The actual characters, on the other hand, are oddball one-offs made with refreshingly little eye for action figure sales. Most are derived from the black-nosed Disney genus of “Dogs, probably” and all are defined by their love of Walt Disney World. Baron Karlott lives for the Haunted Mansion, though the state of his mortality is up for debate. Polly Roger brings her own sword on Pirates of the Caribbean. Bruno Biggs appears to be Pete’s illegitimate son. There’s an unlockable RoboCop duck. They may not be famous, but like real theme park superfans, at least they’re strange.

Not that it takes a theme park superfan to appreciate these scenic routes.

There are 13 tracks waiting to be bested and unlocked in Walt Disney World Quest, each based on another piece of the most magical place on earth. Most are straight adaptations of rides - the holy trinity of Mountains, DINOSAUR, etc. - but a few are Tony Hawk-style playgrounds for collecting coins - Test Track, Disney Studios, Typhoon Lagoon. Each comes complete with its own custom vehicle, so if you’ve ever wanted to drift a Doom Buggy, start scouring Ebay.

More so than most racers of the era, arguably more than even Mario Kart 64, these courses live and breathe. A brontosaurus bows its Chevy-sized head over the action in DINOSAUR. The Jungle Cruise weaves its straightaways and shortcuts together into a honeycomb delta, forcing racers to explore for faster lap times. That rarest of Disney cryptids, Lagoona Gator, makes a polygonal appearance cheering on passing boaters. Not every track is created equal - the Tomorrowland Speedway is a bit boring by default - and the representation is noticeably lopsided - Animal Kingdom and Epcot only get one course each - but there’s remarkable TLC across the board.

The end credits give thanks to Disney Imagineering and the assistance shows.

Wherever possible, the music is pulled straight from the source. Space Mountain uses Aarin Richard’s 1996 score for the Disneyland version, featuring the unmistakable surf sounds of Dick Dale. “Yo, Ho!” and “Grim Grinning Ghosts” are the archival originals. Today, Magical Racing Tour lives on as a rare historical record of the original Test Track’s queue music in all its banging, clanging glory. Fair warning: the menu music is an endless loop of “It’s A Small World,” though it is graciously instrumental. Wherever licensing or a lack of recognizable themes precluded authenticity, most noticeably on Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster and Blizzard Beach, Crystal Dynamics substituted songs from past titles like Gex: Enter the Gecko that work just fine.

Disney veterans should already recognize some of the geography. The Haunted Mansion track follows the Magic Kingdom layout all the way down to the entrance awning, minus the later interactive queue. The exit stairs for the Tomorrowland Speedway hide boosters at the top. If you haven’t launched your snowmobile off Summit Plummet after the first lap, then you have to try harder to find its hidden entrance.

To the credit of everyone involved, Walt Disney World Quest: Magical Racing Tour is an absolute love letter to its source material. Even the voices are spot-on - Eddie Carroll, Tress MacNeille, and Corey Burton return as Jiminy Cricket, Chip, and Dale, respectively. It might not have the vicarious thrill of a dedicated simulation game, but there’s no arguing with the easy, breezy charm of kart racing.

And make no mistake - Magical Racing Tour is a good kart racer. It boasts some of the tightest handling outside the Nintendo and Sony franchises, even with a directional pad instead of a control stick. The weapon pick-ups should be familiar to any Mario Kart veterans, but with Disney twists. Instead of shells, there are acorns. Instead of a lightning bolt shrinking all players but one, a curse reduces them to slow-hopping frogs. Whatever you do, don’t drive into the teacups. Collectable fairies introduce the novel concept of luck. The more you powerslide into, the better your odds of getting that clutch pick-up and the worse your opponents’ odds of doing the same. If there’s an asterisk or Achilles Heel to the game it’s that players need all the luck they can get.

A common criticism of Mickey’s Speedway USA is that it’s not an especially challenging game.

By contrast, Walt Disney World Quest: Magical Racing Tour is ruthless. The AI is always out for blood. On the later, harder tracks, shortcuts are the only way to survive. Decorated drivers can theoretically unlock all the courses in one hour and the characters in two. Anyone with less experience behind the wheel should expect to see a lot of Blizzard Beach and DINOSAUR before the rest of the World opens up. For the sake of this article, I went back to play my copy and spent an hour grinding through the first round of courses alone. 

On account, oddly enough, it’s not a great kart racer for little kids. Multiplayer? Sure, there’s no harm in that, but you can only race on the tracks that have already been earned in story mode. The difficulty cliff is just as liable to break controllers as it is to build character -the reward of a virtual Walt Disney World vacation may just be enough to keep playing.

Unlike Mickey’s Speedway USA, which warmed Toys R Us shelves well into the Gamecube era, Walt Disney World Quest: Magical Racing Tour is an actual hidden gem. Despite its strange focus or maybe because of it, the game is rarely included in discussions of the PlayStation’s best racers. If forum posts are anything to go on, there’s little nostalgia for it even among the Disney parks faithful. It deserved better and still does.

Walt Disney World Quest: Magical Racing Tour is likely the best of its kind. Simulation games aren’t for everyone and minigame collections get old fast. Twenty years after its release, Magical Racing Tour has only aged gracefully. There may be more to love now than at the time, given the additions and subtractions of the resort since. Kart racing isn’t as hot as it used to be. There will always be Mario Kart, forever and ever, amen. But something this singular and strange and, against all odds, superbly done is rarer than ever, especially carrying the rubber-stamp of a company like Disney.

There will never be another Walt Disney World Quest and that’s a genuine shame. We could all stand to drift a Doom Buggy, now more than ever.