A Text Review of Mario Kart Super Circuit

After disappointing literally everyone with Mario Kart 64, it’s no surprise that Nintendo went back to what worked in the original with the next iteration on Game Boy Advance.

Hopefully you, my avid reader, detected the sarcasm dripping from that intro paragraph. Not a bit of it makes any sense, but even at the time of release, there were reviews expressing disappointment in this game’s “regression” to flat, mode 7 style tracks - as if the GBA could pull off anything remotely similar to the N64 game. Despite that, it still reviewed well, but yet again, in recent years opinion has soured and it has slipped to the bottom of “Best Mario Kart” lists. I’m starting to think they might all be bottom of that list eventually!

Anyway, my story for this one starts (sadly, for the last time) with CVG again… kinda. You see, CVG used to come with a handheld focused supplement called GO!, which I enjoyed thoroughly, being an owner of the seldom appreciated Atari Lynx. My sister had the Game Boy so we were pretty much covered unless we wanted to play Sonic - and I just went to K-Mart when I wanted to play that!

GO! Magazine Issue 18, April 1993 had a preview of a game i’m positive most have never heard of. The long lost/completely made up Mini Mario Kart, for Game Boy. Yes those nutters at CVG were such fans of SMK that they bullshitted this thing into existence as an April Fools joke, powered by the incredible GSFX chip. I’ll let you read the preview and bask in the amazement of desaturated SMK screenshots!

As obviously fake as it was, the premise of handheld karting action was undeniably exciting. I had to wait another 8 years before this dream would become a reality with Mario Kart Super Circuit on Game Boy Advance. Of course, I had grown up (a little...) by then, and though I was on still on top of gaming news, I also still had no money, and honestly, I was rather unimpressed by yet another backlight-less Game Boy. Atari had this shit figured out when I was a kid, Nintendo! So the game’s release came and went.

However, Metroid Fusion was also coming to GBA, and once it released in 2002, I had no choice but to acquire it, no matter the cost. What fell you might ask? Well, my entire G1 Transformers collection as it happens. Traded away on a whim to a buddy getting rid of his first generation GBA. But that’s another story. Fusion was great and once I was done, it was finally time to rectify the lack of handheld Mario Kart in my life, so off to Toys ‘r Us i went and bought it.

Alas, i don’t remember much about playing it back then, just that the screen really was shit, and MKSC’s fast motion only made it worse. My only recollection is that I was unable to get the elusive 3 stars on every course, a fact that haunted me as I played it again once i got a Nintendo DS through backwards compatibility, and again once I got it through the 3DS Ambassador program! I probably even tried it through a hacked PSP at one point. I bet younger me could have done it.

Anyway, it really did bug me, and so at some point I can’t recall, i bought it again on the Wii U eShop so i could actually see the damn screen. After a little googlin’ to get to the bottom of the absurd requirements for getting 3 stars, finally, in 2020, a mere 18-ish years after I first bought it, I beat that son of a bitch. Behold, the alternate title screen reward. Makes it all worth it, right?!

Questionable bugbears cast aside, we finally get to the game itself. It really is just like a Super Mario Kart 2, isn’t it? Well, a bit like F-Zero for GBA, this game feels like a powered up SNES title, but it’s much more than that. The first thing you’ll notice though, is that it does indeed handle differently to the original. Different enough to initially throw off old timers like me, and people who weren’t born when it came out alike. On first play it seems even more slippery than the original, perhaps taking some inspiration from the N64 game as well in its handling model.

Gone however, are 64’s mini-turbo mechanics, now we’re back to SNES like ones. This time it’s more obvious when you get one thanks to some flame effects. Like both prior entries, time spent with the game is rewarded with a deeper understanding of how the karts handle, and once you get to grips with it, then come to master it, you’ll wonder like me, why people say it controls bad - because nothing could be further from the truth. All it takes is more than the 5 minutes you took to record footage for your “I played and ranked every Mario Kart EVER” video.

Coins are back and plentiful on the courses. They increase your top speed and prevent spinning out from impacts, and so they’re a must-collect item. Sometimes you have to go out of your way, or tame your skids, to collect them - but it feels good when you collect a big line of them all at once! Triple and Blue Shells are back from MK64, in regenerating item boxes reminiscent of that game too. They’re a bit nastier on these shorter courses though!

It’s all pretty familiar stuff really - what’s really new are the courses, and we’re back to having 20 of them again… that’s just for starters though. The game also includes the full 20 courses from the original SNES game as an unlockable bonus too. Hard to believe I know, but you didn’t have to pay extra for these courses. There’s a few minor changes here and there, and the handling model makes them feel a little different, but the inclusion is much appreciated. It really makes a straight comparison very easy to do!

I’ll only be covering the new courses since the originals aren’t different enough to warrant that. Check the review for SMK if you’re interested in those. Ever reliable Mario Wiki has the details and pics of the courses for your perusal. The old official site is a good reference too, though it’s missing the Special Cup’s 4 tracks.

Peach Circuit

Our first course is a typical road circuit but the layout has more corners than a usual starter. Nothing that’ll really challenge you though!

Shy Guy Beach

Reminiscent of the old Koopa Beach courses, this is a simple course with surrounding water. Crabs are about the place to dodge and there’s also a pirate ship firing canonballs from a distance. Mushroom or star over the grass mid way through for an easy shortcut.

Riverside Park

This course reminds me of SNES Donut Plains, but ups the difficulty for an early track, with a fair amount of tight turns, some placed right after turbo pads on the ground, so be careful with those! You’ll have to be on point with your skids to nab all the coins. There’s also a hard to see shortcut through some light water about halfway through the course.

Bowser Castle 1

A typical Bowser Castle course with thwomps and lava jumps just like the original game, although now there are fireballs shooting out of the lava.

Mario Circuit

Similar to Peach Circuit but with a few tougher turns. The challenge comes from making sure you nab all the coins on the corners. Near the end is a side route with a turbo pad for stealing some finishes.

Boo Lake

The game’s first ghost course ups the ante with some enormous jumps and the usual pits and breakable walls to make things difficult. There’s also a couple of alternate paths, one of which is across a thin bridge reminiscent of SNES Ghost Valley 1.

Cheese Land

The first really new themed course has difficult to discern edges and elements reminiscent of SNES Mario Circuit 2. The mice hazards on the course will cause a spin out if you hit them.

Bowser Castle 2

Here we see more jumps over lava, but this time they’re a bit more cruel than normal - lots of them don’t clear their gaps! There’s a new grated road texture in places that might cause some seizures if you focus on it too hard.

Luigi Circuit

Poor Luigi, his course is a bit grim since it’s raining. Puddles have formed in places that act like the original game’s oil slicks.

Sky Garden

Another road surface that looks like a net makes this course a bit hard on the eyes. You can go cloud hoping for an easy shortcut near the end of the lap, or try and spot the jump bar about halfway through, that lets you chop off a quarter of the track!

Cheep-Cheep Island

This one is a more developed beach course with lots of hazards and tricky routes to take. Careful not to go off the bridges near the end of the lap.

Sunset Wilds

Looks a bit like N64 Kalimari Desert, but plays more like SNES Choco Mountain, with muddy puddles. A section littered with turbo pads and Shy Guy tents to dodge can be quite tricky to navigate.

Snow Land

The developers know you’re slipping on this course, so of course they put all the coins in one big lucrative line! There’s also puddles of deep water reminiscent of SNES Vanilla Lake. After the 3rd turn stay left and reach a set of 5 turbo bars to put you ahead. Round a few more turns and there’s another shortcut over lighter ice to your right, or stick left and take a jump over a puddle to skip another corner!

Ribbon Road

This new theme is very easy to see for the most part - apart from a long jump bar disguised along the middle strip extending down the middle strip about a third of the way through.

Yoshi Desert

This course is pretty uneventful, with just a few hard to spot on the yellow track jump bars to shorten some corners.

Bowser Castle 3

The difficult to look at grated pattern from Bowser Castle 2 returns, along with all the usual elements. This course has similarities to some of the SNES Bowser Castles but isn’t really challenging enough for being in the later half of the game.

Lakeside Park

A windy course that has lava from a volcano in the background to avoid. There’s a turbo bar about halfway through for a big jump that can be used to cut a decent chunk of corner.

Broken Pier

More of the usual ghost house elements abound here. Can you spot the shortcut bridge on the left after the first few turns? Not on an original GBA you can’t! Round a few corners and turn sharp right, if you have a mushroom you can take off a huge corner. There’s another nearly invisible bridge right afterwards, but you’ll be hard pressed to take it if you’ve already taken the prior shortcut. In the center of the course there’s a shortcut across a bridge you can actually see, even if’s pretty thin. Try and hit the turbo before it. Phew!

Bowser Castle 4

Bowser sure got a lot of courses in this game! This one is suitably challenging. Tricky corners, tigher roads, and Mecha Koopa’s to avoid. The lava holes are just right there with no jumps to clear them in place too.

Rainbow Road

In a return to form, Rainbow Road has gone back to a barrierless nightmare of a course. The bits that do have edges are even more dangerous, since they’re all jump bars. They tempt you with small or enormous shortcuts all over the track.

That is some assortment even before you include the 20 original courses - not just for a handheld game either. But the new track layouts - the types of corners - seem a bit less distinct compared to the originals overall. I’m sure that’s because there’s only so much you can do with flat tracks - a lot of the ideas were already used in SMK, so they aren’t as fresh either.

This isn’t a “Lost Levels” Super Mario Kart - the tracks start off pretty basic, so a SNES master won’t have much trouble until a few later on. But the difficulty curve doesn’t seem as well done as the SNES game. Some late game tracks aren’t much harder than earlier ones. I think this is a side-effect of having 4 courses per cup (5 cups), since the difficulty kind of gets reset to “first course of the cup” too often.

The shortness of the tracks is more apparent than in the original due to the change to 3 laps like the N64 game as well. That game had much larger courses to warrant it, this one doesn’t. I think they did it because you’d want a quick game on the go, but the races are kind of over before you know it, and you find yourself wanting more time on the courses. 3 laps also gives you much less chance to stage a comeback if you’ve been nailed with a nasty item or 10.

The courses do have an abundance of clever shortcuts though, really taking advantage of jump bars this time. Their theme graphics are much improved over the original game too. Some of them seemed a little off-brand at the time, but I think as the Mario universe has expanded, they are less out of place now than I thought originally. The character sprites also look excellent. The graphics can almost seem too detailed at the GBA’s lower resolution though, so some track surfaces can be hard to see. Thankfully this game includes some turn indicator icons to account for the lowered visibility.

The Battle mode has 4 new courses that I won’t be covering as unfortunately, I never got a chance to play them. Cabled multiplayer and requiring multiple machines, carts and above all, friends, was just too difficult back then. I do wish I had the chance but whether you played it multiplayer or not, you have to give the game credit for including these features - it even had a limited single-cart multiplayer mode, and if you were lucky enough to live in Japan, online play through the Mobile Adapter GB.

It really was a full package and incredible value for money. What more could you want out of a Mario Kart on GBA? 3D levels at 2fps? No thank you! More characters? Nah, Bowser is all you need for Time Trials anyway. It’s insane that the number of courses in Super Circuit wouldn’t be exceeded by a Mario Kart until 8’s second DLC pack, 14 years later!

Super Circuit is an incredible title that still holds up today. It stands head and shoulders over most games in the GBA library - especially the more straight SNES ports it received. I mean, they could have just done that right - ported Super Mario Kart with a few differences and called it a day, I would have been happy with that. But no, they did that and then considerably more. A brilliant handheld racer when basically none of worth existed before it (hell, for a good while afterwards too). Clowns will say it’s not Mario Kart 64, but let me tell you what it really is - a fantastic Mini Mario Kart!