Mario Kart 64: Where Losing's More Difficult Than Winning

The title may be a bit of an exaggeration, but Mario Kart 64 has always fascinated me by how people generally need to put more effort into a fourth place or worse finish than they do into a first place one.

The Grand Prix mode, the main single-player story mode of the game, ranks drivers based on their scores, and awards points based on how you finish in each race of the four races. A first-place finish earns you 9 points, a second-place finish earns you 6 points, a third-place finish earns you 3 points, a fourth-place finish earns you 1 point and you get no points if you do worse than that. Of course, the latter only applies to the computer opponents, since human players must start the race over, with their starting position determined by where they finished in that race.

Having to start over is a blessing in disguise, since it gives you a chance to try again and do better. Of course, winning isn't all that difficult, at least on the lower difficulty levels. This can lead to a few possible scenarios.

1. The player wins the first three races and, at 27 points, gets to such a wide lead that even if the runner-up got second place on all three races (18 points) and first on the last race (a total of 27 points), they wouldn't be able to surpass the player, even if the player got fourth place and one point.
2. The player places high in most of the first three races, albeit not winning all the time and still has the opportunity to win by doing well in the fourth race. This can happen if the winning CPU players fail to win consistently.
3. The player gets second or third in the first three races, but is too far behind the top-ranked CPU player to be able to secure first place, in a reversal of scenario #1. In this case, however, it's usually possible for the player to get second or third.
4. The player barely scrapes through in fourth place on all four races, and ends up not getting a trophy.
5. The player repeatedly gets fifth place or worse until they quit in frustration.

In terms of likelihood, scenarios #1 and #5 are most likely, with #1 more likely with skilled players/easy courses and #5 more likely if the reverse is true. One of the only feasible ways to achieve outcome #4 is to play to win the race, wait at the finish line until after the third-place finisher crosses it, then cross it before anyone else does.

And why would you want to do this? If you successfully complete every race, but have your overall score rank fourth or lower, you'll see a special ending cutscene. Unfortunately, this outcome is rare enough that some people don't know the bad ending even exists.

In conclusion, the fact that the bad ending is so difficult to achieve is the result of a quirk of Mario Kart 64's scoring and ranking system. Perhaps things would have been different if the game had allowed players who ranked fifth or lower to proceed without any points (something that happened to me once due to passing the finish line at the same time as the fourth placer), a system that would appropriately penalize players for not finishing in the top half. As it stands, though, it's an interesting design choice, and if you have the game, you should try to finish a Grand Prix in fourth place if you're curious about what will happen.