Super Mario Kart is garbage

[Kosheh]

It is when you're not expecting breathing to do anymore than save your life.

Your problem is yet again that SMK is the first game in the series and you're bringing expectation from later games back to this old dusty thing. In 1992 people didn't know what powersliding was and actually used drifting for the sole purpose of helping them drive, not for the boost at the end which takes no real effort to get anyways.

Uh, reading the instruction manual told you that powersliding was done with the shoulder buttons. It wasn't until MK64 that the speedboost was actually noticeable, but like - you didn't actually get any real indication that you got a speed boost.

Besides totally not losing your speed (which you kinda lost with powersliding anyway?)