Mario Kart 8 / Deluxe

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JaySevenZero
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Mario Kart 8 / Deluxe

Post by JaySevenZero »

Here's where you can contribute your thoughts and opinions for Mario Kart 8 / Deluxe for potential inclusion in the forthcoming podcast.

A friendly reminder that where the feedback for the podcast is concerned, we love it - but keeping it brief is appreciated. We do want to include a breadth of opinions where appropriate, but no-one wants a discussion podcast that’s mostly reading out essays. Better to save yourself time and cut to the chase if you can.
bixer

Re: 516: Mario Kart 8 / Deluxe

Post by bixer »

Obviously it's a genre that encompasses quite a broad array of different styles within it, but when push comes to shove I think I'd have to consider Mario Kart 8 Deluxe as the best racing game of all time.

It's the only one I can think of that is truly flawless and I'm not surprised Nintendo has taken so long to give us Mario Kart 9 as I'm not really sure how you top it. Despite originally playing it way back in 2014 on the Wii U, I still regularly come back to the Deluxe version on the Switch for a few online races almost 8 years later. I don't think any other game has ever retained my attention for even half that long before and I'm not sure if another ever will.
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Jobobonobo
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Re: 516: Mario Kart 8 / Deluxe

Post by Jobobonobo »

My time with the Wii U has been extremely limited but I remember trying one out at a friend’s place and Mario Kart 8 was the top choice for multiplayer. I remember being wowed seeing this series in HD for the first time. The controls were very solid and the karts handled smoothly. Even though I played it for a very short amount of time, it is hard to deny the sheer polish of this entry and it might be the most refined version of the Mario Kart formula to date. If I had a Switch and time to invite buddies over for a few rounds, Mario Kart 8 would certainly be in my collection.
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Buskalilly
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Re: 516: Mario Kart 8 / Deluxe

Post by Buskalilly »

Mario Kart 8 might be my most-played game of all time? I have higher game clocks on certain Monster Hunter and Pokemon titles, but add up my time across two consoles and my time playing on other people's copies and its in the runnings.

Single party animal with a flat on the High Street? Mario Kart 8 and drinking, every Friday night. Moved back in with my parents to save money? Mario Kart 8 online or singleplayer, getting every perfect cup and every staff ghost. Travelling? Bust out the Switch in tabletop mode. Staying in touch with friends back home? Quick online session. I got to the point where none of my in real life friends would play it with me because I was essentially untouchable.

My all-time best memory of Mario Kart 8 was my final day at my awful supermarket job. I'd made a nice set of friends who were also into Nintendo and we'd had many a night of multiplayer - very often with mario kart as the headline act. To finally settle it, I made every single one of them face me in a solo tabletop game, no items, no CPU. I beat everyone except my friend Amelia, who uses a bike instead of a Kart. After that I learned the bike, and when saw her again six months later the tearful reunion was cut short by my need to prove that I was now the undisputed champ. I don't think she's played any multiplayer games with me since.

I've been getting back to it recently, to mixed results, so it isn't quite like riding a bike, but with more tracks on the way and with it still being unbeaten in its field, I'm sure I'll be back to my old level soon enough.
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Tibble_n_Bits
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Re: 516: Mario Kart 8 / Deluxe

Post by Tibble_n_Bits »

I have an extremely vivid memory of buying Mario Kart 8 on release day in 2014. I was in line at GameStop and directly in front of me in line was a boy who couldn't have been more than 10 or 11 years old with his noticeably apathetic father. The father asked the son "What was that game you wanted?" to which the son replied, "Watch Dogs!" I can only imagine what was going through the cashier's head when I, visibly an adult, proceeded to ask for Mario Kart 8. I'm sure hindsight has shown that cashier that I made the more mature, informed purchase. After all, Mario Kart 8 was so good I bought it twice.

Prior to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe I would have said Mario Kart DS was the best in the series, mostly for its wealth of content. I'm of the opinion that all Mario Kart games are great but have had at least one critical flaw that holds them back from being a definitive "kart racing experience", if there is such a thing. Mario Kart DS's reliance on needing multiple handhelds and copies of the game to get the most out of it held back the game in my eyes because kart racers are an inherently social game genre.

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe has no such critical flaw. I specify the Deluxe version because by adding a battle mode that isn't bad, Nintendo fixed the one glaring issue with Mario Kart 8. Deluxe has everything I'm looking for in this kind of game: a staggering number of spectacularly designed tracks; vibrant visuals that are still a showpiece for the Switch hardware; a joyful soundtrack; the tightest controls yet seen in the series; and a fun new gimmick with antigravity that doesn't overwhelm the rest of the game design as other prior series gimmicks did. And to top it all off, it is one the most approachable and enjoyable local multiplayer experiences out there. I've had so many great nights with friends thanks to this game.

It is no wonder Nintendo is adding even more tracks to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe; why would they not continue to support a game that keeps earning them ridiculous amounts of money? Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is so great that I struggle to see where a Mario Kart 9 would even go from here besides the obvious route of adding more Nintendo characters. All I know is that after Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, my expectations for the future of the series are now unreasonably high.
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Seph
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Re: 516: Mario Kart 8 / Deluxe

Post by Seph »

What else is there to say about this game, other than it is possibly the most fun and exciting multiplayer racer on the market? The Mario Kart series started on an incredible high and, while each game hasn't always been better than the last, it feels like this is the culmination of the series high points to date. While everyone has their favourite game from the series (I still have a soft spot for the Snes one), I'd be hard pushed to argue against Mario Kart 8 being the only one you really need.

I currently don't own a Switch (I think I'm naively waiting for this price drop that is never going to happen), but this would be the first game I'd pick up. Whenever I've played it at my friends' homes, it's always a winner for the crowd. The last time I played it, I kept shouting that my controls felt off and I was always turning left. At first I thought it was something to do with the infamous Joycon drift I'd heard about, until it was pointed out to me afterwards that the motion sensor was on. Despite this handicap, I still enjoyed the game and finished a respectable 4th.

There aren't many games that are almost 10 years old that still feel fresh and exciting. I've played both the original and Deluxe versions of the game, and both are just as fun, so I'd still recommend the Wii U version.

Three word review: Luigi's death stare.
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Toon Scottoon
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Re: 516: Mario Kart 8 / Deluxe

Post by Toon Scottoon »

Not since Tetris was packaged with the Gameboy can I think of a time where a game has been so blissfully wedded to a piece of hardware the way that Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is partnered with the Nintendo Switch.

Sure there were times where Mario Kart and other hardware devices seemed like the appropriate matrimonial match. Those wild years with the N64 four tap that brought so many players to the game, the almost right engagement with the Wii Wheel that made the software approachable to anyone who'd at least seen a motor vehicle in operation, the Mario Kart DS dalliance that let us know how much we enjoyed playing MarioKart anywhere, and against almost anyone hinted at what this series could become, but it took an iteration on the 8th installment in this series and those portable, detachable joy-cons for Mario Kart to break the bonds of space and time.

I know I sound like a Nintendo copywriter, but thanks to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe being on the portable Switch system I have not only easily hosted races on camping trips, bus tours, in classrooms, and at the beach, but because of the game's approachablity I've had little trouble luring my non-gamer grandparents, non-gamer parents, non-gamer spouse, and barely gamer children onto the Nintendoriffic raceways to trade turtle shells and rubber band together across the generations. What can I say? Sometimes gamemakers just get things right.

Three word review: Formula meets function
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Rhaegyr
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Re: 516: Mario Kart 8 / Deluxe

Post by Rhaegyr »

What's left to say?

It's practically flawless - the handling is superb, the tracks are varied and interesting and multiplayer is a dream, both offline and online. It looks and sounds absolutely stunning, too.

It's one of the few games my girlfriend will play too thanks to the excellent assist options. We have an online 'Mario Kart couples night' every Sunday with some friends and family members and it's a riot. Playing with some of the Cane and Rinse crew and community these last few months has been just as fun!

Essentially it's Mario Kart Ultimate: a perfect encapsulation of the series so far with impeccable handling and a Greatest Hits of track selection. I've genuinely no idea where they go from here; the only way they could make this game even better is to add a Diddy Kong Racing-style single player 'adventure' mode with a hub world and all the trimmings.
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Mr Ixolite
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Re: 516: Mario Kart 8 / Deluxe

Post by Mr Ixolite »

Despite being a switch owner with a fondness for Kart Racers, I held off on buying Mario Kart 8 for a long time, my problem being that the deluxe version had everything unlocked from the start. I’ve always seen kart racers as wheel-based cousins of platformers: colorful games full of "levels" to master, andchallenges to unlock and complete for a mainly singleplayer gamer such as myself. As such, Mario Kart 8 DX’s approach made me go “whats the point”. However, seeing the game on this years cane and rinse docket, finding a cheap used copy and learning that there were still some things to unlock and complete made me finally take the plunge this year, my first Mario Kart since the DS.

Tearing through the 100 CC mode I was a bit underwhelmed at first by a fair few of the courses, which seemed too wide and accommodating, and the quick reorientation of the camera meant that the novelty of many of the antigravity segments dissipated quickly. I was surprised that many of the shortcuts were gated exclusively behind turbo pickups rather than skill, and that some levels had no real shortcuts at all.
Also a surprise was the fact that rather than just making for fun visual expression, your choice of character and vehicle mattered a great deal in terms of your performance. On the one hand this provided an extra layer of strategy, but on the other it eventually stopped me from having fun with mixing and matching the colorful characters and vehicle parts in favor of sticking with a proven Waluigi template.
All these things might be a matter of course to seasoned Mario kart players, but to me they were slightly baffling.

Another thing I didn’t know was that Mario Karts difficulty settings determine speed rather than enemy AI, and cranking things up to 150CC and beyond made the tracks and their layouts come into their own with considerably more teeth. My quest for the triple gold star rankings mean that the game isn’t wanting for challenge, but after a while it got repetitive going through the same cups traversing same tracks in same way, especially due to the aforementioned gating of many of the shortcuts. I couldn’t help but wish there were some other modes here that recontextualized the tracks and let you engage with them in a different manner- I’d trade all the new DLC courses for a Mario Kart DS-style mission mode.

I realize that for many it might be the antithesis to the whole point of Mario Kart to complain about single player content. As someone who has not invested in an Switch online subscription, nor anyone of his skill level to play with locally, these are “Me” problems, and I can’t fault Mario Kart 8 for not being More Crash Team Racing, which is probably what I honestly hoped for. Mario Kart 8 is a fun time, just not one that stuck with me as long as I would have wanted.

3 word review:
More modes, please
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Alex79
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Re: 516: Mario Kart 8 / Deluxe

Post by Alex79 »

I fully expect to be something of an outlier here, but I don't like Mario Kart 8. I can't really put my finger on what it is, but I just don't enjoy playing it. I've been a fan of the series since day one, loved the SNES original back in the day and have enjoyed most the other versions of the game, but something just stops me from getting in to this one. Honestly, I can't tell you why - the game looks better than it ever has, there's an incredibly comprehensive collection of tracks and characters, and I can't actually find fault with the game. I just don't like it.

I recently joined in with an evening of online play with some folks from the forum, and that was fun because playing online with people you know will always be a laugh, but other than that, it's just not for me, and I wish it was!

THREE WORD REVIEW: Still prefer original.
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raisinbman
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Re: Mario Kart 8 / Deluxe

Post by raisinbman »

Didn't expect the show to be 30% 'Crash Team Racing did it better', but it did put a smile on my face lol
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