Nintendo’s Mario Kart turns 22 years old this year (those of you who remember Super Mario Kart’s release for the Super Nintendo back in 1992, feel free to take a moment to recover from your feelings of existential dread). In that time, the series has released eight games on home and portable consoles, featuring 43 different characters, more than a hundred tracks, and tons of tweaks and alterations to the basic go-karting gameplay. But in all those years, across all those games, one fact has stayed the same: All paths lead to the Rainbow Road.
As the final course for every Mario Kart, the polychromatic highway has changed a lot over the years, incorporating and dismissing features as the series has shifted and evolved. But a few constants remain: Stunning visuals that dazzle the eye even as they make navigation difficult. Few rails on the sides of the track, meaning that the slightest oversteer or attack from an opponent can send you sailing off into the void. And a kick ass soundtrack.
YouTube user TheEternalSushi has created a celebration of that last fact by mashing-up the themes from all eight iterations of Rainbow Road into one cheerfully epic song. The result is suitably space-y, with just a little bit of the charming goofiness that has always been integral to Mario soundtracks. The whole thing brings back fond memories of late nights, bashing friends with turtle shells as you raced to be the first one across that final checkered line.