Every Mario Kart 64 Course Ranked

funding for shaperless is provided by surfsharkvpn tune until the end to find out about their amazing service Mario Kart 64. so I may have implied in some of my previous videos that this is indeed a fun Mario Kart game and parts of it sure are playing this game with your friends is an absolute Delight racing and doing your best to Pummel each other with items is a blast in multiplayer you can say this about any Mario Kart game sure but there's something about how hectic this one is and how loose its controls feel that add up to an experience unlike anything in the series it's fun then you try and complete all the Grand Prix in single player and yeah this sucks I'm straight up not having a good time all that jankiness that made multiplayer a blast is now actively working against you and amounting to a miserable experience I honestly got so tired of playing this after a while that I just booted up Mario Kart DS and started working on that ranking while I was in the middle of this one 64 is a bit archaic to say the least and it certainly hasn't aged the best but hey it's track selection ain't half bad it's only one two three five eighths bad yeah there's only 16 courses to pick from here and a few of them are indeed stinkers but thankfully a few of them are also all-time classics that I love dearly and can't wait to talk about so why don't we jump right in every Mario Kart 64 course ranked starting with those dreaded D tears everyone knows and begrudgingly accepts let's go disappointment in The Game of Life as of right now every single course in Mario Kart 64 has made a return as a retro course in a future game all except conveniently enough the worst one Wario Stadium but wait a minute Chief didn't they bring it back in Mario Kart 8 no you fool that was DS Wario Stadium which is totally different from N64 Wario Stadium why they chose to remake a future course with the same name instead of just getting the original out of the way first I don't really get maybe that has to do with the fact that this course is bad I guess it has plenty of jumps and plenty of turns but that doesn't really mean much in a game without a trick system or functional drifting and in addition everything else here is exceptionally pitiful the background decoration consists of the same Wario head copy pasted to Infinity the music is just repeated from Mario and Luigi Raceway which is horribly unfitting when something like the Yoshi Valley or choco Mountain Song would have suited this track way better there's a jump where if you get hit with an item you're sent annoyingly far backwards on the track and you have a lot of ground to make up and on top of all that the course is unbearably long meaning you're stuck with a miserable atmosphere and boring layout for way more time than you should be like I'm ready to move on to the next race by the beginning of the second lap but it just keeps going in spite of all its issues however I think it is pretty mean that they refuse to bring this and only this track back like the booster course pass would have been a great time plus see in the Globs they gave to DS Wario stadium and GameCube Waluigi Stadium I think they could definitely make a really cool updated course out of this framework oh well I guess we have to wait till Mario Kart 9 comes out in 2037 to see that where'd you come from mate my Town's called Snow Mountain frappe snow land is one of those truly special courses where the more you play it the worse it gets it's one where I enjoy the music and visuals and basically nothing else I think the layout is boring and unspecial and the course is littered with these God forsaken snowmen that are absurdly difficult to dodge especially this one part where they're all bunched up in an incredibly difficult and annoying pattern the empty part of the track in this pseudo snow tunnel is a really flaccid way to finish the course and my personal favorite thing is if you try to cut Corners with a mushroom too far lakitu scolds you for having too much fun and brings you back to the course ruining your lead your speed and your enjoyment level I swear to God they did not play test the boundaries of the Mac rescue zones nearly enough because it just feels way too broken and janky it's a course where I consistently have either a miserable or boring time and I'm genuinely shocked that after repeat playthroughs I liked it less and less to the point where I had to give sherbetlands the edge sherbet lands speaking of which we're digging to Antarctica wow Mario Kart 64. two lame snow courses in a row must be a new record I'll admit in my initial draft of this list I have this course in last place but playing it again a couple times it got a bit better as frappe's no land at Wario Stadium got a bit worse don't get me wrong there's a lot to hate here like there's barely anything on the ice portions that make it feel like a race track it's just this slippery boring Frozen Wasteland Wasteland you say I think you mean Wonderland cause there's penguins and penguins are cool right yeah I guess as long as you don't run into one because that sends you spinning out which takes forever to recover from Good Luck cutting these annoyingly sharp Corners hope you don't fall in the water it won't take forever for lakitu to pull your freezing corpse out of the lake I guess it's nice how the cave section is visually distinct from the rest of the track even though it's easier to hit the Penguins there which really sucks I don't know ultimately the penguins are less annoying than the Snowman so I guess this one gets to rank a little higher than its snowy counterpart I also don't really know if I like this better or worse than it's we make I mean I ranked both of them as the third worst courses in their respective games but I guess I'd say the Wii version is worse because that game had a generally higher bar for its courses it sticks out a lot more for being bad there whereas here I mean hey it's the best ice course in the game I guess let's just move on from talking about this course forever since it never comes back thank God moving on to the Sea tiers now all right time for some mid-ness let's go any ghosts pretty much any ghost will do Shore I genuinely do not know what the consensus is on banshee Boardwalk because I just never really see anyone talk about this one I don't even think there's any banshees on this course they probably just picked it for the alliteration just like how that guy from Banshee Savannah Sharon picked it for the she sounds yeah I mean like I don't know it's it's a course there's a big fish that jumps and I like that I guess the atmosphere can be kind of unsettling with a Darkness coupled with the music but overall something just feels kind of off about this course my friend put it really well when he said this feels more like a video game level than an actual place compared to the rest of the courses in this game most of it is just a straight shot on this frustratingly narrow Boardwalk which has plenty of turns but no real shortcut opportunities and it comes across as rather samey and repetitive aside from that part in the castle with the graffiti Arrow Signs which feels more tacky than anything I don't know it's not an awful course or anything but it just kind of feels like an amateur fan-made Wii course rather than one Nintendo would officially make themselves just kind of forgettable with atmosphere that's not nearly good enough to make up for its blandness [Music] Yoshi Valley is undoubtedly the most ambitious course in Mario Kart 64. but maybe it was a little too ambitious I mean look at the race placement boxes they don't exist since this course has all sorts of winding alternate paths the game just straight up can't tell tell you who's in what place that's kind of a fun gimmick but also kind of annoying and yet it isn't even close to my biggest issue with this track many of these paths are super narrow and if you happen to fall off of one you're tumbling all the way down this mountain lakitu doesn't even think to save you until you've already reached the bottom at which point you're likely way behind in the race not that you'd even be able to tell of course but God I hate how long the recovery time is on this track just put a black abyss here or some water or something don't make me sit through this every time I fall aside from those issues it's decent the branching path idea is really fun and neat and it has a big Yoshi egg so that's pretty epic overall definitely a better course in eight Deluxe but I can't say the original was all that terrible ah moo uh another oval why are these tour tracks so uncreative and terrible so MooMoo Farm is the rather underwhelming big brother to MooMoo Meadows it's an oval there are slight Hills there's a bridge that you go under and not on at any point oh wait I'm sorry I was mistaken there's two bridges that you go under and not on at any point what a relief I thought this course was boring for a second there okay that's kind of mean I actually do think that much like super Circuit considering how difficult this game's controls can be to get a hold of there's definitely a lot of value to the simpler more manageable courses like this one and it's got plenty of good attributes like it's Windows 95 background aesthetic and the fact that it puts a bunch of moles on the right side of the track thus adding a risk factor to the inside portion that might discourage you from drifting along the quickest route you either risk it and try to dodge the moles or drift on the left side which might be slower that's kind of a clever little detail but then again there aren't even any moo moos on the road like how can I play this there's no cows lame moo moo Manos was better plus L plus ratio anyway it's B to your time now these next courses are pretty solid so let's see what they are Mario it's hard to really find new things to say about Mario Raceway that I didn't already say in my Wii video I guess it sticks out as a pretty solid course in this game compared to in Wii where there were dozens of more exciting courses in 64 1 8 of the track selection is Wario stadium and frappe snow lands I'll gladly take a solid enough Mario circuit course the Aesthetics turns and obstacles all suit this game pretty well it's pretty simple but I can always appreciate a good clean race on it for being the first real Mario circuit track in a 3D Mario Kart game I think this sets the standard pretty well nice stuff and Luigi Mario it almost felt kinda wrong to rank Luigi Raceway and Mario Raceway so high because they are the basic courses designed for beginners to get into the game but as I mentioned in the MooMoo Farm segment sometimes a simple course in an older Mario Kart game with rough feeling controls can be a good thing and I think that's absolutely the case here as usual Luigi outshines his brother with a slightly better circuit course the fact the fact it's mostly a wide oval doesn't bother me too much since it allows you to use mushrooms to cut Corners off the track which is definitely pretty satisfying I also like the classic NASCAR feeling atmosphere in addition to the unique tunnel segment the Jumbotron and especially that hot air balloon that guarantees a blue shell every time you grab an item box from it I think this is a more than solid starter course for this game in fact looking at the rankings I'm doing of each starter course as I make these videos I would currently put it at second place not as good as Double Dash Luigi's circuit But A Step Above Peach circuit oh look at Luigi's circuit we gonna cry well before things get heated up in the Luigi circuit Wii fandom let's take a break and check out battle mode and I'm gonna be totally honest this might just be my favorite battle mode in the entire series I'm serious this is definitely the only game in the series where I'd rather play the battle mode over the main racing mode and I'll talk about why once we run down all the courses unlike the race tracks where I went back and forth on my ranking a ton there's no debate with the battle stages the weakest is Big donut turns out battling on a big circle is not that fun there's no way to get from one side to the other quickly so you might as well just stay in the same spot as each other or else it turns into an annoying game of Chase and yeah nobody ever picks this one let's be real next up is double deck I'm surprised that this is the only one that hasn't come back in a future game yet it's pretty solid with a lot of layers to hide from your friends and plan your attacks it can be a bit confusing to navigate through but maybe a visual overhaul in a future remake would alleviate those issues next is skyscraper it's not as easy to fall off here as I remember and when you do it's really funny seeing how far down you go essentially you're just left with a good fun course with a ton of sections to weave in and out of and it makes for a great time but literally none of these matter compared to the single best battle course in the series block forts they perfected a battle mode course in their second game in incredible it's like an obstacle course with multiple layers to it and bridges to connect to each section there's so many places you can go hide Dodge all that good stuff but what I really love is the psychological aspect here you have four distinct colored fortresses and battle mode supports a Max of four players so telling the rest of your friends that you're claiming one of these Forts and then defending it from anyone who encroaches on your territory is unbelievably fun and the course itself is made even better by the rule set which to this day hasn't been topped by any other battle mode there's no computers and no time limit you all have three balloons and you gotta pop the balloons your opponents have and once someone loses all their balloons they don't come back it's elimination based baby oh so what they just sit there and watch their friends have fun now no man they respawn as a bomb car and now they get to cause some chaos by trying to blow another racer up that's hilarious like this is how you do a damn battle mode and no Mario Kart since has gotten it as right as this one I'd argue that battle mode on black Fort specifically is the single best multiplayer experience on the Nintendo 64. 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contentious one where you either love of it or you hate it so I'm just gonna take the coward's way out and rank it right around the middle I think everyone can agree that aesthetically this course is phenomenal the Rainbow Road itself the character fireworks in the background the music oh baby the music it's some good stuff it's one of the most magical feeling courses in the whole series for sure but yeah it's six straight minutes of driving a pretty uneventful road with very few obstacles and absolutely no opportunities to fall off on the one hand I admire it as an endurance test it's driven me and my friends insane trying to catch up with each other and to get to the end and put a stop to the whole race but is one team the race to be over halfway through really a sign of a good Mario Kart track this course is certainly brutal like a rainbow road should be but for once that comes not from its difficulty and instead from how it feels like it takes 10 hours to complete I don't know I admire the audacity and I have had plenty of fun times on this course which is more than I could say about most of the ones I ranked at the bottom but yeah I think this is about as high as it can go also I've never pulled off the ultra shortcut at the beginning before am I just bad at video games you know if we're ranking the courses in this game by the ones that give me the most visceral positive reaction when I think of them the top two would end up being the course that I actually ranked at number one and the one that's all the way down at this slide that being choco Mountain I swear to God this course is the physical manifestation of that Meme with the guys on the bus thinking about playing Chaco Mountain gives me such immense pleasure and joy then I actually play it and oh I touched one of the walls at the wrong angle up yep now I fell off because I'm going backwards yeah okay that's fine this is the best one ever love it so much it's more than a little frustrating to play on especially when you combine its janky elements with the already janky controls of 64. and it doesn't feel nearly as dynamic as many of the courses I ranked above it I don't really have as much fun playing on this course as I do just looking at it and listening to it because oh my God I want to eat this course they nailed the chocolatey look and the fog is a really cool touch also and the music honestly up there with rainbow road as my two favorite songs in the entire game this is a course that just excites me anytime I see it because how do you not get excited about a mountain made entirely of chocolate I really wanted to rank it higher but since gameplay Reigns Supreme I ultimately just couldn't fortunately I'll have plenty of chances to gush about it later when it gets brought back by Mario Kart games that are actually playable so ultimately despite being the weakest version in this course I still think it belongs in the top half because of the theming music and some fun parts of the layout like the ramps tunnel and boulders a good course except when it's not I guess hey man what's going on I'm on the highway right now okay revisiting 6 64 for this video the biggest shock of the entire ranking for me was just how good the original version of Toad's Turnpike is spoilers for my future ranking I guess but I hate this course in eight Deluxe it is genuinely so boring to me and the more traffic courses get added to the booster course pass the more irrelevant it becomes but like on the other hand every time I play this original version I always have a good time what sorcery is this well I think the aesthetic plays a big part here first of all that Skybox that one right there best Skybox in the game hands down I don't even necessarily know what time of evening they're capturing here but whatever it is it's the best of times you'd think it's also the worst of times because of how large and in charge the cars and trucks are on this road but that makes weaving in between them all the more satisfying and fun pulling over to the side of the road to get items is a really cute touch and overall I just can't help but be incredibly Charmed by this course in every aspect from gameplay to aesthetic to music and that's not even getting into mirror mode where they actually flip the direction that the cars are racing so that you're driving against traffic that's an insanely cool detail overall some really great stuff that I have very little to complain about you fell off Mario Kart 8 Toad's Turnpike you fell off unlike these top five courses which are eightier so let's talk about them now dear Mario please come to the castle all right let's get this out of the way right off the bat yes you can drive around Peach's castle on this course and it's the most amazing thing ever I'm so glad they did this it's up there as one of the coolest Easter eggs in any Mario Kart course it doesn't even matter to the race you're not supposed to go here but you just can and it's incredible and I love it and I will never forgive eight Deluxe for removing it now get the out of my house you stupid game that's Superior to this one in every way except for this one small Easter egg and the entirety of Toad's turnpike I guess and I kind of like battle mode in this one better anyway what else does Royal Raceway do right well it's got a big ass jump which at this point in the series is a a big ass deal even though you wouldn't bat an eye at a jump like this in any future Mario Kart games it's a pretty exhilarating and memorable portion of this course based on the standard of this game's tracks aside from these coolest elements what you're left with is just a really solid and memorable track there's a lot of good turns it's sufficiently lengthy without being overly long and the color palette is really nice with the pink sky and Green Hills for being a Raceway course I.E a circuit which is usually a dreaded boring moniker for a course to have I think this one definitely sticks out as one of the best in the series it feels like Luigi Raceway was the beginner circuit Mario Raceway was intermediate and this one's Advanced giving you a fun and satisfying track with a lot to love about it let's be honest though it would probably drop down two or three slots if it didn't have the Peach's castle Easter egg [Music] DK's jungle Parkway is another course that I feel no one really talks about which is a travesty I say because wow is this course fun it honestly feels a lot more elaborate than most of the courses in 64. almost like it would have fit in with the Nitro courses in Double Dash or DS the jungle theme is on point with a lot of great background details the bridge is really satisfying to leave items on being able to control where you go on a huge jump gives me life and nothing compares to that last turn where if you're going fast enough you can just circumvent the road entirely and Propel yourself up the hill in incredibly stylish fashion the only slight complaint I have with this course is how annoying it is when rocks get thrown at you whenever UV are on the grass like I get it guys I can tell I shouldn't be here because I'm going a lot slower you don't have to help me with rocks no wait is that it's not a huge deal but all I'm saying is I think there's a reason nobody complains when they took that feature out of the Wii version of this course but yeah all things considered this is a definite standout and one of my favorites in the game looks like this beach was a little too much Beach for you Ken but I wasn't severely injured I would beat you off right now Ken is there really anything to complain about with Beach it's just nice up perfect 3D evolution of the Koopa Beach levels from Super Mario Kart apparently putting Troopa in the name meant all the difference because this one is an easy standout the abundance of ramps are more than welcome they can be tricky to fully stay on but they're also completely optional and can be easily ignored in favor of cutting Corners underwater yeah take that seven this game has underwater driving too kinda just don't go too far into the ocean and you'll be fine this course also has one of the coolest shortcuts in the whole game with a ramp leading to a cave that'll take you through a waterfall and all the way ahead of the pack I also love how Charming this rock that's supposed to look like Koopa Troopa is it really doesn't but like seeing the designers do their best with what the N64 could accomplish will never cease to Delight me plus maybe in Universe this wasn't designed as a carving of Koopa Troopa maybe they just discovered this island and found this rock that coincidentally vaguely resembled a Koopa so they named it Koopa Troopa Beach what is the crucial lore of Mario Kart I need to know anyway an undeniably fun time every time I play it it's from Bowser is it just me or is the N64 Bowser's Castle low-key one of the best ones in the whole series it has a lot of the oppressive and ominous atmosphere that something like Banshee Boardwalk was missing complete with haunting music crispy looking lava creepy as ominous laughing thwomps and huge portraits of Bowser everywhere actually those look kind of silly never mind the small garden area is also an interesting juxtaposition to the rest of this formidable Fortress and its confusing nature can be a bit unsettling in its own right I think aesthetically this is the most unique Bowser's Castle in the whole series and it captures a sense of creepiness that no other one does but on top of that it's just amazing to drive on too making all these turns as you dodge the thwomps that moving unique patterns compared to any other course avoiding the numerous opportunities to fall into the lava and perish and in general dealing with a course that's tricky but not frustrating or Jank it's the perfect level of difficulty for this game and it suits the theme be beautifully and of course the jailed thwomp who I now know is named Marty may he one day be free we're all rooting for you buddy overall yeah I gotta give this course some credit there's no other track in the game nor any other Bowser's Castle in the series quite like it it's fun it's spooky it's a really great time outdone only by one other I'm sorry guys but the number one pick was obvious for me 15 of the 16 courses in this game do not have a train calamari desert train Ahoy this is my favorite course because train and I refuse to explain myself any further okay fine I guess I will this to me is the quintessential desert course one that doesn't rely on the fact that it's a desert as the main selling point because how exactly is that a selling point these biomes are usually so boring and forgettable but calamari desert subverts the typical mediocrity you'd come to expect from this type of course which is crazy considering how it was the first desert track ever put in a Mario Kart game they really just peaked at the beginning huh and let's go over its other positive attributes real quick so you don't think I'm biased because train even though I totally am the music for starters is impeccably Iconic lighthearted and adventurous at the same time it's something I could listen to for ages without getting tired of it the curved Trail allows you to use mushrooms and stars to cut Corners to your heart's contents which is a boon for any course basically every part of this track has a shortcut if you've got the right item for it the aesthetic is shockingly gorgeous like with most deserts you'd expect the Sands to be tan and Bland really matching that typical new Super Mario Bros desert color scheme but here look at this man look at the beautiful orange ground textures and equally beautiful Skybox it's so pleasing on the eyes and it just makes you feel like you're on an adventure through this magical land if this was all the track was it would still be in the top half but maybe not number one but that's where train comes in oh baby oh my God I love trade so much do you risk going for it if the train is about to cross your path or do you stop and wait for it to pass it's a classic conundrum in movies and TV shows that's been brought to life in Exquisite fashion here in Mario Kart the amount of fun unpredictability this locomotive provides makes this easily one of the most memorable and special courses in the whole game not bad for a mushroom Cup course that's pretty wild and yeah going off the beaten path and following the train into the tunnel in order to satiate your curiosity is extremely fun as well in all adds up to a track that's iconic for all the right reasons easily my favorite Mario Kart 64 course and one that I hope comes back in every game in the series from here on out so yeah that's 64. it's it's okay you know it's got a lot of great stuff but not all of it age the best and between this and super Circuit I think I'm done torturing myself so I'm gonna play DS next and have some actual fun with this series again good night tri-state area foreign foreign [Applause]

Channel: Schaffrillas Productions

Views: 514,589

Keywords: Schaffrillas Productions, Mario Kart 64, Mario Kart, Mario, Luigi, Peach, Yoshi, Donkey Kong, Bowser, Toad, Wario, Rainbow Road, Choco Mountain, Kalimari Desert, Koopa Troopa Beach, Wario Stadium, DK's Jungle Parkway, Toad's Turnpike, Royal Raceway

Id: L0p7c5nHOe0

Length: 28min 5sec (1685 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 12 2023