I’ve recently completed the 50cc grand prix cups of Mario Kart 8, and I’m going to share my thoughts on the retro tracks included in the game. Keep in mind that I haven’t played Mario Kart DS or Mario Kart 7 on 3DS, so I still haven’t formed much of an opinion on those tracks yet since I’ve only played them one time so far. But let’s start with a list of the retro tracks in the game:
Shell Cup:
- Wii – Moo Moo Meadows
- GBA – Mario Circuit
- DS – Cheep Cheep Beach
- N64 – Toad’s Turnpike
Banana Cup:
- GCN – Dry Dry Desert
- SNES – Donut Plains 3
- N64 – Royal Raceway
- 3DS – DK Jungle
Leaf Cup:
- DS – Wario Stadium
- GCN – Sherbet Land
- 3DS – Music Park
- N64 – Yoshi Valley
Lightning Cup:
- DS – Tick-Tock Clock
- 3DS – Piranha Plant Slide
- Wii – Grumble Volcano
- N64 – Rainbow Road
There are some good things and some bad things about this list.
What I Don’t Like:
No love for SNES. Why is there only one SNES track?! The original Super Mario Kart gets almost no love from Nintendo here. Especially when there are…
Four N64 tracks, three from 3DS. Including four N64 tracks is mind-boggling, especially when Super Mario Kart (SNES) and Super Circuit (GBA) are so under-represented. And Mario Kart 7 (3DS) is the most recent release, so why should it have so many tracks? Many players are still playing these tracks on 3DS! If anything, 3DS should be the system with only one track in Mario Kart 8, and everything else should have at least two.
The Wii tracks. Moo Moo Meadows and Grumble Volcano aren’t awful tracks or anything. But there are so many better tracks in Mario Kart Wii that would have made better returns. Unfortunately, a lot of the best Wii tracks were already used in Mario Kart 7, such as Koopa Cape, Coconut Mall, and Maple Treeway. And I can understand them not wanting to use those in consecutive games. But I still would have preferred Wario’s Gold Mine or DK Summit over Moo Moo Meadows and Grumble Volcano.
What I do Like:
Donut Plains 3. Even though there’s only one track from Super Mario Kart, it’s one of my favorites. I love the graphical overhaul it got, while it still retains elements of the SNES track such as the broken bridges and the Monty Moles that pop up out at you. I’m really glad to see this track again.
N64 Rainbow Road. Mario Kart 64 wasn’t my favorite Mario Kart game, although some of that was because it didn’t have Koopa Troopa in it for some reason. But it’s hard to argue that it had an epic version of Rainbow Road, and I’m quite glad to see it back again with an impressive makeover. However, I do have one complaint about it. The N64 track was incredibly long, so instead of having three laps in MK8, you only race one lap! It’s divided by checkpoints so that it shows as three laps, but it’s really just one full circuit.
There are two other things I’d like to point out about Mario Kart 8. After completing a track in the grand prix mode, the default option isn’t to continue to the next race. Instead, the default is to view a highlight reel. Why? Do they think watching replays is more important than racing?
Also, one thing I’ve noticed about the Blooper power-ups, which spray ink on players’ screens. In Mario Kart Wii, it wasn’t much of a hidrance to see through/around the ink. But in Mario Kart 8, the ink blots are a bit more concentrated and the opaque part is larger on-screen. They’re a bit more of a problem in this game.
I’ll be playing much more Mario Kart 8 in the weeks and months to come, so stay tuned for more.