Developer: Nintendo Release Date: 9/1/1992 Platform: Super Nintendo

So this marks the first installment of our weekly series of retro reviews here at Loot-Ninja. We have chosen Super Mario Kart as the first review because for a lot of people it still stands as the pinnacle of the series. Anyone who’s been listening to our weekly podcast knows that I’ve been all over this game like a fat kid on a cupcake the past few weeks. So I’m going for it. Some of the jargon used will be explained for the younger crowd. Frickin’ kids.

I love this shit you know.

Back when this game was released, Mode-7 graphics were all the rage. For those of you who don’t remember, Mode-7 graphics enabled developers to scale and rotate a 2-D background. In this case, it provided more realistic turns in the backgrounds of Super Mario Karts tracks – this effectively set a precedent for the companies who were still using the top down view a-la RC Pro Am.

By today’s standards, you could probably find graphics similar to this on your cell phone. But I believe that considering the console and year – these graphics hold up way better than most people think. It may not be all 3D’d up but it still gives decent perspective and gets the game’s point across.

The roster had all the biggest Mario characters at the time (except the whole DK Jr instead of DK, which I’ll never understand, but whatever). Mario, Luigi, DK Jr, Bowser, Koopa-Troopa, Toadstool, Peach and Yoshi graced us all with their presence. Each character was separated by classes – speed, acceleration and weight. The game’s difficulty was separated by the now standard 50cc, 100cc and 150cc classes. There were four cups each with the same eight tracks – Mario Circuit, Donut Plains, Ghost Valley, Bowser Castle, Choco Island, Koopa Beach, Vanilla Lake and Rainbow Road. Rainbow Road of course was the track that you would tear out chunks of your hair and beat up your baby brother over – but in a good way.

The one player game is a ton of fun and still wildly challenging in the higher levels – the controls are still tight as hell and once you master the 3-2-1 boost trick and powersliding, you will be a formidable rival. And once you’ve got things down, you will be ready for the multiplayer – which is still what the game is really remembered for. Grand Prix is the standard racing and Match race was one-on-one – the usual fanfare. But it was Battle Mode that separated Super Mario Kart from other racers at the time. There were four levels to choose from. Each player had three balloons on their cart and whoever had all three balloons popped first, lost. If you are unfortunate enough to fall off the edge or into deeper water, Lakitu will gladly fish you out and place you back on the track. You lucky rascal you.

Simple I know, but incredibly fun and addictive. I don’t care what year it is. You can and will lose many, many hours with your friends when you fire this one up. I still dominate with Bowser – as long as you can keep the momentum you can destroy. Of course with a fat bastard like Bowser once you get stopped your in a world of trouble and start thinking ‘maybe I should have picked Toad’ but it’s too late fatty so suck it up and get shit done!! And even if you had picked Toad your anorexic ass would have been blown off the friggin’ track by a light friggin’ breeze or something!!!! *HUFF HUFF*

Sorry.

Anyways.

Now as usual there are people out there who think that the whole ‘retro thing’ is a big waste of time. That looking into the past can put too much pressure on reviews of today. I believe that looking back once and a while gives us a point of reference that is invaluable to the future. How many games were influenced by the Mario Kart series? How many iterations have we sat through in the cart racing genre that Nintendo is responsible for?

But that is the very thing we love about this game. How many cart racers out there still can’t get the formula right?! It’s been sixteen years for gods sake and people still screw this shit up! And I hate to say it – but Nintendo is still trying to recapture the magic that Super Mario Kart gave us – with mixed results over the years as I’m sure you’ve noticed.

So overall I can still recommend Super Mario kart to those people who are looking for one of the most relevant and cohesive cart-racing experiences out there. If you still have a SNES (or a capable emulator) that is.

Overall – Then: 9.5 out of 10, Now: 8.5 out of 10

Durka!!!