Battle Mode

In many ways, despite its origin story, Super Mario Kart is the opposite of F-Zero. From the onset it has always been a party game masquerading as a racing game, and items served as a way to level the playing field whether you were an experienced F-Zero pilot or new to gaming altogether. To focus even further on fast-paced split-screen fun with friends and family, Nintendo created gaming’s most beloved screaming simulator: Battle Mode.

“The thing we spent the most time thinking about was the Battle Mode,” Mr. Miyamoto said in an interview appearing in the original Super Mario Kart strategy guide. “The very fact that Battle Mode has nothing to do with racing is what made us want to add it, and give it special attention. It helped strengthen the image of the game. It’s not, ‘You get to become a world-class racer!’ but rather, ‘You get to race around and play in this go-kart with your friends!’”

“The very fact that Battle Mode has nothing to do with racing is what made us want to add it.”

Instead of racing, players face off against each other in one of four unique arenas. Each player has three balloons and must use items to pop all of the opposition’s balloons to win. Slick power sliding skills and quick course completions were replaced with cunning, reflexes, and staring at your friend’s half of the screen to figure out where they were, then trying to knock them into a corner so you could safely pop their balloons one after another while cackling maniacally.

While getting hit by an item when racing is often a source of frustration, getting hit in Battle Mode was just the name of the game. This was pure, unadulterated fun, and was as much a rite of passage in the early 1990s as wearing head-to-toe neon and successfully sticking the straw into a Capri Sun on your first attempt.

Battle Course 1

Battle Course 2

Battle Course 3

Battle Course 4