Best Battle Stages in Super Mario Kart and Mario Kart: Super Circuit
The best of the battle stages in the first and third mario kart games, Super Mario Kart and Mario Kart: Super Circuit. I'm counting battle stages from both of the games because not only are there are four battle stages in respective game, but all of them are very similar to each other and have the same type of layout in which the stages are all flat squares with stuff on them. With that being said here is the list.
Personally my favourite stage of the eight. The first Mario Kart game, while bad in my opinion, surely did have good battle stages and this is easly my favourite. It's the largest and looks very nice and unique. It uses aestethics from the Koopa Beach courses and there are so many different paths for exploration which I love. Not just that but there are these bodies of water found all over the place in which you can jump in with a feather and then fly out of 'em to surprise your opponents. Very, very fun concept and it's my favourite out of all these stages.
The only stage out of the eight that isn't just a square, but also has hiding spots outside of the square that you can hide in and surprise your opponents. Very nice. Other than that, the main square consists of different paths which I like because it gives each gameplay on this stage some variety and it can be chaotic surprising your opponents with 'em.
This is the only good battle stage from the GBA game, Mario Kart: Super Circuit. The stages there were all either too bland or too unoriginal except for this one, a desert stage. It uses aestehics from the course GBA Yoshi Desert as there are pyramids in the background. This gives the stage a unique identity, and there are five bodies of water found in the desert and if you accidently drive into one, well, you basically drown. So this stage has a unique identity, and it has challenge. Well it's quite obviously the best GBA battle stage.
This is a much bigger version of SNES Battle Course 1 but without the hiding spots, so more accurately, I'd say it's a huge version of GBA Battle Course 1 as well. Because it is a bigger version, there are so many different paths you can take and they are longer than in the former stage which makes it a very interesting course to play on. I remember at least having lots of fun with the course in Mario Kart Wii.
It's in my opinion the worst of the SNES stages. Not bad but it's a bit annoying. That's because of ice physics. The entire stage is basically just a bigger version of SNES and GBA Battle Course 1, but still smaller than SNES Battle Course 4, plus with the ice physics and aestethics from the Vanilla Lake tracks. On top of that, there are these snow cubes that block your way kinda like in Vanilla Lake 1 and 2 which ultimately puts this stage lower than the rest of the SNES stages. Oh well at least it's still somewhat fun to play on unlike the bottom three stages.
Now we are geting to the below-averange to bad stuff. The GBA had a lot of terrible stages with the exception of GBA Battle Course 4. This track in particular is especially bland and uninteresting as it's really just a smaller version of SNES Battle Course 4. Or in a nutshell, it's SNES Battle Course 1 without the hiding spots. This is so generic and because it's smaller it's less interesting to play. Well it's more fun to play than two certain abominations but you know the drill.
Holy crap what were they thinking when making this stage? Might actually be the second worst battle stage of all time in Mario Kart. This stage is so empty all it has to offer is a sand pit in the middle and these hiding spots and..., that's it. It's so empty. The emptiness is still not as bad as the worst thing in the worst stage.
