Mario Kart 64 (N64)

Super Mario Kart was such a break-out success that it carved out a new racing genre where players could interfere with other racers to increase their chances of victory. However, returning to it now seems more interesting if you view it as a single player challenge than a multiplayer night with friends, and that’s because the follow-up Mario Kart 64 would be the game that truly solidifies the series’s identity and essentially serves as the baseline that future 3D kart racers would be judged by.

In Mario Kart 64, 8 racers compete in 3 lap races as recognizable faces from the Mario franchise, the plumber and his brother Luigi joined by allies like Princess Peach and Toad, former enemies like Wario and the gorilla Donkey Kong, and even Mario’s most persistent villain Bowser. Your racer of choice can impact your performance in race, such as the light weights which are normally the fastest racers sometimes spinning out when they make contact with heavier opponents. While everyone is competing solely for the trophies in Mario Kart 64, it can be said that Mario’s friends and foes are able to still let off some steam thanks to the items that influence the kart racing action.

Depending on your position in a race, when a player hits a floating item box they’ll have different odds at receiving helpful one use items. Players at the front are more likely to get things like bananas to leave behind for other racers to slip on or green turtle shells that can be launched to bounce around the race track dangerously, but for pretty much any player outside of first place, the chances of getting something truly game changing rise the worse you’re doing. Mushrooms can give you speed boosts, but a Star will make you invincible and much faster for a while. A lightning bolt will shrink and slow all other racers for a time, and a spiny blue shell will tear across the track to hit the player in first. The items are important equalizers that help lead to exciting shifts in how a race unfolds, racers not just having to contend with turns and dangers on the road but also unexpected interference that means the best player might not always place first. This definitely works best as a multiplayer feature to even the playing field, and Mario Kart 64 seems to understand this, the game-controlled racers not even able to get certain items like shells and their odds for items like the lightning bolt are much lower than they are for human players.

Mario Kart 64’s 16 unique race courses are sorted into four separate tournament cups that feature 4 tracks each. The music that plays across them is definitely excellent and some have memorable concepts and gimmicks to them like the Kalimari Desert course crossing train tracks where you might just have to wait for a train to pass if you can’t clear the crossings in time. Among the most captivating in concept are places like Toad’s Turnpike, a race course on a busy public street where you’ll need to dodge traffic, and the icy floes of Sherbet Land where large playful penguins can serve as dangerous obstacles. Some ideas are less effective than others, Yoshi’s Valley an unusual mess of road options to the point the game can’t even track who’s in the lead and the extra routes feel extraneous rather than strategic alternatives, but a few are outright rough. Choco Mountain’s tight valleys mean items like the homing Red Shell are almost useless because the game’s already poor method of tracking targets is exacerbated by tight spaces, but the motocross track of Wario Stadium is large and lacking in engaging features or hazards and Rainbow Road, despite its visual splendor, is abnormally long and has long stretches where there isn’t much to do but drive straight-on. There are a decent amount of shortcuts and corner cuts you can commit with something like a Mushroom boost, but many tracks do feel unusually spacious and with lulls where everyone’s waiting for the next danger or string of item boxes to show up.

The items end up an important zest to spice up the moments the tracks are a little underwhelming, and Mario Kart 64 actually includes an extra Battle Mode where players are thrown into one of four small special arenas to try and knock each other out. Three balloons serve as markers of how many hits it takes to lose and they come in spacious designs like the lava-filled Big Donut or the more complicated little structures of Block Fort, but this mode can only be played with other human players. Time Trials also exist to allow you to try and set the best time for each course with no other active players, the game providing three mushroom boosts as well so interesting shortcuts can be weaved into your best times rather than just trying to handle the track’s shape optimally. The main focus of Mario Kart 64 is definitely on the Grand Prix which comes in what serve almost as four difficulties. The first three relate to engine class, 50cc, 100cc, and 150cc progressively faster and your AI opponents become much more capable racers to boot, while Extra instead mirrors the courses to throw off your muscle memory. Were this just how the game treated the different difficulties, there wouldn’t be much to worry about save that some decent course knowledge could get you to first place without too much fuss, but here is where you’d expect the items to keep it a tight race even if you’re particularly skilled.

Instead, Mario Kart 64 is a bit flagrant in its use of a system colloquially called rubber banding. Rubber banding refers to giving computer-controlled racers artificial benefits when off-screen such as impossibly high speed or resistance to hazards so they can close the gap with a capable human player, and this isn’t necessarily a bad idea. A little nudge could keep things more competitive, but the nudge featured here is far from little. At times, a human player can utilize the powerful golden mushroom to receive endless repeatable speed boosts for a limited time only to inexplicably have the racers they bolted past just a second ago to somehow be moving to pass them after it is depleted. When the game knows it can’t get away with it it does at least have some self-control, some special shortcuts like a jump through a cave at Koopa Beach usually giving you the kind of lead the game will allow, but it becomes harder to delight in your Grand Prix successes or lucky item gets when their impact is hampered by this overzealous system. You do not necessarily need to place first to win a Tournament Cup at least, the top four players in a race earning points based on their placement that can total up to an overall victory, and perhaps more important, if you place below fourth in a race, you can retry it for free, giving you a means of repeating a course just in case some late game bad luck undermined an otherwise sterling showing.

THE VERDICT: Mario Kart 64 provides exciting racing action in multiplayer where items make races about more than taking turns well, and while some levels like Wario Stadium feel a bit barren, other courses can provide good hosts to item throwing mayhem or even provide some challenging dangers to keep racers on their toes. Battle Mode is a smart way to lean more heavily into direct competition, but in the Grand Prix the game does a poor job of hiding the artificial boosts it gives to computer racers who almost threatened to ruin cup runs if not for lenient retry options and the points system. Mario Kart 64 can’t be dragged down by a bit of artificial difficulty though, there still plenty to enjoy as the peppy music plays in this colorful classic kart racer.

And so, I give Mario Kart 64 for Nintendo 64…

A GOOD rating. To go back to Super Mario Kart requires adjusting your mindset for a racer that was much more difficult and focused on tough course design, but Mario Kart 64 provides the racing fun the series would become known for. Items add an interesting monkey wrench to proceedings because no player can ever be assured that they are absolutely safe and that need to adjust to unexpected disruptions or utilize items intelligently makes competition much more involved than merely being the person who best handles their kart. The somewhat slippery driving can take a bit to adjust to when returning to it from other titles and Royal Raceway in particular has some devious turns ready to punish anyone who doesn’t get a handle for it, but there are enough courses with some moving dangers or slightly demanding designs that item use isn’t the only thing carrying the experience. Rainbow Road and Wario Stadium definitely require the invigoration items provide, but the game giving even the strong stuff to high ranking players also leads to some interesting surprises so these slower races aren’t going to just be waiting to see if the racer ahead of you slips up enough for you to capitalize. To help rectify some of the problems with computer racers, less rubber banding speed boosts and more item fun would likely be the better solution, the game perhaps still better off ensuring their luck is a little worse so there aren’t constant lightning storms but contending with the items of other racers is better perceived as a fair obstruction when you’re just as capable of bring it to bear. None of the race courses or modes are so awful they can’t have their moments too, so while there is definitely room to up the excitement in the emptier tracks, most Grand Prix and multiplayer races still can provide an entertaining time.

Mario Kart 64 being the baseline kart racer also means it’s not quite as good as its progeny and not as valuable to return to as the more experimental or distinct future titles. Later Mario Karts get a better handle for accessible controls, more interesting ways to approach tracks that also have more going on with their designs, and less dependence on rubber banding since they just let the items be fully utilized by the opposition. The future games are most often better, but it’s clear why this is the template for most every kart racer as it found a good mix of letting the courses and items both determine the shape of the race.