Mario Kart World Direct Roundup

The Mario Kart World Direct has aired today and given us some more details about the game, though most of it was already deduced by the fans out there from the existing footage. For example, you could spot the Big Donut battle stage, which had soft-confirmed Battle Mode. But it's still nice to have an official confirmation on a number of things, including the possibility to play your classic three-lap courses in Versus Mode.

As a Zelda player, I'm naturally intrigued by the Free Roam mode with all the little secrets that you can find everywhere. The P-Switches are essentially like your Korok puzzles in this, but there are also special medallions to find and the ?-panels. We don't know yet what they will do, but it's not like I care about the reward with these things, as long as exploring the world is fun.

The drive-thoughs for unlocking outfits are also a nice idea. It looks like this will be based on the different courses and regions, where you can obtain Sushi and with it the Happi outfits around the new Japan-themed course, Cheep Cheep Falls. However, this will mean that you will have to go everywhere with all the characters in order to unlock all their outfits, which might be somewhat repetitive.

Also, that the outfitted characters are simply appended onto the character select screen is... far from ideal. Well, it's nice that characters in the same outfit are right next to each other, making it easy to see what you are still missing. But it will blow this out of proportion in the end, where it would be better if you were to select the character first and the outfit second, like in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.

But it looks like Mario Kart World is truly getting the good stuff from Mario Kart Tour that didn't make it into the Booster Course Pass. This includes the "new" items, however, where additions like the Feather, the Hammer, the Ice Flower, or the Coin Box did already exist in previous games, mainly in Tour. It's still a novelty for everyone who hasn't played the mobile game (including myself), but only the Coin Shell and Kamek are truly new from what I can tell. And it's unfortunate for the latter, because he has just joined the fun only to be demoted to an item right away.

While there was no clear confirmation on this, it really looks like the new weird character additions, like the cow or the dolphin, come from Kamek, though. In the Direct he transformed all other players into Chargin' Chucks on a road with Chargin' Chucks, which certainly was no coincidence. And many of the new additions are present as stage hazards, like the bats. I'm guessing that there will be the default set of drivers with your typical Mario Kart cast, but you'll get to unlock the outfits and Kamek transformations on top.

The most interesting change has to be the Charge Jump, however, which is activated by the drift button, but you charge it by going straight instead of drifting. This jump is then what lets you dodge attacks, grind on rails and even briefly drive on walls. The possibilities of this looked insane and this will add a lot of depth to the racing overall.

All in all, Mario Kart Tour looks great and like an absolute must-have for the Nintendo Switch 2. It won't make me buy the system at launch, though, where right now I'm not interested in becoming a "Nintendo Switch 2 Ambassador".

Also, on a side note, I find it interesting how Nintendo is pushing Rosalina as this snow princess, like it's their version of Elsa from Frozen. I do like her Aurora outfit, however, it's really beautiful.

Mario Kart World Introduced

Since the Nintendo Switch 2 is backwards compatible and they are also offering enhanced versions of Switch games for the new system, everything that comes out on the Switch 2 will have to compete with what's in the existing Switch library. In case of a new Mario Kart, it will have to compete with the popular Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and its 96 courses, which is a tall task.

The best way to do so is by making the game more unique and also offering an experience that wouldn't have been possible with the Nintendo Switch. Mario Kart World tries to achieve this by turning this into an open world racing game, where the main courses are all part of an interconnected world. In addition, your kart will now transform into a boat when on water or into a plane when flying, instead of driving underwater or utilizing a glider. Nothing of this is innovative, since there have been a number of racing games set in a gigantic free-roam environment, like Need for Speed Underground 2, The Crew series, the Forza Horizon series and more. And the vehicle transformations are straight out of Diddy Kong Racing and Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed.

It is something new for Mario Kart, however, and it will certainly make it distinct from Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. It's also of note how the selection of retro courses really aims at the stuff that has been missing in the previous title, including most of the more popular tracks from Mario Kart Tour that didn't make the cut for the Booster Course Pass:

• N64 Koopa Troopa Beach
• N64 Wario Stadium
• GCN Dino Dino Jungle
• DS DK Pass
  
• DS Airship Fortress
• Wii Toad Factory
• 3DS Shy Guy Bazaar
• 3DS Wario Shipyard
  

There always was speculation that they might leave out some of these courses in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe purposefully and it looks like this was on the money. I personally didn't see it as a hindrance, because the iterations from Mario Kart Tour will be vastly different in the end, since anything in Mario Kart World will have to be much wider and spacier to offer enough room for the 24 combatants... But of course it makes these courses feel fresher if they haven't appeared in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe already.

From what we have seen so far, there are 29 courses on the world map and there will be seven cups with four courses each. This makes one course an orphan somehow, unless there is a cup with five courses in total. However, some courses may be used twice with different routes, like all the cities from Mario Kart Tour, and there also will probably be an eighth cup, the Special Cup, which is going to feature the traditional Rainbow Road somewhere.

And all these courses are connected, where the parts in between may even resemble or contain other classic race tracks. But that's also where I see the greatest weakness of Mario Kart World so far. Each cup begins with your usual three-lap course, but then you will be driving to the next course, which works like a sectioned track, similar to Mount Wario or Wuhu Island. Laps 1 and 2 are the road to the next course and lap 3 is the course itself. So, you're only going one lap on the other courses in a cup, which cuts this very short. It detracts from the actual courses and the roads between the courses feel like a lot of filler, where you're also just following a line. Not a straight line, but still a line.

It adds a lot more variety to the cups, that's for sure, and nearing a course also looks quite impressive, where they are the clear highlights in this open world environment. So, it's certainly a new experience for Mario Kart, but it also feels watered down. You spend so much time going towards these highlights, these landmarks, but then only have a very short race on them. It's like a cup is now 50% meaningless filler.

The courses look like they will loop normally, however, so I suppose that you can still get the traditional Mario Kart experience when playing custom cups in Versus Mode, probably also when playing online. I tend to play the normal cups in singleplayer only for as long as it takes me to get all starts, so I suppose it will be fine. This flow also works very well for the new Knockout Tour, which is basically like F-Zero 99 ("Mario Kart 24"), where it's really cool that this makes you go from one end of the map to the next over six courses.

Another important topic are the drivers and karts. And I love how unanimously the internet reacts to the cow being a playable character now with "Oh, now I need to get this game. Screw the open world or the graphics, I want playable moo moo." Well, I'm personally more hyped for the penguin, but generally I'm loving how they are going all-in with the character additions. Finally, there is a playable Goomba in Mario Kart! And they are doing some really outlandish stuff, like the Coin Coffers from Super Mario 3D Land.

Character costumes are also a thing and it looks like you will be unlocking them via food items while racing through the world. Many of the outfits are returning from Mario Kart Tour and Super Mario Odyssey, which is lovely. And maybe you have to drive with the corresponding characters through certain areas in order to obtain them, which gives you a reason to explore more.

There even seems to be a connection between the playable characters and the courses. For example, we have the cow and Moo Moo Meadows. Or you have the Cataquack and Peach Beach. You get Pokeys and Desert Hills. Most of these also acted as obstacles in the courses in question. So, maybe you will unlock the characters by visiting all these courses and recruiting them as new drivers, which would be a nice change.

However, with all these odd additions it will be hard to swallow any missing characters at the end. We have yet to see the Koopalings, for example. Ad the other Kongs are also absent again, though here it's understandable, because they are basing Donkey Kong on his new Bananza design. And maybe they don't want to go for redesigns of Diddy Kong and the others just yet. But this makes it all the more tragic that Dixie Kong didn't make the cut into the Booster Course Pass.

As for karts and bikes, we are back to choosing individual vehicles, instead of parts, like it was in Mario Kart Wii. So no more kart customization. While this allows less freedom and will miss creative combinations, it does have its merits. Whenever I play Mario Kart 8 Deluxe with friends or family, who aren't all too familiar with the game, the kart selection process tends to take forever, because there too many options and too many variables. This will simplify things. It also allows the comeback of stranger vehicles, like something that has chain wheels. In one part of the trailer we could see Rosalina riding a snow mobile, for example, which wouldn't have been possible in Mario Kart 7 or 8.

On April 17th we will get a Nintendo Direct for the game, which will probably teach us everything we want to know. But I'm also curious how the game will handle DLC, since Mario Kart has proven to be a game that is the perfect candidate for additional contents.

Maybe this is where all the crossover stuff will go into... again. I could see them making a second world map, where all the other Nintendo franchises have their home, maybe as individual islands. One island could be Hyrule, and there could be Wuhu Island as a whole on the map, maybe neighboring an Animal Crossing: New Horizons resort. If you're unlocking characters on a course-basis this would make all the more sense. But that's just a thought, I'm also fine with them focusing on getting as much crazy Mario stuff into Mario Kart World as possible.

Nintendo Switch 2 Direct Roundup

That was quite the show. I'm not blown away, where I have to get this new console right away on June 5th, but it fell in line with what I was expecting yesterday. For the most part. In the topic of Zelda it even exceeded my expectations, but we'll get to that.

It opened with Mario Kart World, the big launch title. It looks like this is Nintendo's only new game at launch, the rest will be third party stuff or "Nintendo Switch 2 Edition" games. And I was completely wrong about this game, because all these years I was convinced that they will go deeper into the crossover direction to make it more distinct from Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Well, they will make it more distinct from that, but in an entirely different way – by going in the direction of open world driving games, like The Crew or Forza. They are also going all in when it comes to characters (and their customization), seemingly exceeding Mario Kart Tour here. Well, there will be a Nintendo Direct about the game on April 17th, explaining more.

Another "launch title" is the Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour, which lets you discover the system virtually. This would be neat if it were for free, but it isn't. Who is going to buy this? Not me, that's who. And I'm not sure what to think about the handicapped basketball game, but it doesn't look fun. It will probably flop like ARMS, but at least ARMS was fun to play and had awesome character designs.

The whole voice / video chat part was incredibly awkward, where I was wondering if the C on new button stands for "Cringe". Also, that's stuff that was already possible on the Wii U 10 years ago, at least to a degree. Microphone and camera support are not a novelty that will sell this system over the original Switch, but they are treating it like one. And the screen-sharing was already lacking badly during the presentation, this is just embarrassing.

Then we learned what the Nintendo Switch 2 Edition games are all about, which are going to include Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom, and Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, among others. These will offer HDR, better resolutions and frame rates, but to give this a nice twist, Nintendo will add new features to them that are only possible on the Nintendo Switch 2. Metroid Prime 4 will have an additional control scheme with mouse controls and the two Zelda titles will be accompanied with new smartphone apps, but also now have a second set of save files.

This wasn't part of the Nintendo Direct, but a number of games will also receive free updates to improve performance, which includes the Link's Awakening remake and Echoes of Wisdom (see here). And that will be lovely.

As expected, the Nintendo Switch Online offerings will now also include a Nintendo GameCube library, but only as part of the Expansion Pack. The Wind Waker is one of the first games in it, which in hindsight explains why they won't bother with porting over The Wind Waker HD at this point. But maybe we will get enhanced versions of the Wii U remasters in some years...

The slightly more interesting game here is probably SoulCalibur II starring Link. I always wanted this to come back, though I also would have preferred the remaster on Switch with Link in it.

Also as expect, there will be massive wave of 3rd party games, including Elden Ring and even an exclusive game by FromSoftware, Duskbloods. I honestly couldn't tell if this was a Bloodborne remaster/port or a new game, because it all looks the same to me, but it's impressive that Nintendo was able to land this deal, since FromSoftware has been very loyal to Sony.

And there will be a variety of 3rd party games coming to the Switch 2 at launch, like Cyberpunk 2077, making up for the lack of first party titles other than Mario Kart World. Not that it needs much else – a lot of people bought the Switch for Mario Kart only. No DOOM: The Dark Ages, though, that's a bit disappointing, especially since they made the first two games magically run on the Switch. But I wouldn't play that on Switch anyway...

Street Fighter VI, though, that's a game that appeals to me on console, but it doesn't look like the game will be available physically. Instead there will be the new "Game-Key Cards", which can be used like game cards, but will simply enable you to download and play the game in question. Not exactly what I'm looking for...

It's almost funny how one of the most anticipated titles for any Nintendo Direct was just mentioned very briefly with Hollow Knight: Silksong. And it's scheduled for 2025 according to Nintendo, but I believe it when I see a life sign from Team Cherry. Remember that two years ago Microsoft claimed that the game will release within a year...

Also, why is this a Nintendo Switch 2 game now? They had a demo of Silksong on the Switch at E3 2019, six years ago! And it ran perfectly fine. The original Hollow Knight had 60FPS and its sequel should use the same engine and everything. They also had announced it for Nintendo Switch as part of their Kickstarter program, back when this was still supposed to be DLC for Hollow Knight. So, why is this a Nintendo Switch 2 game all of sudden?

The same could be asked about Hades II. Why does this need to be a Switch 2 game when Hades runs fine on the Switch? Of course you will get even better frame rate and resolution on the new system, so there is nothing against a Switch 2 version, but you would think that this something that comes for both systems. Update: it is. I forgot that it was already announced for Switch as well. So, in the end this isn't a big deal and both titles will probably just released for both systems at the same time.

The big surprise and highlight for me in this Nintendo Direct was, of course, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment. Well, this is a game that I had expected to be a thing eventually – I've mentioned the idea several times on my blog and it's really a no-brainer. I also wanted to explore this idea for a while now, but I thought there was more time to do so, since I didn't really expect this to be shown already. I always thought that after Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes in 2022 Koei Tecmo directly started working on the next Nintendo collaboration, but since Tears of the Kingdom wasn't released yet at the time, this couldn't be it. So, instead I kept expecting a "Xenoblade Warriors" first. But maybe they got early access to Tears of the Kingdom, since it technically was finished in 2022, just entering its polishing phase.

Anyway, they are really riding on the success of the open world Zeldas here. Not only is Breath of the Wild getting an upgraded version, but Tears of the Kingdom as well. There will be five new amiibo of the sages, also coming out June 5th. And they are doing this new Hyrule Warriors game already. Something tells me that the next 3D Zelda will probably turn this into a trilogy...

The big bouncer at the end was Donkey Kong Bananza. It's the open world'ish 3D Donkey Kong game where there had been rumors about this for ages. So, no new 3D Mario yet, but this looks a lot of fun as well. I love how they are mixing your typical Nintendo platformer magic with this sheer brute force, it's something special.

...

In  the next days I will talk about a variety of topics from today in more detail. This will include Mario Kart World, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment, the Nintendo Switch 2 Edition upgrades, and more. This blog will certainly get much livelier from now on.

Nintendo Switch 2 Direct Expectations

Tomorrow the big Nintendo Switch 2 Direct will happen and we will know more. A lot more, since the Nintendo Direct will be an entire hour long. Plus, the two following days, Nintendo of America will host Treehouse Live streams, featuring seven hours of gameplay. There were rumors that the launch of the Nintendo Switch 2 is going to be packed and they might as well be true.

First, let's go through the things that we already know about. There will be a new Mario Kart. There are going to be "Nintendo Switch 2 Edition" games (see the Virtual Game Cards article). And they most likely will talk about the new Joy-Cons with their mouse-like feature.

 

New Mario Kart

As for the new Mario Kart, that's clearly going to be one of the big system sellers at launch. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is the best-selling Nintendo Switch game, after all, and it will be tough to compete with the sheer amount of content that game has. But Mario Kart 8 is also getting 11 years old now and has been played to death, where any novelty will potentially sell a new Mario Kart game at this point. From the footage so far we can deduce that there is potentially a new nitro boost functionality, that the game will now support up to 24 players at once, and that the path-changing feature from the Booster Course Pass may become more prominent.

I'm personally hoping that they will go more crazy with the whole crossover aspect, so that we might get Zelda as a new driver, or Zonai vehicle parts, and so on (see here). I also don't think it will be called "Mario Kart 9", because technically Mario Kart Tour is already that, where I'm sticking with the "Mario Kart X" branding... until tomorrow.

There were also rumors about a Mario Kart-themed Nintendo Switch 2 at launch. In general, any Special Edition of the console could potentially lure me in, even though that I'm usually not an early adopter, given that the edition in question looks nice. I also wouldn't mind one for Metroid Prime 4: Beyond.

 

Enhanced Nintendo Switch Games

Speaking of, this leads us to the topic of "Nintendo Switch 2 Edition games". It's no secret that a variety of Nintendo Switch games could profit heavily from a hardware boost. Pretty much everything from the Zelda franchise comes to mind, where with the exception of Skyward Sword HD there is always some trouble with the frame rates. And maybe some of these games will already run more smoothly on the better hardware by default.

But enhanced versions of the games will certainly offer more, like upscaling to 4k resolution. This could happen via free updates, but knowing Nintendo they will probably charge a small fee for such updates. On the Nintendo Switch they made a lot of profit with remasters and ports from the previous eras, where that's a business they will likely want to keep to a degree.

The interesting question is how they will handle remasters of Nintendo Switch games. Will this be a thing separate from the Nintendo Switch 2 Edition games? We had convincing rumors about a new version of Breath of the Wild for the Nintendo Switch (see U-King-O). Will that be a new remaster? Or can the Nintendo Switch version be upgraded? I personally would prefer a remaster, because this opens the doors for all those quality of life improvements from Tears of the Kingdom and better DLC integration.

Or what about Metroid Prime 4? Will this get a separate version for the Nintendo Switch 2 that simply has much better graphics? Or will you be able to upgrade the Nintendo Switch version? Or will both be a thing and work in the same way? It's an interesting topic, which certainly will be clarified tomorrow.

 New Joy-Cons

I have to be honest here, I have no clue what the mouse-functionality could be used for, other than strategy games and a new Mario Paint. But I'm sure that Nintendo will have had some ideas and maybe even come up with some entirely new games that utilize these as a gimmick...

 

Nintendo Switch 2 Online

Another important topic will be the handling of the whole Nintendo Switch Online system. Ideally, everything will carry over to the Nintendo Switch 2, like all the existing game libraries for NES, SNES, Game Boy, Nintendo 64, and so on, or titles like F-Zero 99. But they will add upon that with new libraries and "free" online games that weren't possible on the current Nintendo Switch system. The first announcement will likely be a GameCube library, potentially also a Nintendo DS library. Thinking about it, emulating touch screen controls might be even be solved with the new Joy-Cons...

 

Other Game Announcements

This is going to be huge. The biggest launch of a system in gaming history. I'm certain that they will show us most, if not all of the following titles, in addition to the new Mario Kart X, Metroid Prime 4: Beyond - Prettier Edition, and Breath of the Wild 4K.

• New 3D Open World Mario
• New 3D Open World Donkey Kong
• New Fire Emblem (utilizing the mouse functionality)
• New Animal Crossing (in space)
• Splatoon 4
  
• ARMS 2
  
• Ocarina of Time Remake
  
• Super Metroid Remake
• Hollow Knight: Silksong - Nintendo Switch 2 Edition
• DOOM: The Dark Ages

I'm kidding, of course... A little April Fools' joke, if you so will. Though, some of the things in this list are quite possible, first and foremost a new 3D Mario game. And maybe it does go into the direction of Bowser's Fury, where it's one seamless, interconnected world.

DOOM: The Dark Ages is entirely possible as well, together with a variety of other 3rd party ports. They loved porting games over to the Switch, no matter what it took, which will be so much easier now with the increased hardware power and AI-driven rendering technologies like DLSS. So, we're going to get a lot more here and the new DOOM (which looks absolutely awesome) is just an example.

However, as much as I would love to see Silksong, that game was already shown on the Nintendo Switch and shouldn't have anything to do with the Switch 2 presentation.

Also, I doubt that we will already see a new Splatoon or Animal Crossing. Both are made by the same team, sadly, where I'm curious to see what they will prioritize. But maybe they will split the development up, so that these franchises can be developed simultaneously, as both are huge sellers. But as much as Animal Crossing: New Horizons has sold, it got boring eventually without any new updates, since the team was busy with Splatoon 3 in the past years...

And I haven't even mentioned Super Smash Bros. in the above list, because that felt too unrealistic. This might go like on the original Nintendo Switch, meaning that we will see titles like a new Smash Bros. or Animal Crossing in the second or third years, but not already in the first. But as usual, I'm happy to be proven wrong, I'm just not holding my breath here.

Zelda is in an interesting position, because we just got new titles in the past two years, so I don't expect to see a new Zelda game already. But they will most likely hold us over with something, like that Breath of the Wild remaster, or at some point a new Hyrule Warriors game. The franchise has been too successful on the Nintendo Switch to not offer anything as soon as possible. However, I doubt we will see a full-blown remake of another classic already, because I don't know who is supposed to work on it, other than GREZZO, who were busy with Echoes of Wisdom.

My personal "realistic" wish, if they are going with a remaster of Breath of the Wild, would be a Shrine Maker, which also includes stuff from Tears of the Kingdom. That's something that the main team could have been working on as a side project...

Anyway, I'm game. And I'm excited for tomorrow.

The Legend of Zelda in Mario Kart X

Mario Kart 8 opened the gates for other franchises to join the kart racing madness, where the next Mario Kart game could explore this even further. This would mean more courses, vehicles parts, and characters from the existing guest franchises, while even more franchises get thrown into the mix. A key change for this "Mario Kart X" would be the return of special items for all characters, like in Double Dash!!, which allows to feature items from a variety of other franchises, next to the Mario Kart core items.

Now, since this is a Zelda blog, let's use The Legend of Zelda as an example of how things could get expanded for the franchise in the next Mario Kart game in all departments. We're bringing back everything that was already there in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, of course, but we'll add some more drivers, courses, and vehicle parts on top.

Drivers:

• Link (Skyward Sword) – Clawshot
• Link (Breath of the Wild) – Remote Bomb
• Zelda (Skyward Sword) – Goddess's Harp
  
• Zelda (Tears of the Kingdom) – Recall
  

Both Links from Mario Kart 8 Deluxe would return here, but they would also be more different from each other thanks to the different special items. The classic Link would go with the Clawshot, which lets you easily get past an opponent in front of you. It may also be used to bring yourself back on track or to take shortcuts.

The Link from Breath of the Wild (and Tears of the Kingdom) on the other hand doesn't even know what a Hookshot is, so it makes sense for him to have something different. The Remote Bombs were already a good choice for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and they would work similar to the normal bombs from Mario Kart, but with the difference that you can detonate them yourself.

This time Link will also bring Princess Zelda with him, where she also could come in two different variants. The classic Link is mainly based on Skyward Sword and that Zelda would also work really well in Mario Kart with her outfit. She could even bring some music into this, which is something very traditional for the series, and play her lullaby on the Goddess's Harp to make nearby drivers fall asleep. Alternatively, we could see a Zelda from a different game, who has the Bow of Light as her special item. So, there are lots of possibilities here and this is just one.

Last but not least, we have the Zelda from the newest Zelda game, Tears of the Kingdom. She could wear the Zonai dress for karts and her outfit from the beginning of the game / from Breath of the Wild for bikes. Her special item would be Recall, which acts defensively. You can use it on yourself to undo mistakes, like driving off the track. Or you can use it when you are about to get hit to send the incoming projectile back to its sender. Yes, this would even work with Blue Shells, but these special items tend to be stronger, so it's not something that you would get front-running.

While it's easy to imagine that both Zelda and Link would join the karting fun, Ganondorf on the other hand might come off as goofy and out-of-character. But if Nintendo wants to make him work, I'm sure that they could pull it off.

Courses:

• Wii U Hyrule Circuit
• Death Mountain Driftway
  
• Zora's River Ride
  
• Lost Woods Wrong Turns
  

The Hyrule Circuit from Mario Kart 8 would simply return and function as the basic circuit track for the Zelda franchise, which mainly covers Hyrule Field and Hyrule Castle. For the new courses we could be visiting other signature locations from the series, like Death Mountain, Lake Hylia, and the Lost Woods. All of these would be designed specifically for Mario Kart and not come from a certain Zelda game.

You would drive all around the treacherous terrain of Death Mountain and maybe this course could also take inspiration from the Goron Racetrack in Majora's Mask, where in the very least we should got lots of excited Gorons as spectators. And a part of the course should go right through Goron City.

The "Zora's River Ride" will be a sectioned course, like Big Blue, where you start at Zora's Domain and drive down the Zora's River all the way to Lake Hylia. It will be a different journey through Hyrule with lots of underwater gameplay.

Finally, the Lost Woods could become a course where you can take multiple pathways with some indication of what's the right one. If you take the wrong route, it will bring you back to the starting line. Now, this would probably become the meanest course in Mario Kart history, but we could also make it look similar to the Lost Woods in Ocarina of Time and turn this into Zelda's entry for the Battle Mode.

Vehicle Parts:

• Master Cycle
• Triforce Tires
• Hylian Kite
• Master Cycle Zero
• Ancient Tires
• Paraglider
• Sailcloth
• Zonai Sled
• Zonai Wheels
• Zonai Wing
  

Both Master Cycles and all their parts need to return, without a single doubt. In addition, the Sailcloth from Skyward Sword could serve as an excellent glider for the respective Zelda, where possibly they could also design a trike based on a Loftwing.

But they don't really have to invent something crazy like the Master Cycle again, because the Zonai Devices from Tears of the Kingdom were practically made for the vehicle customization system, which was introduced in Mario Kart 7. You could use a smaller version of the Big Wheels as wheels and make a glider based on the Wing, where this is already perfect.

A new kart could be something glued together with the Ultrahand, like a Sled with a Steering Stick in its middle and a light at the front. For underwater parts a Fan could appear in the back. It would be ugly and basic, but that's how vehicles built with the Ultrahand are meant to be and it's a good representation for Tears of the Kingdom.

Mario Kart X – The Next Mario Kart?

It's apparently Mario Kart Month on Hyrule Blog, where the release of the final wave of the Booster Course Pass for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe has brought a lot of things up. At least this time we'll slowly return to the topic of The Legend of Zelda...

After Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and its Booster Course Pass, every fan is probably wondering where Nintendo will go with this series. With 96 courses and 48 characters Mario Kart 8 Deluxe became a behemoth of a game, so how are they going to surpass this? One answer I keep seeing and hearing is that they should just keep all those contents and simply add to them. To compete with Mario Kart 8 Deluxe it needs to become "Mario Kart Ultimate".

But there is a problem with this idea: the next Nintendo console and with it the next Mario Kart game will likely have much better graphics, where you can't just re-use things from a 2014 title. A lot of time and effort will have to go into making the assets for the next game, which is probably already happening as we speak. Meanwhile, they've remastered contents from Mario Kart Tour for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, because here they were able to achieve a lot with lower effort and without a massive discrepancy in quality. For a new Mario Kart title this wouldn't have been so "easy".

So, a new Mario Kart game won't be able to compete with Mario Kart 8 Deluxe when it comes to its sheer amount of content, at least not right from the beginning. It needs a different selling point, something to create excitement and interest. And here I'm putting my money on the "Mario Kart X" idea, which is based on the rumors by Zippo from last year, but I came up with some thoughts of my own about this and it's an interesting idea to talk about.

The "X" stands for two things. It's "Mario Kart 10" for starters, where Nintendo will be inspired by Microsoft and skip the 9. For real, if we count Mario Kart Tour, as Nintendo seemingly does, then the next game will be the tenth installment in the Mario Kart series, so there is that. But the "X" will also stand for "Cross" or "Crossroads", as in crossing over with other franchises.

Of course, this isn't a new idea... Mario Kart DS had R.O.B. as a first guest character and the arcade games featured several characters from Bandai Namco, mainly Pac-Man. Mario Kart 7 featured Wuhu Island from Wii Sports Resort as a setting for multiple courses, which was also a home for the Mii characters introduced in Mario Kart Wii. And finally, Mario Kart 8 experimented with adding contents from several Nintendo franchises in its DLC, where we saw The Legend of Zelda, Excitebike, F-Zero, and Animal Crossing.

It was only a bit for each, though. For The Legend of Zelda you get Link, the Master Cycle and Hyrule Circuit. F-Zero has two courses and the Blue Falcon, but no playable character. Excitebike only has the Excitebike Arena. And the big winner was Animal Crossing with a course, three characters, and two vehicles. It was likely an experiment from Nintendo to see how people would react to this type of content in Mario Kart.

And the result seemed clear... With the launch of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe then also came Splatoon into this mix with characters, karts, and Urchin Underpass for a battle course. And later we would get Link and the Master Cycle Zero from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild as a free bonus to add more for the Zelda fans. The crossroads were green from all sides and Mario Kart wasn't just about Mario any longer.

But it returned to being only about Mario shortly after... Since 2018 they did not expand on the crossover idea any further, where Mario Kart Tour and the Booster Course Pass didn't feature any more guest characters, vehicles, or courses. This is mainly due to the direction of Mario Kart Tour, but it may also be because Nintendo had already planned to keep any additional crossover contents for the next Mario Kart game, "Mario Kart X".

This isn't about making a "Nintendo Kart" or a "Smash Kart", though, where Mario will be just one of many franchises. In its heart it will stay Mario Kart, where the majority of courses and characters will still be from the Mario universe, like in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Mario is the host and everyone else gets invited to his kart party. It's just that the crossovers will see more focus this time to attract as many Nintendo fans as possible and to create the necessary fanfare for the next game.

This will be achieved by adding more to what was already there, like finally featuring Captain Falcon as a driver, but also bringing more franchises into the mix, like Star Fox, Kirby, Metroid, Kid Icarus, and ARMS. Heck, maybe there will even be Fire Emblem, because Tiki riding a kart would be hilarious.

 

The Basics?

48 courses seems like a good number to start things off, where this may become the new standard going forward. It used to be 16 with Mario Kart 64 and Double Dash!! and then got doubled with the introduction of retro cups in Mario Kart DS, but 32 courses will be too low if any future Mario Kart wants a chance at competing with Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.

The next Mario Kart should also implement the Reverse Mode from Mario Kart Tour and ditch Mirror Mode. It's just so much more fun and interesting to drive the courses backwards, where they feel like completely new courses in some cases. And with 48 courses present, Reverse Mode will make it seem like there are 96 courses already. 200cc then will be available in both the normal and the reversed variants.

We could still see the four traditional cups, filled with new courses for the Mario franchise, including your obligatory Mario Circuit, Bowser Castle and Rainbow Road. The remaining eight cups on the other hand could offer a mix of guest content and retro courses, where for the latter they will likely bring back tracks like Hyrule Circuit or Mute City.

The core items will also still be from the Mario universe for your typical bananas, mushrooms, and shells, but the game could bring back the special items from Mario Kart: Double Dash!! and Mario Kart Tour, which can only be obtained and used by specific characters, to offer something from other franchises as well. For example, Link could have a Hookshot or a Clawshot, which lets him quickly pass players in front of him. Or Samus (who would likely race in her Zero Suit) could obtain a Metroid, which latches onto a nearby player. This way we could experience items from all guest franchises, while keeping the typical Mario Kart item set.

It's similar to the currencies from other games in certain courses, like the Rupees in Hyrule Circuit. This could also get explored a little further, where the prime example are Banana Coins on the Donkey Kong tracks.

Apropos, the courses based on Donkey Kong Country Returns and Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island are also good examples for how Mario Kart can explore the Mario-verse and its related franchises a little further. Why not also make a Super Mario Land track or some crazy WarioWare course? If we can have Hyrule in Mario Kart, then certainly also something from these games...

The New?

What's missing in this concept is some novelty, something that no Mario Kart has done before. Well, getting items from other franchises could fill that role, but character-specific items in themselves aren't a new idea. And we're talking about a big, new gameplay idea, like bikes or gliding.

A common suggestions is drilling as a new driving mode, but this would probably work better with the Drill Mushroom item from Super Mario Bros. Wonder and won't be as groundbreaking as it sounds at first. It might be an option to dodge attacks and take certain shortcuts at the expense of speed.

The Wonder Flower on the other hand could be an item that truly changes things, where they could do all sorts of crazy things to the courses. Flip everything on its head, add new hazards, or make you go in reverse. Hyrule Circuit could turn into Lorule Circuit with this. The potential is limitless and could add a unique feature to every course, both new and old. It could also get very annoying and detract from the usual driving, so it may not be the best idea... It's also the most obvious idea at the moment, where Nintendo usually isn't that predictable.

Another idea that you will see quite often is a course creator. And while this could indeed be fun and interesting, it would likely become its own game, a "Mario Kart Maker", just like Super Mario Maker did.

Ideally, with a Mario Kart game focused on crossovers, you would get a new gameplay mechanic that let's things cross over. One idea could be "course merging", which lets you throw two or more course into a mix, where then the courses are connected with each other via portals. You could start on Mario Circuit, but after the first curve a portal takes you into Hyrule Castle from the Hyrule Circuit and at the end of the castle another portal takes you onto the Rainbow Road. These portals would stay fixed for a single race, but you never know what you will get with the next race.

Weird portals connected different worlds may even serve as an explanation how Mario and co. suddenly ended up racing in Hyrule or in Mute City... It's a new mechanic that wouldn't distract from the crossover aspect, but rather lead into it.

And this could also be something that simply wasn't possible before on the Nintendo Switch and older systems due to hardware limitations, because it needs to load multiple courses at once and change between them seamlessly. It would also prevent the game from ever getting stale, because the possible combinations of courses is countless.

The problem with this idea is that this isn't something that would work well within the normal cups. First you want to experience the courses as they are and not in slices. This would have to be a separate mode, which then doesn't make it something that really defines the entire game from start to finish.

So, I don't really have the one idea right now that will revolutionize Mario Kart, but luckily I'm not a director at Nintendo, so I don't really have to and I will be happy to be surprised in the end. But I'm still convinced that the next Mario Kart will dive deeper into crossovers and make this one of its big selling points, where in a follow-up post we will look at what this could mean specifically for The Legend of Zelda.

Booster Course Pass Vol. 2 Discussion

The Booster Course Pass for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is over and while there is currently no reason to believe that Nintendo might continue releasing DLC for the game, it's still worthwhile to discuss the possibility. All of the contents in the Booster Course Pass were originally made for Mario Kart Tour. In some cases the courses may have been made for both games at the same time, but first and foremost they have been porting over the things from Nintendo's mobile game.

And there is a lot more left where it came from... Courses, characters, Mii racing suits, but also costumes for characters, and lots of different kart parts, where we have seen anything of the last two in the Booster Course Pass.

Mario Kart Tour won't be forever, where the game has already entered a "content loop" since early October, which means that no new courses, drivers, karts and so on will be added to the game. Because of this, interest will decrease and it's only a matter of time until the service will be shut down, sharing the same fate as Dr. Mario World. And when that happens, it will be nice to have as much of it in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe as possible.

Also, the Booster Course Pass is certainly one of the selling points for the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack, where it's in Nintendo's own interest to keep this going for at least another year, until the successor to the Nintendo Switch (and potentially a new Mario Kart game) are ready for the world.

Mario Kart 8 will also see its tenth anniversary in 2024. And what better way to celebrate the longest living and best selling Mario Kart game in existence than with more content?

More Courses

By porting over courses to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, they are not only making them more accessible, freed from the limitations of the biweekly tours, they are preserving them for the future, for when Mario Kart Tour is no more. And with the Booster Course Pass they have focused on the original courses, first and foremost all 14 cities, combining their individual courses into one.

The job wasn't entirely done, however, where one original course still remains with the Piranha Plant Pipeline, also known as "Pipe Canyon". In addition, there have been a number of remixed courses, based on the different themes present in Super Mario Kart (and the Bowser's Castles from Mario Kart: Super Circuit), which can be seen as original courses as well.

The majority of what's left are the retro courses, but this may even be what some people had expected from the Booster Course Pass when it first got announced in February of last year. 20 of the 48 delivered courses then turned out to be "new", at least to those who haven't played the mobile installment, leaving not as much room for beloved fan favorites, like DS Airship Fortress.

Here's a list of what's still left to be found in Mario Kart Tour, other than Piranha Plant Pipeline. You can also take a look at it all on the excellent Super Mario Wiki.

Super Mario Kart

• SNES Mario Circuit 1
• SNES Donut Plains 1
• SNES Ghost Valley 1
• SNES Mario Circuit 2
• SNES Choco Island 1
• SNES Ghost Valley 2
• SNES Donut Plains 2
• SNES Choco Island 2
  
• SNES Vanilla Lake 1
• SNES Koopa Troopa Beach 2
• SNES Vanilla Lake 2

Mario Kart 64

• N64 Luigi Raceway
• N64 Koopa Troopa Beach
• N64 Frappe Snowland
• N64 Mario Raceway
  

 

Mario Kart: Super Circuit

• GBA Peach Circuit
• GBA Bowser's Castle 1
• GBA Bowser's Castle 2
• GBA Luigi Circuit
• GBA Cheep-Cheep Island
• GBA Yoshi Desert
• GBA Bowser's Castle 3
• GBA Lakeside Park
• GBA Bowser's Castle 4

 

Mario Kart: Double Dash!!

• GCN Mushroom Bridge
• GCN Dino Dino Jungle
  

 

Mario Kart DS

• DS Luigi's Mansion
• DS DK Pass
• DS Airship Fortress
  

 

Mario Kart Wii

• Wii Dry Dry Ruins

 

Mario Kart 7

• 3DS Daisy Hills
• 3DS Cheep Cheep Lagoon
• 3DS Shy Guy Bazaar
• 3DS Mario Circuit
• 3DS Wario Shipyard
• 3DS Bowser's Castle

• RMX Mario Circuit 1
• RMX Choco Island 1
• RMX Choco Island 2
• RMX Vanilla Lake 1
• RMX Vanilla Lake 2
• RMX Ghost Valley 1
• RMX Donut Plains 1
• RMX Rainbow Road 1
• RMX Rainbow Road 2

As you can see, there is some really good stuff left, including N64 Koopa Troopa Beach, GBA Yoshi Desert, GCN Dino Dino Jungle, DS Luigi's Mansion, DS Airship Fortress, Wii Dry Dry Ruins, 3DS Shy Guy Bazaar, and 3DS Wario Shipyard. Additional DLC would be worth it for these alone. GBA Bowser's Castle 4 has also gotten a similar treatment to SNES Bowser Castle 3, where this would be another great pick.

They could also make up for the lack of tracks from certain Mario Kart games in the Booster Course Pass, first and foremost Super Mario Kart and Mario Kart 64, which only got two each. And Mario Kart: Double Dash!! and Mario Kart DS were only given three. Put this against the eight courses from the favored Mario Kart Wii, which now would only see one more addition to balance things out a bit.

And speaking of getting sidelined, Luigi could finally get a racing course to his name, where other than DS Luigi's Mansion there are two of his circuits available in Mario Kart Tour, N64 Luigi Raceway and GBA Luigi Circuit. The man deserves at least one of these.

Of course, they could be saving some of it for the next Mario Kart game, but for that they probably won't be porting over the versions from Tour and instead remake them from the scratch for the next console generation, which means that the Tour versions will be lost eventually. And by now it's also fine when courses re-appear multiple games in a row. Just because something got into Mario Kart 8 Deluxe via the Booster Course Pass, doesn't mean that this course is out of the question for the next Mario Kart.

What caused most of the repetition is that many courses came from Mario Kart 7, which seemingly was used as a basis for Mario Kart Tour. In fact, with the exception of the two Wuhu Island tracks, all original and retro courses from the Nintendo 3DS can also be found in Tour. In less than five months, from April 2024 onward, we won't be able to play Nintendo 3DS and Wii U games online any longer, which includes Mario Kart 7. This gives a potential second Booster Course Pass additional value, where a big part of Mario Kart 7 could live on in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, potentially swaying over those who are still playing the 3DS title online.

Here it's actually a good thing that 3DS Rosalina's Ice World was brought in via wave 6 as a big surprise, because otherwise there would have been an overabundance of 3DS (and ice-themed) courses left to consider, making this the Mario Kart Wii of the second pass. But with this swap things could actually get more balanced and it's already easier to puzzle together a number of new cups.

Not everything will be eligible or worth having, though, where especially all the SNES and RMX courses are prone to some redundancy in themes and visuals. We don't really need SNES Mario Circuit 1, 2, and 3 all in the game, for example, the latter should be enough. We also don't really need four more beach-themed courses, but at least one of them would be nice to have in addition.

With that in mind, there is not enough content left for full 48 courses. Best that we can do, without having too much redundancy, is maybe half a Booster Course Pass, three more waves spanning 2024, offering six cups with 24 additional courses. But that's perfectly fine and more than enough, because in two years we might be already looking at the successor to the Nintendo Switch, where the next Mario Kart game will become a big topic.

As for the RMX courses, they could serve the same purpose as the city tours in the original Booster Course Pass, where each cup could come with one remixed course. They are more three-dimensional and are generally more interesting than the remaining SNES counterparts, with the best examples being RMX Ghost Valley 1 and RMX Vanilla Lake 2. It would be a good way of featuring the remaining themes and music from Super Mario Kart, without adding various boring, short, and flat tracks.

Even with the corresponding theme already present, they might want to give the RMX courses a shot, because they still offer something unique. This is mainly the case with RMX Donut Plains 1, which feels very different from SNES Donut Plains 3 with its gigantic lily pads. RMX Bowser's Castle 1 on the other hand doesn't hold a candle to much more polished GBA Bowser's Castle 4, one of the latest additions to Mario Kart Tour.

It may also be possible to combine the RMX courses of the same theme into one, like it was done with the different courses for each city. It's not the same thing, since you're not taking different routes through the same map, but these courses are so simple that it should be possible to put them together somehow into one longer track. Take RMX Rainbow Road 1 and 2, for example, which could then be used for the final cup.

Finally, it's not out of the question that they might make something entirely new for a second pass or maybe give us something that was originally planned for Mario Kart Tour, but didn't make the cut. Of course, any larger efforts are best saved for the next game, but they could continue the trend of giving us one "new" / unlabeled course per wave. And similar to the RMX courses, they could make extensive use of existing assets to throw something together. As an example, imagine a new final course based on the infamous Champion's Road from Super Mario 3D World. That would be crazy,

About cups, it's surprising how easy it is to find more power-ups for cup names, even if we're just going by items from Mario Kart games:

• Mega Mushroom Cup
• Ice Flower Cup
• Shine Cup
• Bullet Bill Cup
• Boo Cup
• Blooper Cup
• Bob-omb Cup
• Super Horn Cup
  
• Crazy Eight Cup

There's enough there to cover what we need, where some of it may even become a fantastic fit for what courses there are left. For example, a "Boo Cup" could come with RMX Ghost Valley 1 and/or DS Luigi's Mansion. And the Crazy Eight would be a great choice to end things for Mario Kart 8 after ten years, honoring the game with a cup that will most certainly remain exclusive.

More Drivers

You may argue that there aren't enough (interesting) courses left in Mario Kart Tour for a second Booster Course Pass, but when looking at the characters we certainly get a different picture, because they've covered only about half of the unique characters that were introduced to the mobile game.

• Captain Toad
• Chargin' Chuck
• Dixie Kong
• Donkey Kong Jr.
• Hammer / Boomerang / Fire / Ice Bro
• King Bob-omb
• Meowser
  
• Monty Mole
• Nabbit
• Poochy

With Donkey Kong Jr. we even have one more classic character left, but this is a weird one, because he looks like an animated SNES sprite in 3D. This may not work or look absolutely horrible in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. In any case, there are enough options left to fill an entire new row of eight more characters at the bottom of the current character select screen.

They could split this up into three waves again, similar to the first Booster Course Pass. The first wave could feature the Hammer Bro, where the other three Bros are added as alternate character variants, like they did with Birdo and all her colors. The second wave could have another monster trio with Chargin' Chuck, King Bob-omb, and Monty Mole. And the final wave could focus on different heroes with Captain Toad, Nabbit, Poochy, and finally Dixie Kong.

This isn't even taking all the character costumes into consideration. Mario Kart Tour has tons of them, where they could add a variant to almost every character in the game. There's Dr. Mario, Builder Luigi, Wedding Peach, Aurora Rosalina, Gladiator Donkey Kong, Vampire Waluigi, Cowboy Wario, Pirate Bowser Jr., Astronaut Toadette, White Tanooki Mario, King Boo from Luigi's Mansion 3... The list goes on and on. It's crazy and they could make good use of this as well.

Speaking of costumes, the last wave of the Booster Course Pass saw the addition of new Mii racing suits and here we have a very similar picture to the characters. They didn't even cover half of them and there are some weird omissions:

• Bronze, Silver and Gold
• Dry Bones
• Iggy, Larry, Lemmy, Ludwig, Morton, Roy and Wendy
• King Boo
• Waluigi
• Hammer Bro
• King Bob-omb
• Monty Mole
• Nabbit
• Cat
• Pastry
• Rocky Wrench
• Santa
• Reindeer
• Roaring Racer
• Spike
• Piranha Plant
• Fish Bone

There are several suits left based on the base game characters, like Dry Bones or King Boo. The latter glows in the dark, which is really cool. Waluigi could be added via amiibo, like Daisy in update 3.0.0, where it's odd that they left this out for some reason, which may even be an indicator that they are still planning for more updates and DLC.

This time they could also split this up into multiple waves. One wave could focus on the Koopalings, for example, while the last wave comes with the suits based on the new characters, like Nabbit or King Bob-omb. And there is some other cool stuff left, like the Fish Bone Suit, which they could mix in there.

As for the Bronze, Silver and Gold Mii Racing Suits, those could become an unlockable bonus for scoring the respective trophies in all cups for all modes in the game. This actually makes so much sense that it's also weird that they haven't done this already, similar to the Waluigi Suit.

More Vehicle Parts

Let's come to what's probably the most important part, because this is something the Booster Course Pass didn't even look at: Mario Kart Tour has over 300 karts and over 200 gliders. To be fair, these numbers include many color variants, but there is still a lot of stuff in there with a good mix of classic karts from previous Mario Kart games and also a large number of new karts.

This could even become the big focus of a second round of DLC. Instead of a "Booster Course Pass Vol. 2" we could be looking at a "Booster Kart Pass", which also happens to add some more characters and courses along the way. This would completely justify the continuation of the DLC.

There are two problems with this, however. One is that the karts in Mario Kart Tour come with pre-selected tires. It may not be as easy to port them into the customization system of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, where every tire can be combined with every kart. This might even be the reason why the Booster Course Pass doesn't have any vehicle parts to offer, but it looks like everything is based on Mario Kart 7 anyway, where they had the same system. In the least they could have given us the missing karts from that game and also a variety of gliders, where those should work in any case.

The second issue is that there are no bikes in Mario Kart Tour and this is a big problem, because Mario Kart 8 Deluxe first and foremost lacks inward drifting bikes. There are only five in the game, one of them being the original Master Cycle, and with a DLC focused on vehicle parts you'd expect to get the Dolphin Dasher or the Magicruiser, where Mario Kart Tour doesn't have those. They could repurpose Kamek's Zoom Broom into a bike, but that's about it...

Conclusion

There is just so much stuff left in Mario Kart Tour that they could easily entertain another season of DLC for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. It wouldn't be entirely the same thing, though. There wouldn't be as many courses, maybe only half as much. The characters would all be new ones from the mobile game. And they may even focus on adding more karts over anything else. But that's not necessarily a bad thing and would help to make a second pass more distinct from the first one.

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe: Booster Course Pass (Review)

Mario Kart 8 is quite the extraordinary Nintendo game. In six months it will become ten years old, as it originally was released on the Wii U in May 2014. In its first year it saw several additions of DLC, both paid and free, which is where The Legend of Zelda became part of the fun with the Hyrule Circuit, Link as a driver, and the introduction of the Master Cycle. Including all that, the DLC added 16 new courses at the time, bringing the total to 48, seven new drivers, and 16 kart parts.

In 2017 the game then got ported onto Nintendo's brandnew console, the Nintendo Switch, as Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. This version featured a reworked Battle Mode with eight courses, but also three returning characters (Bowser Jr., Dry Bones, and King Boo), three new characters (the Inklings and Gold Mario), and three new vehicles. The next year then saw the free addition of Link and the Master Cycle Zero from Breath of the Wild, but this looked to be the end of things...

So, it was quite surprising when Nintendo announced the Booster Course Pass in early 2022, offering 48 courses from past Mario Kart games, doubling the total number of cups and courses in the game. In its second half it then also added eight more drivers and 17 Mii racing suits, giving you even more value than what was initially advertised.

To say that the Booster Course Pass isn't worth its money would be totally ridiculous. For what's less than half of the base game's price you're effectively getting a whole new Mario Kart game, which uses Mario Kart 8 Deluxe as its foundation. You can also acquire access to all its content via the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack, but that access will be revoked once your subscription runs out. And you can even play the courses without any of this online or in wireless play, as long as one of the other players has the Booster Course Pass or the NSO Expansion Pack. So, it's overall quite generous.

The Booster Course Pass really has turned Mario Kart 8 Deluxe into "Mario Kart 9" at this point, but there is a catch to this: a ninth Mario Kart game already exists with Mario Kart Tour for mobile devices. And it quickly became clear that this is where everything was coming from. With the Booster Course Pass Nintendo has ported over a big chunk of the contents from Mario Kart Tour into Mario Kart 8 Deluxe to create the Mario Kart game of this generation.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing. First of all, the Booster Course Pass wouldn't exist without this particular effort. It's a project that probably co-exists with the development of the next Mario Kart game for the next Nintendo system, where Nintendo is cleverly putting together what they have, in order to offer the fans something "new". And many people don't play Mario Kart Tour, where for them these contents really will be new.

Everything also got fully remastered and this is a great way of preserving what was done for the mobile game, because service games are not forever and there will be a time where you won't be able to play Mario Kart Tour any longer. And even if you play it on a regular basis, the game doesn't let you freely pick courses, since you're bound to the current "tour". So, the ability to play many of these tracks any time you want, on a proper Nintendo console with much prettier graphics, may also be very appealing in any case.

Here's what made it from Mario Kart Tour into Mario Kart 8 Deluxe at the end:

Golden Dash Cup:

• Tour Paris Promenade
• 3DS Toad Circuit
• N64 Choco Mountain
• Wii Coconut Mall

 

Lucky Cat Cup:

• Tour Tokyo Blur
• DS Shroom Ridge
• GBA Sky Garden
• Tour Ninja Hideaway

 

Turnip Cup:

• Tour New York Minute
• SNES Mario Circuit 3
• N64 Kalimari Desert
• DS Waluigi Pinball

 

Propeller Cup:

• Tour Sydney Sprint
• GBA Snow Land
• Wii Mushroom Gorge
• Sky-High Sundae

 

Rock Cup:

• Tour London Loop
• GBA Boo Lake
• 3DS Alpine Pass / Rock Rock Mountain
  
• Wii Maple Treeway

 

Moon Cup:

• Tour Berlin Byways
• DS Peach Gardens
• Merry Mountain
• 3DS Rainbow Road

 

Fruit Cup:

• Tour Amsterdam Drift
• GBA Riverside Park
• Wii DK Summit / DK's Snowboard Cross
• Yoshi's Island

 

Boomerang Cup:

• Tour Bangkok Rush
• DS Mario Circuit
• GCN Waluigi Stadium
• Tour Singapore Speedway

 

Feather Cup:

• Tour Athens Dash
• GCN Daisy Cruiser
• Wii Moonview Highway
• Squeaky Clean Sprint

 

Cherry Cup:

• Tour Los Angeles Laps
• GBA Sunset Wilds
• Wii Koopa Cape
• Tour Vancouver Velocity

 

Acorn Cup:

• Tour Rome Avanti
• GCN DK Mountain
• Wii Daisy Circuit
• Piranha Plant Cove

 

Spiny Cup:

• Tour Madrid Drive
• 3DS Rosalina's Ice World
• SNES Bowser Castle 3
• Wii Rainbow Road
  

It's quite the list and there should be something in there for every generation of Mario Kart fans, though some get treated better than others. Fans of Mario Kart Wii will find HALF of the game's original courses in here, bringing the total up to 11, where this was clearly favored over everything else. Each wave came with at least one Wii course and four of the other retro courses were also present in the Wii title. It was the big console Mario Kart before Mario Kart 8 and also very popular, so it's understandable to a degree, but they could have swapped one or two of its courses in favor of the something else for a better balance.

The biggest losers are Super Mario Kart and Mario Kart 64 with only two courses each. At least SNES Bowser Castle 3 and N64 Kalimari Desert are very impressive with their changes, but it can't make up for the fact that they didn't really care too much about the originals, which isn't true for Mario Kart Tour. It had a lot more to offer from these games and even a variety of remixed courses of the SNES classic, but it wasn't meant to be.

Mario Kart: Double Dash!! and Mario Kart DS both got a bit more with three courses each, where GCN DK Mountain, GCN Waluigi Stadium and DS Waluigi Pinball are the highlights. The biggest surprise is probably that DS Airship Fortress didn't make the cut, however, which certainly is a huge fan favorite. But they also had other good options, like GCN Mushroom Bridge, GCN Dino Dino Jungle, or DS Luigi's Mansion...

Mario Kart: Super Circuit was the secret star with five courses to its name, where each wave came with one except for the last. A lot of love was put into remaking these courses in Mario Kart Tour, making them more three-dimensional by adding some height. It's not entirely on par with GBA Cheese Land and GBA Ribbon Road from the original Wii U DLC, but it's still quite nice for some enjoyable short courses. Though, it's a shame that they couldn't preserve the sunset in GBA Sunset Wilds for some reason (it's there in Tour), where this course probably should have been swapped with something else.

Next in the ranking is Mario Kart 7. Now, while there are only four of its original courses present, seven of its retro courses can be found in the Booster Course Pass as well, where it has profited from the Wii hype quite a lot. In fact, all four of its retro Wii courses are there. Mario Kart 7 was seemingly used as a basis for Mario Kart Tour, so many of the new versions of the courses feature elements from that game, like the added underwater section in GCN Daisy Cruiser or the blue glider mushroom in Wii Mushroom Gorge. With this in mind, it's actually surprising that the Nintendo 3DS title didn't even see more additions, e.g. 3DS Shy Guy Bazaar, 3DS Wario Shipyard, or more of its fantastic retro courses, like the aforementioned DS Airship Fortress.

But the biggest chunk of the Booster Course Pass comes from Mario Kart Tour itself. 20 of the 48 courses are from that game, whether they are labeled as "Tour" or as completely new. The "Tour" label was reserved exclusively for the city tour tracks, where each cup starts with one and two also end on one, for a total of 14.

This features cities from all over the real world, where Europe is the Mario Kart Wii of continents, meaning that half of the cities are from there. Curiously, they didn't add anything from Africa or South America, where Cairo and Rio de Janeiro seem like the most obvious candidates. But the development of Mario Kart Tour came to an end, so we will most likely never see these cities in Mario Kart, unless the game gets a successor in the future.

With the city courses also comes the big new mechanic of the Booster Course Pass: re-routing. Each city has at least three different variants in Mario Kart Tour, where they share the same map, but take different routes through that map. For Mario Kart 8 Deluxe these variants were all merged into one course, where for each lap it directs you onto a different route with the help of the new arrow fields. It's a cheap solution and makes it easy to get out-of-bounds on certain ends, but it enables an experience that is entirely unique to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.

It's technically similar to the sectioned courses, like Mount Wario or the N64 Rainbow Road, but you may drive through certain roads twice or even in reverse, which then lets you potentially run into incoming traffic of other racers. As a result, every lap is entirely unique, where you get a lot more out of these courses from the Booster Course Pass. But it can also make them confusing and very hard to learn, where going into them for the first time can be a mess.

Piranha Plant Cove, which is one of the remaining new courses, also makes use of this mechanic, but the rest are more straight-forward. It's questionable why these six courses are labeled as "new", since most of them originated from Mario Kart Tour as well. Well, two got into Mario Kart 8 Deluxe first, briefly before they also appeared in Tour, but in the end everything was first and foremost made for the mobile game. There are some very simple seasonal courses here, with Sky-High Sundae and Merry Mountain, but also some absolute highlights, like Yoshi's Island, which was based on the beloved SNES game...

However, one of the original courses from Mario Kart Tour went missing, which is Piranha Plant Pipeline. We can only speculate why it didn't make the cut, but it's rather odd that they left out a single course in the end, out of 21. It's the most glaring omission in all of this and it only has been playable in Mario Kart Tour once so far, making this a rarity.

Overall, the selection of courses is a mixed bag. There is a lot from Mario Kart Tour and Mario Kart Wii in there, whether you want it or not. We got two more Rainbow Roads for a total of five and four more circuit tracks, where there is now a circuit from every Mario Kart game in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Meanwhile there are only two Bowser Castles in the game, but at least there is one more now and an excellent one at that.

Waluigi and Daisy saw quite some love in the course selection to make up for the fact that they didn't have anything to their names in the base game. And meanwhile Luigi still hasn't gotten a single race course in the entire game... At least he was one of the few battle courses with GCN Luigi's Mansion, where there have been no additions to that mode, sadly, even though Mario Kart Tour offers a few battle courses of its own. It may not be the greatest selection, but considering that the new Battle Mode was the big selling point of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe initially, it's a shame that we didn't even get one of them.

Quality-wise the courses are also a mixed bag. The visual difference between the base game and the DLC courses was absolutely jarring in the beginning, where courses like DS Shroom Ridge looked like the were directly ripped from Mario Kart Tour and recycled old course elements, like the ever-same vehicles from N64 Toad's Turnpike. There was also an apparent lack of anti-gravity and underwater sections.

But by now the Booster Course Pass offers some of the best-looking courses in the entire game, like the 3DS and Wii Rainbow Roads, and introduced many new track elements, like the half-pipes from Mario Mart Wii, the Bob-omb cars, giant Wigglers, penguins, and more. And there are some courses that make excellent usage of the underwater and anti-gravity driving modes in the DLC. You can really see how the team behind the Booster Course Pass has learned and evolved over the past two years, potentially even taking the early feedback into the heart.

Drivers and Mii Racing Suits

Part of that early feedback could also have been the lack of any other additions, where Mario Kart Tour has a lot more to offer than just courses. We don't know whether this was planned from the beginning or not, but they certainly didn't advertise that they were also going to add more characters before the fourth wave in 2023. And in the end we got eight in total:

• Birdo
• Petey Piranha
• Wiggler
• Kamek
• Peachette
  
• Diddy Kong
• Funky Kong
• Pauline
  

Out of the many, many characters present in Mario Kart Tour, they have prioritized the ones from past Mario Kart games. We finally got Diddy Kong and Birdo back, who had appeared in both Mario Kart: Double Dash!! and Mario Kart Wii, but got left out in Mario Kart 8 for some reason, until now. Then there's Petey Piranha from Double Dash!!, Funky Kong from Mario Kart Wii, and Wiggler from Mario Kart 7. And with these additions the roster finally feels very much complete (unless you really are a big fan of R.O.B. or the Honey Queen, but they are not even in Tour).

They've also included some of the new characters in Mario Kart Tour, where Kamek and Pauline were without a doubt the most popular choices... And then there's Peachette, who got in over characters like Dixie Kong, Nabbit, or King Bob-omb.

It's hard to complain about something that is essentially a bonus, but in the end it would have been better if Nintendo had planned this from the start and maybe charged a little more for the Booster Course Pass. With more time and money we could have potentially gotten more of the characters, leaving little to desire. But for the most part they went with the best possible choices.

The new Mii racing suits leave a similar picture. It was a big surprise addition coming with the last wave and they've added a total of 17, all from Mario Kart Tour. These costumes are quite creative, have their own trick animations, and really make the Mii racers a lot more fun to use, where it's fantastic that Nintendo has added these on top as well. But there is a lot more left where they came from and this could have been distributed evenly over all waves right from the start.

And one area that the Booster Course Pass didn't touch at all are the karts and gliders. There are over 700 vehicle parts in Mario Kart Tour, lots of them from past Mario Kart games, and they didn't add a single one to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe during all this effort. It may have to do with the fact that karts and tires aren't separate any longer in Mario Kart Tour, but it's still so similar to Mario Kart 7 that there could have been a way around this...

Conclusion

If you enjoy Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, then the Booster Course Pass is without a must-have, adding a whole Mario Kart game's worth of content on top of what is already there. For this they have ported and remastered the contents from Mario Kart Tour, leaving a mixed bag, both in variety and quality. But overall it's all nice to have in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, adding a ton of value to the game.

The biggest complaint about the Booster Course Pass is that they didn't go all-in with this, because there are lot of good courses, drivers, Mii suits, and other contents left in Mario Kart Tour, which feels like a waste. But these complaints would become void if Nintendo were to announce more of this DLC in the (near) future.