When I decided to join this collaboration and talk about the OG Mario Kart, released in 1992 by Nintendo for the SNES (aka Super Nintendo, aka the “Snez” here in the UK), I did not do so to review the game, or otherwise critique it.
No, folks, I am here to snapshot a moment in time, literally a few days in my life when I, a kid raised on the imposing black boxes of Sega, was subjected to their great rival. The year: 1995, the place: my mum’s friend’s place, the game: freakin’ MARIO KART.
I hadn’t played many racing games up until this point. My vehicular competition-based games had been Road Rash, Micro Machines and Rock n’ Roll Racing on the Mega Drive, so when my mum’s friend’s kids showed off their SNES (they were quite rare around where I lived) and Mario Kart, it kinda blew my tiny mind!
I remember hearing the little plink noise as the game first booted (also featured on The Well-Red Mage’s YouTube videos), watching the loading idents and then the main menu loaded! That music! That bloody colour palette! Don’t get me wrong, I disagree with those who rip on the Mega Drive’s sound capability (listen to the Rocket Knight Adventure soundtrack and say that, nerds!) But at the same time it is true that the big N’s most beloved console can certainly pump out some killer tunes!
And the racers, parading across the screen! There was Mario and Luigi, the Golden Boys of gaming, followed by that little mushroom creep Toad, Donkey Kong (who was wearing a vest for some reason, I guess?) Bowser, Yoshi and.. wait… is that one of those tortoise lads? Can I race as a tortoise lad?
And so it was decided! My brother and I would go up against my mum’s friend’s 2 kids, who were pretty much the same age as us, our mirror enemies, in a league battle to the bitter end! I was the Koopa Troopa (oh yes!), My brother was Yoshi, our rivals were Mario and, for some reason, Toad. We chose a league and then, all of a sudden, the game was afoot. The Mode7 “3D” graphics blew my mind, to see things in this perspective in a video game, now that was something to behold!
The race began and off we went, barging each other, picking up power-ups (nothing quite like the first red shell takedown to make you feel invincible!) And jostling for victory around that initial Mario Circuit track. I was still loving the music, rich, catchy and memorable as it is and, before I knew it, the battle had reached it’s zenith…
Freaking Rainbow Road.
A psychedelic, neon circuit suspended in outer space, no barriers and no wiggle room of you make a wrong move. It was now or never. Could these Sega samurai get their hands to master these very buttony SNES controllers and despatch the Nintendo ninja at their own game?
Nah, we got annihilated.
But we enjoyed it, despite the bottom kicking we were handed. It was many years until I played it again, on an emulator for my home PC about 18 years ago, and even then, in the era of the PlayStation (perhaps even the PS2), Mario Kart still brings back that special magical feeling of happy nostalgia.
It still does to this day.
Stepping from the shadows into the light, The Bizzaro Mage somehow functions as an average human being most of the time, just one with a fair few retro games cluttering up his tiny house. Check out his rambling attempts at sense over at winst0lfportal.blog.
Wahoo! You are a Super Reader! But the adventure doesn’t stop here… There’s more of this project in another castle! This article is just one level in an entire Super Mario Multiverse, a galactic collaboration between writers around the world sharing a bit of our hearts and memories about our favorite Mario games. Visit the Center of the Multiverse to see more:
