Editorials > Mario Kart: Super Circuit Review

Mario Kart: Super Circuit Review by Troopa
4/06/2003

Graphics
The game has the classic look of the original Super Mario Kart and the driver models from Mario Kart 64. The tracks in the game look great and they have nice background effects. There are other effects on the tracks as well, such as the Ghosts in Broken Pier. The frame-rate is perfect and the sense of speed of the game is pretty good. The menu screens also look very nice.

Sound
Just like in the other Mario Kart games, the sound doesn't disappoint. Engines, items firing, character voices, etc. are all here and are done nicely.

Gameplay
The 8 drivers from Mario Kart 64 return to race on 20 new tracks, and lets not forget the 20 tracks from the SNES version making a total of 40 racing tracks! Wow, I'm glad Nintendo decided to put them in!

The control layout works very well - A to go, B to brake, L to use an item, and R to hop and powerslide. The other Mario Karts seem like you're gripping the road more than this version but it doesn't take long to get used to it. The sense of speed is good, it's faster than Mario Kart 64. It doesn't seem to be quite as fast as the SNES version, but it may just seem like that because of the smaller screen on the Game Boy Advance. It's a good thing it's not too fast because if it was it may be harder to play with the Game Boy's screen.

The game supports up to 4 players, so if you have friends with GBA's then there is lots of multiplayer fun to have. Your friends don't even need to own the game to play it with you on their GBA, although if they do then more features will be opened to play. The game has 5 modes to play; GP, Vs. Mode, Battle Mode, Quick Run, and Time Trial.

Conclusion
If you own a Game Boy Advance, you should also own Mario Kart: Super Circuit. It's a great game, and with 40 tracks it has awesome replay value for single players also. If you didn't like the other Mario Karts, you probably won't like this one, but if you do like Mario Kart then this is another great addition to the series! Enjoy!