Topic: Still no Birdo in MK8 even with Deluxe?

Real quick, apologies for being late with this and or if this has been brought up before~

I was miffed when Birdo wasn't included in the base roster of MK8 and became agitated when Birdo wasn't included in any of the DLC. Yet we get every Koopaling as an individual character (minus Bowser Jr. until Deluxe, lol what?) instead of them being skins like how they are in Smash Bros. and again with the variations of Mario and Peach.
With Deluxe out, this was a chance to include some characters that aren't variations...yet there's Gold Mario. At least Dry Bones, King Boo and Bowser Jr. made it, with the Inklings which is nice, but still no sign of Birdo. Mario Kart is one of the last line of games that Birdo still makes an appearance in, so for her not making it in MK8, 3 different times, it feels like Nintendo is trying to abandon that character or pretend she never existed. I don't want that to be the case since I find Birdo to be one of the more unique characters in the game as well as being my favorite. Overall, I want to see Birdo in more games, not be slowly taken out of every game.

Birdo has been in the game before, the Koopalings haven't and deserved to be in at least once altogether. And Mario Kart 8 doesn't do skins like in Smash Bros. because the Koopalings have different weights.

Metal Mario, Pink Gold Peach and Gold Mario are just the same character model with different color schemes and attributes. They don't count as new characters nor should they even hypothetically be considered being replaced by completely new character models. Tanooki Mario and Cat Peach were only in the game to promote Super Mario 3D World.

The only character who didn't need to be in the game is Baby Rosalina as she is completely new to the Mario games. Plus even hypothetically, she could only be replaced by another lightweight character to keep the numbers the same.

@Bass_X0
Ok, but why remove Birdo instead of keeping the roster from the last game and adding onto it in the newer ones? The could have made 3 koopalings with the rest being skins than, right? That way you are covered for whoever is light, medium and heavy.

All the more reason why they shouldn't be characters but instead skins, no?

Which is a smack to the face for people wanting anyone else. Me for Birdo or Diddy for others.

Birdo and Diddy Kong have already appeared in two Mario Kart games. There are characters like Honey Queen, Funky Kong and Petey Piranha who have only appeared in the games once.

And reskins aren't the same in Mario Kart as they are in Smash Bros. In Smash Bros., the fighter was the Clown Car with eight different pilots. The pilots themselves weren't the fighters. In Mario Kart, you may as well consider there to be only one lightweight, middleweight and heavyweight character reskinned into 15+ different characters for each weight with different statistic attributes. Or in short, Roy Koopa may as well already be a reskin of Morton Koopa Jr. since they are already the same weight.

@Bass_X0
So why not keep them ALL in the game moving forward? Why take out certain characters? When someone talks about a sequel to a game, do you not expect more content?

Noted, but you did say that the Mario and Peach variations were all the same, right? Why not have those characters as skins?
I understand, that's why I suggested what you said with Roy having reskin of Morton. There's 3 weight classes, so you don't need ALL the koopalings taking up a character slot, just 3 of them with others being skins for their respective weight class.
So it would be like: Character slot: Bowser Jr. -> skins are; Lemmy, Larry and Wendy
Character slot: Iggy -> skin; Ludwig
Character slot: Roy -> skin; Morton
^ Same thing ^ with Mario and Peach

@Kinoen
The qeustion of why not to keep them all in is easily answered:
The amount of work that would go in to that, AND the fact that Nintendo deliberately want the games to feel different.

All characters and tracks were remodeled for Mario Kart 8, as you are aware, and the game already has the largest selection of both in series history.

Making more characters would be costly.

And the second reason is that Nintendo always decides on things to leave behind with franchise iterations, so that a certain version of a game gets to be the one with THAT track, or THAT feature.
I can guarantee you that Mario Kart 8 gets to be "that one with all the koopalings". And maybe even "that one with anti gravity," should they opt out of including that in the future.

Just like Double-Dash!! was "that one with two racers on one kart".

Product identity is important for long running franchises, so that games don't ever feel 100% obsolete.

@Pod DLC is the likely answer actually. Think about it, add some newcomers to the base game and then have some returning characters alongside more newcomers as DLC. This already happened in the form of Dry Bowser in Wii U DLC pack 2 as well as 3 characters in Deluxe (Bowser Jr., King Boo, Dry Bones).

You could have something like:
MK8 Deluxe DLC Pack 1 (Birdo, Petey Piranha, Captain Falcon, 8 race tracks, 4 vehicles)
MK8 Deluxe DLC Pack 2 (Kirby, Meta Knight, Diddy Kong, 8 battle arenas, 4 vehicles)

@Grumblevolcano I know you're just using it as an example. But extensive characters outside of the Mario world would kill Mario Kart in my opinion.

@Pod
I can understand the amount of work, but not so much for making the game feel different. I mean it's not a fighting game where Ken from Street Fighter in 3rd Strike feels different from Ken in Street Fighter V. This being a racing game, characters don't do anything other than emote when they hit someone, get hit, pass someone etc...

Aye, but modeling the variation of Mario and Peach feel like a wasted effort, why not have had that work go into Birdo, Diddy, Funky and everyone else? If you read off a number, yeah it's the largest roster, but if you list the characters, I would cut down the Koopalings (and Bowser Jr.) to at most 3. I would cut down all the Mario's to at most 2, same for Peach. That's 7 slots currently gone to waste.

Well yeah, but for the reason I said above, they could have cut costs on 7 characters and gave us 5 separate characters instead. Less money needed on their part and more actual characters on our part.

Ok, but why take out racers? The examples you gave (good ones mind you), people would call out something with the game-play or track in the game, not characters. I would definitely refer to MK8 as "the one with anti-grav", but would not say something like "The one without Birdo". There's just no reason to exclude characters as a "feature" for people to remember the game by. Though apparently fighting games can do that.
I never played Double-Dash but man do I want too.

Yes and no. Yes it's important, but no, I don't feel Nintendo does this. Example: All their 2D platforming Mario games, are virtually all the same. If we included 3D Mario games, Super Mario 64 and both Galaxies were the only ones to feel different.
This is all my opinion, but I even feel the Mario Kart games are similar to each other, outside from what I've seen with Double-Dash. Now that's not to say it's a bad thing, I mean I still have fun with each Mario Kart game that comes out, but it irks me knowing there could have been more content, ESPECIALLY from Nintendo.

@Grumblevolcano
I wouldn't mind this idea, except for the fact of Nintendo side-lining me by not giving me a discount on MK8D after I bought MK8 + All DLC. If they are to include paid for DLC in MK8D, that would be a kick in the berries.

@Nintendoforlife
I would say the opposite. As someone said on YouTube, "Make Mario Kart into Smash Kart Bros." or something like that. Having a bunch of Nintendo IP's in a racing game along with a fighting game or any game in general is just to great of an idea.

Yes, making games does cost money. Good job Nintendo Life.

But anyway, I had forgotten about Birdo. I can't say I really miss her, but it's time for the Koopalings to die. Leave 'em on the SNES. I definitely want either less or more different characters for the next Mario Kart. I don't care about other franchises, but just one Paper Mario character like Vivian would be great to see in 3D. And if you're doing Zelda, literally anyone but Link please. Racing windsock hat yes, yes, fiiiine, but even Zelda and TP Ganondorf are just so much more interesting. I don't need the Kong extended family though — they have always been a weird semi-distinct franchise from Mario, so just D.K. is fine.

@Kinoen
I get where you're coming from, but a Mario Kart with every dingle driver that had ever been in the series would feel very unfocused. And players wouldn't notice the new additions as much as any game director would like. Which again goes back to giving each entry a personality, so that you can sell what's essentially the same game again.

But I feel you. I'm a huge Birdo fan myself, and I was very disappointed to see the fella left out again. Particularly when we get jokers like Link, Villager and Isabelle.

And while you're right that Mario 2D games sometimes feel similar, it's really only the framework, largely. With the last many 2D Mario games, it's been a thing that every single level should contain one new enemy or obstacle. And many many enemies and obstacles get left behind with each new series entry.

Kuribo's Shoe, a fan favorite that only ever appeared in two Mario Bros. 3 levels NEVER returned, not until Mario Maker. And quite many things don't carry over between the New Super Mario Bros. games either, even if they are visually very similar.

So Nintendo really does do it all the time, leaving out established features, so that people will notice the new ones, and so the older games will retain value, both in terms of the memories people have with them, but also so that they really can be repacked and sold again many years later, as has been the case with GameBoy re-releases of console classic and naturally with Virtual Console.

@Haru17 If there's another Zelda character in Mario Kart, it should be Sidon!

It seems unlikely that Deluxe will get any DLC. It would probably be good but it would probably annoy people that have already invested money into the original, the first two DLC packs and the port. The game also seems to have reached a good place content-wise, the grand prix and character selection screens would be cluttered if any extras were added. The battle mode has also been redone in response to the complaints about the original.

If they decide to develop mario kart 9 for the switch then some characters from 8 will be left behind as usual (hopefully metal variants and some of the baby characters!). This would leave space for a couple of new characters and some returning characters aside from the main cast, such as Birdo. However the character models from MK8 still look good today on HD screens so they could reuse them or slightly edit them, leaving more time for new models.

However this is Nintendo and the choices they make are sometimes bizarre so who knows..

...sorry for butting in, I just wanted to add my opinion Q.Q

@Kimyonaakuma Those who would be annoyed are already annoyed that the port exists so adding DLC would change nothing overall regarding opinions.

MK8 DX will imho be the only Mario Kart game on the Switch.
They can keep it evergreen with DLC, and it will be purchased. Only 8 million people bought it on the Wii U (which is actually quite a high attach rate on a console that sold 13 million), however, compared to the 30 odd million people who purchased MKwii and the 15 who purchased MK7, there remain enough people out there who don't need MK9 this generation.

Bored already. His character is like a single emote, which ironically is basically all you need for Mario Kart. Someone like Skull Kid, Midna, or a great fairy could do some sick tricks with their magic and the Fused Shadow. Even a baby character like Malo or any of the zoras from Majora's Mask, TP, or OoT would be more interesting than Shark Boy (RIP Lava Girl 1917).

I understand these feelings kind of! I always loved Paratroopa from a lot of the Mario gang's gamecube games! Now paratroopa has disappeared back to just some enemies in the background of Mario games. I don't think anyone here really can say an answer that will explain Nintendo's choices and change our feelings of missing some characters. At least Mario Kart has such a large roster it's easy to not miss them too much compared to something like Mario Party 10 which just had a limited roster and some character choices I didn't really like that much compared to older games in the series!

That's true but I'm not personally interested in battle mode and a few extra characters are not a big deal. I understand that some people have strong opinions about battle mode but the majority just play the races. I feel that extra courses, which to me at least are the main portion of the game, would be pushing it too far - they need to keep a reserve of retro tracks for future games anyway.

I would prefer it if they continued to develop new games and keep wii u ports to a minimum, but with the Wii U's library I wouldn't be surprised if they bring a few more to switch.

@Haru17 Tingle would be a good alternative or Tingle Link (BotW DLC). I'm sure Aonuma would love to see Tingle expand further than just the Zelda franchise and Smash Bros.!