many course themes are repeated throughout the series. for example, most games have featured a circuit course, a desert course, a city or highway course with traffic, some form of a beach course, a stadium course, a jungle course, an ice or snow course, bowser's castle and rainbow road. each game in the series includes 16 original courses, with the exception of "super mario kart" and "super circuit", which holds 20. most races have three laps, while some games have more or less. there are also three to six original battle arenas in each game, designed exclusively for battle mode. so far, there are 120 original courses and 30 original arenas spread throughout these seven games. additionally, there are 48 retro courses and 10 retro arenas. these consist of older material recreated for newer games.