In general, the gameplay of Mario Kart: Super Circuit is not much different from its predecessive versions. In each race, the player will try to race from 3 to 5 laps as well as to maintain the speed of his or her car to finish first. The maps of the game are really diverse with quite a lot of obstacles. So if you want to achieve the championship trophy, you have to control your car skillfully and handle movements to avoid being thrown off the track. In addition, it also has a lot of special items giving advantages to support players on the track, such as speeding up in just a short time, or some items that are detrimental to other opponents.
Mario Kart: Super Circuit has the presence of eight familiar characters in Nintendo’s Mario series: Mario, Luigi, Toad, Princess Peach, Wario, Yoshi, Donkey Kong, and Bowser. And normally, all 8 of them will participate in a single race mode in which the player can choose anyone to role-play. But there is a big difference here. The characters in the game are designed with 3 classes calculated by weight: heavy, light and medium. They also have separate “acceleration” indicators. Therefore, these two indices will create their unique capabilities in the races. It is obvious that lightweight characters such as Yoshi, Toad, and Peach Princess will be able to accelerate faster, but their weakness is that they will easily be knocked out when collides with the heavier opponents. The advantage of heavy opponents is obvious, but in return, it will be able to accelerate slower. Not because of that that they will be the last ones because most of the victory will belong to players with good racing skills, not entirely depend on the ability of the character. Meanwhile, the average weight characters like Mario and Luigi are a perfect balance.
In single-player mode, there are three options: Grand Prix, Time Attack and Quick Run. Time Attack will calculate the time for a race. Within the allotted time, the player needs to pass the opponents and finish first to win. This game is a good choice bringing the feelings of competitions and breathtaking. As for the Grand Prix, this mode organizes 5 tournaments with over 40 races for players to experience. Although the engine in this mode is quite modest at 150cc, the levels of challenges will constantly increase as the maps are more customized and the game AI becomes more and more intelligent. If players feel a bit noisy sometimes and want to reduce the level of chaos, choose Time Trial mode. It allows racing alone, with specific missions to be completed.
The maps in Mario Kart: Super Circuit is quite diverse and creative. It is designed to be quite simple, with few obstacles to dodge but there are quite a lot of kink roads to challenging the player’s racing skills. Compared to its predecessors, this game is considered as a worthwhile upgrade, improved both in terms of graphics and race diversity. Although a few have been added, it also includes familiar scenes in the Mario action series such as beautiful castle, beach, or Cheese Land.
