Topic: Mario Kart 8 Deluxe

@gcunit

I wasn't the greatest fan of Choco Mountain in the other games I've played it in but I really love it in MK8 for some reason. I really don't know why but I just find the course a lot of fun.

I've said this before, but my overall ranking for the 8 tracks is:

1. Ninja Hideaway
2. Coconut Mall
3. Choco Mountain
4. Paris Promenade
5. Sky Garden
6. Shroom Ridge
7. Tokyo Blur
8. Toad Circuit

I agree with you about Toad Circuit. It is a simple track but it's meant to be and we don't have many in MK8 (even Mario Kart Stadium has the big anti-gravity section). It's one of the best simple tracks in the entire series so I'm glad it has returned. It is a fun track, especially on higher speeds.

@lighteningbolt79 I think Toad Circuit will be more fun when it gets introduced in online matchmaking. It has that chaotic last turn of the last lap potential to it (where 1st place gets blue shelled and finishes 12th) which was present in Mario Kart Wii's Luigi Circuit.

Finally got around to playing the new courses after having guests over yesterday. Here are my thoughts:

• Paris Promenade is a great starting track to all of this, even if I think it's not as exciting as the tracks later down the line. That isn't to say it's bad though, and seeing the track diverge onto a different path, making you go BACKWARDS was so cool.
• Toad Circuit makes me feel extremely nostalgic. I played on that track so much when I played 7 so to see it come back with those glorious long turns made me very happy. I'm also a big fan of how fast it can be when you get to the last lap, I absolutely revel in that kind of chaos.
• Choco Mountain is one of my favourite tracks from MK64 and it's just as awesome here as well. It honestly doesn't feel like Choco Mountain because they changed up so much about it but there's juuuust enough still here that it feels like an improvement on the original rather than a different track with the name 'Choco Mountain'. Great stuff.
• ....What do you want me to say? It's Coconut Mall, it's bloody fantastic! While I lament the removal of Mii's and the moving cars near the end, it still feels great to zoom about and the areas where they added tricks in are great. It's one of the most popular for a damn good reason.
• Tokyo Blur is also another great Tour track, particularly in how each lap changes rather than on the last one last Paris Promenade. It constantly keeps you on your toes whilst also spicing up an otherwise admittedly boring track into somnething incredibly memorable. Very good.
• Shroom Ridge is simple but very effective. I'm not usually the biggest fan of simple tracks (looking at you Moo Moo Meadows), but this one does just enough to stand out for me. The constant turns, the trailing item boxes and especially the cars lining the sides of the road Toad's Turnpike style makes it really fun to go through.
• Sky Garden can feel a bit wonky at times with when you can or can't trick off of things but other than that it's very cool. I love how it spirals upwards before culminating in gliding back down to the start, that bit is really good. Other than that though, the fact that there's bouncing mushrooms makes me convinced Mushroom Gorge is coming back as well so it gets bonus points for that.
• And lastly, Ninja Hideaway is damn near flawless. Incredible setting and atmosphere, absurdly creative with the falling ceilings, ninja Shy Guys and all of the branching paths and just a generally great feel when driving around. This is going to become a new classic, I just know it.

And before I finish up, I have to give special attention to the music. It is simply fantastic all around, partially because I didn't think they'd actually make brand new remixes and just bring over the songs from Tour. The highlights for me are Coconut Mall, Shroom Ridge, Choco Mountain, Toad Circuit and Ninja Hideaway (ok that last one is the same as in Tour but it's too good not to mention).

If I were to rank them I'd say:

1. Ninja Hideaway - Holds up against some of the best tracks in the base game, both visually and the track design. Was pleasantly surprised with this one. It might become one of my top 10 Mario Kart tracks.

2. Paris Promenade - Love the music and visuals, plus the gimmick where you go backwards on the last lap is fun.

3. Coconut Mall - Was my favourite track from Wii, I do miss the moving cars, but it still holds up pretty well. The music is also super catchy.

4. Shroom Ridge - I actually enjoy this more than Toad's Turnpike. The streets are more narrow so it adds to the chaos, and it makes it more satisfying to swerve between the cars.

5. Tokyo Blur - The track is a little basic but at least the route changes each lap to keep it feeling a bit fresh

6. Toad Circuit - Simple but has some satisfying turns for drifting

7. Sky Garden - As far as sky levels go I much prefer Cloudtop Cruise

8. Choco Mountain - Bland and basic, never really cared for it in MK64 and still don't care for it much here.

I love all the tracks. Obviously some more than others, but it's Mario Kart. They're all crazy fun.

I don't have the nostalgia for Coconut Mall like many others since I barely played MK Wii. But I think it's a decently fun track.

Choco Mountain is one of the N64 classics though. I spent more time in MK64 than any other MK game to date. I wish they'd bring back Double Decker battle course from that game. Oh it was so good! But we're not getting more battle courses. I kinda wish we were though.

Ninja Hideaway is the best, though I can't say I like it more than every track in the existing game. There are some bangers, especially Mute City and Big Blue. But it's definitely up there.

It's really cool experiencing a GBA course remade. I know we've had that before but, it's still really impressive.

The Tour tracks based on real world locations aren't my favorite but they're not bad either. They add variety with the track changing per lap. I love that.

The other tracks like Shroom Ridge and Toad Circuit are decent enough. Just good, solid tracks. Mario Kart needs those kinds of tracks, too.

I'd forgotten how much fun this game is. It's super fun and addictive. One of the best video games ever created.

Why are there never any DLC courses when I play online?

1. Ninja Hideaway
2. Paris Promenade
3. Coconut Mall
4. Choco Mountain
5. Shroom Ridge
6. Sky Garden
7. Tokyo Blur
8. Toad Circuit

@TommyTendo They haven't been unlocked for online play yet for some reason. I think they'll be available on the 21st or 22nd

Here's my ranking of the first wave:

1 - Coconut Mall: This is one of, if not my favorite Mario Kart course of all time. The music is so good, I love the twists and multiple paths you take, and overall I think it just looks better. It's a shame they got rid of the "Have a nice day" and "Thanks" signs, though. Some people are upset about the moving cars and escalators and I just really couldn't care less. If anything, it removes some RNG from the tracks, which I'm all for.

2 - Ninja Hideaway: I never played this course before, but it's actually a banger. I love the overall look of it, the music is great, and the course layout itself is actually pretty tough. There are also a lot of tricks you can do.

3 - Paris Promenade: Fantastic visuals and lighting. I love the Paris-themed buildings and music. It plays pretty simply, but I LOVE the twist at the end where you go backward. It's super unique and I was not expecting it at all.

4 - Sky garden: This one gets the spot for the music alone, it's such a jam. Also, I think this is a great remaster from the original GBA track. It's a shorter one, but it's fun.

5 - Choco Mountain: Fantastic music, and I love the cave section. The visuals are a little samey, but if anything, that's just being faithful to the original track. It plays really well and I like the boulder section at the end.

6 - Shroom Ridge: This track feels like "Toad's Turnpike but it's daytime," which is fine by me. I found some of the turns to be a bit awkward like it can't decide between wanting me to drift or just turn, but other than that, this is a solid track.

7 - Tokyo Blur: The art style on this track is almost a little too simple for me. It looks fine, but the buildings all seem to be lacking a lot of detail. I think the track's just a bit too wide overall as well.

8 - Toad Circuit: If Tokyo Blur was almost too simple, Toad Circuit crosses that line into too simple. It's not a bad thing to have a nice palette cleanser stage, but Toad Circuit is just really, REALLY simple. It doesn't do anything remotely interesting, and it also just looks pretty standard.

Overall, I love some of these tracks, and I like the rest of them. I do think that most of them look a little simple, especially when compared to the base game, but it's not a big deal. They all play very well and are all fun, which is what's important.

I give Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Booster Course Pass Wave 1 (what a name) an 8/10 Great.

@StarPoint Oh. I wanted to play them online lol
It's a bit boring to just play against the computers.

@TommyTendo Yes, no idea why they're waiting so long to release them to the public. Nintendo's gonna Nintendo

1 - Ninja Hideaway: I already considered this to be the best new track in Tour, and it almost singlehandedly sold me on the DLC. It doesn't feel quite as smooth in 8 Deluxe, but it plays great, it's challenging, the music is incredible, it looks pretty solid, it's dynamic, and there's even a straight-up ultra shortcut on 200cc. Huge fan.
2 - Choco Mountain: Arguably the best looking track in the DLC. It still has elements of Tour's more cartoonish style, but unlike the other tracks, almost all the textures were revamped, and it comes close to matching the base game. It also helps that they basically gave it the 8 treatment in Tour; it makes the track more interesting and engaging.
3 - Coconut Mall: Still a really fun course, but it can feel a bit visually inconsistent, the scaling feels a bit off, and I don't love how the ending lacks the arches and moving cars (even if I didn't really like them). I like that they reverted some of 7's changes, though, like making the path through the shop regular road and not offroad and reverting the lower ramp out of the mall from a glide ramp.
4 - Shroom Ridge: Genuinely surprised at how fun this track is, given that I didn't love it in DS. It's simple, but has a super nice flow to it, and the new shortcuts are just the cherry on top. Really highlights how lame Toad's Turnpike is, honestly.
5 - Paris Promenade: I enjoy this track more than any individual variation in Tour. The third lap rerouting you to finish the course in reverse is awesome. It's a bit odd having a split path where one route lacks an Item Box set, though I've heard that it's faster, so it's an interesting tradeoff situation if that's the case. Still one of the weaker cities in Tour, but they did a good job with it here aside from cutting the Goombas.
6 - Tokyo Blur: Changing the route every lap takes this from being possibly the worst track in the DLC to something much better, given how simple each individual route is. It's still not on par with the other tracks mentioned and feels a bit wide, but overall, it's nice enough. Kinda wish they made the Shuto Expressway anti-gravity, as it's one of the only parts in any of the Wave 1 tracks where I think they could've done it without it feeling shoehorned in, but it's fine.
7 - Sky Garden: This track looks better than I expected based on the trailers - the animated cloud texture is a nice touch - and it certainly plays fine. But it's just not Sky Garden anymore. This isn't like Cheese Land or Ribbon Road, where they made some adjustments to the layout, but mostly for the sake of cramming in new gimmicks or making the tracks play a bit better in 8. There was no reason to gut this track and basically make a new layout for Tour, and it's more disappointing in a console game, even if it was unreasonable to expect the layout to be more authentic in 8 Deluxe.
8 - Toad Circuit: If we had to get a starter track in the DLC, this is certainly runner-up to GCN Luigi Circuit in terms of enjoyment. It feels very lacking visually, though, and it's just too simple, especially coming after Paris Promenade. It'll be way more disappointing if the datamined course tags pan out and we only get 2 more 3DS tracks in the DLC, though. Not terrible, but it's probably a bottom 5 course in 8 Deluxe.

With the release of this DLC, it made me go back and look at my Mario Kart 8 Limited Edition for Wii U, which was sold exclusively at the New York City store and limited to around 300-600 copies in total (no one knows for sure the exact total). Currently the most rare item in my collection (they sell for thousands of dollars on the collector market now), even more than my sealed Fire Emblem GBA and sealed Fire Emblem Path of Radiance on GC.

I love the blue shell and display stand.

I was only fortunate enough to obtain this thanks to a fellow NintendoLife member here who lived in NYC who actually went out of their way to stop by the store after work and buy one for me, then ship it out.

Salute to him. What an awesome dude. I haven't seen them around here in years though.

Okay, I have to give Paris Promenade even more credit than I've already given it. I had no idea about THAT turn in front of the Eiffel Tower until just a few minutes ago, lol.

I got play the DLC tonight and I love it. It was great racing on Coconut Mall again even if the cars didn't move at the end. Toad Circuit seemed oddly familiar to me but I didn't play the original game it was in so I am wondering if it was in another Mario Kart game as a retro track. Ninja Hideaway was awesome and Tokyo Blur was great as well. Choco Mountain I never liked and Paris was just ok.

Overall I was pleased with it and can't wait for the next batch.

That's... slightly disappointing. Thanks for telling me anyway.

These are my opinions on the Golden Dash Cup courses:
Paris Promenade is undoubtedly the better of the city Tour tracks: the evening setting is very atmospheric, it actually features several landmarks and the races are good fun (especially the first parts of the reverse lap). Only real complaint is the first 2 laps have the same layout.
Toad Circuit kind of sucks; on the 3DS, it served to introduce the player to the game, so it's deliberately unfancy (and so the ported version doesn't stand out). It also pales slightly in comparision to the Switch's introduction course "Mario Kart Stadium".
I have mixed feelings about Choco Mountain. I quite like the new details (e.g. the cave) and the graphics are clean (even if they are from Tour). However, there's no mist anymore, resulting in the course feeling a little lacking in character. There also aren't enough boulders at the end (and they NEED a hitbox).
Coconut Mall is - as always - great. The music is a bop and races are bags of fun. However, my biggest problem isn't the cars at the end but the mall itself. I kinda wish they'd kept the shiny floor the same and put more people in the surrounding area, because it results in it feeling a little sparse.
Also, all the remixes are GREAT.

The only thing that bothers me about Coconut Mall is something I don't think I've seen anyone else mention. That is, that the staircases have been turned into nondescript flat green ramps. This feels more like "removing the Mall aesthetic" than adding arrows to the escalators, IMO.

Though it's still not a big deal at the end of the day.

@RR529 The escalators have been talked about before. It's a change that I actually kind of welcome. The escalators in Wii could be hard for me to see which direction they were going, especially from a distance. I have good eyesight, too, so I can imagine it was probably difficult for people that had poor vision. I think this change was most likely just made to make it more accessible and easier to read. I wish it wasn't SO prominent, though. They probably could have dialed back the neon and brightness on the ramps just a bit.

@StarPoint, I wasn't talking about the escalators. I was talking about the staircases that have been turned into ramps (the ones that are turns).

I said that was a bigger change, for me, than what they did to the escalators.

@RR529
About Coconut Mall, it was like Nintendo really care about Mii from Wii and 3DS version but Nintendo really scrapped all the Mii guests from Coconut Mall like Nintendo Switch doesn't really have association with Mii.