Mario Kart Super Circuit (Game Boy Advance)
Developed by: Nintendo

The original Super Mario Kart for the SNES was, simply put, one of the best games I have ever played. It was easy to learn but hard to master, very addictive, and a ton of fun to play with friends. As we all know, Super Mario Kart spawned numerous cheap imitations and lame rip-offs, few of which ever came close to measuring up. But the fact that the original game was so blatantly plagiarized only proves that it was (and still is) a great game.

The original game was so good that Nintendo themselves could not surpass their own creation, even with approximately 4 times the processing power. Mario Kart on the N64 failed in many of the areas where the original game excelled. The controls were clumsy, and the power-ups had far too much influence on the outcome of the races.

Thankfully, Nintendo has seen the error of their ways. The new Mario Kart is in most ways a return to the original SNES version, which is just fine by me. I am not particularly fond of Nintendo re-releasing exact replicas of Super Nintendo games on the GBA, but I have no problem with them taking an awesome game and building on it.

Since the Game Boy Advance has roughly the same processing power as the Super Nintendo System, it is easy to see why they went back to the SNES format… it was probably cheaper for them to just port the code from the Super Nintendo version and build onto it some new tracks. Still, it doesn’t matter if their motivation was to save money, because this game rules.

Mario Kart Super Circuit brings back the use of coins, both as a measure of your kart’s top speed, and also a measure of the amount of times you can be jostled or bumped by fellow racers. The controls are as responsive as ever, and the action is perhaps even more fast-paced than the original Super Mario Kart.

Anyone who was a hardcore Mario Kart player for the Super Nintendo version should have no trouble at all settling into the controls on the Game Boy Advance. The 50 CC and 100 CC levels should be a breeze for experienced players, but once you get into the 150 CC class you are in for some serious button mashing battles. Slip on one banana peel and you’re dead last dude!

Oh, and did you say you wanted some new tracks? Well, there are plenty of those, but the cool thing is that most of them are based in the same environments as the tracks from the SNES game, including the Ghost House, Bowser’s Castle, and Koopa Beach. The backgrounds and scenery look even more colourful than they did on the Super Nintendo version. Speaking of which, I have also heard rumours that you can actually unlock some of the original SNES tracks in this game. Bonus!

Unfortunately, the one area of the game I have not been able to try out yet is the multiplayer mode. This was always where the original Mario Kart excelled, particularly with the simple yet ingenious Battle Mode. Handheld game systems, however, are not the most conducive to multiplayer gaming. Particularly if you do not have any friends… who own Game Boy Advance, I mean.

But the fact that I haven’t been able to try out the Battle Mode for Mario Kart Super Circuit yet brings me to my next point: why the hell have they not yet made it possible to play Battle Mode against computer opponents? I could forgive this in the original game, but having skipped it in the Nintendo 64 version, and now the Game Boy Advance version is preposterous, and pure laziness on Nintendo’s part.

Mario Kart Super Circuit does have a few cool features that take advantage of the Game Boy Advance’s interconnectivity however. For one, friends can link up and race against you even if they do not own the game. (This is one complaint I always had about the original Game Boy; I never thought it was fair that everyone had to buy a copy of the game in order to play through a game link.) Also, the Time Trials mode allows you to transfer your times over to a friend’s game pak, where they can then compete against a ghost that duplicates your run.

I am happy to say that if you’re a Mario Kart fan, this new version will not let you down. Nintendo may not have broken any new ground with Mario Kart Super Circuit, but you know, sometimes it just works out better that way. At least they didn’t just cop out by re-releasing the original Super Mario Kart game. As far as I’m concerned, this game is probably reason enough to buy the Game Boy Advance system itself. Or at least .. cough cough…. download the emulator… cough cough…– Sean