Mario Kart 8 Full Review

So, I’ve been playing this game for about a month now, so let me give my full opinion. The last review I wrote was merely a “first thoughts” review, which were my initial impressions from one weekend with the game. Now that I’ve experienced all modes the game has to offer, hold the online mode, I have a much more concrete opinion on the game. I still think this game is amazing, hans down one of the Wii U’s best (surpassed only by Super Mario 3D World in my book) but there are a number of issues that I’m really bummed about.

Since my first review I have tried out much more of the roster, though mostly still all Koopalings. I’ll say that while the roster is very balanced, it suffers a fate almost all games do that balance their roster too well – they’re all practically the same. The differences in the players’ stats don’t seem to make too much of a difference. Especially since you can customize your carts so much, you are practically able to give every character identical stats in some form or another, and as I said before, the stats seem to make little difference. I have noticed that, contrary to my first opinions, Lemmy is not very good, or at least not for me. I absolutely love the quick acceleration and super-tight control and turning that Lemmy and Wendy have, but their speed, strength, and pretty much all other stats are just far too low compared to most other racers. Wendy and Lemmy really have a hard time catching up with medium or heavy racers after getting passed, because their top speed is so pitiful. I tried Rosalina out, and although her stats claim she shouldn’t be as fast and what not as she is, she seems far superior t all the Koopalings I used, which is pretty lame since the Koopalings are who I really want to use. I mostly use Ludwig now, though Rosalina is kind of just better than him in every way with slightly worse control, though not as bad as her stats claim they are. I know many experts use Morton, who is my favorite Mario character ever, but I just can’t get a feel for him. So, yeah, I mostly have to pick Ludwig, which is a shame because I liked the way Wendy and Lemmy handled so much. It seems like heavy characters are just built better than all others in this game.

And that all brings me to my next complaint – driving physics and boosts. As I race my brother more than anybody else, he uses Roy. When I was using Wendy, who is far weaker than him, I would notice that if he nudged me at the start of the race, I was pretty much done. Though many times he played the track just as good as me or better, there were times where I was drifting beautifully, hugging the turns and getting boosts every second, but because he had bumped me and passed me at the start of the race with a much stronger character, there is just no catching up to him, even in cases where he would be messing up and drifting at the wrong times/making very wide turns/driving on rough terrain. The only thing worse than the unfair stats is the tailgate boost. I don’t know who thought this was a good idea, but it’s just about the worst one the Mario Kart team ever had. OK, I get it, it’s an exaggeration of realistic physics, but it’s a game, and it makes the game completely unfair. For anyone who doesn’t know what I’m talking about, it’s when you’re following somebody closely (usually) and a bunch of white wind starts to form around your cart, eventually shooting you ahead with a boost. If following somebody closely enough gave you such a boost it would already be cheap as it’s just the game rewarding somebody for being behind and punishing the winner who’s ahead just because they are playing better, but add to it the randomness of it all. Sometimes you are directly behind someone for a while and nothing happens, sometimes it does. Sometimes you are driving to the side of somebody and get it and sometimes you don’t. Sometimes you can be nowhere near the racer ahead and you still seem to get it. Another problem with this thing is that using it yourself is extremely difficult. Not only is it triggered so randomly, but many times it doesn’t fully build up, and you have very little control over when it does, meaning the boost could very easily toss you into hazards and walls, making it based almost entirely on luck whether or not it will aid you or screw you. The boost it gives you is so damn powerful too that if both players know the track well, it’s pretty impossible to ever catch up again. I can’t tell you how many tracks I was winning but lost just because the guy near me got this corny boost. With all the lame items and nonsense, we didn’t need anything else to force the loser to win.

And now, for Grand Prix racing. 50cc and 100cc are a joke, but switch that difficulty to 150cc and you get the equivalent of playing a game with a sore bratty kid who always has to get his way. Back are all the things I hated about Grand Prix modes in other recent Mario Kart games. The computer will purposely bombard you with items if you are ever winning. Usually if a blue shell or red shell hits you, you will be hit by at least one or two more items before you are even fully recovered, guaranteeing your loss. I’ve even caught the CPU pulling bullshit like driving normally over rough terrain without a mushroom, using two different items in a row without touching an item cube first, and completely impossible weights when colliding (Morton and Roy in lifted heavy carts being knocked away by babies in lady bugs). All of these aspects just make Grand Prix mode on 150cc 100% based on luck with no real skill required. It’s not like the CPU plays any better – they still play the tracks just as shitty as they did on 50cc only now they move a bit faster and get cheaper items all the damn time. You’re really just battling items in 150cc rather than actually racing. And what do you get for all of it? Mirror Mode. Yeah, the same slap in the face DKC Returns gave us after hours of hard work. Game developers have to realize that we are not falling for a mirror effect posing as extra content. It’s not extra content. It’s just playing 150cc again only a little disorienting at times. It’s no better than Ghosts and Goblins telling you to just beat the game again after beating it once. It’s no real extra content, it was no more work on the developers’ side, and it creates no new sense of accomplishment or challenge. It’s just the game saying “What? You beat that hard thing? Well, I don’t believe you. Do it again if you think you’re so great”. I’ve barely even played much of Mirror Mode because it’s just such a kick in the ass. Why couldn’t we have just gotten two new cups instead? Oh yeah, because that would have actually taken time and work. We could really have used more courses, as the 32 in the game are pretty quickly exhausted.

And my final major complaint – Battle Mode. It’s dead. Despite what Kosuke Yabuki said in a pathetic attempt to cover the lack of effort to make battle arenas, you can’t have battle mode on a track. You just spend your time looping around a track, turning around every now and then, rarely ever seeing anybody. When you do see someone, you pass them so quickly you really can’t even react in time, and being that it’s just a road and not a proper arena, there’s no walls or anything to protect yourself with, making it so that whenever an item is tossed at you, you pretty much have to get hit by it. Though Nintendo tried to say it was a “new and innovative approach” to battle mode, I sincerely believe that’s all bullshit. It was just the result of them running out of time and lazily pushing the game out before it was truly done. I don’t see how anybody could enjoy the new battle mode.

Well, pretty much everything else about the game I love. I love the smooth handling, I love the arenas, I love the replay value, I love the multiplayer modes, I love the customization and options, I love game play, I love the graphics, and I love being the Koopalings. There’s a rumor floating around the internet spawned by a “leaked” screen, showing five additional characters on the select screen, believed to be DLC. Now, I’m not saying this is real, as there is an extremely good chance it’s not, but it looks extremely well done, and the characters shown would all be great additions. Diddy Kong and Birdo are among them, two characters that should have returned regardless, as well as Kamek and Professor E. Gadd, two characters I wanted in and both of which were intended to be included in early stages of previous Mario Kart titles. The last one is Plessy the Plesasaur from Super Mario 3D World. He may not be my first pick, but he’s an interesting and fun choice nonetheless. As I said, I know this is likely fake, but I would be really happy if these characters were released at some point, especially since it would help make up for all the stupid babies and metal things (why do the metal characters make turkey noises?). To see my early thoughts on the game, and my opinions on the roster, check out my “first thoughts” review from the beginning of the month here - brendancorris.deviantart.com/j…