Topic: Mario Kart 8 Deluxe

Custom playlists is something I'm absolutely hoping gets added sometime in the future. Would be nice to have a few curated lists of races to jump into without having to manually select them all.

3 hours to go! I'm interested to see if they are gonna be adding any QoL features in this update. When they added the custom items option, did they announce that on Twitter before or after the update went out?

Hope you guys have a good time with Wave 5! I'll be asleep when it drops unfortunately but I'll be downloading it first thing tomorrow morning. Take care and I hope you have some great races!

From what I remember, it wasn't known until the update released. But was that wave 3? And wave 4 had some rebalancing?
...I'm not sure if any of those were announced outside of patch notes.

Either way, I'm looking forward to it tomorrow. I enjoyed it on Wii U (even before DLC), and I still play Deluxe pretty often. That says enough about how much I enjoy it - anything else is a bonus.
That...and they already have my money from a year ago. I'll take whatever comes.

I was playing online today and there was a notification that says there will be server maintenance at 8:55 pm at my time. So about a half hour from now. Looks like we'll be getting wave 5 very soon!

Uh...where's the update?

What's the source that claimed the update will release before midnight?

The update has started for me.

Oh, there it is! US region. It's downloading.

Edit: 2-3 minutes later.. There it is, 2.4.0.

I'm gonna race the sh** out of that squeaky clean bathroom track.😉

@LilyGoMEOW Try manually updating the game. I did that just now and my update started downloading.

Edit: Ugh, dang it. Looks like I'll have to wait a while for my update to install.

@Grumblevolcano @vio @Kimyonaakuma Aaaaaand Nintendo has officially embarrassed themselves as the MK8D version of Sunset Wilds has removed its gimmick as the sun no longer sets in the course...😰

Mario with a baseball bat in LA is such a tease, the last Mario Baseball/Sluggers game released 15 years ago.

Okay, I did my first run-through of the courses, and I'm pretty happy with them! Daisy Cruiser, Moonview Highway, and Koopa Cape are pretty much perfectly redone and feel amazing to play, except for Koopa Cape missing the water rapid in the pipe, but that's not a huge deal. Squeaky Clean Sprint is also a super fun and creative course; I loved driving through the bath drain in particular. Sunset Wilds losing the aggressive Shy Guys and the day/night cycle is kinda disappointing, though. It's still a fun course and the music is great, but it kinda lacks what made it unique in the first place. The Tour tracks are pretty fun this time around too!

I also think the visuals once again have stepped up considerably. Pretty much every course here looks fantastic. I was especially blown away by Daisy Cruiser and Moonview Highway, but I think they all look really good. Moonview Highway's remixed music is also killer. I love the saxophone that plays in the highway section now.

Aside from the lack of any transition for Sunset Wilds, it at the very least should transition to night for Lap 3, I think Wave 5 is fantastic. Hopefully there are enough complaints about Sunset Wilds to get that track closer to being right as what happened with Coconut Mall. I'm not sure why Nintendo thought it was okay to release Sunset Wilds without its gimmick.

First impressions of each track:
Athens Dash - Ultimately a really fun track - I like that some of the pillars now work like they do in Dry Dry Ruins and Piranha Plant Cove, and the layout is good. Thwomps being cut is a bummer, though, and the last lap feels like it's missing a set of Item Boxes
Daisy Cruiser - Great remake, the hatch seems a bit off though (I can't tell if I'm missing tricks or if it's just untrickable) and I wish they didn't keep Tour's weird green color for a few parts of the ship
Moonview Highway - Possibly my favorite track this wave. Remixes are phenomenal, and while it's not as difficult, the fact that they made the Dash Panel arrangement random in the city is so sick
Squeaky Clean Sprint - I get the feeling this one's going to be a bit divisive - not to the extent of Ninja Hideaway, but it feels like it's going to play better in Tour. I like the different routes and the ideas, though the blowing fan is a bit annoying and the drain section feels a bit cramped?
Los Angeles Laps - Possibly the city that's been left the most intact compared to the original. I think the only things axed were a few cars on the sidelines, and all the changes are improvements. Pretty solid, but could've used a little something more on lap 2.
Sunset Wilds - A complete waste of a slot. It's fine to play, but removing the track's defining mechanic was a huge misstep, and there were way better picks - even from Super Circuit
Koopa Cape - The most fun the course has been since Wii, easily, but comes with some odd changes. At least the Glide Ramp at the river's gone, but the lack of the ramp by the rock arch is a shame. The track is scaled surprisingly small and I think this contributed to my enjoyment
Vancouver Velocity - Lap 3 should've been Lap 1, Lap 1 should've been Lap 3. Otherwise, it's a good track, and the cannon being removed is actually a positive change. I wish they did a bit more to make the tall trunks of the trees in the forest area and the 2D ones less apparent

My thoughts on wave 5 personally are…
Athens Dash: 9/10
This may be one of my new favorite city tracks, the vertically is great, the city feels like an actual city, each lap is exciting and the music is suprisingly superb!
Daisy Cruiser: 8/10
A simple, yet fun summer track! I like the submerged path and how the tables move, and the remix is also (unsurprisingly) superb!
Moonview Highway: 7.5/10
I never really liked this track originally in MKWII, but over time it kept growing on me, and now I appreciate it a lot, it’s a pretty solid night city track! (Although I would’ve preferred TF over this as we have so many city tracks ._.)
The music has always been good, and the remix is so epic! As always, no problems with the music.
Squeaky Clean Sprint: 9.5/10
This track just feels so good to play, and has a really great big-house atmosphere! I do think the path down the drain is a little too cramped on 200CC, but that’s really my only gripe with this track, besides that it’s easily one of the best in the DLC (Yoshi’s Island remains GOATed, though!)
Los Angeles Laps: 6.3/10:
Your average city track. average music and alright visuals but there’s nothing truly stand-out here, it doesn’t make it inherently bad, it just leaves you wanting more.
Sunset Wilds: 7/10
Good gameplay, really really great visuals, the rocks, floor and everything else is base game quality and the music is phenomenal, but WHY DID THEY REMOVE THE CYCLE GIMMICK?
It’s what the track was known for! It would’ve be so great and visually amazing to see in HD, but for some reason they thought it was a good idea to cut it out.
It’s a good track, but Nintendo made terrible choices.
Koopa Cape: 7.8/10
A favorite of mine from the Wii! While it’s mostly remade well and the music is a bop, I got a few problems
1. The horrendous, brown cliffs.
First MG, Then RRM, then this? Why Nintendo?! Gray looks so much better, plastic brown cliffs just look painfully artificial. I guess the cliffs look detailed in this but cmon man, gray would look so much nicer.
2. The water tunnel is too cramped now.
12 players, 200cc. Yeah, have fun not bumping into walls in the tunnel, it’s way to small. It’s like 5 Petey Piranhas wide. When it should be 8-11.
Overall though, it’s quite enjoyable.
Vancouver Velocity: 10/10
What more must be said? Legendary music, legendary visuals and more!
The remix this time is so great, the 30 second mark in the song just gives me pure joy, the instrument selection is top-notch. Perfection.
Thoughts:
An 8.5/10 wave, equal to Wave 3, slightly worse than Wave 4 for me, but overall pretty solid! I really hope the cycle returns in Sunset Wilds in wave 6.
And as a final note. As Petey Piranha, I was about to triple-star the second cup GP first try, but king boo came in and took first at the last second on the final race. Quite an ironic end to my first impressions!

Unbelievable what they did with Sunset Wilds... SMH..

@StarPoint Koopa Cape is missing the rapid because it's no longer a fully enclosed underwater pipe like it was in Wii. Since you know, you could not drive underwater in Wii, but you can in 8 so they basically removed the "lid" for 8. However those rotating electro things are also missing from the pipe..

Played one round on each track just there and it's fair to say I've got some opinions.

• Athens Dash: A very solid Tour track with some great pure driving. I do think it's lacking in much visual memorability outside of the gold statues and pillars near the beginning of the track, but it's a very fun one to race on that I'll probably be coming back to time and time again.
• Daisy Cruiser: Pretty much the exact same track I remember playing in 7 (even including the lovely mini water route) and that's not a bad thing at all. Daisy Cruiser isn't usually a track I particularly go back to all too much (no real reason why, it's just never captivated me the same way it has for others) but I appreciate it's inclusion here all the same.
• Moonview Highway: Similar to Daisy Cruiser, not too much here has changed (outside of the track potentially feeling a bit smaller than it did in Wii but I'm not sure whether that's nostalgia clouding my mind or not) but on a track like Moonview Highway especially? I didn't really want much changed to be honest; I just wanted it to be as fun as it was in the original and I'm pleased to say it did exactly that. AND THE MUSIC DUDE OH MY F***ING GOD THE MUSIC 🤩
• Squeaky Clean Sprint: The brand new track of Wave 5 and I think it's the first truly substantial one we've had from the BCP. Sky High Sundae was criminally short and simple and Yoshi's Island, while significantly better and still one of the best tracks of the Pass, still suffered from being quite short overall. SCS has none of these issues, feeling both respectably long and immensely creative with the twists and turns you go through (you go down the drain of a goddamn bath, that's so clever). I could keep going with praise but I'll stop here for now; absolutely excellent track and probably my favourite of the entire wave!
• Los Angeles Laps: Like Athens Dash, this is a very solid course to race on that, unlike AD, does actually have some pretty memorable locales (I particularly enjoyed the beginning where you're racing through the pier and the bit where you fly past a baseball stadium). Other than that then, it's just a nice course with lovely music; not much more to say than that really XD
• Sunset Wilds: In my opinion, no set of courses has been done more dirty by the BCP than the GBA ones. Whereas in the base game they were given these insane facelifts that basically made them entirely new tracks, the BCP is either content to change them for the worse (Sky Garden) or not really change them at all (Riverside Park), with the only one I've actually somewhat liked so far being Snow Land. Sunset Wilds unfortunately falls into the latter category, with it being barely distinguishable from a SNES track most of the time with the exception of hills near the end and the admittedly wonderful addition of prospector Shy Guys. They even took OUT the one thing that made it unique (which was also in Tour btw) being the sunset on Lap 3 (personally not the biggest deal for me but it just exacerbates my issues with GBA tracks in the BCP already). Overall, it's a....fine track objectively, but it's fair to say I patiently await the day where GBA tracks get to be completely remade from the ground up again.
• Koopa Cape: Once again, like Daisy Cruiser and Moonview Highway, not much has changed here in the transition to 8 Deluxe and I personally like it that way; it's one of my favourite tracks in the series and I'm glad I'm able to play it again in HD! Though, unlike the previous two, because it's one of my favourites, I'm able to spot a lot more little issues than most others would, like some jank cramping in the underwater tube, the mountains looking VERY weird and, worst of all, the removal of the Koopa Sign at the beginning jump (rest in pepperonis my beloved friend). Koopa Cape is still very good at the end of the day though.
• Vancouver Velocity: My most anticipated Tour track out of the lot and I'm very happy with how it turned out. The first lap is nothing particularly special (though the anti-grav section and transition is insanely f***ing cool), though once the track opens up on Laps 2 & 3, it gets really, REALLY good. A great mix of both wide and tight turns, lovely visual scenery and, much like LA Laps, driving through a hockey rink is fantastic. Definitely my favourite Tour track from this wave, they absolutely knocked it out of the park with Velocity.

Overall, while I think the previous wave is definitely the better of these two, Wave 5 is pretty fun with only a few nitpicks that drag down my enjoyment of it a bit. Still very excited to see what they have in store for the final wave though (oh god we're really in the home stretch huh).

oh and all the new characters are absolutely fantastic but that much was obvious (WIGGLER WEDNESDAY IS HERE BOYS WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO).

Ok, I played the two new cups in Grand Prix mode, and got a 3-star rank on both in 150cc, mirror, and 200cc. Also played a couple of their courses online. The Tour courses are all very good, with Vancouver Velocity probably being the best one. Los Angeles Laps is a fun, nice summer-themed course (I even like how the coins in the baseball stadium make up a baseball shape), and I was also pleasantly surprised by Athens Dash - the music is amazing and it's quite a fun, challenging course. Squeaky Clean Sprint is also surprisingly good, definitely a highlight for wave 5, and I even love its music!

Moonview Highway and Koopa Cape are still really good courses, with Moonview Highway being my favorite of the two Wii courses from wave 5 - oh, and its remixed music is totally awesome! Sunset Wilds is... ok-ish. The lack of the day-to-night transition is a little surprising, to say the least. It doesn't bother me as much, since it was an aesthetic change back in Super Circuit IIRC, but it's definitely noticeable. I'm not a big fan of a lot of the GBA courses to begin with, so kind of a meh course for me. Daisy Cruiser, however, is easily my favorite course in wave 5! The nostalgia I got from racing there is just unreal... I felt like I was 12 years old again! This brings back so many memories I've had from Double Dash, and it's still a fun course after all these years. It feels good to hear its remixed music, too... plus I've been playing as Daisy to celebrate her cruise ship making a grand return. It's right up there with my other favorite BCP courses like Merry Mountain... love Daisy Cruiser. <3