Mario Kart 8 Deluxe

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is hands down the best entry in the franchise to date.  It’s true that the game doesn’t try to reinvent the… wheel, but it more than makes up for it by offering some outstanding track designs and a truly stellar presentation.

Mario Kart 8 makes use of several elements introduced in Mario Kart 7 and the Wii version. From 7, it brings back kart customization, coin collecting, gliding, and underwater racing. From Mario Kart Wii, we’ve got bikes back and a larger number of racers (twelve instead of the usual eight).

This means that Mario Kart 8 already starts with a strong foundation, boasting a varied group of systems and mechanics. Gliding, for example, is not only a satisfying change in how we momentarily control the vehicles – by adding verticality to the mix – but also allows us to experiment with the level design, trying to create a shortcut by flying over obstacles or sharp turns. The propeller, on the other hand, remains mostly cosmetic, since underwater gameplay is almost imperceptibly different from standard racing, except for the appropriate sense of slowness.

Coin collecting, in turn, is an excellent mechanic that makes each race more dynamic, for each coin, in addition to offering a small boost, increases our vehicle’s maximum speed, rewarding players who go out of their way to collect them. We can have up to a maximum of ten, but since we lose three coins each time that we’re hit by something –   and being hit in Mario Kart is much like watching Cats or paying bills: we can’t escape these life-altering experiences for long –, we’re constantly striving to collect them during races.

Mario Kart 8 also features more balanced versions of bikes, compared to Mario Kart Wii, at least. In that game, they were much better than the usual karts, with a unique ability that could increase their speed. Here, they are only an alternative to the classic vehicles: while karts are slightly better on straight lines, where they can bump into the bikes and disrupt their racing, bikes are usually better at making sharp turns.

Mario Kart 8 doesn’t bring much new to the table, then, preferring to explore the mechanics that already exist and balance them better. Its only major gimmick, however, is significant: there are now antigravity sections introduced to some tracks, which allow some segments to be sideways or upside down, without the karts falling.

The thing that makes antigravity go beyond the resulting visual spectacle – we can often watch other players racing upside down on top of us – is the mechanic built into it: if we collide with another kart when antigravity is active, we both receive a boost. This allows for many strategic uses: two players, for example, can come together to overtake other racers by continually bumping into each other, or we can use the collision to get a boost and make our opponent get off the track with their boost – especially if they’re unwise enough to be trying to make a turn without drifting.

Then we come to the outstanding track design. A single segment of Thwomp Ruins, for example, consists of a huge valley that gives players numerous choices in how to cross it: we can go by the walls at both ends with antigravity; we can risk following the path with the Thwomps – pissed-off blocks of stone that can crush racers – to try to gain some time; we can go through the lake at its center, which is a slow but safe way to get to the other side; and we can even chase a rolling Thwomp to a gliding ramp – the fastest and most dangerous route. All these options in just one part of a single track.

Another outstanding course is Mount Wario. It consists of a rapid descent to the base of a mountain, falling into that select group of tracks that don’t have more than one lap. Players start by jumping from the back of an airplane to the top of a snow-laden mountain. From there, the path follows sharp turns until it reaches a small cave with a river, which culminates in a dam, where we race sideways until we reach a small snowy forest that ends on a wide ski slope, which we use to descend to the base of the mountain while passing by a cable car. Each part has its own peculiarities: the descent to the cave reveals shortcuts if we dare to jump over cliffs to skip a part of the road. Inside the cave, we can try to stay on the ice until we reach the ramp that activates gliding or fall into the river. The dam is the antigravity moment when we travel all over its side, trying to catch the boost panels that fall down the mountain along with the water. In the forest, we can make great use of the brief boosts resulting from successfully jumping over logs while dodging trees at high speed; then and at the end, when we reach the ski field with its wide path, we can drift like madmen as we race past the flags until we reach a large gliding section, where we go through floating rings to maintain height and gain speed until we cross the finish line. The experience is just like walking the streets of the future or you right now: breathtaking.

And the tracks are all remarkable from an aesthetic standpoint as well, boasting various creative themes. Sweet Sweet Canyon is built of candy, for example, having us drive through a river of caramel; Electrodrome is a nightclub immersed in neon, with huge pulsing speakers and globes of light; Cloud Trop Cruise begins on top of the clouds, surrounded by beanstalks, and soon takes us to a flying ship through a thunderstorm; and Rainbow Road has us racing through a space station.

The game’s presentation is simply beyond reproach. The animations are fluid and expressive – Luigi’s constant angry gaze puts fear in the heart of any CEO – and the environments have striking details, such as the “Peach of Liberty” in Toad Harbor and the Koopa-shaped mountains in the background of Sunshine Airport. The impact this has on the overall experience is huge: when we realize that there are Boos commanding the statues trying to attack us in Twisted Mansion or that it is the Super Mario 3D World gold train flying over N64 Rainbow Road, throwing coins on the track, we’re rewarded for paying attention to the details and our immersion is significantly increased.

Mario Kart 8 is just as attentive with its soundtrack. The music tracks are groovy and catchy but their tempo also get brisker with each lap to increase tension – in Mount Wario it continues to grow dramatically – and the instruments even change in certain segments to match their unique identities – in Cloudtop Cruise, its soaring trumpets are replaced by an electric guitar when we pass through a thunderstorm, for example, while in Shy Guy Falls, the sound of these little guys mining is added harmoniously to the music.

There are also new items and modifications to old ones. The additions are the boomerang, which can be thrown three times; the Piranha Plant, which tries to bite everyone and everything in front of us – Bunet approves –, giving us a small boost each time; and the Super Horn, which hits everything close to the user, breaking even the infamous blue shell. Meanwhile, this shell still flies through the ground until it reaches its target – whoever is in first place – but now no longer removes its victim’s item. And the lightning strike became more powerful, hitting all players and not just those in front of the user.

But it’s the return of the “coin item” the most important part of Mario Kart 8‘s balance. This crucial item gives three coins to the player and is often handed to those leading the race, which leaves them unprotected. Previously, even the most common items, such as the banana and the green shell, could be placed on the back of the kart to defend it from enemy projectiles. But coins only increase the kart’s speed, giving us a small boost as a bonus. That is, as soon as the first place gets a Coin item, they know that they’re now vulnerable to being hit from behind, and the only recourse is using walls and other obstacles as protection.

Marx once said that the best place to find a perfect reflection of our capitalist society is in the dynamics of a Mario Kart race. Those in front get richer by the minute and do nothing but complain about it: “why should we be punished for being better,” they whine as they watch the Mario Kart State give those behind them three red shells, while they get only more and more coins – which they don’t even need anymore. The person in first place is truly wary of those at the bottom, however, those who are desperately trying to cling to whatever assistance the game offers them – be it stars, bullet bills, or the public health system – for they’re the ones more likely to get a blue shell and start a revolution. And those stuck in the middle dream of getting to the first positions, even though they’re just one red shell away from falling down to the bottom line. In other words, Marx was right, you simply can’t argue with facts.

But despite doing almost everything right, Mario Kart 8 doesn’t do much to explore its great ideas through inventive or challenging game modes. One of its predecessors, Mario Kart DS, was the only title in the franchise to feature some kind of single-player campaign, and its absence in all subsequent games is simply unfortunate. Sonic and All Stars Racing Transformed is another brilliant example of what to offer in a single-player mode in a kart game, being packed with challenging missions that push us to fully explore the main mechanics. Mario Kart 8, on the other hand, offers just the standard races, time trials, and a battle mode, which is disappointing.

The battle mode in the Wii U version of Mario Kart 8 is also insane. But not the good, Jellicle kind of insanity, the one that changes your perspective on life. It’s the “boggles the mind” kind of insanity, the one that just makes you worry for those involved. It uses regular courses instead of battle arenas, making players lose sight of each other constantly while allowing them to easily avoid each other. And to add insult to injury, when someone loses all their balloons/lives, they become invisible… and their ghost can still damage other players, who will have no warning whatsoever. Receiving three red shells on your face out of nowhere is like meeting the invisible hand of the free market for the first time: simply unforgettable. The Switch “Deluxe” version of the game, fortunately, corrects all that and offers us a civilized battle mode, with proper arenas that push us to fight each other, instead of just run away – and there are no ghosts here anymore.

The  Switch version also comes with the DLC for the Wii U game, which boasts 16 more tracks, including some great additions inspired by other Nintendo franchises, such as The Legend of Zelda (where we collect rupees instead of coins), F-Zero (one day, I’m sure we’ll get a proper new F-Zero, a man can dream), and Animal Crossing (this beautiful course has four different versions, one for each season).

The Switch also has a paid expansion called Booster Course Pack, which includes nothing less than 48 more tracks, but of varying quality. Most of them are city tracks inspired by real-life locations (they’re taken from the mobile game, Mario Kart Tour), such as Paris Promenade, which makes us glide beneath the Eiffel Tower. The Berlin course also has a standout moment where we drive beside a wall built with some Thwomps that fall to hit us: it’s Berlin… with a wall… that falls. Great stuff.

But if the Booster Pass has some richly realized tracks that rival the best from the original game, such as the one based on Yoshi’s Island for the SNES or the one called Squeaky Clean Sprint (where we’re tiny karts racing in a giant bathroom and can safely realize our Saltburn-inspired dream of getting very close to a bathtub’s drain), it also suffers from some weak links. There’s a game design principle called “form fits function”: in Super Mario 3D World, we must kick some balls into a boss to defeat them, so they look like soccer balls to make the action feel instinctive for us. Their form fits their function. Now, in Sky-High Sundae, we have some yellow rails in the middle of the tracks. They’re rails, so we try to avoid them, foolishly believing that they’re probably going to block our progress if we bump into them. However, these yellow rails not only give us a boost – so we should actually aim at them instead of avoid them – but we can also pass through them as if they were made of thin air. It boggles the mind.

It’s true that Mario Kart 8 could have presented some sort of campaign mode or any other kind of clever single-player content. Nonetheless, it’s undeniable that this is still a stellar racing game that is both complex and engaging, packed full of memorable racing courses that never fail to impress. In other words, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is brilliant in what it does, even if it could have tried to do just a little bit more.

May 02, 2025.