This is a game I've owned in some form or another for basically my entire life (granted it was originally my big brother's copy, but still ;b), but I've never actually played all that much. When I was getting old enough to actually properly play racing games, Mario Kart Double Dash!! was my flavor of choice when it came to Mario Kart games. I decided it was high time that I sit down and give a go at actually seeing this game's credits myself. It took me some 6 or so hours to get gold in all the cups from 50cc to 150cc in the Japanese version on original hardware.
Mario Kart 64 is only the second entry in the series, and it's also a pretty damn early N64 title. It boasts eight racers just as the original did, but they all play identically whether its you or the AI controlling them. There are 16 tracks (4 tracks for 4 cups), which all add a level of 3D depth not found in the original SNES game. The control is pretty damn solid, although I really never got a good grasp on how things like drift boosting work ^^;. However, playing through it again, I realized all over again why I didn't like this game very much as a kid (outside of the fact that I'm still not too great at it :b). For every really tight and well-designed track, there's another with some really rough or overly mean design element in it (such as the several tracks like Choco Mountain where if you get bumped off at a certain point, you don't get knocked off, but pushed WAY back on the track, giving you an unrecoverable last place). This also goes beyond design and veers into technical difficulties, as this is such an early N64 game that there are often resolution issues that make it difficult to actually see upcoming small holes in the track or obstacles in the track laid by opponents. Some design difficulties are there sorta unintentionally (such as how in the extra mirror mode cups, the cars on Toad's Freeway drive towards you instead of away from you), but overall it's a pretty frustrating experience compared to later Mario Kart games. This also has to do with the way your AI opponents play, which often feels in a way totally alien to how you have to play. This game has some absolutely brutal AI rubberbanding, but only if you're winning. If they're winning, they don't slow down to compensate, and they'll quickly get totally untouchable leads on higher difficulties. They tend to play by the rules if they're in your line of sight, but as soon as you lose sight of them, they begin cheating their little coded butts off. This feels doubly unfair on tracks like Bowser's Castle, where there are obstacles that very clearly only activate when the player gets near them. Then combine that with how red shells still operate by homing in as the crow flies (therefore being useless outside of when you have very clear line of sight); lightning bolts only slow down but not stop enemies; and blue shells are very rare, only obtainable by the player, and not very good; and you have a combination that makes it feel like you're the only fair player in the cheater's league. The presentation of the game is very good, when it isn't introducing technical limitations regarding view distance. It runs very well technically, the character portraits are expressive and cute, and the music is absolutely excellent. There are lots of little touches with the design that I loved as well, like how all the sound effects your car makes are shown in words just like a manga would (from the POOMP when you come down from a big landing, to the VVVVVEEEEEEEE letters that appear one after another from your tires when you're doing a big drift X3). The Japanese and English versions of the game are very similar mechanically, from what I could tell, with only some visual differences in the signs in stages as well as character names (with Bowser being Koopa, and DK very amusingly being "D. Kong" X3). Verdict: Not Recommended. If you're looking for an N64 game that has a fun multiplayer mode (particularly the battle mode), then this one is a game worth considering, but all of the single player content is by and large not worth the frustration its era demands. The AI's benefits are too many and your catch up mechanics are far too few. There are is no shortage of excellent racing games on the N64, and while early entries on the console like this are valuable historically, they are not entries that demand returning to in the modern day beyond simple curiosity.
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AuthorI'm an avid gamer who likes to detail their thoughts about what they play in the hopes it might aid someone else's search for a game to play. Archives
April 2024
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