"Who loves Super Mario Kart?"
"I love Super Mario Kart. That's a classic game, right there, yessirree."
"Who wants to see it leap into the third dimension, a strange place where tracks can have curves and bumps and uppy-downy bits and scenery - actual scenery?"
"I'd like to see that, yes, certainly."
"Then I give to you, Mario Kart 64. All the graphical power of the Nintendo 64, with none of the sprite work from yesteryear."
"But there's spri--"
"Sssh."
There's something inherently fun about not letting go of the accelerator as you tear around an otherworldly race track, dropping bananas and F-bombs as you go. I don't know what it is exactly. Maybe it's the fact that it's so not serious, and yet in a multiplayer battle - literally or not - it sure can be.
Mario Kart 64 is perhaps the forgotten Mario Kart game. It hasn't aged brilliantly, but that's not going to stop me from rediscovering it twenty-odd years later.
Fun Times
Isn't this a familiar scene? Racer front and centre, minimap, time, lap counter, position. A track so saturated it needs to be viewed from behind sunglasses (though we all know you wear them to hide your emotions upon spinning out to another fucking banana). This is Mario Kart, and I'm well aware that's made quite clear by the Mario character profiles and the back of a red hatted Italian plumber driving a go-cart.
Following in the footsteps of the SNES game, Mario Kart 64 gives you a number of race options, from a short championship run to time trials and multiplayer head to heads. Hopping into a four race championship is as easy as picking the one you like the look of, choosing your level of difficulty and selecting your favourite character from a choice of 8.
When the lights go out, your foot hits the floor and stays there for some time as you hop and skip around the circuits. Items and weaponry now float in multicoloured boxes, and shattering them will reveal the usual line up of bananas, speed boosts, temporary immunity and various coloured shells to shoot into your opponents.
Yes, they really look like that. No, I don't know what they were thinking. 'Something, something, show off the hardware', I suspect.
You generally don't have to think of any more than that in Mario Kart 64. Make sure you're ranked in 4th place or better to progress into the next event and you're done. Score the most points after four races and you're crowned champion in the most bizarre ceremony I've ever seen.
I mean, it's great that we're celebrated in front of Peach's castle - that's a nice bit of in-world placement there, establishing this racing competition in Mario canon or something - but what is with that music? Why are we so stiff and generic? How long did it take to develop this scene? It looks like an afterthought, after so much work went into the game itself.
Frustrations
There is an elephant in the room here, however. Sometimes he keeps to himself, and you just get on with things. He's just chilling in the corner, no big deal. Sometimes, though, he'll flare up and do that elephant scream that can really cut through the air, and you can't help but stop and make a face.
I am, of course, talking about the sprites. Mario Kart 64 still uses a lot of sprites, purely for technical reasons, it must be said, but there are an awful lot of them and you will notice. And then not notice. And then notice again. It doesn't help when they really make it obvious after you've finished a race, and the camera swoops into a more cinematic viewpoint.
It's hard not to notice them when there's another elephant sitting next to the first elephant in the room either, only this one likes to wander out of the corner and start waving its trunk in your face every now and then.
I am, of course, talking about the absurd rubber banding AI on display here.
You can race a perfect lap, complete with the odd mushroom based speed boost to really put you into an advantageous first place, and then switch your view to the vast gulf that now exists between first and second place on the minimap, only to turn a corner and... there... there he is. Where the hell did you even come from?
It's not helped with the massive sprites clogging up the bottom of the screen either. They're so big that I've even seen Wario appear from nowhere on one corner, only for him to move and reveal Donkey Kong was up there too.
Just so you have a challenge on each lap, the AI makes up its own rules to get there or thereabouts, waiting for you to spin out on another Goddamn banana. Why does it have to be that way? Is it a byproduct of having all kinds of shenanigans going on throughout the field? Is it a way to make a simple game exciting?
I was rarely caught out by it - they didn't out-race me too often - but it breaks the immersion when you've made a clear lead, only to see a banana skin get lofted over your head and a mad gorilla appear at the bottom of the screen.
Final Word
As you can tell, those were quite nit-picky frustrations, and are probably made worse with me playing through emulation, I don't know. What I can tell you is that, with one or two exceptions, Mario Kart 64 has enough to keep you entertained for a while, especially with fellow players and a battle mode that I've not even discussed.
For single players, it's alright if you like that kind of thing. These days, the tracks look simple and sometimes empty, but I think they show clear signs of where the series would head (especially with the benefit of hindsight...).
The sprites are a necessary evil. When a console capable of rendering everything in 3D, then we'll get everything in 3D, but until then we'll just have to find the fun in what we've got - and there's fun to be had for sure.
It's great, but it doesn't beat Super Mario Kart in my book. Especially when all I can see of my character is Donkey bloody Kong instead.
FILLING YOU IN
Mere days after writing this, I finally get my hands on a working Nintendo 64 along with Mario Kart 64 and two controllers, the better of which clearly went to P2 because I need an excuse for when she inevitably beats me at Mario Kart...
There are a few notable takeaways that come from playing on original hardware versus emulation, the first of which is that one of the elephants in the room has packed his trunk and run off to the circus. The sprites in play are - when smothered together on an old TV screen through AV cables - not as obvious as they are in crystal-clear emulation-o-vision. You often couldn't tell unless you were on the lookout for them, which is great.
Most of the time, you weren't looking at them because the controls were a bit more demanding, I found. The analogue stick on the N64 controller does not feel as smooth as that of the Xbox 360, which is a given, thanks to the advances in technology. It feels heavier to control these racers, a little more sluggish. Everything that was slick in emulation wasn't in the original - the visuals, speed, feel and so on.
Finally, I was able to play in the two player Battle mode. I'm sure you're all aware of it - use the weapons from the track to target balloons on your opponent, with the last player standing taking home the point.
It sucked.
The levels were so-so, and there were just us two populating them, rather than the more chaotic arena's present in later titles. It was a letdown because while it's not our favourite mode, it was one I was looking forward to seeing as it was the modes first outing in the Mario Kart series. At least they improved it, I suppose.
Still recommended to play it, but it's up to you how you want to do so I think. If emulation is all you need, that's great. If you want the hardware and nostalgia, that's great too. Still no Super Mario Kart though.
Fun Facts
The sprites were created in the same manner as those for the Donkey Kong Country series of games, with Donkey Kong's character model even coming from Rare themselves.
Mario Kart 64, developed by Nintendo EAD, first released in 1996.
Version played: Nintendo 64, 1997, via emulation.