MDK

MDK is one of many games by Shiny Entertainment, a studio known for their weird, zany, and counter-culture games. Earthworm Jim is probably the series Shiny is most known for, but for as iconic and comical as those games are, I can't exactly say they're especially fun to play. MDK, on the other hand, manages to balance Shiny's manic brand of creativity with some genuine gameplay chops, leading to an experience that still feels incredibly fresh to this day.

MDK has a fairly simple premise involving aliens tearing up the Earth with giant minecrawlers. Each of the six stages start with you skydiving onto each minecrawler before you're let loose to start gunning down aliens. MDK is a tank control game, but you move incredibly fast and have really generous auto-aim so the game still feels really fast and snappy. The arena design is fairly open and rarely requires any truly demanding movement out of the player, and combat involves a lot of fun circle-strafing as you weave back and forth around bullets. It almost plays like Mega Man Legends on crack. Compared to how jerky Earthworm Jim, I was really surprised not just by how smoothly MDK flows, but by how reasonable the difficulty is. Outside of a minor difficulty spike in the last two stages, I thought MDK was really fair the whole way through which is a stark contrast from how infamously punishing the Earthworm Jim games could get. But it also wasn't too easy either. Early on, the game showers you with health and most fights can be trivialized with circle-strafing, but as it goes on, you start to face off against tankier enemies with more complex movesets that deal greater damage, along with increasingly challenging sniper puzzles.

Oh right, the sniping! MDK's biggest claim to fame is that it's one of the earliest 3D games to have a sniping mechanic. At any point, you can switch to a first-person sniper view that can zoom up to 100% and can use a variety of different ammo types. It's a surprisingly fleshed-out system that gets a ton of use, between the many puzzles that task you with making tight trick shots, to boss fights that require precision sniping, to its uses in normal combat since the sniper bullets deal more damage than your normal gun. The sniper mechanic in MDK is what gives the game its depth and strategy, though admittedly it's also the part of MDK that I am the absolute worst at. Almost every boss in MDK requires the use of the sniper gun in some way, and it meant almost all of them felt like roadblocks for the unskilled sniper that I am. This is mostly just a skill issue though, I generally think this is a really cool addition and MDK would probably be worse off without it.

Each of MDK's levels have a very distinct flow to them. As I mentioned, you start out in a brief skydiving section where you land on the minecrawler while picking up upgrades. Once the level begins proper, it gets into a rhythm of putting you through a large combat arena before making you go through a short transitional hallway to the next arena and so on. There's such a wide variety of arena types that MDK tosses at you though, from massive battlefields where they flood you with enemies and power-ups to more cramped rooms. There's platforming challenges, environmental puzzles, and a ton of memorable one-off setpieces. The first stage has a brief stealth section where you hide inside an enemy robot, the second stage has these trippy mirror rooms, the third stage has an especially memorable bit where you enter a room that looks like a stereotypically bright grassland only for the walls to fall over and reveal an alien ambush, the fourth stage has snowboarding sections, and so on and so forth. There's never a dull moment in MDK because the developers are constantly tossing new and weird ideas at you, but the core gameplay is so rock-solid that the game never feels inconsistent or overly gimmicky. All six of MDK's stages are great in their own way and the fun, dynamic level design stands out as one of its best traits.

From a presentation standpoint, MDK boasts this strange, jagged, polygon artstyle that brings to mind Rayman 2, only a lot less whimsical. It doesn't look especially polished, especially in the PS1 version which also packs a very jittery framerate, but it helps MDK really stand out visually. Special props go to the robotic enemies which are fully 3D-rendered and pack a ton of personality in their animations, from how they run away screaming if you disarm them, to the way they taunt you when they're high up. The soundtrack by Todd Dennis (not Tommy Tallarico) is also really great, it's an epic orchestral score that feels like it's taking the game way more seriously than the game itself is. MDK is at its core a very tongue-in-cheek game not too dissimilar from Earthworm Jim, with tons of strange comedic bits, quirky gags, and jabs at gaming as a whole, and the fact that the music is so sincere almost heightens the game's offbeat tone.

Overall, MDK is just a really cool game, one that manages to cram in so much pure fun into its brisk 2-3 hour length. While lacking in polish in some areas, it manages to be a surprisingly consistently fun ride with fast-paced gameplay, impressive sniper mechanics, varied level design, and a delightfully strange tone. Out of all of Shiny Entertainment's games, I think it's fair to say MDK is their magnum opus.

4/5 Stars

Why I Love Silhouette Mirage

In the 90s, Working Designs were one of the most notable game localizers since they often targeted more niche Japanese games that probably wouldn't have gotten translated if it weren't for them. Lunar 1 & 2, Popful Mail, Alundra, the Ray series, Thunder Force V, Elemental Gearbolt, all great games that I'm glad were even localized to begin with. And you can't say Working Designs didn't care about what they did, as most of their localizations came with a ton of extras both physical and in-game, from custom manuals to blooper reels. As much as I hate to admit it, Working Designs was probably the best we had at the time.

But where my issues with Working Designs come in is when you start to get into what they've changed. As you'd expect from a 90s game localization, the scripts for all of their games were pretty dramatically modified, often with a lot more dated jokes, pop culture references, and overall bathos being added to appeal to western audiences. Honestly, this is pretty hit or miss for me. Depending on the game, the more tongue in cheek can actually fit quite well, with the already light-hearted Popful Mail being a good example. Working Designs' voice talent was also really damn solid across the board, especially for the time, and some of their voices like for Mail and the Rayearth cast still hold up as iconic versions of those characters. At their worst, however, you get an NPC from the fantasy RPG Lunar shouting out Bill Clinton in one of their most dated jokes.

If it was just the localization differences, I'd probably look back on Working Designs a lot more fondly as a charming relic of the 90s. However, what truly grinds my gears is the fact that for almost all of their localizations, they often went in and changed the gameplay to be more difficult. I always had the feeling that they sought to "improve" the game by doing this which is not only really egotistical but also frustratingly wrong, since almost all their gameplay changes ended up being for the worse. Lunar 2 forcing you to pay XP to save, Popful Mail inflating all the shop prices and forcing you to grind, most of their shmup ports cranking up the difficulty and not letting you beat the game on easy, the list goes on. There's a reason why several fan groups have been releasing "unworked designs" patches that remove these gameplay changes, they make the games worse and sully their reputation among people who don't know better.

Now why did I just spend three paragraphs ranting about a localization studio in what's supposed to be a review of Silhouette Mirage. Well, that's because the Silhouette Mirage localization is probably Working Designs' greatest sin. A nonsensical rewrite that removes all the game's biblical references, forcing an ammo system into a game that didn't need it, increasing enemy damage, inflated shop prices, it's truly horrible stuff. Out of all of Treasure's many incredible games, Silhouette Mirage is probably the game that lives in my brain rent-free the most. There's just not much like it, and yet, it's not a game I could ever really see through to the end since there hasn't ever been a definitive way to play it. The Saturn version runs and looks the best but it's not translated and lacks the extra content the PS1 version has, and while the PS1 version was localized, it was localized by Working Designs. This is a perfect example of why Working Designs can have a negative impact on the games they localize, because it meant people like myself couldn't get the full experience of a game I so desperately wanted to love.

Which is why I was so glad to find that not too long ago, Silhouette Mirage finally got an accurate fan translation for the Saturn version. Sure, I wouldn't get to experience the PS1 version's exclusive bosses, but it still meant I'd finally be able to play the most polished version of Silhouette Mirage and be able to understand what's going on in the story for once. And the verdict? This game fucking rules. Silhouette Mirage is such a dense game even by Treasure standards that it's hard to even know where to start. It crams so many ambitious ideas into its roughly two-hour length, but it's all so thematically cohesive that it all just clicks.

So I guess I'll start with the story then. Silhouette Mirage is about Shyna, a chirpy multicolored witch on a mission to restore a world that has been literally split in half by the titular Silhouette and Mirage attributes. There's a lot of lore to this game that slowly gets revealed as you play and uncover the multiple endings and going through it all would take a long time, so I just want to say how impressed I am with all the thought that went into Silhouette Mirage's world and narrative. Shyna is probably my favorite Treasure protagonist both in terms of her design and her goofy yet noble personality, I love the way each character's personality is informed by which attribute they were infected with (so the Silhouette characters are more brawn and the Mirage characters are more brain), and the way the story blends biblical references with an overall sci-fi aesthetic is very unique. The WD version definitely lost a lot from cutting all that out, I'd say.

Beyond just the story though, Silhouette Mirage has a stellar presentation. 1997 as a whole was a pretty killer year for 32 bit spritework seeing as we got games like Symphony Of The Night and Mega Man X4 that year, but I'd argue Silhouette Mirage manages to rival them in terms of sheer fluidity, color, detail, and expressiveness. All the environments pop, Koichi Kimura's character designs stand out through just how original they all look, and the bosses look as massive and surreal as you'd expect out of a Treasure game. I can't understate just how much I adore Silhouette Mirage's overall look, and no other game really manages to capture the same otherwordly feel aside from maybe the Freedom Planet games? On top of that, Silhouette Mirage has easily my favorite Treasure soundtrack, the Nazo2 unit really outdid themselves here. From rocking and funky tunes like Half And Half, Are You The Boss Or Just A +1, and Punky Pumpking Castle, to intense synth tracks like Pinch Me, Night Flight, and Pathos Zophar, to more dramatic pieces like Guardian Angel, Witches' Banquet, and Middle Eastern Zeal, this soundtrack is filled to the brim with ear-wormy bangers.

Okay, now let's actually talk about the gameplay. Silhouette Mirage builds itself around a single, simple premise: A run-and-gun where your shot type depends on the direction you're facing. So when you're facing to the right, you shoot red Mirages shots, and when you're facing to the left, you shoot blue Silhouette shots. Enemies can only be taken out by shots of the opposite attribute, and you can already see where the challenge comes in. While this mechanic may seem a bit awkward at first, Silhouette Mirage is meticulously designed around it. Shyla has a massive moveset beyond just shooting, as she can use a variety of grabs and physical moves to push her opponents into the perfect position to be taken out by the right shot type. And that's also not mentioning Shyla's fluid dash and triple jump, her dual-colored reflector move, the variety of weapon types you can pick from (though they're admittedly not the best balanced), the ability to swap colors on the fly, and the mechanic where you can deprive opponents of their magic by shooting them with their color. As a result, Silhouette Mirage almost feels like a blend between run-and-gun and beat-em-up, as there's a big emphasis on strategically using your wide array of moves to control space. Once it all clicks, Silhouette Mirage feels incredible to play and the massive amount of tactics makes for a very replayable experience.

Like many Treasure action platformers, Silhouette Mirage also boasts a solid lineup of really dynamic stages packed to the brim with boss fights. Stage 2 is the obvious standout though, having you blast through a stunning nighttime city backdrop taking down mooks on motorcycles and fighting your way across a train. It might just be one of my favorite gaming levels period. That being said, most of these stages are pretty short. If anything, I'd argue Silhouette Mirage almost borders on being a straight-up boss rush game as around half the game's length is composed of fighting boss fights. Thankfully, Silhouette Mirage probably has one of Treasure's strongest boss lineups. Zohar's fast-paced attribute-swapping encounters are the easy highlight of the game along with his brutal Za-Zohar form, but there's also the iconic train fight against the weird-ass anime girl fish Dynamis, the fight against Malak that's set on a floating platform, the hilarious bout with Samson set on the roof of a car, the hilarious casino fight against Sara, and yes, the mysterious PS1-exclusive fight against the Reaper. Silhouette Mirage manages to cram more memorable setpieces and boss encounters into its brisk length than many 10+ hour long games I've played.

Now, that's not to say I still don't have a few gripes with Silhouette Mirage though even with the Japanese version. Primarily, I'm not huge on the game's shop system. Collecting enough money to upgrade and try out the game's multiple weapons often requires you to stop in the middle of stages and take the time to shake enemies for cash which feels weirdly grindy for what's otherwise a blisteringly fast-paced game, so it's often more efficient to find the weapon you want to use, stick to it for the entire run, or even better, find the hidden fully upgraded weapons earlier on in the game. I also think the game's stage design in the second half gets almost comically short and simplified which is a shame since the first half has some pretty fun and memorable platforming setpieces. That's pretty much it though, and both of these gripes are small enough that they don't prevent Silhouette Mirage from being one of my favorite Treasure games on every other level.

Overall, Silhouette Mirage really is just everything I love about Treasure crammed into a single game. A robust and fluid moveset, inventive gameplay mechanics, dynamic stages, bombastic and memorable boss fights, tons of replayability, a needlessly fleshed-out world, wonderful characters, gorgeous spritework, and a phenomenal soundtrack, it really is the complete package. While this may not be one of Treasure's most polished games, the sheer originality of it both with its gameplay and presentation help Silhouette Mirage stand out as something unlike anything else in the medium. I'm glad I was able to finally experience Silhouette Mirage as it was originally intended to be experienced because man, this game is something truly special.

5/5 Stars

Sonic's Rough Transition To 3D

Stop me if you've heard this before: Sonic has had a rough transition to 3D. It's a phrase that has gotten a ton of baggage because it's simultaneously true and false. Because yeah, when most critics say Sonic had a rocky transition to 3D, they're usually referring to the Adventure games, which are very much good and were well-received at the time. It's an annoying cliche and a close-minded revisionist claim that feels especially dated now that the Adventure games are considered "cool" again.

And yet, it's also not exactly wrong because it took us a long time to get Sonic Adventure, skipping an entire console generation since Sega had so much trouble figuring out how to get 3D Sonic to work on the Sega Saturn, along with struggling to even move the franchise into a new direction in the wake of the climactic Sonic 3 & Knuckles. As a result, we got a number of weird, experimental Sonic titles for Sega's 5th gen consoles that never really ended up catching on, teasing 3D Sonic but never fully delivering. I've always been pretty harsh on these games, so I want to really delve into Sonic's bizarre 5th gen output to see if there is genuinely something to love here, or if they really are all misguided failures.

Willy Wombat

Hudson Soft's legacy is honestly pretty staggering. It's hard to overstate the sheer quantity of games they put out during their heyday beyond Bomberman, Mario Party, and all their first-party output on the PC Engine. And even more, it's truly impressive how good a ton of those hidden Hudson Soft gems are. Bulk Slash for the Saturn, Blender Bros and Ninja Five-O for the GBA, Doremi Fantasy for the SNES, Kororinpa for the Wii, the list goes on. But one of the most interesting and ambitious Hudson Soft projects is Willy Wombat, a Japan-only 3D platformer for the Saturn and a collaboration with Westone of Monster World fame. The Saturn is famously not a console that does well with 3D platformers, there are some notable entries on it (Burning Rangers, Croc, Ninpen Manmaru) but it doesn't hold a candle to the PS1 or N64 in this area. So let's take a look at what Hudson Soft was able to accomplish with their take on the genre.

On the surface, Willy Wombat seems like your average mascot platformer, with a edgy main character that looks like a cross between Sonic and Batman to boot. But in actuality, this is a surprisingly bleak game?  The general set-up is that Willy Wombat takes place in a post-apocalyptic world that houses a single idyllic city called Prison that promises eternal life for labor. The titular Willy was the head of the police force in Prison but he suddenly leaves and sets out into the world to find six Miracle Gems, all the while the rest of the police is pursuing him. It takes a while for the plot to fully unravel, but the story eventually evolves into this Matrix-esque dystopian narrative about free will and oppression that I really wasn't expecting from this 3D platformer. It's a bit on the nose but it's not especially badly written either, and boasts a fairly moody and grim tone aided by its muted visuals and great atmospheric, noir-esque soundtrack. That being said, there is one notable issue with Willy Wombat's story and that's the voice acting. Despite being a JP-only game, Willy Wombat actually has full English voice acting with Japanese subtitles which would be really cool if the voice acting didn't actively detract from the narrative. As I mentioned, this is a fairly dark and mature story but the voice acting across the board is upbeat and cartoonish. It's like if Sonic Team told the voice cast to act like they normally did for Sonic Frontiers, it just doesn't fit the tone the game's going for, and it makes it hard for me to get invested in the stakes of it all.

In terms of the gameplay, Willy Wombat once again feels really unique from everything else at the time. It's undeniably a 3D platformer with fully 3D rendered environments, but it goes for a distinct top-down, almost isometric perspective that plays out more like Sonic 3D Blast than anything else. The difference with Willy Wombat's approach though is the fact that you can rotate the camera a full 360 degrees, so you always have the ability to adjust your angle and see things more clearly. The controls are fairly tight too, and you get both analog movement and the ability to turn on a dime ala tank controls, which gives you a solid amount of freedom for navigating around the world. That being said, it's not perfect. Walls can still block your view, the depth perception can certainly mess you up if your camera is positioned the wrong way, and using analog movement with a d-pad never feels great, I do think Willy Wombat has its fair share of awkwardness. But overall, I'd say this is a pretty cool evolution of the isometric platformer that does a noble job at fixing a decent amount of the genre's shortcomings.

The combat in Willy Wombat is ultimately pretty basic, but I think it's pretty well-built around this top-down perspective in its own right. Willy has both an infinitely spammable melee attack with a fairly wide hitbox, along with a slightly slower ranged boomerang attack that can pierce multiple times, allowing you to deal with waves of enemies with relative ease. I always felt like 3D platforming combat is at its best when it utilizes ranged projectiles since it encourages the player to move around during combat, and I'm impressed that Willy Wombat generally gets this right in 1997. It's quite fun to figure out the perfect spot that lets you take out all the enemies in a room as quickly as possible, though once you find the optimal strategy, I rarely struggled much with combat encounters since you can almost always deal with enemies from afar. This also applies to the game's few bosses which can all be taken out fairly quickly due to how just how good your ranged options are.

As far as level design is concerned, Willy Wombat is once again a bit of a mixed bag. It starts strong with the Cave Of Zibet stages which have a Doom-y dungeon crawler-y feel to them, taking place in fairly enclosed and segmented areas filled with hidden doors and secrets around every corner. They manage to balance a pretty even split between platforming, puzzle-solving, and combat encounters, all of which are done reasonably well. The Detriam City stages are even better with each stage taking place in a unique setting ranging from a wrecked highway to dingy sewers, all of which are fun to explore. And while the Megalo Canyon stages start to get a bit more linear, it still has some fun setpieces like Indiana Jones-style boulder chases. Overall, I'd say the first half of Willy Wombat is pretty great, it's able to balance all of the game's action-adventure elements and create sprawling environments that are fun to explore. But as the game goes on, it starts to get a bit more gimmicky, for lack of a better word.

The Morwegian Woods where Willy Wombat's worst traits really start to show, as it boasts multiple levels with restrictive timed gates, confusing teleport rooms, an abundance of backtracking, and cramped layouts that shove most of the collectibles into obscurely-hidden side rooms. The Ruins Of Khuf is a bit better as it's focused almost entirely on puzzle-solving and packs a killer atmosphere, but while some of its puzzles were genuinely fun, it still felt like the actual level design took a hit to compensate. Thankfully, the final area, Tron's Castle, was a step back in the right direction. A hard but generally well-designed final gauntlet that tests you on all of the game's mechanics, often at the same time, while also introducing some new stuff as well. It's not perfect, some of the platforming felt imprecise with the perspective and these stages have a tendency to permanently lock you out of getting gems if you're not super thorough, but it was a solid ending to the game. Despite this though, I still generally felt that the second half of Willy Wombat was a lot more inconsistent than the first sadly.

Considering how short many of the Saturn's 3D platformers are, I was impressed with how beefy of a package Willy Wombat is, boasting an impressive 27 levels across its six worlds, each filled to the brim with collectibles. Each stage has around 50-100 gems to find that can net you tokens you can use for saving, there's three hidden tomes to find that can allow you to unlock spells, a ton of health upgrades scattered across the game, and even some entirely optional Hu Cards that you can only find by revisiting stages. While the Hu Cards do feel a bit like forced padding, the vast majority of Willy Wombat's collectibles are satisfying to find and the game does a good job of making it clear how much you've collected and how much you still have yet to find. As I mentioned, the only place where finding the collectibles actually became an annoyance was in the final area, but most of the time, the exploration was one Willy Wombat's strongest aspects.

Overall, Willy Wombat is a solid take on the isometric 3D platformer that stands out as one of the more ambitious Saturn exclusives for its impressive length, fully 3D explorative environments, and bleak story and tone. While I do think there are a lot of little issues that prevent Willy Wombat from being an especially great game, like its inconsistent level design, occasionally awkward controls, and unfitting voice acting, it was a pretty consistently enjoyable experience from start to finish that I feel had the potential to be something truly special.

3.5/5 Stars

Non-Mario Kart Racers I Love

With the recent announcements of both Mario Kart 9 and Sonic Racing: Crossworlds, I've gotten into a bit of a kart racer mood lately. I've only ever talked about Mario Kart on here though, so I thought I might as well delve into some of the non-Mario kart racers I also happen to really like:

Kirby Air Ride: I've already talked about Kirby Air Ride so I'll be quick here. This game absolutely rules. Despite my initial skepticism towards its one button control scheme, Air Ride manages to wring out a deceptive amount of depth with its satisfying break-drift system, variety of copy abilities, vastly unique vehicle designs, and abundance of shortcuts. The three major modes are each fun in their own ways, though the brilliant City Trial is the obvious standout, and the fleshed-out and influential achievement system has kept me playing for hours. Being developed by the Melee team also means Kirby Air Ride is stylish as hell, with slick menu design, a surreal GCN-ass visual style, and a gorgeous orchestral score. Despite or maybe because of its quirks, Kirby Air Ride is a wonderfully addictive experience that stands out from every other kart racer in its own unique way. It's one of my favorite games in the genre and one of my favorite Kirby games.

Crash Team Racing: As far as I'm concerned, I hold Crash Team Racing up right alongside Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Kirby Air Ride as the holy trinity of kart racers. In terms of pure mechanical depth, CTR is still unparalleled, with its iconic drift system and fleshed-out hopping. But on top of that, the track design is absolutely stellar. Complex, memorable, and filled to the brim with potential shortcuts just waiting to be discovered. It's a technical juggernaut, showing Naughty Dog's mastery of the PS1 with its clean visuals and silky smooth control, and it even packs it a massive adventure mode that stands out as one of the best campaigns in a kart racer. Crash Team Racing was easily the best kart racer of the fifth gen, but it still holds up as one of my favorites overall. Nitro Fueled was solid too, but the microtransactions and live service elements mean I'd rather stick with the original.

Diddy Kong Racing: Diddy Kong Racing is another really solid kart racer of the time. While I think CTR has it beat in terms of control and track design, DKR still brings a lot of great ideas to the table like its satisfying zipper mechanic, its color-coded item balloons that lends the game some extra strategy, and of course the vehicle transformations. The adventure mode is also quite solid, with a more fleshed-out overworld and a bunch of collectibles and side content as you'd probably expect from Rare. Top it off with a character roster that marked the debut of Banjo and Conker, along with a great soundtrack by David Wise, and you get a great kart racer that's obviously beloved for a very good reason.

Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing Transformed: Sonic has had several racing games of varying levels of quality, but as of right now, the one to beat is still Transformed. It takes the multiple vehicles of DKR and fleshes them out even further with some of the most dynamic and ambitious track design I've ever seen. Each track evolves and shifts over the course of each race, almost telling a story in themselves, which allows them to truly stand out among the genre. The gameplay also feels pretty good with its fair items and fun boosting mechanics, though its heavier arcade-y feel probably won't be for everyone. Transformed also has a solid story mode, lots of cool Sega fanservice, and an incredibly clean presentation which makes for easily one of the best kart racing packages in the last decade or so.

Pac-Man World Rally: Pac-Man World Rally was probably the most surprisingly great kart racer I've ever played. There really is no reason for it to be as good as it is, but it's deceptively fun. World Rally manages to perfectly replicate the loose, fast, and chaotic feel of Double Dash better than any other game at the time, with smooth control, powerful items, and memorable track design. It can be a bit lacking in polish, the Spiny Shell equivalent shows up way too often and a few of the tracks can feel a bit raw, but the game makes up for that in sheer fun and fluidity. I also love the way shortcuts work here, as you need to collect fruit to open them up which adds a neat layer of skill to each race. There's even a dedicated Namco cup with a few fanservice tracks, just to sweeten the deal.

Chocobo Racing: At a time when everyone was trying to jump on the kart racing trend to varying degrees of success, Chocobo Racing stood out by having the high production values of PS1-era Squaresoft backing it up. In the grand scheme of things, Chocobo Racing may not be especially remarkable, but everything about it just exudes polish, with its tight controls, solid track design, clean visuals, and great music. The story mode is also immensely charming as I love the cutesy take on the FF universe that these Chocobo games bring to the table, but the real standout aspect of Chocobo Racing is its brilliant item system which allows you to stack items to increase their power. It's a great package overall, just a shame it... uhh... didn't get a crummy microtransaction-laden sequel or anything...

Konami Krazy Racers: Konami Krazy Racers was a launch title for the GBA that just barely beat out Mario Kart: Super Circuit, though it sadly still seems to have fallen under a radar. It's a real shame too since I think this is probably my favorite mode 7 kart racer of all time. Super Circuit may have stronger track design and more mechanical depth, but Konami Krazy Racers stands out with its uncharacteristically tight and precise steering, great Diddy Kong Racing-esque item system, solid single-player offerings including a sort-of mission mode and a fleshed-out battle mode, and a slew of offbeat Konami fanservice akin to Parodius. You got Twinbee, Metal Gear, Castlevania, Goemon, Pop'n Music, and even some more obscure series like Rakugakids all represented here. It may be on the shorter side, but this is easily one of the most criminally overlooked kart racers of all time.

Dr Robotnik's Ring Racers: And now, here's the most polarizing one. Dr Robotnik's Ring Racers is the sequel to Sonic Robo Blast 2 Kart, both of which are mods of the super impressive fangame Sonic Robo Blast 2. Kart already was a really fun, polished, and chaotic kart racer but the lack of CPUs meant I didn't play it much myself. Ring Racers, on the other hand, boasts far more single-player content along with far more mechanical changes that helps it stand out as its own unique beast, albeit for better and for worse.

Here's the thing, Ring Racers makes a pretty bad first impression, and I initially bounced off it hard when it first came out. The game starts by making you do an hour-long tutorial that overwhelms you with explanations on its countless mechanics without really showing how they interact with each other. And once you do finally finish the tutorial, you discover that almost all the tracks, characters, and modes are locked behind hours of single-player gameplay, which feels really tonedeaf considering SRB2 Kart was praised for its easy-to-access online. Since launch, we have gotten a lot of patches that smoothed out some of Ring Racers rougher edges, and there is a password system that lets you jump into the game pretty much immediately, but it doesn't change the fact that Ring Racers is hard to get into.

But when you do give Ring Racers your time, you'll be surprised at how addictive it is. Ring Racers has a variety of fascinating mechanics, from a resource management system that has you using the rings you collect to speed around corners and up hills, to an Advance 2-esque trick system, to various boost types, to multiple item boxes, to a fast fall and spin dash, to a slipstream tether mechanic, and the list goes on. It feels like every mechanic from every prior kart racer has been squeezed together into this single package and while it seems overwhelming at first, it all clicks together surprisingly gracefully once you actually get into the races. There is a really satisfying flow to using rings to maintain your high speed, and the track design is usually good enough to encourage a wide variety of different lines and strategies.

With over 60 characters, 150 tracks, a beefy Grand Prix Mode with 30 cups, Chaos Emeralds and Special Stages, and a flourishing modding community, Ring Racers is also packed to the gills with quality kart racing content. Beyond just the Sonic cast, there's a ton of cool Sega rep ranging from iconic series like Nights and Sakura Wars to sleeper picks like Popful Mail and Treasure, and the soundtrack is filled with picks from some of my favorite soundtracks. I can even play as characters like Vivian or Bomberman thanks to mods which is so cool! And if you do want to unlock everything yourself by working through its massive Kirby Air Ride-inspired achievement table, that playtime will only grow even larger. Ring Racers feels like it's a game by kart racing fanatics for kart racing fanatics, a truly impressive passion project that stands out as one of the most ambitious fan projects I've ever played, to the point where I almost feel guilty playing it for free. It may be over-indulgent and at times hair-pullingly brutal, but when it all clicks, it truly feels like the best the genre has to offer.

Mario Kart 64 Track Reviews

For a while now, I felt pretty comfortable touting Mario Kart 64 as my least favorite game in the series, primarily for its overly large track designs, blatantly rubberband-y AI, and a few other minor gripes. However, while it's certainly not as consistent of an experience as its predecessor, Mario Kart 64 really grew on me during my last playthrough of it. The controls are not only far superior to Super's controls but they also have a lot of interesting nuances, the pacing is some of the most frenetic in the series, and its best tracks far greater heights, so let's go through all of Mario Kart 64's tracks and review them.

Mushroom Cup

Luigi Raceway
Mario Kart 64 gets off to a bit of a slow start with its Mushroom Cup, which is mostly comprised of fairly basic loops. Luigi Raceway does have a cool Nascar-themed aesthetic, that iconic tunnel, and a balloon with a guaranteed Star hanging from it, but beyond all that set-dressing, it's a bent oval with two very wide turns and an abundance of dull straightaways. Mario Kart 64's tracks as a whole can often have a lot of downtime, but Luigi Raceway is one of the worst offenders here.
2/5 Stars

Moo Moo Farm
Moo Moo Farm is a track that actually grew on me a lot. I used to always pass it off for its incredibly short length and basic layout, but it's that short length and the bumpy terrain that make it a much more chaotic and frenetic track than Luigi Raceway. The standout is easily the Monty Moles though which are mostly placed in the near corner, which leads to a solid risk/reward system. This was also a thing in Donut Plains, but the Monty Moles didn't pop out of their holes nearly as much in that game as they do in 64, so hugging the corner in Moo Moo Farm actually feels genuinely risky and skill-based.
3/5 Stars

Koopa Troopa Beach
Koopa Troopa Beach is honestly way better of a track than it has any right to be. It might even be a perfect track. It takes the Koopa Beach setting from Super and really elevates it in a ton of dynamic ways, from the abundance of Koopa-themed rock structures to drive around, to a solid amount of ramps and shortcuts, to the fact that the water level can raise and lower keeping things varied. The atmosphere is pleasant as well especially with that stellar music, and the whole track just has a fantastic sense of flow to it.
5/5 Stars

Kalimari Desert
Kalimari Desert is a track that is conceptually and in fleeting moments very fun. Whenever the train shows up and you're about to cross the railway, you know things are about to get very chaotic. Whether you try to make it through before the train arrives or are frantically trying to brake before you get hit, it's a fun time... but it just doesn't happen often enough. I've gone through so many laps of this track where the train just doesn't appear, and it also doesn't help that the entire second half of the course has zero intersections with the train track which leaves it feeling really dry. I do like how wide open Kalimari Desert, I've always appreciated how explorative 64's tracks are, but it really needed more than just that train because as it is now, it's 90% boring and only 10% exciting.
2/5 Stars

Flower Cup

Toad's Turnpike
Toad's Turnpike is the first traffic stage in the series, and it might still be one of the best. The MK64 incarnation of Toad's Turnpike is brutal, it's absolutely packed with cars and you get seriously punished for hitting them. Compared to Mario Kart 8's version which is not only more open but adds more ways to get around the cars, I vastly preferred the more aggressive traffic in this version, especially in its infamous Mirror Mode incarnation. I also adore the sunset, vaporwave-y aesthetic of this original track that, once again, Mario Kart 8 completely ruined. So yeah, I really like this version of Toad's Turnpike, it's got a nice balance between sadistic difficulty and chill vibes making up for its fairly basic layout.
4/5 Stars

Frappe Snowland
Frappe Snowland is noteworthy for being the first truly twisty track in 64. After four fairly basic loops and a figure-eight, Frappe Snowland actually has a more dynamic layout that flows really nicely with its abundance of wavy roads. It's got a pretty cozy atmosphere with some nice visual flourishes too like the bridge, that giant snowman, and the snow tunnel at the end to keep things varied. The most polarizing aspect of the track are those exploding snowmen that can really set you back if you drive into them, which is especially problematic in that one place where they're just spammed across the track, but weaving around them does feel very satisfying once you've gotten used to the controls.
4/5 Stars

Choco Mountain
Choco Mountain is yet another really solid track in this very consistent cup. The chocolate visuals instantly help this track stand out, and it continues amping up the pressure with its turns compared to Frappe with its more cramped layout. The first third of Choco Mountain is quite strong too with its overlapping road and abundance of bumps, and the final third is easily the standout as it has you dodging boulders and trying not to fall off the cliff (I love how you get a guardrail in 50cc but not in the higher difficulties, very unique for this series). However, the midsection of the track is a bit dull as its mostly composed of a fairly light straightaway with little to keep things interesting, which ultimately prevents this otherwise great track from being a top-tier contender for me. It says a lot that the Tour/8DX version replaced that straightaway with a glide ramp.
4/5 Stars

Mario Raceway
Ending this cup off with yet another really strong track, Mario Raceway is easily one of the shortest and tightest tracks in the game, rarely ever giving you any downtime. There's an abundance of near-180 degree turns here, but there's also a lot of off-road allowing for cool shortcuts. If I had any gripes, it's that you can't drive up the side of the pipe at the end like in Wii, but that's a tiny nitpick at best. Most of Mario Raceway, while not the most remarkable, feels incredibly smooth to play on and is almost completely lacking in long straightaways.
4/5 Stars

Star Cup

Wario Stadium
Wario Stadium is a track that I consistently see at the bottom of people's track ranking and yeah, I kinda get it. The visuals are very rough (especially that Wario face) and it very much overstays its welcome. If Nintendo cut out that one long stretch where you're driving around the outside of the track, that alone could really clean up the pacing. But that aside, I don't know, I kinda like Wario Stadium. It's a nice skill check to make sure you know all the turns, starting really wide before getting smaller and smaller culminating in a genuinely tight final hairpin. There's also a whole bunch of bumps to convey that BMX feel (which I imagine would be very fun with a proper trick system), and the fact that missing the jump that send you back like a quarter of the track is honestly very funny.
3/5 Stars

Sherbet Land
Sherbet Land is basically Mario Kart 64's Vanilla Lake, having you drive around a giant lake formed out of cracked ice. And like with Vanilla Lake, this track is insanely hard, maybe even the hardest in the game for me. It's deceptively easy to slip off the ice, and the various cramped paths with penguins that can knock you out of the way are tough to manage. That being said, most of this track still feels pretty fair. A skilled player can easily hop over the cracks in the ice just like in Vanilla Lake, and the penguins' movement patterns are well telegraphed so that if you run into them, it generally feels like your own fault. At its worst, Sherbet Land can feel like a real frustration, but at its best, it's a solid challenge.
3/5 Stars

Royal Raceway
Royal Raceway is easily one of the tightest tracks in the game in terms of how much road you have, and like with Wario Stadium, the turns get tighter and tighter culminating in a really hard final stretch that has you carefully driving down a hill. Just like with Mario Raceway, there's a lot of potential for shortcuts, but there's now also a big pond in the middle of the track that can really set you back if you fall in which gives the course a solid amount of difficulty. I have no real complaints here, Royal Raceway is a legitimately fun challenge that further prepares you for the final track of the cup. And yeah, the Peach Castle easter egg is just the icing on the cake.
5/5 Stars

Bowser Castle
Mario Kart 64's Bowser Castle is easily the best track in Mario Kart 64, and it's still one of my favorite Bowser Castles in general. It's the only track in this game to be almost entirely comprised of 90 degree turns, but the detailed and varied environment and variety of memorable setpieces prevents the track from feeling stale. The moving Thwomps are a genuinely tense threat in the first half, and the spiral ramp followed by two tricky jumps make for a memorable finale. I also love the haunting atmosphere of this track, it's the most intimidating a Bowser Castle has ever felt in a Mario Kart game.
5/5 Stars

Special Cup

DK's Jungle Parkway
For the first three cups, Mario Kart 64 has had a pretty smooth difficulty curve with each track progressively increasing in complexity and quality. However, probably my biggest gripe with Mario Kart 64 is just how hard the Special Cup drops the ball, so prepare for a lot of gripes.

DK's Jungle Parkway isn't a bad course on the surface, and it has a few neat moments and ideas. The fact that you can get pelted by fruit for going offroad is a fun twist, and I love that big shortcut in the cave at the end which can really determine a race if someone gets a mushroom. However, the aesthetic is weak, with muddy visuals and dull music depriving this track of much energy. But most of all, the turns in DK's Jungle Parkway are really wide. Coming off the heels of the very difficult Star Cup, this track isn't hard at all, it just doesn't feel like a Special Cup track in any way.
3/5 Stars

Yoshi Valley
Yoshi Valley, on the other hand, stands up right alongside Sherbet Land as one of the hardest tracks in the game... but not for good reasons. Yoshi Valley is incredibly tight and lacking in guard rails, with the final stretch in particular being a pretty fun challenge. However, falling off the cliff will cause your character to slowly tumble to the bottom, and only then will you be picked up by Lakitu. Falling off is just too punishing in this track, it takes way too long and will almost always force you back into last place. And of course, then there's also the nonlinear layout. This is a cool concept in theory but the execution here is rough. Yoshi Valley only has a single objectively good route that's worth taking which pretty much mitigates any of that potential freedom, and not being able to see who's in first doesn't make the game more tense or difficult, it's just kinda annoying. I just don't think the N64 was able to handle Yoshi Valley, as is made clear by the Mario Kart 8 version fixing pretty much all its issues.
2/5 Stars

Banshee Boardwalk
Banshee Boardwalk is a bit of a slow burn of a track, with a fairly dull first half comprised of straightaways and the occassional sharp turn. Thankfully, as the track goes on, the turns get a lot sharper and the amount of guardrails decrease which makes the second half feel genuinely pretty tense. I also love the haunted house setpiece for its more open layout and the sheer amount of bats this game tosses at you. The bats in later Mario Kart games are barely a threat, but Mario Kart 64 launches so many at you that they can genuinely send you off course if you're not careful. I still don't think this track is as hard as it should be, but it still stands out as my favorite in the Special Cup (not that it's a high bar).
3/5 Stars

Rainbow Road
Ah, N64 Rainbow Road, my beloathed. So, obviously, this track is stellar from an aesthetic standpoint. The music is absolutely lovely, the contrast between the vibrant rainbow and the pitch-black expanse of space is striking, and all the constellations of the cast really give off the feeling of a victory lap. Sadly, the track itself is an absolute slog. Rainbow Road is supposed to be the final challenge, but this incarnation has insanely wide turns, zero gaps, a ton of straightaways, and a crushing length of 6+ minutes. This track utterly drags and since there's no real way for anyone to catch up, it also means it's the absolute mother of all frontrunning tracks. The one saving grace are the Chain Chomps which granted do cause a bit of panic whenever I see them in the distance, but they go by so fast and don't show up often enough to save what's otherwise the dullest track in the series.
1/5 Stars

Final Rankings

Now that we have all the tracks reviewed, here's my final tier list, with the battle stages for good measure:

 Overall, Mario Kart 64 is honestly a better game than I previously gave it credit for. Mechanically, it's leaps and bounds above its predecessor between the more nuanced controls and the introduction of a proper item system, it still has some of the best multiplayer in the series, and the otherworldly N64 era aesthetics still stand out to this day, but it also has quite a lot of solid tracks especially in the midgame. It may not have as smooth of a difficulty curve as Super, with a slow start and a frankly bad final cup, but at its best, Mario Kart 64 is the series at its most frenetic and cutthroat which is really what you want from a Mario Kart game.

Exploring Id Software

Doom is one of those games that everyone has played at least once, it's on a similar level of historical significance to something like Super Mario Bros. But while I have played it in passing several times, I also never really "got into Doom". Meanwhile, Quake is a game I knew next to nothing about, and it only ever struck my interest when I stumbled upon its technically impressive Saturn port. Both are series that I've been curious about trying out especially with the recent Nightdive remasters of both the Doom and Quake duologies. And with the Lunar New Year sale, I decided to get both the Doom & Doom II collection and the Quake 1 & 2 Enhanced Bundle for my Switch and really delve into what Id Software's work has to offer, once and for all.