Played on Nintendo Switch

I’ve always been a really big fan of Mario Kart ever since I was a little kid. I’ve been playing it since Mario Kart 64, and since then I’ve played the majority of the new entries in the series that have come out. This series will always have a special place in my heart, and so to a certain degree you can say that I’m a bit biased when it comes to this review. I came into Mario Kart 8 Deluxe as a fan and veteran of the series, not someone who’s playing it for the first time or has only had casual experience with the series. I’m happy to say that Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (and the Mario Kart series as a whole, for that matter) does a great job of welcoming newcomers to the series, so don’t feel like you can’t enjoy this game if it will be your first Mario Kart game. I think this entry is as good as any for jumping into the series, but if this is where you’re at you might prefer to read a review from someone who’s experiencing the game in that way.

I hadn’t played Mario Kart 8 on the Wii U, so Deluxe was actually my first introduction to the game. I apologize if I can’t be helpful in telling you whether or not Deluxe is worth it if you’ve already played it on Wii U. From my understanding, Deluxe is simply a collection of Mario Kart 8 and all of its DLC into one game. This is the “ultimate” edition, if you prefer to think of it that way. As such, all characters, tracks, and difficulties are unlocked right from the start. There is still unlockable kart parts to get here, but otherwise this game seems to exist to give the definitive Mario Kart 8 experience in an easy way on the Switch, which I’m personally thankful for.

While I feel that newcomers won’t have a difficult time jumping into the game, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is also immediately familiar for veterans of the series. This has your typical Mario Kart experience. You choose one of the many characters from the Mario franchise, along with a kart or bike, and then race along a really zany, creative, and colorful course. All of the racing techniques that veterans will be familiar with, like drifting and stunt boosts, can be found in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, but there are also some other tools to help newcomers as well. These include options like smart steering, which will help prevent you from driving off the course. Think of it as “training wheels” or playing with the bumpers up in bowling. It’s not going to help newcomers have an edge over skilled players or anything, but it will help give them a fighting chance until they become more comfortable with the controls.

Items have also always been a big part of the Mario Kart series, and that is still true for Deluxe. There have been many items in the Mario Kart series, and Deluxe definitely doesn’t have all of them. Items from previous games like the special block or mega mushroom aren’t in this game, but most of the items fans have come to expect will be here, such as the banana peels, mushrooms, invincibility star, and all of the shells in their various colors. I didn’t play Mario Kart 7, so I’m not comfortable claiming whether certain items in Deluxe are “new” to the series, but there were definitely some new additions that I wasn’t familiar with, such as a throwable boomerang, a fire flower that shoots fireballs at opponents, and a piranha plant that lets you hit players that you pass by. All in all, I really liked the item selection in the game. One huge return for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is with coins, which haven’t been present in most of the games in the series. These help give you a speed boost the more you hold, but they’re also used as a collectible in the game. More on that later, though.

One brief thing I feel like I should talk about is changes to the gameplay. I didn’t find too many here, but there were definitely a few things. The big things are flying and going underwater, although I think the former was actually introduced in Mario Kart 7. These actually don’t have as much of an impact on the race as you would expect, so I don’t really feel like they’re worth talking about that much. Like I said earlier, for the most part this is still your typical Mario Kart game.

Some players might come to these games for the technical details, but that’s not me. I’m not here to tell you whether different kart combinations feel balanced or anything like that. For me, the most important thing in a Mario Kart game is whether or not it’s fun, and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe definitely is. I loved a lot of the new courses in the game, and they also brought back a lot of my favorite courses from previous games as well. With all of the DLC courses from Mario Kart 8 included, there are 48 courses total, and so you’re in for a really fun time here. The game even branches out towards other Nintendo series, such as two F-Zero courses and Hyrule Castle from Zelda. There’s definitely enough content here for many hours of fun.

It probably goes without saying, but this is definitely the best that Mario Kart has ever looked. The game looks beautiful on the Switch, so whether you’re playing on the TV or handheld, you’re in for a visually appealing experience. The game also sounds better than ever before, and while I’ve never really gone out of my way to listen to Mario Kart music tracks, the music is still pretty great.

I realize that the intention for Deluxe was to compile all of Mario Kart 8’s content, but if you’re playing the game for the first time like me, you might have a similar complaint as I did. While there are rewards for getting first in all of the cups on a difficulty, for the most part any unlockables that there are in the game are tied to coin collecting. I wouldn’t find this to be as bad if there weren’t a limit of 10 coins to collect per race, but unfortunately this is the case. The last reward you’ll get through coin collecting comes in at 5000 coins, and so I winded up having the experience where I 100% completed everything else I could in the game and was still about 2000 coins short of my goal through normal playtime. This ended up in me having to farm/grind coins to get my final part, which I never find to be a good thing in any game. The point I’m driving at here is that I wasn’t a huge fan of the unlock system in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and have found it to be much more satisfying in previous Mario Kart games. This is honestly my main complaint with the game, since I never like to see a game like Mario Kart (whose core focus is on having fun) turn into a grindfest. Apparently the 5000 coin reward was originally 10,000 in the Wii U version, so this is actually an improvement over that, but regardless I still think there could have been a better system for this.

Other than that, I really enjoyed my time with Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. It took me somewhere between 20-30 hours to complete the game, so there is definitely a lot of content here. For the most part, the game has all of the typical things you’d expect from a modern Mario Kart game. It has a grand prix mode, time trial races, battle modes, and both online and local multiplayer. The biggest addition I found in terms of game modes was in an extra difficulty setting. There’s the usual difficulties of 50cc, 100cc, 150cc, and 150cc Mirror mode, but a 200cc mode has also been added. This is definitely the fastest Mario Kart has ever been, and so 200cc will certainly prove to be challenging for even the most skilled Mario Kart players. I had to break some habits in order to stay on track in 200cc, so this is certainly a fun challenge for veteran players.

It’s hard for me to compare Mario Kart 8 Deluxe to other games in the series, since for the most part I’ve always found this series to be pretty consistently fun. I don’t want to throw around phrases like it being the “definitive experience” or anything, but I will say that this is definitely another great entry for the franchise, at the very least. I can’t answer whether or not Mario Kart 8 Deluxe will be worth re-buying for people that already played Mario Kart 8 on Wii U, but for anyone else I’d definitely recommend it. This rings true whether you’re a newcomer or a long-time fan. This has always been one of my favorite “party game” franchises, and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is another great entry for the series.

4/5