Mario Kart 8
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Mario Kart 8 is a racing game released in 2014 by Nintendo for the Wii U. It's the eighth major installment in the Mario Kart series, following Mario Kart 7 for the Nintendo 3DS in 2011.
An enhanced version for the Nintendo Switch, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, was released on April 28, 2017.
Why It's A Number One
Overall
- The introduction of zero gravity is a cool and interesting feature in the series, which allowing players to drive on almost any surface. That's what distinguishes Mario Kart 8 from its predecessors.
- Gliders, underwater racing, and kart customization also return from Mario Kart 7.
- Beautiful, colorful, and vibrant graphics that can be considered a major improvement over the earlier of the series. It is also the first on an HD console, and serves as a good showcase of the Wii U's graphical capabilities.
- Fluid and responsive controls.
- Over 30 racers to choose from including returning favorites like Waluigi and Dry Bowser and the Koopalings as brand new additions.
- Wonderful music created using a full orchestra, as opposed to past games where the music was created either using a sound chip or synthesizers.
- Just like the past games, all the new tracks in this game are stellar and explore new themes such as a water park, airport, disco party, ski course, subway, and a manmade Rainbow Road.
- Some of the retro courses have been entirely revamped as well: Toad's Turnpike now takes place in a real city, Baby Park is a theme-park attraction and entirely in anti-gravity, Ribbon Road is a toy racetrack in a child's bedroom, and the Mario Kart 64 version of Rainbow Road has a magical and celebratory feel and is condensed into a single-lap course because of it's ludicrous length.
- ATVs are now available as selectable vehicles, with bikes also returning from Mario Kart Wii.
- The ability to do fire-hopping (which requires you to repeatedly press the hop button after earning a speed boost to extend it).
- The introduction of the Super Horn, a unique item that knocks out nearby racers and incoming items including the infamous Blue Shell.
- The game also introduces three other new items: the Piranha Plant, Boomerang Flower, and an updated version of the Lucky 7 called the Crazy 8, which adds a Coin as an extra item.
- You can use certain amiibo to unlock suits for your Mii characters to wear.
- The game also introduces the 200cc engine class, which is great for hardcore players.
- This is the first game in the main series to feature non-Mario racers, which are Link from The Legend of Zelda and Villager and Isabelle from Animal Crossing.
- There's a handful of references to other Nintendo racing games such as two new tracks based on Mute City and Big Blue from F-Zero, the Excitebike Arena track based on Excitebike (which also has a different layout each time you play), and the Mario's Motors sponsor using artwork from Famicom Grand Prix II: 3D Hot Rally.
- A handful of amiibo costumes are also based other non-Mario characters and franchises, such as Kirby, Captain Falcon from F-Zero, Samus Aran from Metroid, Fox McCloud from Star Fox, Olimar from Pikmin, and even third-party characters like Sonic the Hedgehog, Mega Man, and Pac-Man.
- Its also the first Mario Kart game to feature real-life cars courtesy of Mercedes-Benz: the GLA, 300 SL Roadster, and W-25 Silver Arrow.
- The very first game where the Koopalings are playable. And all but Roy have new voice actors. Larry and Lemmy sound super cute while Wendy now sounds like a teenage girl.
Deluxe
- This version includes all the DLC content from the Wii U version, giving those who missed out on the DLC a chance to buy it at the same price as the game.
- Bowser Jr., King Boo, and Dry Bones make their triumphant return as racers after a long absence.
- New to the list of racers are the Inklings from Splatoon, with the popular Urchin Underpass now part of the eight new Battle Mode arenas.
- The optional Smart Steering and Auto-Accelerate functions help young and inexperienced players practice and play against experienced players without the race being completely one-sided. It's also fun to turn both handicaps on and watch the game play itself.
- The game now has a fully-fledged battle mode, featuring eight brilliant courses (including the previously mentioned Urchin Underpass) and a whopping five game modes including the classic Balloon Battle, Bob-Omb Blasters and Shine Thief from Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, Coin Runners from Mario Kart Wii (which is technically Shine Runners from Mario Kart DS), and the new Renegade Roundup, a cops-and-robbers-style game where one team uses Piranha Plants to capture the other team.
- The Boo Item returns since Mario Kart DS, and the Feather Item from Super Mario Kart reappears as a Battle Mode exclusive item.
- Red Shells and Blue Shells are slower when they lock on to their target, meaning that you could easily outrun them in 200cc.
- Link's design from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild makes an appearance here as a separate skin as part of the v1.6.0 update.
- The game is receiving 48 more retro tracks from older Mario Kart games as part of the Booster Course Pass DLC, making up to a total of 96 tracks. It is a massive difference from all other games of the series and is a number comparable to how many tracks are included with the CTGP mod packs (or Mario Kart Wii fan hacks like Mario Kart Wii Deluxe, Mario Kart Midnight, and Krash Kart Wii) for Mario Kart Wii and 7.
Bad Qualities
Overall
- The item balance is based on distance instead of placement, and it is the worst implementation for a Mario Kart game ever as you can get items like a Coin or Banana Peel in a low position which won't help you that much.
- Speaking of items, the Coin item, while not as bad as the Thunder Cloud from Mario Kart Wii, is the worst item in the entire game because they essentially do nothing aside from giving you two coins, and they don't help you out in races. They're also redundant to have as items since coins are already all over the track and you can only have 10 coins for each race.
- It is very common to get them in first place, which makes it really hard to defend yourself from incoming items.
- Speaking of items, the Coin item, while not as bad as the Thunder Cloud from Mario Kart Wii, is the worst item in the entire game because they essentially do nothing aside from giving you two coins, and they don't help you out in races. They're also redundant to have as items since coins are already all over the track and you can only have 10 coins for each race.
- Questionable racer roster. While the addition of other Nintendo characters is nice, there is also a ton of lousy filler characters such as Baby Rosalina, Tanooki Mario, Cat Peach, and the most baffling being Pink Gold Peach.
- Characters that didn't make the cut like Birdo and Diddy Kong would be better choices because they are both original have an origin and weren't just reskins or made for the game.
- While the Koopalings addition is awesome, they take up seven character spots (despite having different statistics), and it would've been better if they had a drop-down menu, just like the multi-colored Yoshis, Metal/Gold Mario and Shy Guys.
- Bikes are rather gimmicky with their inside-outside drifting. Unlike Mario Kart Wii, they also can't perform wheelies, but you can now perform super and ultra mini-turbos with them so that they play similarly to karts.
- The Mii voices are the same as the ones in Mario Kart Wii and Mario Golf: World Tour, and they're rather annoying to listen to.
Original
- The battle mode is considered the worst by fans due to the fact that all the battles take place in race tracks instead of actual arenas. Plus, it has Balloon Battle as its only battle mode.
- Morton Koopa Jr. with the Blue Falcon kart was extremely overpowered.
- Split Screen is not available by default on the GamePad. To activate it, tap the monitor on the top right corner of the GamePad's screen.
- Due to Nintendo shutting down the Miiverse service, it is now impossible to upload your Mario Kart TV replays to YouTube, use Miiverse stamps, and create new online tournaments (though it is still possible to attend the pre-existing ones). These features would be removed entirely in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.
Deluxe
- Waluigi on the Wild Wiggler and Rollers combination is very overpowered and overused online. While Donkey Kong and Roy on the same kart and wheels share the same statistics, players choose rather Waluigi since he allows the player to see what's in front of them better.
- The tracks in the Booster Course Pass look rather bland compared to the base game tracks, due to their appearances being based on Mario Kart Tour. While this isn't necessarily a bad thing, it has been considered a graphical downgrade by some fans, with some of the biggest offenders including Shroom Ridge and Coconut Mall.
- Speaking of Coconut Mall, in the previous versions of the track, there was a section involving Miis driving cars, and driving into one of the said cars will make you crash. However, in the Booster Course Pass, the cars do not move nor will make you crash, and the Miis are replaced with Shy Guys for some reason, which made fans of the original course very disappointed. A later update would allow the cars to move and spin but only in VS, and still isn't the same.
- False Advertising: The Booster Course Pass is heavily advertised as containing only retro tracks from the past games, but when Wave 2 was announced, one of the tracks was Sky-High Sundae, which was brand-new and is considered a Tour track by some sources despite debuting here first.
- This would further add Yoshi's Island and Squeaky Clean Sprint as new tracks in the 4th and 5th wave respectively.
- While Waluigi Pinball returning was nice, it breaks the "one track per soundtrack" rule, reusing DS Wario Stadium's music instead of getting a new arrangement.
Reception
The Wii U version of Mario Kart 8 received "generally favorable" reviews, according to review aggregator Metacritic.
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe received critical acclaim with many critics highlighting the revamped battle mode as a welcome improvement over the Wii U version. It holds a score of 92/100 on Metacritic. IGN gave it a score of 9.3/10, saying it was "just as amazing in 2017 as it was in 2014". Eurogamer, referencing the revamped battle mode, said that Nintendo had fixed one of the only shortcomings in a "generous port of a modern masterpiece". Some fans (such as the YouTubers Sbells27 and Scott the Woz) even consider Mario Kart 8 the best game in the series.
Sales
Shortly after the game's launch in the United Kingdom, it was announced that week-on-week Wii U console sales had risen 662% in the country, with Mario Kart 8 bundles accounting for 82% of the units sold. In its first four days on sale, it became the fastest selling Wii U game to date, with more than 1.2 million copies sold worldwide. Within a month of the release, it had increased to 2.82 million. By the end of September 2021, more than 8.46 million copies were sold worldwide, making it the best-selling Wii U game. Based on the sales data, over half of all Wii U owners own a copy.
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe was one of the best-selling games of 2017 on Amazon. It is the first Mario Kart game since Mario Kart Wii in 2008 and the first Nintendo game overall since Pokémon Black and White Version in 2011 to reach No. 1 on the charts in the United Kingdom. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is the fastest-selling game in Mario Kart history, with more than 1.2 million copies sold worldwide within three days. By March 2018, more than nine million copies had been sold worldwide, ranking it among the best-selling games on the platform, only after Super Mario Odyssey. Three months later, sales had surpassed ten million. As of March 31, 2022, total sales reached 45.33 million copies, making it the best-selling Nintendo Switch game.
Awards
Readers and staff of Eurogamer voted Mario Kart 8 their game of the year, and GameSpot gave it the award of "Best Wii U Game". It was nominated for "Best Wii U Exclusive" in GameTrailers' 2014 Game of the Year Awards; for "Best Game" in Giant Bomb's 2014 Game of the Year Awards; and for "Overall Game of the Year" and "Wii U Retail Game of the Year" in Nintendo Life's Reader Awards 2014, and it won both awards for both categories in their Staff Awards 2014. It won "Game of the Year" by The Guardian. In IGN's Best of 2014 Awards, it was nominated for "Best Multiplayer" and "Best Racing", and won the award for "Best Wii U Game". In IGN's Best of 2017 Awards, the Switch version was nominated for "Best Switch Game" and "Best Remake/Remaster". It was nominated for "Best Switch Game" in Destructoid's Game of the Year Awards 2017, and won the award for "Old Game of the Year" in Giant Bomb's 2017 Game of the Year Awards.
Videos
Trivia
- This is the only Mario Kart game wherein the first racetrack is not a circuit course.
- Unlike several previous installments of the Mario Kart series, the retro courses use their respective Mario Kart logo, excluding the DLC tracks GCN Yoshi Circuit, GBA Cheese Land, and GBA Ribbon Road; the tracks from SNES to GCN use an updated version of the classic logo, while the tracks from DS to 3DS, and the three DLC tracks mentioned, use the current logo.
- Wherever text appears in the background elements of the game's racetracks (notably in 3DS Neo Bowser City and 3DS Music Park), it is generally written in American English, regardless of the language or region of the game itself.
- In the Japanese version, the classifier for the Retro courses from Mario Kart 64 has changed to N64, from 64 which was used prior to Mario Kart 8. This change is also applied to the Chinese and Korean translation of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.
- With the upcoming Booster Course Pass, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe will have the most retro tracks in any Mario Kart game with a total of 71.
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