Mm, it's been quite a while since I've played the game at all... I thought that Super Circuit had a lot of interesting things going for it (like dropping red shells, and the gimmicks/appearances of some tracks), but it also suffered from some heavy problems.
The thing I couldn't stand about the game was how its tracks were largely unintuitive, requiring the player to memorize not only the basic layout, but also the locations of shortcuts and speed boosts if you wanted to have a chance at winning. Some tracks were worse than others, but it was pretty much a consistent theme throughout.
And it goes against good game design. Ideally, the player should be armed with the concepts of the game, then be able to take on whatever comes at him, finding it a challenge, yes, but still having a chance to succeed. When the player becomes required to memorize large parts of the game - be it elaborate move lists, extensive level layouts, secrets or shortcuts, or item/boost locations - the game begins to suffer, becoming less of a thrill and more of a chore. Now, I'm not saying that the player shouldn't learn things from playing a game/level multiple times, but the degree that Super Circuit did it - with unintuitive layouts of paths and boosts throughout - was simply something I didn't want to suffer.
...And that's what I've got against the game.
