Mario Kart: Super Circuit
| Mario Kart: Super Circuit | |||
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| above: Mario Kart logo: Super Circuit; below: Game Boy Advance logo | |||
| Original title | マ リ オ カ ー ト ア ド バ ン ス | ||
| transcription | Mario Kāto Adobans | ||
| Studio | Intelligent Systems | ||
| Publisher | Nintendo | ||
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| Erstveröffent- lichung |
 July 21, 2001 August 27, 2001 September 13, 2001 September 14, 2001   |
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| platform | Game Boy Advance , Virtual Console (Wii U) | ||
| genre | Fun racers | ||
| Game mode | Single player , multiplayer | ||
| medium | GBA cartridge | ||
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Mario Kart: Super Circuit , known in Japan as Mario Kart Advance ( マ リ オ カ ー ト ア ド バ ン ス , Mario Kāto Adobansu), is a fun racer made by the Japanese manufacturer Nintendo for the Game Boy Advance . The game combines the elements of the previous games and includes, among other things, all the racetracks from the Super Nintendo entertainment system game Super Mario Kart . The game developed by Intelligent Systems was published by Nintendo in 2001 and is the first " Mario Kart " game for a handheld console and, as the successor to Mario Kart 64, the third game in the Mario Kart series. It is also the only Mario Kart whose Japanese title does not match the international title and the only Mario Kart developed by Intelligent Systems ; all other games in the series, with the exception of the arcade offshoot developed by Namco Bandai and Mario Kart 7 , which Retro Studios helped develop , were developed by Nintendo EAD . In 2011, the game was re-released as a " virtual console " game exclusively for participants in the ambassador program for the Nintendo 3DS .
Gameplay
“Whoever gets their driver's license in the Mushroom Kingdom will soon be in trouble. Classic Mario Kart action is back, this time in a colorful, lightning-fast game that knows no bounds. Mario, Luigi, Peach, Toad, Wario, Yoshi and Bowser make the streets unsafe, throwing Koopa tanks and handing out banana peels along the way. Mario Kart: Super Circuit puts your driving skills to the test on 40 tracks that are littered with unusual item boxes and obstacles. Want to leave some friends in your cloud of dust? No problem. Up to four players can compete against each other in Mario Kart: Super Circuit with just one game module! When every player has a copy of the game, special features and new game modes will become available. In the action-packed racing games with great graphics and high replayability, Mario Kart: Super Circuit is already at the top of the podium. "
The game relies on the classic game principle of the Mario Kart series, with different characters from the Mario universe racing against each other with different rules depending on the game mode and using objects that they pick up from item boxes distributed on the route to gain advantages or their own Disadvantage opponents. For example, there are banana peels that are placed on the track in the hope that an opponent will drive over them and skid, mushrooms that give you a boost in speed or Koopa tanks with which other drivers are shot down and thus caused to roll over can. Coins are distributed on the racetracks which, when collected, increase the speed of the kart and are lost again if hit by items or collisions with other drivers. If you run out of coins, each time you touch an opponent's kart, you will skid and spin around your own axis, as happens when driving over a banana peel.
Game modes
Grand Prix
Here one or two players drive a cup on four courses against computer-controlled drivers. Points are awarded for the first four places. If you do not make it into the first four or in a two-player game, both drivers do not make it into the first four, the race must be repeated. In total, the race can be repeated three times. If you fail to finish among the top four in the third repetition, the cup will end without success.
If the Cup successfully completed, the result is depending on the placement of a bronze -, silver - or gold - trophy and an assessment of their own skills in the form of the letters A to E or represent the best rating to three stars, the latter. This evaluation results from an internally calculated number of points, which in turn results from various factors such as the lap time, the coins collected, the number of necessary repetitions of a race, the use of items and others.
There are three engine classes, namely 50 cm³, 100 cm³ and 150³, which differ in terms of speed and item use of the computer-controlled karts. 50 cm³ is the slowest class, whereby the computer-controlled drivers only rarely use their items against the human player, while they do this regularly in the fastest class, 150 cm³.
Time trial
In this mode you try to set the best time on a racetrack without computer-controlled opponents. At the beginning of a time trial race, you receive three mushrooms as items, each of which can be used for a short speed boost. If you have set a new best time, you can save ghost data of the race. These can be viewed as a video at any time, and if activated, a second, semi-transparent vehicle that reproduces the saved race appears for each subsequent race. Ghost data can be exchanged with other players using the Game Boy connection cable.
Quick Run
Quick Run is a single player VS mode that is only available in Mario Kart: Super Circuit , which allows you to drive any route that has already been unlocked. The engine class, the level of difficulty and the number of laps per race can be freely selected, and item boxes and coins can be deactivated so that they do not appear during the race.
Versus
This mode is basically a "Quick Run" for two to four players whose Game Boy Advances are connected by cable. There are no computer-controlled opponents, so the mode cannot be played alone. The number of times a player has lost or won against the others is counted. If only one of the participating players has a game module from Mario Kart: Super Circuit , the Versus mode is limited in that there is no free choice of characters and all participants drive differently colored Yoshis , and the track selection is based on four tracks from Super Mario Kart , namely Mario Circuit 1, Donut Plains 1, Ghost Valley 1 and Bowser Castle 1 , limited.
Battle
Similar to Versus , this mode is a pure multiplayer mode without computer-controlled drivers, which is played on special arenas. The aim is to eliminate your opponents by popping their balloons , each of which has three, with the help of items. As with the Versus , it also counts how often you have won or lost against your opponents. If someone has lost his last balloon and is thus eliminated, he turns into a bob-omb . Such a bob-omb is controlled like a kart and can be steered into opponents, for example, so that they lose a balloon due to the resulting explosion.
Characters
A total of eight drivers are available, and these are the same characters that were already playable in Mario Kart 64 . Thus, Super Circuit is the only game in the series that did not introduce any new characters. Just like in the earlier games, all characters drive in simple go-karts that have been adapted in color and size to the respective driver, but otherwise have no differences. Furthermore, the system of weight classes was adopted from the earlier games: The eight drivers are divided into three weight classes: heavy , medium and light , which differ in their driving characteristics.
While heavy riders benefit from high speed and heavy weight, making them less likely to be pushed off the track, they suffer from slow acceleration. Lightweights, on the other hand, accelerate very quickly, but their top speed is not that high and they can be pushed away more easily. Average drivers have balanced values.
In addition to the eight drivers, the selection screen in Super Circuit also offers a “random” option, which means that the driver's choice is left to chance. Super Circuit and Mario Kart: Double Dash !! are the only games in the series with such an option, other Mario Kart games do not offer the possibility to select a character at random. However, with Double Dash you can only choose both drivers, not just one, with the “random” option.
| driver | Weight class | Weight | acceleration |
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| Mario | medium |
 
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| Luigi | medium |
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| Toad | Light |
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| Peach | Light |
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| Yoshi | Light |
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| Wario | Heavy |
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| Donkey Kong | Heavy |
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| Bowser | Heavy |
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stretch
Mario Kart: Super Circuit has 20 new race tracks, divided into five cups of four tracks each. These cups are called mushroom, flower, lightning, star and special cups . There are also twenty tracks from the SNES game Super Mario Kart , referred to in the game as Extra Cups , to unlock, making Super Circuit not only the first Mario Kart with tracks from previous games in the series, but also over most of the racetracks of all Mario Kart games with the exception of Mario Kart 8 - DLCs . The twenty extra routes are not divided into four cups of five each, as in the original game, but into five cups of four routes each, so that they fit into the game's Grand Prix system, which have the same names as the normal cups In addition, various dangers such as oil stains on the roadways of the Mario Circuit tracks have been removed. These extra cups are unlocked by collecting at least 100 coins in the corresponding super circuit cups and finishing first.
| Super Circuit tracks | ||||
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| Mushroom cup | Flowers cup | Lightning cup | Star cup | Special cup |
| Peach Circuit | Mario Circuit | Luigi Circuit | Snow Land | Lakeside Park |
| Shy Guy Beach | Boo Lake | Sky Garden | Ribbon Road | Broken Pier |
| Riverside Park | Cheese Land | Cheep Cheep Island | Yoshi Desert | Bowser Castle 4 |
| Bowser Castle 1 | Bowser Castle 2 | Sunset Wilds | Bowser Castle 3 | Rainbow Road |
| Tracks from Super Mario Kart ( extra cups ) | ||||
| Mushroom cup | Flowers cup | Lightning cup | Star cup | Special cup |
| Mario Circuit 1 | Mario Circuit 2 | Bowser Castle 2 | Vanilla Lake 1 | Koopa Beach 2 |
| Donut Plains 1 | Choco Island 1 | Mario Circuit 3 | Bowser Castle 3 | Ghost Valley 3 |
| Ghost Valley 1 | Ghost Valley 2 | Koopa Beach 1 | Mario Circuit 4 | Vanilla Lake 2 |
| Bowser Castle 1 | Donut Plains 2 | Choco Island 2 | Donut Plains 3 | Rainbow Road |
development
Mario Kart: Super Circuit was developed as the only game in the Mario Kart series by Intelligent Systems , which is best known for the WarioWare and Paper Mario series; the game was published by Nintendo. The other previously published Mario Kart games were developed by Nintendo EAD , the only exceptions to these in addition to Super Circuit are the arcade games developed by Namco Bandai and Mario Kart 7 , on which both Nintendo EAD and Retro Studios were working. The 3D model of Donkey Kong used in the pre-rendered sprites was provided by Rare . The game was first introduced in a press release on 9 August 2000, at that time it had the title Mario Kart Advance under which it was finally brought in Japan on the market, while outside Japan under the title Mario Kart: Super Circuit appeared which makes it the only Mario Kart to date whose Japanese name does not match the international one. It was released in 2001 in Japan on July 21st, in the USA on August 27th, in Australia on September 13th, and in Europe on September 14th.
The game's engine is similar to that of the SNES predecessor Super Mario Kart , although the sprites used come from the Nintendo 64 offshoot and are therefore much more detailed and colorful. Mode 7 effects are used for the 3D simulation when displaying the racetracks .
Re-release
On July 28, 2011, Nintendo announced that due to the price reduction of the Nintendo 3DS planned for August 12, Mario Kart: Super Circuit, along with nine other GBA titles , would be made available free of charge as a virtual console game for participants in the ambassador program . In order to participate in the Ambassador Program, all you had to do was connect your Nintendo 3DS to the Nintendo eShop at least once before the date of the planned price reduction . The game has so far been reserved for participants in the ambassador program; As a non-ambassador, there is no way to download or buy the game on a 3DS. Since April 23, 2015 it has been possible to purchase the game for the Wii U's virtual console in the eShop. In the USA it was already published in the eShop on November 13, 2014, in Japan on July 22, 2015.
reception
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Mario Kart: Super Circuit received critical and consumer praise soon after its release. It achieved an average of 91.54% in 39 ratings on GameRankings and an average of 93% in 24 ratings on Metacritic .
In 2007 IGN ranked it 19th in the list of the best GBA games, and it was also awarded the Editor's Choice Award .
Mario Kart: Super Circuit had sold 5.47 million copies worldwide as of July 25, 2015, making it the fourth best-selling game for the Game Boy Advance and joining Nintendo's Player's Choice range . 1.64 million copies were sold in Europe, 2.62 million in the United States and 0.99 million in Japan. A total of 0.22 million games were sold in the other regions.
Allusions to other games
- Paper Mario - Rainbow Road has Bowser's Castle from Paper Mario in the background.
Allusions to this game
- Mario Kart DS - In the following issue of the series,four tracks from MKSC will appear in retro cups: Peach Circuit , Bowser's Castle 2 , Luigi Circuit and Sky Garden .
- There are also retro tracks in Mario Kart Wii again, with Shy Guy Beach and Bowser's Castle 3 .
- There are also retro tracks in Mario Kart 7 , here it is Bowser's Castle 1 .
- There are also retro tracks in Mario Kart 8 , there are Mario Circuit as well as Cheese Land and Ribbon Road in the DLCs .
- In Mario Kart Tour is Bowser's Castle 1 available.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b nintendolife.com
- ↑ gamefaqs.com
- ↑ Official instructions included with the game. Instructions as PDF on Nintendo's website
- ↑ netzwelt.de
- ↑ uk.ign.com
- ↑ ign.com
- ↑ computerbild.de
- ↑ a b c d e f gamerankings.com
- ↑ eurogamer.net
- ↑ ゲ ー ム ボ ー イ ア ド バ ン ス - マ リ オ カ ー ト ア ド バ ン ス. Weekly Famitsu, No. 915 Part 2, p. 114. June 30, 2006.
- ↑ gamespot.com
- ↑ - ( Memento of the original from August 3, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ gameboy.ign.com
- ↑ metacritic.com
- ↑ - ( Memento of the original from December 12, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ vgchartz.com
Web links
- Mario Kart: Super Circuit at MobyGames (English)
- Mario Kart: Super Circuit in MarioWiki