Mario Kart 64
Overview
Apart from the big single-player games of the N64 like Super Mario 64 or The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, is the multiplayer games of the Nintendo 64 with games like Mario Kart 64 leading the pack (pun not intended).
Review
I know that Mario Kart 64 has some flaws and very dated graphics, a relic in a popular franchise that's gone onto better-looking games, but it's still my favorite game in the franchise. (well, certainly better than the other versions I've had significant exposure too). Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, the sequel on the GameCube, is better mechanically and graphically but its gimmicks and uninspired battle mode puts it below MK64. Mario Kart Wii...no thanks! I know I played Mario Kart 8 on the Wii U, and while it was better than Mario Kart Wii (that's not saying much) it wasn't Mario Kart 64. I also played Mario Kart World but at that point it was too far removed from other games in the series.
Mario Kart 64 was only the second game in the series from the original Super Mario Kart and while it still featured eight racers like its predecessor, everything else has been dramatically improved including 3D courses and proper handling. As far as the cast goes, Mario, Toad, Yoshi, Luigi, Peach, and Bowser reprise their rolls while Donkey Kong Jr. and Koopa Troopa are swapped out for Wario and Donkey Kong Country-era Donkey Kong (though in the prototype version, then known as Super Mario Kart R, Kamek was planned instead of Donkey Kong).
There are sixteen courses spread across four cups (the Special Cup is locked from the outset) and all of them are memorable, from Kalamari Desert's train that runs through the course to Rainbow Road's neon imagery. I know I have a lot of nostalgia for this one both from the late 1990s/early 2000s to the late 2000s to the mid-2010s, but if I had one complaint, the music doesn't run in four player mode (or three players). ROM hacks don't fix this without changing a bunch of other things, unfortunately, and there's an issue of lag as well.
The other great feature of Mario Kart 64 (and the biggest weakness of Mario Kart: Double Dash!!) is the Battle Mode, which was first introduced in this game. You have your choice of Block Fort, a three-tier area with bridges but fairly easy to navigate and find others, Double-Decker, a four-tier area that's much larger and meant for four players, Big Donut, a circular track around a lava pit that's a lot better than it sounds, and Skyscraper, a hectic, tiny track with lots of drop-offs. You have three balloons and you use items to screw over your opponents, and assuming you're playing with more than one other person, you have one last chance to play even though you've clearly lost: you'll be able to turn into a rolling bomb that's nigh-invincible and have one shot to exact revenge on a player. There are two cases where you cannot: if someone has a star and runs you down, or the two bombs in play (4 player only) crash into each other. In one case I lost my bomb we both realized belatedly that we were intersecting each other at an angle.
Of course, the big problem with multiplayer games is that you just can't enjoy them the same way if there's nobody to play with anymore. Nevertheless, it's a good game and I have great memories of it.
Player Notes
The review above (last edited in July 2026) is a punched-up version of the early 2020s updated version, which was made of older versions dating back years. In my time playing Mario Kart 64, I first fell in love with it on the Nintendo 64 and bought it on the Wii as a Virtual Console in 2007.
Port & Rerelease Notes
Mario Kart 64 was re-released as a Virtual Console title for Wii and Wii U, and available on Nintendo Classics for the Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2, but only very recently has it gotten a decomp port. Currentkly, there's only SpaghettiKart (which crashes sometimes and still doesn't feel like the AI of the original). Another project, Mario Kart 64 Recompiled, seemed to run better but it has vanished from GitHub, unfortunately.
Screenshots
