Due to being on the GBA, Mario Kart: Super Circuit returns to 2D. It's also the only mainline MK title to not be made by Nintendo directly but instead Intelligent Systems and I have to say they did a great job with limitations.
This game has 20 nitro tracks, among which my favourites are Cheese Land, Rainbow Road, Sky Garden, Sunset Wilds and the legendary Lakeside Park which honestly competes with some modern tracks. Additionally you can unlock all 20 SNES courses. The way you unlock them is not great as you have to beat the cup once then beat it again while collecting 100 total coins to unlock that version of the Extra Cup. To be honest the SNES tracks are kind of worse here than they were in Super Mario Kart due to missing obstacles and feeling more cramped, but it's still cool they were included anyway. I mean it gives this game 40 fucking tracks, which, for a game this old, on a portable console is insane. The music in this game is also great, easily the best in the series so far.
Just like Super, it takes time to learn this game's controls but my god once you do they feel so snappy and satisfying. This is further amped by the plethora of insane yet intended shortcuts you can preform on several of the tracks in this game, many of which require a lot of skill. The developers really knew what they were doing.
The character roster is the same as 64 which is a bit disappointing but at least we got Random, right guys?
Overall, this is a pretty good Mario Kart, especially considering the limitations.

Also, can we all agree that the render of Mario on the box art is one of the coldest images this series has ever dropped.

This has been a blind spot in my Mario Kart experiences for a long time (alongside MKDS & MK7), so I’m glad I finally got around to trying it. That said, I can’t say I had much fun. I’m sure it was a big deal back in the day to have Mario Kart in your pocket, but the control just isn’t there, you get almost no traction when you attempt to drift & there were times where boosts didn’t even help me cross certain gaps correctly. The admittedly halfway-decent GBA pixel art can only carry it so far.

I like it a lot! It's really fun!

I'm still yet to play quite a few but as of now it's my 2nd favourite Mario Kart game. With all the 3D games it can feel like they all just replace the last but Super Circuit stands as the absolute best of 2D Mario Kart! The game is gorgeous, the tracks are great fun with some of my favourites being Rainbow Road, Ribbon Road, Cheese Land, Sunset Wilds, and Bowsers Castle 3, and 40 total tracks is out of this world!

I really like the coin mechanic where everytime you bump into a player you loose a coin and you drift out if you get hit with no coins, it adds a lot of strategy to weither you go for the coins or the tight turns. I also really like the controls and how quick the turns are, it's really satisfying. But, if theres only one reason that I love this game so much it's how fast it is. A single round takes about a minute and a half! It's so easy to just pick it up and play a quick round and coming off of 64 this is a godsend!

Some days I just feel totally braindead, and too tired to dive into a 70 hour JRPG with complex mechanics and more text than, uh... Anna Karenina. Those are the days I pop up Mario Kart.

Now, I will admit, my Mario Kart experience is pretty much limited to Mario Kart 8, 7, and DS; also having experienced some of the Wii game at parties and such, however.

I do know what I love about Mario Kart though, and that is the interactive environments (all the different shortcuts, things that pop up on stage, and the like), and in general just a ton of possibilities and learnable skills that make getting better at the game fun. Hell, even the times I lose in Mario Kart (which have been frequent recently, since I'm pretty rusty), I still have a lot of fun. The adrenaline rush of all the shells being thrown, all the karts being bumped, and the acceleration to the finish line all add up to one of the best competitive/multiplayer game series. When I was younger, my sibling said that "there was always a way back in Mario Kart" (or something like that). Meaning that even if you get into 7th place on lap 2, anything could happen and you could very likely get into 1st place in lap three. This ability for comebacks is really what makes these games shine, in my opinion.

I think the problem with Super Circuit is that it foregoes a lot of the aforementioned things - yet, I can't find a reason to blame it for doing so. Mario Kart on the GBA seems like a tough enough thing to attain. Still, a lot of sacrifices were made for this goal.

The tracks are kind of boring, is my first critique. To explain: I think while the idea of having a static backdrop and a pseudo 3D track is kind of what most GBA kart racers opt for, I also think it kind of takes away a real sense of exploration of these tracks. A sense of landmarks. Luckily, there are environmental obstacles and little graphics scattered about in a lot of the stages, such as Snow Land with all it's penguins. However, it never really breaks up the monotony of the stages.

Of course, I can't imagine any way they wouldn't have static backdrops and integrated some kind of pseudo 3D onto the GBA (kind of like some games did). This would likely not turn out well.
Yet, the theming of the levels was kind of bland - in other games we get stuff such as theme parks, cruise ships, and generally atmospheric areas to explore. I think the problem is this game opted more for "enviroments": swamp, sky, etc. which are kind of basic and not as fun to explore - since they are environments without landmarks or places to go.

Drifting is also kind of miserable, though I can't blame this game in particular, since the F-zero GBA games also control miserably in this way. Maybe (probably) I'm bad at the game, but it is a complete bump-fest and boy is there no sense of sticking to the ground or generally of being able to drift around corners smoothly. In fact, I found my strategy was always to slow my kart when going around corners. This was probably the basic Mario Kart strat before drifting came into play, but still, I don' like it :( (it's probably a me issue).

Super Circuit was a game that I found had kind of a blandness, even a loneliness to it. It definitely doesn't pop out at you, and while a lot of this can be attributed to the inherent difficulties of trying to put a Mario Kart game on the GBA, I think the game can take some responsibility for what seems like a rushed game without much intrigue as far as level theming, fun mechanics and the like go. It is fun, don't get me wrong. I do not want to be too hard on it, but it's just not my first pick for Mario Kart, although I can see myself playing it to wind down.

There’s a few considerations to make when reviewing Super Circuit,

Firstly, where does it slot into the Mario Kart franchise? It is similar to Super Mario Kart, utilising Mode 7 and Super Scaler technology, features 20 tracks (as well as an additional 20 from Super Mario Kart as unlockables - gold cups in 150cc, then race them again and collect 100 coins).

There is also an overall improvement incorporating Mario Kart 64 items and drifting mechanics. And it reaches great heights with vivid sprite work.

However, I have seen the argument that it is not the most innovative Mario Kart title - which might be true at the time of Double Dash, today I feel the titles are more iterative or as with MK8D a foundation to build upon. I felt it improve upon Super Mario Kart in a meaningful way.

Lastly, I look towards the platform. Super Circuit is a top tier Game Boy Advance title and probably the best racer on the system.

My review score indicates where I think the game slots in as a GBA racer title, playability and it’s historic position.

Overall I had blast playing through the initial cups, followed by the SNES tracks. I might have played this initially on an emulator but it was cool revisiting it on the NSO service.

I’m tempted to try and get some people online to do battle and vs. modes. I’ll update this review if I get there.

The vs. mode is a cool addition but not substantially different to the SNES version overall.

Pros: Visually, it's a step up from Super Mario Kart, using models and concepts from Mario Kart 64 for the characters like Donkey Kong and Wario and items like triple shells and the notorious blue shell, which these visual facelifts also help make the game play better too. As now, it's easier to see objects coming up ahead on the road (particularly the item boxes, which are no longer flat textures that you have to drive over), and all characters on the track are more balanced using the same regular items, keeping the races frenetic and fun. There are plenty of creative tracks like Cheese Land, Ribbon Road, and Sky Garden that make this game a step above the SNES original. But, as an extra, every track from the SNES game is unlockable here as well! It's hard to deny this game as anything but better!

Cons: Generally, this feels like a step down from Mario Kart 64 though, as everything still has that "mode7" look and feel, which makes tracks less interesting, even if they have some creative background art and theming for a few tracks. Multiplayer is also Mario Kart's bread and butter, and even though this game does allow single card only multiplayer, where each player plays as a different colored Yoshi, it's kind of difficult to get a group together with four Super Circuit game paks, to play modes that require it, like Battle Mode... which, I barely played but once, and didn't feel much different than it did back on SNES. And yeah, similar to how the SNES didn't feel strong enough to truly deliver on an exciting Kart racer, the Game Boy Advance still wasn't strong enough to give us the most authentic Mario Kart experience either, and I'd say we didn't get that on a handheld until Mario Kart DS. But, for a GBA game, and when comparing to the SNES original, Super Circuit clears, it's the best of this "mode7" style of Mario Kart, for sure. Just wish Battle Mode was more accessible.

What it means to me: I didn't own this game as a kid, only played it at my step brother's house, and it was fun when we played multiplayer here and there, but just not fun enough, never got to the point where I loved the game. But hey, it's the first Mario Kart on a handheld system, that alone was pretty impressive!