The Dao De Jing tells its readers that “a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Laozi’s immortal wisdom persists today. Were he alive today, psychologists would likely ask him what he had to say about the second step in relation to the first. Human psychology works in cycles; cycles of reinforcement and self-destruction. One step establishes an important base, to be sure, but the second step is what determines the direction of the hiker.
Mario Kart 64 was the first sequel to Super Mario Kart. Had it failed, the franchise likely would have consisted of only two entries. Luckily for gamers, Nintendo kept moving in the right direction. Of course, there were much-needed improvements as well, and this list aims to point out what ideas made Mario Kart 64 so special and what attempts would hopefully be ironed out later on.
10 Timeless: 3D Tracks
Hills, trees, ramps, and rocks; these are the staple obstacles of an off-road racing game. While Mario Kart 64 has a track, that “track” can sometimes be through jungles and caves. And this is where the interactive environment really shines.
Before this, obstacles were essentially just 2D walls, shoving players around that came into contact with them. For the first time, a hill had a slope up and down. Logs were circular in shape. Stones acted as jagged as they appeared to be. This would set a new trend in the industry, both for established and lesser-known kart racing games alike.
9 Aged Badly: 2D Characters And Items
While the courses were busy going to 3D, the characters and their litany of arms sadly remained in the second dimension. Visually, one might debate this because they look on the screen like they have depth and volume.
But this is only superficial as the game’s coding has them remain as 2D sprites and images. This becomes a serious problem when trying to pass, resulting in players clipping through one another and bumping karts at uneven distances. As if beginners didn’t have enough trouble learning the game!
8 Timeless: Slipstreaming
Don’t ever say that Mario Kart 64 doesn’t borrow from reality. The game deserves its reputation as a fun party game, but part of making a game fun is some semblance of realism. And the slipstream was a perfect addition to the game.
Debate ensued over whether this helps push the karts from behind a bit too much. While it is an advantage, that advantage is cut off before the challenger can make a pass. So this alteration to the physics keeps races close, but still allows the best drivers to stay ahead.
7 Aged Badly: Lack Of Complexity
During this time period, some racing games were making changes that would define them for decades. The Forza series will be carrying on into future generations on the back of its system of changing gears and retooling machine parts.
Meanwhile, Mart Kart 64 stayed largely the same as its predecessor when it came down to the driving aspect. One button to go, one button to stop, and let go a little bit to slow down. The expanded arsenal disguised a major lack of ingenuity in this area of the game.
6 Timeless: Elevation
The Mario Kart series has given birth to some of the most difficult tracks to be conceived and that can largely be attributed to this particular installment. For the first time, players could not only be in behind or in front of one another, they could be above and below as well.
This started an evolution in the series that, later on, would have players be hurtling through the skies and crawling through underground chasms. Not to look too far ahead, though, this installment played with introductions to elevations and angles as well as gamers at the time could imagine.
5 Aged Badly: AI Drivers
The dreaded “catch up mechanic” stayed unrefined in Mario Kart 64. In order to keep games competitive, instead of having AI drivers learn to do better on the course, developers instituted the same, lazy feature as the last game.
Nobody likes losing to AIs even in a friendly and fun street racing video game. But there’s a great reason that these games don’t let computer-controlled opponents get free speed bonuses in exchange for poor play. This game isn’t a street racer, but it would have done well to take some advice from the genre.
4 Timeless: More Characters
The universe of Super Mario is diverse and that is a huge strength of the series. Even today, fans are clamoring for still more of their favorite secondary and tertiary characters to be added to the Super Smash Brothers lineup. Had Mario Kart stuck with the original cast, the game might still exist, but it would suffer from missing the personalities of the characters themselves.
Notorious villains Wario and Donkey Kong joined the race in Mario Kart 64 and the game was immediately improved. More games would add more fan favorites, but they have this particular installment to thank for the growing selection screen.
3 Aged Badly: Secret Passages
This is the one area where the game actually regressed. As expected, the game either improved or, at the very least, stayed the same in most ways. Even games like Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+ 2, a remake, added a few hidden areas to the base game.
Somehow, Mario Kart 64 missed the boat on this part of the game, greatly cutting down on hidden pathways and secret passages. Gamers exploring maps in their free time were sorely disappointed to find that only a few of these shortcuts existed at all.
2 Timeless: Joystick Control
To this day, Nintendo and other third parties are still trying to improve on controllers. Each of these innovations fails to progress past the genius of one N64 upgrade; the joystick. And racing with a joystick for the first time was, and still is, an unparalleled delight.
For years, gamers had learned the basics of left, right, up, and down. For a racing game, this was still fun, but entirely too clunky. Not every turn is a hard left or a hard right. Older generations of players will still recall going slightly left and slightly right for the first time with the N64 joystick and the accompanying satisfying smiles on their faces.
1 Aged Badly: The Blue Shell
This is actually not a controversial opinion at all if experienced people are being asked. The blue shell is an item received by a player who is either dead last or close to it and fired at the first place player. The shot is unblockable.
This is great news for second and third place holders that don’t deserve to win, bad news for great racers that earned the top position, and really no news at all for the person firing the shell. It’s really just a giant, hateful way bad players can influence the outcome. This item’s introduction virtually assured that no serious pro circuit would ever appear for the series.
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