Probably the most fun racing game of all time.

The controls of the game are perfect and there's a lot of cool ways to elevate your speed and achieve skips through tracks. The ai is brutal, but the game has flexible enough difficulty options that anyone can get a hang of the game without losing all the time. It's weird because in terms of structure things about this game would normally annoy me but I'm perfectly fine with - unlocking new stages requires repeating a lot of old ones, but they're so interesting they're worth replaying.

Gameplay itself is really great but the organisation of the game is poor. eg. there are very few tracks and to get them all you have to burn hours repetitively racing the same tracks over and over to get good enough to unlock later cups. Story mode is cool but again, BS difficulty. 2003 is too late to be having a lives mechanic in a racing game. Surprised no one has turned this concept into an online multiplayer game by now.

vroom vroom

Sega fuses their slick arcade-y sensibility with Nintendo IP to make a fast, fun, and attractive racing experience, albeit one I've always found a touch on the shallow side.