Mario Kart: Super Circuit

Mario Kart: Super Circuit is the third game in the Mario Kart series, and the first to be released on a handheld system. The game uses a similar pseudo-3D engine to Super Mario Kart, but includes all of the characters and several items from Mario Kart 64.

In December 2011, it was released for the 3DS Virtual Console (with no difference aside from lack of multiplayer functionality), as part of the 3DS Ambassador Program.

SNES Battle Courses
Tilemaps and minimaps exist for all four of the Battle Courses from Super Mario Kart. These could have been used as placeholders before the new ones were completed, or it may have been possible to unlock these courses just like the tracks at one point. Unlike all other tracks and battle courses in the game, which are stored in chunks, these are each stored in one piece, as in Super Mario Kart.

All


With the exception of Rainbow Road (which are identical to Mario Circuit's, save for a bad palette), each SNES track's graphic set includes a unique, revamped oil slick graphic, as well as an earlier version of the coin. Mario Circuits 2, 3, and 4 are the only Super Mario Kart tracks to use oil slicks, but they are not used in this game.

The images above are in the following order: Mario Circuit, Donut Plains, Ghost Valley, Bowser Castle, Choco Island, Koopa Beach, and Vanilla Lake.

Donut Plains


Despite the removal of Monty Moles from Donut Plains 2 and 3, the holes they pop out of were still given a graphical update in the tracks' tileset.

Mario Circuit


Along with the tree, a pipe and mushroom can be found in Mario Circuit's sprite graphics. While pipes were a feature in several Super Mario Kart tracks, including the original Mario Circuit, kart-sized mushrooms would have been new.

Sky Garden


Likewise, Fuzzies from Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island appear with Sky Garden's beanstalk graphics, implying these were intended to appear in the course at some point.

Ribbon Road


A spinning, smiling star and a strange UFO toy(?) appear near the gift box sprite graphics for Ribbon Road. The UFO has no palette of its own, so a modified version of the present box palette (with white replacing the darkest shade of blue) was applied to it. Perhaps they were meant for Rainbow Road and took a wrong turn...

Changed Graphics
Every track tileset in the game has an early version of the zipper and jump panel graphics, which are overwritten with different versions in-game.

On the early version of the zippers, the arrows do not flash. Also, the arrow and yellow square are outlined.

The jump panels lost a great deal of detail, partially due to the fact that darkest shade of yellow is overwritten with the flashing red color used on the final version of the zipper above.

Unused Items
Along with the other used items, the Banana Bunch, Golden Mushroom, and Fake Item Box from Mario Kart 64 were also supposed to make a reappearance, but apparently weren't finished in time for the game's release. The Bob-omb icon may have been intended for when a player becomes one in Battle Mode, or for something similar to the Bob-omb item in Mario Kart: Double Dash!!.

These items can be accessed using the item modifier GameShark code, not including the Bob-omb.
 * Triple Banana - does nothing when used.
 * Golden Mushroom ( - disappears from your inventory when used; acts like a Golden Mushroom, except it lasts forever.
 * Fake Item Box - drops a single banana.

Regional Differences

 * The Japanese version had online capabilities, which were done through connecting an adapter so that the GBA could hook up to a cell phone, presumably to allow ghost exchanging. The service was discontinued on December 14, 2002.
 * Most of the preloaded Time Trial records were changed. The 1st Place times and best lap records are the same for all versions, but 2nd-5th Places are different. In the Japanese version, 2nd-4th have a slightly slower time from the 1st Place record and 5th Place is always set to 3'00"00; in the international versions, times are all 30 seconds apart from the 1st Place record.