A good first start in the subgenre of light-hearted racers, Super Mario Kart makes some design choices that were completely baffling to me as a kid, but make a lot more sense now.

The most apparent being the screen itself. Games were presented in 4:3 at the time to accommodate the common tube TV's aspect ratio. Dissimilar to F-Zero, Super Mario Kart wasn't just about going fast and seeing the road ahead, the numerous competing racers and hazardous item use make it so you need to be more aware of your surroundings. Thus, the front camera only takes up the upper half of the screen, making this "widescreen" look so you can better see everything in front of you, while having the bottom half of the screen represent either the live map of the race, or your review mirror. I appreciated these creative means of changing the way people would've likely seen racers at the time. Just as well, considering they changed a part of the genre forever.

The gameplay itself is serviceable, but isn't very gripping. At least not these days, or even the first time I went through the game myself as a teenager. I'm probably too influence by the countless hours I've sunk into its sequels. Regardless, it's still a charming little game that was certainly impressive at the time.