Super Mario Kart

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JaySevenZero
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Super Mario Kart

Post by JaySevenZero »

Here is where you can leave your thoughts regarding Super Mario Kart for possible inclusion in the podcast when it's recorded.
Joshihatsumitsu

Re: Super Mario Kart

Post by Joshihatsumitsu »

I have to assume we're talking about the original SNES version of Super Mario Kart, and if that's the case then I better put my nostalgia hat on...

My Super Nintendo was a very important console to me, and had I not won one in a promotional competition (plus 12 games) when I was younger then I doubt I would have convinced my parents to buy one for me! So I had a pretty good head start in the 16 bit era, all for free.

Super Mario Kart was an example of a game I didn't own, but borrowed from friends or rented at the time. The limited time I had to play it probably resulted in me spending more time playing, as to make the most of the opportunity.

It wasn't the first game to "mode 7" it up in a racing game, with F-Zero (a game I didn't own at the time) being a highly desirable game close to launch. But it was a Mario game, and I absolutely Cane and Rinsed Super Mario World back in the day, with all 96 exits still on my save file on my cartridge. Super Mario Allstars was also part of the 12 free games from that previously mentioned competition, so while I was missing out on Mario from the 8-bit era by being a Sega kid, I was starting to catch up.

Super Mario Kart was, and for the most part still is, super easy to pick up and play, and takes a bit of practice to master. And a bit of luck too. Okay, maybe a lot of luck. The "elastic banding" of opponent racers was something perhaps I didn't understand, or was aware of at the time. It certainly felt more prevelent in later titles, but in the original I know if I tried, and tried again, I could make progress.

And this, like quite a few Super Nintendo titles, feels right at home on my 3DS. The Mushroom cup is about the right length and difficulty if I want a quick blast through, without a heavy time commitment, and it's still as fun today as it was in its heyday. This along with Outrun and F-Zero (finally got it!) makes the 3DS not just a great nostalgia-delivery system, but a pretty good little console for racing titles.

My love for this title is definitely tied to my experiences growing up and playing it at the time, or reading about it in gaming magazines. To be objective: I can't be. If you have a 3DS (edit: New 3DS only) why not get it? It translates pretty well to a handheld, and stands up well to modern kart races, and the controls are still tight. And it's as casual or deep as you want it to be.
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ratsoalbion
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Re: Super Mario Kart

Post by ratsoalbion »

There is only one game called Super Mario Kart so yes, you've got the right one!
:)

Thanks for the correspondence Joshi.

A small point; you need a "*New*" 3DS if you want to play Super Mario Kart handheld (legally/officially), and the game is also on Wii U and Wii Virtual Consoles.
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Alex79
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Re: Super Mario Kart

Post by Alex79 »

Super Mario Kart was one of the defining games of the generation for me. My brother and I played it for hours upon hours, and we knew every single track like the back of our hands. It was always a dash to see who could get to the short cuts first, the feather jump in the ghost house, the cutaway in the wall on Donut Plains, bumping each other off the track on Rainbow Road. Absolutely brilliant tracks, great power ups and weapons (from the days before the blue shell annoyances!). I always raced as the Koopa Trooper, although if on the rare occasion my foe would bagsie him first then Toad was a decent second choice. Mainly though, we'd play battle mode. Incredible fun, and a mode which has never been bettered in later games. The original truly is the best in this case. The four stages were perfectly designed, and all would get equal playtime with us, each requiring slightly different tactics. I don't have much more to say other than it's a game I have incredibly fond memories of, and one that I'll still load up and have a few races on even now.

THREE WORD REVIEW: Pop 'dem balloons!!
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Suits
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Re: Super Mario Kart

Post by Suits »

Super Mario Kart, well, lol.

I owned the cart (still do) but put the most hours into a friends copy, that we all used to gather together and play.

There was four of us that used to meet at my mates house and then walk to school together. We used to get around his a little early each day so that we could get a few laps in before we set off.

For us, where as the Cup's were good fun and the battle mode was OK, once we'd unlocked everything we spent most of our time playing Time Trials. Always Ghost Valley 1. Always as Donkey Kong.

Using the heavy characters (Donkey Kong & Bowser) meant that you had the highest top speed but the slowest acceleration. Slowest acceleration was nothing to worry about though as we had the 2nd pip on Lakitu down to a perfect start each time.

The Time Trial mode suited our limited pre-school meet allocation perfectly, meaning that after a few laps each we could set off after all having a quick go.

We started to get quick, and shaving split seconds off was the aim. We even established that you were quicker if you hopped over the two full length yellow jump strips as opposed to hitting them, as hitting them meant more air time and less traction - it really did make a difference.

Cutting the corners as close to the blocks as possible was key to everything and muscle memory started to come into it. You could even make the bridge shortcut (Cup mode) with a mushroom, if you were at full tilt, with full coins and hit the yellow jump strip at the right time, clearing the entire section before the usual feather (leaf) jump.

One of the boys, Lee, was easily the best at it. Holding the record above all of us. When we'd start to get close from watching his techniques, he's just find a way to get a few more tenths ahead again.

It really was a great time to play games, one that I blame almost entirely on my love nowadays.

Regards the game now, I struggle to go back to it. I find that more modern titles do almost everything in the game better now, which makes me find it hard as a reason to go back to. Nothing should be taken away from the games original impact and defining gameplay it brought to the control pad however. Playing Mario Kart 8 gives me everything I need from a Kart racer now, unlike say New Super Mario Wii U compared to Super Mario World.

And before anyone asks, I'm fairly sure our record (not mine - Lee's) on Ghost Valley 1 was 1:06.10 or there abouts.


3 Word Review - Ghost Valley 1
Joshihatsumitsu

Re: Super Mario Kart

Post by Joshihatsumitsu »

ratsoalbion wrote:There is only one game called Super Mario Kart so yes, you've got the right one!
:)

Thanks for the correspondence Joshi.

A small point; you need a "*New*" 3DS if you want to play Super Mario Kart handheld (legally/officially), and the game is also on Wii U and Wii Virtual Consoles.
Of course, thanks! New 3DS only... so easy to forget that!
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Re: Super Mario Kart

Post by DomsBeard »

Alex79uk wrote:Super Mario Kart was one of the defining games of the generation for me. My brother and I played it for hours upon hours, and we knew every single track like the back of our hands. It was always a dash to see who could get to the short cuts first, the feather jump in the ghost house, the cutaway in the wall on Donut Plains, bumping each other off the track on Rainbow Road. Absolutely brilliant tracks, great power ups and weapons (from the days before the blue shell annoyances!). I always raced as the Koopa Trooper, although if on the rare occasion my foe would bagsie him first then Toad was a decent second choice. Mainly though, we'd play battle mode. Incredible fun, and a mode which has never been bettered in later games. The original truly is the best in this case. The four stages were perfectly designed, and all would get equal playtime with us, each requiring slightly different tactics. I don't have much more to say other than it's a game I have incredibly fond memories of, and one that I'll still load up and have a few races on even now.

THREE WORD REVIEW: Pop 'dem balloons!!
Completely echo what Alex has said, I must have put 100's of hours into it. Bowser Castle 3 was a track I repeated 100's of times to get a great time on time trail and beat my ghost. It also cost me a SNES pad too, I always played as Koopa and Luigi was always the CPU controlled Kart that would always be up and around me when in first. On my countless attempts to win the final championship on 150cc Rainbow Road I remember one instance where on the final bend Luigi knocked me off whilst invincible causing me to smash my see through autofire pad into many pieces and earn me a telling off from my Mum. Easily the best Mario Kart due to the excellent number of tracks with not many duffers and NO BLUE SHELLS
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Stanshall
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Re: Super Mario Kart

Post by Stanshall »

I never had a SNES but my best mate did and a group of us spent weeks and weeks of glorious summer holidays, evenings and weekends playing Mario Kart, hoofing a ball around the street and listening to Knowing Me Knowing You and Britpop. We played hundreds of GPs but it was Battle Mode which really filled our days and got us leaping up and down.

Few things in gaming feel quite as satisfying as pulling off a pixel perfect slide around a long corner and then, as you exit, hopping in the opposite direction, shifting the angle of your Kart onto the straight. It's the essence of Nintendo for me, the simple joy and feel of responsive movement. As much as I love MK8 and however much I became a devotee of MK DS, Super Mario Kart is one of my formative video game experiences. I can still remember every note of every glorious, carefree tune. Neither me nor my mates will ever forget those days.
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Re: Super Mario Kart

Post by Buskalilly »

I came to Super Mario Kart quite late, having already played to death the Gamecube and DS versions. Rather than finding it a disappointing, stripped-back experience I found the digital precision of the Mode 7 racing to be a brilliant purification of the idea. Super Mario Kart is timelessly fun. I think it's telling that, although Mario Kart 8 may have finally outdone it, it hasn't really changed a great deal since the SNES.
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stvnorman
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Re: Super Mario Kart

Post by stvnorman »

I played this for the first time last week. That's right! Nintendo consoles never really appealed at the time. Clearly I've only scraped the surface, but enough to realise what I've missed out on. All I'm qualified to say is that it's fun at its purest from the outset.
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Re: Super Mario Kart

Post by Madsocks »

Man, did I ever love this game! First time I got to play it was when I did a console swap with a guy in school; I was always a Sega boy and this guy was a Nintendork! So we decided to swap our 16 bit machines, and along with Pilotwings, Super Mario World and Kevin Keegan's Football Manager, it was the first time I'd played Mario Kart and was instantly hooked. The Ghost House was by far my best level, not just for the massive ghouls populating the sky, but the music that accompanied it was just superb! I would never go through all the characters and try each one, find out their strengths and weaknesses; I was always Yoshi, no-one else, just Yoshi!

Thanks to the wonderful world of emulation I still play this game time and time again, it's recently celebrated it's 24th anniversary yet the game is still as good as it was when it first hit the shelves in January 1993, taking in the atmosphere of the track, jostling for positions going into each first turn and my personal highlights, driving over the question marks on the final lap, getting a red shell, then if I was in 2nd place, homing in on the leader (most of the time it was Koopa) and firing the shell on the home straight and watching him spin out so close to the finish line as I glide past and take first place, aah such memories!!
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matten zwei
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Re: Super Mario Kart

Post by matten zwei »

I guess, I was at the age of seven, when I played Super Mario Kart at my best friends Super Nintendo.
Since I didn't have any sort of videogame console at my home, I was only able to play videogames at my friend's house.
His collection was quite representative for the Super Nintendo: Super Mario Allstars, Super Mario World, Super Street Fighter 2, F-Zero and Mario Kart. And since I was too scared of F-Zero (Hoover-Cars crashing and exploding in a futuristic city), we always played Super Mario Kart.

I sucked pretty hard at it. Racing-games in the 16bit-era were somehow incredibly hard for me. I think it was due to the lack of real 3D polygons and view felt somehow very nearsighted. Upcoming objects were quite hard to recognise from the distance. Because I kept on losing the races, which led to an early game over, even though the cup wasn't finished, we turned over to the multiplayer. I sucked at it too.

I've been playing videogames for over 20 years since then and when I am playing Super Mario Kart nowadays, I am somehow able to deal with it. I am still not very good at it, but I manage to win some cups. When I listen to the music in the opening screen, I get all nostalgic and imagine myself as a seven-year-old being good at Super Mario Kart.
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Re: Super Mario Kart

Post by Shabbasnake »

Long-time listener, etc...

I can't remember exactly when I got Super Mario Kart. I was young when it came out, so assume my parents picked it up for me but I couldn't tell you if it was for birthday, Christmas or on a whim. But while my initial memories are really hazy, I've got a whole host of happy times linked to the game. There was the sponsored games night put on by my Boys Brigade group, which turned into a 12 hour marathon Mario Kart session; the time my brother and I were allowed to set my SNES up on the "big telly" by Mum and Dad, who cackled as we wound each other up on battle mode; the falling out I had with a friend when we fought over the right to race as Toad; summoning the courage to try 100cc mode against racers the instruction manual called "aggressive".

I still own the original cart, and sure enough every Christmas my brother and I will commandeer the big(ger) telly and get the whole room laughing at us. It's one of only a handful of games my non-gaming family members - since extended to include my wife - genuinely enjoy being in the presence of. It's an infectiously joyful game, even on the darker levels in haunted houses and Bowser's castle. I've played subsequent instalments and got on with them fine, but none have lasted with me the same way the original Super Mario Kart did.
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I feel sad I missed my chance

Post by BlueWeaselBreath »

The original Super Mario Kart was one of the few SNES classic games I didn't play around the time it came out. I was never into racing games, so it didn't appeal to me, even though I loved Mario. I wish I had played it at the time, because I feel that I've now missed my chance to really get into the game.

My friend had Mario Kart 64, and I loved that game and spent hours playing it at his house when it came out, but I only tried out the SNES original a couple months ago. Unlike some of the other commenters here, my experience was that it was just a less interesting and immersive experience than Mario Kart 64. We go around the track a couple times, and that's it? Maneuvering felt less exciting, getting powerups felt less fun, and hurting the other racers felt less gratifying.

I surprised myself with this reaction, since I'm a huge fan of SNES era games, and fell out of gaming shortly around the 32 and 64 bit era of gaming. There is almost no case in which I prefer the 64 bit polygon version of anything to its sprite-based 16-bit counterpart, including any other Mario game. But in this instance, because I played Mario Kart 64 first, and never dug racing games that much otherwise, Super Mario Kart was a bit of an anticlimax to me...I feel a bit sad that I missed my chance to really love this game as most others do.
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Re: Our next podcast recording (12.8.17): Super Mario Kart

Post by Tleprie »

Super is up there with DS for my favorite feeling Mario Kart, but only when played well. As soon as any mistakes are made and you end up in the grass or water, you may as well reset the SNES.

I'd like to see Nintendo revisit the more arcade-y style of this entry, where skill is more rewarded than luck, but with the design philosophies of 8, where you're never not moving for more than a second or two.

I had my fun with the game and saw it through till I had every gold, but I doubt I'll revisit it anytime this decade. This said, Super may be my 3rd favorite Mario Kart, under DS and 8.
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Re: Our next podcast recording (12.8.17): Super Mario Kart

Post by RoboticMonk3y »

rats!
I turned up too late for the party.
Snes was the first console I actually owned (as opposed to borrowed), and as such Super mario Kart holds a dear place in my heart. I remember many hours spent playing and trying my hardest to beat the 150cc races, learning all the sneaky little tricks for battle mode.
The SNES (pronounced snezzz) version of mario kart to me feels like the perfect version, no complex mechanisms of pick ups, like trailing things behind you, no blue shell, no snaking, no changing kart wheels or bikes or flying.
Coins are actually worth picking up and make a noticeable change to your speed. I remember always wanting to play as Toad until I worked out that DK Jr and Bowser can pick up a huge amount of speed if you can hold your corners and not crash.
I can't shake off the feeling that every mario Kart game that has come along since has added extra fluff, that for me has not made the game better, I've played the game recently, on my original SNES no less (just before having to sell it for the sake of storage space and lack of funds :( ) and I feel that the game still holds up well, pretty much instantly put a smile on my face.
and that soundtrack....
it's like my video gaming youth distilled sound into sweet audio lovelyness.
I kick myself for not poking my head around the door in time to contribute to the show, but since I was here, I couldn't resist giving my two cents worth
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