nostalgia definitely influences me to overrate this one. charming visuals and outstanding OST, but it's an extremely flawed experience. this game should be used in game dev seminars when discussing enemy AI, because this is emblematic of what not to do. the rubberbanding is legitimately broken such that any lead the player gets will be minimized nonsensically (nancy and jam, despite being the slowest characters in the roster, will still zoom past you without any boosts). meanwhile, if the AI is in first place for too long, they'll amass a lead that is just impossible to overcome, made doubly worse when racing against shinobin, who seems to literally always have an invisibility item ready. playing quicksand valley through ninja land is fucking harrowing and i had several (i mean several) races end with me within pissing distance of the finish line only to get pan'd, frozen, etc. and lose the race. this game's AI is demonic and torpedoes a lot of the good will and fun that was built up in the process.

it's a testament to both nostalgia and aesthetics that i can still say i enjoy this game. i definitely overrated it a bit coming into this and had to knock off a star, but it's an endearing game in spite of its flaws. i remember SBK2 fixing a lot of the issues this game had as well as just generally being a much sharper presented game. i'm looking forward to replaying it in the near future.