Mario Kart Series Retrospective (1992-2017) - Scott The Woz Compilation

hey y'all Scott here Super Mario Kart right first one in the series I haven't fully played through this and unlocked everything yet so I should really do that to form a full opinion hey Scott I'm here to warn you that you think Super Mario Kart is just okay thank you you get a new Nintendo console you want to pick up a few multiplayer titles for the system well you have a few choices it's hard to think of another series that says universally enjoyed as Mario Karts and when I say universally enjoyed I mean it go up to anybody on the street and ask if they want to play Mario Kart if the 7 out of 10 chance you don't get mace wins out you'll be having some top of the line multiplayer fun with a stranger Mario Kart is one of the most accessible multiplayer games out there due to just how understandable it is for anybody it's go-kart racing in the Mario Universe just how God intended you lap around each track three times or so and see if you can get first place or maybe second place if you're a loser item boxes are scattered across each track and running into them gives you a random something to hurl onto other players or defend yourself with it's hard to imagine the Nintendo console without Mario Kart it's the true multiplayer Mainstay of each system the Smash Brothers and Mario Party might have something to say about that but in my opinion Mario Kart is the easiest for casual fans to grasp onto it's racing and it's this word it's so easy to get well anybody can win or lose in Mario Kart the items do make things pretty randomized you can truly get skill at it and make your chances of winning that much higher which is what I think makes it so appealing to General audiences and core fans alike Mario Kart as a series is one that just gets better and better with each entry sometimes when a new Mario Kart comes out it normally just straight up replaces the last one for me most of the time and new games have been basically just taking the formula of the previous installment and just building on to it leaving little to no reason to return to previous games with some Double Dash riddled exceptions in there while I'm contentious playing the newest Mario Kart from here on out it's pretty fun to take a look back at previous entries to see just how different they are from the more recent ones with that I think it's the best possible time to go all the way back into the depths of 1992 and check out the first game in the series Super Mario Kart on the Super Nintendo now technically speaking Mario themed racing games were nothing new by the time 1992 kicked in the door the famicom Grand Prix Series where Mario themed racing games that were in fact Mario themed but really not Mario themed these were only released in Japan and featured Mario on the cover but lo and behold the games were exactly what you'd expect from racing games before Mario Kart with the launch of the Super Nintendo came the release of the game f-zero a racing title to show off the power of the system it relied heavily on that newfangled dang dung mode 7 on a graphical capability of the SNES allowed for backgrounds to be distorted and blown up and just worked to death while retaining smooth movement I think the best way to show off what mode 7 can do is to just compare rad Racer on the NES to f-zero you see what I'm talking about it wasn't true 3D but it was still a giant leap forward for console racing games along for fast-paced smooth movement of the track while m0 was a great showcase for what mode 7 could do when an impressive and fun launch title at the end of the day it was a racing game without multiplayer f-zero was a little too intense to appeal to a wide audience engine for multiplayer so Nintendo started to Tinker with a new racing game project on the Super Nintendo one that was more accessible with simpler tracks and a slower Pace compared to F0 go-karts where the vehicle of choice due to this design change with one of the placeholder drivers being some sap wearing overalls they then said okay just use Mario and the game became a Mario Kart Racer a Super Mario Kart if you will my personal history with the Mario Kart series started with this game's follow-up Mario Kart 64. so for a while Super Mario Kart was that elusive one that I didn't know much about at all I finally got to try it out via the Wii Virtual Console years ago so let's just say this ain't my first rodeo I'm probably my fourth or fifth it was always a game that I respected and had enough fun with whenever I pop it in or download it on a modern Nintendo system but I would just generally turn it off after 30 minutes and would go on to play any other Mario Kart to be honest but let's finally give it a fair shot this is Super Mario Kart on the Super Nintendo and here we are the first title screen of the rest of our lives and it includes a lot of fun graffiti on the sky and tic-tac-toe on the ground signs of a good Kart Racer There are a few modes we can dive into for single player we have the Grand Prix and time trials gotta start off with the Grand Prix it's a traditional single player campaign for Mario Kart and man have you ever thought a character selection was Jank because of one Soul character everybody's here Mario Luigi Peach Toad Koopa Troopa Bowser what the hell in Yoshi Donkey Kong Jr making his first and only playable appearance in the Mario Kart series every other character here has been a Mario Kart staple ever since the first game Koopa troop has missed out on a game or two here and there but I can't really imagine Mario Kart without these guys now with Donkey Kong Jr I have an idea of what Mario Kart would be without him oh yeah Mario Kart just an odd character inclusion but let's be fair here this was back in 1992 the cast of Mario characters wasn't nearly as expansive as it is now plus the modern Donkey Kong characters and Designs didn't exist until the release of Donkey Kong Country two years later but still why Donkey Kong Jr instead of regular no-nonsense Donkey Kong who looked at this game here and said where are the wheels the Grand Prix allows us to pick one of four cups the fourth one being unlocked later with three speeds to choose from 50 100 and 150 cc with 150 cc being unlocked later as well each cup has five different tracks and you have to play through each of them trying to get the highest place in a race you can to attempt to NAB first second or third place overall you mainly want to try getting first overall though as getting the gold in all three of the cups unlocks the final one that's still fundamentally how the Grand Prix Works in Mario Kart now and what you'll look at this this definitely looks like an SNES version of Mario Kart that's for sure wait yeah this truly is the Mario Kart for map lovers remember when I said this game was specifically designed for multiplayer to that I say well no it is always displayed in a split screen view almost feels like a precursor to dual screen games on the DS during single player races the bottom view is just this giant map while in multiplayer it's obviously replaced by the second player screen some may say this is annoying but the game was fully designed around this screen layout so it never really feels like my view is obstructed or things are squished it doesn't make the game harder to play at all for me personally but it's not an ideal layout the map yeah this thing can take a hike it's not really that useful just a small translucent minimap is all you need this is so overly detailed with character sprites so big that I never really find glancing at it to be that beneficial at all now controlling the game is definitely something special you accelerate with the B button I think that's banned in some countries when you run over an item plate not into a box you use the a button to use I don't like that this is just an odd jump for your thumb to make I think it would have been far more natural to have YB accelerate and B use the item it's not a deal breaker though far from it I actually find Super Mario Kart to control quite well overall but then we get to the pure Terror known as somewhat tight turns drifting is something that separates the men from the boys with Mario Kart If You Don't Drift you look like a buffoon hey everybody look at this guy not getting as many turbo boost by drifting imbecile in Super Mario Kart you justifiably drift by holding one of the shoulder buns but man this is some tricky stuff I'll say alright guys I'm going for it I'm gonna drift and then proceed to make a fool out of myself look I'm on milk drifting is one of the most satisfying things to do in modern Mario Kart games so it's a shame that Super Mario Kart's drip just isn't Dependable enough for me it's just so awkward here like it just feels like whenever I go to drift I drift too much and it's just hard to manage I found with sharp turns it's easier for me to just take him slow and to let off the gas at least then I feel way more in control now of course there's a problem with that tactic you may say you shouldn't do that Scott's slowing down a lot for your opponents to catch up alright listen up even if I played perfectly and I was resident turn making Champion my opponents would still catch up to me because the computers in the Grand Prix cheat Mario Kart's known for being unfair at times but that usually comes from items randomly getting shocked at you and there being nothing you can really do about it with Super Mario Kart the randomized items aren't the issue the CPUs having so many advantages is what keeps me up at night it makes almost every loss I experience in the Grand Prix feel unfair rubber banding artificial intelligence is the term of the day it's when no matter how much better you are than the computer control players you constantly hit them with items you make every turn correctly you leave them in the dust they will be granted faster speeds so they can catch up to you and make it so you don't have a huge lead on everybody listen I get it they do this to keep the game enjoyable if you were super far ahead of the computer it really wouldn't be that fun it's just way too much in this game it simply feels unrealistic when I Pelt this monkey in a Go-Kart with a shell he speeds up and remains on my ass and when I get hit or fall off the track it's hard to come back after falling into sixth seventh or eighth place but when your arrival falls back they have no problem getting back into first not only this but the computer players have special abilities that you just can't use Mario and Luigi become invincible whenever they damn well want to they don't to run over an item blade they don't need to do anything special they can just do it whenever they want it's great Yoshi can throw a ton of eggs toad throws poison mushrooms Bowser spits Fireballs why can't I do any of this why can the computer do all of these things without even picking up an item no matter how many times you Peg them with items they will always come back and be right on you this makes playing through the Grand Prix kind of nerve-wracking it's not crazy Difficult by any means but if you mess up once it's hard to recover when the CPUs barely mess up and recover instantaneously and when you mess up in this game I'm already upset about this and I haven't even finished the sentence it takes forever to recover the hazards on these tracks mean business you get gophered by Monty mole fall in the water squished by a thwomp look how long this takes to get back to driving now like I said the AI can use special items against you but that doesn't mean you're completely defenseless in this game item panels on the grinder all over the place and running over one nabs you some sweet sweet whatever mushrooms give you a speed boost these are terrifying other Mario Karts have a specific animation that plays when you use your Boost thus you know when it commences Super Mario Kart yeah you just book it it's hard to use these things to strategically I always find that it sends me crashing into a wall most of the time green shell something to Pelt onto an opponent either ahead of or behind you the Red Shell can only be thrown in front of you but locks onto an opponent I gotta be honest I prefer green shells in this game I like that they can be thrown behind and red shells are honestly not the best at homing on to another player bananas you know what I'm cool with you guys they aren't that hard to avoid but they don't write a strongly worded letter to Nintendo if I end up getting them the feather now we're in Super Mario Kart exclusive territory the feather reappeared in Mario Kart 8 deluxe's battle mode but other than that this thing is laid dormant in the first game and for all the kids watching close your ears things may get a little vulgar I don't like this item gives you a midi jump and you can use it to take shortcuts and jump over walls or other hazards but it's just too context sensitive like if you get a feather when you're right next to a viable shortcut or something okay but whenever I get a feather I want an offensive item I want something to use whenever I get it in a regular race I just end up wasting it so I can get a new item this one is only finally looked at because it was exclusive to the first game for forever it's fine when it's useful but most of the time it's pretty worthless like using the feather effectively is fun to pull off but like I said it's just too context sensitive for my liking the invincibility star is pretty great the lightning bolt temporarily shrinking all other players is Godlike the blue item is exclusive to the multiplayer modes match race and battle mode and steals the other player's item and coins coins are all over the track and can be picked up to increase your top speed these made a comeback in Mario Kart 7 but they're just not that integral to the game they're fine but Mario Kart works perfectly without them I never really saw that much of a difference comparing somebody collecting coins to somebody with barely any of them I don't really care about the coins but I don't hate them either now the items in this game are actually pretty balanced in my opinion none of them seem crazy overpowered when playing against human players they're not nearly as exciting as newer games but it's definitely one of the most skill based balance item rosters in the series excluding this garbage now the Grand Prix goes through all the racetracks in the game and a good majority are actually based off of Super Mario World donut planes choco Island Bowser Castle there are 20 courses overall spread across four cups but there are only eight types of courses with multiple variants of most there are two vanilla Lakes three Bowser castles four different Mario circuits that's kind of boring well the track layouts are all pretty different it gets a little tedious and makes each cup feel like the same thing but with a shuffle track order and with maybe like one different course to run in there Jaco island is hard to focus on for me this choco texture burns my retinas ghost Valley 3 can go lay down while I like the theme of the track here it's an absolute classic Jesus the holes the Mario circuit and donut planes tracks feel so tonally similar grassy plane stages take up half the track list any form of vanilla leg needs to settle down with the ice blocks but I do like the Bowser castles though and it all culminates in the last track of the special cup rainbow road the most visually distinct track in the game because you know there's only one version of it and it's a difficult yet solid track this is no bumper bowling you can follow this thing at any moment I like a good view of the tracks here but I only really remember the themes there's nothing distinct about these layout variations I know this was because of Hardware limitations so that makes this track list understandable but it doesn't make it any less uninteresting at times overall Super Mario Karts Grand Prix is an unfair slog of a single player campaign the computer cheats and the game refuses to let you proceed if you rank lower than fourth place you have to use one of your three or so lives to retry the whole lives and ranked out thing isn't bad or anything it's just kind of odd like the game refuses to let you not rank fairly high and forces you to just keep playing until you do other games are like you had tough luck numb skull you can get last place in every race we don't care we want to see you lose it's just kind of annoying when you do super well on all tracks but one I don't know most people can wake up in the morning knowing vanilla Lake 1 exists I'm bad at that track just let me get fifth place and move on playing through the Grand Prix is like playing with a paddle ball backwards you can go through time trials for any of the tracks to see if you can get a better time and then there's multiplayer you can play with another player in the Grand Prix play with just one other play on specific tracks and match race and then the pedal mode this is what makes Mario Kart so great for me four different battle tracks that are just giant squares for you and one other player to use items against each other in I always love the battle mode it's so great I will say though with the walls being flat images on the ground it's traversing these stages to be a bit annoying and with the atoms not as deathly as in later games it's not as invigorating of a mode still this alongside just standard multiplayer races is where this one shines the most basically just like any other Mario Kart well that's what I like to call Super Mario Kart on the Super Nintendo it still is in fact Mario Kart and there is definitely fun to be had here but just like most first entries in a long running series like this it isn't the first game I'm jumping to I'd really recommend playing this game on the original SNES with an original controller playing this thing on any system after it just doesn't feel right this truly is a situation where oh I'm playing Super Mario Kart on the Wii U why don't I just play Mario Kart 8 after playing it via the original cartridge everything felt much more natural this just feels right I highly recommend if you're looking to give this game a fair chance play it on original Hardware this is a fun game overall it's single player just annoys the piss out of me and of course it's not that crazy exciting Super Mario Kart is still a good multiplayer game today it's just they're a much better option so why play this one well now that I've sustained a paddle ball injury and fully think that Super Mario card is just okay I have to let past me know that uh he'll have no clue what to think about the game without me here I'm you 14 minutes into the future and I'm here to warn you that you think Super Mario Kart is just okay thank you you did good future Scott well now I guess I just played Mario Kart 64. so wait hey y'all Scott here I'm considering living in this college dorm for the rest of my life and you know what that means I'll be an immense amount of debt but it's okay just like any self-respecting college kid I'll have my Nintendo 64 and Mario Kart 64 with me and this will be my only expense other than rent yeah this will be my entertainment my Humvee my spare time my caloric intake my world wasn't one of my best ideas Super Mario Kart did The Impossible and started the Mario Kart series it kick-started the whole mascot kart racing genre it was one of the most popular titles on the Super Nintendo and showed a lot of Promise as a series I liked it for what it was but still had a few problems with it that's code for I hated it not really but it was obvious that this whole not 3D 3D style was impressive but not ideal just yet single player wise races could be frustrating and there were a bunch of repeated track themes but for an SNES car racer it was about as good as it could get and even with all the problems I have with the game I can still easily squeeze some fun out of it it's still a good time however there was obviously room for improvement and with Nintendo's next system the Nintendo 64 true 3D gaming wasn't just possible it was more than possible but the console's advanced technical specs and four controller ports for four player games a new Mario Kart seemed like a shoe-in for the n64. holy they did it Mario Kart 64. I I like this one well Super Mario Kart was the start of the series Mario Kart 64 was where the modern Mario Kart series started I see a lot of people nowadays say how this one isn't as good anymore and has age to that I say well you've H2 how does that feel Mario Kart 64 was the Mario Kart game the one everybody has fond memories of often considered one of if not the best game in the series everybody has their favorite and while 64's notoriety has definitely slipped over time due to its age it's still up there as one of the best I remember playing this on my cousin's N64 and it always remained one of the most fun in my heart this was pretty much as pure of a Mario Kart experience as you could get no gimmicks nothing this game could really claim as its own thing it was just Mario Kart local multiplayer Mario Kart it's very vanilla when I look back at it so why is it so revered by myself and so many other people is it because it was released during the multiplayer Renaissance of the Nintendo 64 era probably like I said Mario Kart 64 is definitely aged I'm not gonna argue that it's very obviously not as good as really any of these games that succeeded it however while it's dated I still think it's really fun particularly in multiplayer while the controls Graphics overall amount of content just don't hold up today it doesn't mean 64 isn't Fun far from it it can still be a blast and I think it's much better than Super Mario Kart Mario Kart 64 was initially called Super Mario Kart R during development all these letters this one the developers just decided well let's just do it and gave it the same subtitle as every other Nintendo 64 game of course of course the reason why they got rid of the r subtitle was potentially because of Sonic R releasing on the Sega Saturn another racing game with racing and gaming quotes you don't want to have the same name as your competition and you also don't want to have the same name as that so they just gave it the old 64 treatment while also getting rid of super in the title I never lost sleep over those chains the title Mario Kart gets the exact same idea across a Super Mario Kart does during development a few key things changed the most well known being the fact that kamik was a playable character before being replaced with Donkey Kong in the final game it's okay gamma got another chance as a Mario Kart character never I mean it's fine I probably prefer Donkey Kong being playable here I don't know many people who played Yoshi's Island saying damn I want to drive as this but it's just odd kamek was playable in Mario Kart 64 pretty deep into development it was taken out for no reason and never appeared playable again apparently there were hints of him being playable in Mario Kart 8's code but that's about it the feather item from Super Mario Kart was supposed to make a comeback in 64 about it was taken out before release I know people love this thing to death apparently but if Humanity made it two decades without a feather in a Mario Kart game we can cope with anything Mario Kart 64 released an early 1997 here in North America about half a year after the Nintendo 64 launch so it's understandable why the console is so heavily associated with this game it's basically been there since the very beginning he had a Nintendo 64 you had Mario Kart it was just the natural order of things with the emphasis on multiplayer with this thing yeah of course this game did well right alongside goldeneye's Smash Brothers and Mario party this opening canonically shows us how deep the Nintendo logo really is and is absolutely classic [Music] well let's get into Mario Kart 64. and that's Mario Kart 64 for you yeah this brings up a bit of a debate with multiplayer games should all primary content be available from the start or be unlocked over time I see a lot of talks surrounding this mainly concerning games like Smash Brothers and of course Mario Kart Mario Kart 8 Deluxe basically had most content unlocked from the get-go which did make sense that was an enhanced Port of Mario Kart 8 a game that already sold millions of copies so it would have really been fun for people to have to unlock all this stuff they already unlocked three years prior but then look at a game like Smash Brothers ultimate that only starts you with 8 characters and forces you to unlock the billion other ones there are zemblers were definitely annoyed with this but hey that made me appreciate each and every character that much more whenever I'd unlock them Mario Kart 64 is almost everything you could possibly do in the game available from the start so let's get down to a pros and cons list of having all the content unlocked from the get-go Pro you can just jump right into the game and do whatever you want con the amount of content you have to pick from can be overwhelming and it may be difficult to pick where to start not really with Mario Kart 64 but with like Smash Brothers or something Pro you don't have to do tedious tasks that you don't want to do to unlock the stuff that you actually want con having everything just handed to you from the start makes it harder to appreciate all the content in the game it weirdly feels like there's not much to keep you there like I'm not working towards anything here what's the point everybody has their own stance on this I'm personally on the I like unlockable side of things so Mario Kart 64 having all the courses all the characters all the modes but one available it makes this one of the weakest Mario Kart single player wise there's your Super Mario Kart forcing you to get gold in all the cups to unlock the final one could be frustrating but yet something you were working towards at least all cups are available from the start we got the Mainstay 50 100 150 cc speeds we can choose from and an actual character selection would you look at this Super Mario Kart now this is a Mario Kart roster we got Wario and Donkey Kong as newcomers it's everything I could have possibly wanted DK Jr you won't be missed I think he'd be a fun secret Edition to a new Mario Kart but come on regular DK deserves to spot more we don't have Koopa Troopa anymore but regardless this is classic Mario Kart right here we'll talk about the courses in a quick sec let's just bask in the glory of outdated Kart Racer this isn't necessarily an ugly game today it just looks outdated but it has its charm you can still tell what everything is the tracks are simple but still well designed I think it's way better than Super Mario Kart in this regard the tracks are actually 3D and it's way easier to judge distance and see everything the characters are 2D though just flat images of 3D models which was a smart move it helped this game Run as well as it does I definitely couldn't tell they weren't fully 3D as a kid and they have a certain quirkiness to them I like the bag of Yoshi's head is more iconic than Warren Harding my favorite 29th president of the United States I can easily tell you all the playable characters in Mario Kart 64 but who the was the 20th president I don't know the soundtrack has some incredibly memorable Tunes oh it was Woodrow Wilson although I would say Super Mario Kart had better ones the 64s are great it just can't beat its predecessor in my opinion at least now we have character voices a few are pretty spot on with what we have today and then there's toad he sounds like a 16 year old girl is capable of saying full scented design now I kind of like it Yoshi didn't have that regular fluttery voice we know him to have now and that started with Yoshi's story here he has the same sound effects we got in Super Mario World and I still have no idea what this sound is supposed to represent 64 introduced so many new items everything returns from Super Mario Kart except the feather and the coins I was cool with the coins but they were fairly Superfluous in my opinion and the feather oh man how dare they not include my favorite thing to weigh so I can get a shell or something they included a lot of new variants of items this time three mushrooms which give you three speed boosts and the super mushroom that just gives you as many boosts as you want for a limited time now fake item box something to trick your fellow players with and they're fairly hard to distinguish in this game compared to how they are in later entries I kind of like that three green and red shells like a ton of bananas and it the blue shell professionally known as the spiny shell targets the player in first place it's not horrible in this game I believe its true power was Unleashed in Mario Kart Wii but here it's fairly well balanced alright we're talking politics it's your favorite honor and today we're going to be settling this right now does Mario Kart 64 control poorly or all right yes Mario guard 64 isn't the best controlling Mario Kart it's manageable but Jesus Christ this thing can be terrifying behind the wheel drifting just like with the first game is a bit too all or nothing for me personally I feel like whenever I go to drift it's just too much you get a boost of speed for correctly pulling it off so there's more of a reason to do it here than with Super Mario Kart but I just don't want to risk it most of the time on 150 cc you can spin out by turning too quickly I don't like that the game control is fine like I still feel fairly in control of things it's just pretty loose and drifting still hasn't been perfected but then again sometimes the controls feel stiff as Hall hell like when I need to turn quickly I just can and run into whatever's in front of me couple that with the fact the saps in the first couple places cheat just like they did in Super Mario Kart and you have a recipe for well this is kind of annoying seriously here I used loads of speed boost yet Yoshi remains unrealistically far away how the courses you know what 64 is some of the most memorable and fun tracks in the entire series and also some of the most frustrating as well the mushroom cup houses some of the easiest courses in the game the later the cup the more difficult they usually are so makes sense while these are some of the easiest and they're definitely some of the most well designed these are just inherently enjoyable to race on calamari desert is easily the coolest one it has a train it's like compared to most humans calamari desert will always have that going for it the other ones are fine I think Koopa Troopa Beach would rank second Luigi Raceway might be third for me oh yeah sure MooMoo Farm has moles but I'm a sucker for traditional generic Mario kart tracks like this I don't know why flower Cup's a bit Lamer the coolest one here is Toad's Turnpike it's only sometimes cooler when Mario Kart has tracks like this that are like places in real life compared to fun colors and shapes with the wackier tracks frat base no land and choco Mountain aren't my thing achako has so many Ledges to fall off of and the overall design is boring who cares now I'm fine with Mario kart tracks having Ledges you can fall off of but this you gotta be kidding me so what the hell happened here frappe is better but nothing that great this cup ends things off with Mario Raceway I know I just said I like the generic Mario kart tracks but we literally just had one in the last cup and there's not much to distinguish this one from Luigi Raceway there's a pipe tunnel in Mario Raceway and just a tunnel in Luigi Raceway whoa starka Mario stadium is garbage this isn't course Design This is an intestinal tract it just goes on and on and on and much like choco Mountain the Ambiance isn't doing too much for me here hey copy and paste Warrior faces as much as you want they can't save this one in my opinion I like the concept of the whole stadium thing I just don't care for her here now sherbet land is a much more interesting frat based snow land it's definitely more difficult but that's to be expected Royal Raceway I like this one a track taking place nearby Peach's castle this is one of my favorites in the game simple but fun Bowser's Castle the setting in tone are amazing here but Jesus these hazards are just annoying they're not like oh watch out for this they're more like stop and wait for this swamp to do its thing and then go finally the special cup the most unique selection of tracks yet DK's jungle Parkway the only thing I really remember in this one is this giant jump but Yoshi Valley I remember because the game just can't comprehend you're even playing on this course it's so complicated that the game just says I'm not even gonna try and figure this one out and labels all positions as question marks it has another one of these hazards where sometimes you just gotta stop and wait but it's easily one of my favorite 64 tracks Banshee Boardwalk another one I keep forgetting about this is basically a next-gen version of the Ghost Valley tracks and Super Mario Kart it's all right but we end things off with a new take on Rainbow Road the longest Trek ever seriously this thing goes on forever it's not a particularly interesting rainbow road to be honest it's just kind of long overall I like a lot of these tracks forgot a handful of them exist and dislike a few of them I think the entire track selection is pretty decent but so far I've mainly been talking about this from the single player perspective in multiplayer these are all a blast I mean it's Mario Kart why wouldn't they be even the tracks I despise the fact I dislike them makes them fun in multiplayer it's weird how that works out it's so much fun to get frustrated alongside friends it's fun to see hazards absolutely ruin your friend's day and then mess you up as well the hazards in Mario Kart 64 absolutely obliterate players and it is the best I thought it took forever to recover in Super Mario Kart and no no have you seen Mario Kart 64. even hitting other players with items it's sharp and quick it's fantastic all these elements the hazards rubber banding AI some of the super long tracks weird controls they make Mario Kart 64 frustrating if you just want to go through all the tracks and get first place in single player but makes for a stupid fun multiplayer experience even to this day with no big unlocks there's not much incentive to continue playing by yourself but in multiplayer this is not an issue in the slightest it isn't the best Mario Kart but it was the original four player king of cart this is where Mario Kart truly started and it has an amazing battle mode four legendary Arenas plaque for yeah my funeral is going to be held there paddles to the death I love battle mode and 64 had one of the best ones still to this very day you can also mess around with time trials yeah these were never really my go-to in Mario Karts and if you get all the gold trophies in each of the 150 cc cups you get extra mode it's mirrored versions of the courses that was worth it Mario guard 64 is a still fun multiplayer wise is it frustratingly dated single player wise yeah Mario Kart 64 it's aged poorly I do agree with that to an extent but I think it's still much more playable and fun than some people give it credit it definitely stumbles with some track designs a handful are way too long a bit unfocused with so many hazards that just do way too much damage and so many Ledges you can just easily fall off of all that stuff this is a Mario Kart game it needs to have garbage like this but it feels a bit too much here but that's in terms of single player when you're just trying to win get first place and move on when it comes to multiplayer yeah this is still a crazy fun time not perfect by a long shot and you may as well just play the most recent Mario Kart instead but this is still loads of fun also the speedrunning community for this game is phenomenal and highly underrated it's so much fun seeing all the shortcuts and glitches they perform to skip laps I love it now of course the question Still Remains why is this still so revered when it's such a vanilla Mario Kart oh no this is where the modern Mario Kart formula was born the fact that it's so simple and pure makes it fun in its own way compared to something like Mario Kart 8. I'd still vastly prefer playing that compared to this and it may be a bit of nostalgia but 64 still has a lot of charm to it as dated as it is it's still fun and it's still Mario Kart also there's a lot of random things I keep forgetting you can do in this game like change the mini map and turn it into a speedometer in a much more artsy mini map or turn off the background music by hitting l I forgot you could do that I accidentally hit the L button and I thought it was a glitch but hey you'll learn something new every day yesterday I found out I was doing laundry wrong this whole time you gotta be kidding me hey y'all Scott here nothing makes the blind more uncomfortable than a good old-fashioned game of Charades let's go on eBay and look for a stack of Game Boy Advance games I mean what else has eBay meant for ah you see this one includes Mario Kart super Circuit this one has Mario Kart super Circuit here's a lot with Mario Kart super Circuit oh hey Bionicle and Mario Kart super Circuit from this I can tell Mario Kart super circuit's a really popular game that absolutely nobody won yes the very first portable Mario Kart title you could play the first two games on the go but that was a mess plus there was a rumor back in the day that supposedly a Mario Kart for the virtual boy was in development the only proof of this is some German magazine listing it as in the works and by in the works they meant possibly never was in the works and if it was in the works thank God they put this game out of its misery even if a virtual boy Mario Kart released this would have still been the first truly handheld Mario Kart it was always incredibly exciting to see what once was a Home console exclusive series make the jump to a portable to be able to play Mario Kart wherever you want that was a huge deal this was the first Mario Kart title I owned myself and I played this like crazy on road trips and I lost it at my uncle's house that was a rough patch of my career as a six-year-old well regardless of losing it I always retain some great memories of this title it had a certain charm with the graphics and music that always resonated with me to be honest this was the Mario Kart of my childhood Mario Kart super Circuit also known as they keep getting smaller came soon after the launch of the Game Boy Advance in 2001 and they definitely waited for the right time to actually put Mario Kart on a handheld and in my opinion this game made the Game Boy Advance look competent as all hell it was originally titled Mario Kart Advance which turned out to be the final name in Japan and it was developed by intelligent systems a developer well known for WarioWare Paper Mario Advanced Wars and that one series although Smash Brothers characters came from this was the only Mario Kart they ever developed I don't know why they specifically made this one I assume it was because Nintendo themselves were busy with other games at the time but who knows yeah there's just not a lot of background to this one it's a Mario Kart that came out well that's one point for super Circuit oh this is a close one super Circus the Mario Kart game everybody forgets about the one in my opinion that impacted the series the least that doesn't mean it's bad it's just the best worst Mario Kart it's obviously not something I'd actively want to play in comparison to you know most other Mario Karts but it's still a decent game I think it gives Super Mario Kart a run for its money if that means anything to you but does it deserve to be the highest rated Mario Kart of all time on Metacritic now I think more people have fond memories of Mario Kart DS in comparison to this one a DS was such a Monumental game in the series introducing so much that would become Staples of the franchise oh super circuits just kind of Mario Kart for Game Boy Advance and not much else I actually never owned Mario Kart DS and it's a day but obviously I did own Mario Kart super Circuit yeah I'm one of those guys these games are comparable just because they were the first two portable Mario Karts and I think it's fair to say they represent two very different eras of the series even though they were only released four years apart DS has that chaotic wacky fun of the modern games while super Circuit is far closer to the more skill based gameplay of Super Mario Kart and by more skill based I mean you can't just barf out a Bullet Bill and go we the computer players cheat here you have to deal with it and play better than them alright enough darling let's see why nobody cares about this game anymore battle screen wise foreign [Music] it's Mario Kart it uses 2D tracks just like Super Mario Kart but features the same character roster from Mario Kart 64 including a good majority of the same items with no new items introduced very similar character sprites to 64. the same character voices from that game are reused as well except we finally get some new Yoshi action this is just taking Super Mario Kart and Mario Kart 64 and making them do Unthinkable things to each other turning out in my opinion the most forgettable entry in the series it's strange though see it's obviously one of the least original Mario Karts but it weirdly has a lot of its own Style the music is definitely unique compared to the other card games and I really like it for that and with the visuals while the Sprites are based off of Mario Kart 64. as a whole it has some spunk seeing these characters all pixelated yet rotate around like they're fully 3D is oddly Charming the tracks have art associated with them and it's just an interesting looking game overall even with all of its limitations however since this is very similar style wise to Super Mario Kart we get a lot of the same problems here it's hard to see things in the distance or judge where you are in relation to the environment sometimes I'm yelling what do you mean I fell here and then I realized oh the game can't hear me Nintendo has customer support for a reason now you see following a Mario Kart 64 the developers obviously had a tough problem to overcome how do they make this game more fun than its predecessor you see that's where they really innovated they just didn't while this one was definitely more interesting to go back and play I just had more fun with Mario Kart 64. plus the fact this game didn't really introduce anything major to the series kind of makes it a Mario Kart that just kind of happened it just took the past two games mixed them together and blam it's really weird it feels like Super Mario Kart it looks like Super Mario Kart but various elements are taken from Mario Kart 64 and certain parts feel like that game as well while a bit of 64's more rkd feel is present here this is definitely most similar to the first game and that's evident by one major returning element while the feather item didn't return from Super Mario Kart intelligent systems made sure to bring back a fan favorite coins are back finally it's been so long since I haven't cared about coins in a Mario Kart game just like with super they're all over the track and collecting them increases your top speed but when you have zero or one coin left this game just loves letting you know with a persistent beeping and it happens a lot other Racers Give Me Love Taps all the time which makes you lose coins for cut six this feels like bumper cars now with the characters like I said it's just Mario Kart 64's roster I stand corrected there's one new addition to the roster random I would love to see the item box be a playable racer someday now with this game all the character stats are displayed I personally go with vanilla Mario and Luigi all the other characters are too lightweight too slow or too Yoshi I just found the most success with these guys I like that they got rare to provide Donkey Kong's model for this game I like the thought of intelligent systems trying to make it themselves we just can't do it the game controls it controls fine it's not like the greatest feeling in the world but it's not bad I think the best way to describe it is it probably controls exactly how you'd expect it to you look at a Sprite based racing game like this you control on a Game Boy Advance like yeah you probably able to get it it's not going to be the greatest but it's tolerable It Works it's fine for what it is it's just nothing that I go man I want to control this drifting still isn't my favorite thing to do here once again I find it more beneficial to not drift half the time yep it's official I'm certified worthless now one characteristic of super Circuit I obviously have to commend it has 40 tracks Jesus Christ they really pulled out all the stops with this one not only do they have 20 new tracks made specifically for this game but you can unlock all 20 of the tracks from Super Mario Kart and look they're actually full screen this time bringing back an assortment of retro tracks has been a staple of the series since Mario Kart DS but it technically initially started with this game I have to give them props the GBA loved itself some remakes and porous they definitely could have just ported Super Mario Kart to the system and call it a day but no the remake of Super Mario Kart was just a bonus you got for playing through the new game which was a fully featured original Mario Kart they didn't have to bring over the SNES tracks so this is really cool now unlocking the tracks is what some Scouts playing Super Circa right now would consider a pain yeah you had the first four cups unlocked from the get-go oh wait first four ah yes the lightning Cub yeah I haven't seen that one before this would eventually be relegated to one of the four retro track cups from Mario Kart DS onward but intelligent systems maintain they were making a Mario Kart game if they weren't putting the lightning cup in there so you have to play through all four cups if you get gold by placing first overall on each of them then the special cup unlocks and you can play The Final Cup in the game just kidding now you have to go back and complete all the cups again but now collecting at least 100 coins overall and that way you'll unlike the extra cups which are filled with the tracks from Super Mario Kart man measles are sounding pretty good right now now whichever engine class you complete this in the tracks you unlock don't transfer over to the other ones I unlock the special Cup in 100cc I still have to unlock it in 50 and 150 cc I tried 150 cc and did okay but then I said it I love being a wuss we're going 100. this isn't a difficult game it's just harder to pick up and play compared to the modern stuff it retains to that classic Mario Kart balancing from Super Mario Kart in 64. if you're in the nosebleeds all the way back in eighth place you have to actually be skilled enough to make your way back up the pack it's not super hard but you just can't Bank on getting a super overpowered item of bringing up the ranks CPUs rarely attack with items and they primarily just get speed increases keeping them on your tail consistently today some of the new tracksuit can be pretty neat we got the first Mario Kart track in history with rats ribbon Road Yoshi desert I love the music of snow land but similarly to Super Mario Kart we get a lot of repeated track themes and I love Bowser Castle so much I want six more thank God yeah that works against this game in my opinion it makes a lot of the cups feel repetitive when so many have a bastard Castle have a standard circuit course there's two coach tracks and then with all the super mario kart tracks it's like man here's four Mario circus from that game plus a lot of the themes of the new tracks are themes from Super Mario Kart so while yeah it's cool this game has so many tracks you get a lot of repeats couple that with the 2D designs the fact that most of the backgrounds are just sort of there there's not a ton of major gimmicks and that makes none of these tracks really stand out too much none of them I necessarily thought of as bad it's just they're all really average nothing was overwhelmingly cool or great but they got the job done nothing too memorable but nothing too bad now Mario Kart a Mario Kart without multiplayer so I'm gonna whip out the Wii U virtual concert release to play with some controllers why would I ever think that was gonna be possible bust out your GBA link cables because we're playing the definition of local multiplayer yeah it's it works you only need one copy of the game which is nice but only using one game cartridge limits you to only four courses you can play on and forcing everybody to play as Yoshi if you want a fuller experience as in being able to race on whichever course you want being able to play as whichever character you want or play battle mode get multiple copies of the game what do you think this was a charity there's time trials which I care about yeah right and then there's quick run which is just playing whatever course you want to that you have unlocked just for a quick run I have a lot of memories with Mario Kart super Circuit but it's very obvious to me why this one is very rarely brought up nowadays it's an interesting blend of the two games before it but it isn't much more than that plus Mario Kart is most well known for its multiplayer and this is easily one of the most difficult games to get that going on all the console entries you just need multiple controllers the DS and 3DS games you just need one copy of the game in multiple systems super Circuit you need one copy of the game multiple systems and Link cables and if you don't like playing basically a trial version of the game with your friends even if you own a full copy they need to have their own copies so you can play on all the courses or play battle mode it it's definitely quality but it's also not a necessary game to play today or a necessary one to look back on it didn't bring much to the series but it has decent albeit forgettable track design and the fact that it brought Mario Kart on road trips for me we'll always give it a special place in my heart so yeah so yeah critically so now I have to compare it to something over so how does Mario Kart super Circuit compare to classroom Jeopardy yeah it stinks hey y'all Scott here ever since the beginning of time in November of 2003 mankind has asked one question why is there only one game called Mario Kart Double Dash It's a title that fits most game releases however after a painstaking 20 minutes of research I think I finally cracked the code on why there's only one game called Mario Kart Double Dash we got two trademarks on this title Steve Nintendo didn't monopolize the industry we would have like nine games called that by now and here we have the college Essentials Mario Kart Double Dash is the only Mario Kart game with more than one exclamation mark it's the only Mario Kart with an exclamation mark but yes it deserves the two the fourth Mario Kart game the one on the GameCube the title that had the audacity to follow up Mario Kart super Circuit it's really interesting to see how the Mario Kart series evolved within its first few entries we go from Super Mario Kart to Mario Kart 64 and at this point you may have said oh man I can't wait to see how crazy the next one is I mean that's what you get for alternating between console and handheld versions of Mario Kart the next entry wasn't always going to look like a true Evolution but Double Dash was that after over half a decade of waiting after Mario Kart 64. we finally got a truly upgraded Mario Kart title in every way and that's incredibly obvious just looking at the reviews at the time of its release in 2003 what double Dash's reception was a bit mixed at the time they sure the vast majority of it was pretty positive but many reviewers felt a bit underwhelmed with the game it was such a long time between 64 and Double Dash I guess some were just expecting a bit more well let's take a look at Mario Kart Double Dash to see why exactly IGN would give it a 7.9 out of 10 those Savages Mario Kart Double Dash was announced at E3 2001 as simply Mario Kart for Nintendo GameCube and they pulled out all the stops with this one showing everybody what a true next-gen Mario Kart title would look like by putting Super Smash Brothers Melee models and go-karts interesting tactic this was either a very early prototype of Mario Kart on the GameCube or Nintendo switch like oh oh we need to show Mario Kart on the GameCube I got it nearly two years later in April 2003 Mario Kart Double Dash was formally unveiled was any of the E3 2001 clip indicative of what was revealed in April 2003 nope Double Dash was clearly doing things a bit differently compared to the three previous games the two characters in one card special items you can use based on what characters you picked land play for God's sakes this was looking to be the greatest Mario Kart Double Dash of all time after being playable at E3 2003 the game released in November of that year and people like me won't shut up about it so that was a short build up to release board game there's not much left to do other than actually play the thing oh wait I stand corrected we have to check out the bonus disc so this is why people gave a about this game if you pre-ordered Mario Kart Double Dash at certain stores you'd get a special edition including a bonus disc filled with demos and Game Trailers alright Mario Party 5 as a demo I get to pick the characters I play with I like to choose strange groups of characters like if you were invited to a party and these were the only ones there would you go just a handful of mini games to choose from here nothing crazy but nothing that would actively get me to not buy Mario Party 5. f-zero GX God I stink Just One race and then it boots it back to the menu oh yeah I guess that's enough to figure out if you're into f-zero GX or none but the other demos have so much more to them like Sonic Heroes you get two full stages here it's almost as long as Sonic forces Star Wars Rogue Squadron 3. this game still looks good to this day but whenever I see gameplay it's like Whoa man certain parts look like they were ripped right from the movies and finally we have Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles a big thank you to Konami for putting this demo in here and now I know for a fact I don't want to buy Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles you can get bonus items for Fire Emblem on GBA if you connect the little guy to the GameCube with Fire Emblem in it I don't own the game and before you ask you can't trick it into downloading the items into Mario Party Advance just trailers left I do like these on demo discs though because you get fairly high quality versions of trailers from back in the day it's especially cool when you see games earlier in development like a Pokemon Coliseum here doesn't even have a final logo yet and then watching the Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles trailer made me realize man I love Mario Kart the 1080 Avalanche trailer reeks of early 2000s with the choice of background music the promo for Kirby air ride is a promo for the Kirby right Back at you show which leads into an air ride promo I almost had to sound the alarms Harry Potter Quidditch World Cup I bought this for like five bucks at GameStop one day I played it for 10 minutes and never played it again SpongeBob SquarePants Battle for Bikini Bottom now we're talking this was the game back in the day but you don't have to take my word for it ask any person born in the late 90s were illegally obligated to shove this game down your throat and NBA Live 04. how many sentences start with I bought NBA Live 04 because of the Mario Kart bonus disc any little novelty for pre-ordering the game I mean you can cruise through the contents of this thing in a solid hour or so but it's still in this bonus now is there anything else to talk about before we actually play Mario Kart Double Dash the hell on Luigi's head is backwards we're off to a bad start if the L is backwards what does that mean for the rest of the game well there's only one way to find out [Music] I want to meet somebody with a tattoo of this title screen Mario Kart Double Dash is a standard Mario Kart title but with a Twist I mean that was evident by the fact that the first frame of gameplay shows more Luigi's than usual for the series two characters per cart you have to pick two before a race you can't just go at it alone as Birdo you have to pick a teammate the option would have been nice one character drives the other ensures they will get pulled over at some point and the gameplay it's Mario Kart life around the track and average of three times try to get first run into item boxes to use a random item against opponents the team aspect doesn't change the core gameplay that awful much but it does add some strategy one runs the other guns the character in front drives while the one in the back deals with the items you switch the characters by pressing the Z button and switching is integral to item play here you can hold two whole items at once now it's not like in previous games where if you grab something like a banana peel you could hold that behind you and then grab another item in reserve now in Double Dash you can grab two items at once by driving into an item box switching the character so the one in the back seat has their hands free and then run into another box to get another item you can't pass up this deal this allows you to choose which item you use first both characters hold on to one and you can switch between the characters to choose what you squirt out you can actually hold on to a specific item for as long as you can keep it in the driver's hands you can save a mushroom or something while you grab and use more items now just because you can hold on to two items at once it's really not like previous games you can't hold an item behind you as a form defense You're vulnerable at all times unless you throw a banana or shell behind you at the very last second if somebody's throwing something at you triple shells yeah those don't surround you you decide to surrender to flashiness over function and juggle now there are double item boxes usually and harder to reach places than the single item ones these give you two items instantly you don't have to switch characters or anything in fact when you use one of the two items the characters automatically switch positions so you can use your second item instantly there will be a test now because you have a partner you can actually team up with an actual human being to play co-op one player drives the other uses items give me an e give me an H this mode is just fine I'm happy it's here it's cool a Mario Kart game has a form of cooperative play but it just makes it so both players are experiencing only half the fun of Mario Kart especially the atom user there will be prolonged moments where you're just not doing anything but that's pretty much all the Dual characters amount to gameplay wise they're a fun addition but all they do is add a hint of strategy to racing from time to time nothing major but it still makes Double Dash really accessible you don't have to switch characters at all really but if you want to master the game you're gonna have to swap religiously it makes this game out of all the Mario Karts stick out in a really good way it's 807 I'm due for my weekly complaining about a Mario Kart's controls I mean I had something to whine about with all the games before this but with Double Dash my God they did it they finally nailed the controls of everything here especially the drifting something about using the gamecube's triggers in the drifting and Double Dash just go together so well it feels so good and we gotta talk about the rocket start and most Mario Karts give you a boost right at the start of the race if you start accelerating at a specific time during the countdown Double Dash gives you the Boost if you start accelerating the exact moment the light turns green and Christ did strict but you don't just have to do that you can tap the a button rapidly once the countdown begins to get the same results yeah I only do it this way why wouldn't I the controls may feel a bit looser than preferred but it's nowhere near as hard to pull off a drift as it was with previous games so the warrant's been updated now because we have two characters per card Double Dash had to include like 50 characters we got 20 damn it all the characters from 64 and super Circuit return alongside Koopa Troopa coming back from Super Mario Kart but we actually got more new characters at it than returning ones here just like death Daisy being playable and Mario Kart was inevitable so whatever Baby Mario and Baby Luigi this raises more questions than answers Koopa paratroopa these two are literally the same character except one's the product of crossbreeding Diddy Kong Bowser Jr Waluigi all are characters that make total sense for the series King blue and Peter piranha are total yeah we had some extra time and development and felt like drawn circles but they're really fun characters to have as options Birdo and they introduced Toadette not just introduce her to Mario Kart but introduce her as a character in general this was her first appearance ever and the first time I asked what are these legally considered DOTA was definitely just created to give toad a partner in this game because every character is associated with another they all have a partner Marine Luigi Peach and Daisy Bowser and Bowser Jr King Boo and Petey piranha because you can't have one without the other now the characters having designated Partners doesn't mean you have to use both you can mix and match these guys any way you please morally I feel it's just right to pick the characters that are already Partners but I love making combinations that just make no sense like how the hell did we get to this point I do love the character selection in this game just for having all the Mario characters you'd expect to have in a Mario Kart plus some why the you can't have a Mario Kart roster without some why the folks he also get a selection of different types of carts for the first time and not every character can use every card but you usually get a selection of three or so vehicles per character combination you have a lot to choose from when it comes to character combinations and card types to affect your speed and weight but this is just where the star strategy begins when picking characters each character team has their own special item only those characters can use Mario and Luigi can barf out Fireballs Peach and Daisy have hearts that protect them and can also steal some items Yoshi and Birdo have eggs that home in on other players and break apart showering the ground with three items Baby Mario and Baby Luigi have Whiplash Koopa Troopa and Koopa paratroopa have triple shells they're not available to everybody in this game only they can use them that's kind of raw Donkey Kong and Diddy Gung have a giant banana peel Bowser and Bowser Jr have a giant Bowser shell these are both a self-explanatory as they get Wario and Waluigi have bombs and Toad and Toadette have a golden mushroom again an item that was once available to everybody now exclusive to only two characters King Boo and Peter piranha don't even have their own special items instead they can randomly get any special character exclusive item in the game Jesus now mixing and matching the characters makes it more random with special items you get like if I pick Luigi in paratroopa because they're both products of cross breeding I can get the fireballs and the triple shells but if I really just want the Fireballs it's easier just to pick Mario and Luigi so it's a Surefire bet my special item will be some Fireballs when you have a mix and match team if you want a higher chance of getting a specific character special item you have to make sure they're the one in the back of the car which I'm not always paying attention to no new general items that everybody can use though the only new items in Double Dash are the special ones that and the fact that items that were once usable by everybody like the golden mushroom and triple shells are now special items they're pretty lame but I love the idea of character specific items in this game if you're in Super Mario Kart character specific items did exist but they were only used by CPUs I love that there's actually a reason to pick characters over others I'm sure Mario Kart characters vary in terms of weight but overall you just kind of pick a Mario Kart character because oh this one looks cool I'll play as this one Double Dash actually gives you a reason to want to play as different characters and I love that but as much fun as the specials are they're pretty overpowered that makes them a ton of fun to use but it does make Double Dash crazier than all hell this game is pure chaos this is the craziest Mario Kart out there you will never have a couple of seconds go by without like three items flying past you with two characters per card that means more items are out there than usual and with the special items being so huge and overpowered it just makes playing this game absolutely insane if you're sitting down to play through Double Dash to unlock the hidden characters and tracks it's a mess if you're sitting down to play Double Dash with friends it is some of the most fun you can muster out of any Mario Kart you get knocked around so much items are everywhere and special items like Bowser shell and the giant banana take up an entire County's worth a size it's a lot of fun in multiplayer but a lot of the strategy that goes into double Dash's new elements is sadly almost completely pointless with the amount of random happening all the time it's physical wonky sometimes you out of balance is crazier than I remember this is a train wreck of a game to sit down and try to complete in single player but that makes it ridiculously fun in multiplayer well let's move on to the tracks we go back to the standard number of tracks from Mario Kart 64 16 across four cups the mushroom Cup starts off with Luigi's circuit yeah that's the stupidest date I've ever seen but it's your standard no-nonsense Mario Kart course this is your lame stepdad's favorite track this is an interesting one just because you can pass by Racers going in the opposite direction of you based on how the track layout is Peach Beach and dry dried desert are okay just nothing special to be honest Peach speech has the interesting distinction of being yet another one of the stupidest dates I've ever seen so stupid I might just censor it but then we have baby Park a 7 lap oval that's it because of how small this track is and the amount of labs and the amount of this is a fun one so many items blazing around all the racers are rubbing up against each other it's crazy how one of double Dash's greatest tracks is a Circle flower cup mushroom bridge is all right I mainly remember it just because the music music sounds like business is getting done Mario circuits a less memorable Luigi circuit to me just because it ain't a lanky eight that's for sure there's a chain jump though that's pretty fun Daisy Cruiser is the track from Double Dash you're on a cruise ship you can go through a dining area where the tables are shifting all over the place you can fall down this hole damn it Waluigi Stadium's a fun time it's like the Double Dash take on 64's Wario stadium and it has a whole lot of piranha plant budget cuts I like this one because it really does feel like a Motocross Stadium it's a good time start cup sherbetland is garbage I hate this one there's too many freezies Mushroom City is a bit of a cooler take on mushroom Bridges concept but it's a bit harder Yoshi circuit finally enters the question what does it feel like to drive on Yoshi just the fact that they were able to make a good track out of an outline of Yoshi is all it takes to make this the best circuit track of the game DK Mountain this part with the crack lame but everything else is great now you have to get first overall in the 100cc Stark up to unlock the special cup and after you do we have Wario Coliseum a two lab course because of how honking along this thing is but if it's a really fun one I love the atmosphere of being in this giant go-kart cage match the dino dino jungle is neat just because of its use of dinosaur feet overall this one's okay but Bowser's Castle feels like an epic adventure every single part of this course has something crazy going on I don't know what it is with this one but I love this rendition of Bowser's Castle and Rainbow Road this one just annoys me I always feel like the camera track is at an angle to where it's too hard to see what the hell is coming up I proudly get last place every time so getting first overall on the 150 cc cup is what pure pain feels like and it unlocks the all-cup tour a marathon of all the tracks in the game thus far there's nothing new to any of this it's literally just playing all the tracks in the game again am I really gonna go through with this no I did it anyways I mean you have to place first in all cup Tour on 150cc to unlock mirror mode and then you have to beat the Star Cup on miramo to unlock King Boo and Petey piranha you can't have one without the other Toad and Toadette are the only other unlockable pair of characters and they're unlocked by beating the special Cup on 100cc got toad is such a flaccid unlockable character like is it really exciting to unlock Toad in a Mario Kart game who goes holy holy sh oh my God I mean I'll give Double Dash to that towards so far had barely anything to keep you playing single player wise and Super Mario was just really tedious because he had to get first place and everything to unlock the special cup but with Double Dash just with what I said earlier this game is nuts you'll have a good run with a cup looking to get first place overall and then reality sets in it can be tedious and difficult to unlock everything but hey it's not as bad a Super Mario Kart the hookup door actually wasn't that bad overall it takes about 40 minutes but because you have so many tracks to get through there's a lot more wiggle room to screw up well we can piss off to battle mode which is in fact one of my favorite parts of Double Dash at least one of my favorites as a kid look at these Maps cookie land Block City pipe Plaza this one I like this one it's the most boring geographically but it's the most GameCube geographically there are actually more battle modes this time outside of balloon battle we have Bob on blast where you just try to hit the most Racers without getting hit as much as they do and then there's shine Thief where you have to NAB the Shine from Mario Sunshine and keep it until the timer goes down to zero there was quite a bit of Mario's Sunshine Love thrown into Double Dash and most obviously the awards ceremony at the end of a cup now all these Maps can be played across all the different battle modes and yes that includes the two unlockable Maps son of a alright let's unlock Luigi's Mansion in tilta cart yeah that's Luigi's Mansion and yep that is tilt a card finally let's talk one of double Dash's defining traits not many have experienced this including myself but it offers land play who can play this game with up to 16 people by connecting up to 8 GameCubes together with its Broadband adapter that way everybody can have their own TV screen you don't have to abide by the laws of split screen and look at what your opponents are doing now I'm personally fine with four player split screen it works perfectly fine in Double Dash but to have your own screen and to have 16 people playing at the same time that was unheard of for Mario Kart it's an awesome feature that not many have experienced but from what I've heard it was pretty magical so that was Mario Kart Double Dash is it the best Mario Kart it might be everybody has their own personal favorite Mario Kart I've heard countless people go on and on about how Super Mario Kart is the best and I mean I listen to them Super Mario Kart is the best one because of how simple and intuitive it is the track design is great and the atoms are balanced it's challenging and the battle mode is phenomenal I find that each of the Mario Karts before Double Dash well good in their own respects have aged poorly in many ways Double Dash was the first one that didn't feel dated to me and while that means all games after Double Dash also don't feel dated stuff like Mario Kart DS Wii in seven there's not reason to play those games compared to the latest one I'm sure there are a few but overall I'm more likely to play something like Mario Kart Wii as a novelty to look back at how Mario Kart was back in 2008 but then I'd just go to play the most recent Mario Kart with friends dumbledash isn't like that it's the system even considering any new Mario Kart that's out it's a special game it's not perfect it's not the definitive Mario Kart experience but it's the most unique and one of the most enjoyable and I can sort of see why some reviewers at the time or even people today weren't too thrilled with it it's very lacking in substantial single player content and also didn't really go above and beyond with providing loads more content than 64. plus the quality of the tracks as a whole isn't the best Mario Karts ever been there's a good view that I adore and love to this day but to be honest the majority of them are just kinda okay but I think it makes up for it with its gameplay its uniqueness and its polish the animations just seeing characters lose their bounds on edges play around with the items this feels like modern Mario stuff it's not dated in the slightest and that's just one of the reasons why I think Double Dash is still so great all these years later Double Dash has barely aged a bit it's still a blast to play and it offers so much that no other Mario Kart has now that still makes it fun to play today but what makes it truly one of the best Mario Karts honestly it was the bonus disc hey y'all Scott here and I'm on a quest a quest to find a Mario Kart I grew up playing this is gonna be harder than I thought oh what system is this for Mario Kart DS to many was the definitive Mario Kart experience not me though I've mentioned this before but I was born into a super Circuit Family I owned Mario Kart super Circuit played Double Dash at a friend's house skipped out on DS and went knee first into wheat this was one of the only Mario Karts for a while there that eluded me don't get me wrong I wanted all of this but it just didn't happen years later I've definitely played this one a bit here and there to get a feel on what exactly I missed out on but I never dived too deep into it all I mean yeah I played a couple of races but Mario Kart 7 and a were giving me the stink eye when I was doing it so I just went back to playing those well that's about to change see even after its successors came out you always see people considering DS to be the best Mario Kart and it didn't even have its own unique gameplay gimmick like Double Dash it didn't have the split screen of 64 it didn't have gingivitis like super Circuit it was pretty much a very traditional Mario Kart experience now let's see what exactly is so special about this one the Nintendo DS was formerly unveiled at E3 2004 sporting a fun shitty design tons of games early in development were shown with one of them being a Mario Kart for the system now I have Mario Kart super Circa was impressive for cramming a real-life Mario Kart onto a handheld Mario Kart Diaz was impressive for cramming a real life 3D Mario Kart onto a handheld like if you held the footage back and squinted a bit it looked almost as good as Mario Kart 64. I mean for a portable system at the time this looked insane super Circa was fine for the time but to have a true 3D Mario your car on the go that was really cool being in 3D was just straight up better for the series while 2D worked 3D was obviously Superior and we were still in that era where a 3D game on the go was pretty mind-blowing now originally Mario Kart Diaz sported a very traditional logo for the series they decided to tilt it and spank a DS logo in the corner and look it even has Racing Stripes now this is a fun logo for what obviously is going to be a temporary title there is a lot to unpack here so the finalized Mario Kart DS logo this was where the modern logo for the series started I feel like I've been stuck in an AutoZone the past 14 years so yeah I think this is a much better logo in terms of brand recognition it gave the Mario Kart series its own look like if I show you the M from the old Mario Kart logo up close this could be really any Mario game and that's right it was Mario Party 4 this whole time however this logo feels more Gran Turismo than Mario Kart to me but I mean I can live with it as long as they update this temp title and come up with a fun subtitle for this game if there's better evidence on why not to try in this world I haven't seen it the Mario Kart naming schemes have never been good but we are actually on a pretty good streak with the last two titles these are actual subtitles that actually identify what the game was all about but then Nintendo said that's great but let's make the entire identity of our games rely on the system's name it didn't really matter though because Mario Kart DS became one of the best selling entries in the series after being released in November of 2005 over 23 million copies were sold there is a special DS bundle a special DS bundle and cover it that supported an unhealthy amount of flexibility I think it's about time to clear my schedule for the day and finally give this game my undivided attention this is Mario Kart DS here we go [Music] all right so super Circuit has the better opening we'll put this near here just in case things go more downhill so starting things off we can actually draw an emblem for our cart now a lot of people took this as an opportunity to draw something crotchy but I wrote my social security number either way I gotta censor it I love stuff like this it is completely unnecessary and during gameplay you're not really going to see the front of your car that much but it's the thought that counts I love the fact they give you the option to do this selecting our character we have the Mainstay group that's been here since Mario Kart 64 nothing special however we get to see them all in glorious Nintendo DS 3D Donkey Kong imagine stepping on this model with bare feet that would sting like a there's a certain charm to the low polygonal models they used here it's not like back on the N64 where the models were low poly and were earlier designs of the characters by 2005 they kind of perfected the Mario cast design I mean they haven't changed much since then peach got thicker lips Lottie da so taking these designs and squishing them down into shapes with like 12 sides that's definitely commendable and interesting these don't look very much like the characters just with as many corners cut as they could without sacrificing the designs too much however these ain't aren't the only characters in Mario Kart DS we were graced with four unlockable ones obtained after completing certain Grand Prix Daisy and Waluigi are back give a sh but we have two characters who have never been in Mario Kart before dry bones what do you think it would feel if they didn't pick you they picked a dead U but we saved the best for last the final unlockable character in Mario Kart DS Rob it's about time now before you ask I don't know why this is the first time we've had a character playable in Mario Kart that has nothing to really do with Mario don't get me wrong I love that he's here it's so weird and different and wacky but why well let's hop into a race and I finally figured it out why everybody loved Mario Kart DS it's Mario Kart again I'm seeing a pattern with these games not only is it Mario Kart again but in 2005 this was definitely the definitive Mario Kart experience and to this day I'd argue it's the most well-rounded game in the series it doesn't really skimp out on much it offers so much of what people loved about the series to begin with while also introducing tons to the series like Rob gameplay is much more traditional in comparison to the last game Double Dash at no two characters per cart no character specific items in fact the bomb which was a character specific item in Double Dash graduated and became a real life item only two brand new items this time around though the Bullet Bill which is a much simpler version of the chain chomp from Double Dash when you're in the nosebleeds in eighth place you might get a Bullet Bill activate it and sit back for a few seconds the game does all the work you deserve a break and the bloopers here as well it sprays ink on your opponent's screen to make it harder to see now this is somewhat effective in multiplayer but when I'm playing single player and I get the blueprint this does nothing for me what I obscure the computer's view their computers they don't have a view you know what's nice though we get a map of the bottom screen on the DS I'm gonna throw it out there that marker Diaz had one of the most boring yet greatest uses of the bottom screen on the handheld like yeah this ain't crazy but it's super convenient it doesn't obscure the action on the top screen it's easy to glance down there you can see what items everybody has you can probably play the entire game on the bottom screen if you're a complete maniac and swap between up close and personal or bird's eye views so overall this is a pretty standard Mario Kart nothing that crazy in terms of gameplay changes but solid as can be however there is one thing that makes this game the greatest game to feel like a Abomination when you're playing against people who actually know what they're doing drifting in Mario Kart DS it feels good you get a little Boost after pulling it off correctly hopping with the shoulder button rocking on the d-pad a bit until you see Sparks that ain't nothing new but I watched this guy's video from 2010 and I'm shocked Legend has it if you pull off drips constantly you'll get the upper hand you just go way faster than anybody totally not cheating this is called snaking and it's I refuse you could technically snake in previous games but it's most prevalent in DS and I will not become one of them I'll play how Nintendo wanted me to play damn it I will beat the Wario CPU with dignity let's move on to the track available and Mario Kart Diaz has the notable distinction of having some of the most unbelievably memorable and creative courses in the entire series as well as some of the most forgettable shrimp Ridge sure the mushroom Cup starts things off with Figure 8 circuit and by God they didn't lie this is a basic Mario Kart track as basic Mario kart tracks get I have a weird fondness for that basic Mario Kart aesthetic but nobody played this track and said what the Yoshi Falls it's pretty good it's inoffensive it's like a cough drop like I'm glad it exists but it's nothing I need all the time cheap cheap beach nothing sticks out like crazy with this one gotta be honest the only reason I remember it is because they brought it back in Mario Kart 8. but let's take a moment to appreciate they didn't update the Mario Kart logo on the banner to the new one Luigi's Mansion oh hell yes based on the GameCube game it's such a cool idea for a track but they had to barf all this mud in this one section you wake up some days really happy and then you realize there's a bunch of mud in Luigi's Mansion Desert Hills not a fan of this one I don't know why I've always had a thing for disliking desert courses however Delfino Square more than makes up for it the bridge goes up and you get some fun little shortcuts I love when these tracks actually feel like what they're trying to represent which in this case it's a town just the layout feels so real and fun and interesting it's just great all around Waluigi pinball there it is the definition's been blank all these years this is an absolutely amazing idea for a racetrack being on a giant pinball table with all types of electronic neon imagery and sound effects going on it's beautiful shrimp Ridge sure DK pass is a solid enough track but then we move on to tick tock clock oh my God compromising is amazing Mario circus just a feel-good track nothing crazy but just enjoyable to go through Airship Fortress so like from Mario Brothers 3 that's so cool I gotta hand it to Mario Kart DS it really Nails the fan service a ton of tracks are actually based on previous Mario games but the themes alone make for some incredibly fun courses in their own right Wario stadium is a much more colorful and enjoyable track compared to N64 Wario Stadium Peach Gardens I like the concept of I absolutely hate playing through a Bowser Castle honestly I only really remember this section where you're on the rotating rod and the shortcut and that's about it and finally Mario Kart DS's Rainbow Road you have a loop-de-loop that's pretty fun other than that overall I quite like the track selection here while there are a handful of forgettable tracks Diaz has some of the coolest ideas for courses out there and then they added 16 more tracks on top of that sure super Circuit had 40 tracks but 20 of them were from Super Mario Kart and there's not a ton of variety in Super Mario Karts track selection 16 more tracks four from each of the previous Mario Kart games this added so much value to the game it was awesome to finally have 3D versions of Super Mario Kart and super Circuit tracks and to also play Mario Kart 64 and Double Dash tracks on the go now they did neuter baby Park that originally consisted of seven laps and now in DS it's five oh man it's engine closer and while a lot of these tracks are great to see back there are some odd inclusions Luigi's circuit from Double Dash was already kind of a figure eight and they made a track called Figure Eight circuit in the game and having 8 of the 16 tracks come from Super Mario Kart and super Circuit and while it's cool they're in 3D now they aren't nearly as interesting or fun to play on As the new or N64 and GameCube tracks the addition of retro tracks kind of shows off one of the problems people had with double dash at the time of its release people looked at the track list and kind of said that's it now Mario Kart has twice as many tracks as usual with half of them being remade from previous entries it made it so not only are you looking forward to the new tracks of a new Mario Kart but what tracks they're gonna bring back but that's not the only thing Mario Kart DS added let's talk about online let's say I didn't try only specific courses were available to play online which I find interesting and it was far from in depth but just having the ability to play online multiplayer the ability to play with friends across the world the fact that DS introduced this feature to the series that cannot be understated this was one of the biggest introductions to Mario Kart it's a shame it's not functional anymore but hey we can still play local multiplayer you can link up to other DS's without any wires hell yeah and you can just use one copy of the game as long as your other friends have DS's they're good to go they're required to play a shy guy which is the perfect way to shame somebody for not buying the game battle mode is back and it comes standard with a stage taking place on top of a Nintendo DS all right okay why did they stop doing this I love this balloon battle is similar to what we've had before but this time you can gain Balloons by blowing into the microphone yeah they found a use for that thing and it makes each and every Battlefield that much more intense since you're constantly running out of breath shine Runners is here which isn't necessarily the same as shine Thief you have to run around and collect more shine Sprites than anybody else and no you cannot run out of breath in this mode it's prohibited now what if you're all by yourself the Mario Kart Series has never been the greatest when it comes to serving its lonely customers well welcome to mission mode in my opinion one of the greatest ideas the Mario Kart series had that they just refused to do again you get these little pre-made challenges and boss fights it's nothing amazing or something that'll make anybody go what the but it gives you something to do single player wise and it's fun it's fun to try and get the best time completing these missions it's fun to just beat them in general it's just such a great mode to have and I just don't get why they never brought it back to this day mission mode might not have been anything mind-blowing but just the fact that it gave you this fun checklist of things to do by yourself made it so then Mario Kart Diaz was almost as fun in single player as it wasn't multiplayer multiplayer was always going to be more fun because hey what else were you going to do with your friends on the school bus even though I didn't have this game for the longest time I think this is one of the most well-rounded games in the series it has great single player content great multiplayer the tracks are good battle mode is here introduced online there really wasn't any part of Mario Kart DS they slacked on which you can't really say about a lot of the other entries actually the intro really really wasn't as good as super circuits here there I was about to get out of bed and face the challenges life had for me that day but then the trauma came back and and I just couldn't do it with this in the room Mario Kart Wii is the best Mario Kart for the Wii but at that point it's also the worst this is one divisive game people either consider this to be one of the worst Mario Karts or one of the best and I am guilty of committing the former this was the first Mario Kart for a Home console I owned myself that I mean I played 64 in Double Dash of friends houses and I contracted super Circuit so this wasn't my first rodeo rather my first one under my own roof with my own TV and I feel like that was the case for lots of people as Mario car we sold over 37 million copies more people have Mario Kart Wii than scurvy why was this the Mario Kart to really break the ice with Humanity well I'm glad I asked allow me to introduce my three-step program to be just like Mario Kart Wii Step One release on the Wii you guys know the Wii right everybody has one and if you don't think you do check your couch cushions one probably slipped in there the Nintendo Wii sold over 100 million consoles everybody was going crazy for it so releasing a Mario Kart title on it yeah it was gonna Bleak cash step two have five Mario Kart games on five prior systems the series was already wildly successful at this point in the fact that pretty much everybody bought a Wii meant that people who might have only played one Mario Kart in the past well they have a new Mario Kart to play on this new platform they bought and for the people who never played a Mario Kart prior to the Wii step three wheel Mario Kart Wii came bundled with the Wii wheel an accessory that really put you in the driver's seat this is plastic this was the big reason why Mario Kart Wii was so popular that we was already doing really well because you could swing the remote to play golf it felt so natural well what if you could do the same for traffic violations yes Mario Kart Wii came in a chubby little container filled with Mario Kart Wii and we will I remember really wanting this game because of the Wii wheel the idea of driving in a video game with an actual wheel like what the game was announced at E3 2007 alongside the Wii wheel and this is how the audience reacted to the Wii wheel a custom wee wheel that makes its debut with Mario Kart for Wii and this is how any scene being reacted did you see the wheel Mario Kart Wii released an April 2008 worldwide and the world took notice the Wii itself for the first couple years of its life was notoriously hard to find in stock at stores and Mario Kart Wii was the same for a bit that game was tough to get your hands on right when stores got copies in they sold out everybody wanted this game in the summer of 2008 an 11 year old Scott went to Target to buy Super Smash Brothers Brawl but he saw they had one copy left of Mario Kart Wii I am still shocked about that I only had enough of my own money for Smash Brothers so I made a deal with my mom where she would buy Mario Kart Wii but I'd have to wait until Christmas to play it the next couple months were torturous knowing that this game that nobody could get their hands on was somewhere hidden in my house I just didn't know where that's why I chip my games now Mario Kart Wii was a game I really did want but I think what put it over the edge for me was just how hard it was to get a hold of like I didn't want leprosy until I realized how few people got it but a few days before Christmas 2008 I had a friend over and my mom decided to be civil and let me have the game early I was so happy and pissed this game takes no press owners I had my phone with this game but I hated it too it's Mario Kart at its absolute best and also its absolute worst so I think it's about time I battle my inner demons and step into the Mario Kart Wii Arena once again to see if this game is actually good or not let's do it Yep this was my hell I don't like how the title screen is the same as the box which is the same as the box and I don't like how zoomed in the standard cases compared to the full art it feels cropped and weird Mario Kart Wii like you could come up with a better name actually early in development they considered the title Mario Kart X but then settled on Mario Kart Wii because it just fit the vibe of the game here we have the original logo it is just a copy of Mario Kart DS's logo and we ended up with this blue circle thing which is on the back of the wee wheel might as well talk about this thing now yes this is the Wii wheel we insert the Wii remote in it and Bam we have a steering wheel to control the game with it was an extremely novel concept and the wheel itself is crazy well designed I mean it should be Nintendo went through way too many prototypes for a wheel a wheel there's a hole for the weezed wrist strap to go through the wheel itself has an enlarged B button that's just begging to be pressed and on the side we have a little see-through section for the IR sensor which means you can still select stuff with the remote while it's inserted the Wii wheel is a testament to just how versatile the Wii remote could be you can just smack it into any plastic you throw at it here bam it's a wheel now if you wanted to use the Wii wheel with other games I mean sure go ahead but always look for the compatible with we Wheel logo on the box to make sure you can it's plastic we have multiple save files we can select which is actually really nice you don't have to start over from scratch if you're just dying to unlock Baby Luigi again here we have 11 year old Scott he was pissed off for some reason and didn't complete as much of the game as he wanted to we have the standard Grand Prix time trials battle mode The Usual Suspects 16 brand new tracks and just like with Mario Kart DS we brought back 16 retro tracks from the past five games no repeats for Mario Kart DS either completely new retro tracks well let's start fresh and hop into a race [Music] [Applause] all right why Scott didn't like Mario Kart Wii that much number one it doesn't look great don't get me wrong this game looks fine overall and it runs flawlessly at a rock solid frame rate that's all that really matters but my God this game I never liked how it looked the graphics have this weird hazy glow slight blur desaturation to it all which just looks odd character models in my opinion look worse than how they did in Double Dash look at Bowser look how jaggy his model is look at Donkey Kong look at funky Kung his elbows could open cans the characters have this shiny plastic look to them and just the overall aesthetic of Mario Kart Wii just isn't that appealing to me it's so Bland it has no character like look at this one compared to Double Dash what this is the font you use at gunpoint now listen I wasn't expecting the world from this game visually it is on the Wii after all I cracked one open and Nintendo just left an IOU this console isn't powerful but it's more powerful than the GameCube and it's capable of pumping out incredible looking games my main issue with Mario Kart Wii is that it just doesn't look better than Double Dash in fact I'd say Double Dash is the better looking game it's more colorful the character models look better and it's just cleaner looking I think the best way to describe Mario Kart Wii's visuals it's just painfully underwhelming at least you can use all kinds of different controllers now the one Nintendo's screaming at us to use the most is the Wii remote in the Wii wheel to accelerate hold two use an item hit the d-pad if you want to throw behind her ahead of you if possible you can hit up or down perform drips hit the B and finally to steer your cart you have to turn the wheel motion controls are right yes motion controlled Mario Kart I have to hand it to Nintendo the wheel setup works surprisingly well all the buttons are laid out perfectly for Mario Kart this way and there's not really any compromises you have to make by controlling it this way it's not like with Smash Brothers where you hold the Wii remote on its side to play and just end up thinking if only there are plenty of people who actually prefer using the wheel and motion controls in general to play Mario Kart I'm not one of those people I don't actively hate it but I never took the time to get fully used to it I just feel like every time I turn I turn way harder than I ever wanted to and here we have why Scott didn't like Mario Kart Wii that much number two he only played with the Wii wheel and was just not good at the game in general these two things do not go well together at all I mean I was young and I was stupid Mario Kart Wii offers an automatic drift function where you don't have to worry about doing it yourself the game does it for you this was definitely to make the game more friendly for casual players since the Wii's audience was filled with them I totally kept selecting automatic drifting as a kid because what I'll let the game do it for me what's the point of doing it myself when the game will do it for me that's probably why I didn't do well with this game if you can't drift manually well you don't have to play with the Wii wheel you can just play with the Wii remote on its side if you want I wish I knew that when I was younger I bought a second Wii wheel for friends I could have bought food now if the motion controls aren't your thing you can plug in a nunchuck to control the game with an analog stick I mean yeah this is fine but I generally go with the Classic Controller or the GameCube controller just much easier to control this way in my opinion it's just a much more comfortable and reliable method but we do have one major issue see Mario Kart Wii introduced something big the trick system right before your cart goes Airborne if you shake your controller at the last second you can perform a trick in the air which gives you a boost when you hit the ground honestly a fantastic addition to the gameplay it adds so much interactivity and purpose to the track layouts it makes ramps in the older Mario Karts feel pointless like if I can't trick off of them what's the point just a little hint of strategy is added this way and it's so good problem though if you use the classic or GameCube controller to perform tricks you must hit the d-pad this is like trying to tie your shoes while driving I mean it works but there are so many great buttons on these controllers why not use them another new element of gameplay introduced with Mario Kart Wii was bikes this title is a lie cards aren't your only option you can select a variety of two-wheeled vehicles and and they are infinitely better than carts while driving on straightaways with your bike you can shake the controller up or hit up on the d-pad on the everyday man's controller to do a wheelie you go a bit faster by doing this so it's a good idea to do it when you can now what do cards have to make up for the lack of wheelies you can boost a bit more on drifts but it's not that big of a deal bikes are easily the go-to vehicle of choice in this game well might as well move on to why Scott didn't like Mario Kart Wii that much number three [Music] wow I have had races with like four blue shells being thrown out sometimes why do players get the Bullet Bill like 10 seconds to do a race like do they really need that do they need to catch up this early on when everybody is this close to each other oh wow a blooper that didn't do anything Mario Kart Wii's items are out of control primarily the blue shell appears far too frequently and the new items introduced don't add all too much to the game the mega mushroom it was introduced in New Super Mario Brothers it was a complete gimmick there and is a complete gimmick here I would always get crazy excited when I got this and after activating it I'd grow big for like five seconds and then we're all back to reality the mega mushroom is pretty much a less effective star like it makes you invincible to a few things but when other people get a star or a Bullet Bill or lightning yeah it goes away but it's so short-lived and just makes you grow big there's not much to this one the pal block so this is from the original Mario Brothers arcade game where you could hit this three times to hit all enemies on screen in Mario Kart Wii if one player gets a pal block and activates it everybody in front of them gets a pal block on their screen and three two one it it's annoying just like the mega mushroom the pal block is pretty much a less effective version of another item in this case lightning the lightning affects all players while the pow-block only affects all the players in front of you and causes everybody to spin out and lose their items but the main difference is you can avoid the pow blocks effect if you're in the air while it goes off which that only depends on what part of the track you're at if you're about to swap Spit with a rep while you're in luck if the power is coming and the final new item is the thunder cloud God bless the Thundercloud an item that breaks the conventions of Mario Kart an item that hurts me this was a big pill to swallow I had to think about this one a lot when you get the Thundercloud your speed increases slightly but you have to bump into another racer to pass it on Pronto because if you don't you'll eventually get spanked with lightning I think it's a cool idea I like the fact that it does bring a different type of tension and strategy to the items it actually brings a lot of strategy and quick thinking it's just I don't want it so yeah the item balance is off the charts too many blue shells bloopers you get at least one pow block appearing per race which is just annoying and brings everything to a halt and you lose all your items the new items aren't that great but the item balance made me feel alive don't get me wrong it is beyond frustrating there's a certain charm to that it's like playing Mario party like yeah it's but the fun kind of you could be the best player in the world and then get hit by an item and then another item and then another there's nothing you can do about that sure that happens in other Mario Karts but Mario Kart Wii is so ridiculous with its items it's cranked up to the max it's so chaotic and unbalanced but that's what makes it fun in its own way it gives the game its own feel but it's still number three on why Scott didn't like Mario Kart Wii that much got this game pissed me off now Mario Kart Wii features the most playable characters in the series so far 26 total and it's a pretty decent roster baby Beach and Baby Daisy are here say it with me thank god Rosalina from Super Mario Galaxy that's a great new character she is unlockable you have to rank highly on all the mirror mode Grand Prix cups but if you finish 50 races and have a Mario Galaxy save file on your Wii she can be in luck that way I thought I was the smartest kid ever by saying Rosalina is a 50 character you need to buy Mario Galaxy to play as her which I mean I wasn't wrong Donkey Kong's here which is everybody's favorite character in this game there's no debating that he was always that Bachelor Uncle everybody wished they were in is apparently the best character in this game in terms of stats is anybody really surprised and then Dry Bowser yeah out of all the other characters they could have chosen or brought back from older games not bone Bowser but I saved the best for last we have the greatest addition to the roster me so you get this picture for getting to the end credits if you took a picture off screen and sent this to me in 2008 I would have myself they put me in Mario Kart I loved when Nintendo let me use my me and these games I honestly would choose my me just so I could gawk at myself on Luigi's circuit speaking of which 32 tracks are once again present just like with Mario Kart DS 16 new 16 retro there are quite a bit of highlights here and starting with the mushroom cup we have the definition of not a highlight Luigi's circuit I want a list of people who answer to the question what do you like about Mario Kart Wii the Luigi circuit Double Dash also started out with a track named Luigi's Circa but at least that one had the interesting gimmick of having a map you can't show on TV there were moments where you could go face to face with oncoming traffic players going in the opposite direction that was pretty cool Luigi's circuit and marker wait there's this one section with a ton of dash panels I had to research the name and that's it moo moo Meadows this is a cozy track it's a sequel to MooMoo farm for Mario Kart 64. I really do enjoy this course just like how I enjoy mushroom gourds the title of my bedroom this one has some big giant huge mushrooms to bounce off of you have to make sure you jump off of them at a good angle because if not yeah Toad's Factory a behind the scenes look at what hell they have to go through to make those item boxes I really love the theme of this track actually playing it it's all right nothing I'm absolutely demanding to play when popping this game in to be honest moving on to the flower cup Mario circuit they finally did it they took Mario circuit from Double Dash and did it again coconut mall now this is one of my go-to tracks it's so cool we're traveling through a mall in each and every section has something neat going on some escalators a parking lot on easy to please DK Summit because nothing screams DK Summit like a giant statue of Mario also I'm sorry and the rest of the world it was called DK snowboard cross that name change is the only reason I'm staying in America I'm more of a stomach Guy this is one of the main tracks I think about when Mario Kart Wii is brought up mainly due to these little areas since they added bikes into the game the developers were thinking about going for a more extreme sports angle and we can see that here with these half pipes it's a decent course but Wario's Goldmine is like a theme park attraction this is such an awesome idea for a track and it's ridiculously fun as well and then we move on to the star cup with Daisy circuit the main takeaway from this track is the implication that Daisy and Luigi are a thing I never liked the idea of them as a couple because honestly if they ever lived together I just feel like their tap water is gonna smell terrible they seem like that kind of couple it's a basic track during a sunset in the middle of it sound not bad super cape look at this okay we're going down these Rapids going in this tunnel where it can drive on the walls like come on This Is The Life Maple Tree Way may just be my favorite track in the game just due to how great the design of this course is it's just so pleasant I love it now Grumble Volcano it's okay just nothing that special to me the fact that it returned in Mario Kart 8 made me really think for a few hours there the special cup houses dry dry ruins I am very picky about my desert status I don't like standard desert areas but when we go inside a temple sort of thing then I'm all for it dry dry ruins you get a pass moon view highway is a bit of a sequel to Toad's Turnpike and mushroom City and it is way more fun and fast paced than those two Bowser's Castle and Rainbow Road finish things off as usual Bowser's Castle is great Rainbow Road gives me an aneurysm now we also have 16 retro tracks as well the selection isn't half bad we get some great ones and a good ratio overall we get four from each entry except Super Mario Kart and super Circuit which get too each but of course we do have such Classics as Mario circuit from Double Dash when we have a new Mario circuit which is so similar but here's my main issue with the Retro tracks they don't look great like they updated them all a bit graphically but they didn't go all the way they still very much feel like old ass tracks the SNES and GBA ones just look bad like look at the water animation on Shy Guy beach look at the background of Mario circuit 3. I would have preferred if they kept the pixel art and had the 3D models driving on top of them here it just looks painfully simple and lame the N64 tracks just look very Bland I wish the Retro tracks didn't feel like retro tracks I wish if you just showed me them without telling me what they were I wouldn't think oh yeah these are old courses I wish they Blended in with the new ones a bit more well there's always battle mode to check out one of my favorite ways to discern a Mario Kart's worth why Scott didn't like Mario Kart Wii that much number four the battle mode you are forced to be on two teams of six and computers flood the match this this isn't bad but this isn't the battle mode I want I at least wanted the option to play with just two to four human players no teams no computers but it's not there we have a time limit and it's just not nearly as intense this way the way battle mode worked in the past made it so you were always on edge here it's just three minutes go by and then it's over it doesn't matter if you're putrid at the game because as long as your team does okay then it's fine we have 10 stages to play on which is great uh five new and five old and balloon battle returns alongside the introduction of coin Runners just collect as many coins as you can I'm not gonna say this battle mode is bad or not fun but it's not the same as how it was in double Dasher 64. and I preferred that style and I wish they gave me the option to have it now I feel like a big reason battle mode is the way it is is due to online play Mario Kart Wii offered battle mode online and it makes much more sense to have it under a time limit and in team so you can get more people in a game and it doesn't last forever online multiplayer on the Wii the Nintendo Wi-Fi connection if you will this little symbol means a lot to me and I wish more tattoos of it existed Louis was not great at online gaming but one game did it competently and that happened to be GoldenEye 007 with Mario Kart Wii in a close second it actually was really good online and even though the online was shut down in 2014 people have set up their own servers and are still playing it it was one of the biggest selling points of Mario Kart Wii for a lot of people and you could download the Mario Kart channel to your Wii home screen to get up to date with Mario Kart Wii info without needing to put in the disc I'm free I'm free Mario Kart Wii is one of the most unbalanced unfair games in this series with not a lot of its own style the graphics were subpar even for its time and overall it's just incredibly underwhelming but the new tracks are honestly some of the best in the entire series the atom balance well absolutely crazy keeps things really interesting as an 11 year old it was absolutely irritating beyond belief but when I'm just playing with friends now I can laugh at myself a whole lot more so like five blue shells happening in One race isn't crazy irritating it's kind of kind of hilarious it's not perfect by a long shot and I didn't like this game for the longest time but now I appreciate this game a whole lot more Mario Kart Wii has a lot more to it than I originally remembered there are so many characters and carts and options the mission mode from DS came back but only as an online exclusive mode which it's no use right now but it was kind of there and now the Mario Kart Wii Community is huge like have you seen the custom tracks fans put together these things are crazy so while it's not my favorite Mario Kart wheat has a lot more worth than I ever gave it credit for it still holds up as a really fun game and in a few areas it's actually a little better than the games that succeeded it so I don't think this is going to be the last time I'm going to play it but the Mario Kart Wii channel actually still needs the game to play races and I acted a little prematurely hey Hobbies I'm only human being harshly about Mario Kart 7 being somewhat critical of Mario Kart 7 negatively speaking about Mario Kart 7 hiking despising Mario Kart 7. so Mario Kart and the number 7 walk into a bar what did you think would happen the Mario Kart series was always a massive success but it wasn't until the Diaz and Wii incarnations that it truly reached worldwide phenomenon status it seems like nearly everybody played one or the other or both it was sales numbers like these you could walk up to anybody on the street and ask why the was Rob and Mario Kart DS that's not to downplay the success of previous titles but these hit the big time and after the release of Mario Kart Wii it was inevitable that whatever Mario Kart would follow would also do phenomenally well this was no longer a series that Nintendo wanted to put out on each of their platforms this is one they had to but that's just the thing we were six Mainline Mario Karts in but really who was counting this title is making a lot more sense now what could Nintendo to do for the seventh Mainline Mario Kart game to not only get people excited but also sell them on their shiny new handheld the Nintendo 3DS well Nintendo did the unthinkable they made a new Mario Kart game this is Mario Kart 7. a great title No Doubt but what I have felt so little desire to go back to throughout the years is in this weird space where it's functionally sound it controls well it's still incredibly enjoyable but everything it added to the series that were once unique to it either were so whatever or they actually became Mainstay elements from there on out and because of that I would consistently ask myself why would I ever play this game again well that's a testament to how good this game truly was at the time and introduced so many new features that became Mainstay elements of the series from that point forward but outside of those few new features this game just doesn't really have a core identity of its own in terms of how it feels how it sounds how it looks this is a game that in my opinion felt like just another Mario Kart more so than any other entry in the series I'm sorry I had to say that I really hope any future employer doesn't look that quote up I mean just look at the cover right it just feels like more of the same from DS and Wii they just looked at these games said alright this works third time's the charm that's sort of indicative of my problem with Mario Kart 7 but we'll get to that when we get to that first off we must visit the year 2010 such a fun year so much happened Mario Kart 7 got announced the Nintendo 3DS was fully unveiled at E3 alongside some early Peaks at games and development basically just quick glimpses of titles to come most didn't have a final name yet it was mainly stuff like Paper Mario 3DS and Animal Crossing 3DS but right alongside those titles was Mario Kart 3DS Mario Kart 7's maiden name the game was only a few months into development at this point but a core feature some journalists noted at the event was that the game featured glaring remember when I said seven introduced features that I couldn't imagine the franchise without not much else was really there it was just a smooth Mario Kart demoing Glasses free 3D thanks to the 3DS screen but other than that it wasn't much to write home about in the background the development was going a bit slower than many would have expected only a handful of people were actively working on the game While others who would have if they had time were busy going to town on Nintendogs plus cats also known as priorities so around December of 2010 Nintendo Enlisted the help of Retro Studios to assist in the game they just finished up Donkey Kong Country Returns they were obviously the most qualified for Mario Kart so they had to help out Nintendo with the Bell helping a Donkey Kong themed track for the game because God forbid Nintendo does it themselves and they were to develop the Retro tracks in the game I feel like they were only picked because of their name retro is one of Nintendo's best subsidiaries responsible for Metroid Prime in the modern Donkey Kong Country titles and I was surprised when it was revealed they helped out with this game because I don't automatically equip the creators of this to this it's whatever I hit it up E3 2011 came around and so did a new trailer for Mario Kart 3DS confirming a holiday release and the three major gimmicks of the game gliding underwater tracks and cart customization cart customization in this trailer boiled down to you can get big wheels now gliding an underwater sections seem to be interesting ways to spice up the track design and the game itself looked pretty alright a kind of a mix between Mario Kart DS and Wii in terms of graphical quality but we still didn't have an official name for it yet Nintendo kept referring to it as just Mario Kart or Mario Kart 3DS just you wait because a quick two months after E3 the final title was revealed I think I was expecting it to just be called Mario Kart 3DS or Mario Kart 3 3D keep in mind Mario Kart names have never been good well it's actually we're just named after the system they were on so it was a bit of a shocking to see them without math on us so if I had to guess why they did this I'd say it's because calling it Mario Kart 3DS or Mario Kart 3D may have made it seem like a re-release or remake of Mario Kart DS or any other previous Mario Kart but in 3D this time it's strange that this was where they drew the line and started numbering the games but hey it's hard to get confused by this title it's just I worry that some consumers refuse to play this on the basis they never played Mario Kart 2 through 6. there is a temporary logo used for a few months that I kind of like more than the final one a few more trailers released showcasing new items courses and characters until Mario Kart 7 finally released on December 4th 2011. the Nintendo 3DS had a pretty rough start after it launched earlier that year in March but thanks to a price cut and Mario Kart 7 in Super Mario 3D Land releasing that holiday it experienced a little something I like to call success 3D Land was generally considered the more Innovative game I guess while Mario Kart was more of a safe bet he knew exactly what you were getting into with this one but if it wasn't for these two games we'd also be alive their video games not shelter so and that's the history of the world from 2010 to 2011. I.E Mario Kart 7's build up to release I wasn't super excited for this I just had feelings of oh great I can play Mario Kart on my 3DS when this comes out and not much more than that I may have just had fatigue from the series at the time it just felt like this is Mario Kart and it will be good but keep in mind Mario Kart Wii was only three years old and we were not on the best of terms so I sold it to pay for seven and here we are with me going back to Mario Kart Wii saying I'm sorry and realizing it was actually pretty good after not playing Seven for over six years I picked this game up fairly quickly after launch I played it I enjoyed it I have nothing else to say well let's see why I have nothing else to say this is Mario Kart 7. [Music] who would have thought this would be the game's title screen moving into single player this is exactly what I was expecting is that a good thing or a bad thing seven feels so been there done that like look at all the new modes there are none on top of that the presentation is just so sterile it looks fine but it has none of its own personality it may sound like an odd argument to make for a Mario Kart game but looking back at each game in the series while many are incredibly similar each one has at least a few things that give them their own unique Flair and first impressions of seven it doesn't really have that in fact the menu music here is nearly identical to Mario Kart Wii's moving on to characters now I've already unlocked all of them here which means hell yeah I don't have to waste time unlocking characters in Mario Kart 7. what am I gonna do with all this free time not unlike characters in Mario Kart 7. the stuff you had to do to unlock these characters wasn't anything Dreadful like it was with marker we for example unliking all characters in that game and some people's major here it's as simple as winning a cup in 150 cc each one will unlock a specific character and being all of them in any difficulty netsu and me okay thank you that's much easier but it's a little lame I kind of want there to be a balance between this this is a little too easy like having me do a bit more than just beat all the cups give me a reason to play through the other modes beat a few time trials that sort of thing well on to the roster we have that lovable cast we've all come to know and love over the past 20 odd years the characters that make Mario Kart Mario Kart there's a lot of bees in this one all right we have the Mainstays here Mario Luigi Yoshi Peach Bowser Donkey Kong toad Koopa trip at Daisy Warrior Rosalina the meat it's a very cozy police lineup but then we have the newcomers shy guy makes his debut as just a straight up playable character you could use him when playing multiplayer in Mario Kart DS with friends who didn't own the game but here if you paid for Mario Kart 7 you get the right to Shy Guy Lanka 2 the character who was fundamentally the flag girl of Mario Kart makes his playable debut which I like it's cool to see him actually playable after being a staple in the series for so long petal Mario you know Metal Mario Metal Mario it's Mario made of metal making his debut in Super Mario 64 as a power up here he's portrayed as some sort of robotic version of Mario which is strange the this may be a reference to Metal Mario in the Smash Brothers Series where he's an opponent near the end of some single player modes or Mario Golf I don't know this is a case of Metal Mario is technically a Mario character and all we have to do is take Mario and make him gray I'll give them a pass this one time but they better clean up their act for the next game I shouldn't have said that wiggler ever wanted to drive as a caterpillar don't lie I'm cool with wiggler here this is a dumb addition I like it and this one hits home from me to all the Mario Galaxy fans out there it finally happened giant B finding Queen is our final character and my God wife out of all Mario characters who haven't been in Mario Kart how Mario Galaxy characters why this one that's like if I had to make a racing game based on my life and for the final playable character I picked this tree that's 20 feet away from me I mean sure this doesn't offend me I just have more questions than answers at this point and that goes for the entire roster as a whole they did the unthinkable Wario unlockable plus there are a few characters that didn't come back like Waluigi Waluigi pinball for Mario Kart DS returns but not him so I remember hearing this thing where the developer said Waluigi wasn't included because he was too creepy what are you talking about but now looking into it apparently it was simply due to time constraints I mean I don't need Waluigi he's not shelter and that still doesn't explain the Oddball roster we have here I'll give it some slack handheld Mario Karts generally don't have a ginormous list of playable characters but the Playbook characters they picked this time around were very questionable oh I have nothing better to do so might as well hit next onto the vehicle customization something I was really interested in you can change up your card's body wheels and glider that's it it's cool we have a lot more options now but sadly I don't feel like this is as great as I wanted it to be when it was revealed yeah it's kind of fun to mix and match everything up but overall when I look back at something like Mario Kart Wii that was a lot simpler it was just pick a cart go here I have to meticulously pick out what kind of Wheels I want one to be honest it really doesn't matter the main thing I think most will change up consistently is the card's body the wheels and glider when you find one you like you just stick to that forever customization here doesn't make me feel more connected to the card I create and the only time I can truly feel like oh yeah I made this monstrosity is when I put big wheels on it this is fundamentally the only time I ever feel like I made this I swear they didn't bring back the emblem Creator from Mario Kart DS that would have fit perfectly with being able to put together your own vehicle customization's a cool idea and it's fine it works I just don't feel an overwhelming sense of Freedom or uniqueness with the card I put together I end up looking back at the simpler times and realizing this isn't much different or better well let's hop into the first cup and [Music] [Music] it's Mario Kart again this is one of the most Mario Kart feeling Mario Karts I've ever played there's really no surprises here it's not like the older ones where you go back to them and go wow this controls a lot differently compared to the newer ones Mario Kart 7 feels exactly how you'd expect it to it runs great and in my opinion it looks sharper than we did sure the character models may be kind of Blocky but it's still four score and seven leagues better than DS speaking of DS we have the return of the map on the bottom screen it really does feel like the best of DS and Wii in terms of looks and features but with the core racing seven introduces gliding and underwater racing which I think are fine new additions you don't have to think about them at all if you drive up to a ramp that you can glide off of your glider automatically appears and now you can weasel your way through the air underwater isn't all too much different from normal racing just obviously things are slower and physics are more floaty however it's really interesting to me that what used to be considered a No-No throughout the entirety of Mario Kart that being these giant Craters of water are now considered integral parts of the track you want to go through these now even the returning older tracks I considered water out of bounds areas have been updated to make them traversable now both of these elements help deliver more uniquely designed tracks and keeps you on your toes to the point where it's sort of hard to imagine Mario Kart without him but I've been really trying to be more shallow lately so these things I'm only here for the 3D effect Crank That slider up and experience vision and impairment you won't regret the 3D looks great in this game giving the courses so much more depth and liveliness however it in absolutely no way enhances your gameplay you don't gain anything for turning the 3D on or off it's just a good effect that has no bearing on gameplay but what if you wanted it to you ever look at all the Buns on the 3DS and wonder what's this one for let's head up and find out oh my God so this is what a BC is driving Mario guard 7 features a first person view option alongside motion controls hit up and you can twist and turn your system to steer it's an option but see I've used the steering wheel to do in my day and this just doesn't cut it I'm no idiot this doesn't feel like driving they've thought of everything an officially licensed Mario Kart 7 wheel for the original 3DS to my eyes deceive me I'd be concerned if they did it is a shell to pop your 3DS into so you can get more comfortable wheel action this is obviously trying to cash in on the wee wheel craze that happened with Mario Kart Wii except with that game it felt like a natural steering wheel here it feels like a 3DS doesn't do much for me and Mario Kart works pretty well in Brain Age too item wise this game has it all it has no fake item box and the item roster in this one feels a bit more stripped down than usual no fake item box none of the new additions to Mario Kart Wii return but hey we have three new items here starting off with the super Leaf 2011 was a big tail heavy year seven released nearby to Super Mario 3D land where that game's primary Innovation was pandering it brought back the super Leaf from Mario 3 so of course Mario Kart got infected with it your cart grows a tail finally you have the power for what feels like 30 seconds it just keeps spamming the button to spin it you can deflect projectiles at other racers in theory it's a nice power up but I always feel like I get it at the worst times when it's pretty much completely useless yes I'm all by myself and have nothing to do but go on this straight away thank God I have a tail to keep me company you can use it while gliding to keep yourself in the air for a bit but even you can come up with positives for Satan I like the color red and the tail keeps you in the air longer doesn't mean like either one of these the fire flower honestly it's surprising this hadn't become an item before this and now technically Fireballs were Mario and Luigi's special item in Double Dash but here we're a fire flower family you get to spout out as many Fireballs as you can over a short period of time it's a nice alternative to an item like the triple shells here you get faster ammo and more of it at that but they're less predictable as to where they'll go and they're smaller overall not an amazing new item but a worthwhile addition and finally the Lucky Seven and no it isn't an item you get when you're in seventh place way to rub it in this gives you seven items at your disposal and you can activate all of them just be careful nobody runs into any of them while they're circling around you see this is an item that makes you just feel ungodly powerful but it's difficult to use strategically I just feel like I have to get rid of all my items immediately and because of that I don't ever feel that lucky to get it I'm just like all right I think I'm balancing this time around is all right it's just kind of boring it just feels like I get nothing but tails and mushrooms nothing like a fun evening in Mario Kart 7 getting tails and mushrooms and like three blue shells hitting pure race oh my God overall I'd say the items in seven were pretty underwhelming however it turns out that movement I was a part of in 2011 actually accomplished something I don't even care about the coins I just had it for a year no matter how often they leave they always find a way back coins make their triumphant return originally in the series you'd want to collect them on the track to hit top speed if you got hit you'd lose some of them and here it's the exact same go a bit faster by collecting the coins lose them when you get hit it's the circle of life and here the more coins you collect get two new cart parts to unlock I wish I had like a little shop to spend your coins because as it is here you get new cart parts when you hit certain Milestones like oh you have 2 000 coins here you go I just don't feel that engaged with unlocking cart parts well onto the tracks first up we have toad circuit it's exactly what you think it is Daisy Hill is a very pleasant track with windmills and hot air balloons it has it all jibjib Lagoon mostly taking place underwater a wonderful course to realize wow gliding is way more fun than this Shy Guy bizarre I like this one the theme is great and taking place at night makes it stand out quite well moving on to the flower cup woohoo Loop a track based on woohoo Island from Wii Sports Resort yes Nintendo's excuse for not making a new character or franchises for years their response what are you talking about made a new character woohoo Island it's somewhat odd to have this here but it makes for a fun track and it's one of the first times a Mario Kart course doesn't feature laps rather it's one long track split into three sections woohoo Island was legitimately fun to explore and Resort and just as a Mario Kart track I think its personality is undermined by a lot of the more out there courses though it's still a fun time Mario's circuit you can go in the castle how do they get work done in here with a driveway inside Music Park is definitely the star of the show here and driving on musical instruments to play music when you're on them in this giant section where you're gliding and avoiding proof that God doesn't exist 2011 rock rock mountain this one's cool because it literally feels like an adventure and there's this section where you're gliding down from crazy high up and you have this sense of Freedom you don't usually feel in a Mario Kart track then climbing up with Boulders coming down it's nothing crazy but a cool one star cup piranha plant slide everyone wonder what sewers look like well you're welcome Wario Shipyard weirdly one of the more forgettable tracks for me which is odd considering the theme of a sunken pirate ship is amazing yet I keep forgetting this one was here neon Bowser City it's a rainy City good for it Maka woohoo woohoo Island's back and this one is also three sections instead of laps and takes place during a sunset I don't remember many differences between these two finally the special cup DK jungle was the track Nintendo just couldn't do themselves retro helped out with it as it's based on Donkey Kong Country Returns and honestly I'm happy they did this feels straight out of that game and it's a blaster Traverse Rosalina's ice World it happened didn't it it's a nice track that's what it is and it's Rosalina's alright Bowser's Castle yeah this is a pretty flaccid Bowser's Castle nothing memorable really it's just kind of there and finally of course we have rainbow roads split into three sections like the woohoo tracks this is easily one of the best rainbow roads of all time you explore space as a whole going on planets the moon it's easily the most distinct and one of the best in the entire series overall not a bad track selection it's A7 has some very high Highs but also some very forgettable lows now bad tracks really but sometimes I wake up in a cold sweat remembering how much I forget Rosalina's ice world the Retro courses this time around are all red as well the monster welcome comebacks and it's cool to see these tracks updated to take advantage of gliding in underwater sections well when there's no more tracks to play we gotta head over to the other modes okay I guess this one battle mode we have balloon battle and coin Runners they're just okay at least this time we can very easily change the settings if we want teams CPUs all that I'm bummed that we can't alter the time limit though whether that means removing it entirely or extending it at all it's always locked at two minutes the battle arenas are all right three new three old although the core one I always remember playing on was honeybee Hive literally no other courses existed whenever I played online it would always pick the B1 this game is so Pro B it hurts speaking of online it's here it works that's really all there is to it it's pretty much the same as Mario Kart Wii is online even having the same Globe spinning in the background you vote for a track it'll randomly pick one you play it moving on Mario Karts always been Nintendo's gold standard for online multiplayer this was like the one game they did online well in and in Mario Kart 7 it works as well as you'd want it to the Mario Kart channel from Wii returns here this time you can just access it all from the menu rather than having to install it on your system and it's just a way to alter online settings view stats race against others time trials seven was actually pretty big for Nintendo in terms of the term the future is now now they actually had to update the game because some tracks featured unaccounted for exploits that allowed users to finish them in record times yes the only reason they ever updated the game wasn't for adding new courses or modes it was because some people were having just too much fun with it it's a good game just like any other Mario Kart it's fun and this one is obviously better than many others in the franchise but I thought this one had less to it the mission mode from DS did in return neither did bikes for Mario Kart Wii the customization isn't super crazy in depth you can't even play versus races where you can select any track to play on with CPUs only time trials are in this one sure gliding in underwater racing are great new additions that help the track design be more interesting the trick system from Wii returns and thankfully all you have to do this time is hit the same Button as your drift to pull them off this game is a mishmash of good new additions lame new additions and baffling exclusions but in the end morning card 7 to me just feels like more of the same so much of its identity to me is basically it feeling like Mario Kart Wii on the go but hey don't take my word for it dear God don't it's probably wrong hey all Scott here what'll it be this is a bar all right so Mario Kart 7. it happened there was nothing we can do about it what can the series do next I got it Mario Kart 8 was a series big return to using even numbers and is easily the game that had the most writing on it see released for the Wii U Nintendo's least favorite little disappointment that system was having a hell of a time not failing I mean was that possible it launched in November 2012 with and then a year later in 2013 things got steamier with the release of I'm really trying here to be fair of course the Wii U had some solid games at this point but they just weren't enough to get people interested in the console the Mario games released for the system were fine but they looked like any other Mario game Zelda remake Lego game a game that launched the same week as Grand Theft Auto 5 the third entry in a somewhat Niche series that was pretty much dormant for a decade in game in Wario what the hell is a game in Wario as all of these games were varying levels of good but can you really blame anybody with a pulse for not buying a Wii U oh my God what the way you needed was a Nintendo game that looked significantly better and more fun than any other Nintendo game we've played in the past one of the Wii U's problems was that most of the games you'd buy a Wii U for look pretty similar to games you already had on your Wii we needed a game with Mass Appeal that felt like a huge step up from previous generations his mustache Moves In The Wind Mario Kart a was the Wii U's big chance to redeem itself the system's killer app up until it's released the console was just kinda and when Mario Kart 8 came out the console went from tough as previously stated the Wii U launched in November 2012 it sure did contrary to what most will say the launch was pretty solid in my opinion there was quite a lot to play and no games that made anybody other than the Die Hard Nintendo Fanboy who'll buy anything they released by the console it's Mario but if you bought the consulate launch and you had quite a bit to play Nintendo Land was great fun new Super Mario Bros you gave your thumb something to do for a few hours and nothing more third-party games weren't exciting I mean Mass Effect 3 oh my God didn't that release eight months ago and didn't everybody hate it regardless you had stuff play on Wii U and then January hit there wasn't much on the Wii U's Horizon in terms of game releases for a good few months sure Rayman Legends was set for February but Ubisoft said our okay M rated zombie game exclusive to Wii U didn't sell as well as we wanted let's delay Rayman and put it on other platforms the same month as Grand Theft Auto 5. I'm still not sure if that was a good idea or not basically there wasn't much coming until March so Nintendo had to step up and give fans a reason to be excited and what followed was easily one of the best moments for a Wii U owner next to it getting discontinued the Wii U direct focused on reaffirming games we already knew were coming alongside soft announcing some as well many of these announcements were for games that were far away from releasing anytime soon like shim Megami tensei Cross Fire Emblem which ended up releasing in 2016 as [Music] not that Yoshi's woolly World looked quite a bit different and was simply called yarn Yoshi at the time the next Zelda title later to be breath of the wild was discussed but the reveals for games happening that Century happen to be a new 3D Mario game and a new Mario Kart now nothing was really said or shown about these other than they'll be at E3 this year personally I was more excited about the new 3D Mario game I mean these games can be so unbelievably amazing they've defined their Generations in gaming and set the standard for games to follow then there was Mario Kart like I give a all right let's be fair an original 3D Mario was kind of what the Wii U needed to feel Justified with its banana bolt controller surely a 3D Mario would take advantage of it I mean the Nintendo 64 Controller was made with Mario 64 in mind E3 2013 arrived [Music] I'm sad anyways I was obviously happy for a new Mario Kart but I felt the same way I did when the previous title Mario Kart 7 came out that just wasn't that excited I mean Mario Kart's Mario Kart it's more of an inevitability than a huge event when One released at that point I think I was still upset I was bad at Mario Kart Wii E3 2013 arrived [Music] right I'm glad oh my God this game looked like a hugely poured for the series up until this point Mario Kart was never really a huge graphical showcase for any system it was on it always looked Pleasant enough but most of the time the presentation ranged from underwhelming to good enough Mario Kart 8 actually looked like it was taking advantage of the hardware was running on who'd have thought the gliding and underwater segments from Seven were quickly revealed to be returning alongside bikes from Mario Kart Wii with one major element being this game's standout feature anti-gravity see now that tracks can twist and turn all around it doesn't matter your car can go on the walls Newton was a anyways at the end of the trailer Mario's cart does this and forms an eight say Nintendo stated they named it Mario Kart 8 because there's this one course that looks like a Mobius strip which looks like an eight so you know let's name this one Mario Kart 8 even if this was the third Mario Kart they'd still name it Mario Kart 8. Mario Kart TV was detailed being a way to share replays of your races with others online and the release date was if you were a Wii U owner in June of 2013 you should know hearing this game wasn't coming out for basically one more year that was not my Year's finest moment we all saw what happened with the Nintendo 3DS when it launched in Spring of 2011 throughout that year it struggled because of a high price and not enough software but it all came together that holiday with a price cut and the back-to-back releases of a 3D Mario game and a Mario Kart and ever since look at this thing it did really well had a ton of wonderful games and kept getting game releases in 2019 my God things were lining up for the Wii U to experience the same fate with a 3D Mario and Mario Kart down the pipeline but Mario Kart was coming a good bit later unfortunately but obviously I was for the best as the game was still a bit early on looking at the demo playability three that year a good bit Changed by its release tons of user interface tweaks gameplay mechanics the music wasn't finalized yet and they used Mario Kart 7 Mario Kart Wii music in a few places but hey Waluigi was back after being cut from Mario Kart 7. that's right they were Brave info would die down until December 2013 a new trailer showed up after Rosalina was announced for Smash Brothers for 3DS and Wii U that opened up with a reference to Mario card and made everybody question if Kirby was going to be in Mario Kart 8. see no but in the Mario Kart 8 trailer that followed Baby Daisy was new courses and characters were shown off and thankfully it wasn't long until we saw even more during the February 2014 direct a new trailer debuted and this one was great I think this was truly when it said in just how gorgeous this game was this trailer focused on the announcement that all seven Koopalings were gonna be playable Racers thank God this was a pretty neat announcement initially but I think people realize how ridiculous this was when they saw the final character select screen like imagine this is your brain Jesus made Seven tumors a little over a month later was when Nintendo was going into full press mode with this thing April hit and they invited tons of game journalists to try out a nearly final version of the game and alongside it we got another new trailer showcasing more new tracks characters and finally some new items the biggest aspect of this trailer was the reveal that Mario Kart 64's rainbow road was making a comeback and it looked beautiful as the thing Nintendo finally figured out what the hell they were doing with editing at this point does anybody remember Nintendo's official videos back in 2013 they couldn't figure out how to capture their own gameplay footage this is Mario Kart 8 trail that they have this fun transition to the reveal of N64 Rainbow Road they actually knew what they were doing they knew how iconic that track was it felt like they were proud of Mario Kart 8 and wanted to show it off less than a month later the Mario Kart 8 direct randomly popped up on YouTube what could this be a 30 minute comedy skit I'm not complaining it was just a bit unnecessary the final details on the game were debuted here one month before its release such as the final new characters tracks and items a Wii U console bundle and an offer for Club Nintendo members if you registered your game within the first two months you could pick one one of four games to download for free I never understood this promotion wasn't every Wii one or already gonna buy Mario Kart 8 we're gonna make more sense to do this promotion with like bana to two well I got myself Pikmin 3 for buying Mario Kart 8 Nintendo forcibly gave me a game for free for buying a game where I would have bought both of them separately for full price the nerve of them and that was pretty much Mario Kart 8 up until its release on May 30th it was an exciting time 2014 was truly the year the Wii U started to fully feel like a solid console with Mario Kart and Smash Brothers coming out later that year I have a lot of fond memories of waiting for this game to come out and watching all the previews and reviews I could all during that perfect time of year in the spring where the weather is just right and not only did it feel good outside but we had this amazing looking game coming out as well I look back at the build up and eventual release of this game with a lot of fondness of course something I look forward to with every Mario Kart game is the battle mode which weirdly enough Nintendo wasn't detailing at all with this game we didn't know anything about it up until it's released but you know you can't really mess up battle mode that much at its worst it'll probably be like Mario Kart Wii again and even then that was tolerable It was just kind of not my favorite so either way let's take a look at the game that saved the Wii U the game that justified the Wii U the game here it is Mario Kart 8 red case and all yep goes wonderfully with the blue header and white spine and blue white Nintendo let's talk I understand why you gave a game like new Super Mario Brothers Wii a red case and the entire box art is red including the spine it was cute and it was a one-time thing but if you're gonna go to the length of making the case red why not go all the way and make other parts red like the Wii U header at least the box art is fantastic it feels very much like Mario Kart DS but with actual color and stuff going on also apparently if you follow the logistics of where the racers are Mario and Peach are supposedly going the wrong way on the track another Mario Kart tradition lives on up the box art you know I could have picked up the Mario Kart 8 limited edition it was only available at the Nintendo World store in New York scratch that I couldn't have picked it up that's what you call a limited edition only available in one specific place at least here in the US it was it was far more readily available in other countries want to know how I know that well here's the European version of the same damn game and here's the North American version all they both come with is a damn shell well if I can't own that stupid thing I guess the only thing I can do is play this stupid thing [Music] [Music] hey baby I can't believe I could have this much fun inserting a disc and I haven't even done anything yet this is a glorious moment and my ears are digging every second of it Mario features Live recorded music and it goes for this Jazzy Vibe and it is incredible the music in Mario Kart was never bad but most of the games just kind of sounded the same like here's the Mario Kart 7 title screen I'm using Mario Kart Wii music here they all just kind of blend in for me again they're not bad but I don't hear any defining characteristics of DS's music compared to Weezer sevens Aid has its own flavor and the fact that it's all Live recorded gives a soundtrack a feeling of significance that the series lacked up until this point the title screens theme is amazing and after a while it plays Super Mario Kart style theme and tons of Mario Karts have had the Super Mario Kart theme thrown into their main themes there's something that feels so good about the implementation in eight I love it adding into the menus well I don't know what else I'm gonna do Under the character selection whoa so initially this would be your starting roster and you would unlock more characters by just playing through the Grand Prix you would unlock a random character for being a new cup that's it that definitely makes things pretty simple but my god did I work my ass off to unlock King Boo and Petey piranha in double Dutch that was a nightmare but I am so proud of the memory card Theron yeah I mean yeah I unlocked everything but I feel absolutely nothing looking at the complete character select screen for multiple reasons that was Mario karte as the highest number of playable characters in the series yet but there are some baffling exclusions and the new Racers okay remember when I said they introduced the Koopalings as characters those are your new ones you're welcome this character selection is like a weird combination of Mario Kart Wii and sevens with some characters that make no sense to be here with staples of the series left out for seemingly no reason Bowser Jr Diddy Kong Dry Bones King Boo Birdo all not playable in this game at all while Metal Mario returns from Mario Kart 7 Baby Peach and Baby Daisy returned from Mario Kart Wii and like I said seeing the Koopalings playable in that original trailer was pretty cool but they ended up being really the only new characters we got in this game and won seven of the 30 playable characters are variations of the exact same idea uh but that's not all we got two other new characters in the form of baby Rosalina listen as your resident Mario Galaxy player that game had an entire backstory for Rosalina and I will say baby Rosalina makes no sense now baby Luigi that's fine and of course pink gold Peach Metal Mario you could someone give a pass to really enough a metal version of Mario has been a part of Mario games for quite a while and in Mario Kart 8 the metal effect looks kind of cool I don't like him here but I won't waste the picket sign on him pink gold Peach and Baby Rosalina as well were never a part of the Mario series prior to this game they were put in here because they were easy peasy to develop you just take the Baby Peach and Baby Daisy models and tweak them a bit bam baby Rosalina you take Peach make her entirely Pink gold bam skin disease the Mario Kart 8 roster may be large but it's so focused on filler that it doesn't feel like we have nearly as much variety as before don't get me wrong there are still enough characters to choose from the selection could be far worse but marker wheeze had so much more variety in terms of characters of different shapes sizes colors I'm not the biggest Birdo supporter but I'd rather have one Birdo than five children let's see how much of this roster is pure filler so we have five babies at the most I think three would be fine so let's cut out two Metal Mario and pink gold Peach are the definition of filler characters that just Mario and Peach with lead poisoning cut him all seven of the Koopalings honestly you just need Bowser Jr to represent what they represent so cut six of them and the remaining one we could just label as a work in progress Bowser Jr and there we have it about one third of the roster taken up by pure film the other two thirds into Mario Kart guess nothing sticks out all too much but moving on guard customization makes a return from Mario Kart 7 with the customization menu looking like they took the bottom screen in Mario Kart 7 and put it on my TV guard customization is the exact same as it was in seven it's fine but I just end up thinking about how it was in Mario Kart Wii it was a lot quicker to just pick your pre-made cart here it gives me the illusion I'm building my own vehicle but it doesn't feel like my creation or anything it just feels like it takes longer to pick a cart now well let's get a move on to the tracks we select the first cup and foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] formula in actuality it's more Mario Kart how could this be it's more similar feeling to Mario Kart 7 nearly all features that game introduced make the return in eight so hopefully it now makes sense why Mario Kart 7 isn't that appealing to go back to for me it's basically a gimped Mario Kart 8. we've got gliding in underwater sections the controls feel pretty much the same and of course who could forget the coin seriously who could it's five letters it's not that hard the first person you didn't return though can we really call this a sequel now considering this is a Wii U game surely this game utilizes the Wii U's controller right you'd be surprised Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze is a Wii U game and it doesn't I remember when the Wii was first being rumored the only thing people really knew at that point was that the controller would have a screen and a specific idea people had was making that screen the rear view mirror in a Mario Kart game that would be hell Madden having to look up and down from the GamePad to the TV screen God I hear they have some light touchscreen controls if you want to live that way and during a race it's a horn I love that this Controller single-handedly made the Wii U far more expensive than it had to be and its biggest game's core use of it is a horn to be fair we can toggle through different modes we can display what's on the TV and show off a map which is Handy but you'd think you'd be able to do split screen multiplayer this way with one person getting their own full view on the GamePad while the other person gets the full TV no if you're playing local multiplayer the gamepad's display is a split screen just like the TV Great split screen multiplayer Mario Kart 8 is a bit lacking in general not only due to the lack of asymmetrical multiplayer support but because when you play with three or more people the frame rate gets cut in half to 30 frames a second listen I'm not that picky but it is very noticeable how much choppier this game gets when playing with more people it's fine but it's just a bit jarring it's probably more noticeable because outside of multiplayer with three plus people this game is smooth as butter it looks and feels incredible the character models look outstanding the lighting and the small little details on the tracks the vehicles the drivers themselves this is not only the best looking Mario Kart game but one of the best looking Nintendo games in general these tracks are filled to the brim with details all these racing advertisements and nods to the Mario Universe make these courses truly feel like they're a part of the Mario World and not just random Mario kart tracks They didn't cheap out on any area other than the audience here guys come on the rest of the game looks so good but you're just gonna make the audience look like poster boards of course Mario Kart 8 features anti-gravity racing something unlike anything Mario Kart's experienced thus far and you're staring at it right now this is anti-gravity raising it's not the same as regular racing I swear anti-gravity and Mario Kart 8 it's a bit weird considering it seemed like it was going to be a much more obvious feature in the marketing there the camera really shows you on the gimmick if a race is on the ceiling they'll be upside down in the actual game the camera stays consistently behind the player at the same angle all the time so if you're upside down it's not immediately noticeable it's only when you ride on the side of walls that you'll instantly know when you pass a blue strip your wheels shift to the sides and you just gained a hover cart when you bump into these safety hazards or other Racers you get a little boost and that remains consistent until you pass a blue strip again then we're back to reality anti-gravity may have seemed like a marketing gimmick I didn't say it wasn't the trailers and commercials really bushed it making it seem like a big thing it always show Racers upside down and all around while when you're actually playing the game and I may be upside down here but this feels like your everyday Mario Kart it's not even that noticeable when you're on the ceiling but what anti-gravity truly adds is insane track design now that the developers don't have to uphold to the laws of physics because we all know that was a Mario Kart constant in the past these tracks can go absolutely wild they twist all around and make older courses feel Pedestrian by comparison it's a similar addition to the underwater sections of Mario Kart 7. it doesn't initially feel that different but when you look at how it affects the track design it definitely allows for far more creativity it's a truly game changing and makes these courses not only aesthetically interesting but allows for the core layout to be as well item wise we have the main saves at this point basically everything returns from Mario Kart 7 except for the super leaf and lucky 7. instead this time we got the Crazy Eight it's the same as the Lucky 7 but now gets a coin thrown into the mix missed the Lucky Seven the piranha plant is new and appears in front of you for a short period of time fighting anything nearby you Racers items you name it it automatically choms and each time it does you speed up a bit but you can jam on the item button if you just want to get it over with the boomerang flower you can throw in front of or behind you three times and the super horn blasts everything around it and can destroy anything and can piss other Racers aspirations and most notably the blue spiny shell prior to this you would have to use a mushroom to outrun a blue shell and even then that was tricky I've looked up videos on people outrunning the blue shell and Mark are we just because I couldn't imagine that ever happening I also looked up what happens when you get a blue shell in first place that this is an item that you always want on you in first place and it's always a tough decision regarding whether or not to use it on a red shell that's about to hit you for example or wait for a blue shell to appear to use it on because most of the time if you end up securing a super horn that means a blue shell is suiting to follow overall the new items are all okay I don't mind the boomerang or piranha plant but they just don't really leave much of an impression I don't really feel that empowered when I get them but the super horn is a very strategic weapon and I love its inclusion because it ties into one of the biggest problems people had with Mario Kart 8 that I absolutely loved see in previous status you could hold on to something like a banana peel to defend yourself from the back while defending yourself you could grab another item to store in your item slot here in Mario Kart 8 you can only hold on to one item at a time if you're defending yourself with a banana you can't grab another item in reserve on top of that I initially refused to mention that coins can now be an option in the item roulette which makes them an immediate threat to Public Health yes there's just not enough coins on the track when I grab an item box I'm asking for a coin yeah getting a coin as an item is incredibly annoying but that adds this interesting strategy tomorrow Mario Kart 8 you can use up your item to grab another item but it may be a coin and leave you defenseless you have to wager your options every time you use an item in previous games when you pass through an item box you get something that you could defend yourself with at the very least here I don't know I like the element of strategy that the single slattened coin item bring in here everybody else hated it I can see why like I said the new items aren't that cool they're fine but couple that with only one item in the coins and this is one of the more boring Mario Karts item wise the balancing is actually pretty good I mean there are sometimes I got a crazy eight in like third place I don't remember selling my soul for that but mostly this is one of the Lesser Mario cards it feels much more fair there's a very clear strategy to use with the items but since I recently played Mario Kart Wii that is so obviously more frustrating with its item balancing but my God it was more interesting Mario Kart 8's items feel too bland and when I look back at the garbage I put up with a Mario Kart Wii I I'm like kind of miss it in comparison the balancing was so crazy that it made it fun in its own way I'm not saying its balancing is completely boring like I said I like the strategy involved with items now but Mario Kart Double Dash and we felt more like what everybody expects out of Mario Kart craziness happening at every moment with eight I feel way more on autopilot with these items hold on to the banana until somebody throws a shell at it grab another item box pray it's not a coin son of a grab another item box didn't I say I like the item set up in this game well I still do but I can at least see why a lot of people didn't but one thing I hope we can all agree on is how amazing literally all the tracks are in this game I have to hand it to him they hit it out of the park every track is at the very least pretty damn good they all have their own unique background music now which weirdly enough is a first for Mario Kart every game had a couple of courses that shared music here it's all unique and it's all Sublime even the tracks that are pretty basic have this wonderful Flair to them and then we have the tracks that are incredibly complicated and they're a joy to experience I just love the selection in this one starting out in the mushroom cup Mario Kart Stadium I love the atmosphere here it feels like I'm a superstar water park and only generic name for a water park that is very obviously themed after Wario this is my favorite feature Mario Kart 8 drama sweet sweet Canyon is all about Donuts in the sort it's a wild attractive describe that makes you look insane if you try to Donuts freeware blonde Bruins is cool because there's a section here that utilizes anti-gravity gliding and underwater sections who knew face rocks owned ruins Mario's circuit the Mobius strip The Game's name is based off of I never really think of this track for the Figure 8 design I usually remember it for trauma Toad Harbor well if Toad's here that's gotta mean it's good this is just a very happy feeling track of the sunshine the cable cars all the different Pathways to race on this is one of the first tracks I think of when thinking Mario Kart 8. Twisted Mansion do you really think a haunted house would be scary when flooded if I'm underwater the last thing I'm freaking out over is a ghost I love the Rippling floors and the Knights attacking you at the end of this one then their shy guy falls I usually kind of grip this one together with swamp ruins in my mind but they're pretty different tracks drive up a waterfall there's this little Nook you can fly into completely different Sunshine airport this would not fly in real life but it does make for a fantastic track I do wish they had a longer section inside the airport itself but I can't really complain considering outside is probably way more interesting dolphin shows is about jumping in and out of water riding on an eel again this is physically improbable I like Dro drum as the Highlight course of the game it's the most visually and musically appealing so many colors and lights with the music being synced up to the action and it's followed up by Mount Wario one big track three sections you start from a plane and you travel throughout the ski resort to the end and the music adapts to what segment of the race you're on this is it this is the best Cup in Mario Kart history I gotta see what follows oh my god well glove top cruise is fantastic I mean it has a Mario Galaxy remix as its background music you could throw up in my face to Mario Galaxy music and I'd say that's a good Mario Kart track but then we move on to bone dry Dunes this is probably my least favorite track in the game it's not bad at all but it's easily one of the least inspired feeling ones I just don't really like desert areas and games out of all the tracks here this is the one I could care the least about visiting in real life like what is there to do here Bowser's Castle is a step up I love how this giant Bowser attacks the different Pathways but it ends with a doozy Rainbow Road obviously the biggest staple of any Mario Kart all the games have to end with their own iteration of the iconic track and with this game having anti-gravity as a gimmick I couldn't wait to see Mario Kart 8's rainbow route especially after seeing the N64 one remade [Music] this is lame it's not a bad track it's just pretty basic definitely incoming card 7's version you go on a rainbow road that's a good start and then we go into a space station and then go into another Rainbow Road and repeat it's fine but for how amazing all the other tracks are it's shocking to me rainbow road with the anti-gravity mechanic is so basic in this game but like I said it's still a good track all of these are and that's just half the story with the other 16 being the Retro tracks obviously these have been a feature in the series for quite a long time but most games they felt like filler more tracks to give you more content it was nice to have them sure but you could almost always tell what was a retro track and what wasn't and Mario Kart 8 they completely redid everything and the Retro tracks look just as new if not newer than the new tracks They added anti-gravity remade all the music even changed up some things aesthetically like MooMoo Meadows from Mario Kart Wii takes place during sunrise and it's gorgeous now I love the tracks they picked here ensure they had to pick courses they didn't remaster in previous games yet so some fan favorites didn't make the cut but by God we have some gray ones it's so fun fun to see Mumu Meadows Toad's Turnpike Royal Raceway Wario Stadium Yoshi Valley Tick-Tock clock and of course N64 Rainbow Road the boat they gave three section track rather than a three lap track I'm on half the fun of the original was that it was overly long and grueling to complete online is back and it works great instead of giving you the option to select any track in the game to play online with random people it now gives you a random selection of three which I prefer I found that when you give me 32 tracks to choose from I'm probably just gonna either pick the same one over and over again or I'm gonna take too long to pick one I think three makes it way easier to pick and keeps tracks from repeating too often online is great in this one but it's really hard to make friends with people and ask them for their email with these pre-made chats we can save replays and edit them with Mario Kart TV post them to YouTube and meaver not anymore it was a stupid feature anyways you'd be able to create 30 second highlight reels of your race but yeah yeah it wasn't that big of a deal to me well in terms of other modes uh stamps you get stamps in this game for completing time trials and beating Grand Prix with different characters you were originally able to use these stamps on me verse not anymore it was a stupid feature anyways speaking of Grand Prix when you finish one you just get a highlight reel from one of your races not the traditional awards ceremony cut scene I mean it's not a big deal at least we get these cool trophies they're such amazing designs we can even touch them with our thumbs on the GamePad but the lack of a cutscene sure the way it's presented here makes sense in the context of the whole Mario Kart TV thing but or is the skin rushed obviously no not mine Mario Kart 8 they put so much love and attention in every little detail with this game this was probably an example of them going no we want this to make Mario Kart TV feel more like a Sports Broadcast thing either way we have one more mode to check out and that is battle mode what the battle mode has been a staple of the Mario Kart series ever since the very beginning but seemingly was getting less and less attention with each entry and of course with Mario Kart 8 Nintendo barely mentioned it until damn near 20 seconds after it released balloon battle is all we got here and what Mumu Meadows that that's a track oh oh my God wait I'm not supposed to talk about this yet let's talk about the updates so Mario Kart 8 wasn't Perfect Right Out The Gate it wasn't perfect ever there were a few big issues at launch like after a race the option to move on to the next race would be the second option the first option was viewing a highlight reel also the map wasn't available on the TV screen you can only view it on the GamePad Nintendo probably fix these via a free update in August of 2014 that arrived alongside Mercedes-Benz car parts tell that to a dealership what made you want a Mercedes well he plays Roy Koopa a lot and the GLA goes with his eyes it was really weird to have such blatant product placement in a Mario game but I've only lost a couple nights of sleep because of it but during the summer of 2014 it was fully announced Mario Kart 8 would be getting paid DLC Packs both crossing over with various Nintendo IPS you could pre-purchase the DLC packs for 12 in total or eight dollars separately and it was an insane deal six new characters 16 new tracks carports and for buying both we got multi-colored shy guys and Yoshi's yes so DLC Pack 1 offers two new cups the egg cup and the Triforce cup alongside Tanooki Mario and Cat Peach and Ling guess which one's the most interesting the tracks offered across these are amazing Yoshi circuit from double Dash's back excitebike arena is a tribute to excitebike and it's so much fun at so many ramps and areas to do tricks off of Dragon driveway is awesome and mute city was the most Nintendo's acknowledged up zero in years Wario's gold mine from Wii and SNES Rainbow Road made a comeback the Retro tracks they brought back were a bit more interesting than some of the ones they picked for the base game like Grumble Volcano and some of these were already remade in older games so it's nice to see they were willing to double dip a bit eyesight's Outpost is pretty lame not bad but not my first pick for anything and Hyrule circuit a wonderful trip through the world of Zelda DLC back one was awesome it came at the perfect time for me right when I was starting to get a little old Mario Kart 8 in November and Bam here are some amazing new tracks and things to spice it up it also included amiibo support where you can unlock character outfits for your me it's a dream come true now DLC pack 2 came in April of 2015 and it was a bit lame for me The Tracks didn't allow me in this pack all too much a baby Park from Double Dash came back which was nice achieved land from GBA I was happy to see them make an actual course out of these GBA tracks but it's not really anything that stands out to me a Wild Woods felt like a lesser Maple Tree Way for Mario Kart Wii to me in Animal Crossing nice name it's a fun course the type of season is randomly decided so it stays pretty fresh but then there's a Neil Bowser City from Mario Kart 7. this just wasn't interesting enough to warn bringing back Redmond Road from GBA is a pretty cool one though it's in a kid's room and has a lot of fun details super Bell Subway is okay and we have another f-zero track I'm not complaining but I can if I want to just make a new f-zero Nintendo I'm a Nintendo fan that's a catchphrase of mine of course villager and Isabel from Animal Crossing became playable alongside Dry Bowser thank God he's back so the DLC rented out Mario Kart 8 quite well but we have more tracks than ever with a better character selection it's cool to see Nintendo willing to do more crossover content with Mario Kart but that was far from the biggest story here they added 200cc to the game alongside DLC pack 2 as a free update my God it was too fast I remember this was a pain to get a hold of originally it had to do a lot more braking on corners while drifting and most of these tracks were never designed for this kind of speed but it was a cool little free update to a game that was already one of the best Mario Kart experiences hands down it's the best looking Mario Kart the best sounding Mario Kart the best controlling Mario Kart with the best tracks in the series hands down I'm a bit bummed out by the lack of things to do in the game outside of racing like basically play the Grand Prix and play online that's all you can really do but when it comes down to it Mario Kart 8 was the definitive Mario Kart experience at the time of its release but they just had to up the battle mode so they didn't put any battle tracks in here they just used existing ones okay that's already lame but they couldn't have even been bothered to alter the tracks just a bit to make them more suitable for battle mode they're terrible they're so big and designed to loop around they aren't small closed in arenas like battle track should be and out of all the tracks to choose why Toad's turn bike why Yoshi Valley why Toad Harbor and when you die in battle mode you come back as a ghost and can still hurt the other players that's not fair what the hell are they doing with this mode it's ridiculous I almost would have preferred if they just didn't bring the mode back or at the very least if they just remastered old battle stages and nothing more that would have been okay but no instead this is the worst mode in any Mario Kart game and it used to be my favorite Nintendo what is wrong with you see that should show you how bad this mode is it made me break something but I still did that out of anger towards Nintendo what the am I doing hey all Scott here what'll it be Mario party this is a bar what is happening I already talked Mario Kart 84. see that's a fun Quirk at talking about Mario Kart 8 Deluxe despite some Continuum things you're just talking about Mario Kart 8 again so it just gives up if you talk about the same thing twice the world doesn't know how to handle it so we have to convince God that eight Deluxe isn't just Mario Kart 8 again and we aren't just repeating history no and then I should get new shoes so Mario kartik came out want a new game no Mario karte did quite well selling over 8 million units on the Wii U something better than games that were almost always bundled in with the console that's embarrassing but 8 million isn't a lot in the grand scheme of Mario Kart how could you possibly only sell 8 million copies of something it was all because of the console it was stranded on the Wii U I mean the system itself sold less than two times more I think it's fair to say this number wasn't Mario Kart 8's fault I mean Mario Kart 8 was a phenomenal game not perfect by any means if you read the book you'd get it but still it had the best presentation of any Mario Kart the best track design the most tracks out there after DLC was released they even sped up falling off a course and getting back on it they were ruthless with making this game good however it had downsides many people didn't like the character selection this graph shows exactly how many didn't the fact you could only hold one item at a time this graph shows who did like that and the battle mode or the lack of a good one it was somewhat frustrating to see this beautiful package with some little blemishes that were almost all entirely done due to time constraints if Mario Kart 8 just improved on these things we might have the greatest Mario Kart hell even greatest racing game of all time on our hands it's a shame the game was updated for the final time in May of 2015. it's a shame they never fixed many of these issues it's a shame the game is only available to Wii U owners isn't it fun to be stupid Mario Kart 8 Deluxe just a guess an upgraded version of Mario Kart 8 on the Wii U this was released for the Wii U successor the Nintendo switch shortly after its launch in March of 2017 and it just kept selling most people who go into the store to get milk every week buy another copy of eight Deluxe alongside it it's sold more than double triple while Mario Kart 8 sold on Wii U guys I think we have a winner on our hands Mario Kart 8 but better that's the best compliment you could give a person so we gotta check this out it's Gotta Be Mario Kart it's Mario Kart 8 so I played quite a bit of Mario Kart 8 on Wii U but by mid to late 2015 I kind of fell off it I mean Packwood and launched I played online multiplayer every day for a few months but no game is meant to last forever and Mario Kart 8 was no different but say 2016 rolls around right and it's the worst it's Dreadful it is the year of not being a Nintendo fan that whole year was filled with what no games and when the war Games bad games Nintendo didn't have much of note releasing but we all knew their next console was on the way codenamed Nintendo NX back in 2015 they said don't worry guys we'll reveal what the Nintendo NX is in 2016. So Not only was getting through 2015 oh wait and a half to get information on their next console but when exactly in 2016 did they decide to reveal it that was hell so October 2016 rolls around and Nintendo finally reveals what the Nintendo NX smelled like a trailer was uploaded online titled first look at Nintendo switch and that was a wonderful day that one trailer not only showcased how the switch was in fact a Home console you could take with you on the go but also teased various games that would come to the platform we already knew breath of the wild was gonna be on him but we got previews of people playing a new 3D Mario game Splatoon NBA 2K Skyrim none of these games were confirmed to be actual games and they just said oh they might be real games to take everything in this trailer with a grain of salt but come on Nintendo I'm not stupid the Virgin radar was going off the charts these were real games but there was another one showing off in the trailer that got people talking Mario Kart 8. a group of friends decided to play it in the car nothing fancy just playing on one of the DLC tracks with King Boo and two item slots holy sh this looked exactly like Mario Kart 8 but with those two little differences who know what this was gonna be was it a sequel to Mario Kart 8 but it just reused the engine in assets it wasn't just a mock-up of what a Mario Kart game could be like on the switch was it just Mario Kart then we were just seeing things thankfully a couple months later in January of 2017 Nintendo held the Nintendo switch presentation a press conference detailing launcher of the platform when it was releasing the games that were planned pricing all that of course various games were given full trailers and pretty much all the games initially shown in the first look piece were fully revealed but Mario Kart wasn't talked about at all they showed footage of it randomly when talking about the console itself and during a Sizzle reel and we saw what looked like a completely revamped battle mode tell us more Nintendo the event's over lucky for the human race directly after the presentation wrapped up Nintendo exploded online with information about games coming to the switch including a full trailer for a game called Mario Kart 8 Deluxe why didn't they talk about this during the presentation well I'm sure they wanted to focus on new experiences coming to the Nintendo switch rather than highlight an old Wii U game of theirs coming over it's smart to do that with a new console to really show how the switch will be home to brand new experiences rather than ones and a couple years later after that presentation my favorite games on the switch are the Wright brothers first flight and the Agricultural Revolution there's nothing but old on this thing the trailer Nintendo released focused on battle mode with an actual battle mode in it oh yes new characters like Bowser Jr King Boo and Dry Bones oh yes Splatoon content like the inklings and a battle stage of their own oh yes the feather and blue items were returning I'm not making a big deal about everything you know after they previewed this game initially in 2016 a rumor emerged saying how Mario Kart on switch was going to be a souped up Mario Kart 8 with an improved battle mode new characters and new tracks let's see those new tracks this is the best Mario Kart of all time after the switch presentation gameplay demo started happening this was where we learned about the joy-con wheel a wee wheel wannabe for these switch controllers you know what I appreciate the effort not enough to support it but enough to ask people if they actually bought joy-con Wheels more battle modes were teased and a bit later we got a full-blown overview trailer showcasing all the new content and changes made to this version 8 Deluxe came out on the Nintendo switch on April 28 2017. about two months after the system's launch which was lucrative to its success a Mario Kart on your system that early on regardless of it being that's ass big and Nintendo knew this I mean they went all out the target got rebranded with a Mario Kart theme they offered bonus knickknacks with the purchase of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe at Target they mainly went for the Target crowd on this one I was so excited for this the fact that we were getting a Mario Kart this early after a systems launched that was incredible I was already still pretty jazzed about the switch launching so add a new Mario card on top of that I was thrilled that was Mario Kart first let's talk about this box because oh my God I mean Mario Kart 8 was already quite good but the characters posing the colors the overall layout just makes us feel so much more definitive the Nintendo Outsiders were even given their own Spotlight here a little strange though using N64 Rainbow Road as the track for the box art considering it's not an original track but at least this is confirmation from Nintendo that N64 Rainbow Road looks better than Mario Kart 8 Rainbow Road God is sitting crazy how the Wii U game and then some is packed all in this one little card I mean you could fold the disc multiple times to get to this level of compact but the fact Mario Kart 8 is in a card smaller than Mario Kart 7 DS super Circuit that's wild so when we start the game up we still get the loading screen from the original but it's slightly less organic looking now see when you start up a Wii U game there's a startup screen and that screen transitions smoothly into the title screen in eight Deluxe they try to squeeze everything about the startup screen in here even though the game loads so much faster now so it just looks weird and unnecessary but look at this title screen it's so nice to see Mario Kart fully Embrace color again for a while there I think they just forgot what a background looks like there's quite a bit of new art at play here I like this toad we came back out of the main menu and have an actual damn title screen for once they changed quite a bit here when it came to the menu options and layout for example Mario Kart TV is now down here online with one or two players now appears as an option while hovering over online play rather than being two separate options Wireless play is now here meaning playing between two or more switch consoles lamp play is available by holding the shoulder buttons and clicking left stick in wise as a cheat code the DLC shop icon is gone because there's no DLC to shop the options down here are more detailed with new icons these options are the freckles of Mario Kart 8's body the character select screen has been reorganized and tweaked some characters everyone's alternate costumes are separate character slash now I.E the Villager girl and boy characters are organized in a much more organic way here in my opinion everything's unlocked from the get-go except for car parts they remove the stamps so who's ready for me to lose it I mean then Gateway Deluxe doesn't have these I mean their entire purpose was to be used via me first which doesn't exist on Nintendo switch at this very moment it doesn't exist on Wii U but you would get stamps after completing things like Grand Prix or time trials it would have been a nice little extra collectible even if they effectively didn't do anything at the very least Nintendo could email me good job after buying a game of theirs so on to the characters we have everybody returning from Mario Kart 8 but now with some slightly altered stats it's like how I have two driver's licenses you know sometimes I'm feeling 150 sometimes 480. but of course some new characters were added Bowser Jr King Boo and Dry Bones cool and these aren't amazing additions they've all been in Mario Kart in the past and really should have been in here from the start I'm not delve into characters that haven't been in Mario Kart before instead of drawing a circle for the third time but hey we have the inklings from Splatoon they fit in pretty well and round out the non-mario characters but if you get through all the 200cc cups you get gold Mario as an alternate costume for Metal Mario the roster is saved gold Mario and no stamps this is gonna be the best Mario Kart of all time well but by a technicality this is Mario Kart 8 Deluxe it reminds me of um huh Mario Kart 8 it's really different guys the Adam roulette has a zit now yes two items can be held at once it's basically like most Mario Karts before eight but this is slightly different originally holding two items felt more like a hot skill to have rather than a gameplay mechanic in previous games but here it's a deluxe's favorite thing to do it would be insulted if you didn't grab two items the double item boxes from Double Dash return as well offering a bit of strategy they're often placed in slightly unconventional areas so do you risk it all for a double item box or do you enjoy white bread of course two item slots means there are more items flying around and it does make the game more entertainingly hectic however I will always appreciate what the original 8 did by having only one item slot an added strategy alongside giving purpose to the coin item every item you grabbed came alongside the risk of getting a coin now the coin item here barely matters anymore considering if you grab a double item box you will most definitely get at least one defensive item the coin has lost all meaning it was supposed to piss you off now it's even more worthless I'm cool to change to the Dual item slots but I do kind of miss the original Style just a bit well at least they included the boo item it steals an item from another player and makes you invisible I knew Marty carty was missing something it was missing drifting has been slightly altered as in if you can hold a drip for slightly longer you'll get an even bigger boost once you leave it finally this game is good there's also smart steering and auto acceleration where if you don't know what this this or even this is why didn't even want to play Mario Kart but these are options where the cart will accelerate automatically or will avoid going off the road to the best of its abilities you can still control the game with these options on it'll just nudge you out of Harm's Way a lot of the time if anything turning smart sneering on makes a new game of try to go off-road I dare you this little antenna appears on your card if smart steering is enabled which for everybody happened at least once when you initially start up the game for the first time smart steering is automatically enabled and I get it this is a great feature for kids or people who just don't play Mario Kart at all but I'm worried how Auto acceleration and smart steering will affect the driving abilities of our youth go now let's Mario Kart 8 Deluxe it's the same game but enhanced a bit it also runs a bit better too as in Mario Kart 8 ran at 59 frames per second in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe runs at 60 frames per second holy sh I hope that proves it's a different game but that doesn't even scratch the surface of what eight Deluxe adds it battle mode it's shocking to me that and even admitted yeah we stunk battle mode in Mario Kart 8 on Wii U you know considering it was just terrible and I only consider it abysmal that's pretty impressive just balloon battle on pre-existing race tracks what's bad about that the fact that sentence started some Nintendo actually acknowledged that battle mode was pretty raw and pretty much exclusively focused on it with a deluxe it easily got the most attention as we have eight battle maps that are actual battle maps five new and three retro sadly most of the new ones you can tell are derivative of tracks already in the game battle stadium is like Mario Kart Stadium sweet sweet Kingdom sweet sweet Canyon Dragon Palace Dragon driftway lunar Colony Rainbow Road even the Splatoon themed one urgent underpass I mean it's directly based off of a map in Splatoon and not a big deal at all it was a smart move to just reuse these themes as battle stages and they don't feel just like the tracks they're based on but you can sort of see where Corners were cut the three retro courses are nice to see back woohoo Town Luigi's Mansion battle course one and in total is more than enough to work with though other Mario Karts have had more in the past so I can't help but ask for a little more two more retro courses to even things out would have been great but they make up for it with the abundance of battle modes balloon battle Queen Runners Bomb Blast shine Thief pretty much if it was a pedal mode in a past Mario Kart it's here alongside a brand new one Renegade Roundup it's a game of cops and robbers basically if you're on the Cup team try to scoop up the opposing team members they'll be transported into a cage their team members need to try and knock them out this is such an excellent Suite of Battle maps and options but they only let you do timed battles there's always got to be a time limit I understand that from when you're playing online but I would have appreciated the option to turn that off if I wanted to but hey feathers an item exclusive battle mode I love being excited for an item I couldn't care less about gives you a giant jump where you can leap over other players and obstacles so it makes sense as a battle mode exclusive item but but my God I don't care overall I did a good job actually finishing battle mode but that's not to say it's absolutely perfect but not many players are in these matches they can be way too hectic I mean some of these modes have never been played online so I don't think they're well suited for double digits worth of players but hey thanks I finished battle mode good on them everything else I mean I mean it's still Mario Kart 8 the online is roughly the same though actively worse at least when I first started playing this game back in 2017 I got constant error messages and still get them more often than I ever did with the Wii U game but when it works it works and they even give you more options like being able to swap out your character and cart between races all the DLC from the Wii U version is included on the card which is great that means these cart parts and new characters and tracks are officially preserved forever all the Mii costumes you can unlock via me but can still be unlocked if you have the amiibo you cheap 200cc is available from the start here and and it actually felt way better than it did in the Wii U version I don't know what they did here but in Mario Kart 8 200cc felt completely too fast and not well tested enough and it Deluxe it's way more manageable and it's actually a ton of fun we can play with tilt controls the Pro controller joy-con on its side with two joy-con and handheld mode which is just crazy to be able to play Mario Kart 8 on the go and to also just compare eight Deluxe to the previous handheld Mario Karts but here are two major complaints they never gave the DLC cups prepper trophy designs they were always generic looking trophies in comparison to the original cups come on and you also can control the trophies with touch controls I was honestly very disappointed by that okay the game got consistent updates like when they patched out the inkling girl doing one of these apparently that's fighting words they had a new costume and car parts for link based on breath of the wild a year and a half after the game launched why the hell not and of course Nintendo labo support see there were a few cardboard accessories you can make for your Nintendo switch that mimic driving mechanisms so why not force them into Mario Kart they work for some reason the camera is closer on Lemmy ass when you use these things it's pretty immersive it truly feels like I'm using cardboard to stare at a turtle so that's it my regarding Deluxe is obviously the best Mario Kart at the time of its release I just don't feel much of a connection to it I remember being super excited for this game coming out for some reason I felt this was going to feel like a new Mario Kart experience and then when I sat down and played it I realized wow this is Mario Kart 8 I'm bummed there were no new race tracks I'm bummed there was no added single player stuff or major Collectibles and the fact pretty much everything was unlocked from the get-go makes this a super easy Mario Kart to jump into but not really one I could warrant playing for nearly as much as I did with 8 on Wii U initially Mario Kart 8 was exciting because it was new Mario Kart 8 Deluxe was exciting because it's the full package of course no matter what people kept predicting Mario Kart 8 Deluxe would get DLC every year after its release just give up all right so did I do it did I prove that Mario karted Deluxe is different enough to warn a discussion on this Mario Kart 8 I'll take that as a no okay so this is what it looks like when I don't get new shoes and the universe collapses on itself please don't know this for next time [Music] foreign

Channel: Scott's Snippets

Views: 2,283,264

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Id: J6D-L29uH0A

Length: 162min 18sec (9738 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 07 2023