With the snappily titled Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Booster Course Pass first wave not being far away, there's been plenty of chatter around whether Nintendo has utilised Mario Kart Tour equivalents of retro courses (and of course there are actual Tour tracks in the wave) as foundations, leading to a slightly different visual look. To which the answer is "yeah, probably, that's normally what happens in game development".
We feel the Switch iteration of these courses look a darn site crisper and more detailed, likely due to the mobile title needing to accommodate an extremely broad range of devices. It's a fair comparison, though, one which is now a little easier that the Sky Tour has been announced for Mario Kart Tour, which includes the debut of GBA Sky Garden in the game; yep, the same course we'll be playing in the Lucky Cat Cup on 18th March on Switch.
You can see the mobile entry's trailer at the top, with the Booster Course Pass trailer below:
Similar art style and shared assets? Absolutely. Will it be any less fun as a result? Probably not.
In any case, let us know what you think in the comments!
Comments 55
at the end of the day i'm playing mario kart for how it feels more than the luscious scenery i'm zooming past, it was more of a nicety than anything that MK8 looked as good as it did
I sure hope they will put any anti gravity in these stages taken from Nario Kart Tour.
So, so hyped for the new tracks. Bring 'em on. This is what MK8 has badly needed for a long time, and I was pleasantly surprised that Nintendo is going all in on new content for the game that people just won't stop buying. Especially hoping for a good helping of MK7 tracks to be liberated from the small screen.
Hoping for some N64 Bowser's Castle down the line!
I feel like they just ported the courses over from Tour to 8 Deluxe. The new stages don't feel as good looking as the base MK8 courses.
Well in Tour the road is gray whereas in MK8DX it's brown/orange
They could also bring the characters that are missing!
@marcelominucelli or at least work in costumes for chrissake, it's not like the feature isn't already in the game
People “I don’t like tour, I don’t like control scheme and it’s annoying it gets all these updates whilst mk8 gets no love.”
People “Nintendo constantly overcharge for new games like Mario party when they should have just made it DLC for the other party game”
Same people after mk8 gets double the amount of tracks for £22
“These tracks are just from the mobile game and we can play them on that”
“Why don’t the release these tracks for over twice the price as mk9 instead”
You are twisting my melon man.
Seeing this makes me think about costumes in an actual, mainline MK game. If you could unlock brand new ones for each character through character specific achievements (winning a cup, doing a time trial, maybe even bringing back mission mode, etc.) that could be a really cool thing.
Just, you know, don't bring them in like Tour does and charge money for them. That's dumb.
@somebread Also I'd say the tracks themselves don't really clash with the characters, karts and items which would have been the main point of contention.
Unless you're doing a side-by-side comparison between the DLC tracks and the MK8 tracks. It'd be hard to tell they looked that different, beyond knowing that the tracks were from Tour. It's the same as when people fret over game's content if the file sizes if the number of GB isn't "high enough" pre-release.
Letting the fact they know the tracks are shared with Tour get in the way of what really matters, which is whether the 48 tracks are fun to play and worth the cost. (Although I've already got the NSO expansion so personally it's just a bonus for me).
If the graphics are taken from tour does it really matter that much? If you’re playing at 200cc (which most of us do) then even if the graphics are just ok you’re zooming through so you don’t get time to admire the smaller details.
@Stocksy
I've seen the exact same heel-turn in sentiment 🤣
@Stocksy Yeah and I'll make a prediction for the future for the Switch 2 or whatever the next console will be:
"Why doesn't Mario Kart 9 have 96 tracks?! MK8Deluxe did!"
I actually find Mario Kart more difficult as the backgrounds get more complex because I find it harder to see what's going on. N64 Mario Kart is probably still my favourite.
@Stocksy Mario Kart Tour is MK9 the graphic sheet in the DLC segment confirms this.
It was obvious from the first trailer that the new tracks are from Tour, but are we not getting any anti-gravity sections whatsoever?
Twice the amount of courses is great...but it's odd that half of them will look different and miss this game's gimmick entirely.
@Nintendude78 you're totally spot on bud. people like to complain about anything and just suck the fun out of everything (especially on Twitter). MK8 is a favorite so I'm glad we're basically getting a double of what we have now, even if the assets look similar
Game Freak, known for not amazing graphics and optimisation makes a game with not amazing graphics and optimisation but does push a debatably stagnant franchise in a new direction. Fans freak out declare they deserve better and that Game Freak is lazy.
Nintendo, now known for making very visually polished games (within their hardware's limitations) puts out some DLC of old, existing content taken from a mobile game, way below what they are capable of as a cash grab to drive more towards it's online service. Fans tell people to stop whining the graphics aren't the point anyway, who cares that Nintendo cut corners for a quick profit?
...sigh...
I'm going to be that guy and say that it does feel a little cheap to have these tracks seemingly pulled from the mobile game and causing a slight clash in art styles as a result.
But that doesn't mean I'm not excited. Mario Kart 8 is great and more of it is very welcome, even if it's done in this manner. I just still hope they'll also bring over the costumes and characters from Tour as well. Cheap as it may be, I wouldn't even care if they would be simple ports with little to no touch ups as seems to be the case with the tracks (so far, anyway).
I wonder which tracks they're gonna bring in future waves too!
Let's be honest, that first batch of DLC had some spotty tracks as well!
I'm really looking forward to this. Playing in tour just feels very different than a regular mario kart, so I'm stoked to play them on the big screen!
How can people say, those tracks are just ported from Mario Kart Tour?
@Stocksy Haha, can't disagree with that summary
I want to see videos comparing the mobile and Switch versions of Course Pass circuits!
The visuals look appalling.
People just love a moan these days! Honestly so what if they're re-using some of the assets from Tour, you honestly think Nintendo have to time and resource to recreate 48 MK courses from the ground up?! And I'm sure Nintendo are spending a lot more time and effort than people may think getting these new courses up to MK8 standards.
Personally from what I've seen so far this first batch look amazing, and I'm excited to try them out.
@Stocksy I'm definitely in the first camp of not liking Mario Kart Tour, however I am delighted they are bringing those tracks over to Mario Kart 8, I can't wait
that red plane/kart reminds me of Helmut from Street Racer.
@carlos82 100% I’m in both the first two camps tbh. To some extent. I had some fun with phone version.
But it’s the anger that when we then get some love for mk8 and such a massive amount for a relatively low DLC (I paid 16quid on shopto) I think Nintendo can’t really be knocked for this. Supporting a game and giving so much content on a game that most switch owners own. That’s much better than releasing 48 tracks a few new characters and basically the same engine for a mk9 that everyone would have gone crazy for.
@betterman Street Racer, probably the best Super Mario Kart clone!
@Banjo- @betterman I played a lot of Street Racer back on the SNES and then the Saturn which has a great version
@Stocksy yeah I find some of the reactions a bit odd, when all is said and done MK8 is still a brilliant game amd is now effectively going to double in size for not very much money, or no extra cash if you have the expansion pack. It's a bit left field from Nintendo but a welcome surprise and because I don't play the mobile games, quite a few will be brand new
@carlos82 I didn't know it was released for Saturn but I still play it on SNES Mini. Sega made great consoles and games!
90% of my play time is playing battle mode.
No new battle mode arenas...
I don ´t know if i´ll buy it...
If the graphics are different from the main game, I don't know if I'm going to play the new tracks much, because it's going to look like a prototype. I prefer to leave the game with fewer tracks, but all beautiful. Don't criticize me, it's important to me. I respect any opinion that differs from mine.
Sky Garden is one of the best Super Circuit tracks. Excited to play it on Switch next month.
@Kimyonaakuma
I don't think a minute trailer is enough to conclude that anti-gravity sections won't be added to any of the courses. Also worth noting is that only half of the Retro Courses in the base game have the anti-gravity mechanic
Sure the art style differs, but I think it still looks great.
@Banjo- I agree! I spent so many evenings playing 24-race championships with a friend
@betterman That's cool! I used to play this and Super Mario Kart with my cousins.
@Stocksy
when looking at the source of the quotes were all of them from the exact same person since otherwise it reminds me of when people showed an image of the gamespot reviews for the wiiu and switch versions of Tropical freeze, this was intended as a "gotcha" moment showing the alleged hypocrisy regarding the different review scores but it fell flat considering even in the image you could see that both reviews were by different people.
Usually if the quotes have a source then chances are they are from different people, if said quotes dont have a source it comes across as trying strawman a discussion.
@Ogbert If rabid fanboys aren't experts at having double standards, who is?
Sorry, but there are no differences. They literally just drag and dropped the exact course and assets from a mobile game and put it into Deluxe.
Probably one of the laziest things they've ever done. You'd think they would at least update some of the textures, but no. Only VERY minor differences. All the new courses completely clash with the rest of the games more "realistic" art style.
Will it still be fun? Sure I guess, even though none of the new courses will have anti-grav sections either. But I can't get over the minimum effort put into this DLC. I'm more blown away that people have just given up and accepted that Nintendo can just be lazy now and half-*ss content because they know fans will eat up and buy anything they put out.
@Dingelhopper They did change some of the textures, look closer.
@Willo567 That's a good point, I guess we will have to wait and see how many corners they have cut.
I'm sure it's easier to upgrade a course from MK Tour for Switch than it is to optimize a course from MK8. But the effort they put into overhauling courses like Ribbon Road set a high standard!
...but I'll shut up, we all know that I will buy and enjoy the courses regardless
I can see some similarities but the road is completely different between the two versions. The lighting is also much better in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Tour also lacks the mushrooms. The only similar thing is that there are clouds and giant vines, which are hard not include since they were in the original course. The clouds and vines do not look like they are the same model, they have far fewer polygons in Tour.
I believe that it is possible the new courses in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe take inspiration from Tour, and are aesthetically a bit closer to it, but they are not just copying the courses. They are putting in effort to make them more detailed.
I don't mind recycled tracks from Tour if they're well-designed and work for MK8, since I'm not playing Tour anyway.
Bringing Tour tracks into proper Mario Kart is a fantastic move. There are some really great tracks there which are worse off being hidden away on a game where the track selection is constantly changing. I hope they get some new elements added in MK8 too. Did anyone notice the distance counter on the glider in that clip though?
@GX_64 Yeah I think it's very likely they're sharing base assets between games for efficiency but it doesn't really look like straight up a copy-paste.
It's sort of like how Switch Mario games often have the same base model for Mario. But the Odyssey artbook showcases the kind of adjustments/changes they did specifically for Odyssey.
Considering the scope of games nowadays if they get bogged down doing redundant work like creating the same track or character twice. Instead of creating the assets once and making the adjustments for each game, we're only going to see games with less tracks/characters/levels/etc. but still at full price.
In terms of this Mario Kart DLC- 48 Tracks is hella content! Tbh I thought they'd port Mario Kart Arcade GP to Switch in lieu of MK9 probably being a ways off still. It'd be nice if they add some courses from that game in this DLC pack as well since that game isn't super accessible being in arcades only.
... Wun can only hope.
@AlexHarford This is not exclusive to Mario Kart. Just looking at the latest Horizon game, the environments are just so damn busy. It's impressive in detail but I just can't keep track of anything on the screen because there's details in every single nook and cranny. I much prefer a more stylized approach. To be fair, MK8 is nowhere near this detailed of course, but I also prefer the simplicity of MK64.
@Dingelhopper I think we should allow the sales to speak about whether this is acceptable or not. The market itself will reject this if people don't like it. If people buy it.... Then obviously it isn't a big deal for most.
However, I have to say, in UK you can get this for £16. £16 for 48 tracks is a bit of a steal even if they are literal ports from the N64 and GameCube games, let alone the more recent reworked mobile versions.
This bothers me a little actually... I like consistency and I still admire how pretty the tracks are in MK8D...Let's wait and see...
My main worry is how the Tour tracks feel with a classic control scheme. I've tried Tour only once, but I felt the tracks were tailored to the mobile control scheme. I hope they've adjusted them a bit to the Switch controls.
Every turn in MK8 tracks feels meticulously crafted for manual controls and drifting. I hope the DLC feels the same.
Honestly, I don't mind this. Like, I don't really care about MK graphics, as by design, you have very little time to appreciate it if you play at higher speeds. Idk, as long as it's visually interesting, that's all I really care about. Although, I do wish the DLC included characters, costumes, battle stages, and some more non-Mario courses like a proper Splatoon course, more F-Zero, a BOTW course, and maybe something Kirby.
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