Mario Kart 64 Playthrough
11997, N64. Rating: 2.5 out of 4 stars
It was a no-brainer bringing one of the best games—and concepts—from the SNES era to the third dimension. There are times when Mario Kart 64 works extremely well as a racer. The fundamentals are all there and new additions such as drift and new items such as multiple shells and the blue shell are welcome additions to the series. However, these welcome innovations are undercut by a change in the game’s design philosophy and a bloated, overlong feeling.
The game’s design has a greater emphasis on luck and on the items changing the course of the race. On the one hand, that makes for more exciting races and it makes the standings less preordained as a result. The problem is there’s too much chaos at times and that emphasis on luck cuts down on the skill emphasis. This makes the races feel like too much of a crapshoot, which is the opposite of what the SNES version was. It feels like too much of a tradeoff. And the excitement is also amplified by your AI racers never being too far away regardless of what you do.
The bloat is the other severe weakness. Some of the courses—notably Wario Stadium and Rainbow Road—are way too long. This might play into the party effect, which isn’t a bad thing, but neither course is especially memorable. Had this been running at F-Zero X speeds, it would have been forgivable. Unfortunately, it can feel like molasses at times. Other courses have a similar bloated feeling at times, but those two are the most egregious.
The game looks and plays great, though, and the soundtrack is first-rate, which are all hallmarks expected of a first-party Nintendo game. It’s a shame more emphasis wasn’t put in making the game more about skill and expediency because it had the potential to be a genuine classic with some fine-tuning.
0:00 Mushroom Cup
11:17 Flower Cup
23:30 Star Cup
39:24 Special Cup
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