Super Mario Kart remains one of the best games for Nintendo’s Super NES (SNES) game system. It was challenging, fun, and most of all, easy to pick up and play but hard to master. The highly-anticipated N64 sequel turned out to be something of a flop among fans of the original. The GameBoy Advance, with its SNES-like capabilities, has proven the perfect system to revive the greatness that is Mario Kart, taking the game back to its SNES roots, but improving almost every aspect in the process.

Mario Kart Super Circuit looks great. I haven’t seen a better-looking GBA game yet, in fact. Nintendo is obviously aware of the issues many gamers have with the natural darkness of the GBA screen. They’ve compensated for this flaw by making every menu screen, select screen and racetrack as bright and colorful as possible. The racers themselves are incredibly well-animated. They appear to be highly detailed polygons, as the karts are able to rotate a full 360 degrees smoothly. Fans of the SNES Mario Kart classic will recognize some of the courses, such as the instantly recognizable (and incredibly fun) Cheep-cheep beach, or the four Bowser Castle runs. Even Rainbow Road, the final course on the hidden Special Circuit, makes an appearance, with greatly updated effects like sparkling tracks and shooting stars. There are also many brand new levels to race through, with lots of Mario franchise landmarks to spot (like Bowser’s flying castle or Peach’s castle) in the detailed backgrounds.

The game controls very well, as we’ve all come to expect from Nintendo’s first-party titles. The A button acts as your accelerator, with B controlling the (seldom used) brakes. The GBA is on the small side for adult hands, making the R and L buttons somewhat difficult to utilize, and both of them are critical to playing Mario Kart Super Circuit. R controls your jump and power-slide ability, and L selects and fires weapon pickups. The various characters are each rated for speed and weight, and fit into three different classes – lightweight, balanced, and heavyweight. Lightweight racers (Peach, Toad and Yoshi) have high acceleration and can drive right over sand and other roadside terrain without much difficulty, but they are easily knocked around by other racers. Mario and Luigi comprise the balanced class, acting as the most well-rounded set of racers with even stats for speed and weight. The heavyweights (Bowser, Donkey Kong, Wario) accelerate slowly and grind to a near halt in off road terrain, but they have the highest top speed, good cornering and the ability to knock aside other racers with their go-karts.

Mario Kart Super Circuit features robust play options for both single and multiplayer. Playing alone, you’ll be challenged with three different engine classes (read: difficulty levels), and four different circuits (Mushroom, Flower, Lightning and Star), each with four tracks. Taking the gold medal on each circuit opens up the Special Cup circuit, with four more tracks. You can also play a Time Trial mode to set or break records on different tracks, or choose a quick run and play any single track. Multiplayer options include a slimmed down mode for up to four players with one cartridge (everyone plays as Yoshi and only four tracks are available), or a full-fledged mode if everyone has his own cartridge. In this mode, all tracks and racers are available, and you can also play the famous Mario Kart Battle mode, in which each racer’s kart is fitted with three balloons and the object is to break the other players balloons. Fans of the SNES original will be delighted to see some classic tracks for Battle mode faithfully reproduced here.

Mario Kart Super Circuit is, in my opinion, the first GBA game that really takes advantage of the hardware. Unlike Mario Advance, which only slightly updated an old game, Mario Kart was designed from the ground up with the GBA in mind. It proves that the GBA can easily produce fast-moving 3D environments and, perhaps most importantly considering the complaints about the dark screen, brightly lit and highly colorful environments that are easily seen even in normal lighting conditions. Fans of the original will be more than satisfied with this latest entry in the series, which in my opinion is the best GBA game to date.