Review: Mario Kart 8 Deluxe

Confession: I thought Nintendo was full of crap. You probably did too, back when you saw that original pitch video for Nintendo Switch and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Remember it? The impromptu rooftop party attended by a perfect diversity rainbow of attractive young acquaintances, spontaneously sharing a four-player grand prix in the Mushroom Kingdom.

“Yeah, right,” I had snorted in disbelief. “Get your head out of the secret clouds level, Nintendo.”

That was yesterday. It’s today now, and I’ve just finished playing a 2-player GP of my own with a complete stranger on my hour-long train ride to work. It organically happened when I noticed his interest in the screen, out of the corner of my eye.

For me, that event (along with hours and hours of online and couch play at home) solidifies Mario Kart 8 Deluxe as a multiplayer powerhouse and a must-buy.

The only thing holding it back from greatness is the fact that it’s a port. So if you were one of the faithful who played it on WiiU, you’ll probably be wondering what’s changed since 2014. More than I originally hoped it seems…

The core, evergreen concept of Mario Kart remains intact: consistently come first in a dozen four-race cups, each of them ranked by the difficulties of 50cc, 100cc, 150cc, mirror, and the patently unfair 200cc class.

To win you’ll need superior knowledge of branching tracks, some mastery of a powerslide / turbo mechanic, and a bit of killer instinct with a suite of randomly distributed weapons.

Interestingly, in Deluxe you can now stockpile up to two items at once (and drag a third behind in readiness). You can also expect to have more competent newbies to race against, thanks to “auto-accelerate” and “smart steering” options that effectively turns the game into bumper bowling for beginners.

Experts who turn all of that rookie crap off can attain an extra level of turbo added to the power-slide system called an ultra-mini-turbo (pro tip: release your slide button when you see pink sparks appear after the orange ones). Oh, and the cheating uber players can no longer use a snaking “fire-hop” exploit to get an edge over the rest of us.

That’s not a huge amount of tweaks there, but it’s clearly enough to make this the superior version. That sentiment continues when you factor in the free inclusion of all of the past DLC packs, plus you get six new racers, only one of whom needs to be unlocked (two Inklings, King Boo, Dry Bones, Bowser Jr, and Gold Mario).

Likewise, there are only a meagre handful of new vehicles and parts to unlock, plus the Amiibo aficionados can unlock a small collection of racing suits.

The endlessly-replayable Battle mode is where the biggest changes have occurred. The vehicular violence now goes for longer thanks to an increased “lives” balloon count to five. The battles feel fairer and more coherent, too, thanks to slight HUD improvements – you can now better ascertain who is in the lead and who hit who – plus the introduction of a small window of invincibility prevents chain attacks and ganking.

Sadly, there are no new Battle Modes to speak of beyond the original five, but you do get five new levels. The retro throwbacks to the 3DS, Gamecube and SNES versions of Mario Kart brought a nostalgic tear to my eye.

If all of that can’t convince you of Deluxe’s superiority over its predecessor, consider the visuals. Mario Kart 8 was always a pretty game in 720p, but, man, you should see all those loving details pop in natively rendered 1080p. This is Nintendo’s vision finally realised as it should be, and we detected no hiccups or notable quality sacrifice when playing in 720p handheld mode.

Everything is in place, then. Providing you’ve paid exorbitant amounts of money to secure an additional joy-con pack (to make four-person play possible) Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is a killer app for Nintendo Switch. Like Zelda: Breath of the Wild, you basically need to own this by default, even if you’ve played your DLC’d-up WiiU version to death (and are bummed by the amount of additional content here).

Regardless of that, you should target this in a store and home in on it with all the Terminator relentlessness of a spiny blue shell.

Score: 9/10

Posted in Blog, Games