This isn't correct for N64 Mario Kart. They actually did give the lightweights the best acceleration and top speed. I found a video that did some analysis. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6AxbNL2ET0

[–] ZoopZeZoop@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

That was not my recollection of how it was supposed to work or how it worked in practice, but I found an archive of the original guidebook, and it says exactly what you said. Interesting. I got passed up by Donkey Kong and Bowser on straightaways all the time, but maybe that's more of a mirror mode challenge thing than a size of the karts things.

[–] Albbi@lemmy.ca 3 points 4 months ago

Oh yeah, that's probably just the rubber band effect, which was pretty strong at 150cc.