The Most Difficult Racing Games Published By Nintendo

These days, Mario Kart is one of the most ubiquitous racing game franchises out there. And why shouldn’t it be? It’s fun, easy to get the hang of, and features the iconic cast of Mario characters, plus a few other Nintendo favorites. They’re perfect games to play with friends, balancing real skill at the controller with the luck of the random item boxes, ensuring that even beginner players have a fighting chance.

But while Nintendo’s racing titles nowadays may be all about easy accessibility, that wasn’t always the case. Back in the days of pioneering the video game industry, Nintendo was still figuring out the inner mechanics of a fair and balanced racing game. This led to several titles that, while fun, were notoriously difficult to master.

5 Mach Rider (1985)

A Challenging Mix of Combat, Survival, and Racing

• Platform(s): Nintendo Entertainment System, Arcade
• Released: August 1986
• Publisher(s): Nintendo
• Genre(s): Racing

Mach Rider is an arcade-turned-NES classic that’s often overlooked in the modern day. While its gameplay and graphics are pretty simple by today’s technological standards, it’s difficult to overstate just how important this title was for modern racing games. It was one of the first that allowed players to customize racetracks, something even most modern Nintendo racing games today are sorely lacking.

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The game also included combat mechanics, which were justified by the game’s setting in a post-apocalyptic future, where racers were equipped with machine guns to take down alien invaders called Quadrunners. Players had to blast enemies and obstacles in order to complete each course, and different game modes prioritized survival over speed. Mach Rider is a classic example of a retro game using difficulty to keep players popping quarters, but it proved fun enough to eventually find its way onto home consoles.

4 F-Zero GX (2003)

A Famously Difficult Story Mode

Captain Falcon is best known nowadays for punching opponents clear across the screen in Super Smash Bros, but it’s good to remember where he originally came from. Back in the ’90s and early 2000’s, F-Zero was the go-to series for fast-paced, futuristic racing games. They started out as arcade classics before making the jump to home consoles.

F-Zero GX is one such adaptation and is universally considered one of the best and most difficult in the series. The newly introduced story mode is notoriously difficult, with players needing to focus on memorizing the course layout and having lightning-quick reflexes to progress. Despite its extreme difficulty, F-Zero GX remains a classic, thanks to its high-speed racing, futuristic setting, and stellar graphics.

3 Wave Race (1992)

Balancing The Weight And Feel of Racing on Water

• Platforms(s): Game Boy
• Released: 1992-06
• Publisher(s): Nintendo
• Genre(s): Racing

These days, most Nintendo racing games focus mainly on classic go-karts, while other vehicles like gliders, ATVs or cars are usually sprinkled in as more of an extra. The Wave Race series is unique in that it takes place exclusively on the water, capturing the thrills of riding jet skis at breakneck speed. Players can either compete against three computer racers, or against other players using the link cable.

This first entry in the Wave Race series manages to capture the weight and feel of personal watercraft, which is impressive for a 16-bit top-down game. This unique approach and setting for a racing game gives an added challenge to speedster players who aren’t used to slaloming across the sea.

2 Diddy Kong Racing (1997)

Collecting Coins Never Looked So Tough

In between their core Mario Kart games, Nintendo needed something new and fresh to roll out to boost their 1997 holiday sales. This led them to make a new racing title based on Donkey Kong’s miniature counterpart, Diddy Kong. Little did they know, Diddy Kong Racing soared higher than they could have ever dreamed, becoming one of the best-selling Nintendo 64 games of all time.

But for all the game’s fun graphics and gameplay, including the introduction of hovercrafts and planes, it was also the bane of nine-year-olds everywhere. Every new stage gets gradually tougher, although still manageable. It’s the dreaded Silver Coin mode that makes the game almost impossible. Coming in first place is tough enough, but doing so while collecting eight coins in randomized locations? Forget it.

1 Mario Kart 64 (1997)

The Game That Made Or Broke Friendships

Modern Mario Kart games are usually both praised and criticized for their easy difficulty. With each new installment, Nintendo puts increasing focus on simplifying the controls so that younger or less dextrous players can still join in on the fun. While this is great news in terms of accessibility, some more experienced racing game players are left yearning for more of a challenge. When these players reminisce about the “good old days” of Mario Kart, they’re usually thinking about the days of Mario Kart 64.

This Nintendo 64 classic represents an important growing period in the franchise. It was the first entry to include 3D backgrounds (although the racers themselves were still 2D-rendered sprites), and this graphical change introduced a whole host of challenges. Let’s just say that hit-box detection was tricky to figure out in those days. The game also struggled with fine-tuning its difficulty scale. Last-place racers getting the best items might feel unfair now, but it’s nothing compared to the days of Mario Kart 64.

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