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"Sweet koopa, I miss you so"

Super Mario Kart is a brilliant game, and pretty much anyone who ever owned a Super Nintendo knows it. Nintendo always seems to go that extra mile when Mario is involved, and the plump plumber’s first racing game is a work of genius that even today blows all of its copy-cats right off the racetrack.

The kart is a perfect vehicle for Mario and his friends, whose games have always been laid-back and cute but never quite to the point of being childish. A car would be too hip and would reek of a low-budget sports title (you know, the ones you find for 50 cents in the bargain bin), and combining a wide assortment of novelty vehicles would just detract too much from the characters themselves, who are interesting enough in their own right that they don’t need to be jazzed up with snazzy scooters, clouds, trucks, hovercraft and other miscellaneous fluff.

The racers are all characters we have come to know and love (or hate…at least the games want us to hate them but we still think they’re cool anyway). Mario and his bro Luigi are there of course, as well as Princess: the leaner, meaner version of Mario’s lady-friend before she got a make-over and re-emerged as Peach. Yoshi, the green dinosaur-baby who made his debut in Super Mario World is also there, as is Toad: that mushroom who is always whining about how “they’ve taken the Princess, blah blah Mario do something.” The two heavyweights Bowser and Donkey Kong are there to shake things up as well—all in all a mixed and varied crew with plenty of different driver styles to choose from, from fast and wimpy to slow and powerful. The final character in the ensemble is Koopa—my favorite racer although apparently no one else thought so since he wasn’t included in either the N64 or Gameboy Advance editions of Mario Kart. Oh well, all the more reason to play this one.

The tracks are mostly short. Short and sweet, that is. Some of the earlier ones can be finished in less than two minutes…and that’s after all five laps. But, consider that Nintendo was breaking new ground. It’s hard to design levels for an all-new kart game (which in itself was a new genre), but much easier for other companies to copy the idea later and make the tracks longer. As always with Nintendo, the innovation of the level designs more than makes up for any perceived simplicity.

Players have the choice of going for the gold in several different Cups, each of which has five tracks. The three Cups, along with the not-so-secret-anymore Special Cup, gives a total of 20 tracks which isn’t bad at all. From the classic Mario Circuit to the sunny Koopa Beach, mole-infested Donut Plains and haunted Ghost Valley tracks, there is enough variety to keep things from getting stale. Also included is a track called Choco Island (erm…I’m not sure which game this supposed to be from…) and the now-seemingly-obligatory-in-every-game ice level (Vanilla Lake) and fire level (Bowser’s Castle.) The level of realism on the courses is really quite fantastic in that every track has a different surface that the kart will handle differently on. So trying to do that hairpin turn on sand will not get you the same result as if you tried it on asphalt or ice.

Young’uns be warned: Super Mario Kart is much harder than all of the newer Mario Kart games. The question blocks, which contain items that you can use against your opponents on the race course, do not regenerate in Super Mario Kart. So you must use your items wisely and strategize your position on the track to take advantage of the ever-dwindling supply of items. What makes things descend from difficult to downright unfair, though, is that your opponents do have infinite items/special abilities that they can use at any time, multiple times per track, without even needing to drive over a block. I ask you, how fair is it when you’re fighting Luigi head-to-head for the lead, trying to take him out with your crappy banana peel, and he keeps going invincible every time you get near him? Or how fair is it when you’re being tailed by Yoshi who hurls a little egg at you every five seconds?

Also, the quality of items you get is directly related to your position in the pack. For example, don’t expect to get anything useful if you’re in first place. It’ll be banana peels and the occasional green shell all the way. However, if you happen to get knocked back into fourth or fifth, you can expect red shell after red shell. (The red shells, for those of you who don’t know, are act as heat-seeking missiles that practically guarantee the target to spin out. The green shells, on the other hand, travel only in a straight line and are extremely hard to aim.) Obviously this is an attempt to even things out in the race, and I have no problem with it when I’m playing in a grand prix against computer opponents. I want to whack that egg-hurling Yoshi bugger with anything the computer is willing to give me. But against another human driver in the 2-player grand prix, it starts to get a little annoying. But that’s life. It was a deliberate decision on the part of the developers (as opposed to lazy game design that resulted in a “flaw”), therefore nicely skewed gameplay is just something about Mario Kart that we all have to accept.

Besides these inherent difficulties, the possibility of three different engine classes (50cc, 100cc and 150cc) crank up the challenge even further. 100cc is extremely challenging; The opponents’ karts move faster and they are much more aggressive. I have never bothered to unlock 150cc, but having experienced 100cc I can guess that 150cc is absolutely brutal. Again, Mario is not to be underestimated as a puffy kid’s game.

Controls are blissfully uncomplicated. There’s no power-sliding like there is in the N64. Just steer the cart, hold down the gas, and try not to crash. Of course, there’s more strategy to it than that, but it’s nice not to have to struggle with the controls or perform complex moves. Each kart, no matter what the driver, handles intuitively and easily.

As with any well-crafted game, Super Mario Kart is full of those little extras that crank up the enjoyability level even further. There are some secrets in the tracks (nothing earth-shattering mind you, but what would a Mario game be without a few secrets to discover?) and a feature that keeps records of your best lap and course times as well as a replay mode that lets you watch yourself race through previously saved laps, and a time-trial mode where you can experiment with different drivers and challenge yourself to get the fastest time. The Battle Mode is also pretty fun. It’s where two karts get to mindlessly shoot things at each other, while dodging through a maze-like course of twisty passages and obstacles.

The graphics have a rather “classic” feel to them and more closely resemble Super Mario Bros. 3 than, for example, Super Mario World. By this I mean that the level of detail is slightly lower than perhaps one would expect on the SNES. The characters do look good though, and have a fair bit of animation, which includes looking over their shoulder if you approach them and different facial expressions for winning or losing. Mode 7 is used liberally without being obvious about it, and the result is fabulous. The audio is of similarly high quality. I don’t know if it’s actually Koji Kondo who composed the music, but if it isn’t than it’s a darn good clone. Good, hummable tunes that nevertheless don’t grate on the nerves after being heard for the hundredth time.

If I’ve come off sounding a little harsh towards Mario Kart 64 or Mario Kart Advance, then I apologize. Both are great games too, it’s just that sequels so rarely live up to the original, and this is no exception. It’s all about the Koopa, baby.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 11/02/02, Updated 05/06/03