Back in March of 2022 I started a look at all the Mario Kart games tying in with each DLC release for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and stated that I’d end with a look at the game itself, so let’s do that, even though it’s been nearly a year since I looked at Mario Kart 7, but hey… it’s been a busy year. I’ll be looking at both versions but let’s be honest, 8 Deluxe is just 8 with more stuff so there isn’t really any reason to look back at the Wii U original too hard…
Background:
Waluigi takes centre stage … in this one picture. … and that’s about it. (Wii U)
Mario Kart 8 was released exclusively for the Wii U on May 29th 2014 in Japan and the next day in the US and Europe, so close to a simultaneous worldwide release, but not quite! When the Switch came around it was re-released with all DLC already on the cart as “Mario Kart 8 Deluxe” on April 28th 2017 actually worldwide this time. The Switch version has over 70 million units sold, making it one of the best-selling games of all time…
Character-wise Mario, Luigi, Peach, Bowser, Yoshi, Toad, Toadette, Donkey Kong, Wario, a Koopa, Daisy, Rosalina, and your Mii continue their streak of appearances, plus Baby, Metal and other variation of some of the above, with Shy Guy returning from MK7 and the entire Koopalings joining the fray. The Wii U DLC added non-Mario characters for the first time, with Link from Legend of Zelda and Isabelle and Villager from Animal Crossing. 8 Deluxe then added Bowser Jr., King Boo and Dry Bones, plus the Inklings from Splatoon (despite there not being a Splatoon level…) and then the Booster Pass added Birdo, Petey Piranha, Wiggler, Kamek, Diddy Kong, Funky Kong, Pauline and Peachette. That’s a lot of characters!
As for courses, well… what’s the point of this paragraph now? Have you seen how many courses this game has?! Pick a theme and it’s here. I will say that new courses Sunshine Airport, Cloudtop Cruise, Electrodrome and Shy Guy Falls are good fun, and original game DLC courses Excitebike Arena (proper nostalgia there!), Dragon Driftway, and the two F-Zero tracks were great fun as well. By the time the Booster Pass DLC ended pretty much all retro tracks you could think of are now in the game, so that’s great (though kind of leaves the highly-likely Mario Kart 9 without much to play with…) but with maybe one or two exceptions I really disliked the Mario Kart Tour mobile game tracks based on actual cities, they were often rather dull. Brand new tracks Ninja Hideaway, Sky-High Sundae, Yoshi’s Island and Squeaky Clean Sprint are some of the best tracks period, so if they’re an example of what’s to come then I’ll excited!
Gameplay:
Link riding a bike on an Excitebike arena?! What is this, Super Smash Kart?! (Switch)
Mario Kart 8, all these games later, is still at its heart a really fun kart racer, you’ll not be surprised to hear! You race in cups of four tracks and try to come first in all or at least earn enough points to place first on the podium, and that’s your main mode! You can drift around corners and get two levels of boost if you time it right, and you can pick up and use weapons to take it to your opponent. All the classic weapons return here, mushrooms to make you go faster, shells to hit your opponent (or the person who’s in first place and therefore doesn’t really have any bearing on you with a blue shell… *sigh*) and many more besides. New to MK8 is the Boomerang Flower, which is just like a green shell but it comes back to you for three tries, the Piranha Plant, which works like the Double Dash!! weapon of the same name by chomping people ahead of you while auto-steering you for a bit, and the Super Horn, which destroys anything within a small radius around you… including Blue Shells!! Hooray! The Lucky 7 multiple weapon pick up has become the Crazy Eight but with the same effect, and weirdly the Coins have returned from the original game, pick up 10 coins to get an max acceleration boost, but each time you get hit you lose some. It’s a nice little wrinkle that I’m happy to see back. Deluxe adds the Boo weapon back into play, which steals an opponent’s weapon for you as well as making you transparent and unhittable briefly.
The new gimmick this time round is anti-gravity segments, where you can drive your car upside down if the course asks you too, and has its own floaty feel and allows you to get boosts from nearby objects and other players. The flying and underwater segments from MK7 return and doing tricks mid-air to get a boost is still very much a thing as well. There’s a lot of variety during gameplay, that’s for sure, and that’s not including all the characters and tracks! Speaking of, each character has a weight class and some stats to make them feel a bit different, and the kart is made up of three parts, the kart itself, the wheels and the parachute, with loads to unlock in each category. It’s no simple kart racer, and yet it’s so easy to pick up and play regardless of age. On that note, the Switch 8 Deluxe version starts with steer assist on, which is rather embarrassing frankly and should be an option to turn on for young players not something on by default without even directly telling the player (I was confused my first time turning it on!) Don’t get me wrong, happy to have it as an option though. Sadly “rubber-banding”, where CPU racers “snap” into close proximity to you despite you potentially doing so much better than them in order to “make things more challenging” is still a thing…
A very spooky example of an anti-gravity section. (Wii U)
The modes are the same, with a Grand Prix of aforementioned four tracks split into multiple cups or a custom versus mode where you can pick a larger number of tracks, Time Trials where you try to get the fastest time including facing developer ghosts, and Battle Mode, which in the original 8 was just driving on regular courses with three balloons signifying lives which was rather crap, luckily 8 Deluxe brought back the proper Battle Mode with arenas and all that jazz, plus now everyone has five balloons! There are also several other Battle Mode game times, including a Cops vs. Robers style mode called Renegade Roundup and the returning Bob-omb Blast (Bob-ombs only basically), Coin Runners (person who collects the most coins wins) and Shine Thief (basically capture the flag) so the Deluxe version certainly made up for its predecessor’s mistake, that’s for sure. As part of the Wii U’s DLC cycle they added a 200cc speed level to go along with the 50cc, 100cc, 150cc and Mirror levels, and it’s frankly broken as the courses weren’t designed for that kind of speed, but that’s part of the fun. Obviously everything is offline and online multiplayer as well.
Overall the original version was a fun new Mario Kart game, Deluxe is a pretty insane package for your money, and that’s not even including doubling your playable courses count with the Booster Pass…
Graphics and Sound:
Look at those graphics! … of a giant toilet….? (Switch)
Graphics are good for the Wii U, and that little bit of extra polish and lighting for the Switch “Deluxe” version is good too. It’s one of those things that it may not be comparable to the other consoles of the generation but it’s still so good that I didn’t really notice, or care for that matter. Thankfully the framerate is stable despite the sensation of speed.
Sound is great, fun sound-effects and sound clips and an excellent soundtrack. Can’t go wrong there!
Downloadable Content:
As mentioned, the original Wii U got an additional four cups with a total of 16 new levels and “new” retro tracks, plus some characters and kart pieces, all of which are available from the start with 8 Deluxe. That being said, as the whole reason for this run-through of Mario Kart games will tell you, 8 Deluxe also got a DLC in the form of the Booster Pass, which had crazy 48 new courses (most of which are retro tracks or slightly up-scaled mobile tracks, sadly…) double the amount the game started with, plus new characters and kart pieces. Madness!
Thoughts Then:
The Mario Kart 8 version of Rainbow Road isn’t very rainbow-y … or road-y, really… (Wii U)
Mario Kart 8 was one of my most played Wii U games, which is damning with faint praise if I’ve ever heard it. Seriously though, it’s Mario Kart, it was still fun, the new tracks were good and the remakes of retro tracks warmly nostalgic. No proper Battle Mode was a shame, but hey-ho. It was fine, but I had less friends and young family members interested, so it didn’t get as much play as Double Dash!! or Wii did.
Thoughts Now:
An example of one of the Mario Kart Tour tracks I really dislike… to end an otherwise positive review! That’s what happens when you open the folder with screenshots in only to realise you’ve only taken six and you really can’t be bothered to boot up the game and take more (Switch)
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is an odd one, as to start with I didn’t play it as much as the original because I’d already played 8 a lot and so I just broke it out for multi-player sessions with friends or family (including the return of the proper Battle Mode!) When the Booster Course came along though I eagerly anticipated each new set of cups and loved playing through new Mario Kart content, as this whole marathon will tell you. Much like Smash Ultimate, I have no idea how Mario Kart 9 will top it as it’s now a pretty insanely packed cartridge!
Hogan Reviews 