The thing that held this game back for me was that I played it on the Xbox 360...and that D-pad was terrible! 
I did make it all the way through the game but I quickly gave up on the challenge rooms. I got the sequel on PS+ one time, I think, but never did get around to playing it. At least the PS3 has a much better D-pad.
Mario Kart 64 was my first one too! Yeah, I generally find it pretty hard to go back to any not 3D racing game.
I'm not too surprised at that Metacritic score. Almost all of those reviews would be from when the game first came out and it was certainly an impressive game back then! But I don't think it has aged very well.
I loved seeing the characters swap spots on the fly in Double Dash. That was a very fun game. Plus it gave us the immortal line, "Hi, I'm Daisy!" 
Stage Select: How have I been spending all this extra pandemic time? Well, you see, I have four small kids, so being stuck at home doesn't actually give me any extra time to do things. Those people joking on social media about finishing Netflix? Screw those people! It took me, like, three months to get through Neon Genesis Evangelion. All that is not to say that I haven't been doing anything. It just hasn't been any more than usual. Recently I did knock a couple backlogged Wii U games: Kirby and the Rainbow Curse, which is a great game, and Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash. I'm not sure I've ever seen a game more lacking in meaningful content as Ultra Smash. The underlying mechanics are sound. There's just almost nothing to do. But at least I get to feel good about myself for finishing it.
Cage Match: I'm going to go with Battlefront 2 2005 because...old things are better?
Here's a stage select idea for you: What is your favorite series that was wholly contained in a single generation? (I wouldn't count portable entries against a series. Resistance, for instance, had a PSP game and a Vita game but I'd still say it counts since the main three games were all on PS3 and there never was a PS4 Resistance game.)
It sure was something at the time but yeah, no reason to really go back to it at this point, especially since its best tracks are likely to show up in the newer games anyway.
While a lot of genres struggled with the move to 3D, I think racing games by and large benefitted right away, Mario Kart included. I can appreciate that mode 7 style but it's not my favorite (though I'll play them before Mario Kart Wii!).
Anybody putting Super Circuit on "best of" lists are blinded by nostalgia lol.
It was sure cool at the time to have a portable Mario Kart but its portable successors all beat the pants off it, in my opinion.
Sometimes I just wish your blog titles were real games lol
