Ah, Mario Kart. Perhaps the best multiplayer series of all time, what initially began as an unassuming racing game featuring Nintendo’s portly mascot escalated into one of, if not the most popular franchise in Nintendo’s arsenal.
Everyone has a Mario Kart memory. Whether it be racing around Koopa Beach on the SNES’s Super Mario Mart, or a night of 4-player karting mayhem on Mario Kart Wii, the series has always been the one constant in video games: when you play a Mario Kart game, you know you’re going to have fun.
With the impending release of Mario Kart 8, we thought we’d give a retrospective on where the Mario Kart series came from, and where it’s at now. From Red Shells to Blue, Bowser’s Castle to Rainbow Road, here’s the complete history of Mario Kart.
A Complete History of Mario Kart
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Super Mario Kart (1992)
Super Mario Kart was the game that kickstarted not just the Mario Kart series, but a variety of spin-off sports titles featuring Nintendo's portly Italian plumber, therefore making it one of Ninty's most important console releases of all time.
If Super Mario Kart hadn't successfully managed to take Mario from out of his comfort zone of stomping on Goombas in the mushroom kingdom and place him in a go-cart, then it could be argued that Nintendo wouldn't have continued to pursue the idea of placing its infamous mascot and his cuddly cohorts in spin-off games.
Fortunately for Nintendo, Super Mario Kart was a roaring success, paving the way for a hugely lucrative series whilst singlehandedly inventing the karting sub-genre of racing games, with the Mario Kart formula still being emulated to this day in games such as Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing Transformed and Angry Birds Go!
Platform: Super Nintendo Entertainment System
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Mario Kart 64 (1996)
A game which many consider to be the crown jewel in the Mario Kart series, Mario Kart 64 sat alongside GoldenEye as the best console multiplayer game of its generation.
Mario Kart 64 represented a tonal shift for the series, as it stepped away from several features that may have made Super Mario Kart a difficult game to pick up and play for newcomers, and adopted a more chaotic approach that has endured to this day.
Facets of Super Mario Kart such as the requirement to pick up coins from the ground in order to enhance your kart's speed were dropped, and Nintendo filled each course with obstacles and enemies that ensured a racer's position was never secure, with a potentially perilous situation waiting for them around almost every bend.
Mario Kart 64 is still widely regarded as the greatest game in the entire series which, given the high level quality of its predecessor and successors, is indicative of how beloved this game was. With that being said, we'll still never forgive it for introducing us to the Blue Shell.
Platform: Nintendo 64
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Mario Kart Super Circuit (2001)
Essentially an overhauled version of Super Mario Kart, Mario Kart Super Circuit was the first game in the series to make its way to a handheld, with it swiftly becoming the best reason to purchase the portable console.
Despite being the only console game in the series to not be developed by Nintendo, with Intelligent Studios taking the helm instead, Super Circuit remains one of the most highly rated Mario Kart games ever. Though it didn't feature many fundamental changes, the graphical and functional enhancements it made to the SNES classic was enough to warrant it widespread critical acclaim.
Mario Kart Super Circuit was also the last game in the Mario Kart series to feature 2D sprites for the racers, with later games in the series strictly employing 3D character models.
Platform: GameBoy Advance
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Mario Kart: Double Dash!! (2003)
Mario Kart: Double Dash!! marked one of the biggest leaps in design for the Mario Kart series, second only to Mario Kart 64's transition into 3D racing environments.
Mario Kart: Double Dash!! was criminally underrated upon release, with it being derided for its "gimmicky" implementation of two riders on one kart. This gameplay mechanic saw one rider driving the kart, while the other handled the throwing of items. This was a relatively useless mechanic in single-player mode, but it provided a great deal of fun in VS mode as it made it possible for those who weren't well-versed in the art of kart racing to still take part in a race by handling the weapons.
The "anyone can play" ideology is something that Nintendo would carry into Mario Kart Wii, which would significantly lower the level of challenge. However, Mario Kart: Double Dash!! didn't sacrifice the difficulty level for the sake of appealing to less competent racers, and it achieved this thanks to allowing two players to sit in the same kart.
Aside from this feature, Mario Kart: Double Dash!! featured some of the best tracks in the series, including DK Jungle, Daisy Cruiser and Wario Colosseum.
Platform: GameCube
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Mario Kart Arcade GP (2005)
Mario Kart games are intended to invoke joy and happiness, but Namco's prostitution of the series in its first arcade installment garnered mostly criticism.
While the game itself was typical Mario Kart fare albeit with a huge abundance of weapons (it featured over 100, of which 72 were new), the price of entry for just one race was incredibly expensive in all regions, The inclusion of Namco characters such as Pac-Man was a nice touch, but overall Mario Kart Arcade GP was a game built solely for the purpose of pilfering money out of the wallets of Nintendo fans while offering little in return.
Platform: Arcade
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Mario Kart DS (2005)
Mario Kart DS marked a huge step forward for Nintendo (though not an entirely successful one) as it brought online gameplay to the Mario Kart series for the very first time.
While Nintendo's issues with successfully delivering online modes to its titles endures to this day, Mario Kart DS was a reasonably efficient first attempt. It suffered from irritating drop-outs, yes, but when it worked it was a great feeling to play an installment of the classic series against a variety of people worldwide.
Elsewhere the game was praised across all areas, being dubbed one of the best DS games ever made. Nintendo would later go on to refine the implementation of online modes in Mario Kart with Mario Kart Wii.
Platform: DS
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Mario Kart Arcade GP 2 (2007)
Despite the first Mario Kart Arcade GP getting fans' backs up thanks to its costly price of entry, Namco brought the series to the arcade once more with its sequel.
While it boasted a plethora of new features and courses, the game was still unreasonably expensive. Sure, it was situated in a nice looking arcade cabinet and it was featured some fun color commentary as you raced, but ultimately Namco hadn't learnt its lesson the first time around and Mario Kart Arcade GP 2 is regarded as one of the very few blips in the Mario Kart series' history.
Platform: Arcade
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Mario Kart Wii (2008)
The most financially successful Mario Kart game of all time, racking up a staggering 34.4 million sales worldwide, Mario Kart Wii was certainly a popular game though by no means was it the best installment in the series.
While it was certainly the best game in the series for newcomers to pick up and play, many Mario Kart fans disapproved of its overly accessible nature, with race results often not being determined by a players' skill level but by the items they picked up.
If a player was positioned in last place they'd still almost always find themselves hurtling to the top of the leaderboard, thanks to the abundance of items that were solely implemented to ensure that those who couldn't necessarily play the game could still manage to finish in first place.
Though this was undoubtedly irritating, Mario Kart Wii wasn't a bad game by any stretch of the imagination. Aside from featuring a line-up of classic tracks from each game in the series, with even a few Super Mario Kart courses being given a 3D makeover, it also boasted the best example of online gameplay from Nintendo up until that point.
Mario Kart Wii's online modes were smoothly presented and worked very efficiently, which was hugely surprising given how Super Smash Bros. Brawl, which was released in the same year, featured an horrendously awful online mode that failed on all counts.
Platform: Wii
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Mario Kart 7 (2011)
Mario Kart 7 was the game that helped make the 3DS a success. Prior to its release,the handheld console was derided for its implementation of 3D, a feature that had failed to resonate with the market and, as such, failed to be a big selling point for the successor to the massively popular DS.
But then Mario Kart 7 came along in December 2011, and proved to be a tremendous selling point for the console leading into Christmas. It became the system's must-have title, and even did a good job of showing off its 3D screen.
While it didn't exactly shake up the formula of the series (the introduction of vehicles that could take to the air/go underwater was relatively superfluous) it did manage to put the 3DS into the hands of a whole heap of people, and as such is one of the most important games Nintendo has released. Following on from the foundations made by Mario Kart Wii, it also made improvements to online gameplay, providing a great handheld multiplayer experience.
Platform: 3DS
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Mario Kart Arcade GP DX (2013)
The third Mario Kart arcade game was a notable improvement over its predecessors, giving players a glimpse of what they could expect to see in Mario Kart 8 thanks to its implementation of land and water vehicles. It was still expensive, but at least it was more fun.
Platform: Arcade
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Mario Kart 8 (2014)
So Mario Kart is set to make its debut on the Wii U in the form of Mario Kart 8, and Nintendo must be hoping it'll follow in the footsteps of Mario Kart 7 by convincing fans to go out and purchase its latest home console.
Critics have already been labeling Mario Kart 8 as the best game in the series, and considering its pedigree this means we're doubly excited to get our hands on it. It remains to be seen whether or not Mario Kart 8 can help turn Nintendo's fortunes around when it comes to the underperformance of the Wii U, but from the sounds of things it does a great job trying.
Platform: Wii U
