Topic: Mario Kart 8 Deluxe

Wave 4 is looking super awesome and hype! I am excited for all Wave 4 courses, but mostly Yoshi's Island, Tour Bangkok Rush and Tour Singapore Speedway. This may sound bold, but Wave 4 is looking to be the best Wave ever for the Booster Course Pass

The next Tour track is DS Mario Circuit:

Returning characters from previous Mario kart games? Ok. Well we've got:

Petey Piranha and Diddy Kong (Double Dash)
R.O.B. (DS)
Funky Kong (Wii)
Wiggler and Queen Bee (3DS)

It's an odd bunch of characters, unless you add potential tour characters:

Pauline
Captain Toad
Nabbit
Kamek
Dixie Kong
Chargin' Chuck
Monty Mole
Bros (Hammer, Boomerang, Fire, Ice)
King Bob-omb

I wonder if they would do additional character skins like they have for villager and inkling. Or more Mii Costumes Please

Personally I'd happily throw out all the non-Mario characters and things like the alternate Mario and Peach versions if those slots were instead used for other Mario/Kong or even Wario series characters

On second thoughts, DS Mario Circuit seems more interesting than I was initially thinking thanks to the Japan MK8 Deluxe site preview:

Also I'll clarify about my view about the increased Tour focus this wave, the disappointment isn't really about the tracks themselves but rather with only 2 waves to go it would've been nice to see more of the older tracks saved. Hopefully the NoA wave 4 trailer specifying "wave 1-6 48 courses" which wasn't in the previous trailers (just "48 courses") is a sign of a 2nd Booster Course Pass.

@Grumblevolcano I don't think that means anything else, honestly. It just means that there's gonna be 48 courses in 6 waves for the DLC. That's still a lot of courses if you ask me, and by the time the sixth wave comes out, MK8D will have twice as much courses as it originally did in 2017.

it was really funny when the airport level kept showing up as an option online today. I legit played it twice in like 15 minutes.

Whoa, I just noticed that the starting gate in DS Mario Circuit has part of the Nintendo DS logo on either side. Not the full logo, but inside each of those red frames on the top two corners, there's the two gray squares that look like the two screens! That was a neat touch that they added for this course.

I think DS Mario Circuit is one of the courses I’m most excited for honestly. It was really fun on DS and has an absolute masterpiece of a soundtrack, and the little snippet of music that Nintendo showed off so far was awesome. It also seems to have quite a bit more detail than the average Circuit track has had so far, so hopefully they deliver on it.

@StarPoint I agree, that was one of my favorites from Mario Kart DS, as well. This was honestly the Mario Circuit course I wanted the most for the Booster Course Pass, I was thinking they'd have the one from Mario Kart 7 instead, yet here we are! Though, I wanna save the music for when I actually play, personally. Those music remixes from the BCP are awesome and I'm sure it'll be no different.

Who thinks that Snowboard Cross will retain the shortcut / jump across the first chasm after the mini-ramps? (or will trying it just trigger Lakitu)

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