Hogan Reviews

While I’m off by a week or two it’s still time to look at the next Mario Kart game alongside a “Booster Pass” release, this time the second ever MK game (that just makes me think of Mortal Kombat… oh well!) that being Mario Kart 64. At the time the 3D graphics were a great addition to the game and made for far more varied maps to race on, but in 2022 its safe to say it looks a little worse for wear, as a lot of N64 games do. How does it play though? Let’s take a look…

Background:

I forgot this game had very SNES-like haunted peer-looking track in it…

Mario Kart 64 released in the three major regions at quite a long distance from each other, even for the time. It was first released in Japan on December 14^th 1996, then in the US February 10^th 1997 before finally making it to the UK on June 13^th 1997, with the rest of Europe getting it two weeks or so later on the 24^th. As per usual with big Nintendo releases it has made its way to various E-Shops, including for the Wii, Wii U and the Switch.

The line up of racers isn’t that different from the original, with Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, Bowser, Yoshi, and Toad all returning and Donkey Kong replacing Donkey Kong Jr. Wario is the only new character in MK64 that feels new. While some tracks are based off on specific game levels, like your traditional Haunted House track, Bowser’s Castle, Peach’s Castle or Donkey Kong’s track, a lot of them are based on basic themes that are often used in Mario games but they don’t necessarily call back to them, like a couple of snowy levels, a beach level and another muddy mountain that’s got chocolate in its name (and equally unpleasant to look at as the similar track from the previous entry). We also have the standard raceways for Mario, Luigi and a dirt bike-like one for Wario, while Calamari Desert and Toad’s Turnpike are lifted from “real life” and feature trains and actual cars respectively. There’s a great variety at least and thanks to the 3D nature of the graphics there are bumpy hills and jumps littered throughout them.

Gameplay:

A new version of this track is coming to a Switch near you, soon! (Or already, given the relative lateness of this review…)

Mario Kart 64 is a kart racer (*gasp!*) so obviously shares the same basic gameplay of driving around tracks and trying to come first while picking up offensive and defensive weapons to help you along the way. It was the first in the series to introduce power sliding, and although its not a smooth as later entries and only has one level of drift it’s still a lot better than the hopping turns from Super Mario Kart, plus slipstreaming behind other karts to gain a boost was also added to 64. Combine that with the previously mentioned 3D tracks giving more variety by way of adding jumps and drops and there is quite a big difference when you jump from SMK to 64, though it has to be said that the actual characters and their karts are entirely 2D pixel-art so visually they look closer to the SNES version, just less cartoony. You can also now hold one item and have a second stored in the floating box at the top of the screen, adding a little bit of strategy, though this is Mario Kart, all the strategy in the world won’t save you from a stray green shell…

Speaking of which this is also the game that introduced the dreaded Blue Shell (or Spikey Shell, or “First Place Shell”, whatever you want to call it) that can only be collected if you’re towards the back of the race that when launched takes out whoever is in first place. It still annoys many, myself included, to this day; for me mostly because it makes no sense: if you’re dead last then taking out first place will gain you nothing, so… it’s exists purely to annoy and sabotage good players with no benefit towards who threw it! While on the subject of annoying good players MK64 was the game that introduced rubberbanding AI, where if you do so well that you start pull far away from the CPU they’ll be flung up the track closer to you so can’t get so far enough away from them that they can’t catch up. I sort-of understand the idea behind it, but it can be really frustrating to get overtaken by a couple of AI opponents after dominating two laps because they were “stuck” behind you the whole way.

The original Toad-named real life-looking road track!

There are four modes on offer: Grand Prix, Time Trial, Versus and Battle Mode. Grand Prix is your standard mode where you race four tracks per cup (Mushroom, Flower, Star and Special) and try to come first enough times to take the gold trophy, with the key difference over SMK that if you place under 5^th you can retry as many times as you want rather than being set to three tries and then you have to restart. Difficulty is measured by speed with 50cc, 100cc and 150cc, though 64 also introduced the now standard unlockable Mirror Mode where you play the tracks backwards (or mirrored, I should say, there is a difference!), though it’s called “Extra Mode” and its set to 100cc rather than 150cc like later games. Time Trial is just time trials, versus is only up to four humans racing each other on one track at a time and Battle Mode is much like the SNES version where you have balloons that signify how many hits you can take and you must survive to the end, this time you can have up to four plays at the same time, which was a bit hit with me and my friends at the time.

Overall there was plenty to do and lots of fun to be had, obviously Super Mario Kart innovated the genre in general but Mario kart 64 added a lot of the flavour that would define the Mario Kart series specifically, for better or worse…

Graphics and Sound:

A perfect example of the classic N64 muddy textures and fog I talk about below!

It’s far to say the graphics aren’t up to much, even at the time. The N64 has a reputation for “muddy” graphics, lack of detail and lots of fog and sadly Mario Kart 64 has all of those issues fully on display, the latter being the biggest culprit is making the game a lot less fun to play than it could be. At the time you could look the other way (though the 2D pixel drivers on 3D tracks never looked good to me) but now it’s pretty poor, no way around it.

Sound wise is fine though, some fun voice samples and item soundeffects sprinkled throughout a catchy soundtrack. No complaints there, given the hardware obviously.

Thoughts Then:

This is pretty much how I remember Mario Kart 64, to be fair…

At the time me and my friends loved having a go on battle mode and doing the odd cup… but mostly battle mode. Mario Kart 64 Battle Mode, Goldeneye 4-player and an AKI-produced wrestling game made up many a four-player gathering at mine or one of my friends houses! Due to this the N64 tracks that have appeared in later games haven’t actually held as much nostalgia as reappearing GameCube, DS or Wii tracks have due to playing their actual cups to death but MK64 was mostly the Battle Mode. The SNES tracks are nostalgic due to the graphics and music alone, if your wondering…

Thoughts Now:

Donkey Kong drives on a massive “Rainbow Road” and sees a neon image of himself in the background… He must of eaten some pretty “funky” bananas…

Sadly Mario Kart 64 isn’t much fun in 2022. It’s pretty unpleasant on the eyes and the fact it comes much closer to the great later entries actually makes it more awkward to play than the SNES version because you go to use one of the tricks from later ones but it doesn’t quite work. I’m sure if me and my friends weren’t so rigidly stuck on Battle Mode some nostalgia might guide me through some of the issues, but sadly that didn’t even help (though I did somewhat fondly remember one or two of the tracks that have yet to reappear, including the Calamari Desert stage which fittingly made its return in the Wave 2 MK8 DLC linked to this review going up!) but overall it just wasn’t that fun. Oh well, sometimes you need those nostalgia glasses to get you through some of the early 3D games and this time I didn’t own a pair.