It must be weird to go back to Super Circuit coming from an all 3D era of Mario Kart for the kids. I had a hard time reckoning what it could be like for my 12 year old nephew when he felt lost facing the original Mario Kart on SNES Mini a few years back or a 21 year old a few weeks ago, when we changed from Mario Kart 8 Deluxe to the original on the Switch.

To me, the whole story is entirely different. I grew up playing racing games looking way worse than Mario Kart, so when F-Zero and the plumber's grand prix were released on the SNES, those games were a revolutionary blast. Looking back, I understand graphics appear a little mushy maybe, but that's what made the games so incredibly fast.

Especially the original Mario Kart with its competitive features was our go to racer for years and what Mario Kart 64 had to offer just wasn't as perfect. It didn't look as good, the N64 controllers were crap and the gameplay itself... well, we still played the shite out of it at a friend's place, but it was no adequate substitute.

Introducing Mario Kart: Super Circuit I bought the GBA for, actually. That was promising. Back from those weird inferior 3D experiments to a style we knew and loved on SNES, except graphics looked a little more polished. It supported link cable, even with just one cartridge in use, just that the opponent could only choose Joshi. Real friends owned their private copy anyway.

I still feel, that Super Circuits, despite the new tracks we rarely used after unlocking the old ones, just feels almost as pure and perfect as the original Mario Kart on SNES, though it has a place in my heart ever since. Any Mario Kart I tried after Super Circuit couldn't capture what I liked about a game that requires skill instead of helping you slingshot after you messed up. Actually, I still have been playing almost daily on my trusty GBA until the SNES Mini came out and I kind of changed back to the emulated original for a while.

Even though I learned to love my Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, I still think it's too much of item overkill and the way it rewards skill is too much based on, well, cheating, like the extensive use of shortcuts, to be truthfully honest. But Mario Kart 8 manages to balance between skilled driving and arcade mechanics enough to be fun. You can accidentally win sometimes and you loose way to often to crappy driver's just because they get spoiled with items, but in the end, you can dominate if you did your homework.

Still, Mario Kart: Super Circuit to me is the better balanced game between an already perfect original and modernity. I might have to be called purist, after rambling subjectively so much at the least, without even getting into detail about the program itself. But hey, it's Mario Kart, what do you expect? Everybody knows Mario Kart.

What I want to say is, there's some special charme about those two titles, the SNES and GBA version, that just can't be challenged and I'm a bit worried this is getting lost within later generations. But just as I had the patience to keep up with Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, maybe it's possible for others to give those old games a chance like the above mentioned young folks did. After some getting used to and hard learning we actually had fun together. And after all, it's the history all your other favourite Mario Karts are based on.

Probably I'd recommend starting with the SNES game to understand what Mario Kart: Super Circuit was offering me after a disappointment with Mario Kart 64. The major flaw of Super Circuit could actually be, that we did not play it amongst friends as much as we did the SNES game. Maybe, had it not been requiring to link up consoles and had the screens been lit from the start, Super Circuit with its new additional tracks would have been completely on par with the SNES version.

I really was hungry for a true sequel and you can't believe how much I would appreciate a new one returning to what I feel was the main emphasis of Mario Kart. Just with modernized 2,5D graphics and some new tracks of course plus the online functions I enjoy so much in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Until then, I might wheel out the GBA every other month and see if I can beat myself in time trial anymore.

Reviewed on Jan 04, 2022


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