Krazy Kart Racing

Game Overview

Nintendo has made tidy business cranking out entries in the Mario Kart franchise every few years. The series arrived on the Super Nintendo with Super Mario Kart and, like clockwork, a new game has arrived on (almost) every new console and handheld Nintendo has put out since (barring the underpowered Game Boy Color and the dead on arrival Virtual Boy). Business has been so brisk for Big N that several other companies have tried (and frequently failed) to get their own version of a kart racing series up off the ground to compete. From Sonic to Nicktoons, South Park and Crash Bandicoot, just about every developer tried their hand at the kart racing formula in some form or another.

As we’ve covered previously, Konami is no different, attempting a kart racer of their own with Konami Krazy RacersKonami's foray into the mascot kart racing genre, starring many of Konami's heroes and villains, all matching up in a very Super Mario Kart kind of game.. The game was released in 2001 for the Game Boy Advance as a direct competitor to Mario Kart: Super Circuit (even coming out the same year as that game). It was received well enough at the time, although most reviewers felt that it would compare poorly once Mario Kart: Super Circuit was out. And, as was the case, once that next Mario Kart game arrived later that year, it dwarfed Konami Krazy Racers and became the de facto kart racer for the handheld.

Still, business was just tidy enough for Konami’s effort that the company felt a sequel was warranted… just not on a Nintendo console. If Nintendo could simply dominate the market and rule from on high on their consoles, a different perspective was needed. Looking for other successful platforms to use, the company eventually settled on creating a kart racer for iOS and Android platforms, working up a sequel in 2009 (10 years before Nintendo would put out their own Mario Kart iteration on mobile devices). The resulting game, Nicktoons, was… fine.

For the era, and the devices, Nicktoons wasn’t bad. It’s a game that feels aged coming to it now, many, many years later, but it was likely one of the best of its kind for the devices it was on upon release. It feels like a blend of the original Konami Krazy Racers mechanically with slightly better than Nintendo 64 graphics applied. It has some neat ideas and improvements over the original GBA title, in much the same way that you could say Mario Kart 64 had a leg up over the GBA Mario Kart, but it still didn’t feel truly fresh. It was an interesting step for the series, but when you sat it next to the Mario Kart that was out from Nintendo at the time, Mario Kart Wii, it looked bad by comparison.

Maybe that wasn’t a fair comparison to make, since this was meant for mobile devices and was serving an audience that was untapped, but it certainly didn’t help the game regardless. The game received middling reviews at the time of its release, and sold poorly enough that no future sequels were plotted. Konami’s kart racing series died after two games with nary a peep from the company about continuations or remasters, since.