You may remember the regular F-1 Grand Prix games on Super Famicom. Here's their Mario Kart clone version
Pick from 10 different animals each with their own unique abilities
Chuck E. Cheese's rejects!
There are many different camera angles to pick from. The default is Mario Kart style. But one allows you to make SD F-1 look just like the earlier F-1 games... that being from a bird-eye's view point
1P games include:
GP Mode: first you race around a bare track for 2 laps to be awarded a starting position (1-10). Then you start the race at your designated spot against 9 rivals. Icons litter the course, collect enough to fill a bar and gain a temporary speed burst
Crash Mode: None of this 2 laps positioning nonsense. Start at #10 and instead of speed-bar-filling-up icons you get regular weapon icons (projectiles, etc.) I personally prefer this traditional Mario Kart mode over GP
Time Trial: Keeps track of best lap and overall times
2P game (besides obvious GP and whatnot):
Dog Fight: Pick one of (surprise surprise) four specific battle arenas, and fight to the death. Goal = zap other driver's energy to zero by blasting him or her with any means necessary. Groovy
Like Battle Racers, you have a health bar that's reduced any time you fall in a pit, ram into barriers or blasted by the opposition. Unlike Battle Racers though, instead of finding health refills inside capsules, SD F-1 has a healing strip along the beginning of each track much like F-Zero
Mario Kart meets F-Zero?! Sure looks guilty...
It's almost as if Video System took Mario Kart and replaced it with furry animals
Some tracks contain helpful arrows
Lovely beach track, one of my faves. The super jump bit is very cool, reminiscent of Ghost Valley 1
Northern Lights! The ice has nice detailing as well. Another one of my faves
The Lava track has a super jump section much like the Beach one. Check it out:
WOW! Graphically, it's better than Super Mario Kart...
I love how you can see this course unwind far into the distance
Remember GamePro Magazine? Here's where they'd have one of their brilliant protips:
Protip: Avoid the muddy spots
Lovely parquet flooring a la the old Boston Celtics forum
[That's stone -Ed]
CLOSING THOUGHTS
NAGASMK (Not as good as Super Mario Kart) but what on the Super Nintendo is? Or any other system, for that matter? (I'll take SMK over Nintendo's other MK versions any day of the week)
But of course, I wasn't expecting SD F-1 to touch the legendary go-kart racer, and neither should anyone else. On its own, it's very good. Thumbs up
