventure mode tracks.
- X.U.D. 71, a robotic duck character affiliated with Space Mountain, is unlocked by collecting all the green sparkles on all the tracks except the three Bonus Stage tracks (Test Track, Typhoon Lagoon, and Disney Studios).
- Jiminy Cricket is unlocked by collecting all the Firework Machine parts as well as completing the Bonus Stage tracks.
- Secret Level: Splash Mountain, unlocked after collecting all nine first-place pennants in Adventure mode. Like the above secret characters, the manual flat-out tells you Splash Mountain's a secret track, although at least the game's better at hiding this.
- Shout-Out: The game's subtitle is derived from The Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour.
- Slippy-Slidey Ice World: Blizzard Beach, which, unlike in Real Life (outside of Disney's own lore), is portrayed as an actual snow-covered mountain in the middle of Florida.
- Virtuous Character Copy: Bruno Biggs is a fat dog instead of cat like Pete, and is Mickey Mouse's biggest fan instead of his archenemy.
- Wraparound Background: The tracks of the Game Boy Color are essentially this due to the limitations of that platform.
