Topic: Mario Kart 8 Deluxe

It does seem that they're mostly going by difficulty:

• SNES Mario Circuit 3 (Flower Cup in SMK, Lightning Cup in MKWii)
• N64 Kalimari Desert (Mushroom Cup in MK64, Leaf Cup in MK7)
• GBA Snow Land (Star Cup in MKSC)
• DS Waluigi Pinball (Flower Cup in MKDS, Banana Cup in MK7)
• Wii Mushroom Gorge (Mushroom Cup in MKWii, Shell Cup in MK7)

So we're still very much in the Mushroom/Flower territory. Wave 3 could be Flower/Star then.

I saw a few people talking about how there have been modest visual improvements from Wave 1. Maybe it's just me but some courses seem more upgraded than others (e.g. Kalimari compared to Sydney). And what do you think the possibility of Wave 1 receiving a visual patch is?
(zero but it's a nice thought)

@chapu2006 Or, in a squeeze, they put out the easiest group of tracks to produce first. I don't see nintendo coming back to upgrade them. Wave 1 Paris track has a rich environment, but the summertime haze color palette washes things out more rather than making them pop. Wave 2 certainly has a lot of pop to it's visuals.

Conversely, if later waves were less impressive than previous waves, we'd complain more. XD I think MK8's tracks already had varying degrees of impressiveness.

wave 1

I was thinking Nintendo did really wrong with Mario Kart 8 Deluxe by adding DLC when the game was already 5 years old since launch day.
Don't get me wrong, those additional things are nice but the way of Nintendo did on Mario Kart 8 Deluxe this time was not really right approach. 🤔
Can you imagine if this game get an ultimate release with all 48 DLC inside cartridge to preserve the game in the future with price tag $60 + $25 = $85 ?
That was pretty expensive.
It will be really inflated if buy that game late.

While the addition things are nice, it left me a bad perception to see this approach from Nintendo and it made me thinking about getting the 3rd party games with better treatments and offering something different that Nintendo still refuse to do.

@Anti-Matter If they offered a new cart with all the dlc tracks, I think I'd have to buy it? Although, with 340 hours in MK8, I'm pretty tired of the game, maybe I'd skip it. Nintendo STILL hasn't released BOTW & Splatoon 2 carts with all dlc for english. (they did for japanese only) In fact, have any Nintendo game carts been updated to include dlc for the Switch generation? I have a feeling we may not get physical versions with dlc included this console generation.

@Anti-Matter I think these courses were Nintendo's way of saying "Mario Kart 9 isn't coming anytime soon, so here's some more content to hold you over." $25 is actually a really good price considering the amount of content you get. I do wonder if Nintendo would do an ultimate collection in the future, but I could see that being more around $70-$75 instead of $85, especially considering how old the base game is at this point.

And what do you mean by Nintendo refusing to do things that other companies do?

@StarPoint
I have some experiences from other kart racing game Modnation Racers PS3 that personally I thought that game have hidden gem quality, from the complex customization of your character, your vehicle, the custom racing track with a lot of stuffs to put, yet these features never got great reaction from gamers who have more interest with Mario Kart games than 3rd party kart racing games. I already smelled a bias from those gamers who refuse to accept different things as complementary.
Yet current Mario Kart games still don't have very specific customization in character and vehicles in The Sims level.
I can hear some comments toward of those features like "Oh, we don't need complex customization for Mario Kart games. Mario Kart games is about simplicity. We don't need the stuffs from 3rd party games."
That was something that bothering me to hear comments like that.

@Anti-Matter How is giving an old game DLC "bad treatment"? Isn't that literally the opposite of bad treatment considering they are willing to support a game that thousands of people are still buying? And the price is hardly ridiculous considering how many tracks we are getting.

If you look at the trailer, the bottom right of the screen says that Sky High Sundae will be added to MT Tour in a future update, so I assume they designed it for Tour, but ended up releasing the DLC first for whatever reason.

@lighteningbolt79
I was thinking why did they have to give another DLC for the game that already 5 years old since launch day ?
It was unnecessary in my opinion.
It will be better if Nintendo put those DLC tracks on next Mario Kart games as default tracks with new features.

Wahoooooooooooooo. Great news.

@Anti-Matter ...You want The Sims features in Mario Kart 8? First off, you can have Mii characters that allow for a ton of customization. Second off, a lot of characters have alternate costumes that allow you to, in a way, "customize" them.

Also, Mario Kart 8 already has kart customization. It would be nice if they took things a step further with creating your own tracks and things like that, but I feel like you're missing the point of Mario Kart. It's meant to be accessible and fun to everyone, while still having a lot of competitive depth for those who seek it, like myself. If Nintendo added a ton of customization options, it would be cool, but it has the chance of being overwhelming to casual players. I know I get overwhelmed whenever I play games like Forza; there's just too much stuff to go through for my taste.

I'm not saying change is a bad thing, though. I'm always willing to see where Nintendo will take things next.

Looks like the music has been shown off for the new tracks, along with some extra gameplay:

I was a little taken aback by the fact that the Mushroom Gorge song hasn't been changed at all, but it's such a unique composition that I don't really know how they could have remade it in the new style. It's already a perfect song as far as I'm concerned so I'm fine with it not being changed.

@Anti-Matter It’s more Mario kart content, and Mario kart 9 is probably for the next gen system, I’m happy to have more stages! It’s dlc you don’t have to buy it, but for people, which is a lot, who still play Mario kart almost everyday if not a week or two, it’s amazingly good news.

@StarPoint They haven't changed the "style" of Mushroom Gorge's music, but it's definitely redone by the orchestra. It is much higher quality music for sure even if it's super similar.

@TowaHerschel7 Now that you mention it... it does seem to have slightly different instrumentation. Thanks for pointing that out!

Yay! Finally! I guess threatening to dump my Expansion Pack did the trick LOL. My only complaint is still no Maple Treeway, but there's still 4 more waves, so good chance it's coming. I also noticed the anti-grav on Sky-High Sundae.

@vio Hey would you mind threatening Pokemon? I've been anxious for some SV news and you seem to have a knack for this kind of thing now

EDIT: With the benefit of hindsight, this absolutely sounds like something someone would get cancelled for on Twitter, doesn't it?

It's interesting how because we've waited so long for the wave 2 announcement, we're likely very close to the wave 3 announcement. I can't see Nintendo skipping wave 3 if a September general Direct happens.

Some things I noticed about each track:

• New York Minute might not have its manhole cover/geyser obstacles anymore, as I couldn't spot one in the trailer; there are Goombas in Central Park now, though
• Mario Circuit 3's new decoration is quite nice, and there are cones before the oil slick now; I'm surprised we didn't get 1, and would've preferred 2, but it's a solid pick
• Kalimari Desert folds Kalimari Desert 2 in, with the Japanese website showing racers on the tracks approaching a start line at the tunnel. Large portions of the fence were also removed, interestingly enough. Course also got a pretty noticeable glowup
• Sydney Sprint is really interesting; I was expecting to see it in the Boomerang Cup and after every variant was released for Tour. Looks like it'll pull off a Paris Promenade somewhere in the track so part of it is traversed in reverse. They added ramps to the middle of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and curiously, we only see the train throwing out a Coin instead of the shells, bananas, and Bob-ombs from Tour; unclear if they were added to the mix or replace the items
• Snow Land, unlike some of the other Tour remakes of Super Circuit tracks, actually closely adheres to the original layout; one of the icy side paths was removed for sure, the other might be gone, and the shortcut in the upper right might also not show up, but the general shape is pretty identical and that's really exciting
• Mushroom Gorge had quite a few "blink-and-you'll-miss-it" changes. The mushroom route at the beginning that was removed in 7 and Tour actually seems to be back, for one! The split path only seems to have 2 mushroom platforms now, though. The cave was changed the most extensively, as it kind of blends Wii and 7 together. There are also 2 main mushroom routes like in Wii with a glider mushroom in the middle branching off from the left route, and the mushrooms are larger than in Wii like in 7
• Sky-High Sundae is probably arriving in Tour next tour given how its teased Mii costume looks like ice cream scoops; it does seem like it generally follows an oval shape, but there are upper and lower sections at times, so it'll probably still be fun