Mario Kart: Super Circuit is a kart racing game featuring characters and elements from the Mario franchise. The player controls one of eight Mario characters and races opponents in karts around tracks themed around locales from the Super Mario platform games.[1] Boxes labeled with question marks populate each of the 40 tracks;[2] they give the player a random item based on elements from Super Mario games to help progress. Items can either be power-ups, such as a speed boost, or offensive, such as one that freezes an opponent's kart in place.[1] Tracks are littered with obstacles that slow the player down,[3] and coins that increase their speed once collected.[2] Each playable character is sorted into one of three weight classes that determine how they play, with heavier characters having higher top speeds but slower acceleration. Princess Peach, Toad, and Yoshi are lightweights; Luigi and Mario are middleweights; and Bowser, Donkey Kong, and Wario are heavyweights.[4] There are three difficulty levels themed after engine classes—50cc, 100cc, or 150cc—, with the harder difficulties' more powerful engine classes providing increased maximum speed and control difficulty.[5]
Super Circuit features three single-player modes: Grand Prix (GP), Time Trial, and Quick Run.[3] The main racing mode, GP, sees the player race against seven computer opponents around four consecutive circuits, with the objective of placing first in each race. Each set of tracks is part of a "cup", of which there are 10. Whoever achieves the best overall placements across all four races wins.[1] The player is graded at the end of the GP based on a formula which takes into account several factors of player performance, including how many coins the player collected and the weight class of the character they completed the GP with.[6] Achieving a high grade on any of the game's five original cups unlocks a single-player cup from Super Mario Kart (1992).[7] Time Trial allows the player to race on their own to complete a track in the fastest time possible. The player can compete against another player's fastest time shared via the Game Boy Advance's (GBA) Game Link Cable, a peripheral cable that connects GBA systems.[3] The Japanese release of Super Circuit was compatible with the Mobile Adapter GB peripheral, discontinued in 2002, which allowed the player to upload and download track times using a mobile phone's internet connection.[8] Quick Run allows the player to race with customizable aspects, such as lap count and toggling item boxes and coins.[3]
Multiplayer modes allow up to four players to compete via the Game Link Cable.[5] It is possible to play multiplayer even if only one player owns the game cartridge, though only one character and four tracks are selectable with this setup.[9] Three modes are playable in multiplayer: GP, Versus (VS), and Battle.[3] GP remains unchanged from its single-player version, though only two players can race at once.[4] VS allows up to four players to race around a single track without computer opponents.[4] Battle mode differs from other modes as it sees up to four players compete in an arena rather than a circuit.[4] Players begin with three balloons above their character and must pop the balloons of other players by attacking them with items. Players are knocked out if they lose all their balloons, and the winner is whoever remains the last man standing.
