Gaming Target - Game Boy: Mario Kart: Super Circuit

Written by Kevin Stapf on June 16, 2001

First Impressions: Take your GBA on the road and race with Mario all the way.

Nintendo has had numerous successful franchises, such as Zelda, Mario and Metroid, which have enabled them to become arguably the best in-house developer around. These games have spurned multiple sequels and they are always worthy of being mentioned with some of the best games of all time. One of the unsung, yet most successful Nintendo endeavors has been Mario Kart. Nintendo took a chance by releasing this quirky racing SNES game, Super Mario Kart to the public in 1992, and later followed it with another installment in the series with Mario Kart 64 on the N64 console in February of 1997. The game brought Nintendo great rewards and was enjoyed by video games fans as well. Ever since the release of Super Mario Kart and Mario Kart 64, we have seen several copies and cart racing titles evolve creating its own subgenre in the racing field. Now Nintendo has plans to bring its popular racing franchise to the handheld market.

With Mario Kart Advance on the Game Boy Advance Nintendo isn't doing anything new. They are just remaking the original from the SNES and throwing onto a portable but is that so much of a bad thing. All of your favorite racers will be back, including Mario, Luigi, Yoshi and a few others. While this game is mainly a copy of the SNES version it does contain a few things from the N64 version such as the balloons in Battle mode, and the Question mark boxes instead of the flat squares from the SNES version. It also contains some of the favorite weapons from the N64 version like the triple turtle shells and the spiked seeker shell.

This game will be one of the first games on the GBA to incorporate the download link play. Using this type of link play only one cartridge will be required to play, but it will limit the players to fewer characters and fewer levels. While the things left in the game is limited this type of link play is still extremely innovative and will sure be a hit, especially parents who refuse to buy their kids 2 copies of the same game.

One of the most popular things from the Kart series has been the battle mode and this sweet mode will surely be back and since every player will have their own GBA that means that their will be no more annoying split screen racing. Having your own screen is just cool and will help to prevent cheating.

Despite the lack of buttons compared to the SNES and N64, Nintendo has simplified the use of all the buttons and this may actually be helpful in enhance the gameplay.