I spent a long time today getting a ROM of this set up, which was weirdly tricky, and then finished this game in one go over about 2 hours.
I've been curious about the arcade exclusive games of the Mario Kart franchise for a long time now but I never felt like dealing with the emulation of those games. And now that I've played this one, I don't really know if I will go through so much trouble for an arcade game again.
I kind of understand the marvel of arcade machines and definitely appreciate their place and meaning in the history of videogames, but playing games that were made for arcade machines is kind of a miserable experience to me because of the whole concept behind them. I get why they put timers in every menu screen, but it's just annoying and unnecessarily stressful in favor of the manufacturer making sure no kid is hogging the machine keeping more coins from flowing through the system.
Anyway, despite that sort of stuff, I had a decent time with the actual races.
The main part of the game is made up of 6 cups which include 4 races each, although the tracks are more like alternate versions of one track than 4 completely individual ones. Most of those tracks still look very nice visually, especially the tracks from the Wario Cup and Pac-Man Cup, and a lot of them are fun to race through, but there are also a whole bunch of pretty plain circles early on. Considering that you're supposed to put in a coin for every single race, no matter if you lost or won the previous one, the assortment isn't really that great. Thank god for emulators...
The items are probably the biggest difference of this installment in the franchise as there are 60 different items to unlock. But instead of having all of them active all the time, each race has 3 predetermined items that you might find in the power-up boxes. Some races let you pick and choose your own 3-item pack though, which gives the game a bit of a strategic element. But honestly, the items rarely mattered in my playthrough and most of my success was just linked to getting the odd drift system right and driving cleanly.
Since there are so many items, a bunch of them are also pretty much copies of each other with different skins. I have to say though, I wouldn't mind seeing some of these in actual console games, like the black shell that just explodes in a big fiery ball on impact. Simple, but effective and satisfying.
It's interesting to me though that this arcade machine apparently was able to have savestates. From what I understand, people actually got physical "driver's license" cards that saved their progress and they could return whenever to go back to their specific place in the campaign mode and have all their unlocked items. That's kind of impressive.
Anyway, it's a decent Mario Kart game. But I don't know if it would be worth it to feed it with coins to actually play all of it, if you were to see this machine somewhere.
It has a few interesting quirks and the tracks aren't that bad. Having the Pac-Man franchise included is pretty fun. I liked the Pac-Man tracks and I have a feeling a ton of the new items come from that franchise.
But the arcade variations on the gameplay mostly just make this more annoying to play over the console counterparts. I also think, at least for me personally, actually playing with the intended peripherals - the steering wheel, gas, and brake pedals - would just make it more frustrating than fun. I'd definitely prefer a classic controller for an arcade-style racer like the Mario Kart games.
I've been curious about the arcade exclusive games of the Mario Kart franchise for a long time now but I never felt like dealing with the emulation of those games. And now that I've played this one, I don't really know if I will go through so much trouble for an arcade game again.
I kind of understand the marvel of arcade machines and definitely appreciate their place and meaning in the history of videogames, but playing games that were made for arcade machines is kind of a miserable experience to me because of the whole concept behind them. I get why they put timers in every menu screen, but it's just annoying and unnecessarily stressful in favor of the manufacturer making sure no kid is hogging the machine keeping more coins from flowing through the system.
Anyway, despite that sort of stuff, I had a decent time with the actual races.
The main part of the game is made up of 6 cups which include 4 races each, although the tracks are more like alternate versions of one track than 4 completely individual ones. Most of those tracks still look very nice visually, especially the tracks from the Wario Cup and Pac-Man Cup, and a lot of them are fun to race through, but there are also a whole bunch of pretty plain circles early on. Considering that you're supposed to put in a coin for every single race, no matter if you lost or won the previous one, the assortment isn't really that great. Thank god for emulators...
The items are probably the biggest difference of this installment in the franchise as there are 60 different items to unlock. But instead of having all of them active all the time, each race has 3 predetermined items that you might find in the power-up boxes. Some races let you pick and choose your own 3-item pack though, which gives the game a bit of a strategic element. But honestly, the items rarely mattered in my playthrough and most of my success was just linked to getting the odd drift system right and driving cleanly.
Since there are so many items, a bunch of them are also pretty much copies of each other with different skins. I have to say though, I wouldn't mind seeing some of these in actual console games, like the black shell that just explodes in a big fiery ball on impact. Simple, but effective and satisfying.
It's interesting to me though that this arcade machine apparently was able to have savestates. From what I understand, people actually got physical "driver's license" cards that saved their progress and they could return whenever to go back to their specific place in the campaign mode and have all their unlocked items. That's kind of impressive.
Anyway, it's a decent Mario Kart game. But I don't know if it would be worth it to feed it with coins to actually play all of it, if you were to see this machine somewhere.
It has a few interesting quirks and the tracks aren't that bad. Having the Pac-Man franchise included is pretty fun. I liked the Pac-Man tracks and I have a feeling a ton of the new items come from that franchise.
But the arcade variations on the gameplay mostly just make this more annoying to play over the console counterparts. I also think, at least for me personally, actually playing with the intended peripherals - the steering wheel, gas, and brake pedals - would just make it more frustrating than fun. I'd definitely prefer a classic controller for an arcade-style racer like the Mario Kart games.
HumorousUsername
2 years ago