Mario Kart 8 review

[wakka]

They did a new Micro Machines recently. It was called Toybox Turbos and it was awful. Robbed of my ?6 on that one.

These are all great ideas though! I love the idea of a track where the graphics upgrade each lap, that would be so cool. Also the one where you drive over all the Nintendo consoles - that would be like Ribbon Road in terms of making you Micro Machine sized.

[Zen Monkey]

Best game this gen in my book and my favourite in the series. And 200cc mode elevates it further. It's almost too fast and chaotic, with new racing lines to master, short cuts to avoid, and items once loved now dreaded; it's like learning the game anew. Pity battle mode has been rendered awful, it was fantastic in SMK and SMK64.

[Asura]

Best game this gen in my book and my favourite in the series. And 200cc mode elevates it further. It's almost too fast and chaotic, with new racing lines to master, short cuts to avoid, and items once loved now dreaded; it's like learning the game anew. Pity battle mode has been rendered awful, it was fantastic in SMK and SMK64.

Yeah, that's the biggest mis-step. I don't like MK8's battle mode at all.

Then again, I think Mario Kart 7's on 3DS was pretty bad too.

[Dogg Thang]

I don't think I ever played battle mode more than once in any MK.

[Asura]

I don't think I ever played battle mode more than once in any MK.

64's was amazing; shame you missed out. Great fun with a few beers.

[Nu-Eclipse]

64's was amazing; shame you missed out. Great fun with a few beers.

Still not as good as SMK's Battle Mode.

Mario Kart Battle Mode will NEVER be that good again.

[Asura]

Still not as good as SMK's Battle Mode.

Mario Kart Battle Mode will NEVER be that good again.

I preferred 64's, largely by the virtue of being 4-player.

[Zen Monkey]

I enjoyed both SMK and SMK64s battle modes as much as their racing and time trialling conterparts. My friend and I played battle mode religiously and it's the perfect environment to learn the nuances of the controls and hone one's skills. With two evenly matched players, the courses are strewn with bananas and ricocheting shells and the cat and mouse gameplay can go on for 30 minutes before someone finally wins. It's really disappointing that MK8s is so poor, as online battles could and should have been wonderful.

[briareos_kerensky]

Resurrecting this thread, as I've bought MK8 Deluxe with all DLC on the cart.
I've never played the DLC tracks that form the second cup selection screen, so I'm going through them starting from the lowly 50cc cup, and...being rather underwhelmed. The tracks from SMK Tour, especially those about cities, are rather bland both in track design and graphics. The remixes for old tracks are a notch down from the base remix tracks, and again they don't play or look as goog as the base game. It's like when you hit L or R to select the DLC cups, the game becomes a lesser version of itself. This is an impression based on just one play at 50cc, maybe they'll get better in higher classes.

[Nu-Eclipse]

I preferred 64's, largely by the virtue of being 4-player.

Frankly, 4-Player mode pretty much emphasised just how garbage the battle mode was in MK64.

[Asura]

Frankly, 4-Player mode pretty much emphasised just how garbage the battle mode was in MK64.

Wow, nearly 10 years I'd still prefer 64's, but I openly admit nostalgia plays a big role. 64 was the first MK I owned.

[wakka]

Resurrecting this thread, as I've bought MK8 Deluxe with all DLC on the cart.
I've never played the DLC tracks that form the second cup selection screen, so I'm going through them starting from the lowly 50cc cup, and...being rather underwhelmed. The tracks from SMK Tour, especially those about cities, are rather bland both in track design and graphics. The remixes for old tracks are a notch down from the base remix tracks, and again they don't play or look as goog as the base game. It's like when you hit L or R to select the DLC cups, the game becomes a lesser version of itself. This is an impression based on just one play at 50cc, maybe they'll get better in higher classes.

They are definitely weaker overall, unfortunately. There are good tracks in the mix - usually the ones that close out a cup, which are the only truly entirely new tracks - but as you identify the Tour tracks are noticeably poorer.

It's a shame, but it definitely feels like the Switch DLC courses weren't given as much budget or resource as the original track set or the WiiU DLC track set (which were bundled in with MK8 on Switch).