Team Cranky
| Team Cranky | |||
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 Victory image | |||
| Appears in | Diddy Kong Pilot (2003, unpublished) | ||
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- “Humbug! I've got to hand it to you kid, you can actually fly that thing... I think it's time for you to move on... If you want a real challenge, try racing in the CUPS with TEAM CRANKY... The others will really give you a race then...”
- —Cranky, Diddy Kong Pilot (2003)
Team Cranky is the third and final team available in the unpublished 2003 build of Diddy Kong Pilot, being a one-person team of Cranky Kong, who has very good speed and control. The select screen shows four slots to select Cranky, though each is capable of performing four completely separate idle animations rather than simply different clippings of one like other characters. This team is unlocked by completing Cranky's Challenge on each course, both the standard versions from the Team Kong grand prix and the reversed ones from the Team Krem grand prix. It functions as the expert difficulty mode and goes through the same courses and bosses as Team Kong, being the Klap Trap Kup, the Kritter Kup, the Klump Kup, and the K. Rool Kup. After it is completed, the title screen is changed to read "Cranky Kong Pilot" and he says that it feels like "the end of an era," possibly referencing Rare's time with the Donkey Kong license ending.
Team Cranky's title screen shows clouds over the surface of the ocean, which Enguarde occasionally leaps from, while the menu theme shows the red girders from 25m with cobwebs between them. The team's logo shows the word "Cranky" in a wood-textured font over a set of brown, wood-and-fabric ornithopter-like wings and more cobwebs, which also appears on the title screen.
Team Cranky does not have a specific counterpart in the finalized Banjo-Pilot; instead, there are two separate extra grands prix called the Endurance GP, which involves consecutive races across all 16 non-reversed tracks, and the Jinjo GP, which pits the player against a grid of colorful Jinjos on six random tracks. Cranky himself is replaced with Bottles in both statistics and unlocking mechanism, albeit for the latter additionally requiring a purchase from Cheato.
Gallery[edit]
Title screen
Menu background
Character select with themed background
Title
Wing on logo
