• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Mario Kart 8 is the worst 3d mario kart

The only criticism I can agree with from this thread is battle mode. Yes it sucks, and it's egregious that they just used regular tracks rather than making actual arenas. Especially because Mario Kart 7 has a relatively good battle mode. Wtf Nintendo? Otherwise it's my favorite Mario Kart.
 

Gurnlei

Member
I love MK8, it's up there with 64 as my favorite Mario Kart. Just how the game controls and feels - Nintendo is only getting better at it.
 

Vidiot

Member
Never understood people who say MK battle mode was never good. It was fantastic in the original, 64, and DS versions, okay in DD, and horrible in the rest. Honestly I wish they would make a game with nothing but battle mode. Have it super fleshed out. I would buy that in a heartbeat. MK battle mode in 64 was up there with Smash 64 and Golden Eye for my friends and I.
 

Kyari

Member
I liked MK8. Removing bike tricks was great, the changes to items at least brought a differing layer of strategy when playing with friends and I don't find the new tracks boring at all.

Also they added more non-Mario characters and that's awesome.
 
I agree with OP. The tracks are boring! The items and their distribution is totally boring. Crazy comebacks are really hard to pull off. Also the character roster is boring as well.

MK8 is an okay game but I had a lot more fun with DD and Wii. I don't understand why Wii is so hated! Yeah certain bikes are overpowered. Yeah you are going to get destroyed by items every once in a while. So what? The game is SUPER FUN!
 

TheMoon

Member
I'm leaving so I don't have time to address all of OPs complaints

but it's fact that half of the OPs complaints are present in the games he himself lauds over Mario Kart 8

like, it actually blew my MIND when I read that paragraph that insinuated

"Mario Kart 8's tracks are too wide! BUT MARIO KART WII, BOY, THOSE TRACKS WERE JUST FINE"

like lolololololol,
it must have been years since you've played Mario Kart Wii, right? That's the only explanation for that little nugget of wisdom.

Pretty much.
 

Plinko

Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
I agree with OP. The tracks are boring! The items and their distribution is totally boring. Crazy comebacks are really hard to pull off. Also the character roster is boring as well.

MK8 is an okay game but I had a lot more fun with DD and Wii. I don't understand why Wii is so hated! Yeah certain bikes are overpowered. Yeah you are going to get destroyed by items every once in a while. So what? The game is SUPER FUN!

I'll never understand this argument, either.

Huge selection of classic Mario characters, along with the DLC of Link, Isabelle, and Villager. No Diddy Kong or Boo does not make the huge roster "boring."
 
edit: half these images don't work anyway so I'll just reiterate - half of that OP is just pure insanity that I just can't get over, lmao. The way Items work, and the flawed battle mode, are merited complaints. Everything else is... well, it's almost like OP hasn't played Mario Kart in like 10 years, but he'd have us believe that he's played every one up to this point...
 

atr0cious

Member
Never understood people who say MK battle mode was never good. It was fantastic in the original, 64, and DS versions, okay in DD, and horrible in the rest. Honestly I wish they would make a game with nothing but battle mode. Have it super fleshed out. I would buy that in a heartbeat. MK battle mode in 64 was up there with Smash 64 and Golden Eye for my friends and I.
Smk battle is the best.

Feather = GOAT
 

Brandon F

Well congratulations! You got yourself caught!
It's second only to SMK imo

DD is fucking terrible and has fuck all tracks

Agreed. MK8 has issues though for sure and I would agree with many of the OP's complaints, yet it is the first MK is years I have actually enjoyed even if it hasn't really grown or matured beyond its foundations in decades.
 
MK8 is so good, that it has retroactively ruined all the other Mario Kart games for me. I can't play them anymore. They just feel so drab and boring all of a sudden.

I love MK8.
 

Plinko

Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
Smk battle is the best.

Feather = GOAT


Yep. That said, this is the only advantage that game has over any other. That game may have the biggest rose-colored glasses fanbase in history. The CPU is garbage, abuses powerups repeatedly, has terrible rubberband AI, and takes the EXACT same racing line around the track every time.
 
nbDeqKi.gif


Magical moments like these will never happen in Mario Kart 8.

In Conclusion: The Game Fails On All Fronts
The fans of this game will try to defend it by saying the graphics are amazing, that there is so much content, that they thought the tracks were great, and that I suck at it and I'm bitter.

You know you see a contrarian opinion for the sake of being contrarian when the argument ignores all the overwhelmingly good qualities of the game and instead relegates them to a dismissive "yeah now watch fans of the game defend it by [actually listing the good qualities of the game and pointing out where I'm wrong]".

You call 8 the worst when 7 doesn't even include VS mode? And you're angry about Battle Mode? :lol

Also I would like to see your face after experiencing such magical moments like the gif. I'm sure you'll find that you're not as fond of them as you would like to believe.
 
It's easily the best playing and looking game in the whole series.
The tracks are short but sweet.
The item system is as cheap as fuck(maybe cheaper) and takes away a lot of skill. I know it's known for its "everyone has a chance" casual competition but red shells, too big Bullet Bills, etc... make it rage inducing.
The music is the best in the series unless you hate jazz.
Overall, it's flawed but the core game makes it amongst the best in the franchise.

PS Battle mode has sucked for a looooong time. Not condoning it but expectations should have been nonexistent since it's not a priority anymore.
 

Thud

Member
MK Wii plays like dogshit after playing MK8.

Everything seems off. Tracks are way too wide, item spam and the massive slowdown killed my enjoyment. I bought it for the sake of completion as I didn't have it back on the Wii. Played through everything once and I was done. Picked up MK8 again and it hooked me again.

I hope next MK games keep this level of quality. Nintendo could make a NX port with all DLC plus a competent battle mode and they'd get away with it.
 

Yukinari

Member
More appalled by the fact that people think MK64 has aged well and arent just blinded by nostalgia. The battle mode is fantastic yes, and MK8 does have a garbage battle mode, but i tried going back to MK64 and i would honestly rather play Super Circuit than deal with that shit.
 

MGrant

Member
Not the worst, Wii is the worst. Double Dash is the secret best; seriously the drifting and mini-turbo mechanics are perfect in that game, and there are actually narrow tracks to test your drifting skills on (the bridge on Dino Dino, the Bowser Castle track jump, the DK Mountain canyon hop). Game is great. The complaint about items being too weak in 8 doesn't make any sense in this light; perfect drifting in Double Dash meant you were untouchable, as red shells (and even occasionally blue shells) were able to be dodged with a well-timed mini-turbo. Which made the Bowser Shell the best weapon in the game.

Mario Kart 8 is better than 64, DS, and Wii by a fair margin, though.
 

brinstar

Member
I'm with you on battle mode even though I personally don't care about that mode anymore.

And I agree that the roster has some really bizarre omissions.

But everything else? Nah. Couldn't stand Double Dash. MK8 is almost exactly my ideal Mario Kart.
 
mario kart 8 roster is nothing special but who cares, don't get why people make a big deal out of it, its not like the characters give you anything extra abilities. They are merely cosmetic.
 
There is no such thing as a bad Mario Kart. Even Double Dash was great.

My personal experience with every new Mario Kart release is that I hate the game until it finally clicks with me. I did that for every game with the exception of Mario Kart 8. I loved that game just by watching E3 videos on Youtube.

So I think you are crazy lol

Edit : My only complain is that Diddy Kong isn't in the game
 

Nerrel

Member
Most Of The Tracks Are Boring
They have little in the way of hazards, unique quirks, or interesting level design. After playing as long as I have, the only two standouts I can remember are Mount Wario and the other wario one, with all the mud and speed jumps.

Of all the courses in this game, you choose Wario Stadium as the standout? Cloudtop Cruise, Bone Dry Dunes, Electrodome are way cooler.


The Gameplay Is Conservative As Fuck
Nothing particularly innovative was added to the formula. ... Antigravity is a primarily cosmetic addition.

Driving on the walls/ceiling and having access to different paths for evasion or better item usage is a cosmetic addition. Got it.

The Mario Kart 8 Caste System (AKA Items have been RUINED)
... In MK8, if you don't break away from the pack of other players at the first item box, you will spend the whole race fighting the same 3 players to break out of ninth place.

Heavy Characters Are Overpowered
Because breaking away from the rest of the participants of the race is so important to winning, heavy characters are gifted with a pronounced advantage.

You claim that breaking away from the pack at the start is important, and then say the characters with the absolute slowest acceleration in the game have an unfair advantage. In time trials, yes, the heavy characters are overpowered, but in GP- a mode where you're constantly pelted by shells and other items- the frequent momentum halts take their toll. You can avoid a lot of small items in first, but you can't get away from blue shells, bloops, or bolts, and they happen all the fucking time.

Tracks Are Wide As Shit
fm6enlY.jpg

... It's really noticeable when you play retro tracks like peach's castle or yoshi's circuit (dlc track) and they are so much wider than they originally were, ruining the tightly designed nature of them and sapping the fun they elicit as an outcome. According to the developers, the tracks were given increased width because it needed to accommodate the space needed for 12 players racing simultaneously. I vehemently disagree with this design decision.

You're talking about how badly all the characters are stuck together and fighting it out one minute, then complaining that the tracks aren't tight enough the next. It's also not just about player count, but the dramatically different drift types that can be selected now. The road has to accommodate inside and outside drift patterns, and the handling variations in general prevents a single type of tight curve from working with all karts/bikes. I personally love the remastered levels and think most of them are the best version there's been; N64 rainbow road in particular blows the original away.

The Roster Is Wack
Its packed with baby characters, metal reskins, and koopalings! None of these characters are particularly interesting or feel like their own original concept. They are a tremendous wasted opportunity. Let's look at all the beloved characters from previous MK games that didn't make the cut so these abominations could be included (shout out to honey queen who I forgot about while photoshopping):

No disagreements there. They did blow a lot of potential with junk characters, but in fairness, the roster is pretty huge and you're bound to find characters you like regardless.

Battle Mode Still Sucks

Okay, yes, again, that's right. They obviously didn't give this much time in the oven. If they do an NX re-release, they need to fix this.

You Can't Knock Players Off Track Anymore

nbDeqKi.gif


Magical moments like these will never happen in Mario Kart 8. Even if it scars the player its happening to, its a part of what makes mario kart special, and I will not stand to see this removed. At the very least, Nintendo could give us the option in a settings menu to disable fast lakitu recovery in local multiplayer.


This is bullshit. I've actually got a few moments like that saved in my MKTV because I was so angry at getting fucked by a half dozen items in a row that I needed to document it. You're not acknowledging the fact that hangliding is a major part of this game and that any small item can cause a drop in midair- including the lightning bolts, which happen fucking every lap in some races.

In Conclusion: The Game Fails On All Fronts

Nope. It's a great game, and handily the best all around Mariokart. It has flaws, and some of them are even very frustrating to me, but I'd still boot it up over any other MK game.
 

Gartooth

Member
No way, aside from a shit battle mode it is the best in the series. I feel like its only competition is MKDS and MK7. 64 has aged badly, I always felt like DD was a slog compared to the others, and Wii went off the deep end on item balancing.
 

Yukinari

Member
The disrespect for battle mode up in here is kinda depressing. We're so used to having mediocre battle modes that we just discard it as some side content rather than being a compliment to the racing mechanics. If theres one thing to commend MKWii on its that i played its battle mode online far more than MK8.
 
It has the best soundtrack and looks amazing, but I have to agree with you.

(Edit: it's better than the Wii game. I love mario kart, and I hated that game, although playing on an emulator with a 360 controller and high res split screen was more fun..

What I'm agreeing with is that Mario Kart 8 ain't all that. It's good, but it gets dull really fast. The N64 game is my favorite.. Best crash physics in the series)

I couldn't quite articulate myself, but my complaints are probably somewhere in your breakdown.... The nature of the game play.. It's like once you know how to play the game decently, you can play it in your sleep. Almost every track feels nearly identical in how you play the game.. There's no complexity to it and it feels dull. I was excited about the DLC tracks but even while playing them I felt bored by them.

The tracks being fucking wide was a complaint I had with double dash even, but yeah, it's worse than ever. It's like they knew some people kept going off track so the solution was to make the track wider than the sun. Have you ever driven up to one of the characters jumping around on the side of the race track? They are enormous! It almost suggests that the player characters were scaled down to give ample space for players who have trouble staying on the track. I've often thought that scaling the entire level down would make for a tighter, more fun race track.
 

andymcc

Banned
N64 Battle Mode is like the only fun mode in that game imho.

MK8 is one of the best titles Nintendo has ever published, period.
 

Tuck

Member
The classic level selection was a tad poor. The roster was poor. Many great items are missing.

But the new levels are all incredible, as was the DLC. And the classic levels were all given a new coat of paint, so even though the selection wasn't great (Particularly from the wii game), the levels themselves (besides Grumble Mountain) were amazing.

EDIT: Electrodome, Mount Wario are two of the best MK tracks ever.
 

Nazo

Member
I have to agree about the roster. I really dislike the koopa kids. But on the whole though I have to disagree. It's probably one of the best games in the series.
 

Nyoro SF

Member
I agree with a few criticisms of yours OP (like the Star being too weak, and getting caught in the middle of the pack is too often a losing scenario), but even with these weaknesses I think MK8 is definitely the best overall 3D MK.

I have a soft spot for Mariokart Wii, I like the course design better, but I know most people won't agree with me. lol
 
mario kart 64 is the attitude era of mario kart

it was the shit when you were a kid but it actually fuckin sucked.


Mario Kart 8 is a game I had a lot of fun with. Don't really like it (my fondest memories are with double dash) but MK8 is better than wii and 64 at minimum

It most definitely has the worst possible roster they could have picked though
 

Peterc

Member
DD is the worst mk ever made, specially because they removed the jumpslide in it.

N64 was one of the best, think mk8 is one of the best games made this gen and maybe also the best mk ever.

The tracks aren't boring, but they can do maybe so little more interacting with the players. It shows that you aren't a core gamer, because it's the best gameplay from all mks out there. I agree with the battle mode. It was best on mk64


I know forza5 was one of the racegames people liked. Compared to mk8(that of course are 2 different games), what is the fun factor in forza 5?
 
Op has some good criticism but they hardly blemish this solid experience. Personally I think mk64 was the goat but that's just me.

Mk8 fixed a lot of issues with the series and is a solid package with a great online experience(for nintendo).
 
Top Bottom