It’s no secret that Mario Kart: Super Circuit on Game Boy Advance is far from the best in the series. It’s novel for being similar to the original Super Mario Kart for the Super Nintendo, due to the technical limitations of the portable platform.
However, the game has the best iteration of the Red Shell. For those unfamiliar, Red Shells in the Mario Kart franchise are projectiles that track the player ahead of you. They’re valuable for climbing up the ranks, but they simply go in a straight line when fired backwards.
In Mario Kart: Super Circuit, throwing a red shell rearwards will cause it to stick to the road like a mine. The shell will remain stationary until another player passes it, at which point it will launch directly at them.
This makes it an effective offensive tool for those in the upper ranks of the race, especially whoever is in first place. It lets you push back second place even further, when normally you’d simply get banana peels. That being said, it’s too overpowered. Likely for that reason, this trait of the Red Shell would never appear in the series again.
