> used for things like the track in Mario Kart and F-Zero, or the worldmap in Final Fantasy 6 (while you're in the airship).

Even the 3D plane effect in F-Zero and Mario Kart requires an hblank interrupt routine that changes the scale and scroll registers for the tile map. Without such trickery Mode 7 technically only does 2D rotozooming. That said, in colloquial use "Mode 7" tends to refer (somewhat inaccurately) to that 3D plane effect.