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IT KICKED OFF-AND SET THE STANDARD FOR-THE KARTING GENRE. In addition to being dropped from subsequent Mario Kart games, he was gradually replaced by (or, depending on who you ask, morphed into) Diddy Kong and/or Cranky when it came to filling Nintendo’s primate-shaped roles. had his own arcade game in 1982 and a math game for the Nintendo Entertainment System in the mid-’80s, played smaller roles in later games (including Mario Tennis for the Nintendo 64), and was, for a time, said to have "grown up" into the lead character of Donkey Kong Country (a detail that was quickly revised for later versions).Īfter being one of eight playable characters in Super Mario Kart, however, Donkey Kong Jr.’s flashing star began to fade. One particularly tortured lineage belongs to Donkey Kong and his primate brethren, which over the decades grew to include Donkey Kong Jr., Diddy Kong, and Cranky. Many video game universes have the kind of tangled character and timeline webs commonly associated with soap operas, and Mario’s realm is no exception.

It also likely set the stage for Mario games to become the best-selling game franchise of all time. This move turned out to be wildly popular among fans, which has led to a small galaxy of Mario Kart sequels, but also a wide variety of sports and fighting games. Super Mario Kart was Nintendo’s first title to let players take on characters such as Princess Peach and Yoshi outside of a platform-based game. IT WAS THE FIRST NON-PLATFORMING GAME FOR MARIO’S ENTOURAGE. Who knows, maybe the designer who drew the overalls on the earlier guy intended that it be changed to Mario all along!” 3. We decided to see what it would look like with Mario in one of the karts, and everyone thought that looked even better. Then we noticed that it looked neat if you stopped one car and looked at the other car flying by. It was just two karts moving around freely. Miyamoto added, “At first, no racing was involved.
#SUPER MARIO CAR RACING GAME DRIVER#
For several months, none of the developers specifically identified this blue collar driver as the company’s famous plumber. During development, Konno said, the game’s prototype had “a guy in overalls sitting in the kart” as the team worked out racing mechanics. In an interview with Nintendo President Satoru Iwata, Shigeru Miyamoto and Hideki Konno, two of Super Mario Kart’s creators, explained that their original aim for the 1992 game was to make a two-player racing game with simultaneous on-screen display for both players. THE GAME’S STAR WAS FIRST IMAGINED AS “A GUY IN OVERALLS” (WHO WASN’T MARIO). Whatever your Super Mario Kart and Mario Kart 64 preferences were, the all-around awesomeness of the franchise’s first two installments likely didn’t escape you as you whipped around Rainbow Road-some of the games’ best-kept secrets, however, just might have. Maybe you were partial to Toad’s speed or to Bowser’s bulk, or perhaps chucking massive eggs at other high-speed vehicles, à la Yoshi, was more your style.
