I've played countless hours and never get bored. The level designs are all so interesting and unique I find myself discovering something new every time. It's social and I've seen it dominate dinner parties.
I loved Mario Kart for SNES and N64.
After that, Nintendo seemed to have no idea what people even liked about the games.
They added more characters, more cars, and more level interference, meaning that you were competing less and less on skill.
Worse, your choices for character and car could have enormous and difficult to predict effects on your performance.
After the N64 game, I found that series to be astonishingly boring. My one friend who enjoys it can't find anyone to play it with him.
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...
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).
Just don't try the ride at Universal Studios Japan. It's a complete disappointment. It's just a slow-moving ride, plus Hololens.
Really the note here is Nintendo know how to design.