Mario Kart 64 is a 1996 kart racing game for the Nintendo 64 (N64). Nintendo developed and published the game, which is the second in the Mario Kart series after Super Mario Kart from 1992. The game keeps the same way of playing as its predecessor: players control characters from the Mario franchise and race opponents on tracks inspired by locations from Super Mario platform games. Tracks include obstacles that slow players down and item boxes that give players power-ups to help them move forward. The game includes different single-player and local multiplayer modes, such as a Grand Prix racing mode and a last man standing battle mode.
Mario Kart 64 was first shown in 1995 with the N64. The development team focused on using the console's technology well to create smooth gameplay, rather than making major changes from the previous game, to appeal to many players. Developers were limited by the N64's processing power and used memory-saving techniques and car physics simulations to improve the game's kart design. The game was released in late 1996 in Japan and in 1997 worldwide, a few months after the N64 launched.
Mario Kart 64 was praised by critics for its track designs, multiplayer features, and presentation. Some criticism was directed at its technical problems and difficulty. The game sold 9.87 million copies worldwide, making it the second-best-selling N64 game. It was nominated for awards after its release and has later been considered one of the greatest video games of all time. The game is popular among speedrunners online. It was re-released digitally for the Virtual Console on the Wii in 2007 and the Wii U in 2016, and for the Nintendo Classics service in 2021.
Gameplay
Mario Kart 64 is a video game where players race go-karts using characters and settings from the Mario series. The game plays similarly to Super Mario Kart (1992). Players choose from eight characters and race on tracks inspired by Super Mario platform games. The game includes 16 courses with obstacles, shortcuts, and question-mark boxes that give random items. Items can help players, like speed boosts, or harm opponents, like making them spin out. Players can drift around corners or race close to opponents to gain speed. Characters are grouped into three weight classes—light, middle, and heavy—which affect how fast they move, how quickly they accelerate, and how well they handle turns. Light characters include Princess Peach, Toad, and Yoshi; middle characters include Luigi and Mario; and heavy characters include Bowser, Donkey Kong, and Wario. The game has three difficulty levels—50 cc, 100cc, and 150cc—with harder levels offering faster speeds and more challenging controls.
Mario Kart 64 has two single-player modes: Grand Prix (GP) and Time Trials. In GP, players race seven computer opponents (or six if playing with two players) across four "cups," each containing four tracks. The goal is to earn the most points by finishing races in high positions—nine points for first, six for second, three for third, and one for fourth. Players must finish in at least fourth place in each race to continue. Winning all four races in every cup on 150cc difficulty unlocks a "mirror" mode where tracks are flipped left-to-right. In Time Trials, players race on any of the 16 tracks to complete three laps in the shortest time. There are no opponents or items, but players can use three speed boosts. Players can compare their times to others by sharing "ghost" data using the Controller Pak, a memory card for the Nintendo 64 controller.
Mario Kart 64 includes three local multiplayer modes: GP, Versus (VS), and Battle. The game uses split-screen display for multiple players. GP allows two players to race together. In VS mode, two to four players race on any track without computer opponents. Battle mode lets two to four players compete in arenas instead of tracks. Each player starts with three balloons, and the goal is to pop opponents' balloons using items. Players are eliminated when they lose all their balloons but can later control a bomb with wheels to attack others. The last player remaining wins.
Development
The game was temporarily named Super Mario Kart R during development. The letter "R" stood for "rendered." Mario Kart 64 was created at the same time as Super Mario 64 (1996) and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998) by Nintendo's Entertainment Analysis & Development division. The game was first shown in November 1995 at the Shoshinkai trade show through a videotape given to journalists. At that time, the game was about 95% complete. It was originally planned to be released with the N64 console in mid-1996, but delays occurred because development resources were used for Super Mario 64, a game that launched the N64 system.
Developers focused less on changing the gameplay from Super Mario Kart and more on using the full power of the N64 console, especially for multiplayer features. Hideki Konno, the director of Mario Kart 64, said the team wanted all players to stay in the race until the end. However, the N64's technology limited the ability to display eight players on the screen for long periods. To improve the game's movement, developers studied remote-controlled cars and real car physics. However, testers found the controls too realistic and difficult to enjoy, so the final version used simpler controls. Designers wanted players to race freely on tracks, which made it challenging for programmers to balance processing power and avoid issues like players overlapping.
The game used a technique called billboarding to display characters. This method showed characters as flat, two-dimensional images that always faced the camera instead of using 3D models. This saved memory and allowed the game to support eight players in Battle mode. Producer Shigeru Miyamoto said the N64's use of ROM cartridges, rather than CD-ROMs, helped the game run smoothly because ROMs loaded data faster. During development, a hard disk failure forced designers to rebuild about 80% of the game's character models. An early version of the game, called an alpha, was found in the Nintendo Gigaleak, a 2020 data leak. This version used placeholder assets from Super Mario Kart. An early version of the game included Kamek, a villain from the Yoshi series, but this was later changed to Donkey Kong. Other features removed during development included a racing mode without items and two tracks. The cut tracks were based on a parking garage and a large city.
Release
Mario Kart 64 was released in Japan on December 14, 1996, in the United States on February 10, 1997, and in Europe on June 24. The American release was moved forward a week from the originally planned date. It was the second game in the Mario Kart series after Super Mario Kart. Howard Lincoln, the chairman of Nintendo of America, explained that the difference in release dates between Japan and the United States was because Nintendo wanted to launch the game during Japan’s holiday season, as there were few Nintendo 64 games available in the region at the time. The game’s marketing included a $5 million advertising campaign. At the same time the game was released in Japan, Nintendo sold a special edition of Mario Kart 64 that included a black-and-grey Nintendo 64 controller with a unique design. The game was released in China on December 25, 2003, on the iQue Player through the Chinese company iQue. Mario Kart 64 was later made available digitally on the Wii and Wii U through the Virtual Console. It was released on the Wii worldwide in January 2007 and on the Wii U in Europe on January 21, 2016, and in the United States on December 29, 2016. The game was also included in the Nintendo Classics service on October 25, 2021.
The soundtrack for Mario Kart 64, composed only by Kenta Nagata, was released on CD in Japan and the United States in 1997. In the United States, Nintendo published the CD on March 1 and April 1, 1997. In Japan, Pony Canyon published it on September 19, 1997. These releases included the game’s music, sound effects, and remixes of songs from the game, with each version having a slightly different list of tracks. A remix album called Mario Kart 64 on Club Circuit, featuring club-style versions of the game’s soundtrack, was released by Tokuma Japan Communications on December 26, 1997. The soundtrack was also made available as an album on the Nintendo Music streaming service on July 15, 2025.
Reception
Mario Kart 64 received "generally favorable" reviews from Metacritic, a website that collects game reviews. In 1998, the game was nominated for Console Racing Game of the Year by the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences during the first Interactive Achievement Awards. Electronic Gaming Monthly named it a runner-up for "Multiplayer Game of the Year" (losing to Saturn Bomberman) at their 1997 Editors' Choice Awards.
Critics had mixed opinions about the game's visuals. Some believed it used the N64's power well, made the game stand out in the racing and Mario genres, and improved on its 16-bit predecessor. French Officiel Nintendo Magazine praised the game's colorful and smooth visuals, calling the experience "magical." Others thought the graphics lacked detail, did not improve much from the previous 16-bit version, and did not fully use the N64's power. Many critics criticized the use of 2D sprites, with Next Generation saying this made the game look outdated.
Opinions on the track design and gameplay were divided. Some critics said the game was unoriginal, too easy, and boring. They argued that winning relied too much on getting the right power-ups. Cubed3 disliked the wide, motorway-like tracks, saying they did not create an exciting experience. Critics also pointed out that the game used rubberband difficulty balancing, which gave the AI an unfair advantage. Technical problems, such as poor collision detection and lag in the four-player "Battle Mode," were also noted.
Supporters of the gameplay praised the large number of courses, more detailed track designs than Super Mario Kart, and high replay value. Hyper and N64 Magazine called the analog stick's flexible turning control "perfect" and realistic. N64 Magazine highlighted the game's need for quick reflexes. Hyper noted that the game had surprising moments due to its "cleverly tricky AI" and varied power-up boxes. Reviewers, even those who disliked the graphics, appreciated details like 180-degree turns in Bowser's Castle, train tracks on Kalimari Desert, trucks on Toad's Turnpike, cows on Moo Moo Farm, Peach's castle on Royal Raceway, sliding penguins in Sherbet Land, and smoke puffs from the kart.
Critics generally preferred the multiplayer mode over single-player. IGN called it "multiplayer mayhem at its best," and Game Informer said it was "one of the best multiplayer games ever made," citing the game's vehicle mechanics and items. Some reviewers said the four-player split-screen mode was hard to see because the screen areas were too small, and GameFan noted that the multiplayer modes had a slower frame rate than single-player.
Mario Kart 64 sold 9.87 million copies worldwide, making it the second-best-selling N64 game. It was the top-selling game in the U.S. during the first three months of 1997, reaching over one million sales in two months. By 1999, it had sold 6.23 million copies in the U.S. and 2.06 million in Japan, the top and third-top-selling N64 games in those regions.
In February 1997, Mario Kart 64 was one of seven Nintendo titles in the top seven of the monthly sales chart, above Super Mario 64 and Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire but below Cruis'n USA, Turok: Dinosaur Hunter, NBA Hangtime, and Donkey Kong Country 3. It sold ten times as many copies as Tomb Raider, the fastest-selling product on the competing PlayStation.
Lincoln credited Nintendo's success to releasing a small number of high-quality games, unlike Sega and Sony, which produced many "mediocre" ones. Nintendo's Peter Main said the four-player mode helped its popularity, as it became a main attraction for group activities. He noted that people organized parties around the game, adding, "Parties are being organized around it. Apparently, there are few things in life more fun than watching the go-kart of a friend or parent slide off the track on a banana peel you dropped on the road." While the game met Nintendo's goal of selling a million copies by March, Main later said they could have reached that goal in less than three weeks if they had shipped enough copies to stores.
Legacy
Mario Kart 64 was ranked 17th in Official Nintendo Magazine's list of the 100 greatest Nintendo games of all time and 49th in Electronic Gaming Monthly's 1997 list of the 100 best console games. The game has been included on multiple "greatest video games of all time" lists by publications such as Entertainment Weekly, Polygon, Hyper, and Gameswelt. It has also inspired a large group of players who compete in speedrunning, aiming to set the fastest times on the game's 16 tracks. These records are tracked on the Mario Kart 64 Players' Page website, which began documenting times in 1997.
Opinions about Mario Kart 64's place among the best Mario Kart games have varied. Some critics praised it for helping shape the series, especially for its use of 3D graphics and its expansion of local multiplayer features. However, Kotaku and Game Informer noted that the game did not match the quality of later titles in the series, with Kotaku criticizing its tracks as "empty" and its art style as less appealing. Some reviewers, including IGN, have called it one of the best games for the Nintendo 64 system, highlighting its tracks as "some of the most memorable" in the kart racing genre. The blue shell item, which targets the player in first place, was first introduced in Mario Kart 64. GameSpot's Steve Watts described the item as a key part of the Mario Kart series and a symbol of video game history. The Guardian also listed the blue shell among its "11 greatest video game objects."
In 2025, Mario Kart 64 was decompiled, allowing developers to move the game to other systems. An unofficial version of the game for personal computers, called SpaghettiKart, was released in June 2025. It was created by the same team that ported The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time to the PC. The port includes features like support for ultrawide displays, adjustable frame rates, and the ability to add custom tracks. Another unofficial version of the game is being developed for the Dreamcast by the same developer who previously ported Doom 64 (1997) and Wipeout (1995) to the console.