30%Super Nintendo

Horrendously unbalanced AI.

Good
- 3D view was ambitious for its time.
- the karting idea is original, and items were incorporated well, doing a good job of recreating the Mario theme in a racing setting.

Bad
- it's really hard to see because of the pixelated background. Especially on stages with dirt and sand.
- objects are also very hard to see distance wise, like if a piranha plants is coming close to me, it just gets gradually bigger in integer steps rather than a fluent motion. This makes it hard to dodge things.
- objects that block your way, that should be risen up in the 3D plane, aren't. Like some walls. Hence sometimes I run into the wall because I couldn't see it until it was in front of me.
- the walls are way too bouncy. It takes control away from the player in a very unfun way. And it opens the player up two more unwanted random collisions, which can become a domino effect a random negative actions.
- items are unbalanced. You can get amazing items in first, and shit items in last
- the stones in Bowser's castle stays on the ground too long. there are times where I need to literally stop my car and wait for the stones to go back up to continue. That's too big of a pace breaker for me.
- AI throwing more than one item despite not having touched a item square since last item use.
- terrible AI programming. Rather than improve their driving code, the devs opted for giving them unlimited items and special items. Its unfair for the player, and makes it infuriating, because you can't plan for anything accurately. Don't know when opponent will drop an item behind. Don't know when the opponent will use star.
- the game has aged terribly visually and the gameplay.
- the stage moves around way to much. Gives me a headache.
- AI can also clip through obstacles, adding to the infuriating unfairness.
- There's so much bouncing of the kart when hitting other things that it feels like I'm playing bumper cars.
- The extremely low overall acceleration of all characters completely breaks the pace of the game if you bump into a wall.
- Can't drift sometimes when there are too many karts around, because the bumping physics was so much.
- the slightest graze over a gap will cause you to fall through, when in reality a go kart would just go over it.
- sometimes bumps that make your cart jump can't be seen (rainbow road). This interferes with drifting because i suddenly pop up in the air.

50%Super Nintendo

This game didn't seem to be anything special. 2D tracks. Slippery controls. And cheating AI. The game becomes way too hard after that. I beat it, but it was not worth the frustration to me.

50%Nintendo Switch

meh

100%Super Nintendo

It's not about nostalgia. Most of the series is made of very nice party games, when the original SMK is also a true racing game, requiring skill, strategy and pratice. As snob-ish as it may sound, this is clearly the best game of the pack.

80%Emulated

I mean it's Mario Kart--what else can I say? The game pioneered the genre of "kart racers" as we knew it.

Does it still hold up? Ehh...

The graphics and music hold their place in history and have stood the test of time, and the controls, while a bit janky in some areas (mainly with drifting) are fine enough.

But the rubber banding of difficulty is pretty damn stupid, to be honest. It gets borderline unfair in certain cups like the Flower and Star cup, not to mention the Special Cup being the "final boss" levels.

Overall, I still hold it near and dear to me, but it by far has not aged the best out of games in the series, which is to be expected.

60%Super Nintendo

One of my least favorite of the mario kart genre, yet it's still enjoyable. This game set the bar for continuously improving kart games moving fowrward.

80%Super Nintendo

Fait chez des gens quand j'étais petit et sur émulateur. C'est le premier Mario Kart il était vraiment cool bien qu'il fallait s'accomoder au style de jeu de l'époque! À faire entre amis!

65%Wii U

Just like the original SMB (Super Mario Bros.) its lackluster compared to the rest of the series, but it got the job done. It can be a bit clunky but it’s not a bad experience just a decent one.

90%Super Nintendo

Nostalgia overload

50%Super Nintendo

lowkey, fun and unfun

60%Nintendo Switch

I recognize how revolutionary this game was at the time, but MAN is it clunky now and annoying that the CPUs get infinite items when you don't. Still fun now and then though.

75%Super Nintendo

The original kart racer. Holds up somewhat, but Mario Kart has only improved over time.

20%Emulated

unplayable garbage giving me headaches

85%Super Nintendo

29/05/2000
15h00min
86%

35%Super Nintendo

I wanted to discover the first Mario Kart, so I played this game and think that is not connected with me. The difficulty of 100 cc seemed too far from the ease of 50 CC, I know that 100 cc must have its tricks but I was not thinking of spending more hours of my life on circuits where the slightest mistake meant a new attempt over and over again in search After getting the gold, I preferred to leave it there and experience Mario Kart 64 soon where I see that there will be a great evolution with respect to this game.

65%Super Nintendo

[MEINE WERTUNG]: 6,5/10Pkt.

50%Super Nintendo

[review in progress.. | playtime : 1h54]

En gros c'est F-Zero sauf que ça va beaucoup moins vite, il y a beaucoup moins de concurrent sur la course, il n'y a pas de musique très marquantes, et l'écran est coupé en deux, on voit la course sur l'écran du haut et en bas on peu Switch avec 'select' entre la Map ou une sorte de vue rétroviseur.
Il y a 8 personnages du royaume champignon qui sont jouables, chacun semble avoir une physique un peu différente.
Les Sprites des différents personnages sont bien gros, et ils ont un kart qui leur es assorti.
Les circuits sont assez varié visuellement et plutôt beaux.
Il y a un système de dérapage qui fonctionne plutôt bien pour faire du cornering.
Il y a 3 coupes en 50cc : Mushroom Cup, Flower Cup et Star Cup.
Il y a 4 coupes en 100cc : Mushroom Cup, Flower Cup, Star Cup et la Spécial Cup qui n'est déverrouillé que si on a des coupes Or en 100cc.
Chaque coupe est composé de 5 parcours très différents.
Une fois une coupe choisie
On peut choisir en plusieurs vitesses différentes, 50, et 100 cc, c'est un peu comme un mode de difficulté.
Quand on se prend un mur on rebondis, donc c'est bon enfant.
La cinématique quand on gagne une coupe est sympa.
Les musiques d'ambiance sont très bonnes.
Les circuits sont assez court mais on doit faire 5 tours donc on a le temps d'apprendre la piste.
Lors du dernier tour la musique est accélérer pour nous faire comprendre que c'est maintenant ou jamais c'est très bien vu.
Il y a 8 participants aux courses solo.
Chaque objet à son propre son, assez différent les uns des autres, un son pour quand on l'utilise, et un autre pour quand quelqu'un se le prend, c'est super intéressant car ça permet d'avoir connaissance de ce qu'il se passe dans la course simplement en tendant l'oreille.
On peut jouer à plusieurs joueurs, c'est d'ailleurs un excellent party game grâce à ces nombreux parcours différents, ces nombreux objets différents, son gameplay bien plus simple à prendre en main qu'un F-Zero mais qui permet de vite s'améliorer (easy to learn hard to master).
Au sol il y a aussi des pièces, en récupérer un grand nombre permet d'avancer un peu plus vite.
On obtient des objets via des boîtes au sol à plusieurs endroits clés dans les circuits.
Il y a quelques sauts, booster, tâche d'huile, eau dans les circuits qui viennent pimenter les choses.
L'objet obtenu est aléatoire, et comme on ne peut posséder qu'un objet, il faudra donc réfléchir au moment où on en a un d'intéressant, si on veut l'utiliser tout de suite ou le garder pour la bonne occasion.
On peut faire des petits saut avec son kart, ça semble inutile mais on peut faire des choses avec.
On a des objets qui sont à lancer devant ou derrière sois, des objets qui nous boostent, des objets qui sont des malus pour d'autres joueurs.
C'est vraiment un jeu qui à de l'intérieur en multijoueur, sinon en solo on trouvera que l'intelligence artificielle triche un peu trops à haute vitesse, ce qui fait qu'on se sent frustré malgré le fait d'avoir bien joué.
C'est un peu dommage de retrouver souvent les mêmes thèmes de circuit dans différentes coupes.
On a un système de vie, si on est pas dans le top 4 à la fin d'une course on peut la recommencer, mais ça nous coûte une de nos 3 vies.. je suis très mitigé.. pourquoi il n'y a pas simplement un bouton "retry" quand on met une course en pause ?
Mention spéciale aux carapaces rouges qui sont des objets à lancer, qui traquent et frappent automatiquement la personne devant nous, même si les peau de banane sont assez fun aussi.
Par contre le circuit dans les nuages est abominable.. on voit rien car tout est blanc, le sol glisse, il y a plein d'objlstacles bref c'est une horreur en 100cc.
Sinon il y a aussi un mode Time Trial où l'on peut s'exercer à battre des chronos sur chaque course.
On peu jouer en multijoueur à 2 sinon, c'est ce que je recommande, ça permet d'accéder au mode bataille, c'est pas très fou.. juste 4 grosses arènes très vides.. on a chacun 3 ballon autour de nous et le premier à crever les 3 ballon de l'autre gagne.. pas très.

60%Super Nintendo

This game can become really punishing once you reach the latter cups on 150cc. Though with the higher stakes, come greater thrills. Finally crossing the finish line at Rainbow Road to win the gold trophy was a great moment which made my struggles along the way feel worth it. There were a good amount of annoying mechanics to put up with along the way though. The driving itself feels obtuse and hard to grasp. I had no idea if I was doing it optimally even after completing all the races. However, I think the worst part is how overpowered the AI feels. Your competitors give very little margin for error, which sounds good on paper, but becomes frustrating when you can’t really get a good lead on them because they just seem to adapt to keep up with you. I’d say the great soundtrack helps to drag the game just out of indifference for me and into a positive experience overall. I can see myself revisiting it in the future, though I doubt I’d try to win every race again. - 6/10

30%Nintendo Switch

Thank you for starting one of the most iconic series in all of gaming.

However, you are a bad stupid dumb game Super Mario Kart. I will never play you for fun ever because all I wanna do as I slam into the walls every five seconds is tear my hair out.

100%Super Nintendo

Muito divertido, principalmente jogando em dois. Eu e o meu irmão Gustavo terminamos o jogo em 2014, no Super Nintendo, cartucho japonês que comprei no Ebay. 150 cc é dificil.

30%Super Nintendo

Just an awful game. The controls are some of the worst in any racing I've ever played before. You always slip and slide across the entire track just trying to turn and correcting is near impossible to do. Drifting feels way worse than just turning normally I don't know how they managed to do that. Any other Mario Kart is better than this, don't waste your time playing this please.

80%Super Nintendo

I admit this is a nostalgia score if ever there was one. I can't imagine the hours my brother and I put into this game as kids.

Super Mario Kart has aged fairly poorly. It's still not bad, by any means, it's just been made obsolete by every one that followed -- as well as general QOL improvements to this genre of game.

The music and sound design is A+. Multiplayer is hectic chaos (though, admittedly, something you have to be in the mood for these days). The level design is also superb -- and simple. These remain some of my favourite courses in all the newer iterations; they never fail to put a smile on my face.

I love this game, but it ain't great. There isn't a lot of game here -- it only takes under two hours to run through every main course if your luck isn't too bad -- and the difficulty is artificial. AI players break the laws of physics in various ways and depending on the difficulty level. They all have unlimited special abilities.

And drifting. Drifting is...I still haven't really figured out drifting in this game nearly 30 years later. :|

On its own, it's probably a 5 or 6/10 at best. In my mind, though, 8/10. Some of my fondest childhood memories.

60%Nintendo Switch

Fun at first but the slippery controls and the repetitive tracks start to get boring after a couple of races. I really got tired of the game after I did the 50cc races.

30%Super Nintendo

One of the worst game i've ever played. (First 3 cups were fine, but Special Cup on rainbow map is something else)
Could totally make someone hate Mario Kart.
Suggest to play the GBA version over this instead.

As for the play i watch, player was good but game still bullshit.
Opponents have special power and it last between rounds, affect only you (yes, the AI basically not affected from it), the random of powerup is BS, while AI always get the stars (i never got one, though it might be possible if manually stop the roll faster, but still i never got 1 when i tried)

60%Nintendo Switch

Even today, Super Mario Kart is still a surprising amount of fun. The inability to see things in front of you and the absolutely "awful" rubber-banding significantly hurts the experience. Still a good game but almost any other entry is more worth your time.

50%Super Nintendo

It lays the foundation for the Mario Kart titles to come, but that's all it has going for itself.
In Super Mario Kart you don't look straight to see the obstacles, you look on the ground, and it might give you some eye strain.

Some tracks were made with the knowledge of how limited the SNES is, and these tracks are a lot of fun, but the more you push forward, the more you progress, the more you see the bad sides of the game. Chocolate Mountain and Rainbow Road have too much going on that it makes your eyes literally hurt, and Vanilla Lake has obstacles that mesh with the ground so perfectly, they almost are completely invisible. Most of the time you will struggle with these tracks, due to the fact that you can't distinguish what's the track and what is just a flawed design choice. The themes obviously lack due to limitation, but it feels like there was no person, no developer playtesting this and realizing that losing eyesight might not be as fun as expected.

When it comes to the AI, then I can say they don't try to hide it, they cheat in the most obvious and provocative way possible. They don't pick up an item from the item box. They have unique items and use it whenever they feel like it, maybe 2-4 times during a round. I have been bombarded with fireballs, Yoshi eggs, mushrooms and bananas for some rounds, it felt like everyone was just trying to fight me instead of each other. 
Mario & Luigi feel like the final bosses, they become invincible when they god damn want to. Most of the time you can't even stay near a character, since you can smell the bullshit miles away. I often end up waiting for them to use their unlimited items before I decide to pass them, due to the simple fact that 99% of the time the bots just mess with you and hate your guts.
The worst thing is it's painfully obvious that you aren't at fault, the game makes it artificially difficult during any scenario.

However, the items are fine, and personally the drifts have enough bite to them to make them hard to pull off, but very rewarding. It is in no way near modern Mario Kart drifting, but it has some spice to it.

Super Mario Kart laid the foundation, but as most first games in a franchise, they suck to play when you've played any of the sequels

70%Nintendo Switch

Super Mario Kart is the first game in the Mario Kart series and its still a fun game. Race around 5 tracks per championship cup, collect weapons and use them to help you win. The game is always in split screen mode encouraging you to play multiplayer. Its cool to see where the series started, but the game has definitely been upgraded over the years. A fun play through, especially with a friend.

20%Nintendo 3DS

Nothing particularly great about this game. Tracks are flat and the mechanics are awful. Stick with the newer Mario Kart games!

80%Nintendo Switch

tbh, I thought it'd be worse.

50%Super Nintendo

Fun game, but did not hold up to aging well.

90%Nintendo Switch

I love this game. Still holds up in my opinion.

70%Super Nintendo

Fun game but rubberbanding kills the GP's at times.

80%Super Nintendo

Classic Mode 7 Mario Kart holds up really well.

40%Super Nintendo

The game is ultra unfair with its cheating AI (going through chomps, avoid red shells, bananas)
It's also super slippery and awful to control
Not a lot of tracks and they all are short and simple
Playing anyone other than Peach, Toad and DK is almost impossible
When you start in last place, you get bumped all over the place and you get into an even worse position

70%Nintendo Switch

ae sis ya wanna play MAYO KART FOR MY SUPER NINTEDIE GAME CONSOEL

20%Nintendo Switch

F*ck this game, the rubber banding and stupidly sensitive boundaries on courses with no borders make it an absolute chore.
Luigi was the 'leader' in all four of my cups so whenever I was in second place he'd activate a super star, knocking me back.
I got 8th place on rainbow road so got Game over, but I still finished all courses so I'm counting it as a win.

Bad. Game.

100%Super Nintendo

An absolute classic. Create a genre and made 2 player competitive racing on the couch a thing.

90%Super Nintendo

Amazing game and graphics; however, it is far too short.

100%Super Nintendo

Could never not enjoy playing this game. Even now, over 20 years later it is still super dooper fun. The music is second to none. The controller is tight and responsive and the game is just all around fun. What a fantastic start to a series that today hasn't lost any of the appeal that this game has.

40%Super Nintendo

I played this on the SNES Classic Mini. I really enjoyed this game as a kid in the early 90ies... now... I find this game infuriatingly frustrating... The AI is non-existant. It's the same AI-players that get the same place in every race. They catch up to you with increased speed, and all around cheat a lot to compensate for the terrible AI. I can appreciate it from a historical stand point, and as a game that I have many fond memories from as a child, but I really wish I had left it in the past and not tried to complete it again now... After the recent Mario Karts, especially Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, this is just not fun...

70%Super Nintendo

I like the game, it's fun but the controls are not so good

70%Super Nintendo

75/100

90%No Platform Specified

If you're making a purchasing decision about a Mario Kart game and you have a Wii, you now have four different options -- Mario Kart Wii, the most recent release. Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, infamously 7.9'd and playable through the system's backwards-compatibility with GameCube discs. Mario Kart 64, also available through Virtual Console download, and, now the original Super Mario Kart. Each one of the four has its own appeal, and you'll find diehard supporters that claim each one of them is the best in the series. (Well, maybe not so many for Double Dash.)

Where each of the N64, Cube and Wii installments of the series have focused on multiplayer, more characters and more crazy items, though, this SNES original keeps things simpler -- emphasizing, instead, the actual racing instead of the combat within each race. It's a different take on the same idea, which is interesting since it's the original take on that idea. So stick with the other Kart games if you want the multiplayer chaos, but come on back to this very first racing adventure with Mario and his crew. It's absolutely worth 800 of your Wii Points to re-experience, or to play for the very first time.

And though it took a while for Super Mario Kart to finally arrive on VC, now that it's here we should be truly thankful. Year 4's getting started right for the Virtual Console.