Gosh, the end is actually in sight now, huh? Yes, Wave 5 for the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Booster Course Pass is finally here, bringing us one step closer to the grand finale with another batch of new and remade Mario Kart content.
In addition to the usual mix of revamped courses from Mario Kart games of yore, Wave 5 introduces a brand new course with 'Squeaky Clean Sprint' along with three new playable characters: Kamek, Wiggler, and Petey Piranha. But is it any good?
Much like the previous four waves, this latest batch of DLC is somewhat of a mixed bag but ultimately adds significant value to the overall appeal of the Booster Course Pass. Eight new courses are nothing to sneer at, even if they're not all certified bangers.
Starting off with Squeaky Clean Sprint, the new course is a delightful glimpse into... someone's bathroom? Yeah, it's a bit of a weird one, but it makes for a pretty good course. You'll be cruising down plugholes, dashing through bathtubs, and soaring above sinks as you make your way around the track. It looks fantastic, and we loved catching quick peeks at Goombas chilling out in their little rubber rings. And thank goodness there are no floaters.
Moving onto the courses from Mario Kart Tour, there are three in total: Athens Dash, Los Angeles Laps, and Vancouver Velocity. All three are decent, but not particularly memorable; we'd say that Athens Dash is a standout thanks to its impressive verticality, though we were surprised at how quickly the race was over.
The latter two courses are perfectly serviceable and certainly fun in 200cc mode, but we've seen better: LA Laps starts you off on the beach and takes you through the city and suburbs; it looks really nice but the track layout is ultimately a bit tame. Meanwhile, Vancouver Velocity's night-time setting looks great with some beautiful winter vibes, but again, the layout feels too safe. Give us a bit of danger, for goodness sake.
Looking at the legacy courses, it's once again a bit up and down. Daisy Cruiser from Double Dash!! is great fun, as it's always been; it's short and sweet and we love the overall aesthetic. Koopa Cape from Mario Kart Wii is a genuine masterclass in Mario Kart course design, featuring a boatload of variety, lots of twists and turns, and some good verticality.
Moonview Highway, on the other hand, is incredibly boring with wide roads and little to no challenge. How these two courses came from the same game is beyond us.
Finally, Sunset Wilds from Super Circuit is a decent recreation of the classic handheld course, albeit with one pretty glaring omission: there's no actual sunset. In the original (and the Mario Kart Tour version), the background and environment would change on each lap. Here, there's nothing. It's a very weird decision. Nintendo managed it on Tour, so why not here?
And what about those new characters? Well, they're good! We can't complain. Kamek is perhaps our favourite thanks to his delightful horn sound and... well, it's Kamek. His 'Medium' class puts him in the same league as Tanooki Mario; a good all-rounder for the most part.
Kamek is good, but we do adore how Wiggler goes all red and angry whenever it's hit with a weapon and those who prefer a slightly heavier class with a bit more speed, like Ludwig, might prefer this guy.
As for Petey Piranha? Well, even after all these years, it's still rather odd to see him riding along on a kart, but there we go. If he can show up alongside Piranha Plant in Smash, a kart shouldn't cause too much trouble. Petey is a Heavy build with good top speed but relatively poor acceleration; if you tend to go for someone like Donkey Kong, then you'll be right at home here. Hopefully, Nintendo goes a little more out there for the final wave, but as far as new characters go, these are pretty good additions.
Conclusion
Overall, Wave 5 is another good wave, though not a great one. Squeaky Clean Sprint, while perfectly decent fun in itself, can't quite match the heights of something like Yoshi's Island, and tracks like Moonview Highway and Sunset Wilds make us feel like Nintendo just isn't quite giving its all when it comes to this DLC. Still, the positives outweigh the negatives, and we're confident that once the final wave lands later this year, the Booster Course Pass will prove an essential purchase for Mario Kart fans.
Comments 80
Loving these new courses but it also makes me realise how bored I'm getting with Mario Kart 8 (having owned it since it's Wii U days). I'm very curious how they'll make Mario Kart 9 new and refreshing, as they seemed to have hit pinnacle Mario Kart with 8 Deluxe.
MOONVIEW HIGHWAY SLANDER WILL NOT BE TOLERATED
I feel pretty much the same about the wave overall though; it's definitely very good, but I don't think it's better than the previous one which is a massive shame given how it was looking like each wave was improving upon the last. It's still very fun though and the new characters especially are fantastic additions to 8 Deluxe (WIGGLER WEDNESDAY HAS ARRIVED).
I don't get the hate against Moonview Highway
Wow! Not often I disagree this much with a review on NL!
The music on the Tour courses is by far the worst in the entire game and instantly forgettable.
Moonview Highway on 150 and 200 is one of the best courses in the game. If you played it on 50 or 100, then yes, that's pretty boring.
Vancouver is comfortably the best city track in the whole game so far! Los Angeles is also much better than many previous cities featured.
Squeaky Clean is great - should have perhaps referenced the Mario Bros being plumbers in it a bit more? Seems an obvious miss? Felt a lot like Micro Machines - in a good way. I'd like to see more.
Daisy Cruiser becomes one of the best "short courses" in the game, but much like the Baby Park course it does suffer from the special items not being in the game - especially the moving table room!
By this point we are screaming out for the next Mario Kart game, this is a fine DLC package, but the more I swap between the original Mario Kart 8 and it's DLC tracks, the more jarring these latest ones are.
It's a shame as I doubt any of them will get the proper remake treatment like the Yoshi circuit on the original games DLC, could be wrong.... but hoping one of my favorite courses Delfino square does not feature in the next wave....
If the WiiU game originally launched with just these DLC courses it would have been a major disappointment and that's the real shame of all this. Yes it's nice to have more but going back and playing the old courses after picking the game up briefly for each new DLC release just reminds me of how big of a gap in quality there is between the levels designed specifically for this game and 90% of these new tracks. I loved the price point during the announcement but now I feel a little ripped off.
@nmanifold MarioKart 9 will be either going the "Smash Bros Ultimate" route or will be something completely new. I am guessing the latter, actually. This is why it won't come this generation.
This is the first wave where not a single track has excited me, so I'm hoping that Wave 6 ends the DLC with quite the bang
@SpaceboyScreams my only grievance with the Mario Kart DLC is that it was chosen over another potential game such as Diddy Kong Racing or perhaps even F Zero - who knows. Seems likely Nintendo wouldn't bother with another racer in light of deciding to go with the DLC though.
Of course that's not to say they don't have something lined up for 2024. They likely do.
As for pricing. Fair enough, and it's different for everyone. Me personally, I already have the online so the DLC is free. If I didn't, I'd happily pay £5 for a pair of new Cups. That would put this DLC value at £30. So once again, Nintendo have priced it competitively/ dare I say, cheap, compared to what pretty much any other publisher cough EA would charge you.
The problem I have with this wave is a lot of the courses have been... well, not butchered but downgraded. Obviously, there is a lack of the Sunset Wilds cycle (the fact this was in Tour takes the pee as well), but a lot of things I liked about Koopa Cape are now changed (e.g., the grey cliffs, the electro shells and water in the tunnel, several ramps in the rapids section). And it's just a joke how little traffic there is to Moonview Highway. I was pumped to experience the hair-pulling frustration of the Wii version but this one just feels defanged.
Moonview Highway is super fan.
Here are my hopes for the final wave of the pass, at least in terms of possible retro courses:
GCN Mushroom City
3DS Wario Shipyard
GBA Lakeside Park
DS Airship Fortress
Wii Daisy Circuit
Wii Toad’s Factory
GCN Wario Colosseum
3DS Rosalina’s Ice World
I think this run of DLC has convinced me Mario Kart needs a TOTK style reinvention for the Switch sequel, and I don't just mean adding Kirby and Samus.
I'd like to see some long form tracks with some more hazards to avoid- think Marik Kart Cannonball Run.
@sanderev Yes i think its the latter too. It would be great to see Mario Kart 9 with just Nintendo-themed tracks, and a full roster of Nintendo characters, but they still need to update the overall racing style somehow.
@nmanifold as much as I love having 48 courses, it feels like a lot of the content is bland filler material. Granted, at just $24.99 or as a bonus for being a subscriber, it’s still a great value. But considering that this has sold well over 60 million if you count the WiiU version, plus DLC, it really shouldn’t have been an issue to put more effort into this. Throw in that the mobile version has made a decent chunk of change and probably even served as a marketing vehicle for the Switch to sell more systems …..I just feel that Nintendo could have put more effort, polish and fresh content into this….
@MrGawain Mario Kart Cannonball Run sounds epic!
Your bias on Tour is showing
I kinda feel that Moonview Highway could have been Piranha Plant Cove instead but since Squeaky Cleank Sprint was here I guess they didn't want to have two water courses but still I really feel like Cove should have been on this wave.
I really like the DLC courses as a whole. However, besides a modest collection of them, I'm not sure I'd say they're absolutely essential in addition the base game. I like having them, just thinking for everyone else generally
Cheers for the review. Look fwd to givin' them a spin soon.
I still can’t get over the downgrade from MK8WiiU. 😭 I keep wondering how pretty these tracks would be if tour graphics style didn’t exist. I’m glad ppl like them tho. I like the new characters the most. I wonder if we’ll get Pauline in the final DLC. Or Diddy Kong and Funky Kong to add more of the old characters. I doubt we’ll get the bee thing from 7.
40 minutes for downloading the last MK DLC wave over 1Gbps fibre... 🤣
@rockodoodle Which makes me think the main Mario Kart team is busy working on 9? While a less experienced team worked on these DLC tracks.
@nmanifold
My hope is it'll be Double Dash!! 2. Lots of ways to shake things up with new characters, courses, and combos. Plus special items were so fun
I can't believe we're almost at the end of 2023. Time for Mario-Kart 9!!
How did they make Moonview Highway boring? It was chaos with the traffic in the Wii version!
@rockodoodle Yes, absolutely agree with your points here. I've often thought the same with the eShop too and how little they invest back into that despite all the money it is making!
My head says Nintendo is just making loads of cash while they can as they know how easily things can fall apart (N64 and then Gamecube after SNES, Wii U after Wii) but my heart says maybe they've got a lot of secret projects for new hardware on the way...
Like... do we really believe the entire Zelda dev team worked on TotK for 6 years? Do we really believe the Mario Kart team haven't been working on something new behind the scenes... as Tour and this DLC doesn't look like a full time job to me!
...and do we honestly all believe that there is no Donkey Kong in development somewhere, as we approach TEN years since the launch of Tropical Freeze on Wii U (Feb 2014).
We will see soon enough. 2024 has always felt like the moment, especially when this MK DLC was given the "releasing by end of 2023" timeline.
I disliked Koopa Cape on the Wii and I feel the same here.
I'm super surprised about the Athens track! It looks so good and is my favorite tour track now, beating my previous favorite - Paris. I also love the Los Angeles track, despite people having mixed feelings about it. Squeaky Clean is cool too.
Someone else has probably mentioned it, but to the writer of this article, you've misspelt Piranha twice in the article (at least from my counting).
@Classic603 I'd love that too, Double Dash is still my favorite Mario Kart.
Honestly I can't even remember what was in the fourth pack besides Birdo while this set I think is very strong, especially Daisy Cruiser, Koopa Cape, and Vancouver Velocity.
@Classic603 @nmanifold Mario Kart Double Dash is my favourite, too! I still play it the most. It has the most fun physics, controls and gameplay. Mario Kart 8 vehicles seem glued to the tracks and even flying and swimming are stiff.
Personally, adding three new characters makes this a great wave to me. Especially since the original plan for the DLC was courses only. Birdo in the last wave was a surprise and to top that with 3 more characters is an unexpected bonus. The DLC just keeps getting better with each wave, imo.
İt is a good score. İ am happy with it.
Strongly disagree with most of the main review so I'm glad there's also a Second Opinion with which I couldn't agree more!
Moonview Highway is actually fantastic, my only gripe is that they ruin Sunset Wilds. As for the Tour tracks while I like Vancouver Velocity and Athens Dash I would had replaced Los Angeles Laps for something much better.
I need them to let me play the Tour music for Berlin and Los Angeles. Although the new versions aren’t awful I REALLY love those two tracks’ mobile game music so much more.
Dang. I thought it was the best wave so far. With the best travel courses.
@SpaceboyScreams,
I am glad I get them as part of the subscription service, as I would not pay for them, the gulf between these and the original Wii U DLC courses, is pretty much night and day.
How about save the rest of the updated courses for MK:9.. where undoubtedly it’ll probably be called Mario Kart: Brawl cuz it’ll be Smash Bros-esk with characters from all across Nintendo/Sega with their own unique skills and karts.. mark these words and let’s get on with the next title please Nintendo!!
7/10 because writer hates Moonview lol
The course I was most looking forward to was Daisy Cruiser but I couldn't help feeling a little disappointed due to some missing features, i.e. the clamshells in the original contain coins but in this version the clamshells are empty, and the dining tables move in the original (I'm sure I didn't imagine that, did I?!)
@KingofRedLions Play it again, the clamshells have item boxes and the tables do indeed move
Petey Piranha looks like he adopted from a 3DS game. And the Athena course from tour also looks a bit cheap.
But the rest is fine for me. I love the Daisy Cruiser course from Double Dash and that bathroom is also nice.
It's a mixed bag on the tracks for me, I think I liked the previous wave better.
Having Kamek and Petey Piranha makes it worth it tho, my kids are stoked (especially after getting Birdo)
@JoeyTS What, really?! I played shortly after 11 am today and those features were definitely missing at the time. I'm going to check it out right now, thank you so much! Edit: I probably should've specified that I played time trial only, but I played Daisy Cruiser again just now and the tables did indeed move but only in the first lap (I'm sure they moved in all three laps in Double Dash!!) and the clamshells were both empty. I seem to remember in DD time trial they contained coins, while in Grand Prix they held item boxes.
Moonview Highway wasn't that boring in Mario Kart Wii. This new version has substantially less vehicles, and said vehicles all happen to drive much slower. It removes all challenge from the original and brings out the relatively simple track layout.
@nmanifold "Please enjoy Mario Kart 8 4K Edition as one of the Switch 2 Launch Titles!"
@KingofRedLions Time trials explains it because obviously there are no item boxes in time trials. In normal racing, item boxes would be where the clam shells are. And the tables will move on all laps, you just happened to be in that area when they were not moving. Sort of like the cars in Coconut Mall in 8DX where sometimes you'll pass them when they are sitting idle, and sometimes when they are in the middle of doing their donuts. Also I don't think DD has coins at all? In fact, there were no clamshells at all in that section of DD because it wasn't underwater!
@JoeyTS Ah, you're right of course! The tables move independently, regardless of whether the player is there to witness it or not XD
It's been more than 15 years since I last played Double Dash!! so I would need to dig out my GameCube to be 100% certain, but I really do seem to remember that underwater section existing in DD too, and the clamshells containing coins in time trial. Part of the thrill as I recall it was deciding whether to risk going for the coin or not. Perhaps someone who has played DD more recently could confirm if I actually just imagined these things though, lol.
@KingofRedLions Here I dug up a clip that shows it. It's an engine room in the original with no water, no coins and no clamshells!
https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkxx_gC75MK974T_-l0jPhNpf0qPY8wpwSH
@JoeyTS You're a star, thank you soooo much!! It turns out I have barely any memory of the GCN original and was in fact confusing it with the MK7 version of Daisy Cruiser XD. At 04:02 the clamshells are on screen, with one containing a coin and one containing an item box – so that's where I got that memory from, haha!
Moonview Highway was probably the best track in MKWii, so I'm interested to see how it's apparently been made so much worse.
@Classic603
That would be awesome!
@Angelic_Lapras_King It will be called Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Ultra Plus New.
@KingofRedLions It's not your imagination but your memory. The underwater section belongs to Mario Kart 7 😁.
I really enjoy all these tracks, and would say these are some of the best Tour tracks! They are so much fun!
The new course is another great addition and all of the returning courses and really enjoyable.
Absolutely love this wave!
Moonview Highway is not a boring track. Perhaps it loses some of its luster from the abundance of traffic courses in MK8 Deluxe, but the dash panels and night time setting help it stand out.
I wanted to like Athens Dash but one of my biggest gripes with the Tour tracks is that sometimes you don't even know where you are headed, too many turns in such small spaces, the city should've been a bit more spread out IMHO. I did like LA Laps and Vancouver Velocity though.
Daisy Cruiser was fun but felt way too short.
Moonview Highway was unexpectedly a lot of fun, I always thought it would be a very boring track.
Uh, the whole point of Moonview Highway is that you're supposed to try and stick to the Dash Panels in the city and navigate all across the wide roads. Dash Panels which are now randomized between playthroughs, mind you. It wouldn't be an urban highway if it wasn't wide, either. It's been made much easier, but calling it a bad track because it's wide is missing the whole point.
LOL i can't believe you wrote the word "floaters" in here 😆
is this a british thing? the last time i heard it i think was in austin powers 2 LOL.
@Boston_J let’s hope that you are right, I hope it ends with a bang too
Probably outside of the purview of the review, but I'm happy Nintendo is puncturing the "Yoshis and Shy Guys on teddy bears" meta that was developing in the wake of WaluWiggler getting nerfed. Even if some other combination will come to the forefront in its place.
moonview highway is peak what is blud saying
Never liked the idea of the Booster Course pack to begin with so I'm glad more people are starting to see this for what it is- cheap repackaging of Tour courses because they're too cheap and lazy to make an actual new game. Mario Kart desperately needs a new game with new mechanics, but instead they'd rather just coast on old content and a handful of new courses that mainly consist of bland cities. We're definitely in Mario Kart's dark age right now, by far the longest drought in new Mario Kart entries (and even if you counted 8D, it'd still be tied for the longest), far too many remakes of older tracks that aren't even that much improved, and most of the new ones are mediocre.
Give us Poochy!
I was really disappointed w the last cup. la doesn't have the bahs, no sunset in sunset wilds really really ticked me off, and koopa cape felt too narrow and clunky. the rest of the tracks were great, including maybe my fav of the wave surprisingly enough, athens - one of my least fav city tracks in tour.
wait a minute, there was no cane in Citizen Kane...
Wave 5 is a shocker. Poor choice of old tracks, uninspiring tracks from Tour, and Squeaky Clean Sprint is a mess. While Koopa Cape and Daisy Cruiser are decent, they were retro additions on the previous game, MK7! Did really need a third dose? Give me a break. There's so many options still out there, like Banshee Boardwalk and Airship Fortress on. The final wave better be good.
I'll add that the game needs a super hard mode. That I beat both cups first go, and did Cherry with 3 stars, is an insult. Perhaps with harder difficulty we would get more out of these tracks. As it stands, Moonview Highway and Desert Sunset were my favourites, while LA and Athens were also good.
Edit: I love the raging Wiggler turning red when he gets smashed.
The bathroom course is crap. No pun intended. The pipe is nasty, filled with sludge, and the course has very little guidance on where to go so I end up all over the place. I’m glad I didn’t pay for this DLC. It’s been underwhelming from day 1.
I wish they'd bring back the Double Dash two players per Kart mechaic
I'm just waiting on Diddy Kong. A man can hope.
Thought Koopa Cape would have been my favourite out of all the courses in this wave since it was one of my go to courses on Mario Kart Wii, but surprisingly my favourite is actually Vancouver Velocity, it's a really nice race track.
In the original Wii version of Koopa Cape, the music tends to ramp up when you start driving on the stream, but that no longer happens in the Switch remake. Laaaaaaame.
Like the omission of Miis in Coconut Mall, there is very little love put into these tracks, and it absolutely stinks of Nintendo recycling old designs with none of the spark that made the originals so memorable.
@Dylansuxx I think the tracks would not have even been here in the first place if it wasnt for tour.
I really like these new tracks, Moonview Highway is interesting in that the arrangement of the boost pads seems to change with each CC class. I’ve only played through on each class once to get three stars, so I’m not sure if the pads are random per race or just different depending on CC yet. But I do like that you have to look ahead and plan your route to get all the boosts.
The Squeaky Clean track is excellent too, there’s so many things to see, all the fun details like the things that have been washed down the drain and the three routes at the end of the track are great too.
All in all, I really enjoyed the new tracks and I’m looking forward to the last set. I hope when they’re all out Nintendo will sell a new cartridge with all the tracks on the card so I can have something not dependent on Nintendo keeping the DLC servers running.
Hopefully when this DLC ends at the end of 2023 so will the Mario Kart 8 Hotwheels too I collect Donkey Kong Hot Wheels he might be Very Rare to find in the future the last nintendo made DK was february of 2023. His first appearence as a standard kart got wheels is in feb 2021. I love him since the first game 1981 arcade and for the NES. Have fun with this recent DLC!
This wave could have used a bit more exciting tracks. A DK-mountain or Bowser's Castle.
And an actual sunset ofcourse. Hope they fix that.
@nmanifold Same. It came out so long ago. But you gotta admit it’s charm and engagement lasted a long time for a racer.
I was super excited for Vancouver Velocity, as I am from the same province, and have actually been to Vancouver! But I was very disappointed it was basically just Olympics theme
Wtf NL i found koopa cape to be the biggest disappointment of the entire bcp , having only played it on mk7 I find it cruel how much they sucked the joy and life out of the track. The koopa sign pointing down isn’t there like wtf plus the glider ramp from mk7- wich was a major upgrade imo. The music is god awful I’ve never heard a worst remix in my entire life. They removed its bouncy feel and added weird ***** in the river section. They removed the fishes ( obstacles in the tunnel) And don’t get me started with these absolutely disgusting looking mountains, they did this with rock rock mountain and made the mountains look like brown play do like wtf, who would ever have imagined that mk7s remakes were better and looked way more interesting then the awful remakes on the switch I will die on the hill that koopa cape didn’t receive justice
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