Mario Kart: Super Circuit

Each mascot has a ride that handles and accelerates differently, yet the controls for each racer feel very tight and precise. The highly detailed, cartoony locales of Mario Kart Super Circuit show visuals that are both very sharp and fluidly animated. Though not nearly as fast, Mario Kart Super Circuit looks better and can be more intense than the vaunted F-Zero launch title.

If you perform well enough and collect enough coins in a tournament, you can unlock a plethora of bonus tracks--some of which are from older console Mario Kart titles. The fun multiplayer options include head-to-head racing and a balloon battle mode, in which you blast other racers with power-ups in a huge arena until there's only one driver left. --Mark Brooks

Pros:

• Bright graphics that are both fast and fluid
• Multiplayer battle mode is loads of fun
• Many, many tracks!

• May be too cute for some

I'd also like to mention that this game blows away Konami's Krazy Racers. I own both games, and wish that I had saved my money and bought only Mario Kart. Mario Kart has so much more depth that it puts Krazy Racers to shame. Mario Kart is the best game I have played for the GB Advance so far (Castlevania COTM is a close second).

If you're looking for a great, challenging go-cart racing game, don't waste your time with the Konami clone: wait for a month and buy Mario Kart Super Circuit- you'll be glad you did!


Video Games Reviewer   November 8, 2001
Mr. De Moss (...)
11 out of 12 found this review helpful

Mario Kart: Super Circuit for GBA is a great character racing game. Players can choose from 8 different characters and race on up to 40 different tracks. 20 of the tracks on this cartage are newly created for this game, and once you master those tracks the other 20 tracks from the original Mario Kart on the Super Nintendo become available. What makes this game shine is that it has an infinite amount of replay value because of its ranking system and levels of difficulty. Depending on how many coins players pick up and what their times are on each track, they get a grade for their effort. The hardest grade to receive is a three star rating. This is a really hard rating. It will take a gamer a long time to get three stars for all 40 tracks on all three of the different difficulty levels. While this game has a lot to offer, the lack of a feeling of true speed is what kept me from giving this game a five star rating. It is an all around great game and one that should be in everyone's GBA library, but because of the lack of true speed, such as in F-Zero, and the mechanics of the power slide that were down graded from the N64 version, I am only able to give this game four stars.


Fantastic game, but it comes with a warning   January 5, 2002
Mark Lee
11 out of 11 found this review helpful

Happy New Year everyone! I just received a Game Boy Advance as a Christmas present. I had some doubts about the Mario Kart series going hand-held, but, as a big fan of the series, I still decided to make this game the first of my new Game Boy Advance collection.

What a surprise! This game is actually just as good as its predecessors! With vibrant graphics, crisp sound, lots of tracks (so far I've discovered 24), tight play control, and all the characters from the past two Mario Kart games, the GBA Mario Kart is sure to keep the series alive and well!

The best all-new features in this game would have to be the never-before-seen tracks. They are remarkably imaginative and beautifully detailed (especially Sunset Wilds), and although they're not very long (the longest one takes about 2 minutes and 45 seconds to complete 3 laps), they're loaded with obstacles that range from the quicksand traps of the Yoshi Desert to the blind mice of Cheese Land. Also, the play control is not only precise and varied among the weight classes, but you can even feel it getting more difficult among the more difficult tracks. In Yoshi's Desert, for example, you can actually feel the quicksand trying to pull you in, so it gets even harder to maneuver around the already tight turns.

But let's not forget about the things we already know and love about the Mario Kart series. Some tracks are a blast from the past, too! After all, no Mario Kart game would be complete without Rainbow Road! Plus all your favorite characters are back, too: Mario, Luigi, Peach, Yoshi, Toad, Donkey Kong, Wario, and Bowser are once again racing for the finish line! And the items are back, too--you can once again drop banana peels, shoot your opponent with a shell (green, red, or blue), blast ahead of the pack with a mushroom or a Super Star, become invisible with a Boo, and zap your opponents with a lightning bolt!

So run, don't walk--or better yet, drive--to the nearest video game store and pick up this game! I'll see you at the finish line!

P.S. The "warning" that I mentioned is that this game owes a lot more to Super Mario Kart (for the SNES) than it does to Mario Kart 64. The tracks are very 2-D, just like an official race track. Therefore, fans of Mario Kart 64 might miss the hills and jumps of the Wario Stadium, or the mountains and valleys of Choco Mountain and Yoshi Valley.


Mario Kart Super Circuit   July 23, 2001
J. Kim (NJ)
9 out of 11 found this review helpful

Ok, let me just say that Mario Kart is awesome. Second, it wasn't based on the Nintendo 64 version. For those younguns out there the first version was on the SNES and it was called Super Mario Kart. Go ahead look it up. What the GBA version does is mix the two together for a totally new kind of racing experience. Forget Konami Krazy Racers. Mario Kart is the way to go. It has a kind of a Super Mario Kart 3D style but with a whole lot of graphics. Instead of the split screens when playing multiplayer like the older versions, when you play with other people you get your own screen so other people can't see what items you have. I would really recommend this to racers everywhere and especially those who like the previous Mario Karts.


Mario Kart Super Circuit   December 2, 2001
9 out of 10 found this review helpful

Mario Kart is awesome. It's very similar to the super nintendo and 64 versions so if you didn't like them don't get this game. The graphics for it are amazing. They're much better than the super nintendo version. And they're probably as good as the 64 version. It also has an excellent frame rate.
The game has three difficulty levels: 50cc, 100cc, and 150cc. 150cc is pretty hard so you probably won't be able to win those very soon after buying the game.
First you choose single or multiplayer (only with two to four gba's). Then you choose Mario GP, Time trial, or Quick Run. The time trail does have ghosts like the other Mario Karts. Quick run does't count for anything. Mario GP is the main type of game in Mario Super Circuit. In a Mario GP you choose a difficulty level then a character (Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, Princess, Toad, Wario, Donkey Kong, or Bowser). Then you choose a cup: mushroom, flower, lightning, star, or special(unlock by getting a gold in the other four). Each cup consists of four races which are all different from the ones in the other two versions.There are two new boo races and four new bowser races. There are 20 races, all new. Also in each cup of each difficulty level you get a medal(bronze, silver, or gold) and a rating (***, **, *, A, B, C, D, or E) based on how many coins you picked up. I love this game. There are endless posibilities. It is really hard to get a good rating so you can almost always do better. The best rating I've ever gotten was one star. Go buy this game. I recommend it for all ages.