Mario Kart Super Circuit on GBA, the first portable Mario Kart. Five cups including two with SNES circuits. Snappy gameplay, immediate fun. An excellent entry in the saga.
Your verdict
Category
Racing4 players3+
Description
Kart racing game developed by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo in the United States in January 2002. Mario, Luigi, Peach and friends race on 40 circuits across five cups. Classic franchise items including red and blue shells, bananas and stars, Grand Prix, time trial and link cable versus modes. Includes 20 circuits from the Super Nintendo and new GBA-exclusive tracks. First Mario Kart on portable console.
Mario Kart - Super Circuit review
4/5
Art direction
★★★★★
"Striking"
4/5
Music
★★★★★
"Excellent"
1/5
Story
★★★★★
"Anecdotal"
The western edition must make two generations of tracks live together: the circuits carried over from the home console, redrawn with finer textures, and the new courses exploiting busier scenery, building sites, beaches, castles. The karts, shown as rear-view sprites scaled by distance, stay perfectly readable despite the smallness of the screen.
The soundtrack rearranges the themes inherited from the home version with drier timbres suited to the handheld's speaker: percussion up front, shortened bass, melodies reinforced to stay audible in a noisy environment. The new pieces adopt the same approach, giving the whole a homogeneity the two origins did not promise.
Gameplay
"Masterful"
Drifting through corners to snatch a mini-turbo brings the grin back at once, so precisely does the arcade driving land. The snappy track layouts and arsenal of items keep races tight, crowned by every Super NES circuit as a bonus. The drift technique takes a little finesse, but the fun stays intact years later.
Fun
"From the very first seconds"
Drifting through the corners, dropping a shell at the right moment and snatching first place on the final lap: all the flavour of Mario racing fits in your pocket. The snappy tracks and prankish items keep up a joyful chaos, irresistible in multiplayer. Immediate, balanced and packed with tracks to unlock, an ideal dueling companion anywhere.
Addictiveness
"Obsessive"
Drifting through a corner to snag a mini-turbo, picking up a shell and then wresting first place at the line sets up an immediate racing pleasure that calls for the next Grand Prix. Unlocking cups and retro tracks feeds a constant progression. The aggressive AI can annoy, but this quest for the best time and the three stars stays furiously addictive.
European PAL edition of Mario Kart Super Circuit, the first portable Mario Kart and the only 2D entry in the sub franchise to include the full twenty Super Mario Kart courses unlocked at the hundred point mark. Nintendo Europe run was particularly broad, the object circulates loose in quantity, but a complete copy in a clean European cardboard box with manual and intact cup map remains the target piece for Mario Kart completists focused on the first portable link.
Better with friends
A handheld kart race for up to four, where cunning drifts and nasty items constantly reshuffle the order on quickly memorized tracks. The fun swings between driving and chaos: a well-placed shell flips the race at the last corner, for joy and for fury alike. Enjoying multiplayer calls for the cable and several consoles, but once going, the urge for an instant rematch grows irresistible.
Is Mario Kart - Super Circuit still worth playing in 2026?
Mario Kart Super Circuit brings Nintendo karting to handheld arcade form, and tosses in the complete circuit lineup of the original Super Mario Kart as a bonus. Five fresh cups, the return of classic items and four player link cable play from a single cartridge make this a very generous pick. The driving stays crisp and pointy, faithful to the SNES feel. Now eclipsed in comfort by recent Mario Kart entries, but the wealth of tracks and built in retro content keep it worth exploring.
