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Mario Kart: Super Circuit Game Review

Mario Kart: Super Circuit is a 2001 kart racing video game developed and published by Nintendo for the Game Boy Advance. It is the second and weakest installment in the series.

This kart racer was quite well received when it was first released. In fact, it was regarded as one of the best GBA titles. In retrospect however, the game is regularly cited among the worst entries in the series and I definitely agree with that assessment myself.

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The main issue with this installment is its unnecessary nature. I get that they wanted to make a Mario Kart game on a handheld console, but what ended up happening was a game that felt dated back in 2001, especially when compared with its much more polished and confident immediate predecessor. Going back from ‘Mario Kart 64’ to the simplicity and clunky controls of ‘Super Mario Kart’ was an ill-fated idea from the get-go.

Yes, Mario Kart: Super Circuit tried to emulate the original game by not just bringing back some of its most iconic tracks, but also returning to 3D presentation and the original’s gameplay mechanics. Graphically, this game did not age well at all. You wouldn’t think that it came out nine years after the original as it’s rough and unpolished in its aesthetic. The sound is also just okay, though the voices are good and the score is expectedly great with a couple of excellent themes.

I did not play multiplayer mode and apparently it’s quite good, but the single-player mode is only serviceable. The Grand Prix functions as it did before – you have four cups consisting of four tracks, each track consisting of three laps. The power-ups are pretty unoriginal as they are either offensive or a speed boost. The coins are back here and they also function as a speed boost, which was quite welcome, but they were too scarce on each track.

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While the game is reasonably diverting and also quite short, I ended up only beating the Grand Prix on the lowest difficulty level and even then it wasn’t easy at all. This is where my main issue with the game lies. Not only are the enemies overly capable (though thankfully the rubber banding from the predecessor wasn’t as apparent here), but the game also employs those horrendous choices that stump you for a very long time, destroying your every chance at getting back in the race.

Those include those terrible barriers around some tracks, some very unfortunate enemy placements and the fact that when you fall off the track, getting back to it takes so much freaking time. It’s not fair to play one track perfectly and fall down just once only to never have the chance to win the track again.

But the worst offender are of course the controls. Not only are they very clunky and dated, but the handling is quite terrible. Boosting can easily overpower you to the point that it becomes almost impossible to control your vehicle and make it stay on the track properly. Some parts of the tracks were almost impossible for me to get through as they required pitch-perfect handling with controls that are anything but intuitive.

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But I still liked playing Mario Kart: Super Circuit for its great score, a big fun factor and most importantly phenomenal tracks. Some of the highlights include the very charming Riverside Park, the visually gorgeous Cheese Land, the enchanting Sky Garden and the atmospheric western-inspired Sunset Wilds. Snow Land and Yoshi Desert are also quite lovely. As for Rainbow Road, I found it dazzling as always and very well designed, but overly difficult.