Racing

VB Mario Kart

Nintendo exclusive

VB Mario Kart is an unreleased Mario Kart game for the Virtual Boy. The game was cancelled during development due to the failure of the Virtual Boy. Nothing is known about the game, with the only evidence to prove it's existence being a magazine from Germany called "The Big N", which focuses on Nintendo products.

Released: —
Platforms: Virtual Boy
Genres: Racing
Developers: —
Publishers: Nintendo
Themes: Kids

About

Mario Kart is a series of kart racing games based on the Mario franchise developed and published by Nintendo. Players compete in go-kart races while using various power-up items. It features characters from the Mario series racing along tracks based on Mario universe-locations. Some releases have also included characters from other popular franchises like Pac-Man, Taiko no Tatsujin, The Legend of Zelda, Animal Crossing, and Splatoon.

The series was launched in 1992 with Super Mario Kart on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), to critical and commercial success. The Mario Kart series totals seventeen games, with eight on home consoles, three on handheld-only consoles, five arcade games co-developed with Namco, and one for mobile phones. Over 200 million copies of the series have been sold worldwide.

Keywords

unreleased
mario
virtual boy

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

In the Mario Kart series, players compete in go-kart races, controlling one of a selection of Mario characters. Up to 24 characters can compete in each race (varying per game). Players can perform driving techniques during the race such as rocket starts, slipstreaming, drifting and mini-turbos.

Gameplay is enhanced by power-up items obtained by driving into item boxes laid out on the course. These power-ups vary across games in the series, but generally include Mushrooms to give players a speed boost, Red/Green Shells to be thrown at opponents, Banana Peels and hazards such as Fake Item Boxes. The game selects an item based on the player's current position in the race. For example, players lagging far behind may receive more powerful items such as Bullet Bills, which give the player invincibility while auto-piloting them forward at great speed, while the leader of a race may only receive small defensive items, such as Shells or Bananas.

Development

Releasing in 1992, development of Super Mario Kart was overseen by Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto, the Japanese designer of many successful Nintendo games including Super Mario Bros. The idea for the game stemmed from the fact that the high- speed racing game F-Zero lacked multiplayer. However, hardware limitations would cause the size of tracks in the game to be much smaller than they were in F-Zero due to the hardware resources taken up by multiplayer racing, making the track design more focused on turns than maintaining speed.

Legacy

The Mario Kart series is critically acclaimed. Nintendo Power named it one of the greatest multiplayer experiences, citing the diversity in game modes and the entertainment value. 76 million copies worldwide, becoming the fourth best-selling game ever for the SNES. 82 million in Japan.

In Europe, it was the top-selling game during the first quarter of 1993, above the Sega Mega Drive games Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and Streets of Rage 2 during the same period. In the United Kingdom, Super Mario Kart was the top-selling Super NES game in February 1993, and it went on to be the seventh best-selling game of 1993 with more than 250,000 sales in the country. Darran Jones of NowGamer suggested that the success of Super Mario Kart resulted from the Super Mario characters, and being a new type of racing game.