Topic: Mario Kart 8 Deluxe

Seems like we've got a Animal Crossing DLC situation on our hands here; Wave 4 appears to be releasing early!

Even if I don't place within the top 3 of each online race, I like to feel smug whenever I place higher than any Waluigi player.

MK8 Deluxe maintenance starts in 1 minute so the DLC is definitely releasing worldwide in around 6 minutes.

There's 5 characters with question marks in the character select screen (a column of 6 was added with Birdo at the top)! It feels almost certain now that we'll get Petey Piranha, Diddy Kong and Funky Kong.

Gosh, looks like the update's out now! I started downloading the update, it's only a matter of time before I can race on Yoshi's Island and the other courses.

@TheBigBlue @MarioLover92 @Grumblevolcano @JadeKitsune @Fizza Guys THIS IS HUGE!!!! Two new blank slots for items were added in the custom items menu, meaning we'll probably get two new or returning items in waves 5 & 6!!!

First impressions of each track:
Tour Amsterdam Drift - It's Amsterdam Drift, so it's decent enough. Fairly faithful conversion, though weird to strip the canal of its split path.
GBA Riverside Park - I'm glad they at least added Ptooies to liven things up, but this is probably the worst track in the wave. Not that much to it.
Wii DK Summit - This one needed more time in the oven. The cannon lasting around 5 seconds is kind of absurd, and some of the slopes are so steep it trips up the karts. Falling into the pit also takes like 1-2 seconds to count you out of bounds for some reason. But the single cut is possible, at least, and I still had fun with it. Shame that my favorite Wii track doesn't play as well here, though.
Yoshi's Island - Nothing but good things to say. Great homages, fun to play, it's actually hard hitting the Winged Cloud but the extra route is still super cool. Plus, the fact they went all-in on the crossover element is really cool to see, with the unique start, win, and post-race themes.
Tour Bangkok Rush - Possibly butchered worse than Berlin, but it's a better track than Berlin so I still like it more here. I get that 8 Deluxe's physics are different enough to where the canopy boats had to be left inaccessible - you don't get 2 tricks off the main boats and those are what led into those canopies - but stripping the track of the bouncy tuk-tuk karts and Ink Piranha Plants is incredibly lame, even though I'll probably always be taking the upper route and thus won't feel the absence of the latter. Also a baffling choice to remove the left path onto the canopies in the railway market...when it's still accessible by tricking and has coins up there. But the layout is still definitely the most interesting of basically any city, and as I said, I like it.
DS Mario Circuit - Airship Fortress being absent does kinda sting, but I found this track to be really fun to drive! I wish the Wiggler woke up on Lap 2 instead of 3, but he's still a great addition.
GCN Waluigi Stadium - While I think it was really dumb changing the Mecha Piranha Plants to have 2 angled in the air...thus making them non-existent obstacles, given the lack of an extra Glide Ramp that would cause them to get in the way more, and making the straightaway rather plain, I dig everything else here. The new half-pipe routes are sick.
Tour Singapore Speedway - Best city track in the game and it isn't even close. Flows nicely, lots of different track elements, and almost entirely preserved from Tour, aside from a lack of ramps on the conveyors and Sidesteppers getting swapped for Goomba Towers (a negligible change).

Not as good as Wave 3, but still better than Waves 1 and 2, in my opinion. As for the music, it's good as always, but I think Wii DK Summit and Tour Singapore Speedway far outclass the other songs, aside from maybe Riverside Park.

Wait, we got the update? But it’s not the 9th!

@JadeKitsune it was said days ago it will release March 9th 10 AM Japanese time, so. ;P

Also what’s the deal with Birdo? Can everyone play as her, or just the ones who own the pass?

I got my first 1st-place win as Birdo on Wii DK Summit! (and to make it extra delicious, two of the racers were Waluigi players)

Got to play through the new courses in both Grand Prix and online, and enjoyed my time with all of them. Yoshi's Island is such an awesome course, and it's a loving tribute to one of my favorite games of all time. Singapore Speedway is surprisingly really good, too, and might just be my favorite Tour course. DK Summit is still one heck of a good time, and DS Mario Circuit is still one of the better circuit courses - I like how challenging it is compared to the others, especially with the u-turns at the end. I'd say the four I've mentioned are my favorites from wave 4. Once again, they've done an awesome job with the remixed music... the theme for DK Summit sounds amazing in this game!

Really wanna play more of Yoshi's Island, Singapore Speedway, and DK Summit... unfortunately, the game never picked them online for me. Not yet, anyway. I was so close to having the game pick Yoshi's Island during my online session a couple times... only for it to pick one of the base tracks instead.

My rankings:
1. Wii DK's Snowboard Cross
2. GBA Riverside Park
3. GCN Waluigi Stadium
4. Yoshi's Island
5. Tour Singapore Speedway
6. DS Mario Circuit
7. Tour Amsterdam Drift
8. Tour Bangkok Rush

Overall a very good wave. All the tracks are very fun though Bangkok Rush is a bit too confusing at times. I really wish they'd increase the frequency of DLC tracks online, of course a balance is important between base game and DLC but a streak of the game picking 7 base game tracks in a row is rather ridiculous.

Seems like Splatoon 3 Splatsville is could make for a new track, but I'm guessing they'd never add Splatsville it to MK8. Seems like a missed opportunity.

Why did they put a course from Amsterdam in it, do people In holland know there's a course in it

I think so far I’d rank them as:

DK Summit
DS Mario Circuit
Yoshi’s Island
Waluigi Stadium
Riverside Park
Singapore Speedway
Amsterdam Drift
Bangkok Rush

I've never owned Mario Kart Wii so all the courses in that game are new to me in this pack.

@Grumblevolcano Yeah, it really sucks when that happens. I was really excited when the game showed Singapore Speedway as one of the choices today, but the roulette picked MK8's Mario Circuit instead. That... was a bit upsetting to me.

@Dev9417 The Coconut Mall ads are carried over from Tour, and since it took 9 years to get Birdo after Royal Raceway had her in ads for the Women of Racing Organization, I wouldn't put any stock in Dino Dino Jungle or Vanilla Lake 1/2 being confirmed. The ads don't mean much of anything, and I think it's just as likely that Nintendo opts for the fan-favorite of DK Mountain over the well-liked but less beloved Dino Dino Jungle (which looks pretty bad even in Tour). Tour datamines indicate a SNES Bowser's Castle is finally getting remade, so my money's on that for Wave 5. Additionally, we have some idea of new tracks coming to Tour, which I'll spoiler tag since they're presumably coming over to 8 Deluxe. Tour has several codenamed new courses in its files, referred to as Mobat, Mobbr, Mobdk, Mobmd, Mobmu, and Mobnu, in addition to a gap between Paris and Singapore. Yoshi's Island is also in there as Mobyi. Anyways, while it's still largely up for speculation, it is believed that Mobat, Mobmd, and the gap between Paris and Singapore are new city courses, namely Athens, Greece, Madrid, Spain, and...anything between Paris and Singapore alphabetically, though I'd predict Rome because we still don't have an Italy track in a game centered around an Italian, and they're really fixated on Europe for cities. However, it is possible that the gap track is not a city, and that Mobmu is a city, presumably Mumbai, India. It's not 100% known what the other tracks are, but theories include Mobbr being a bathroom themed track of some kind due to objects like bath bombs, clothespins, and rubber ducks in the files, Mobnu being some kind of "null" track that isn't actually coming because Mobor, originally widely believed to be Orlando due to fence assets indicating multiple routes, ended up being Piranha Plant Cove, and Mobnu's assets implied it would be underwater-themed, which Mobor is instead. Mobdk is also speculated to be some kind of DK track, though unlike Yoshi's Island, which had some telltale assets like the Flower Ring, it's not entirely clear. Notably, if all of these tracks materialize, at least one will have to be left out of the BCP, given that the prefix leak still appears to be a sign of how many tracks from each game are left despite the changed order. This would lend credence to the idea of additional 8 Deluxe DLC ignited by the US advertising shifting to specifying that Waves 1-6 have 48 tracks, as if there were more waves with other content planned.

Man, DK's Snowboard Cross translated so well into MK8 that it's really making me wish we could have all the MKWii tracks. It's interesting seeing a course that has barely been touched, just spruced up a little, most of the retro tracks aren't like that