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This review takes portions from the "Games of 2021 version and the original Carbon-izer.com version.

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 but...it still wasn't Mario Kart 64.

Mario Kart 64, like its predecessor, has eight racers. 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).

Mario Kart 64 has just eight racers (Mario, Toad, Yoshi, Luigi, Peach, Bowser, Donkey Kong, and Wario) and 16 courses (four of which are locked at start) among four cups, 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 and the decomp project is almost done (93.3% as of this writing) but based on the lack of interest in ports for even Paper Mario or Banjo-Kazooie I wouldn't get my hopes up. There's also an issue of lag as well.

I could go into specifics of what makes each course special as well as old memories, whether it be Koopa Troopa Beach and its special shortcut, Kalimari Desert and the train, Royal Raceway and its annoying dropoffs, and Rainbow Road and its trippy neon-like images, but the other coolest thing about Mario Kart 64 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...yet it still gets the NO RATING rating.

FINAL RATING:   

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