Super Mario Kart

The godfather of racing games. And rightfully it is deserving of that title. As expected there was no story here, just good ole’ fashion racing against your buddies. Nintendo is the king of finding new formulas that work for video games specifically their all star games.

Super Mario Kart has become a super power empire combining popular characters from the Mario Universe and sticking them on go-karts as they swirl around the racing tracks throwing banana peels and red shells at each other. By paper it does sound like a simple concept but back then it was a masterpiece especially if you had someone to play with. (Not that I was alive then.)

The roster is pretty small compared to like the switch mario kart game. However all 8 of the characters have different abilities. Mario and Luigi are the standard racers, good at handling, acceleration, and top speed but masters of nothing. If you’re playing against them, they’ll try and block your path. Bowser and Donkey Kong are slow at accelerating but get them up to speed and they drive faster than the rest. When you race against them they’ll be throwing banana peels and fireballs at you. Princess Peach and Yoshi accelerate quick and when you’re behind them they’ll leave poisonous mushrooms and eggs in your path. Finally, you can race as Toad or Koopa Trooper who excel at handling and drop poison mushrooms and green shells on the track when racing them. I played as Bowser, he is my favourite Mario verse character.

Each stage will have question mark boxes that you can run over to gain a weapon. Those are the real game changers. You don’t have to be a great racer to win, Mario Kart has always and will always be about being lucky. I don't need to get into the weapons and obstacles do I? I'm fairly certain yall have a rough knowledge about what goes on into Mario Kart even if you don't play it 😬

I'm more than experienced when it comes with modern Mario Kart games but... I really did struggle with this. I think the handling is too sensitive for my taste. It is fairly obvious that this game hasn't really aged well graphics and mechanics wise. This game should get all the credit for starting the kart racing genre. I think it’s a little rough around the edges with the skill level and annoying mechanics. The cast of eight racers gives a great variety of choices wish it had more. There’s a decent amount of courses to race on. This was a solid start in the genre but other Mario Kart games would certainly blow this one out of the water.

I know it's the beginning of an era but, a racing game where turn braking is mandatory but you're actively penalized for doing it? YIKES! Great idea, bad game.

Trying to keep the times in mind, this was insanely impressive but becomes boring fast. Still impressive of course

This was an incredibly frustrating experience, the controls are good though, and the tracks while repeating are still pretty fun, but man was this game hard to 100%

You can feel the impact Donkey Kong Country had on gaming culture by realizing Donkey Kong Jr never appeared in a mainline Mario Kart after this one

[Switch]

It feels very clunky and unstable... but maybe it is because it aged bad. Very, very bad.