MK64 was the first MK game I played. Having played titles proceeding it, I feel that MK Wii and MK8 are more balanced. MK64 has horrible rubber banding. It’s to the point where your level of skill can mean nothing if you make one costly error.

MK64 character driving attributes also vary, but the character select screen doesn’t inform players of this http://tasvideos.org/GameResources/N64/MarioKart64.html#Driv...

> It’s to the point where your level of skill can mean nothing if you make one costly error.

But usually you're playing with people who are not experts at the game, so they also make 0-1 costly errors per lap. It's hard to find someone who makes no errors.

Most items also favor the people who aren't first or last, so there's a chance those will change the outcome.

> MK64 character driving attributes also vary, but the character select screen doesn’t inform players of this

This is true, but you can explain the differences easily and they're fairly intuitive (because they're all based on size).

I wish Nintendo would just give us a decent battle mode, with the N64 levels.

I'd second this; the N64 version still took skill. I also can't place my finger on it but modern version NPCs feel worse as well.

Nintendo sees them as kids games, hence the effort to balance things.