Mario Kart 64 (Nintendo 64, 1997)

Time for one of the best games of all time and one that I took waaaay too long to play. The Super NES Super Mario Kart was the last game in this series that I really spent any substantial time with (until Mario Kart 8), so this one is pretty new to me. And it's awesome. How have I never spent any real time on this game?

Aside from playing it for a few minutes at a time at people's houses, which doesn't count. I basically missed out on the whole N64 era, outside of Ocarina of Time and Goldeneye when I got the system with them in 1999. Know how much it was? $70, plus $10 each for the two games. However, adjusted for inflation, that $90 wasn't the steal it seems like. It was still a pretty solid find regardless, and I've got good memories of that day in mid-1999 when I finally had an N64 and brought it home in a backpack.

Fun Addendum: I got stopped by the police while walking home. They were looking for someone else who looked like me and was "carrying weapons", and asked me if I minded opening the backpack and showing them what was in it. I complied, showing them the N64. Was afraid they would think it was a bomb or something. Instead one of them was like "my son has one of those!" and they apologized for stopping me and I went on my way.

Come to think of it, I'm lucky I got home with an N64 in tow if there was some maniac in my neighborhood with weapons. Imagine finally getting a new system and then immediately getting mugged.

Originally Posted July 2016

Up to four players?! That's right, the Nintendo 64 had no less than FOUR controller ports, and this game put them to good use.

The character select is almost the same as the previous game, except they removed the semi-unnecessary (Due to Bowser's presence) Koopa Troopa and replaced him with Wario. I'm guessing they re-did the stats of the characters as a result; Wario looks like a heavy character alongside DK and Bowser, while the others likely got evened out a bit.

EDIT: I've been told that Peach/Toad/Yoshi are the lightest/best characters, with the best acceleration and so forth. DK/Wario/Bowser are indeed the heavy characters with the highest top speed, while Mario/Luigi are the averaged-out characters. Interesting.

 Four cups, just like the previous game. The stages are different, though, and Luigi gets his own stage right off the bat.

I appreciate that the Special Cup doesn't have to be unlocked (and can presumably be played on 50CC so it won't be an ordeal like the previous game).

Luigi may be the namesake of the track, but I'm playing as Mario for this one. So far this game has the same pseudo-3D as Super Mario 64 when it comes to stationary objects and so forth. Some things look 3D, yet are actually 2D images that always face you. Can see it with the trees here. That's the same thing a lot of three-dimensional games from that era had to do, due to their hardware limitations.

The ? blocks return, but this time they're (truly) three-dimensional and they respawn. There are several new items for this game, the coolest of which is the spiked blue shell that homes in on whoever is in first place. It seems to be very rare, though.

Moo Moo Farm is the next level... wait, Moo Moo Farm? What does that have to do with Mario? Sounds more like something you'd find in a Zelda game. I wonder if I'll get a bottle of milk here that restores my health and can be used twice.

 Next up, the beach. This looks cool, but it doesn't really have the same open feeling that the SNES beach stage does. Not sure why. Maybe it's the overbearing rock wall on the left.

Next up! The Desert Bus stage! In this one Mario drives for eight hours in a straight line.

At least until a TRAIN ROARS BY. Moments after this picture was taken, the train was suplexed by Sabin. 

 Whoa! It's the castle from Mario 64. And the exploding fish has returned! This time he doesn't explode, though. He just sorta... spits the trophy out.

 Flower Cup time! I think these are supposed to be a step up in difficulty, but it's usually a very minor step. Historically in this series I only really have trouble with Special Cup levels, though sometimes Star Cup levels can be tricky.

Toad's Turnpike looks like something out of Final Fantasy VII. It's a dystopian horror of pollution and asphalt, where nothing can ever grow. Also, since it's the domain of Toad, before playing this level it's advisable to line the walls of your home with crucifixes.

Frappe Snowland is next. Nice, a snow level. Is this the one that everyone hates?

I'm doing some 100cc at this point with the Princess. It's a lot more fun than 50cc because it poses a more significant challenge, though nothing insurmountable. The computer doesn't seem to cheat like it did on the SNES.

This level caused me a lot of trouble. The walls aren't really walls; they're unclimbable-past-a-point ramps that you can go onto and fall off. This wastes a lot of time, and for the most part you need to avoid bumping into them.

Final level in Flower Cup is the return of Mario Raceway (Mario Circuit in the previous game). It's a new stage, but the same theme.

I JUST miss getting first place in 100cc's Flower Cup. In the future I'm going to spend some more time with 100cc and see if I can tackle 150cc.

"I'm so happy!" says Peach. "...Peach."

 ...because she says her own name at the end of the narration in Mario 64. Yeah. In any case, Star Cup is next, and this is the one I was most excited about when I read about this game in Nintendo Power back in the day. Wario gets his own stage, there's another ice level, and Bowser's Castle is in 3D glory.

For this one I go with Wario, the new character for this game. About time. What an appealing character this guy is. I don't even mind that he replaced my most-used character Koopa Troopa.

 Wario Stadium must be what he built with all that money he made in the Wario Land games, and the sides of it are lined with giant Wario-faces.

The next ice level has the penguins from Mario 64. I like all of these little nods to the N64's premiere game.

Outside of the caves, it's all icy and hazardous. In real life if you drove 60 MPH on sheer ice like this, you'd probably fly off of the Earth.

One thing this game does wrong... perhaps the only thing... is the lack of a Retry option on the pause screen. If you end up in way down the ranks during a race and know you won't be able to come back from it, you have to just sit and wait for the race to conclude rather than restarting it at will.

Then again, this game also gives you infinite lives, which is an improvement over the three or four that Super Mario Kart gives you. Maybe a Retry on top of that was deemed too powerful.

 The Royal Raceway is somewhat nondescript. I was expecting it to be all pink and princessy and feminine, but no such luck. Here we see Wario lugging around the fabled Blue Spiky Shell, one of the awesome new items in this game.

One thing the Royal Raceway DOES have is the longest jump in the game, as you fly through the air and land between two voluptuous hills. Nevermind what I said about this track not being feminine enough.

Finally, Bowser's Castle. I was probably looking forward to seeing this one the most, but it isn't as three-dimensional as I was hoping for. I do like the flame-throwing statues.

 Time for the last level set, meaning my time with this post (and the game, for now) is winding down.

 Bowser gets my pick for this set. I later found out that he's the most difficult character in the game to play as. That said, this is only 50cc... I'll probably be okay.

As for who the best characters are... legend says that it comes down to Toad and Yoshi. Which means Yoshi, really, because few people will make the effort required to play as Toad. Selecting him is not advised unless you have first constructed a pentagram of candles and doused yourself in salt.

Behold: The Steamship Mario. Somewhere aboard it is Mark Twain.

Yoshi Valley is the stage I had the most trouble with out of any in the game. The game doesn't specify a path to follow, and the path that I kept following (which I thought was THE path) kept causing me to fall behind by several rankings. I figured out what the shortest path through the maze was and started doing that.

 From there, winning was academic. You can see how my time got better once I figured out what I was doing. Weird stage, this one.

 Ghost House! Hell yeah! Oddly enough, there are guardrails on the sides of the track. In Super Mario Kart, these levels were very difficult because you could fall off in so many areas. Seems like they lowered the difficulty quite a bit for this version.

Finally, Rainbow Road. This was my favorite level in the SNES game, though it was extremely difficult since you could constantly fall off the tra.... wait, what? Guardrails again? Yep, Rainbow Road is guardrailed up in this game. No real danger of falling off. Not sure how I feel about this.

Oh... My... God. A Toad hologram draws near.

TURN AROUND, BOWSER! GET OUT OF THERE!

GET OUT OF THERE!!!!

other mario kart posts