History Videogame / MarioKart64

* GoKartingWithBowser: Mario and the Princess don't seem to mind a friendly round of kart-racing with the jerk who just kidnapped her last week.

[[caption-width-right:350:''Mario Kart'' gets [[StealthPun N]] the 3rd dimension.]]

Mario Kart 64 (released in 1996) is a racing game for the Nintendo 64 and the sequel to ''VideoGame/SuperMarioKart''. The game is the first game in [[VideoGame/MarioKart the series]] to be in 3D, and allows up to four players to play.

New items were introduced to shake things up such as triple shells, triple mushrooms, banana bunches, and the infamous [[ComebackMechanic Spiny]] [[ScrappyMechanic Shell.]][[note]]The Spiny Shell cannot be used by computers.[[/note]] The game would be the first to introduce "Extra", the original name for Mirror 150cc where tracks were flipped horizontally.

Oh, and [[StrictlyFormula the formula is all but unchanged from the original]].

** [[UndergroundLevel Sherbet Land]]
** [[GreenHillZone Royal Raceway]]

* MasterOfNone: While Mario and Luigi were intended to be the JackOfAllStats, their stats aren't middle of the road enough for them to qualify as jacks, and they even have the ''worst'' acceleration, losing even to the heavyweights. This is even mentioned in the manual, amusingly immediately after saying that they have average stats in everything.

* LevelInReverse: Extra Cups are aimilar to 150cc mode but the tracks are mirrored (e.g. where you originally turned left you now turn right). Given a nasty spin when it comes to Toad's Turnpike, as not only is the track layout flipped so is the direction of traffic -- you now have to drive ''against'' all the traffic on the turnpike!

** Red Shells would always attempt to cut across the track to reach the opponent ahead of you if they were pretty far ahead, which caused the shell to hit a wall or fall into a BottomlessPit. Future games would have Red Shells travel along the track and only swerve when they were close to their target.

* RubberBandAI: If you're good at hitting shortcuts, expect the computer to be able to suddenly hit a top speed well beyond what any human could do. The most blatant instance is Rainbow Road in ''VideoGame/MarioKart64'', which has a shortcut that can literally skip 40% of the course (and [=N64=] Rainbow Road, as of the Deluxe edition of ''VideoGame/MarioKart8's release'', is still the longest course in the series' history). Even if you hit said shortcut on all three laps and use perfectly timed drifting boosts throughout the rest of the course, the computer is still able to catch up to you by the last lap. By turning on the map-view, it's possible to watch opponents suddenly accelerate to unrealistic speed whenever they are outside of the game's draw distance for the player. Allow a single CPU driver to get too far ahead in 150cc or Extra and they'll reach the finish line in times no human player, even drifting experts, can finish in- especially in hectic courses like Toad's Turnpike and Bowser's Castle.

* RiddleForTheAges: What do you think that green Thwomp in Bowser's Castle did to deserve the solitary confinement?

Oh, and [[StrictlyFormula the formula is all but unchanged from the original.]]

** Luigi Raceway has a skip that involves the Spiny Shell. At the beginning of the second lap, a hot air balloon appears with an item box that always contains a Spiny Shell. Grab the Spiny Shell, and if you're in first at the end of the second lap, [[ViolationOfCommonSense fire it]] and turn left as you cross the finish line. The blast will send the player over the wall and into the tunnel.

* ColorCodedMultiplayer: Player order goes from blue for player 1, red for 2, yellow for 3, and green for 4. Though it really only shows up on the character select screen.
** As for the individual drivers, Mario is red, Luigi is green, Peach is pink, Toad is blue, Yoshi is light green, Donkey Kong is yellow, Wario is purple, and Bowser is orange. However for the Battle Mode, Donkey Kong gets brown balloons, Wario has yellow, and Bowser has purple.

** Rainbow Road. It takes about 2 minutes to complete one lap, and is the longest track in the series. Long enough that a controller pack usually doesn't have enough memory to save a track ghost. It can take up to two minutes to complete a lap. And you have to do three laps. When the track was brought back in ''VideoGame/MarioKart8'', it was formatted as one lap divided into three segments.
** Wario Stadium is a close second, with the manual itself stating that its length will make it tough for players to stay concentrated in the race. It has a near-labyrinthine layout that keeps the laps dragging on, taking roughly 4 minutes (5 in the lower difficulties) to race through without using glitches.

This game would be re-released on the Wii Virtual Console in 2007, and later on the Wii U in 2016. It was also one the launch titles for Nintendo Switch Online's library of Nintendo 64 games.

** Luigi Raceway has a skip that involves the Spiny Shell. At the beginning of the second lap, a hot air balloon appears with an item box that always contains a Spiny Shell. Grab the Spiny Shell, and if you're in first place at the beginning of the third lap, [[ViolationOfCommonSense fire it]] and turn left. The blast will send the player over the wall into the tunnel.

** Luigi Raceway has a skip that involves the Spiny Shell. At the beginning of the second lap, a hot air balloon appears with an item box that always contains a Spiny Shell. Grab the Spiny Shell, and at the beginning of the third lap, [[ViolationOfCommonSense fire it in first place]] and turn left. The blast will send the player over the wall into the tunnel.