I get it’s supposed to be chocolate, but man these tracks are unpleasant on the eyes…Īt its heart the gameplay is a simple race: pick your character (each one has different stats with heavier characters slower to accelerate but have a better top speed, light characters the reverse, and a few characters in the middle) and race around the track for five laps and try and come first. Tracks-wise we have courses based on Super Mario World locations (Donut Plains, Haunted House, Choco Island, and Bowser’s Castle) alongside a generic “Mario Circuit” set and some Ice and Beach levels, finishing with the first ever Rainbow Road course… It was pre-Donkey Kong Country though, so I guess it made sense at the time. rather than DK himself, which is interesting. The line up of racers was a simple selection of eight: Mario, Luigi, Peach, Yoshi, Toad, Bowser, a Koopa Troopa and Donkey Kong Jr.

Super Mario Kart was released on August 27 th 1992 in Japan with a US release a week later on September 1 st and the UK getting it the month after that, quite a quick turn-around for a game back then! It was then ported to the Virtual Console for Wii, Wii U, 3DS and the equivalent app for the Switch, plus it was part of the game line-up for the SNES Mini console.Īs mentioned this was the first “Kart Racer”, complete with weapons to attack your fellow racer with, weapons that are often duplicated in later mascot-led Kart Racers.

It’s good to see a Lakitu has found a job that doesn’t involve throwing spikey creatures at people.

Super mario kart snes versions