• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

Super Mario Kart - and the rest was shit

Kuran said:
The horrible box art of the DS and Wii games is actually preventing me from buying them.
Click to expand...

as long as you understand how profoundly retarded this superficial method of choosing the games you buy is, that's fine
 
beelzebozo said:
as long as you understand how profoundly retarded this superficial method of choosing the games you buy is, that's fine
Click to expand...

I do..

Actually, my biggest complaint is the kart design. I miss the days when every character had a default, classic looking kart. These days they're all driving whack ass soap boxes.. hate!
 
Kuran said:
I do..

Actually, my biggest complaint is the kart design. I miss the days when every character had a default, classic looking kart. These days they're all driving whack ass soap boxes.. hate!
Click to expand...

I agree with the vehicles. That's why I usually stick to the normal karts in the DS version.
 
As long as I love the original SNES SMK I think that its sequels are much better (read as funnier) games. In fact, MK: DD is my favourite entry of the series, I've enjoyed playing it in local multiplayer inmensely. I understand part of the hate that game receives but man, what a wonderful game for me, I love it rabidly :D.

So well, I could say that I love MK, all of them.
 
evilromero said:
This isn't accurate for SMK. You might have a stronger argument in MK64 where you can "drag" certain items behind you
Click to expand...

You could drag bananas and green shells behind you in SMK and therefore use them as shields against incoming reds or greens. Hell, once you were good enough you could hop over red shells making them fairly useless, got to the stage where the only dangerous weapons were richochetting greens and incredibly well thrown bananas!

Excellent OP tho and fully agree, must have spent 5 years playing this 4-5 nights a week with my friends back then, happy times. It was all in the course design - small, cramped and perfect for handbrake turns- you could properly get into a trance like state with that mode 7 effect.

Definitely my favourite game on my favourite ever console. Im hoping that Wii SMK will recapture some of the fun of the original for me, eliminating snaking is a huge start.
 
Man...not again.

I still maintain that SMK is horribly dated by today's standards and is by far my least favourite in the series. Nostalgia be damned, it plays like shit now, IMO.
 
Magicpaint said:
I still maintain that SMK is horribly dated by today's standards and is by far my least favourite in the series. Nostalgia be damned, it plays like shit now, IMO.
Click to expand...

This.

I have no SMK nostalgia--I played 64 first. 64's physics are hard enough to deal with today; SMK is just a trainwreck. And I actually got pretty good at SC.

The franchise has improved substantially up through DS.
 
The only thing I miss from later installments (with the exception of Super Circuit) is the coins. And I don't think any mario kart game ever gave me the challenge of SMK, star-cup and special-cup 150cc were really hard. Still I think SMK, while still playable, isn't as enjoyable and as involving as the new installments (haven't played the Wii version though). The controls have become a lot better and this combined with new terrain properties made the activity of racing more enjoyable for me. I've mostly played mario kart games in multiplayer mode, so I might have less of a problem with the power-ups and items. Having three mushrooms, when racing in 6th place, and then trying to make it to first place by taking enormous amounts of risk with shortcuts and the likes are for me just as exciting as racing in 1st place while trying to evade all the assaults all the time. Mario kart is probably the series I've put the most time in of any video games series, rarely have I met the situation where the luck of other players or their combination of items made the game unfair for me.
 
Strawman said:
You could drag bananas and green shells behind you in SMK and therefore use them as shields against incoming reds or greens.
Click to expand...
This is completely false. They added this in Mario Kart 64. You can drop shells or throw banana peels in SMK, but you can't hold them behind you.

Anyway, much as I love SMK still, the OP is what's shit.
 
Nishastra said:
This is completely false. They added this in Mario Kart 64. You can drop shells or throw banana peels in SMK, but you can't hold them behind you.

Anyway, much as I love SMK still, the OP is what's shit.
Click to expand...

Mmm you could be right as it was a looong time ago, its a moot point anyway as you could drop either item behind you to block incoming shells (infact - even more skillfull that way).
 
I'll echo that I could have written the OP as well.

Mario Kart is nearing the Mario Party level of ridiculous AI and too much item syndrome with each new console release.

The brilliance with SMK was that under the surface of the cute graphics held an amazing physics engine (for the time) that required damn good driving skills to succeed in. Now it's ALL about the items and rubberband AI.

I'm part of the problem because I keep buying the games, but I can still enjoy it casually with friends. I'll just have to get my real racing game fix somewhere else. SMK was a real racing game (with a small added bonus of items). I have a hard time saying other games in the series are racing games.

If you were good on SMK, you could lap several AI opponents easily on each race, even on 150cc.

I've only played the Wii version for a few hours so far, but I'm already disliking the additional 4 racers in each match. Maybe they'll grow on me.

SMK is my all time favorite videogame, but it's not all nostalgia. I picked it up again 10 years after its release and started playing regularly again, eventually going to a tournament where a guy was taking challenges that if you could get to 10wins in battle mode before him, he'd pay you $1000. And if you could reach at least 5 wins against him before he got to 10, he'd pay you $10 just for a consolation prize.

I had 2 wins when he got to 10.

I challenged him months later and got 1 win against him before he got 10.

This guy was hardcore SMK and I asked him how he got so good. He said he practiced his techniques like red-shell dodging alone in the battle arena, and when he failed a maneuver while practicing he made himself do knuckle-pushups as punishment. Random story, and the guy might've been a bit crazier about SMK than me, but the guy practiced hard, and I feel like the newer games don't really reward you as much for spending time trying to become skilled.

Anyhow, I'm going to jump back on MK Wii for a bit. My only difference of opinion with his is that I don't believe all other games in the series are shit. They're just not incredible.
 
AniHawk said:
Meh. I played SMK for the first time in 2000. Mario Kart 64 is better. Mario Kart DS is better. The love for SMK really reminds me of the love for ALttP. Actually, most of the Nintendo stuff from 1991-1993 is something I never understood. Super Mario World is great, but it's no Super Mario Bros. 3 or Yoshi's Island. ALttP has good dungeons and puzzles, but Link's Awakening is a better game overall. Star Fox is impossible to go back to after Star Fox 64. F-Zero and SMK are two more boring entries to a boring genre. It's strange, because it's like Super Metroid came out and sort of righted the ship.
Click to expand...

Funny you should liken Super Mario Kart to Link to the Past and MK 64 to Link's Awakening, because both had opposite trajectories in terms of needless scale.

And Super Mario Kart still handles awesomely. If it didn't, I wouldn't have been playing it for so long. End of story.
 
Oh boy, the eternal battle among Mario Kart fans presses forward! The Mario Kart series is absolutely review proof.
I found the single player experience in SMK tops in the series. Notwithstanding, multiplayer and battle mode peaked in MK64 iteration.
The ultimate Mario Kart game would give us SMK's single player mode while incorporating Mario Kart 64's multiplayer/battle mode.
 
The OP is brilliant and 100% correct. Very suspicious that Nintendo has not released SMK on VC yet....I bet after MK Wii is released and gets the bulk of its sales, THEN SMK will be released. They probably know the TRUE Mario Kart fans are waiting for the original to be re-released.

Nothing matches it.
 
One thing I like about SMK over the others is music. Pretty damn catchy and consistent. But ya, pretty much unplayable for me now, I definitely won't be downloading it if it hits VC.

MK Wii for me 2moro. Kthnx.
 
LiveWire said:
The OP is brilliant and 100% correct. Very suspicious that Nintendo has not released SMK on VC yet....I bet after MK Wii is released and gets the bulk of its sales, THEN SMK will be released. They probably know the TRUE Mario Kart fans are waiting for the original to be re-released.

Nothing matches it.
Click to expand...

Give me a BREAK, Einstien
sarcasm
. If anything, they'll do the same thing that they've done with the last several "sequel" game releases. Paper Mario 64 was released on Virtual Console about the same time Super Paper Mario came out, Super Mario Brothers 3 with Mario Galaxy, and Metroid and Super Metroid with Metroid Prime 3. Why would they suddenly change this?
 
Double Dash is the best, in my oppinion. I hope the MK:Wii will be better because that means it will have improved on the best racer ever made.

And with that, bail out.
 
Super Mario Kart hasn't age well at all. Besides the nostalia blinded fans, everything that was in SMK has been done better in other games in the series.

Mario Kart DS is the best in the series. Besides snaking (which some people obviously hate), I felt like it was the deepest game in the series.
 
Still dont think the SNES Mario Kart was all that great.

Mario Kart and F-Zero didnt take off for me until the N64 and GBA versions.
 
64 has always been my favorite Mario Kart. Something about the graphics of the SNES version always made it really hard for me to play and I've always loved Battle Mode, of which the N64 had the best maps, so MK64 it is for me.
 
I tried to play SMK a bit but didn't like it. I'll concede it probably takes some skill. However, my g/f loves MK64. After all, rubber band AI always keeps things close, and makes it easier for everyone to compete. She gets to feel good by winning every once in a while, and has fun playing. It's easy and fun, which is why most people liked it so much. I mean, isn't that the whole point of the Wii these days? It seems to be doing pretty well.
 
I don't know if I agree with the OP about the track design getting worse, but the skill thing really bugs me, and I'm a guy who always plays games on normal or easy and doesn't snake and is terrible at powerslides. When a "skilled" MK64 player makes sure to stay out of first place until the final stretch of a track (I remember this best playing Wario Stadium) so they can get a better item or speed past the player in first place, that's a broken game. Driving the karts is still fun, items are still good for me, but the Computer Assistance (remember that option from the 16-bit days in sports titles) ruins the game. It may be fun the first few weeks you play multiplayer, but once you realize the game is little more than a raffle it makes the game pointless.

And it doesn't take much to fix the game for me. Actually randomize item distribution and make characters not have come-behind speed bursts and the game is fine (even just make them options).
 
Azuran said:
Super Mario Kart hasn't age well at all. Besides the nostalia blinded fans, everything that was in SMK has been done better in other games in the series.

Mario Kart DS is the best in the series. Besides snaking (which some people obviously hate), I felt like it was the deepest game in the series.
Click to expand...

People like you either think they are right or that other people are "nostalgia blinded" people. Seriously, who are you to know about us?
I am a gamer that actually replay old games, i was there since god damned Pac-man and i can distinguish games that aged well because they did or games i still like because i have nostalgia for them. Actually, when you're not "nostalgia blinded" like me, there's not much games you like on nostalgia. You actually don't really have nostalgia.

So there, there's a third crowd of people, one that i am part of. We think Super Mario Kart is the best of the series and it's not because of nostalgia one bit.
 
SMK was king until Mario Kart DS came out. I loved the tight tracks on SMK/DS and the tight controls. All other Mario Karts had huge/wide tracks which made it less chaotic.
 
I agree. Super Mario Kart is still fun to this day. I won't be buying Mario Kart Wii because none of the games since have captured the magic, balance, and simplicity of SMK.
 
Ranger X said:
People like you either think they are right or that other people are "nostalgia blinded" people. Seriously, who are you to know about us?
I am a gamer that actually replay old games, that was there since god damned Pac-man and i can distinguish games that aged well because they did or games i still like because i have nostalgia for them. Actually, when you're not "nostalgia blinded" like me, there's not much games you like on nostalgia. You actually don't really have nostalgia.

So there, there's a third crowd of people, one that i am part of. We think Super Mario Kart is the best of the series and it's not because of nostalgia one bit.
Click to expand...
Maybe a fourth crowd- I don't think it's nostalgia but just his enjoyment of the original design. For me the original did several amazing things- established a hugely addicted split-screen multiplayer mode, expanded the Mario universe better than any non-platformer, included a charming collection of music and still has some of the most memorable tracks in the series. But I do think the overall experience has been improved upon with each subsequent release (barring SC, which I really feel is the black sheep in the series).
 
zigg said:
This.

I have no SMK nostalgia--I played 64 first. 64's physics are hard enough to deal with today; SMK is just a trainwreck. And I actually got pretty good at SC.

The franchise has improved substantially up through DS.
Click to expand...

Quoting this again. Going back and playing the first game, I wasn't really impressed. The view and coin aspect really didn't click with me, dunnowhy people put in in a pedistal.
 
evilromero said:
Compared to the Mario Karts of today, SMK shows its age (not to mention the consistent splitscreen interface even in the single player).
Click to expand...

This is one think i'm not a big fan of either when it comes to SMK. I really wish there was a way to run the game in a single screen and not be forced to have the map screen covering like 50% of the screen all the time. I only had a NES back in the days and not a SNES so unfortunately i didnt get to play too much SMK when i was a kid. Not too many of my friends had a SNES either, atleast not with SMK, so unfortunately i dont have too much nostalgic memories around SMK :(

The Mario Kart game i've played the most is the GBA version. Is this basicly a port of the SNES version? (Except that the GBA version doesnt have that forced split-screen with the map).
 
test_account said:
The Mario Kart game i've played the most is the GBA version. Is this basicly a port of the SNES version? (Except that the GBA version doesnt have that forced split-screen with the map).
Click to expand...
No it's not a port at all. But it does contain every SMK track as an unlockable.
 
SMK (and I guess super circuit if I remember right clearly) is the only one I consider worth playing at all these days. I agree with the original post. The new mk games are just chaotic party games next to the original.

Crash Team Racing on PS1 is in fact better than every one of SMK's sequels.
 
Crayon said:
SMK (and I guess super circuit if I remember right clearly) is the only one I consider worth playing at all these days. I agree with the original post. The new mk games are just chaotic party games next to the original.

Crash Team Racing on PS1 is in fact better than every one of SMK's sequels.
Click to expand...
CTR isn't even the best Kart racing game on PS1. Speed Freaks/Punks is. MUCH better.
 
the only thing bad about current mario karts is the blue shell. the person in the rear is always going to get a blue shell, so you have to try to keep yourself in second place just behind the first place guy until the very end of the race otherwise you get fucked.

fuck the blue shell.
 
Wholeheartedly agree with the OP, which, while extreme, is pretty much bang on the money.

Now, there are tracks on the other games that do hark back to the best of SMK's tracks. There's one in Bowser's Castle in Double Dash, for instance, which is just an excellent track, with very few ramped areas and lots of corners. One can't get away from the filthy respawning items and the blue shells, but it's still an absolutely marvellous track.

Things which Mario Kart lost to its detriment:
* flat tracks
* one-use pickup pads

I honestly don't know why this is so hard to see for all the modern Mario Kart fans.
 
One can't get away from the filthy respawning items and the blue shells, but it's still an absolutely marvellous track.
Click to expand...

You can get away from blue shells. Change the items settings to basic.
 
TheChaos said:
Quoting this again. Going back and playing the first game, I wasn't really impressed. The view and coin aspect really didn't click with me, dunnowhy people put in in a pedistal.
Click to expand...

I dunno. Some of us just prefer tracks with tighter design, as opposed to ones wider than Cartman's ass.
 
Mario Kart: DS is the best Mario Kart game I ever played. Feel free to hold on to your nostalgic memories of the breakthru original hit. But Mario Kart: DS is a really awesome game.

I will reserve judgment on the Wii rendition for now.
 
evilromero said:
Maybe a fourth crowd- I don't think it's nostalgia but just his enjoyment of the original design. For me the original did several amazing things- established a hugely addicted split-screen multiplayer mode, expanded the Mario universe better than any non-platformer, included a charming collection of music and still has some of the most memorable tracks in the series. But I do think the overall experience has been improved upon with each subsequent release (barring SC, which I really feel is the black sheep in the series).
Click to expand...

For me, the game that improved the overall experience of SMK was Diddy Kong Racing.
Sadly it did bring some flaws like a total lack of decent battle mode. (the battle maps that were there as bonus were still good though.)

Oh, how i wish there would be a sequel to all this. A game that would take DKCR and SMK to next-gen level. :(((
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

  • Poll
What game is better? Super Mario 3D World or Super Mario Wonder?
35
226
Osthyvel replied
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie reviews are in... and not great
7 8 9 10 11
542
3K
Miyazaki’s Slave replied
Super Mario Odyssey, Super Mario 3D World, Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex, and Kirby's Dream Collection decomp
Trailer Platform 
1
178
Dirk Benedict replied
Fox McCloud joins The Super Mario Galaxy Movie
2 3
149
2K
GateofD replied
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie | Level Up
Trailer 
35
631
StreetsofBeige replied
Top Bottom