Mario Kart 8 - Review thread

Yeah the whole Nintendo Kart idea just doesn't really work. Mario Kart just makes more sense since they give an established world more depth by having races and they can link Mario and Donkey Kong characters through actual game history. Given the original Donkey Kong arcade games. Plopping in Zelda characters from a medieval age or Samus and Capt. Falcon from a more futuristic age doesn't make much sense. Nor do I think it could be executed in a good fashion. With Mario Kart just having Mario and DK characters it simply fits.
 
Had a chance to play MK8 in a general electric chain store in Sweden (play copies, you can't buy them here yet - not sure if they're breaking some code or whatever but there was one Wii U hooked up in the shop to play MK8 on) and - without ever using a Wii U before - I'd have to say it looks extremely slick, and feels very good to play. I played MK Stadium and Water Park before I left the store, so all I have is a quick first impression; and that impression was a good one. I love the drifting, and it feels a lot like Double Dash in the way the karts move unlike the Wii which I felt wasn't as floaty. I played the Stadium track as Mario and the Water Park track as Waluigi (which is my favorite aside from Petey Piranha who's not in this game)

Been thinking about getting a Wii U for a while, and now is definitely the time to do that.
 
The only disappointing things in general are the character and track rosters, as many have said, but I'd gladly pay $10 for a new track and new characters. I hope Nintendo gets on that.


Would love to see Daisy Cruiser and DK Mountain in HD.
 
Definitely reviewing better than any previous console Mario Kart so far. That's pretty promising. I hope this is the beginning of Nintendo really putting the screws to all their franchises like this.
 
I think they would be better off doing Mario Kart and adding circuits and characters from other franchises as DLC. Mario Kart is their biggest game, why throw away the name, change the game, confuse consumers, and say no to DLC money? Nintendo Kart doesn't make sense for Nintendo and it's not gonna happen.
 
Wow, Eurogamer review was gushing. I haven't played MK in a while, I'm pumped about this.


I think a "Nintendo Racing" would only take away some of the novelty that Smash has. It also wouldn't really add anything other than aesthetics.
 
Ryuelli said:
I never said Nintendo Racing had to be released this gen. We get 1 Mario Kart game every generation. Instead of Mario Kart 9 on the next console iteration (when they would be redoing everything from scratch again anyway), we would get Nintendo Racing. I would hope that by the next console iteration, the various Nintendo teams have gotten used to HD development and can start pushing stuff out a little quicker (or take their time and include more things).

I feel like we're kind of going in circles here (fitting for a thread about a racing game!). You don't see it working, I do. I don't really see what else there is to say.
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The point of contention here would have to be that they're never going to not make a Mario Kart. The legs on the series surpasses Smash Bros., the closest comparison to the idea and in most cases, the Mario platformers themselves. It's become a series in its own right which shares little more than characters and audiovisual motifs. Dropping all of that just to appease a decreasing sect of Nintendo's core fanbase just seems unreasonable and reckless.

I'm not totally against the idea, and I think there's room for the two to potentially coexist, but Mario Kart will be around forever and if we're just going to make a version of that with different aesthetics, they may as well not bother.
 
Principate said:
Look at MK 64 reviews, it got ripped apart by some outlets. I still remember GS's 64.
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It deserved to be tbh. Coming off SMK, giving MK64 a 64 is generous imo. It's easily the worst Mario Kart, and one of the worst of its kind. They may as well have just shipped it with Block Fort and called it a day, because racing in that game was ridiculous.
 
MoogleWizard said:
Nintendo Kart doesn't make much sense. Characters from different franchises make sense in a crossover fighting game like Smash because the characters can all have their own unique fighting styles. It doesn't work like that in a racing game. How would Samus drive a cart differently than Peach?
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You could have franchise specific items. Like for instance, Samus could run over a item box and it might let her use the ice beam to freeze a kart in front of her.
 
I'm so hyped! At the same time, I'm disappointed at how poorly they've implemented the gamepad. I mean seriously, how could they make the gamepad mirror the TV in local multiplayer rather than give it its own screen??
 
MoogleWizard said:
Nintendo Kart doesn't make much sense. Characters from different franchises make sense in a crossover fighting game like Smash because the characters can all have their own unique fighting styles. It doesn't work like that in a racing game. How would Samus drive a cart differently than Peach?
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Why do they need to drive differently? Give them themed karts and we'd already be have something great.

That the characters all drive similarly (beyond different character stat variations) didn't stop Sonic all stars racing transformed being damn awesome. And if sega could make a game with characters from tons of different genres combined into a racer (Including but not limited to :
Sonic (Various animals, Platformer), Monkey Ball (Monkeys, Puzzle platformer), Jet Set Radio (Humans, Action platformer) Crazy Taxi, (Arcade Racer), Golden Axe (2d hack n'n slash), Skies of Arcadia (Sky pirate Vyse human, JRPG) Space Channel 5 (Rhythm Game)

then nintendo really has no excuse. Certainly not that it "doesn't make much sense". Think about it for just a moment, we're already at Giant turtles racing with plumbers, princesses and Apes. Sense was lost a long time ago.
 
jakomocha said:
I'm so hyped! At the same time, I'm disappointed at how poorly they've implemented the gamepad. I mean seriously, how could they make the gamepad mirror the TV in local multiplayer rather than give it its own screen??
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Is that seriously how it works? Oh man, that's dumb. That's really really really dumb.
 
Stannis Baratheon said:
The only disappointing things in general are the character and track rosters, as many have said, but I'd gladly pay $10 for a new track and new characters. I hope Nintendo gets on that.


Would love to see Daisy Cruiser and DK Mountain in HD.
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Even as someone who's generally very much against DLC, I'd definitely consider buying some for MK as well, but for ~£10 I'd want at least two new cups, or one new cup and four battle arenas, plus six-to-eight new characters. The game is valued at £40, so £10 DLC would have to contain at least 25% of what the game offers.
 
ThisOne said:
You could have franchise specific items. Like for instance, Samus could run over a item box and it might let her use the ice beam to freeze a kart in front of her.
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They already did that on GameCube. I never really liked the unique powerups, and it would require tons and tons of balancing from Nintendo.
 
That Eurogamer review was in love with the game. I haven't seen a review like that in a while

I just want to listen to MK64 RR remix and Moo Moo Meadows Remix while actually playing the game

You know a company's confident about their game when the review embargo is so much earlier than the release
coughcough
 
jakomocha said:
I'm so hyped! At the same time, I'm disappointed at how poorly they've implemented the gamepad. I mean seriously, how could they make the gamepad mirror the TV in local multiplayer rather than give it its own screen??
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My guess would be:

1) Because they want everyone looking at the TV

2) Because of performance issues - supposedly 2-player splitscreen is 60fps, but 4-player isn't, so they're on the edge of performance with the 2-player split already, at half the resolution for each player. If you made one player have the whole TV and another player the whole gamepad, that would mean one player had the full single player res, and the other player would have the full gamepad res. This would be much more demanding than the splitscreen, so perhaps they were struggling to maintain 60 like this. And I think overall, it's less demanding on the Wii U to simply mirror the main screen. I'm sure it gives them a fair bit more power to work with for the main screen if they don't have to render anything different for the gamepad.
 
Synth said:
It deserved to be tbh. Coming off SMK, giving MK64 a 64 is generous imo. It's easily the worst Mario Kart, and one of the worst of its kind. They may as well have just shipped it with Block Fort and called it a day, because racing in that game was ridiculous.
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I'm not sure if 64 as a score is GENEROUS per se. MK64 at the time was an amazingly fun game. I'll admit I was ten years old of course.

SMK I never really played more than a little bit. Rented a few times. Never bought. Didn't really catch on. MK64 became more of a staple.

That said, ever since Double Dash I've felt that 64 is...outclassed.

After playing the likes of DD, DS, MK Wii and MK7, the N64 game is just not particularly fun anymore. Skill aside, the controls don't feel great. The tracks aren't anything special and even the longer ones that I used to love (Wario Stadium, Rainbow Road) are just boring. And, obviously, the visuals are iffy. Not for the time but now? Yeesh.

It's so weird to know how many people downright hated the likes of Double Dash and MK Wii. To me, both of these games felt great to play and had great tracks. They're probably my favorite games in the series (console bias) and make me never want to touch 64 again other than for the occasional nostalgia trip. Not even the battle mode in that game is as fun as it was back in the 90's when the experience was fresh. MK64 doesn't hold up, period. It has aged very poorly.
jakomocha said:
I'm so hyped! At the same time, I'm disappointed at how poorly they've implemented the gamepad. I mean seriously, how could they make the gamepad mirror the TV in local multiplayer rather than give it its own screen??
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It's already been addressed in multiple discussions. The consensus is that the game probably fell below Nintendo's standard for performance when the last screen was used in multi.

Believe me, it's a feature pretty much everyone agrees would have been great. Other games have implemented it, too, such as Sonic All Stars Racing, though again with noticeable performance drops that Sega was likely okay with but Nintendo wasn't.
 
Berordn said:
MK8's lack of character variety seems to be forced by a deadline while acclimating to and creating assets for HD development rather than choice. Even MK7 featured more varied and unique characters and that's a game we can tell was rushed. They might be grasping for straws with Pink Gold Peach, but it's an easy character to make when you can just copy Peach's model over add a shiny texture to it.

If they're making the games the same way, turning it into Nintendo Kart won't automatically turn the roster into 30 unique and distinctly varied characters - if anything it'd limit the roster further with a release date looming and their console floundering.
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Lmao this is a joke post right?
 
EloquentM said:
So to compensate the pull "lulz HD development problems" out of their ass. Interesting.
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There's no battle arenas, besides the Koopalings all the other characters are Mario staples, featured elsewhere in the game or retextures of another character.

It's really not much of a stretch to say that there was an 11th hour crunch and the roster took the brunt of the hit.
 
Wow, i can't remember when the last time was I was this hyped for a game (let alone two with smash releasing this year!) the fact this game looks and sounds incredible couples with the fact nintendo is giving me a second game for free (I'll be picking up pikmin 3 as I got the wind waker edition wii u and since I got Mario 3D world, NSMBU doesn't interest me)

SO HYPED!!!!!
 
Berordn said:
There's no battle arenas, besides the Koopalings all the other characters are Mario staples, featured elsewhere in the game or retextures of another character.

It's really not much of a stretch to say that there was an 11th hour crunch and the roster took the brunt of the hit.
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I'm pretty sure the roster is meant to be left open for DLC opportunity.


Kong Pack
Diddy Kong, Dixie Kong, Cranky Kong, Funky Kong + DK Ice Forest (new track) and Wii DK Snowboard Cross

Baddie Pack
Dry Bowser, Spike, Chargin' Chuck, Meowser + Bowser's Tower (new track) and SNES Bowser Castle 2

Yoshi Pack
Baby Yoshi, Kamek, Birdo, Rainbow Yoshi + Kamek's Carpet Ride (new track) and GBA Yoshi Desert

etc
 
Wouldn't Nintendo have already announced DLC, though? How long before Mario Golf released did they talk about the DLC?
 
The "character pack" idea makes sense. Nintendo could make a lot of money off of that approach. The suckers would buy all that DLC up.

In this case, I'd honestly have no problem being a sucker though.

Plinko said:
Wouldn't Nintendo have already announced DLC, though? How long before Mario Golf released did they talk about the DLC?
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It's entirely possible that they're waiting until release or, at the earliest, E3.

To be honest if there's DLC planned I'd probably prefer to announce it when some of the hype has died down. That way you basically bring the hype back up again.

It's like, you want to maintain the audiences interest both before and after release. Keep people talking as the new developments actually come to fruition.
 
MoogleWizard said:
Nintendo Kart doesn't make much sense. Characters from different franchises make sense in a crossover fighting game like Smash because the characters can all have their own unique fighting styles. It doesn't work like that in a racing game. How would Samus drive a cart differently than Peach?
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This is ... this is just dumb, I'm sorry. It's like asking why Jeff Gordon would be a better or worse driver than Dale Jr. or why Danica Patrick is better than soandso. Diff. drivers have different mindsets/abilities/reactions/plans/strategies etc etc etc... I mean this would appear to be common sense.
 
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