Topic: Mario Kart 8 Deluxe

People talk about the lack of changing time on Sunset Wilds, but I still think the bigger issue is that - same as Sky Garden - it has been massively simplified in terms of track layout. Visually it hits the notes, but it just doesn't feel the same to drive.

For Koopa Cape, it just feels smaller in general. The pipe is the biggest issue, sure, but then out of the pipe those ending turns feel tighter. The starting section mostly feels fine, but the rapids area feels massively thin compared to even 7.

Aside from those two, everything else is a joy. These are the best of the city tracks so far.

Tried Koopa Cape first as a time trial, beat the default 150cc ghost (2:18) then stayed on it trying to improve my time, trying to keep up with an online ghost that got a 2:07 time. It was tough to keep up with. They used their mushroom for the turn you land on for the last jump - They land short and power through the water on the inside of the turn after they land. It was tricky to do consistently. Actually, it was also tricky to take the best line though the underwater pipe zig zag. You can lose all your speed if you bump the vert/edge after the last turn in the pipe.

I'm kinda surprised that Piranha Plant Cove hasn't made it to 8 Deluxe. I was thinking it would come out on wave 4 or 5, but both waves each had a brand new course instead (Yoshi's Island and Squeaky Clean Sprint respectively). So if it doesn't make it to wave 6, it'll probably be in the next Mario Kart game instead.

Also hoping that Pauline makes it to wave 6 as a playable character. She had a prominent role in Super Mario Odyssey, and the Tour courses are also about traveling the world, so she'd be a perfect candidate for being one of 8 Deluxe's last two playable characters.

Just gave them all a whirl.

They're good without being outstanding.

Squeaky Clean Sprint is the standout. The rest are just OK.

The end.

I don't mind that the DLC courses don't have the same design philosophy as the base game, it's made me more nostalgic for the older games designs seeing how they still hold up here. But it does make the retro courses in the base game stand out more as not always being particularly recognisable as the courses they're supposed to be.

The DLC still has texture issues, most things look too flat, or have an odd shine to them, or the light doesn't quite interact with them in a way that matches the base game. Buildings are often missing brick details and look too plain and simple.

I have no nostalgia for Super Cicuit, seeing as I only played it once on a friend's GBA, but Sunset Wilds feels a little too flat, I would've liked at least a bit of a raised edge to the course, and maybe some banking on the turns. Which is odd, because I'm fine with SNES courses being completely flat, I just don't think it worked for this one. Or maybe it just stands out because of the jumps at the end? Perhaps an alternative solution would be to make it all flat?

Here are my early predictions for Wave 6 of the BCP.

Acorn Cup:
Tour Rome Avanti

Tour Pirahna Plant Cove

• The remix will subtlety incorporate violins and a saxophone, while keeping it faithful to the original music.

GCN DK Mountain

• The remix will incorporate a muted guitar, with a subtle saxophone too

Last track of the acorn cup? Well, this one is the truly unknown one. It could be from any game, and it could be any track. It’s the wild card.
I predict it’s not gonna be a tour track, or a GameCube track (as I think MB was replaced with MVH from Wii)
No N64 tracks fit the finale of the second-to-last cup (Wario Stadium is out of the picture, it uses the same music as Royal Raceway), GBA is for sure done, we’re already getting a Wii and SNES track this wave.
That leaves us with DS and 3DS, but which tracks of each game would be the contenders?
I think we got 2 options: 3DS Maka Wuhu or DS Airship Fortress.

3DS Maka Wuhu is one of the most beloved tracks in the series, even more-so then A-F for some, it’s been datamined for tour iirc and its a perfect “almost to the finale” track.

However, DS Airship Fortress is also one of the most beloved tracks in the series, and many people were mad when DS Mario Circuit was announced as “the last DS track”
Think about it, this DLC is all about returning fan favorites (even at the cost of core gimmicks… RIP Sunset Wilds) and DS Airship Fortress is one of THE fan favorites. Why would Nintendo not bring it back?!
It’s also already in tour, and may or may not be on the banner leak (it’s up for interpretation)

Overall, both tracks have an equal chance of coming. but I’ll have to set aside my Maka Wuhu bias and pick DS Airship Fortress.

Blue Shell Cup:

Tour Madrid Motorways (datamined/heavily speculated tour track)

Tour Piranha Plant Pipeline

• Genuinely hope they rename this to something like Pipeline Ride so this wave doesn’t feel repetitive.

SNES Bowsers Castle 4

• Music will be an epic-sounding remix. I also hope that Nintendo adds vertically to this track.

Wii Rainbow Road

• wii (haha pun) ALL know this is coming, it just has to be the finale.
• At around the 0:47 mark in the music, an electric guitar will fade in to the main melody, as this is Booster Course Pass. Almost all remixes got to have a techno/festive element in the melody. (sometimes a benefit, sometimes a curse. (RIP 3DS Rainbow Road Music))
• The background beat drops in the music will go harder.
• The music will still keep its cosmic-sounding integrity (I hope)

I predict there will be 2 characters (duh)

• Funky Kong
• Pauline.

I predict the true wild cards of this wave will be that Nintendo goes back and fixes the quality of the tracks in wave 1/2, and they add a toggle to listen to the original music of all retro tracks. (if remade more then twice, more toggles for that track!)

I predict they will also re-add the sun setting to sunset wilds. (literally they just have to do something like change the hue)

That’s all my predictions.
Thank you for listening to my TED Talk.

Edit (July 24th): Added a new wild card prediction, fixed grammar.

I know I just made a post here, but fun fact:
Did you know that in the leaked banner for the BCP, you can see sunset wilds WITH the night-time sky.

They literally removed it from the game, it was there before.

Next Tour track is GBA Lakeside Park:

Here's hoping it's a good remaster! I find it odd how courses like Ribbon Road are unrecognisable in MK8...but the recent GBA tracks aren't great.

It's very much "Here's a SNES track...but there's something in the background!". Which was what GBA tracks did, but they can do more now!

Oh yeah, forgot to do my impressions for wave 5:
1. GCN Daisy Cruiser - Fantastic to see the return of more Double Dash tracks and Daisy Cruiser was one of my favourites. Also like the added touch of Goombas in the pool and there being characters at the tables.
2. Wii Moonview Highway - Not really much to say other than I really liked it back in MKWii and feel the same way about it here. Between this and Koopa Cape, MK8 Deluxe now has over half the MKWii nitro tracks which is really cool.
3. Wii Koopa Cape - Same view as Moonview Highway but the underwater pipe does feel a bit cramped compared to MKWii and MK7's versions.
4. Tour Vancouver Velocity - My favourite of the Tour tracks in wave 5, I really like how it takes the concept of a winter course in a completely direction than usual. Lap 3 being so short was odd though, it feels like Laps 1 and 3 swapping would've been a better fit.
5. Tour Los Angeles Laps - It's a really fun track though I wish they did more with the beach area, especially as MK8 Deluxe is severely lacking in beach tracks. Although I've never played the franchise, it was neat seeing some Mario Sluggers presence.
6. Squeaky Clean Sprint - I really like the way the course looks and how the track changes in laps 2 and 3 such that you can access a shortcut. I do however think that most of the underwater area is too narrow.
7. Tour Athens Dash - A fun track, there's very few ruins type tracks in MK8 Deluxe so that was a nice change of pace. But I also liked how while a lot of track was exploring ruins it wasn't the whole track (e.g. lap 3 passed through a residential area). It differentiates from Thwomp Ruins well.
8. GBA Sunset Wilds - Like GBA Sky Garden, this was rather disappointing because of the huge simplification of the track. Also I liked the time of day changes in the original Super Circuit version (it's also present in Tour but to a less extent given there's only 2 laps in Tour races) but that wasn't present in this version. I think Yoshi Desert would been the better GBA desert-like track to bring over.

Overall, it was a really fun wave. The only disappointing track was GBA Sunset Wilds but I pretty much knew last year that it would have a track layout problem if it came to Booster Course Pass. I'd hope at the least though that when wave 6 comes along that the time of day changes are implemented like how they fixed the Wii Coconut Mall cars with the wave 2 update.

Looking forward, my 2 biggest hopes are:
1. Wave 6 gets more than 1 GCN track
2. Booster Course Pass 2 gets announced (most suitable timing for this announcement would be September general Direct given there will no doubt be a lot of salt among the MK community if wave 6 doesn't have DS Airship Fortress)

Next Tour track is Squeaky Clean Sprint:

The next Tour track is a new track based on Madrid. So now we have 4 Tour tracks that are not yet in MK8 Deluxe:

• Rome Avanti
• Madrid
• Piranha Plant Cove
• Piranha Plant Pipeline

If wave 6 is the final wave then it'll have all 4 but if there's more incoming afterwards (e.g. Booster Course Pass 2) it'll probably only have 3 (the 2 cities and 1 Piranha Plant track).

@Grumblevolcano It's all coming together😃

Yeah I reckon we'll get all 4 next wave, as much as I'd like a BCP 2 my gut's telling me these 6 wave will be our lot.
If that's the case, I'm VERY hyped to play Piranha Plant Pipeline in 8DX as I feel the pace of that game will suit it a little better than Tour.
Looking forward to seeing what Madrid has in store! Hopefully it'll be able to distinguish itself from the other European cities!

I think our other tracks for wave 6 will probably end up being:
GCN Dino Dino Jungle
SNES Bowser's Castle 3
Wii Rainbow Road
And...well...
The Mushroom bridge vs DK Mountain argument is tricky as both tracks have pretty similar counterparts already in the DLC.
Especially the former with Shroom Ridge and Moonview Highway.
Or maybe it'll be DK Mountain and Mushroom Bridge!

And as much as I'd hate to sacrifice Funky, I agree with the general consensus that Diddy and Pauline will be the last 2 characters

This DLC has been a really fun ride of speculation and predictions, (just like the Smash fighter passes) and I'm sure it will go out with a bang!

@Nintoz I don't see them going through the entirety of MK8 Deluxe's lifespan without adding DS Airship Fortress, it's too iconic and they've gone rather heavy on the iconic tracks with the pass. My prediction back in July working on the principle there's a Booster Course Pass 2 was:

Of course we now know the real world city track is Madrid. In the wave 6 outcome listed above, DS Airship Fortress would appear in Booster Course Pass 2. But in the outcome that wave 6 is the end, I think there'd only be 1 GCN track:

Acorn Cup
Tour Rome Avanti
GCN DK Mountain or GCN Dino Dino Jungle
DS Airship Fortress
Piranha Plant Cove

Spiny Cup
Tour Madrid
Piranha Plant Pipeline
SNES Bowser Castle 3 or GBA Bowser Castle 4
Wii Rainbow Road

I still think in both cases they'd pick Diddy Kong and Funky Kong given the characters so far were from Mario Kart games prior to Tour (Kamek was cut from both MK64 and MK8 Wii U). Meanwhile Pauline's appearance in Mario spinoffs has been all about Mario Odyssey's success and her major appearance in that game.

I do think though that Pauline would have had a good chance of appearing if Tour gave her a biker outfit (Peach, Daisy and Rosalina all got biker outfits in 2008) but I don't see Nintendo creating a biker outfit solely for MK8 Deluxe.

@Grumblevolcano Yeah, Airship Fortress would be a really odd omission. I remember being 200% sure that we'd get it in Wave 4 but alas, no.

And yeah especially with so many iconic tracks making their way over like Coconut Mall and Waluigi Pinball. You would have thought Airship Fortress would be next in line surely!

They could certainly pull a Moonview Highway on us and put it in one of the GCN spots like in your cup prediction.
(I do feel like SNES and GCN deserve at least one more sign of love hahaha)

@Grumblevolcano
Quite a diet change for both Mario bros.
Ham, paella and churros instead of the habitual pasta. 👍

It came to mind that there's only 4 cups not represented at all in MK8 Deluxe so far:

Super Mario Kart Mushroom Cup
Mario Circuit 1
Donut Plains 1
Ghost Valley 1
Bowser Castle 1
Mario Circuit 2

Super Mario Kart Star Cup
Koopa Beach 1
Choco Island 2
Vanilla Lake 1
Bowser Castle 3
Mario Circuit 4

Mario Kart Super Circuit Special Cup
Lakeside Park
Broken Pier
Bowser Castle 4
Rainbow Road

Mario Kart Double Dash Special Cup
Wario Colosseum
Dino Dino Jungle
Bowser's Castle
Rainbow Road

@Grumblevolcano Wow, I hadn't considered that.
And I do tend to have those types of thoughts from time to time😆

If the forecast for Wave 6 is correct, then that list will be halved!

@NeonPizza I'm guessing that some things are easier to add than others, and extra laps could probably break things.
What would they do about courses that change per lap? There's a decent amount of those in the DLC. And adding extra laps on tracks like Mount Wario or Big Blue is almost impossible.
I think it would have to include all courses or it's not going to be added

It would be nice though, I'm hoping the last wave adds some extra options in VS mode (filter "random" courses, lap options, etc).

@Kimyonaakuma Yeah the more options, the merrier!
Hopefully we'll be able to do a full-on 96 racer come next update at the very least.