Which Mario Kart has the Hardest Special Cup?

within the Mario Kart Mythos there are certain questions that always end up creeping into every Fan's Minds at least once during their lifetimes questions like why is coconut more so popular well how did this dumbass bee ever get a spot as a playable racer in a Mario Kart game that no one ever talks about anymore now those questions have plausible answers but there is one such question that has eluded some of the greatest Minds to ever exist that question is which Mario Kart has the hardest special Cup in order to answer this question I'll be locking in and racing through each special cup 20 times all while taking in my median placements for each and comparing them against one another to keep things as consistent as possible we will be racing through each of these cups as Mario in the standard cart for that game we will also be racing through each track at 150 CCC as it was the fastest mode accessible in each and every entry with the specifics out of the way I think it's time we strapped in as we figure out which Mario Kart has the hardest special cup and we're better to start than with the game that kickstarted the whole franchise [Music] now there's two types of people in this world those who have played Super Mario Kart and dumbasses like me who expected it to be the easiest game ever because how could a game built on Ancient software pose any type of challenge at all I mean the tracks are some of the simplest in the entire franchise so surely that means I just breathe through all of them like it was nothing right my disappointment is immeasurable how long's it been in this video like 2 minutes yeah so after spending an hour failing over and over on donut PLS 3 I made the embarrassing decision to lower the difficulty down to a 100 cc and why is that you ask well at least we'll have some actual data to look at in this case that being said even at 100cc this game poses quite the challenge for anyone that hasn't played Super Mario Kart it's probably the hardest game in the entire franchise the controls are extremely slippery to the point where you're probably better off not drifting at all when going around turns not only that but the CPUs in this game blatantly cheat activating light speed on their carts the very moment you pass them now it's not like the tracks are easy either they're simple sure but the number of winding turns and gaps in the bridge make even donut planes 3 a rough Venture not only that but can someone explain to me how this little dirt patch here acts in the same manner as ice physics like what why am I sliding around these turns when it's supposed to be dirt or mud which makes even less sense if I'm being honest the cup doesn't get any easier as we dive into coopa beach too and I don't mean that metaphorically either now all things can considered there aren't as many areas to fly off course but there are a considerable number of cheap Jeeps who always manage to be in the most annoying spots possible the usual slipperiness doesn't have too much of an impact on this track but it certainly does on the next one Ghost Valley 3 is a decently challenging track the first lap isn't too bad as the edges aligned with guardrails but as people hit them they slowly break away what you're left with is an extremely tight course with a sharp turns and nothing to stop you should you scoot a little too far around them add en large gaping holes and you've got a track where you'll spend more time off it than on it now should you survive Ghost Valley 3 you then have to race across vanilla Lake 2 this track has you racing around a lake the challenge here though is the fact that everything is covered in ice now driving on Ice in Super Mario Kart is like adding pink Himalayan salt to regular table salt as a means of making it saltier nice I mean the game already has inbuilt ice physics with how slippery your card is with this added I only adding to the challenging nature of the track the special cup concludes with a track that's gone on to become a house old name in the franchise Rainbow Road and within 15 seconds of playing it I had realized where it notorious reputation had come from F it's not even a complex track sure there's a few WS here and there but the main challenge comes from trying to stay on said track there are no railings here and should even a single Pixel touched that Gap you're cooked wait what huh as you can probably tell I got my ass handed to me by Super Mario Kart's special cup surprisingly though Rainbow Road wasn't the hardest track with Donut Plains 3 taking that title with an average placement of 2.3 as for the Cup itself my median ranking was 1.8 which honestly could be high or it could be low there's nothing really to compare it to yet for now though let's move on to the next big installment in this favored franchise Mario Kart 64 Mario Kart 64 special cup opens up with DK's jungle Parkway a rather unique course that mixes in windy roads and cute shortcuts on an otherwise simple track the controls of 64 are far more intuitive than in Super Mario Kart so so there won't be any need to lower the speed down to 100 cc here honestly DK jungle Parkway is a breath of fresh egg compared to the previous tracks I struggled through the track has relatively easy turns and the shortcut at the end is easy enough to pull off definitely the easiest track we've encountered so far Yosi Valley on the other hand does up the challenge quite a bit Yoshi Valley acts more like a maze than a racetrack with numerous Pathways that Branch out each with their own difficulty curve some paths have obstacles some have extremely narrow roads While others have sharp turns and it's up to the player in this regard to make their own decision about which pathway they want to take the other unique aspect of this track has to do with its mysterious placement system or black thereof the only time you'll know where you place is when you cross that finish line and that feeling of uncertainty Believe It or Not does add a dash of pressure to the already rough experience that comes with this track Ben's Boardwalk is 64's rendition of Ghost Valley I'd say in general it's slightly easier than Ghost Valley as the railings don't shatter when slamming into them but there are a few segments like the zigzag Road or the inside section with the bats they can trip you up if you're not careful the cup finishes off once again with the infamous rainbow road now I'm not sure if this is going to be a hot take or not but I honestly believe 64s rainbow road to be the easiest iteration of the track to ever exist the roads are extremely wide the turns aren't exactly sharp and the track is lined by railings the whole way around making it practically impossible to fall off the only annoyance I can even think of is the chain Chomps that bite your ass every once in a while but outside of that this track isn't just one of the easiest Rainbow roads it might just be the easiest track in the entire cup what wasn't the easiest track though was certainly Yoshi's Valley with its maike structure resulting in it having the highest average placement of 1.85 my median placement for 64 special cup was 1.5 implying that it was a step down in terms of difficulty when compared to its predecessor we've entered the world of handhelds with this next one which also happens to be the most neglected game in the entire franchise don't believe me well what if I asked you to name the tracks of super Circuit special cup I'm waiting yeah look I don't know them either so the cup actually starts off with Lakeside Park and don't let it simple layout fool you this track can seriously you over continuing the theme of each new iteration super Circuit controls in a completely different manner than the first two games while retaining some of that slipperiness from Super Mario Kart this makes drifting around this track's winding turns quite awkward and there's one spot in particular where if you hit the wall in a certain way you can jump yourself straight over to the other side now that sounds pretty cool right well it would be if it didn't as a long cut is that is that an actual term what I was trying to say is it sends you back to the first section of the track this already makes it pretty much impossible to catch up but if you're a special type of dog then you won't do this just once but twice in the same race thankfully broken peer isn't quite as bad a okay it's pretty bad broken Pier lives up to its name for sure it's quite literally a pier with a very windy wooden roads that are falling apart leaving plenty of gaps to fly into if you're not careful the slipperiness of this game in particular makes avoiding all of these gaps quite the challenge now to my surprise we've arrived at the first Bowser's Castle to be included in a special cup I know it's a staple of the cups these days but feel free to fact check me on that one Bow's Castle tracks have always held a strange place in my heart they're not quite as Infamous as the rainbow roads but they certainly offer a decent Challenge and this first iteration may be one of the hardest now it's not complex by any means and it's not like there's countless obstacles as we'll come to see in future iterations but the track itself is designed in a way where each tight turn opens up into a longer stretch full of gaps leading straight to the lava and while it may seem pretty simple I think it works incredibly well alongside the aid controls of super Circuit to make this one of the more challenging tracks in the game with that being said it's most definitely not the hardest I'm sure we all know which track takes that spot this is probably the strangest Rainbow Road in the history of Mario Kart it's got all the usual telltalenoob that will shoot you straight off into orbit if you're not careful as well as narrow roads with no railings but it's this lack of railings that makes this Rainbow Road unique see instead of flying straight off to your death in super Circuit you bounce off each of these edges which can result in some pretty crazy shortcuts if you're actually good I'm not so this has quickly become quite the traumatic experience for Me overall super Circuit special cup proved to be quite the challenging experience to No One surprise Rainbow Road took its rightful place as the hardest track in the cup with my medium ranking of 1.75 placing it as one of the hard cups in the franchise after revisiting all of these Gam games it's truly amazing just how different each one feels from the last and this definitely continues into Mario Kart Double Dash Double Dash as I'm sure you all know let you pick two characters to race as as I've limited myself to only playing as Mario it only seems fitting to pick his green partner in crime as my second racer double Dash's special cup opens up with Warrior Coliseum and once again the drifting mechanics of this game were all over the place I wouldn't say they're nearly as bad as Super Mario Karts or super circuits but they do take some time to get used to thankfully Warrior Coliseum has plenty of wider turns which lets you practice the new drifting mechanics I will say that the Mario Brothers special item isn't the best especially when you can kind of just take yourself out wait how do I come out worse from my own item what the dino dino jungle is a track I honestly completely forgot about and that certainly made it a lot harder to race around when looking to avoid the numerous Stomps or cute faces that seemingly popped out of nowhere the track also contains some of the winder roads many of which led into very narrow passageways that you're able to fall off if you're not too careful kind of a dark horse track if I'm being honest what isn't a dark horse though is this iteration of Bowser's Castle this is about the point where they started upping the anti on these tracks in particular you've got narrow corridors lined with WS you've got your usual Fire based obstacles and you even have a moving Bowser Monument that shoots out Fireballs strange how they've never used that idea again oh and of course you've got your Gap that I somehow always seem to get knocked into don't you dare don't now this might be a bit of a hot take but I think double Dash's rainbow road is the hardest of the bunch not only does it have extremely tight turns paired with very narrow roads with no railings but the whole concept of more items in this iteration makes the whole thing a complete nightmare I mean look at this you're not only trying to stay on the road but half of it is covered in oh you can't even properly drift around this first spiral without flying off the edge but that's most likely because I'm garbage either way I've always struggled a lot with this iteration of rainbow road it shouldn't come as a surprise then when I tell you that it was by far the hardest track in the entire special cup that being said my average medium placement of 1.625 puts Double Dash in quite an interesting spot when compared to the rest of the games in this series back and forth we go from console to hand hold as we move onto Mario Kart DS and more specifically Wario Stadium the track itself is fairly simple there's a few areas that have mud pits that slow you down but outside of those and a few fir Wheels there's not too much to really trip you up the layout does include a little heart in it which I always found to be kind of cute but it doesn't necessarily make for a challenging track Peach Garden sits in a similar boat as Warrior stadium and despite it having tighter turns and more obstacles in the form of Monty moles and moving chain Chomps the overall width of the roads and the sublime controls of the DS iteration make this track even easier in my opinion than Warrior Stadium one of the central gimmicks that was introduced in Mario Kart DS was snaking and you've probably noticed that I haven't been doing it that's because it's fairly inconsistent with mediumweight cars and it's most effective on long straight roads which honestly not many of these tracks have Bowser Castle is where I'd say the special cup finally UPS the challenge it's got your usual suspects th in the hallways and plenty of lava pits to fall into that combined with the tight corridors and chaotic nature of Mario Kart in general make this one of the more tougher tracks to race through but as we've come to expect the tree Tor lies at the end of each special cup with this latest iteration continuing this trend like any other Rainbow Road this one features pretty narrow roads with hardly any railings to stop you from being pushed off there are also some pretty unique interactions that can happen on these maps and you bet your sweet ass after racing through this track 20 times I would have seen a good few of them uh what's happening wait what the what the is going on the windy turns at the end which happen to be where I flew off the map the most also managed to be right before the Finish Line I feel like Nintendo knew exactly what they were doing there all of those things combined make rainbow road the hardest track in this special cup overall though the cup proved to be one of the easiest with an average median ranking of 1.125 welcome to the world of bikes or not because we're sticking with Mario in a standard card you suck yes that means no Funky Kong Flame of cheese but with that being said this particular special cup certainly doesn't need it the Cup starts out with dry dry ruins and everything from its theming to its layout are just that dry as with tracks like coopa cape and coconut mall it was inevitable that some had to be Duds and unfortunately the special cup is starting off with one now the track does have some interesting features like the large circular room that fills up with sand over the course of the race Honestly though there's nothing about this course that's even remotely challenging the pokies are slow and easy to avoid and even if they weren't the roads are extremely wide with with the only section to include sharp turns being aided by Boost strips that line the walls and shoot you off in the perfect Direction anyway definitely one of the easiest tracks we've raced through moon view Highway on the other hand definitely had the potential to be a challenging track I have to give it to the Wii version as there seems to be far more Vehicles lining the roads than its eight Deluxe counterpart even then though the latter half of the course is just free reain with a billion lanes and hardly any vehicles to cause any type of problem the hardest part is probably at the very start where you're not sure if there are cars turning around the tight bends even then though the latter half gives you more than enough time to catch up should you ever fall behind we now move on to my favorite iteration of Bowser's Castle now despite it being my favorite it certainly isn't the hardest and although it has your typical THS and even a cool section with the familiar looking Bowser Monument that uh shoots Fireballs haven't we seen that before the roads are much wider than previous iterations making drifting around the sharp turns fight easier in general the special cup once again finishes off with Rainbow Road and this one may be the most recognizable track in Mario Kart history from its music to its aesthetic and even its unique animations that see you plummeting towards the earth I think it'd be hard pressed to find someone who doesn't have some kind of nostalgic memory tied to this track that being said it it's pretty easy let's be real sure there's no railings like usual but the roads are fairly wide and the turns aren't particularly sharp or windy either yes just like any other Rainbow Road you'll most likely find yourself off track whether that's because someone knocks you off or you got some dirt in your eye and you accidentally boosted yourself off uh but even in those rare cases it's fairly simple to claw your way back for the win now to everyone's surprise I'm sure Rainbow Road didn't prove to be the hardest track in we special C that title belongs to Bowa Castle but how could that be didn't I essentially say it was one of the easiest iterations well happens no way oh no we R going through the TV we're back on the handhelds with this one and what is arguably the most overlooked Mario Kart thankfully Mario Kart 7 took much of its mechanics from its DS counterpart and as such drives like a dream that being said its tracks certainly aren't as LAX as DS's with many of them featuring far more complex designs this can be seen almost immediately in the special Cup's first track DK jungle as the name suggests DK jungle contains a whole ass ecosystem within it many creatures like frogs TIY goons and uh the stone pillars that scream acting as lot of annoying obstacles throwing in some windy turns and you've got a decently challenging track to start us off thankfully for the massacr though this cup only looks to get harder in the following tracks as we enter into Rosalina's ice world now all things considered this track has one main problem that being that there isn't much of a track left as much of the ice has completely Fallen to the way side what's left is large gaps that are always situated either around bending turns or next to speed boost two of the best places large gaps could possibly be oh and these articles can be fairly annoying as well considering your cart loves to home in on them now I want you guys to be honest here does anyone actually remember Bowser's Castle from Mario Kart 7 I'm not saying it's bad but I mean I played through it 20 times just for this video and even still I can't remember much of it I do remember thinking its layer left much to be desired though but I will say it did have some rather fun winding roads with little gaps here and there or five pillars that made things somewhat challenging outside of that though I can't say this track posed too much of a challenge when compared to the rest of the special Cup roster and speaking of the rest of the roster we arrive at one of the best rainbow roads in Mario Kart history and yes I'm willing to die on that rock Mario Kart 7's Rainbow Road isn't just good though it's one of the harder iterations purely because it doesn't have repeating laps each segment is completely different from the last and each one comes with its own challenges whether that's winding turns around planets awkward gaps in Saturn's rings or massive chain Chomps you have to avoid while zooming across the moon's irregular surface it's definitely not the hardest Rainbow Road but it does wrap up a cup in a fairly underappreciated game in a fabulous way now it may not be the hardest Rainbow Road in the series but it did prove to be the most challenging in Mario Kart 7 special cup with an average placement of 1.8 in terms of the overall rankings though Mario Kart 7 seems to place to WS the midpoint of the group with an average median ranking of 1.375 we've arrived at the final and most recent Mario Kart game what was that Mario Kart tour yeah never heard of it now despite Mario Kart 8 introducing the fabled 200cc racing mode to keep things consistent with the previous entries we will be sticking with a 150cc the cup opens up with Cloud top Cruise which is a decent Challenge on 200cc on 150 though it's pretty simple there are a few sharper turns just before the Launchpad but past that it's is thick roads with the occasional lightning zap overall a pretty easy track to start us off we drop from the Heavenly Heights of cloudtop cruise straight into the harsh deserts of bone dry Junes thankfully the track itself isn't quite as harsh as its climate it do up the anti on winding turns featuring far more of them than its Sky High predecessor these TI turns mostly congregate towards the start of the track though giving you plenty of time in the latter half to make up any distance lost due to bad RNG or in my case trash driving we move on to the final iteration of Bow's Castle and you know what they say you save the best for last unless you're Mario Kart okay no look the track is fine there's plenty of obstacles to avoid like Gees fireb bars and even a massive moving Bowser Monument again but there's also far too much space to take turns and at 150 cc the speed limit is far too slow to make any of it that challenging especially when compared to some of the castles we've had to race through before this all leads us to the final iteration of Mario Kart's most infamous track Rainbow Road eight ah I mean Rainbow Road Deluxe there's got to be something that we can use to differentiate all these tracks like many of its predecessors this Rainbow Road offers a decent challenge with plenty of narrow roads sharp turns many of which don't even have barriers to save you from plummeting off the track and the usual cluster of other races all spamming items at each other resulting in a rather chaotic experience even so I wouldn't consider this a particularly hard iteration of the infamous track and on 150 cc in particular I'd argue it's actually one of the easiest that may also be because we've been racing the same goddamn track for the last 10 years but I mean what do you want me to say there's there's no Mario Kart 10 now despite me flexing how easy rainbow road is it's still proved to be the hardest out of the four tracks covered with an average placement of 1.35 the same can't be said about the Cup itself which ranked as one of the easiest with a median placement rank of 1.25 speaking of rankings though I think it's time we answer the question POS at the start of the video which Mario Kart has the hardest special card to answer that question let's first identify the easiest is those being Mario Kart DS and Mario Kart Wii when it comes to gameplay I believe these two were the first ones to perfect not only the physics engine but also the design of many of its tracks in saying that I do think some of the tracks could have been scaled up in terms of difficulty as they often featured very wide turns and relatively simple shortcuts but all in all I'd be lying if I said they weren't a blast to play on Mario Kart 8 follows them as the next easiest and while I believe its tracks are far more complex I think playing this game for as long as we have has made 150cc kind of a joke the only time you're not coming first is either fat RNG or screwing around while trying to keep things interesting while you race around bone dried Dunes for the 16th time in a row Mario Kart 7 marks the halfway point alongside Mario Kart 64 with the ladder being far harder mainly due to its primitive controls that take some time getting used to moving up into the top three we're starting off with Double Dash which not only features some extremely unique controls mainly due to its drifting mechanics but also some decently challenging tracks Rainbow Road in particular as we've discussed has some incredibly challenging turns some of which you can't even drift around properly even so it doesn't compare to super Circuit which takes the second top spot for slippery mechanics and fast pace gameplay having to drift around sharp turns when you can barely see what's in front of you makes super Circuit special cop an absolute nightmare pretty much all of the tracks have no safety precautions allowing you to fly straight off of them and trying to catch up in those situations is a nightmare as speed boosting items plus slipperiness never makes for a good combo that being said the king of slipperiness is without a doubt the Mario Kart that started it all with extreme tight turns many of which will leave you off course an extremely awkward drifting system that often causes more harm than good and cheating CPUs that never let you stay ahead of them for more than 2 seconds Super Mario Kart special cup to this day Remains the hardest cup in the franchise's history well at least in my opinion maybe one day I'll get that illustrious Gold Cup in 150 C but let's be real Elden Ring's DLC is looking far more manageable than that I you guys enjoyed this video and if you did please do consider subscribing again feel free to toast me up in the comments for my mediocre driving abilities you can spam skill issue if you want as well it's all fine by me hope you all have a great day and I'll see you all in the next video

Channel: Legend of Kai

Views: 36,368

Keywords: mario kart 8 deluxe, mario kart 8 deluxe shortcuts, mario kart 8 deluxe dlc, Nintendo, Funny, Gaming, Commentary, Hardest, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Wii, Mario Kart Wii, Mario Kart 64, Mario Kart DS, Mario Kart 7, Super Mario Kart, Mario Kart Double Dash, Mario Kart Super Circuit, deluxe, Legend of Kai

Id: uU3n04JCSRg

Length: 22min 16sec (1336 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 06 2024