The honk of a blue shell that does not exist yet, and Rainbow Road sending everyone into the void.

Mario Kart 64 profiles as a memory more than a game you actually relaunch. The music holds up, ahead of 83% of titles, and so does controller feel at around 73%: the driving aged better than the rest. The wish to rediscover it for the first time climbs high too, though on few votes and worth confirming. But the moment you have to pick it, the air goes out. Attachment and fun slip below average, and the desert island question leaves it ahead of only 12% of games. Art style collapses to roughly the same level. There is the gap: everyone loves it in hindsight, nobody takes it along when a choice is required.

That is the fate of the 3D pioneers. Flat sprites and empty tracks hold up poorly against games designed for today's screens, and an art direction criterion is frankly unkind to it. What it invented, four-player split-screen karting, now belongs to the whole genre.

So, who is it for? For you if you want the exact feeling of a 1997 couch, the tunes that come back instantly. Much less so if you want a racer that still stands without the nostalgia.