I Care Very Deeply About Mario Kart.

Mario Kart is one of the most well-known video  games of all time, and that’s... pretty cool. Its broad appeal, low barrier of entry and  general design have enabled it to endure,   getting gamers and non-gamers  alike to play together,   and actively placing it shoulder-to-shoulder  with the series it was spun off from. To me,   any game that can bridge that gap is special,  but Mario Kart manages to do the unthinkable   and still maintain a high skill ceiling that  comes from track knowledge, mechanical depth,   and item strategy. And as I say these things, I  know some of you might be thinking to yourself:   “What are you talking about?” This might not  reflect your Mario Kart experience at all. For some, Mario Kart is a dice roll. No matter  how good you get, the great equalizer known as   the Blue Shell will claim you eventually, among  other items that make victory feel luck-based.   For others that pour hours into getting better  at the game, smart item play can ward off the   worst attacks and help you strategize  for comebacks and defense. Of course,   luck is always a factor. The famous “Get  Mario Karted” video exists for a reason.   We’ve all been there, but I wanted to  take a deep dive into a series that   has had a massive cultural impact and has  become a mainstay as the multiplayer game. I had a wide range of questions going into this  video, like: How has this series endured for so   long? How has nothing been able to dethrone it?  If it truly leans on luck as much as some people   say it does, wouldn’t this game be frustrating  to play at a high level? Are the mechanics of   Mario Kart really that competitively viable?  And how does the game bridge the gap in skill   reasonably? Of course, the skill gap cannot be  too great, but why do I feel like I still stand   a chance against players better than me? These  were all things that I never fully understood,   and I was unaware of them as I would play matches.  Then one day, I had an urge to look further,   and I received some really satisfying answers to  these questions. In fact, I would go as far to   say that it made me appreciate Mario Kart on a far  deeper level than I ever could have anticipated. This is not going to be your typical Mario Kart  retrospective, so grab a snack, and relax. We’re   going to take a trip through Mario Kart’s history  and examine just what it is that keeps us coming   back for more. Some of us fell in love when  we played it for the first time. For others,   it was when we realized what made these games  stand the test of time. For me… it was both of   these things, and in this video, I’m gonna delve  into why both matter equally. I’m Liam Triforce,   and this is why I love Mario Kart. The game that started it all was released  in 1992, establishing all of the mechanics   that kart racers would shamelessly imitate and  adapt for three decades. For the longest time,   this was unlike anything else anyone  had ever played, and to its credit,   it did have at least one thing over F-Zero  on the Super Nintendo - it had multiplayer. Super Mario Kart was actually born from that  desire to have multiplayer in a racing game   on the Super Nintendo, though this meant that  the tracks had to be simplified in comparison   to F-Zero. This also led to Super Mario Kart  feeling distinct as a racing game, and ultimately,   more accessible. Utilizing the same technology  as F-Zero, Mode 7, the game was co-directed by   Hideki Konno and Tadashi Sugiyama. Konno went on  to direct Mario Kart 64 as well, and he has had a   close relationship with the series ever since.  Sugiyama served as director for Pilotwings,   another game that used Mode 7 extensively. F-Zero  and Super Mario Kart also share a programmer:   Masato Kimura. This overlapping experience  with both the design of a racing game and the   technology of the Super Nintendo are what  I believe made Super Mario Kart possible. In hindsight, Mode 7 did hinder the course design  in Super Mario Kart. It already doesn’t help that   certain level themes are re-used throughout each  cup, but the flat, faux 3D course designs mean   that each level feels very similar in terms of  layout because there is no actual 3D geometry   with slopes, hills, or anything like that.  This is not the fault of Super Mario Kart,   though, as it was just what was available  with the technology at the time, and to its   credit - the courses utilize its level elements to  the fullest to deliver a satisfying game to play. The core mechanics of Super Mario Kart (and  the series as a whole) revolve around three   things - items, track knowledge and drifting.  Items exist to level the playing field between   players of varying skill levels, and have since  become one of the most important mechanics   in discussions of Mario Kart’s balancing and  accessibility. Most of you know these items by   heart, but I’ll go over them briefly. A mushroom  gives you a brief speed boost that enables you   to cut through off-road sections and whatnot,  the Green Shells can be thrown with good aim   to hit other racers, the Red Shell automatically  locks on to the racer in front of you and cannot   be blocked unless they have a defensive item of  their own trailing behind them, like the Banana,   which can be thrown in front of or behind you as  a hazard for everyone on the track. A Boo lets   you turn invisible for a little while and steal  another player’s item, though this item doesn’t   appear in the single player Grand Prix mode.  A Star turns you invincible, and gives you a   boost of speed, allowing you to take shortcuts and  plow through everyone for a short period of time,   and the rarest item in the game, the lightning  (or the shock), only appears if you are in 5th   to 8th place, and the chances of it appearing  are slim at that. If you do happen to get it,   the effects are devastating. Everyone is  shrunken down and much slower for a brief period,   and you can even run them over in this state and  squish them. Now, people can actually strategize   around the shock just as much as you can wait  for the right moment to strike. They can use   a star if they’re anticipating it, so you can  wait until people are most vulnerable or at a   difficult portion of a track. All of these  items have seemingly simple applications,   but these applications are so well-rounded,  with each fitting a specific need. They have   since become staples across each game, and  each imitator of Mario Kart’s gameplay have   their own versions of almost every item listed.  That’s how good and important these items are. Super Mario Kart also has items that would seldom  appear in Mario Kart games after this one. Coins,   for example, were a mechanic that only appeared  in this game and Super Circuit, the “Mode 7”   entries if you will, and then later made their  re-debut in Mario Kart 7 and 8. Coins increase   your top speed. The more you have, the faster you  go, though you’ll also lose coins upon getting   hit. 10 coins will get you to your maximum speed,  but exclusively in this game and Super Circuit,   you can have extra coins in the event that you get  hit. At the risk of losing out on your top speed,   coins actually force every player of different  skill levels to take similar racing lines to keep   their speed up, which is a great way of leveling  the playing field, especially in the first lap   where the most powerful items are less likely to  appear. Of course, if another player is really   good at collecting coins, then items aren’t gonna  be as impactful, which is why coins were removed   from the series until they eventually capped your  maximum coin count at 10 in Mario Kart 7 and 8 - a   great move for the sake of balance. Another  item that didn’t return for a long time was   the feather, and when it did, it was exclusively  in the battle mode for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. The   feather allows you to jump over hazards, off-road  sections and even walls to take massive shortcuts.   The item doesn’t appear in Mario Circuit or  Donut Plains, but it is especially prominent   in Ghost Valley, where you can shave off a lot  of time if you know the tracks well enough. As is the case with any racing game - practice  makes perfect. Only by playing these courses   over and over again will you eventually be  able to master each difficulty level and   unlock the Special Cup. Each course has tight  turns, gaps to cross and off-road to keep your   cornering in check, which is why the drift  is such an important mechanic. Super Mario   Kart’s drift does not function at all like you  would expect from later games in the series,   and it has a bit of a learning curve. By  pressing the shoulder button, you’ll hop,   then go into a power slide. This is par  for the course with the rest of the series,   but the power slide is primarily meant for  driving around sharp corners, and you need   to use it sparingly, otherwise you’ll slide into  the offroad constantly. What you need to do in   order to correct your drift is do another hop,  and then quickly tap in the opposite direction   of your turn to straighten yourself out. If  you do this correctly, you will cancel all of   your sideways momentum from the drift and drive  forward without losing any speed. This technique,   though obtuse and not really conveyed at all in  the manual, is key to mastering Super Mario Kart,   and the game can have incredibly precise and fun  controls should you put the time into learning   how to play well. Other factors that contribute  to getting better are knowing when to let go of   the accelerate button around turns, and using your  items strategically, rather than spamming them as   soon as you get them in the hopes that you catch  up. Essentially, the core of this game’s skill   floor and ceiling both come from the driving,  while the gap is bridged through its items. With that all being said, this is not my  go-to when it comes to racing games at   all. If you ask me, F-Zero is the better Super  Nintendo racing game. Though precise and fun,   the control scheme of Super Mario Kart is more  demanding for me than future installments,   despite having its own merits. I mean, world  record time trials of this game are beautiful   demonstrations of its controls. I’m not gonna  harp on them just because I suck at the game.   It’s just so different now compared to what  we’re all used to. I also just think some of   the levels in this game are flat-out annoying,  offering challenges via obnoxious terrain and   stage hazards rather than genuine tests of  reflexes and skill like Bowser’s Castle and   a certain multi-colour road. But hey,  the levels all feel pretty similar as   a result of the hardware constraints, so I  can barely tell the layouts apart anyway. It’s also worth mentioning that the game is  a wildly different experience solo than when   you’re playing against a friend. By working  to unlock the Special Cup, you’re not only   forcing yourself to improve at the game, but also  learning to avoid the computer-controlled racers,   because they straight up cheat! Every character  can use an unlimited number of their own specific   items, some of which can’t even be obtained  in item boxes, like the poison mushroom and   the egg. I suppose it isn’t as bad as Mario Kart  64’s cheating computer players, but we’ll talk   about that soon enough. It is worth it to win if  only to see Bowser and Peach chugging champagne.   These animations were removed in the international  versions due to Nintendo of America’s policies on   depictions of drinking alcohol in games at the  time, which is a shame because I love watching   Bowser pour an entire bottle of champagne down  his gullet. Peach looks like she’s already   drunk when she’s sipping from the bottle. Nintendo  should have kept this in future Mario Kart games;   their policies be damned. I could definitely  drink after winning the 150cc Special Cup. Speaking of which, there’s one last course to  talk about. The first appearance of the most   iconic track in Mario Kart history - Rainbow  Road. Like I mentioned, Super Mario Kart’s   limitations meant that only a few level themes  could be used throughout each course, with only   the track layouts changing between them. However,  Rainbow Road is its own level theme, allocated to   a single track at the end of the Special Cup, with  the feeling of finally unlocking and reaching that   track being one of this game’s greatest moments.  Rainbow Road features no guard rails to catch you   should you overshoot a turn or make a mistake.  You have to play perfectly if you want to win   here. Not even items can save you if you fall  too many times. But the feeling of being here   amongst the colours and the stars, the pressure  to succeed, and the music backing this monumental   achievement - a culmination of your skill at  the game - is what made Rainbow Road so iconic   to begin with, and few games in the series really  carried the weight this one did in a singleplayer   context. None of the games were as punishing in  their mechanics as this one and Super Circuit,   the Grand Prix only allows a finite amount of  retries, treating them as extra lives, and you   are straight up eliminated from the Grand Prix if  you don’t place at least fourth in a race. Earning   Rainbow Road through skill made experiencing  its visual splendor all the more worthwhile. Because there was nothing else like it,  and because it was so much fun to master,   Super Mario Kart became the standard for  any and all kart racers going forward.   Any subsequent game in the genre would be  judged based on its ability to live up to   everything Mario Kart established, and  what sets it apart for the better. And   while Super Mario Kart did inspire a  few imitators on the Super Nintendo,   it wouldn’t be until Mario Kart 64 where the genre  would truly blossom into something of its own. Mario Kart 64 was first revealed in 1995 as Super  Mario Kart R, the “R” standing for “rendered.” At   this point, pre-rendered 3D graphics had appeared  in Rare’s Donkey Kong Country and Killer Instinct   games, and Nintendo opted to use this technique as  displaying eight 3D models simultaneously in one   race would have made the Nintendo 64 catch fire.  Rare even provided the model for Donkey Kong in   the final game. Ultimately, it led to Mario Kart  64 having a distinct look, one that made the game   resemble the beautiful 3D renders of this era  of Mario. This soft, plasticine look permeated   the Nintendo 64 era, and Mario Kart 64 was pretty  much the only game on that console that was able   to accurately translate the look and feel of those  renders into a game, thanks to the pre-rendered   sprites. On a modern display, these visuals may  look pixelated with jagged edges, but that was   not how they were meant to look. As is the case  with most sprite-based games from the time, they   were usually played on a CRT, and the difference  is staggering. CRTs leave spaces in between each   pixel to create what we’d call a “scanline” effect  these days, and it usually hides the jagged edges   that we’re used to seeing now on LCD screens and  emulation. This is why this game and Donkey Kong   Country look so much better on CRTs and strengthen  the illusion of these 3D graphics being displayed   in real time. It might sound like I’m going on  a long tangent about this, but the pre-rendered   visual style of Mario Kart 64 utterly fascinated  me when I was young, and I am still passionate   about how good this style looked back in the day,  even if I wasn’t around to experience its origins. Mario Kart 64 makes several strides in improving  on the original game, as you could imagine. It’s a   fully 3D kart racer, meaning that level geometry  can now have the complexity and variety that   the original game sorely lacked. Slopes, ramps,  hills and curves, and each track has a distinct   aesthetical design that extends to the layout and  the hazards you face. To compensate for these new   possibilities, Mario Kart 64 has a bouncier and  much looser control scheme in comparison to the   original game, which the developers compared to  an RC car, a shift in physics and momentum that   would eventually evolve into what is now  standard for Mario Kart. Drifting in this   game no longer feels like you’re rotating the  entire game world just to make a turn; instead,   you drift outward and can tilt the Control  Stick left and right to either tighten or   widen the trajectory of your drift. If you tilt  the stick left and right rapidly during a drift,   you can charge a mini-turbo. Once your smoke  trail turns red, you can release the drift for   a burst of speed, signaled by a voice line from  the character you’re playing as. Though it was   technically in Super Mario Kart, Mario Kart 64’s  implementation of the mechanic quickly made it one   of the most important in a kart racer. Drifting  wasn’t just about taking tight corners anymore,   it was about optimizing them for bursts of speed,  and snaking back and forth on straightaways to go   even faster. The importance of the precision of  Super Mario Kart’s turns were traded for a wide   and especially more beginner friendly mechanic,  but one that has a considerable amount of depth   when it comes to being the fastest. And  I’m fine with that. As you can no doubt   tell by the impact it left on Mario Kart and kart  racers in general, this was the right decision. Though Mario Kart 64 is very much the same game in  structure, every single course has more identity,   and the game offers way more variety as a whole.  Every level’s bumps and jumps give the karts a   physical element that the flat courses lacked,  and it contributes heavily to what makes this   game so much fun to play. You can use these  jumps to skip portions of the level, which   probably contributed to the removal of the feather  item. The game eases you in with Luigi Raceway,   but then comes a hectic loop with Moo Moo Farm,  the tight turns and cheeky shortcuts in Koopa   Beach, and the wide open terrain and annoying  hazards of Kalimari Desert and Sherbet Land.   Frappe Snowland is one of my favourite levels  because you can use the off-road sections to   your advantage on multiple occasions. It feels  like a level that wants you to break the rules   of the road. Wario Stadium tests you on your  ability to drift effectively for mini-turbos,   as does Choco Mountain. Toad’s Turnpike forces you  to race through moving traffic. Bowser’s Castle   and DK Jungle Parkway have multiple distinct  sections that test you on different things,   including those tight bridge sections  that essentially become funnels for items. Speaking of which, let’s talk about items.  While the feather may have been removed,   a few new items have been implemented.  Notably, mushrooms, green shells,   and red shells all have tripled variations,  opening up possibilities for shortcuts,   and both offensive and defensive buffs as  you attempt to reach first place. It’s more   chaotic for sure, but also simultaneously more  strategic. You can also get a bunch of bananas,   allowing you to trail five banana peels behind  you and create an insane defense against shells.   This was such an impenetrable wall that they  changed it to a triple banana item in later games,   and had them rotate around you like the shells  did. Then there’s the fake item boxes you can   place to trick or otherwise block certain shortcut  paths, and the Golden Mushroom that lets you   spam the effect of a mushroom over and over for a  limited time, which is great for taking shortcuts   and closing the gap between you and first place.  However, the most important addition here is the   introduction of the Great Equalizer itself,  the Blue Shell. When this thing is thrown,   the player in first has no choice but to submit to  its power. In this specific game, there is nothing   you can do to stop it. Everyone must submit to the  Great Equalizer eventually. It usually appears at   least once during a race, and it quickly became  an essential item in turning the tides. This is   where the conversation of skill versus luck truly  began with Mario Kart. You could race as well as   possible, save all of your items for defense while  you’re frontrunning, and then a blue shell would   come hit you, giving the other racers just enough  time to catch up and assault you with every other   item under the sun. It happens. The blue shell is  a necessary evil, however. By disallowing the most   skilled players to front run for the entirety  of the race, that skill gap can be bridged,   and Mario Kart can be a more enjoyable experience  for everyone that wants to give it a shot. Even   for those that get hit by a blue shell, so long  as they learn to accept the Great Equalizer as   a natural part of each race. Just open your arms  and embrace it. It comes for us all eventually. All of this makes Mario Kart 64 one of the  greatest multiplayer games of its era. The   drift mechanic is more accessible, and  simultaneously more satisfying thanks   to the mini-turbo. The levels are great  fun and reward you with a more tactile,   physical response to each bump in the  road. With a four-player split screen mode,   the game became a staple for game nights around  the world. And I haven’t even mentioned battle   mode! While Super Mario Kart had its own  battle mode, it felt like a prototype for   what was to come. With Mario Kart 64, you  had three other players to throw items at,   and the arenas were more complex, giving you  more places to take cover and sneak up on people. As a single player game, however… Mario Kart 64  cheats. I was half-joking when I said that Super   Mario Kart’s AI cheats in reference to their  unlimited special items, but Mario Kart 64   is on another level. Right, so in order to unlock  Mirror Mode and “complete” the game, so to speak,   you have to clear all of the cups on 150cc.  Mario Kart 64 intensely uses… ahem, “dynamic   difficulty balancing,” to put it gently. Depending  on your performance in a single-player Grand Prix,   racers will speed up and slow down accordingly, as  if you are all connected on a giant rubber band.   See what I’m getting at? This makes staying in the  lead on levels like Toad’s Turnpike infuriating,   as it’s very easy to accidentally swerve  into traffic when trying to cut corners,   and then suddenly everyone catches up  to you. Frontrunning in single-player   is a nightmare on the more difficult levels  because of the constant pressure of the AI   catching up to you if you make a mistake.  And when talking about the Special Cup,   Yoshi Valley is just… awful. I see what they  were going for with the alternate routes,   in case you want to avoid items and other  racers, but the paths are usually way too skinny,   and there’s always a fastest route to take anyway,  so it’s definitely my least favourite level. On the plus side, reaching Rainbow Road is a  powerful reward, and the music is outstanding.   Kenta Nagata composed the score for Mario  Kart 64, whom you might know better as the   man who composed and arranged the theme for  Dragon Roost Island in The Legend of Zelda:   The Wind Waker. Considering it was his first  time ever composing for a Nintendo game,   it’s amazing just how much of an impact he left  on Mario Kart’s overall sound. From the title   theme’s decision to draw out the original Super  Mario Kart melody, to the exquisite and ethereal   sound of Rainbow Road’s melody. A portion of  this melody quickly became the leitmotif we   associate with earning the sights and sounds of  Rainbow Road, and what a feeling it is to hear.   Rainbow Road in Mario Kart 64 is unique in that  it is primarily an endurance run. It is by far   the longest track in the game, even if you do the  cheeky hop at the beginning of the race to skip   a large portion of it. Rather than lacking guard  rails and forcing players to master sharp turns,   the level is all about the core driving  experience, and everything that entails.   Especially after clearing levels that are much  harder than this, I welcome something this   focused. You can just take in the joy of racing  along the great rainbow in the sky. This isn’t   a course I regularly race on due to its length,  and it’s certainly not my favourite Rainbow Road,   but I still love revisiting it as both a reward,  and as an endurance run during multiplayer races. Despite its single-player quirks, Mario Kart  64 is a truly great game. It solidified kart   racing as a bonafide video game genre,  adapting the mechanics established in   Super Mario Kart into something that  I believe anyone can still pick up   and play. It established multiple mechanics  that would become a mainstay in Mario Kart,   and paved the way for how the series plays in  the modern day. Which is funny, because the   next Mario Kart game deliberately took a step  backwards for the sake of the Game Boy Advance. This is Mario Kart: Super Circuit, which  is less of a sequel to Mario Kart 64,   and more of a sequel to Super Mario Kart,  because it plays exactly the same way - flat   tracks and everything. There is certainly  more variety in track theming and layout,   though, and it adapts every item from  Mario Kart 64, with the exception of   the banana bunch and the fake item boxes.  It also has interesting bits of its own,   some of which foreshadow the future of  the series. For example, this is the   first Mario Kart game to explicitly show each  character’s stats on the select screen. Stats   are incredibly important to both high-level Mario  Kart, and what generally makes certain characters   viable in the first place, but the games don’t  always communicate these things effectively. Let’s start at the beginning. The two previous  games in the series divided each of the   character’s stats by weight classes - light,  medium, and heavy - with the lower and higher   end of the scale having specific advantages  and disadvantages. In Super Mario Kart,   the manual provided a detailed breakdown of  not just each character’s stats and advantages,   but also their performance on each track.  None of this information is in the base game,   which was kind of par for the course at the  time, but it is almost certainly lost on most   players today. Most people consider Bowser and  Donkey Kong Jr. the best characters due to their   top speed being the highest, but there’s  nothing wrong with picking other characters   when learning how to play the game, plus they  all have their own advantages on each course. In Mario Kart 64, the lightweights are the fastest  instead, and they have the best acceleration,   with their only real disadvantages being their  loss of speed on turns and their low weight   making them susceptible to getting bumped around.  Their positives far outshine the negatives though,   making the lightweights the best by  a longshot. The heavyweights have low   acceleration and their off-road traction  is pretty terrible, but they turn well,   and the middleweights - Mario and Luigi -  are fine enough choices all around. Overall,   it’s not much of an issue. You can play  whoever suits your playstyle in this game.   When we get to the GameCube and beyond, we’ll  be able to paint a more vivid picture of how   stats affect each game’s balance, and your  ability to acclimate to the game as a whole. Now, there’s another piece to this puzzle.  Though Super Circuit is the first game to   actually display character stats in-game,  there are still a few hidden stats that   neither the game or the manual tell you about.  The manual still references the characters and   their weight classes, but there are more stats to  each character, and the only way people would have   been able to unearth them back then is through a  Japanese-only guidebook. These stats are: Speed,   Braking, Handling, Drift, and Off-Road. The  kicker here is that the “speed” the game is   referring to on the select screen is actually  a character’s acceleration, which is a massive,   disgusting oversight. You might have thought  that Bowser was nerfed to hell and back when   looking at his stats in-game, but no. He’s still  the fastest character in the game. In fact,   most of the characters in this game are  comparable to their Super Nintendo counterparts,   which makes sense, but the game certainly  tricked me into believing otherwise for a while. While it’s clear to see how hard they messed  up in Super Circuit’s case, this lack of   communication persisted throughout several games,  and we’ll be looking at how and why soon enough. Other than that, I don’t have much else to say  about Super Circuit. I don’t think the control   is quite as tight as Super Mario Kart, but  I do enjoy a lot of the courses it features,   and in particular I love this game’s Rainbow Road.  The edges of the course may not have guard rails,   but they instead make you bounce up in the  air, leading to some incredible shortcut   potential if you know what you’re doing. It’s  one of the best feelings this game gave me.   On top of these courses being pretty fun,  it also includes all of the Super Nintendo   courses as an added bonus. Super Circuit  did allow for four-player multiplayer,   but this was restricted to the link cable,  and you need four consoles, four link cables,   and four copies of the game to get the full  experience. No, that’s not happening. Not as   long as Mario Kart is available on home consoles.  I never knew anyone that had a link cable for   any reason other than Pokemon, anyway. Also, to  date, Super Circuit is the last game to overtly   feature those plasticky models of the Nintendo  64 era. Farewell, plastic Mario. I’ll miss you. With that, let’s move on to the  next home console Mario Kart game:   Double Dash. For the longest time, I considered  it my favourite Mario Kart game for its controls,   drifting, item strategy potential, creativity,  soundtrack, and multiplayer possibilities. It   is still unlike any other Mario Kart game. That  said, it is also a bit of a chaotic mess. Which,   to be fair, is also part of the reason why  I love it, but… Yeah, let’s take a look. The hook of Double Dash is the ability to  choose a combination of any two characters,   and one of many karts, so long as the  kart matches the weight class of the   heaviest character in your combo. Each  character has their own special items,   so you can mix and match items to see which  ones you like most in actual races. Mario and   Luigi get fireballs that come out like a shotgun  blast. It’s nothing like the bulls*** fireball in   Mario Kart 8 that rewards bad players with what  is essentially a spammable set of green shells;   this one is actually fair whilst still packing a  punch. Peach and Daisy have a heart that steals   items when they hit other karts, which is a highly  strategic and situational item, but I’ve put it   to good use from time to time. Yoshi and Birdo  get an egg that functions like a red shell and   spills out three items on the track for you and  other players to pick up. Baby Mario and Baby   Luigi get a Chain-Chomp that drives for them  and smashes through anything and anyone in its   path. The triple greens and triple reds have been  reserved for the Koopa and Paratroopa this time,   just as the Golden Mushroom is reserved for Toad  and Toadette. Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong get a   Giant Banana that spreads out into normal bananas  when hit, Wario and Waluigi get a Bob-Omb that   explodes shortly after being thrown, and Bowser  and Bowser Jr. get a giant, ricocheting shell that   covers a lot of ground and stops at nothing to  wreak havoc. As the instruction manual says, “it’s   the very image of Bowser himself.” Petey Piranha  and King Boo are unique in that once unlocked,   they can obtain any of the special items in item  boxes, so if you don’t want a guaranteed special   item and would rather roulette through all of them  and adapt your playstyle to whatever item you get,   you can try that out! For me, it’s more fun  to mix and match and experiment with a combo   I like most. This would actually become the  foundation for Mario Kart games moving forward,   especially Mario Kart 7 and 8, just without  the special items thrown into the mix. To complement having two racers on your kart, you  can also grab a double item box, which gives each   of your characters an item. You can swap drivers  at any time, allowing you to strategize and choose   which item you want to use, and which you want  to save, which adds another significant layer to   item play in races. You also can’t trail items  behind you like you could in previous games,   in order to counter an item, you need to time  your throw based on experience. To compensate,   you no longer get severely punished for being  hit by something like a red shell. Instead,   you flip over, and then you can immediately  get back to racing. The only exceptions to this   are the Bob-Omb and Blue Shell. It’s enough of a  punishment that it allows people to close the gap,   but it also gives you enough time for a comeback.  There’s also no spin-out prevention tactics   anymore. In previous games, you could prevent a  spin-out by hitting the brakes at the right time,   but that has been removed in order to keep  the game moving. All of these changes keep   the game moving, in fact, and they keep  the action frenetic, yet controlled. Where things get truly fantastic is this  game’s take on drifting. Like Mario Kart 64,   you build up a mini-turbo by rocking the control  stick left and right, but in Double Dash it can   build up much faster, and by snaking back and  forth on the track, you can blitz through races at   unprecedented speeds. The drift not only gives you  an incredible amount of control around sharp turns   - of which there are plenty in Double Dash - but  it also enables you to go faster than ever before.   In Double Dash, the karts also have this visceral,  realistic feel to them, which makes drifting   around courses feel exhilarating as you fight  to maintain control at all times. Combine this   feeling with advanced techniques like the R-tech  for tighter turns, and the A-tech, which lets   your kart essentially mini-turbo in a straight  line if you let go of accelerate between drifts,   and you have what I believe is my favourite Mario  Kart game in terms of core racing mechanics. Double Dash also has a lot of my favourite  courses in the history of the series. Peach Beach,   Sherbet Land and Dry Dry Desert are perfect  courses for practicing your drifting not   just on open-ended terrain, but also along  tight turns. Mushroom Bridge and Mushroom   City introduce traffic into a stage in a more  digestible manner, especially Mushroom City with   its two branching paths and offroad shortcuts. I  have many favourite tracks in this game, which is   a great indicator of their quality. Daisy Cruiser  is one of them for its inspired concept and tight,   challenging track design, and that goes ditto  for Waluigi Stadium. DK Mountain is a perfect   showcase for this game’s physics and what they add  to the feeling of racing, and the concept is still   incredible. You drive up to the cannon, and then  you find yourself barreling down a mountain - at   times even losing control of your kart due to  the bumpy roads - before taking two extremely   sharp turns and heading over a bridge, only to  do it all over again. Then comes the Special Cup:   Wario Colosseum only has two laps, but those laps  contain some of the trickiest turns in the game.   Dino Dino Jungle is also fittingly difficult,  with narrow paths and lots of prehistoric   hazards to avoid. Bowser’s Castle follows in its  predecessors’ footsteps and provides us with the   penultimate test of our driving, before Rainbow  Road does the same, and I swear this is one of   the toughest Rainbow Roads to perform well on in  the 3D Mario Kart games. When there’s guard rails,   they’re used on turns that demand you  drive optimally. When there aren’t,   you have to either risk using boost pads or  drive as carefully as possible. Drifting on   this track will get you far, but man is it hard  to do so. It’s all worth it to hear that iconic   music once more. It feels great to drive among  the stars, and you can even see a city below you,   selling this feeling that you’ve ascended  as a result of your own driving skills.   Double Dash’s Rainbow Road feels like it was  designed specifically for the game’s unique   controls and drifting, which is probably why it  has yet to appear in any Mario Kart game since. The thing that really opens this game up  to being my favourite in the series are   its multiplayer capabilities. You have the  standard four-player split-screen as always,   but you also have the option to play co-op, with  one player driving, and the other on the back of   the kart throwing items. This fleshes out the  competitive nature of this game far more than   you might think. While the player in the front  drives as they always would and can pass the   other player items if need be, the player on the  back plays a role just as important as the person   actually driving. They are the one that manages  items, and they need to communicate with their   driver at all times to strategize. They also need  to know when to actually time their item throws,   both offensive and defensively, because once again  - you can’t trail items in this game. Your driver   depends on you. Most importantly, though, they are  the ones that have to manage rocking the control   stick back and forth when their driver enters  a drift. This significantly reduces the load on   the driver, who can simply focus on driving  well and not having to manage a miniturbo,   and it also means that miniturbos can be more  frequent. They can simply time their boosts   while the other player moves the stick left  and right. The player on the back of the kart   can also perform an exclusive move to co-op,  which shifts the kart left or right depending   on which trigger you press. You can do this  to hit other drivers, steal items, and even   DODGE RED SHELLS with good timing. This, in my  opinion, is the best way to play Double Dash,   hands down. It is a beautiful way to appreciate  not just the finesse of Double Dash’s drifting,   but also its strategy, something that is often  neglected in discussion of Mario Kart. Not every   player in the room has to do co-op, either,  which is great! It actually gives you options. Co-Op also extends to battle mode, which features  not only the classic Balloon Battle mode,   but also introduces Bob-Omb Blast and Shine  Thief, which are both absolute chaos, especially   with Double Dash’s item balance. Bob-Omb Blast in  particular throws the concept of “balance” out the   window as you grab fat stacks of bombs and then  spam them at your opponent. Thankfully, Double   Dash’s maps have plenty of cover and routes for  you to take, unless you’re playing Cookie Land,   Tilt-a-Kart or the Nintendo GameCube, which  are basically just cage matches. Good luck! For all of these reasons, Mario  Kart: Double Dash was my favourite   game in the series for a long time. But  I hesitate to call it that definitively. To begin with, let’s talk about hidden stats  again. While I am happy to report that Double   Dash is mostly accurate in reporting stats  on the select screen, and it even includes   the speed and acceleration stats separately,  there are also significant stats that are not   reported anywhere in-game. Introduced in this  game, the mini-turbo stat governs how long the   boosts from your mini-turbos last, and the only  way to learn about it and other hidden stats is   by looking at the game’s data. Again, why are  we doing this? Is it so we don’t overwhelm   players with options? I can get down with that,  but I think transparency is most important,   especially when you’re running time trials and  trying to unlock the Parade Kart through the   Mirror All-Cup Tour. Thankfully, the stats at  least make some sense when you look at the raw   numbers. The lightweights have the highest  mini-turbo, and the heavier the kart gets,   the lower the mini-turbo stat. Same goes for  off-road speed. So at the very least, the stats   have some rhyme or reason. Well, I say that,  but sometimes the off-road speed for specific   karts in each weight class is absurdly high or  low for no reason. I don’t get this game, man. Oh, and the top speed stat being lower per  lighter weight class just simply doesn’t apply   to the Barrel Train. The manual notes that  lightweights have generally low top speeds,   but the Barrel Train is the second-fastest  kart in the game. Combine this stat with   the other stat advantages that the  lightweights have, and there you   have it. The Barrel Train is the best kart in  the game. It is just simply built different. Some people also just haven’t been able  to acclimate to Double Dash because of   the controls. Though I personally love them,  I can totally understand why they won’t be   everyone’s cup of tea. Because of how the karts  respond to terrain, the control can feel loose,   especially when you get sent flying off  of a piece of geometry. On top of that,   the game’s turning does generally feel more  slippery than previous installments. Only   when you master the drift can you truly negate  that, which is probably why I was never bothered   by this game’s controls. It also probably doesn’t  help that this is my most played Mario Kart game   and I cannot view this game from the lens  of someone that has never played it before,   but I at the very least acknowledge how  different it feels to play, for better or worse. Now, let’s talk about items. Items in Double  Dash are a tad overpowered because of its   unique special item mechanic that I touched upon  earlier. People will be throwing homing items at   you frequently, you’ll see crap flying everywhere  in an average race - it really is a warzone out   there on pretty much every track, especially the  short ones like Luigi Circuit. While the game   compensates for this by merely flipping your cart  in a direction and letting you continue driving,   things get murky when you begin to play like  a degenerate and sandbag during the race. Listen up, cuz I’m only gonna say this once.  Sandbagging (or bagging for short) is the act   of deliberately underperforming in a race. In  Mario Kart, bagging is usually used to acquire   powerful items that can aid in making a comeback,  and even protecting against items like the shock   or the Great Equalizer. You slow down, grab  some items, and then once you’re satisfied,   you get moving. This is a strategy that works in  every Mario Kart game, and good Mario Kart players   are usually selective about when they use this  strategy. It depends on the length of a course,   the circumstances of the race, if they have  a large enough lead, and if they are able to   sufficiently defend themselves while frontrunning.  If a player decides to bag, and they know the   right time to do it, it can more often than not  decide the entire race. This is why people hate   this strategy, but there’s nothing stopping them  from doing it too, and you can strategize for   when people bag by grabbing a star yourself and  holding onto it for as long as you can, racing   well enough to get ahead of the pack, predicting  a shock to the best of your ability and zooming   into first place. It just goes to show that Mario  Kart is more a game of skill than people think. Now that you know what sandbagging  is, imagine doing that in this game,   where the items turn races into the Normandy  landings, except it’s a free-for-all and   we’re all trying to get off those boats.  Item strategy is possible in Double Dash,   especially in smaller matches, but in  single-player, four-player split-screen,   and especially larger LAN matches where  everyone is skilled at the game - yeah,   it’s not exactly what I’d call “balanced.” And  don't even get me started on Baby Park. This   is where you need to learn to hang onto your  items for the sake of protection against all   of the stuff flying in every direction. On this  course, think of items like insurance rather than   something to mindlessly throw ahead of you.  Otherwise, Baby Park is an actual dice roll. If the goal of each Mario Kart race is to come in  first place, then I want to feel as informed as   possible in trying to achieve that goal. When I’m  trying to pick a kart that adapts to my playstyle,   I need to know the very things that the game is  hiding from me. On top of that, it is crucial to   know this information when doing time trials, and  because the game is finicky about this info - then   you’re likely bottlenecking your best times  without even realizing it. Because Double Dash’s   driving mechanics are so brilliant, I want to play  this game at a higher level. And while time trials   are basically unaffected by this game's balancing  issues, the main game is still absolute chaos. …But in a sense, I think this game embraces  its own unbridled chaos. It is unconcerned   with being anything more than pure fun for  everyone, and its items, though overpowered,   almost certainly bridge the gap in skill  between players. The game symbolizes the   chaos in its soundtrack quite often.  It knows exactly what it wants to be,   and that's where a lot of its charm comes from.  It just wants everyone to have a good time,   and the game does an incredible job  of ensuring that every time I play it   with my friends. I still love Double Dash  with all my heart, in spite of its quirks. That said, Mario Kart's competitive scene grew  more and more after this entry, and the series   would only further attempt to address its own  viability as a competitive, but fair game. The next game was Mario Kart DS, and it  was awesome. Though it was a portable game,   it was a fully-fledged Mario Kart game in every  respect, fleshing out the series’ gameplay formula   in multiple ways. It streamlined the local  multiplayer experience for portability with   DS Download Play, it was the first to feature  online multiplayer, it let you pick from one of   several unlockable karts, and its single-player  offerings were pretty robust, too! To this day,   I don’t think a Mario Kart game’s single-player  content has come close. You have the traditional   four cups, an additional four cups exclusively  made up of retro courses, and a mission mode   where you have to achieve certain criteria, with  boss fights once you get a certain rank on every   mission in a world. The boss fights all play  into concepts from previous Super Mario games,   except you’re in a kart, and while that may sound  lame - it’s actually a lot of fun. To be honest,   I’ve already talked about this game in my  DS retrospective, so I won’t go into too   much detail about the surface-level content.  As a blanket statement - Mario Kart DS is an   excellent game in terms of content and  course design. Especially course design;   there are a lot of great levels in this game. But  now, let’s get into the real meat of the gameplay. First - items. The special item mechanic from  Double Dash has been removed, with some being   implemented into the game as normal items. The  Golden Mushroom is back to being an item you can   get when you’re lagging behind, as is the Bob-Omb,  the Boo, and the triple greens and triple reds,   which rotate around you as they do in the  other games. You can also trail items again,   and though I enjoyed the skill-driven nature  of timing your defensive items when a Red Shell   was on your trail, I think trailing has utility  beyond just defending from an item because you   can also drive into other players that might be  tailgating you to punish them. If you’re following   too closely behind someone that’s trailing an  item, you are forced to get out of the way. It’s   a great mechanic that has since been a mainstay in  the series. Our two new items this time have also   stuck around since - the Blooper and the Bullet  Bill. Though its utility is lost on computer   players and it is useless in every game after this  until Mario Kart 8, it is quite annoying to get   inked on a Nintendo DS screen. The Bullet Bill, on  the other hand, is easily one of the best items to   ever be introduced in the Mario Kart series.  Somewhat reminiscent of the Chain Chomp from   Double Dash, when you use it, the Bill will steer  for you and blitz through all racers in its path.   It’s a great item for closing the gap between you  and first place, and it can even dodge lightning   because you are completely invincible when using  it. As is the case with any item, you can save   it for as long as you want, at least until  someone uses the shock and takes it from you. As for the core gameplay, Mario Kart DS allows you  to pair a character with a kart of your choice,   with each character and kart having  their own stats to consider. In fact,   Mario Kart DS finally makes the decision to  show nearly every single stat on the kart select   screen…with the exception of the mini-turbo  stat. Of course. There’s also more stats if   you look at the game’s data, but in this case -  I’m not going to do that, because there is wayyyy   too much for any average player to even begin  to digest. The in-game stats are comprehensive   enough for you to make an informed decision when  combining your favourite character with a kart,   and I appreciate that. Though character-specific  stats are not made clear (and honestly,   I disagree with the concept entirely because I  just want to play as my favourite character and   not have to worry about hidden stats), you can  at least surmise the impact each character has   immediately by looking at the stat differences on  a single kart. The only stat in this game that I   vehemently disagree with is the item stat.  Believe it or not, this stat actually governs   your chances of getting better items, like triple  mushrooms, triple reds, and whatnot, and a low   item stat means you won’t get the typical three  mushrooms in Time Trials. I can’t begin to tell   you how stupid it is to have an item stat in  this game, and thankfully - it never returned. Ironically, I think listing all of the stats  creates an inverse dilemma for the Mario Kart   series. While it is nice that those taking the  game a little more seriously have a clearer idea   of what to expect, it alienates casual players  that just want to use a kart that looks cool. Do I   prefer this over the old method of handling stats,  though? Yes. Yes I do. Really, it’s hard to please   everybody, and figuring out a balance between  these things would be a journey for the series. Other than that, Mario Kart DS plays like a  dream. It has incredibly precise and lenient   controls, especially when it comes to drifting.  Recovering from a mini-turbo is so satisfying,   and it allows you to immediately initiate  another one if you have room on the track.   This is the bread and butter of Mario Kart DS  - snaking back and forth on straightaways by   building a mini-turbo as fast as possible.  In online multiplayer, this was the biggest   skill check. If you were not snaking back  and forth to build constant mini-turbos,   you would lose regardless of what items you  pulled. To me, this created a significant   enough skill divide where I would only want  to play Mario Kart DS with my friends. I never   felt like I could get good enough at Mario  Kart DS without shredding the skin off of my   thumb from rocking it back and forth on the D-Pad.  Ironically, the only course I felt I could perform   sufficiently on was Rainbow Road, because you  couldn’t mindlessly snake along straightaways. In a competitive game, I believe the casual and  competitive experience should be unified in two   ways - the first is that both experiences should  feel similar to one another, to the point where   they are indistinguishable in any real regard  other than pure skill and strategy. In Mario Kart   DS, the divide between casual and competitive is  snaking. This was an issue in Double Dash as well,   to be fair, but I feel Mario Kart DS’ more  precise controls just amplify that issue. Instead,   the transition from casual to competitive should  feel relatively seamless through experience,   rather than forcing players to play a certain  way. With that in mind, the second way in which   these two experiences should be unified is by  allowing players to compete with their preferred   playstyle. Snaking boxes them into playing  a specific way if they want to win, which   is not really ideal, especially in a game with  so much character and kart variety. Of course,   if you’re playing with people of a similar  skill level, this isn’t of any concern. I   had a blast with Mario Kart DS in pretty much  every regard except for online multiplayer,   but this mentality of boxing players  into a specific playstyle lingered. This is Mario Kart Wii. A game I have so  many fond memories of playing - a game   that feels amazing to play - is also  the most busted game in the entire   series. It is just as beautiful as it is  alienating. By the end of this discussion,   I’m sure you’ll understand why some people view  this game as the “Melee” of the Mario Kart series. First of all: It’s a great game. Don’t  misunderstand what I’m about to say. Its   battle mode may only allow you to play against  one another on teams, but Coin Runners is a great   improvement on Shine Runners from Mario Kart  DS, and I love trying to see how many coins I   can stack at once. Like previous entries, Mario  Kart Wii’s courses are generally fantastic. I   love Maple Treeway, DK Summit, Toad’s Factory,  Coconut Mall (naturally, I mean, who doesn’t?) I   love them not just for their phenomenal and varied  design, setpieces, theming and skill-driven depth,   but also because of what Kart Wii’s new features  enable. First of all, the number of racers has   been bumped up from eight to twelve, which adds  even more chaos, but I welcome it. It definitely   doesn’t feel like too many racers at this number;  it just allows more people to play at once. Also,   starting with this game, you can trick off of  bumps and ramps by either shaking the Wii Remote,   or pressing a direction on the D-Pad on a  traditional controller. This gives you a   mini-turbo when you land, and you can also angle  your tricks to land quickly and get the boost   sooner. This is not only a great feature for the  new courses, but it also transforms older courses   that had physical bumps in a really satisfying  way, like Waluigi Stadium or DK Mountain. In   addition, this game has completely revamped  drifting in response to the “snaking” technique   creating too large of a skill gap in previous  games, especially in Mario Kart DS. Now, your   mini-turbo will build regardless of whether or not  you flick the analog stick back and forth, and you   can charge it faster by taking a tighter turn, or  slower by tilting away from the drift. This not   only gives you more control when trying to take  a drift and build a mini-turbo, but it also makes   the game far more accessible, and it has since  become standard for all future Mario Kart games. Mario Kart Wii also introduces motorcycles to  the formula for the first time, and this is   where my feelings on this game get complicated.  These things let you pop a wheelie for extra   speed whenever you want, effectively making them  better than any kart could ever be, especially   on straightaways. Certain bikes have something  known as “inside drifting.” What this means is   that when you drift, your bike will naturally turn  inward. This makes for way more precise cornering,   which can save huge chunks of time. Every  other kart and bike has outside drifting,   which is the standard form of drifting that  other 3D Mario Kart games default to, and in   this game’s case - it is much slower. Basically,  Mario Kart Wii should be called Mario Bike Wii,   because although you can win with a kart, you  are putting yourself at a major disadvantage if   you don’t use a bike, especially one with inside  drifting. Ironically, the “solution” that Nintendo   aimed to implement to close that massive gap in  skill ended up boxing players into yet another   style of play. Whenever I play this game with  friends, I usually win because they don’t like   using inside drift or using wheelies or anything  like that. They are simply not allowed to have   their own playstyle unless they train in the  mountains to beat these bikers. It also probably   doesn’t help that the game’s balance favours  speed, mini-turbo, and inside drift above pretty   much all else. In Mario Kart Wii, you can build a  stationary mini-turbo to completely negate the low   acceleration of high-speed vehicles, making the  acceleration stat almost pointless. Thankfully,   Mario Kart Wii had the sense to display a  thorough breakdown of each vehicle's stats,   and I can’t thank them enough for finally doing  this, but it’s a shame that the most optimal way   to play Mario Kart Wii ignores a lot of these  stats. At casual and competitive levels, you’re   looking at completely different games. The issue  that Mario Kart DS had is on full display here. Because of all this… the best combo in the game  is Funky Kong/Flame Runner. It’s extremely fast,   it has inside drift, and Funky Kong  himself adds the highest speed bonus.   Each weight class has its own version of  this combo, like Daisy and the Mach Bike,   for example, but this is why you’ll always  see online multiplayer lobbies filled with   Funky Kongs. I use Rosalina and the Flame  Runner because of the added mini-turbo bonus,   because I’m a contrarian, and also just  because I really like Rosalina. There is   some room for experimentation in this game,  but not much. Usually, it’s about picking   your favourite character and a specific bike, and  sometimes your character just isn’t good enough. I think there’s something to be said  about just wanting to pick a combo   based on how cool it looks. A lot of my  friends echo this same sentiment. Mario   Kart was born from a desire to create a  more casual, party-friendly racing game,   and as the game attempted to achieve  more depth in both its mechanics, stats,   and variety of combos - it felt as though the  spirit of the series was gradually slipping away,   especially if you decided to race online. The  simplicity that Mario Kart 64 achieved was lost   almost completely to tech that vastly widens the  gap between the skill floor and the skill ceiling,   and while this was true for Double Dash and  especially DS, Mario Kart Wii felt like that   widening gap was stretched to such extremes that  it simply isn’t fun to play this game any other   way. Of course, if you’re oblivious to all of this  and you just decided to play with your friends in   a combo that you liked - they’re all pretty solid  party games. Don’t misunderstand me. None of what   I’ve said is an overt criticism of Mario Kart Wii  at a base level, because it’s when you begin to   take the games seriously - beating every cup in  150cc, using item strategy to your advantage,   and optimizing your gameplay - that the true  beauty of Mario Kart can shine through. And   despite everything I’ve said so far - when you  do master Mario Kart Wii’s play style - avoiding   getting bumped out of a wheelie, taking corners as  tight as possible with inside drifting, memorizing   both Mushroom and non-mushroom shortcuts, and  using this game’s items to your advantage - Mario   Kart Wii becomes the most competitively  enthralling game in the entire series. I don’t claim to be a master at this game by any  means, as this game involves a lot of tech to play   with any sort of finesse, but playing this game  at a high level is one of the most exhilarating   feelings I’ve ever experienced in any racing  game. It’s fast, it’s aggressive, it’s strategic,   and it’s highly skill-driven. Luck is a factor  when it comes to items, and I dislike pretty   much all of the original items that Mario Kart  Wii introduced. The Mega Mushroom is basically   a worse star, and although it can squish other  players, you are still susceptible to lightning,   stars and bullet bills. The POW Block is  barely an inconvenience because you can   avoid the worst effects of it by performing a  wheelie, and the Thunder Cloud… Okay, on paper,   this is a pretty cool item. When you obtain it,  you drive faster and you have to bump into another   racer to get rid of it before it shrinks you.  Once they have it, they can still give it back   to you. It’s like Hot Potato. The added speed  can also help you take shortcuts. That said,   I hate this thing so much. Great, I love being  punished for trying to turn the tables with an   item! When I look at the render for this item,  I can hear the buzzer sound in my head. I’ve   been able to get rid of it plenty of times, but  most players on Mario Kart Wii are good enough to   know how to avoid getting bumped into someone that  has it. I hate it with a passion, and thankfully,   it never came back. One positive I will give to  Mario Kart Wii’s item system is its leniency with   the shock. When someone uses it, it cannot be  used again for another thirty seconds, allowing   you to prepare for when it happens again. This  change is significant when it comes to strategy,   because it guarantees a pattern for the shock  that you can use to gain an advantage in a race,   so long as you bag and hold onto a  star or Bullet Bill, for example. Like I said, luck is still a factor, but I’d argue  that Mario Kart Wii’s skill-driven nature is way   more enjoyable than Mario Kart DS, because it  doesn’t just amount to knowing how to snake   back and forth. It amounts to track knowledge,  item strategy, and general driving skills… just   as I feel a good Mario Kart game should. Well,  as long as you play the meta. If you want to try   and win with the Jetsetter against eleven  Funky Kongs on Flame Runners, be my guest. In summary, Mario Kart Wii is an amazing  Mario Kart game that was birthed by complete   accident. It is to kart racing games what  Melee is to fighting games - a series of   mistakes and oversights that allowed both  games to blossom into something far beyond   what the developers could have imagined.  And to demonstrate this game’s beauty,   why don’t we take a look at what is quite simply  my favourite Rainbow Road in the entire series. Every Rainbow Road in the series feels like it was  designed with each game’s specific mechanics in   mind - a culmination of everything you’ve learned  as you ascend to that dazzling road in the sky.   Super Mario Kart’s Rainbow Road was designed  as a test of your precise turning. Mario Kart:   Super Circuit built on Super Mario Kart’s Rainbow  Road with bouncy edges that let you take massive   shortcuts, in addition to that solid focus on  cornering. Double Dash asked you to master the   game’s drifting and admittedly more slippery  controls in areas that were built to conflict   with that control scheme. Mario Kart DS’ Rainbow  Road challenges your ability to carefully build   up mini-turbos with a lack of guard rails on  narrow paths. Mario Kart Wii’s Rainbow Road   plays into the game’s own mechanics, for sure,  but when you’ve mastered inside drift, wheelies,   shortcuts, and when to perform tricks -  it becomes another beast entirely. These   curvy roads were practically made for inside  drift bikes, and going fast on this track is   a sensation that can’t be beat. It’s not the  hardest Rainbow Road in the series, but it is   one that feels like it was built for Mario Kart  Wii’s advanced tech and lopsided balancing curve   where a single type of bike is better than any  other vehicle. Because of how good it feels to   play this track at a high level, it makes me  wonder if the developers felt the same way. As I race above the planet we call home - the  same planet that spins in the background as I   queue for an online match with quiet anticipation  - I am reminded of why Mario Kart exists in the   first place. Mario Kart Wii had a large focus  on its online component, with tournaments of   specific parameters, its robust online multiplayer  suite, and the ability to view and download ghosts   from the internet and compete against them for a  better time. Mario Kart’s strongest element was   its ability to bring people together, regardless  of skill or experience with video games, and its   leap to an online infrastructure brought that  feeling worldwide, connecting an entire network   of players directly through the game. Despite  what Mario Kart Wii eventually became - alienating   people that just want to play the game casually -  I believe the spirit of Mario Kart was maintained   in the end with people that appreciate what  is possible at a high level of play. Though   I’m glad Mario Kart Wii’s metagame and mechanics  did not return in any real capacity, this game   has formed its own identity for the incredible  feats you can achieve through its core gameplay,   and I’m totally fine with that. It still maintains  an active player base today because of that core   gameplay; a testament to how fun it is, and after  mulling things over for a while - I believe I’ve   reached a pretty reasonable conclusion about  these games in spite of their lack of balancing. Remember when I said that Mario Kart DS is best  experienced with players that are relatively   close in skill to you? Well, that definitely rings  true for Mario Kart Wii. That rings true for every   game in the series, really. What matters most is  finding that group of people you’re comfortable   with and having a great time. You don’t have  to get good at snaking back and forth or inside   drift if you don’t want to, you just have to  find a group of players just as mediocre as you   to enjoy the game with. And that’s okay! Find  the one you like to play most, and just enjoy   yourselves. If you’re looking for something more  because you feel like you’ve mastered the game,   you can find a group of people at that skill  level, too. And that’s why Mario Kart Wii’s online   experience was so compelling once you knew what  you were doing, in spite of everything I’ve said. I am conflicted on this series’ history, all  the while utterly fascinated and appreciative   of the things that people have accomplished.  I think items contributed a lot to closing   that gap in skill, and in most of these games  - items simply weren’t enough. In the journey   to create Mario Kart 7 and eventually 8, I  think Nintendo did their homework on creating   mechanics and items that made the casual and  competitive experiences as similar as possible,   allowing anyone to achieve a degree of  mastery over the game through raw experience. But first… let’s take a quick break. Mario Kart has deviated a bit in its thirty-year  history. Mario Kart in and of itself is a spinoff   of the main Super Mario series, but for some  reason, Mario Kart has its own spinoffs,   making them spinoffs of a spinoff. Are you still  following along? Good, let’s check them out. The first of these was Mario Kart Arcade GP, which  was released in 2005 on the Triforce arcade board,   a board built from the GameCube  architecture. Because of this,   the first two games in the series actually run  on the GameCube and Wii, as well as Dolphin. It   was named “Triforce” because of the three  developers that handled it - Nintendo,   Sega, and Namco, and in particular - Namco  developed Arcade GP themselves. To be honest,   the game and its sequel are fun, if simplified  from their home console counterparts. Because   the control interface is a steering wheel  and brake and gas pedals, they decided to   do something of their own, though mini-turbos  can still be built from entering a powerslide   with a tap of the brake pedal. While I do get  a kick out of the core gameplay, the course   design is deliberately very straightforward  to accommodate for the controls, and the items   in these games generally feel pretty haphazard  and chaotic, with little strategy to speak of. Currently, the most common version of the game  in circulation is GP DX, which, in my experience,   you can find in virtually any arcade or  Dave & Buster’s under the sun. Personally,   I think this is the worst of the three  installments I’ve played. The core gameplay   might be the most refined in this one, but  the item system is awful. Get this - both   the items and kart you use throughout  each race are selected via a roulette,   so any element of strategy is immediately  contingent on dealing with the three   items you’ve been given. No thanks,  I’ll just play Mario Kart at home. While I was in Japan, I did try to capture  footage of Mario Kart Arcade GP VR,   but I unfortunately didn’t get a chance to play  it. Although this game does seem like a pretty   cool ride, it is pretty much only playable  in any capacity at Bandai Namco’s VR Zone,   or if you’re lucky enough to be around  when it’s set up in specific cities. That said, I did get to experience Mario  Kart: Bowser’s Challenge, or “Mario Kart:   Koopa’s Challenge” if you’re in Japan. This is an  augmented reality ride at Super Nintendo World,   and it was pretty much the reason to visit Super  Nintendo World in the first place. I’ll just get   this out of the way now, the sense of scale at  Super Nintendo World is unreal, and to say that   it feels like you’ve stepped into the game world  would be a gross oversimplification of what it   feels like to stand in this park. The entire park  is interactive if you have the app, meaning that   you can compete for high scores and look for all  of the park’s secrets in the same vein as looking   for hidden Mickeys at Walt Disney World, to  those of you that ever actually attempted looking   for those things on your own. This element is  especially important not just as an adaptation of,   you know, an interactive form of media, but  it’s also important because of the park’s   (currently) limited amount of space, though with  the Donkey Kong expansion coming soon, I imagine   Super Nintendo World has a lot of life left in it  when it comes to realizing the worlds of games in   a theme park setting. Actually, Eiji Aonuma was  recently spotted observing construction at the   park, and people are beginning to wonder if Zelda  is part of the plan for the park simply because   he was there. This is all obviously speculation,  but… If Zelda actually happens, I’m going back. Anyway, the queue for Bowser’s Challenge  is an extension of this sense of immersion,   which is important for a theme park ride, as  the queue is where you’ll likely be spending   most of your time. Bowser’s Castle packs  in so many details and easter eggs alone,   making the line feel like a genuine part of  the experience. The ride itself is akin to   Buzz Lightyear’s Astro Blasters, in which you  are in a slow-moving dark ride and you have   to compete for a high score by hitting as many  racers as possible. While the augmented reality   aspect looked way better in person, I couldn’t  help but expect a Mario Kart ride to be… you   know… fast? I don’t really feel like the ride  translated the feeling of the games at all. Like,   I feel like a coaster of some kind would have been  better at the very least, or some kind of actual   kart racing experience with augmented reality  allowing racers to use items while they race,   and when hit with an item, maybe the kart would  briefly slow down or stall. I don’t know how   practical that would be, and maybe I’m envisioning  something that’s impossible with current   technology. Maybe something more robust wasn’t  in the cards for Super Nintendo World’s opening,   or perhaps they just had a limited amount of space  to work with, but you know what? I did enjoy the   ride as a whole. It doesn’t give Astro Blasters a  run for its money, and I wouldn’t visit the park   exclusively for this ride, but as a part of your  trip - it is absolutely worth experiencing, if   only for the immersion provided by the beautifully  crafted architecture and design of the park. Just   don’t go to Universal Studios Japan in the summer  like I did. Japanese summers are gorgeous, but   they do not mess around when it comes to humidity.  Stay hydrated and out of the sun when you can. Alas, we are still not done! Another  spinoff, Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit,   gives you the ability to construct your own, flat  Mario Kart courses in your living room, and drive   around in them with a remote-controlled car. The  game then brings these courses to life through   augmented reality on the Nintendo Switch, and  it plays like… an actual Mario Kart game. Like,   it translates surprisingly well. I imagine I  would have got a lot of mileage out of this   game as a kid. That said, there was only so  much we could do with flat course designs,   and my ideas for more perilous courses ended with  Mario falling onto the floor. Ramps and slopes   kind of work, but you have to rely solely  on the game’s ability to chart the course   correctly when you use them, and it can’t really  do that reliably each time. Other than that,   I don’t have much else to say about this game.  Not really worth the price you pay for it,   that’s for damn sure, but hilariously enough  - it’s the best job any of these spin offs   ever did of adapting Mario Kart’s  core gameplay into a new context. The final spinoff I’ll be talking about is  Mario Kart Tour. After remaining staunchly   against entering the mobile gaming market for many  years, Satoru Iwata finally gave the go-ahead in   one of his final major movements as president  of the company. This was done out of concern for   Nintendo’s dwindling performance numbers each  year as they attempted to support the Wii U,   as well as the hit they took when smartphones  inevitably took the casual market they once   held with the Wii. While the mobile games that  came out since have varied in terms of quality,   I think Mario Kart Tour is possibly the worst  of the ones I’ve played from them. It might   be free-to-play, but I can think of plenty  of other free-to-play games that are more   worth your time than this one. Imagine taking  the core elements of the Mario Kart series and   stripping them down to their absolute basics,  with several control schemes that all suck,   and yet in the end - it doesn’t matter because the  game plays itself. The entire game feels automated   if you input the bare minimum requirement for  any race, and it has the audacity to pretend   that you are playing with other people, when  it’s merely just bots that carry names for other   users. There is an actual multiplayer mode, but  I never got it to work. It’s also a gacha game,   with all of the connotations that that might  carry for you. I didn’t bother with this game   for very long, but seeing as it’s free - I  don’t feel the need to complain much about   the game. But I figured Nintendo would at the  very least try to bring something unique to the   medium of mobile games with a flagship series like  Mario Kart. Instead, it feels more like a money   printing piece of software that just… exists.  I guess this kind of puts my critiques of the   main series games into perspective. With Tour… I  can’t even be bothered to give it the time of day. Well… this break took kind of a  dour turn at the very end. But hey,   things are looking up for the main  series. Let’s take a look at Mario Kart 7. By this entry, I think Nintendo realized that  something needed to be done about the massive   gaps in playstyles between casual and advanced  players, and Mario Kart 7 reeled things in   massively. Perhaps a little too much, as it  doesn’t really have much of an identity of   its own, but it did at the very least pave  the way for Mario Kart 8 in a few ways. While I didn’t find the gliding sections to  add a whole lot to the core gameplay at all,   it did at the very least make certain sections  in older levels feel cooler when you’d go off of   jumps. The customization, unfortunately, took away  the bikes and instead restricts you to just karts,   probably because Nintendo wanted to re-evaluate  game balance after the whole Funky Kong/Flame   Runner situation, and it really does  feel like you can create a build that   suits your playstyle. This mechanic would  also be greatly expanded in the sequel,   but because of the restrictions placed on  both vehicle types and the tech you can learn,   Mario Kart 7 is a pretty safe and standard Mario  Kart game in my eyes. They also scaled the amount   of players back to eight from twelve, which  I’m guessing was due to hardware restrictions,   but a lot of these changes made me  want to go back to Mario Kart Wii,   especially at the time. It also scaled back its  character roster in comparison to that game,   with the only real noteworthy additions other than  good ol’ Wiggler and Lakitu being… the Honey Queen   from Super Mario Galaxy. Gotta say, I didn’t  see this coming. And yeah, she never came back. That being said, I have to give credit to this  game for its strongest asset - the track design.   There are a ton of genuinely excellent tracks  in Mario Kart 7, with many of them throwing a   wrench in your typical racing habits. In  terms of theming - DK Jungle is a great   way to honor Donkey Kong Country Returns,  Music Park’s simple design is heightened by   its melody-fuelled gameplay, and Neo Bowser  City’s concept is cool enough on its own,   but the added threat of rain reducing traction  on these difficult turns make it a highlight   as a test of your driving skills. And I adore  the two Wuhu Island tracks. Wii Sports Resort’s   cohesive island connecting each of its sports  was a welcome setting, but I was not expecting   them to create tracks based around them in a  Mario Kart game, and they rock. To my knowledge,   this is the first Mario Kart game to introduce  tracks with laps being divided into sections,   meaning that tracks with this structure can be  more diverse and varied around a central theme   as you speed through them, and the Wuhu Island  tracks use this to great effect. You can also   drive underwater in this game, which is used in  tracks like Cheep Cheep Lagoon and Wario Shipyard. Some other tracks I love include Rock Rock  Mountain solely for its massive off-road   portions that you can speed through if you  have the mushrooms and game knowledge to spare,   as well as Rosalina’s Ice World for being  an ice level that isn’t overly focused on   slippery controls and wide-open terrain, instead  wanting you to do some tight drifting. Plus,   it’s a level named after Rosalina, so  that automatically makes it good. And   to top it all off - Mario Kart 7 has my second  favourite Rainbow Road in the entire series,   right behind Mario Kart Wii. It takes the single  continuous lap concept and runs with it here,   implementing so many different fun ideas  all themed around an interstellar race above   the planets, along the rings of Saturn… It’s a  beautiful interpretation of Rainbow Road, and one   that thrives in spite of Mario Kart 7’s simplicity  solely through its inspired and creative design. I have to give credit to Mario Kart 7 for  recapturing the simplicity of the series   whilst maintaining both its evolution in terms  of mechanics, and its stellar track design. It   may not be known for its wild tech, but that  just meant more people can pick it up and play,   and that’s always what Mario Kart should have been  about. In many ways, Mario Kart 7 got the series   back on track, and set up what I believe to be  the definitive game in the series… Mario Kart 8. To me, Mario Kart 8 - and especially its Switch  port Mario Kart 8 Deluxe - give all of the   questions I asked at the beginning  of this video a satisfying answer,   all the while addressing problems with  previous Mario Kart games. And one of the   best ways the game signifies this is with its  main theme - both an introduction to the jazz   fusion soundtrack of Mario Kart 8, but also a  revisitation of Super Mario Kart’s main theme. Ever since the original game, Mario Kart has  carried a leitmotif, which has been embedded   in every single game’s main theme. Mario  Kart 64 welcomed you in with its main theme,   and it chose to draw out Super Mario Kart’s  lead melody, which would eventually become   standard for each game’s theme. Double  Dash’s theme is frantic and unrestrained,   but it eventually circles back to that lead  melody. Mario Kart DS, Wii and 7 all carry   that melody as well. But with Mario Kart 8, they  decided to go right back to the way Super Mario   Kart delivered that melody as a representation of  how Mario Kart 8 returns the series to its roots. Rather than boxing players into specific  playstyles if they want to get good at the game,   I believe any advanced play in Mario Kart 8  is connected to the core gameplay of drifting,   item strategy, and knowing when to take  shortcuts and collect coins. It’s about   creating a build and play style that you’re  happy with, and going for gold. Bikes are back,   and the game introduces ATVs as well, and  with this decision came an actual push from   Nintendo to balance the game accordingly.  In the Mario Kart 8 Direct from April 2014,   there was a segment that deliberately brought up  time trials and how much the vehicle you choose   matters. They made it a point to demonstrate  that between karts and bikes - in Mario Kart 8,   it depends primarily on the course. They even  outright said that they wanted to avoid a   situation where one vehicle was clearly better  than any other. Just like Super Mario Kart, it   all depends on the course you pick. What matters  most in Mario Kart 8 is how fast you can charge   mini-turbos, and whatever vehicle allows you to do  that comfortably is good enough. Inside drift is   no longer a requirement, it is an option with its  own benefits depending on how you like to play. Let’s talk about Mario Kart 8’s central mechanic  - anti-gravity, and how it impacts both racing and   track design. For one thing, you can now bump into  other racers for a quick burst of speed in these   sections, as well as these spinning posts, but  it also allows tracks to be these mind-bending,   physics defying feats, with the signature track  of the game being a straight-up Mobius strip,   a track represented beautifully right  in the game’s logo. Bumping into players   and cutting corners in these sections can  often be a viable strategy for a comeback,   and it introduces plenty of variety into how  tracks are designed. Tracks have ripples that   you can trick off of, they have anti-gravity  sections that impact the physics of your kart,   as did the underwater and gliding sections  in Mario Kart 7, and they completely reinvent   the retro courses, making Mario Kart 8 at  times feel like it has eight original cups   rather than four new cups and four old ones.  Take the Super Circuit levels for example,   which were designed essentially from scratch for  this game to take advantage of the anti-gravity   mechanic. Mario Circuit is transformed because  of its giant anti-gravity curve in the center   of the track. Toad’s Turnpike maintains the  traffic of its predecessor, but it now has   a section where you can get out of the way and  collect coins if you need to increase your speed. That’s another element that restores balance  to Mario Kart 8 - coins. Mario Kart 7 was   technically the first game to bring these  back, so credit to that game once again,   but now you can get them in 1st or 2nd place from  item boxes. You need 10 to reach your top speed,   but you can no longer go over that cap. In a  match where one player is better than another at   driving, they will need to take wider and slower  lines in order to replenish their coin count,   which automatically slows them down while they  make that time investment. Some coins are placed   along the main path, of course, but racers will  often be fighting for them, giving races these   intrinsic elements of both strategy and balance,  especially when the items begin to fly. And Mario   Kart 8 accounts for coins through incredibly  layered, strategic and varied track design. Mario Kart Stadium kicks things off,  and immediately it gives players three   choices. Take a wide turn to collect coins, use a  mushroom to cut through the offroad, or stay down   the middle and try to drift as tight as possible.  This is how a lap starts and ends, with the middle   anti-gravity section having a similar dynamic that  you can switch between depending on the situation,   and if you’re getting blasted with items. This is  the kind of strategy that makes Mario Kart such   a compelling game, and this is only the first  level. Toad Harbour, for example, has multiple   paths to take depending on the level of risk you  want to take for a reward, as well as hazards,   the multiple path philosophy from Mario Kart  Stadium, and shortcuts aplenty. Thwomp Ruins   is the same way, as is Twisted Mansion, Water  Park and Sunshine Airport. They all are designed   with this split-second decision making in mind,  and anti-gravity just opens up Pandora's box to   possibilities for brilliant course design. Dolphin  Shoals implements underwater and anti-gravity   racing while giving each section of the level  identity and utility. Not to mention - the music   is amazing. Each section utilizes different  instrumentation to reflect your surroundings,   and as you emerge from the water, you’re  treated to an absolutely killer saxophone solo. As an aside, Mario Kart 8 has one of the greatest  soundtracks I’ve ever heard in a video game,   to the point where its jazz fusion direction feels  like it has defined the series’ sound ever since.   It was all recorded live, meaning that each race  feels larger than life thanks to that big band   sound. Mario Kart 64’s Rainbow Road has never felt  this good to race in, and it might be much shorter   than before with not a whole lot going on, but  man does it make me want to cry tears of joy. Mario Kart 8 also has continuous lap courses,  though they aren’t as common as Mario Kart 7’s,   sadly. That said, Mount Wario is awesome.  You have to race down a snowy mountain with   all the things that entails - icy roads in  Lap 1 as you’re trying to collect coins,   a cave with a running waterfall and multiple  paths to take (as well as a clear shortcut   if you’re looking to get through as fast as  possible), a forest full of trees that will   mess with even the very best of players due to  their pattern, and a ski slalom that wants you   to drift as tightly as possible to optimize  your run through these turns. In Time Trials,   I basically drift in a straight line through  this section. Dude - every single track in   the Star Cup is perfect. Sunshine Airport kicked  things off with its strategy and fun race lines,   Dolphin Shoals letting the environment impact how  you race, Electrodome for its focus on drifting   and bumping into players, and finally Mount Wario  as an endurance run to round things out. I think   the Star Cup in Mario Kart 8 might be the best  run of courses the series has ever had. I mean,   Bowser’s Castle in the Special Cup is fantastic  for its use of the game’s central mechanics in   a grueling test of skill, and I enjoy the space  station concept in Rainbow Road and especially its   use of anti-gravity for shortcuts and drifting,  but the Star Cup is on another level of pure fun   and adrenaline. Rainbow Road was a great way to  round out this game’s run of original courses,   though, and it implements all of Mario  Kart 8’s signature elements beautifully. But how do vehicle parts factor into this?  Is there a clear best option this time? Well,   let’s take a look. All of my points of discussion  are based on what is presumed to be the final   balance update for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. The Wii  U version has its own metagame that complicates   things further, but we’ll keep things simple with  the version of the game that most people play. There are four kinds of vehicles in Mario Kart  8: Karts, Bikes, Sport Bikes, and ATVs. Sport   Bikes are the only vehicles with inside drift,  and as I mentioned - they invite their own way   to play through sharply cutting corners in your  drift, but the learning curve and overall tweaks   the developers made to inside drifting don’t  immediately make it the best option. All other   vehicles use outside drift, which wipes away the  metagame of Mario Kart Wii that felt so alienating   to casual players. Frustratingly, Mario Kart  8 once again opts to hide the mini-turbo stat,   and there are a couple of other hidden stats as  well, but the mini-turbo stat is once again the   most important and I wish it wasn’t hidden. You  can view your build’s stats in a comprehensive   and digestible manner by inputting your parts  and character on Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Builder.   This time around, mini-turbo governs how  fast your mini-turbos actually build,   and they usually build fastest if you’re  using the Roller wheels, which look stupid,   but add a huge mini-turbo and acceleration bonus  to any build you use. You can also get a massive   boost to your mini-turbo stat by playing as one of  the lighter characters, like the babies. This also   massively boosts your acceleration, and as such -  the heavier the character, the higher their speed,   but the lower their acceleration will be.  Currently, the best combo in the game is   viewed as Yoshi, Teddy Buggy, Roller, and  Paper Glider for its excellent mini-turbo,   acceleration and handling. The Cat Cruiser has  the same stats with higher invincibility, but   ATVs drift better. It’s not the fastest in terms  of top speed, but it’s decent enough, and it makes   up for that in all other regards. I mean, with  certain mini-turbo and handling oriented builds,   you can essentially negate the speed stat from  drifting as frequently as possible to build   constant mini-turbos, kind of like Mario Kart DS  if it wasn’t as sweaty. Therefore, is joining the   Yoshi hivemind something you should do because  of its ease of use? Well, to be honest, no! It   is very good, but as well-rounded as this combo is  and despite its usage in high-level play - if you   have an alternative build that suits how you like  to play (or you just want to look cool) - you can   always create a build that prioritizes what you  like most. My current favourite build - Rosalina,   The Duke, Azure Rollers and Cloud Glider - doesn’t  sacrifice too much acceleration or mini-turbo,   and its top speed is a decent chunk faster.  Plus, I get to rep my favourite character in the   process. I’ve also used Kamek in the Biddybuggy  because he can not only build mini-turbos   almost as fast as the babies, but he doesn’t  sacrifice a whole lot of top speed, either,   meaning that you can snake back and forth and  get a decent boost from mushrooms. Even the basic   Mario build isn’t that bad. While its mini-turbo  and acceleration leave a lot to be desired,   it balances both high top speed and handling,  which is rare for speed builds in this game. The point I’m trying to get at here is  that all of those advanced playstyles   in previous games are now entirely optional  if they tickle your fancy, as are seemingly   endless combinations that you can specifically  tailor to how you like to play. All the while,   the game is focused on those core elements  of driving well, knowing the tracks,   and using items strategically. This is what  Mario Kart should have always been about,   and I believe Mario Kart 8’s focus allows  anyone to not only have a great time,   but enables them to play the game at a high  level if they so desire. The difference between   inexperienced and seasoned gameplay simply boils  down to those three elements I keep mentioning. Speaking of which, let’s talk about items. First  of all, the Blooper doesn’t just ink your screen.   It now causes everyone hit by it to lose traction,  making turning much more difficult for a short   period of time. New to this game, the Piranha  Plant chomps players and coins in its path,   giving you a boost every time it chomps. The  Boomerang Flower gives you three chances to   hit something in your path, but you have more  control over its trajectory than a green shell,   and it’s much faster. The Crazy Eight, which  adapts a similar item from Mario Kart 7. You   have to be lagging behind significantly to obtain  this, and I really only ever use the star in case   I get hit by a shock and lose everything, but  it’s nice to have the items on hand. And finally,   the most important item of all. Though you  could actually escape the Great Equalizer in   a few of the games by timing a mushroom boost  correctly, or by getting hit by something and   taking advantage of the invincibility frames -  Mario Kart 8 introduces the ability to easily   destroy the Blue Shell before it hits you with  the Super Horn. Finally, you have a way to deal   with the Great Equalizer, and though it is hard  to obtain in first place, I tend to hang onto it   whenever I’m frontrunning and come across it,  just in case. You can also use it to deal with   any other items and players coming your way,  but it’s all about strategy, so use it wisely. Something that Mario Kart 7 introduced  that is brought to the forefront in 8 is   the distance-based item distribution. Depending on  how far away the rest of the racers are from first   place, more powerful items can appear in higher  places. This right here was an essential move in   closing the gap in skill. It discourages players  from frontrunning for too long, as they need to   either hang onto the right items by cycling  through them at item boxes, or close the gap   between each player. This, inherently, gives other  players a chance to catch up, even if they aren’t   that good at the game. It restores that original  philosophy for Mario Kart that gradually fell by   the wayside, all the while not sacrificing the fun  of being skilled at the game. Some may disagree   with this change, but many of the changes made  with this game are a huge reason why I find myself   coming back to it more than previous games.  It feels like it truly was made for everyone. With all of this in mind, I was ready to  consider Mario Kart 8 my favourite game   in the series. But the original Wii U version  of the game had the stinkiest battle mode in   the entire series. What the hell is this? You  have a selection of race tracks to play on,   and you can only play Balloon Battle. Then,  you have to drive all around and look for other   players to hit. There’s a reason the battle arenas  of past games were boxed-in arenas, driving a lap   around Toad’s Turnpike to find people is not fun.  Yoshi Valley makes for a surprisingly good battle   arena thanks to its multitude of paths, but  it doesn’t make up for an overall lackluster   battle mode offering. This would eventually  be rectified in Deluxe, but we’ll get to that. Shortly after the game’s release, Nintendo  released four additional cups as DLC for   only $14.99. It came out in two waves, and  these tracks brought their own innovations   to the game. The first wave surprised everyone by  including a track based on The Legend of Zelda,   and making Link a playable character. I was  flabbergasted when this happened. What is this,   Super Smash Kart? It was a common talking point  at the time, but really, I was just excited for   this level to come out. The level has all sorts  of fun easter eggs, like the Piranha Plant being   Boko Baba plants, the coins being Rupees, and  all that good stuff, but really, it was all   worth it just to see Link ride a motorcycle.  Wave One also brought a few original tracks   like Excitebike Arena, which was essentially a  dice roll in the same vein as Baby Park (funny,   considering they added Baby Park to the game in  Wave Two), Dragon Driftway, which I absolutely   love as a fan of tracks that encourage continuous  drifts, Ice Ice Outpost, which I never got the   hang of, but once you master it you have plenty  of options for routes, and… Mute City. Yeah,   instead of making a new F-Zero game, Nintendo  would rather honor the series with a track or two   in Mario Kart - the game that some have cited as  the reason F-Zero is dead. And you know what? This   track is awesome. It adapts the gameplay of F-Zero  into the game surprisingly elegantly, with the   energy replenishers now giving you coins, and a  consistent sense of speed being the central theme,   what with all of the boost pads and anti-gravity  sections. It emulates the gameplay of F-Zero well,   and naturally - the music is kickass. It flows  like a jazz song thanks to its percussion,   it reflects the aggressive driving of F-Zero with  its guitar, and the saxophone sits pretty with   that guitar, all the while welcoming the melody  of Mute City into the Mario Kart universe. When   they added Big Blue in Wave Two, I was happy  not just because it was a continuous lap track   that was incredibly well designed - carrying the  hallmarks of Mario Kart 8’s level design - but   also because the music let the composers have  even more fun. You have a splashier bass guitar   to drive how groovy this piece is at its core,  and the guitars and saxophone dueling constantly. Yeah, I wasn’t kidding about  Mario Kart 8’s soundtrack,   man. This is some of the best  music I’ve ever heard in a game. Wave Two introduced Wild Woods, Super Bell  Subway and a level themed around Animal Crossing,   if you can believe it, as well as the Villager  and Isabelle as playable characters. We’re really   stretching the “Mario Kart” name at this point.  A selection of retro courses were also included   in the DLC, like SNES Rainbow Road, which I  actually prefer to Mario Kart 8’s original Rainbow   Road level thanks to how the ripples and jumps  transform the way you drive around this level,   all the while the core gameplay that made it  so cool in Super Mario Kart has been preserved. In 2017, Nintendo released Mario Kart 8 Deluxe,  which contained all of the content from the Wii   U version, new characters and vehicles, and  a revamped battle mode. It also gave the   items system even more depth by bringing back two  item slots. Though, their functionality has been   altered to make the game less chaotic than Double  Dash. You cannot switch between them anymore,   meaning that you have to choose whether or not to  use your main item sooner rather than later. Also,   a Boo cannot steal from your secondary item slot,  which gives you insurance! As for the battle mode,   it is the best in the series. Every single  battle mode returns, there are plenty of stages   to choose from, and you have a new mode that  is essentially cops and robbers. With randoms,   this mode is heavily unbalanced. But with a  coordinated group of friends over voice chat,   this mode can be an absolute BLAST. All of these  things finally pushed me over the edge and made me   consider Mario Kart 8 Deluxe my favourite, and one  of the greatest racing games of all time. To me,   it felt like they could never top this  game. And I think they realized that. Mario Kart 8 reminded me why I fell  in love with the series to begin with,   and it bridges the gap in skill seamlessly  as you journey to the higher ranks. It has   everything the series was built on, and it’s fun  to play no matter your skill level. It is the   definitive Mario Kart game to me. But really…  that means something different to everyone. One of the brilliant things about this series is  that each entry is distinct for its own reasons.   I once thought that each subsequent Mario  Kart game rendered the previous one obsolete,   but after going through each game once again  - that is far from the case. Each game has its   own merits - its own identity - through its  mechanics and design, and they are all going   to appeal to different people. Like I said  at the end of the Mario Kart Wii discussion,   I do believe in creating something that everyone  can enjoy, but I also feel like there is merit in   designing a game for a specific crowd. Think  about when Mario Kart and F-Zero coexisted,   for example. They offered two completely different  experiences for different kinds of players,   and while Mario Kart Wii’s imbalance may have  impacted it at the time - its current player   base has adapted to what this specific style of  play has to offer. The same goes for Double Dash,   and Super Mario Kart, and every entry in the  series. As each of these games stand today,   they are wildly different from one another,  and that is beautiful. Whenever Mario Kart   9 comes out, I can only hope that it strives to  be different and wonderful in its own weird way. In examining this series, I’ve learned a lot about  Mario Kart. More than I ever thought I could learn   about Mario Kart, but it was also some of the  most fun I’ve ever had making a video for this   channel. It ignited some friendly competitions,  like a Time Trial challenge on Mount Wario,   a tournament for fans of the channel,  several get-togethers with my friends,   and heated discussion over the benefits of  each game’s mechanics. These games brought   people together, from all walks of life, and  all levels of skill. That, to me, is the true   power of Mario Kart. Its ability to bridge that  gap in skill, coupled with each game’s appeal to   different wants and needs - make it one of the  most important video game series of all time. So, to briefly answer my questions: That is why  Mario Kart has endured for so long. It is simply   one of the finest and most creative racing games  you will ever play, and it’s a default for so many   people because of its simplicity, its hidden  depth, and its ability to allow everyone to   have a good time. This is why I so desperately  wanted that sense of balance that Mario Kart 8   eventually found, but this is also how I came  to acknowledge the uniqueness of each entry. Long story short - no, Mario Kart is  not a dice roll. It’s a damn good game,   and I’m glad I grew up playing it.

Channel: Liam Triforce

Views: 255,666

Keywords: mario kart, wii, ds, double dash, 64, mkwii, deluxe, switch, wii u, mario kart 8, mario kart 7, super mario kart, retrospective, analysis, critique, review, liam triforce

Id: SyDbzEEG2_k

Length: 96min 2sec (5762 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 09 2024