Video Game / Mario Kart

"Mario Kart, here we go!"

"Welcome to Mario Kart!"

— The man in red himself, Mario Kart 64^note The Japanese version has a crowd of children shouting "Mario Kart!"

Mario Kart is a successful series of go-kart video games developed by Nintendo as a series of spin-offs from their trademark and highly successful Mario series of platformer adventure-style video games. Starting on the SNES, the series has graced every subsequent Nintendo console and handheld with at least one installment, with the exception of the Virtual Boy and the Game Boy Color (portable Mario Karts started appearing with the Game Boy Advance).

Unlike more serious racing game series such as Daytona USA, Gran Turismo, Forza, or even Need for Speed, Mario Kart isn't just about driving technique, but mixes things up with items that racers can obtain from item boxes, while the tracks themselves can have a significant number of obstacles and hazards such as enemies from the Super Mario Bros. series of games. The series is credited for kicking off the subgenre of Mascot Racers beginning with the 1990s, as other companies have often imitated the concept with their own mascots to varying degrees of success, with notable competition like Crash Team Racing, Sonic & All-Stars Racing: Transformed, and Nickelodeon Kart Racers.

As the name implies, the games draw major inspiration from the Mario platformers. Racers are characters like Mario, Luigi, Peach, Daisy, Yoshi, Wario, Waluigi, Donkey Kong, Toad and even Bowser, items are Koopa shells and mushrooms, and stages often visit major locales like Bowser's Castle or a haunted mansion.

Aside from racing for the finish line, all games in the series have also feature a Battle Mode, where the players drive around in a fixed area and attempt to burst each other's balloons with items or hunt for coins or Shine Sprites (from Sunshine).

Games in this series

Main Series

• Super Mario Kart (SNES, 1992): The original. Has 8 characters and 20 courses, organized into 4 cups with 5 tracks each. Uses "Mode 7" for its graphics, so all the courses are completely flat save for some rare obstacles.
• Mario Kart 64 (Nintendo 64, 1996): First use of actual 3D, and set the standards for much of the series: it organized its 16 courses into 4 cups with 4 tracks each, established the usual eight-character starting roster,^note Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, Peach, Bowser, DK, Toad, and Wario. Super used DK Jr. and Koopa Troopa instead of DK and Wario. and introduced Mirror Mode (known as "Extra" mode in this game).
• Mario Kart: Super Circuit (Game Boy Advance, 2001): Has 8 characters again and 20 new courses, 5 cups with 4 courses each. Went back to the Mode 7 flat courses due to the GBA's hardware limitations. It also includes all the courses from Super (reordered into 5 cups of 4), beginning the tradition of including a set of retro courses to match the new ones. The only main installment developed by Intelligent Systems, the people that brought you Paper Mario and Fire Emblem.
• Mario Kart: Double Dash!! (Nintendo GameCube, 2003): Features two characters per kart — one driver, one "gunner", allowing the player to stock two items simultaneously and swap characters at will. It also returns to the standard 16 courses arranged in 4 cups, but does not include any retro courses (instead, it features a unique All-Cup Tour where racers go through all 16 existing tracks). The first game to allow players to pick their drivers and kart separately, as well as having the first unlockable characters for a total of 20 (one being Toadette, who makes her debut here), and character-specific "special" items. It's also rather famous for its pre-order bonus disc.
• Mario Kart DS (Nintendo DS, 2005): Has 12 characters with 3 karts apiece; and 32 courses — 16 new courses and 16 returning. Also marks a landmark in Nintendo history as being the company's first foray into online multiplayer gaming.^note At least internationally; the Japanese release of Pokémon Crystal had online battling as well. A special mode exclusive to this game, Mission Mode, has the player meeting special objectives in the tracks, including boss battles.
• Mario Kart Wii (Wii, 2008): Has 24 characters plus the player's Mii and, again, 32 courses in four new cups and four retro cups. It allows a massive 12 characters on the track at once, features a selection of motorbikes in addition to the usual karts, a "Wii Wheel" attachment for motion-control steering, and fully-featured online multiplayer.
• Mario Kart 7 (Nintendo 3DS, 2011): Has 16 characters plus your Mii and the now-standard 32 courses (16 old/16 new), but races are reduced back to 8 racers at once (likely due to the 3DS being unable to handle 12 players). Courses now include underwater racing and launch ramps for gliding through the air, and the player can fully customize their kart with individual selections of driver, chassis, wheels, and glider. Co-developed by Retro Studios (the people who brought you Metroid Prime and Donkey Kong Country Returns), and includes the same improved online features from Mario Kart Wii.
• Mario Kart 8 (Wii U, 2014): Has 36 characters including Miis and DLC. The base game also features the usual 32 courses in 8 cups, split evenly between old and new; but DLC adds 4 additional four-course cups (7 old courses, 9 new) for a total of 48 courses. The bikes and 12-character races from Wii and the gliding and underwater mechanics from 7 return, as well as introducing ATVs and a new anti-gravity mechanic. Features crossover characters Link from The Legend of Zelda and Isabelle and the Villager from Animal Crossing as DLC. 200cc is introduced as a fourth speed class, pushing the race to breakneck speeds. amiibo support is introduced, which unlocks cosmetic themed costumes for Miis — including Sonic the Hedgehog, Mega Man, and Pac-Man.
  • Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (Nintendo Switch, 2017): An Updated Re-release of Mario Kart 8, with the main feature being an improved Battle Mode after the original 8's was scaled back. Deluxe also includes all of 8's DLC on the game card, rebalancing of characters and karts, the ability to carry two items at once, a brand-new third level of mini-turbo boost, and an expanded roster of 42 characters including the Inklings from Splatoon. It later received its own DLC expansion in 2022-2023, featuring 3 new tracks and 45 more returning tracks (including all but one introduced in Tour) thereby doubling the total track count to 96, as well as eight new characters for a roster of 50.

• Mario Kart Tour (iOS and Android, 2019): A mobile entry in the series with simplified controls and gacha elements for acquiring characters and karts. It also features new tracks based on real-world locations like New York City, Tokyo, and Paris. It features "tours" which change in a biweekly basis, consisting numerous cups with three courses and a bonus challenge stage. It would ultimately receive 265 characters and 103 tracks, including 72 classic courses from Super through 7, 10 "Remix" courses (new layouts using elements from Super), and 21 brand-new ones (14 world cities and 7 others, with three being Early-Bird Cameo from 8 Deluxe's DLC).

Mario Kart Arcade GP (developed by Bandai Namco Entertainment)

• Mario Kart Arcade GP (Arcade, 2005): Features 11 characters including Namco mainstays such as Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, and Blinky. Features a card system for saving data such as Time Attack times and saving powerups, but only on select cabs.
• Mario Kart Arcade GP 2 (Arcade, 2007): An Updated Re-release of the first arcade title. Has 13 characters, the 11 original plus Waluigi and Mametchi. It also features four new tracks in addition to the original ones. This was also Namco's first crossover with Bandai after the companies merged in 2006.
• Mario Kart Arcade GP DX (Arcade, 2013): A new arcade game featuring a single-player Grand Prix, co-op, and a "Clone Battle" mode. Features 20 characters, including Don Chan from the Taiko no Tatsujin series. Also includes the gliders from Mario Kart 7. The Japanese version has support for Namco's Banapassport card system, for saving player data online. Strangely, this is the only Mario Kart game in the whole series not to have a Time Trial mode.
• Mario Kart Arcade GP VR (Arcade, 2017): A Virtual Reality-based release, using HTC Vive headsets and controllers. There are only 4 playable characters,^note Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Yoshi one for each arcade cabinet. Players race on a lengthy single-lap course, consisting of a variety of themes, such as Piranha Plant-infested grasslands, Bowser's Castle, and Peach's Castle.

Other

• Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit (Nintendo Switch, 2020): An augmented reality version of the game that uses remote-controlled toy cars that are wirelessly connected to the console, allowing players to experience a Mario Kart race as if were happening in their own living rooms.
• Mario Kart: Bowser's Challenge: A theme park ride at Super Nintendo World. It is an AR-augmented dark ride with gallery shooter elements, in which riders must fight off Bowser's minions while helping Team Mario win a race against Team Bowser. This ride is currently available several Universal Parks, namely both Universal Studios Japan and Hollywood, with additional locations at Singapore and Epic Universe under-construction.

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The series features examples of these tropes:

# - C

• Adventurous Irish Violins: Moo Moo Meadows from Wii and 8.
• A.I. Breaker: Simply giving the AI even more speed beyond 150cc in 8's 200cc class breaks them. Since the AI is not programmed to use the brakes, they'll attempt to use their usual methods of turning and drifting, which will cause them to either slam into the walls or go flying off the track. Not the case in 8 Deluxe, where not only do they handle the speed better, they take advantage of every opportunity they have.
• All in a Row:
  • The limited AI of early installments generally kept the AI in a close pack and following almost the exact same path each lap, to the point where a map display looks like they're following the leader like you'd see in an RPG (it is especially noticeable when attempting to catch up after getting taken out by, say, a Spiny Shell). You can even decide which AI to harass just by where you drop your items.
  • Later installments give the AI much more variety, especially in Mario Kart 7, where if the track offers alternate paths, the AI will regularly split up between them.
• Always Night: Ghost Valley 1-3, Toad's Turnpike, Frappe Snowland, N64 and DS Wario Stadium (the latter does take place during the daytime in 8, however), Banshee Boardwalk, Boo Lake, Broken Pier, GCN Sherbet Land, Luigi's Mansion (both the track in DS, 7 and Tour and battle arena in Double Dash!!), Mushroom City, Wario Colosseum, Mario Kart Stadium, Moonview Highway, Music Park, Rosalina's Ice World, Twisted Mansion, the winter version of Animal Crossing, Rainbow Road from Double Dash!!, 8's remakes of the N64 and SNES Rainbow Road (which unlike other Rainbow Roads, all take place in the night sky of a city instead of space), New York Minute, Vancouver Velocity, Merry Mountain, Ninja Hideaway, Singapore Speedway and Rome Avanti.
• Amazing Technicolor Battlefield: Trope Codifier. Rainbow Road in every game. A psychedelic race across a wafer-thin track. Always set in space (or, in a few cases, the skies above some metropolis), always the hardest track of the game (except in 64's case, where it's completely railed on both sides, and only has the odd, easily-avoidable Chain Chomp roaming the extremely long track), and most have few railings to protect you from falling off into thin air.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • In 8, finishing a Grand Prix in 150cc now also counts as finishing the same set of races in 50cc or 100cc, awarding you the appropriate trophy and stars for all three engine classes—no more wasting time completing Grand Prix again in 50cc and 100cc just for 100% Completion (Mirror Mode and 200cc don't count, however. You still have to go through them separately)!
    • Also, for the more average players, if you complete races in 100cc, you also get trophies and stars in 50cc as well.
  • Usually, you cannot collect an item if you already have one, but if you collect an item box just before a Piranha Plant item runs out, you still get the new item. When you throw a boomerang, it doesn't count as having the item while it's in the air, so another item can be collected in its place.
  • Arcade GP DX will activate an auto-accelerate mode if it doesn't detect any pedal input for the first few seconds of a race. This is useful for children and those whose disabilities prevent them from operating foot pedals, as well as if you get stuck with a cabinet with a non-functional gas pedal.
• Anti-Grinding: In 8, the amount of VR you obtain in online races is directly affected by how much the others racers have. If you have less than theirs, you'll obtain far more points even if you didn't finish in first place, though the reverse can also happen, forcing you to look for others with a large amount of VR.
• Announcer Chatter: The second and third arcade games feature an announcer who comments on the race. He doesn't appear in any of the main games.
• Anthropomorphic Food: The bananas have smiley faces on them, suggesting that they're sentient.
• Arc Number: Eight pops up a lot in 8. There's the Crazy 8 item, the Mach 8 kart, it's used as the default racer symbol, various courses containing 8's in their map, Miis are always the eighth character unlocked...
• Arc Symbol: The track maps in 8 often feature the number "8" somehow. The version of Mario Circuit for that game and Toad's Turnpike are shaped like an 8, and 8's Rainbow Road, N64 Yoshi's Valley, and the returning N64 Rainbow Road all have 8's in their design.
• Arrange Mode:
  • In all but two entries, players will be able to unlock a fourth racing class aside from 50cc, 100cc and 150cc: Mirror Mode, starting with Mario Kart 64 (in which the class was referred to as Extra instead). Mirror Mode is essentially 150cc, but with the tracks flipped horizontally.
  • Tour uses about 10 or so courses multiple times in each tour, so it introduces a few variants of each to keep things fresh. "R" versions are a Level in Reverse, "T" versions add several jumps and elevated portions, and "R/T" courses are both at once.
• Art Evolution: The graphics steadily grow better with home console release. There is a big jump with 8, the first HD game. Just compare the original Royal Raceway◊ with the high-def◊ remake.◊
• Artifact Title: Downplayed. While the series still features go-karts, they're no longer the only form of vehicle in the series and hadn't been since Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, with the vehicle roster now consisting of various types of cars, ATVs, and motorbikes.
• Artificial Brilliance:
  • In DS, the AI actually seems to know that if it puts a Banana Peel or fake item box on the loop-the-loop or the corkscrew in Rainbow Road, there's no chance you'll survive. The AI in the games after 64 seemed to have known about using items as shields and even tries to drop banana peels right in your path if you were close to them. They're still very prone to cheating, though.
  • By 7, the AI has learned to block items perfectly and even fire them backwards at the perfect time to hit you. The AI is even smart enough to use shortcuts when they have the item needed to reach them. Heck, on higher difficulties on 7, if a Spiny Shell is homing in on them and you're not too far behind, they may even try to veer in front of you to take you out with them, a tactic commonly employed by human players.
  • In 8, they're even smart enough to utilize the shortcuts on a track if they have a Mushroom on hand, and the Spiny Shell tactic from 7 has been expanded upon so that, if they're in 1st and you're nearby in 2nd, they will notice when another player has launched a Spiny Shell, and let you pass them until the Spiny Shell is close enough to decide on its target.
• Artificial Stupidity:
  • In the early games, the AI is pretty stupid and naturally handicapped... But they manage to provide a challenge by speeding. In 64, for instance, computer opponents will throw banana peels ahead of themselves and immediately slip on them, but catch up to you by means of Rubber-Band A.I.. The AI in 8 aren't even programmed to use the brakes, which leads them crashing into walls and flying off the track on the 200cc difficulty a lot.
  • In Super Mario Kart, the AI in Bowser Castle 2 seem to suddenly break at the final jump before the finish line. They keep grinding against the wall which screws up their momentum and causes them to fall into the lava at least half the time.
  • In Mario Circuit 2 from the same game, sometimes, one particular AI racer will always fail the long jump, grind on the wall, give up and have to go the long way around to try again. Then fail the jump repeatedly.
  • In Wii within team VS races. AIs will still try to throw red shells ahead of them even if they and any other teammates are frontrunning (assuming the AI throwing the shell isn't already in 1st). Since there is no friendly fire, the red shell flies past them without hitting an enemy racer.^note Typically the red shell will break before it wraps around the course, but by the time that happens, if ever due to things like a gap or cannon, the racers will have already moved beyond that part of the course.
• Ascended Extra:
  • Lakitu becomes playable in 7 and 8 after spending the rest of the series as an NPC.
  • Also, Shy Guy was promoted from a character used only in Download Play Mode in DS to a fully-playable character in 7 and 8.
  • This trope is played with in the case of Wiggler, who was originally a final boss character for Mario Kart DS and an obstacle on Maple Treeway in Mario Kart Wii before he finally shrunk down and he got himself a kart for Mario Kart 7. (Funnily enough, that Wii track is included in 7.) Then he gets demoted to an ATV in Mario Kart 8
  • The Honey Queen had previously only appeared in a few stages of the Super Mario Galaxy games before making her first (and only) playable appearance in 7.
  • Metal Mario was originally just a power-up form in Super Mario 64; the only times he's been a separate character before 7 was in the original Mario Golf and as a stubborn mid-boss in Super Smash Bros.. He also returns in 8.
  • Dry Bowser was absent in 7 and got demoted to a background object in Bone Dry Dunes in 8. Then the second DLC pack came around and he's back!
  • Bowser Jr., Dry Bones and King Boo return to the franchise as playable characters in 8 Deluxe after being absent in 7 and the former two only doing cameos in the Wii U version of 8.
• Ascended Meme:
  • Luigi's memetic Death Stare from 8 has been officially acknowledged several times, appearing in trailers, Nintendo's E3 2014 event, and even Luigi's amiibo video.
  • In the Mute City DLC track in 8, one of the signs shows Captain Falcon saying "Show me your moves!"
• Astral Finale: Rainbow Road is always the final track and usually appears in space.
• Author Appeal: Yoshi Circuit from Double Dash!! featured heavily in advertisements for said game, was one of the first retro tracks remade, was the first DLC course, and makes a cameo in the background of the revamped GBA Ribbon Road. The reason for all this is because it's Shigeru Miyamoto's personal favorite course.
• Awesome, but Impractical:
  • The Beast Glider in 7 and the Golden Glider in 7 and 8 are flashy, but are just a reskinned Super Glider. The Golden Tires are also pretty, but their stats are worse than the Slick Wheels, and the Golden Kart's stats are worse than the Soda Jet. What's worse, all of the golden parts and the Beast Glider take an extremely long time to earn.
  • The Spiny Shell. It is always satisfying to deliver karma to the racer in first place, but you would have to be so far behind in the race to even get one that knocking out the first place racer will very rarely ever help the racer who threw the Spiny Shell in any significant way.
• Badass Biker: Peach, Daisy, Rosalina and Pauline when they ride bikes or ATVs, as they use body-clinging suits when riding them as opposed to their usual dresses. This however is justified because riding a bike with those dresses on would be very impractical.
• Banana Peel: One of the standard items since the first game. It was the special item of Donkey Kong Jr. in the first game, and a giant variation thereof was the special item of Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong in Double Dash.
• Bat Family Crossover: Double Dash!! was the first Mario spinoff to integrate the Donkey Kong Country cast into the extended Mario cast, as it included Diddy Kong. Funky Kong later joined in Wii. 7 also holds a track that's dedicated to Donkey Kong Country Returns (it returns in 8).
• Batman Can Breathe in Space:
  • In 8, the background Toads on Rainbow Road need spacesuits, but the racers don't.
  • Another space related oddity is the use of gliders in space, which need air resistance to work.
  • Also present in 7 onwards, with the underwater sections where the racers don't seem to have any trouble breathing. Interestingly, in 8, there are Toads wearing scuba gear in the underwater sections of Dolphin Shoals, while the racers, including Toad, get along just fine.
• Battle Boomerang: The Boomerang Flower appears as an item in Mario Kart 8, which allows players to throw up to three boomerangs when they get it.
• Berserk Button: Wiggler, as expected, will turn red and fly into a rage if he's ever hit by an item.
• Big Boo's Haunt: The series has several racetracks set within either haunted piers or Ghost Houses. In piers, the tracks are made of wood and lack railings, so all drivers must tackle the corners with extreme caution to avoid falling into the water. The spooky tracks that have appeared in the series are:
  • Super Mario Kart - Ghost Valley 1, 2, and 3.
  • Mario Kart 64 - Banshee Boardwalk.
  • Mario Kart: Super Circuit - Boo Lake and Broken Pier.
  • Mario Kart: Double Dash!! - Luigi's Mansion (battle course).
  • Mario Kart DS - Luigi's Mansion (race track) and Twilight House (battle course).
  • Mario Kart Wii - re-uses Super Mario Kart's Ghost Valley 2, and DS' Twilight House.
  • Mario Kart 7 - re-uses Luigi's Mansion from DS.
  • Mario Kart 8 - Twisted Mansion. The Switch version brings back Luigi's Mansion from Double Dash!! as a retro battle course and Boo Lake from Super Circuit in the Booster Course Pass.
  • Tour has retro haunted tracks (SNES Ghost Valley 1 & 2, RMX Ghost Valley 1, GBA Boo Lake, DS Luigi's Mansion and Twilight House).
• Bland-Name Product:
  • Those Jumbo Jets you see at Sunshine Airport are not Boeing 747s.
  • The Japanese version of 64 features parody ads of real products. Namely Luigip (Agip gasoline), Yoshi1 (Mobil1 oil), Marioro (Marlboro cigarettes), Koopa Air (Good Year tires), and the orange 64 ball (Union 76 gasoline). Due to possible legal issues (and to avoid promoting cigarettes), these were all changed outside of Japan.
• Bootstrapped Theme: Four of the bars from the SNES game's title theme have been remixed into every other title themes of the series, thus, making these four bars the de facto theme of the series.
• Boring, but Practical:
  • The unlockable gliders aside from Beast and Gold in 7 and 8 are less cool looking but increase your acceleration.
  • Banana peels are as plain as they can get and they only cause other drivers to spin out when they run over one, but strategic placement of the peels can turn the race in your favor.
  • Trailing shells and bananas behind you rather than simply deploying them helps serve as useful Single Use Shields against some rear attacks.
• Bottomless Pit Rescue Service: Falling into a pit results in a Lakitu pulling you back onto the stage, but with a major loss in time, position, or coins.
• Bottomless Pits: Fairly often, though averted in 8.
• Bowdlerization
  • In the Japanese version of Super Mario Kart, if placed 1st overall in the Mario Kart GP, Bowser and Peach actually drink the champagne (though it's clear that the latter is a lightweight in more than one sense of the word).
  • The Japanese 64 featured an ad that parodied Marlboro cigarettes. This ad was replaced with a generic "Mario Star" ad for international releases.
  • In the Japanese version of Super Circuit, the Shy Guys that lived on Sunset Wilds wore feathered headdresses and lived in tipis. The headdresses were removed outside of Japan, likely because it was an offensive stereotype of Native Americans. In Tour, the Shy Guys are miners and live in tents.
• Bragging Rights Reward:
  • Starting with 64, beating the Extra/Mirror Special Cup unlocks a new title screen. ^note In Mario Kart 64, mirror mode was known as "Extra" and mirrored left/right on every track, plus it reversed the direction of the vehicles on Toad's Turnpike. In Super Circuit, there was no mirror mode, but there was a completely different "Extra" mode that consisted of Nostalgia Levels from the original and was unlocked through a method nobody would think to do without looking it up or asking someone who has. To get all extra cups on one engine class (with the method being the same with each class), every cup has to have a gold trophy and the cups have to be done over again with the coin total at the end being at least 100; fortunately, getting another gold trophy is not a requirement (anywhere from fourth up when just playing through them to get the extra cup equivalent is OK). Beating the 150cc Extra Special Cup unlocked the first new title screen, and achieving a three-star rank on every cup unlocked the second. In Double Dash!!, there is a secret bonus cup known as the All-Cup Tour, consisting of every single track in the game, which unlocks Mirror Mode in the first place, which when beaten on Mirror along with the standalone cups unlocks a secret kart and the new title screen. DS, Wii, 7 and 8 require 150cc to be beaten to unlock Mirror, but otherwise don't have any ridiculous methods of unlocking the new title screen.
  • Mii Outfit B in Wii is just a special costume for Miis to wear. It offers no benefits over Mii Outfit A. Similarly, amiibo figures can be used to unlock new racing suits for your Mii in 8 based on Mario, Luigi, Peach, Yoshi, Donkey Kong, Link, Captain Falcon, Kirby, Samus, and Fox. The second round of these costumes include Bowser, Rosalina, Toad, Wario, Olimar, Villager, Mega Man, Sonic, and Pac-Man. In 8 Deluxe, a whole slew of Mii outfits from Tour were added along with the final wave of DLC.
  • The golden parts in 7 and 8 are mostly for show, as they have no major bonuses and are comparable to stats of other available parts.
  • Purchasing both DLC packs in 8 offers different colored Yoshis and Shy Guys as a bonus. They're only a cosmetic Palette Swap, though.
• The Cameo:
  • A Blue and Yellow Toad appear as floats in 7's Toad Circuit. They also are the poster characters for the Two-player Online feature in 8 (and can sometimes be seen floating in space in the online play menus, along with a Green Toad). They previously appeared in New Super Mario Bros. Wii and Super Mario 3D Land.
  • If you race as your Mii in Wii, various statues and posters will be replaced with Miis from the Mii Channel (so for instance, your Mii will appear on a statue of Mario in DK Summit, or on billboards in Moonview Highway). On select tracks, like Coconut Mall, your Miis will appear on posters even if you are not playing as your own Mii. Miis also appear as spectators in both Wii and 7.
  • Rally-X, a Pooka, and a Galaga flagship appear as special items for the Pac-Man characters in Arcade GP.
  • The Namco Circuit from GP DX goes out of its way to have sprites and illustrations from classic arcade games, including the above mentioned three as well as The Tower of Druaga, Galaxian, and Mappy, all a Shout-Out to Ridge Racer series.
  • Saint Elimine shows up in the Double Dash!! bonus disc to facilitate the transfer of some items to Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade. Bear in mind that this is a character who doesn't even actually appear in her own games, the aforementioned Blazing Blade as well as Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade.
  • Various F-Zero racers and their machines show up on billboards in Mute City. Captain Falcon himself appears on a screen to deliver a message to the racers.
  • Several villagers from the Animal Crossing series appear on the sidelines in the course based on their series.
• Canon Discontinuity: The Arcade GP titles tend to be ignored by Nintendo and are largely not acknowledged in anything Mario Kart related, with none of the other entries featuring tracks or characters original to the arcade games. This is most likely due to Bandai Namco being the developers of the games as opposed to Nintendo.
• Car Fu:
  • Battle modes are generally like this. So are many of the boss battles in the Mission Mode in DS.
  • Heavy characters are more skilled in this set... Heavy characters don't need a weapon to knock opponents off road. Even in battle mode in most games, a heavy character going at full speed can damage their opponent if they hit them from the correct angle. However, any character that slams into an opponent with a boost item (such as a mushroom) will deal damage (and even flat-out steal a balloon).
• Cartoon Cheese: Cheese Land (naturally) from Super Circuit is an entire racecourse made entirely out of it, complete with Cheesy Moon and Little Mousers running around.
  • It returns in 8, but it now looks like a canyon made of cheese.
• Character Class System: Each game divides up the racers into a few different categories, which affect their performance, and in Double Dash!! and Wii, which karts they could use. Wii used size-based categories, but all other games have used weight-based categories instead. Likewise, 7 and 8 divided characters up into five different categories instead of the usual three. Tour(being a gacha game) used rarity categories instead.
• Character Customization: While every game varied racers' abilities depending on their weight/size category, Double Dash!! truly began using this trope, introducing the ability to choose between different karts for each character, and allowing players to mix and match pairs of racers, granting access to different special items. Subsequent games dropped the two-racer gimmick, but kept the option for different karts. Wii tried varying up characters within each size category by giving them unique stat boosts, but the idea was abandoned in later games. Starting with 7, the karts themselves can now be customized, with different options for the chassis, wheels, and glider.
• Cheerful Child: Toad, Toadette, and the babies. Lemmy acts like one. Small Miis can also look the part.
• Chest Insignia: The series has used a vehicle variant since DS, with each kart having two or three places on it for the driver's personal emblem. Each playable character has their own icon (e.g. Mario's trademark red "M"), and DS itself even let players design their own custom symbol, although the custom icons were removed in all later games due to the staggering number of crude and/or offensive images people created. (VG Cats sums up the mentality here.)
• Chrome Champion: Metal Mario, Silver Robo Mario, and Pink Gold Peach.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Whenever a character does not appear in the very next game after one they did, but a very notable one is Waluigi, who was in every game since Double Dash before not getting into 7. The game even has Waluigi's stage from DS, Waluigi Pinball.
• Clockworks Area: Tick Tock Clock in DS and 8 takes place in a giant Clock Tower where the racers drive on shifting gears and clock faces and have to avoid pendulums and clock hands.
• Collision Damage:
  • If one racer hits another and the one crashing is significantly heavier than the one being hit, they'll simply knock the lighter kart aside.
  • While under the effect of a Super Star, any opponents you collide with will be knocked into the air.
• Color-Coded Characters:
  • The playable Lakitu in 7 has a red shell. The usual announcer Lakitu has a green shell.
  • Players are assigned different colored balloons in Battle Mode to help sort them out. The teams themselves are divided into red and blue, but starting from Wii, individual characters' balloons can vary. These rules also extend to VS. team racing.
  • In single cartridge multiplayer mode for Super Circuit, each player uses a differently-colored Yoshi. Similarly, Download Play for DS and 7 assigns a differently-colored Shy Guy to each player.
• Comeback Mechanic: The series has been giving out more powerful items to racers falling behind since the start. This also applies to Battle Mode.
• Company Cameo: The Mario Kart series has many advertisements and banners strewn across its tracks, and this often includes banners for Nintendo themselves. They have a particular prevalence in circuits and raceways (though they're by no means exclusive to them); among others, they've had ads in Luigi Raceway and Mario Raceway in 64, Luigi Circuit in Double Dash!!, Luigi Circuit and N64 Mario Raceway in Wii, and Toad Circuit in 7.
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: The cheating is so bad it has its own sub-page.
  "Don't you know? 'CC' in Mario Kart refers to 'Cheating Capacity'. On 50cc, they have a much lower cheating capacity than on 150cc, where everyone but you is hacking to go max speed all the time."
  —Post on VGF on the cheatsy AI in Mario Kart.
  • In Super Mario Kart, while the AI can crash into walls if you make it happen, course obstacles do not apply to them as they will simply jump over the obstacle without the use of a Feather item. Any racer you brush up against can also continuously use a certain item (depending on the character) infinitely. To top it off, some of them have access to items you can never get.^note The only one of real interest is the Poison Mushroom used by Princess (Peach) and Toad, which shrinks anyone that strikes it ala a Lightning item. The other two exclusive items, Yoshi's Egg and Bowser's Fireball, are just over-glorified Bananas, though the latter of the two items spins in circles slightly.
  • In 64, your rival computers will constantly be on your tail, and eventually pass you if you can't constantly hit them with items and/or lose enough speed to let them pass you. Hit them with a banana peel, shell, or fake block and they'll be back in about 10-20 seconds. Even if they pass you, they still might not slow down and will gain a huge lead (especially on courses like Kalimari Desert or Bowser's Castle). If you take an ultra shortcut like on Rainbow Road that skips 1/3 of the track, expect them to speed up unrealistically and catch you.
  • Wii is even worse. Rubber-banding in speed is still present, although less obvious, but the computer constantly gets the Spiny Shell and can and will nail you with it. If not that, then expect Bob-ombs or Red Shells to screw you over, followed by getting railroaded by the other drivers as you try to recover, knocking your placing further down, especially if you're on a bridge or next to a hazard.
  • 7 adds a new dimension, thanks to the reintroduction of coins. You need 10 coins in order to max out your kart's speed and acceleration. Not so much for the CPU-controlled drivers; in the 150cc and Mirror modes, their speed and acceleration are permanently set to above your maximum speed, irrespective of how many coins they actually have or how fast their kart speed stat is supposed to be. On top of this, the A.I. now utilizes shortcuts with Mushrooms and Stars, and seems even better at shooting things at you and placing banana peels than before. This means that unless you can keep your coin count reasonably high throughout the race and/or make good use of your items, you're going to lose to a rival computer that somehow always manages to stay with you, if not worse.
• Console Cameo: There's a Battle course that takes place on a GameCube in Double Dash and one that takes place on a Nintendo DS in DS.
• Continuity Nod:
  • By making Koopa Troopa a default and leaving Wario unlockable, the starting character roster of 7 is a throwback to the character line up from Super Mario Kart (replacing Donkey Kong Jr. with his older counterpart). Similarly, the default roster of DS is identical to that of 64.
  • Some of 7's unlockable karts are ones from earlier games in the series, such as the Pipe Frame, the original kart from 64 and Super Circuit (with the single-exhaust Super Mario Kart version being available in 8 and Tour), and the Barrel Train from Double Dash!!. Tour features multiple karts and gliders from past games, including the Turbo Yoshi from Double Dash!!, the Royale from DS, and the Flame Flyer from Wii.
  • Double Dash!!'s special item per character is a nod to the special items used by the AI in Super Mario Kart.
  • Super Circuit's Rainbow Road has a nod to the original Paper Mario by having Bowser's Castle from that game in the background. This was likely because both Super Circuit and the Paper Mario games came from Nintendo's Intelligent Systems division instead of Nintendo EAD.
  • The drivers from 64 make the Pipe Frame match the color they originally used in 64. Koopa Troopa's Pipe Frame matches the color in Super, which is the only game before 7 that both have appeared in together.
  • N64 Luigi Raceway and SNES Rainbow Road in 7 stick to the classic formula from their respective games, as they don't have gliding or underwater driving.
  • The rival system in 7 pairs most of the drivers from Super Mario Kart with their old rival from said game.
  • Piranha Plant Slide is one big Continuity Nod to the original Super Mario Bros. The cardboard Goombas are also one to Super Mario 3D Land.
  • The Pipe Frame's design in 8 is based on the artwork from Super Mario Kart.
  • Pink Gold Peach may say "Oh, did I win?" if she comes in first. Peach also may say this if she wins in Super Smash Bros.
  • Some of the staff ghosts in 8 are references to what world the Koopalings appeared in Super Mario Bros. 3. Wendy appears in Dolphin Shoals (Sea Side), Ludwig appears in Piranha Plant Slide (Pipe Maze), Lemmy appears in Sherbet Land (Iced Land), and Morton appears in Bone-Dry Dunes (Desert Hill).
  • Sunshine Airport in 8 has several red and white feather pens on the reception desks, which look exactly like the Feather item that debuted in Super Mario Kart (which also made a comeback in 8 Deluxe).
  • A billboard in SNES Battle Course 1 in 8 Deluxe resembles the character select screen from Super.
  • In 8 Deluxe, the Koopalings color the rim of the Koopa Clown Car to match their costumes in Super Smash Bros. (red for Roy, pink for Wendy, blue for Ludwig, etc.). The same happens when they use the Landship.
• Convection, Schmonvection: Many stages (especially Bowser's Castle levels) feature tons of lava. It's only a problem if you fall in, or if you run into a spout, but even if you accidentally do so, no worries — Lakitu will fish you right out.
• Cool Bike: Motorbikes made their debut in Wii, and then returned in 8. Although there was one unlockable bike-styled kart in DS as well.
• Co-Op Multiplayer: One of the main features in Double Dash!!. Battle Mode in Wii is also like this. Also somewhat in 64, where Grand Prix supported 2 players; only one player had to place in the top 4 to move on.
• Cosmetic Award:
  • The reward for beating every cup with a one-star, two-star, or three-star rating in Wii and 7 is the appropriate number of stars next to your name on the "race Results" screen.
  • Using the motion control option for a number of races in a row in 7 and 8 awards you with a gold steering wheel, which is also displayed on the result screen.
• Creator Cameo: Staff Ghosts have been available for the purpose of beating Nintendo staff members' records in Time Trial mode in some games. In 7, staff members from Retro Studios join Nintendo EAD's staff.
• Crossover:
  • With the "Wii series", especially Wii Sports Resort, since Wuhu Island has two race tracks and a battle track in 7. Music Park also contains some nods to Wii Music.
  • Also in 7 and 8, there's DK Jungle, which is a track involving places and enemies found in Donkey Kong Country Returns. Donkey Kong himself has been playable since 64, and Diddy, Funky and Dixie have joined in at times.
  • While not to the same extent as Donkey Kong, the Wario series has also received a few nods across the franchise as the Wario Car from Wario Land and the Wario Bike from WarioWare appear in Double Dash and Wii respectively and the primary setting of WarioWare, Diamond City directly appears as a track in Arcade GP.
  • Pilotwings Resort gets a couple of nods in the Maka Wuhu track.
  • Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, and Blinky are playable in the arcade installments, as well as Mametchi the Tamagotchi and Don Chan of Taiko no Tatsujin. There are also cameos by other Bandai-Namco characters, like Pooka.
  • 8 has Link, Villager and Isabelle as DLC.
  • Sonic, Mega Man, and Pac-Man themed costumes appear in 8 by scanning the appropriate amiibo.
  • The Inkling Boy and Girl from Splatoon are racers in 8 Deluxe. A battle arena based on Urchin Underpass also appears.
• Cruise Episode: Double Dash has Daisy Cruiser, which has you race through the deck, a pool area, a dining hall with sliding tables, the bow of the ship and rinse and repeat. Daisy Cruiser returns as a retro track in 7, and it now allows you to drive through the pool. The cellar featured in Double Dash, which is just after the dining hall, has been flooded and turned into an aquarium.
• Cyberpunk: Neo Bowser City from 7, 8 and Tour, and Electrodrome from 8.
• Cyberpunk Is Techno: Both of Neo Bowser City and Electrodrome's music. They're pretty upbeat though.

D - H

• Damn You, Muscle Memory!:
  • The only difference between 150cc and Mirror is that the tracks are flipped around to invoke this, meaning you have to relearn the entire track and make left turns where you used to make right turns. It's really harder on traffic courses, since the traffic direction is reversed as well.
  • Try playing Double Dash!!, then switching to Wii while using a Gamecube controller. Be prepared for screams of rage as you look behind you instead of throwing items, fail to get the initial boost despite timing it perfectly...
  • If you're used to the playstyle of Wii or 7, prepare to be frustrated if you start to play one of the older games. There's no button to trick off ramps and you can't drive underwater.
  • Arcade GP games have you tapping the brake to drift rather than holding down a dedicated button.
  • 8 changes how items are deployed. Items that come in groups of 3 are automatically used instead of being in storage until you use it, so don't be too surprised if you got used to the older games and wind up accidentally firing off one of your triple items. Similarly, the initial version of the game only allows you to carry one item at a time, unlike every other Mario Kart game (including 8 Deluxe), where you can drag an item behind you and still pick up another one.
• Dead Character Walking: Drivers knocked out of the contest in Battle Mode can still drive around the battlefield, laying boxes, albeit invisible and intangible. Except in 64, where they instead get one more chance to drive around as a bomb, though they're out for good once they blow up another player by crashing into them.
• Death Glare: In 8, characters actually turn their heads to see the effects of the item used on their opponents. With frightening results.◊
• Death Mountain: N64 Choco Mountain and GCN DK Mountain.
• Demoted to Extra:
  • In 7, Waluigi went from being a playable character to merely being the mascot of his eponymous DS Waluigi Pinball. He's back to being a playable character in 8, curiously enough.
  • Earlier than 7, Koopa Beach appears in 64 despite Koopa Troopa not being playable, and DS has GCN Baby Park appear as a retro track (originally from Double Dash!) despite no baby characters being playable.
  • In Tour, the green shelled Lakitu doesn't appear in races at all, although he appears in loading screens giving out tips or when announcing the rank results.
• Developer's Foresight: It was discovered by the brothers who managed to successfully hack Mario Kart 8 that the replay data now tracks everything gameplay-related, be it the positions of the players, what items they're using, what the driver's doing at the time, etc. It even goes as far as to record hacks should one manage to successfully hack the game in order to cheat, allowing others to catch the cheater out, should they ever view the replay data of the one who cheated. The brothers who hacked the game speculated that it was made this way so that it can work with Mario Kart TV.
• Difficult, but Awesome:
  • The heavy karts don't recover from failure as easily as lighter karts, but avoiding error allows them to be the fastest karts in the game. Rubber-Band A.I. loves to counter this with lightweight karts that can catch up to you on straightaways.
  • The Super, Beast/Ghastly, and Gold Gliders become this, especially in Time Trials, if you know about the game's hidden stats. Due to how the hidden stats are distributed, the gliders that don't boost anything (the aforementioned Super, Beast/Ghastly, and Golden Gliders) are quite fast in the air, but lack aerial handling.
  • The Super Horn from 8 qualifies. On the Difficult side, it has a very limited range, and requires good timing. On the Awesome side, it can destroy Spiny Shells.
  • Green Shells are this in a certain sense. They don't home in on enemy racers, but they can bounce off walls up to ten times before breaking, making them ideal in tracks with plenty of walls. Oh, and they don't trigger the danger warning like Red Shells do.
• Divergent Character Evolution: While he already got hints of it back in the original Super Smash Bros. and Dr. Mario 64, Metal Mario has become his own character in 7. For example, his voice clips and mannerisms are different than Mario's. They both also suggest he's a lot cockier than Mario. In 8, when he loses a race, he says "Mia Mama" (instead of "Mama Mia") and "Papa" (instead of "Mama").
• Do Well, But Not Perfect:
  • With a combination of Golden Snitch and Rubber-Band A.I., it gives most people a sense of being punished for simply being skilled. With a big enough skill gap, however, better players can consistently win races even with the deck stacked against them.
  • Some players use this trope to their advantage by not playing their best on purpose so they can either overtake the leader with the right item at the right time or zoom ahead the rest of the pack with a powerful item if they are farther back.
  • Tour has this come up with race ranking in two ways. How many Grand Stars you get depends on the evaluation you get from performing various actions during the race. If you're far enough in the lead, you'll never get the chance to use items on opponents and you're way less likely to block items as well, both of which can be prime point-earning opportunities. Plus, the chances of getting a Frenzy (and the attendant Frenzy Action bonus that can be repeatedly spammed and combined with other actions for huge combos) depend in part on your current place, with first naturally having the lowest chance. In some of the later races in a given tour, pretty much every bonus possible needs to be wrung out of a race to get all five Grand Stars from it, and a runaway victory makes it very difficult to get those bonuses.
• Downloadable Content: 8 is the first game in the series to have it.
• Dramatic Disappearing Display: When racing online in 8, the rank display in the HUD disappears when on the last stretch of a track on its final lap, increasing suspense for close finishes.
• Dub Name Change:
  • An odd case in which the North American localization of Wii had many vehicle names different from the already-released British localization (for instance, what is known as the Bowser Bike in British English is known as the Flame Runner in American English). The same goes for tracks (which is why you might find people who refer to DK Summit as DK's Snowboard Cross, and the battle stage Chain Chomp Wheel is known as Chain Chomp Roulette).
  • This carried over into 7, as some tracks and parts have different names per language version. If a track's name appears on the track itself, though, it doesn't change (Music Park/Melody Motorway being the sole exception). This happens in 8 too, albeit only with parts and courses that had appeared in previous installments of the series.
  • Averted in Tour as the karts and courses uses their American English names for all English localizations. However, the Sprinter retains its British English name, "B Dasher Mk 2".
  • The Raceway tracks in 64 were called Circuits in the original Japanese version. This change did not occur in later installments except for Nostalgia Levels that originally had the change (e.g. N64 Luigi Raceway in 7).
• Dump Stat:
  • In DS, drift and weight. Due to the exploit of snaking, it was actually beneficial to have less drift since if you had more, you'd be turning too sharply while power sliding on straightaways. The same is said for weight, since it's combined with the "off-road" stat. The less weight you had, the faster you could go off road such as in grass or dirt. Plus, bumping into other players had no effect online. The item stat was also pretty useless, especially online where you couldn't get triple items. It was good for some courses during time trials, though, as you got more mushrooms to take shortcuts.
  • In multiple games, handling/traction is usually the least important stat because of two factors. One: All it does is increase traction on slippery maps, which comes up too infrequently online to be really useful, and two: a sufficiently skilled player can easily work around a low handling/traction stat by knowing when and how sharp to take turns with their builds traction.
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • Hits Super Mario Kart, 64, and Super Circuit. Items in particular behave much differently in these games (the Spiny Shell in 64 can actually crash into walls and self-destruct like a Red Shell). Additionally in 64, the AI racers automatically obtained items, rather than having to drive through item boxes, and they only used Bananas, Fake Item Boxes, Boos, Stars, and Thunder against you.
  • 64 has 5 Bananas per Banana Bunch instead of 3. And if another racer collides with the chain of bananas, they break apart.
  • 64 and Super Circuit had a mechanic where if a driver runs over a banana peel while going straight, tapping the brake will prevent the driver from spinning out.
  • While the first game lacks retro courses or the Mirror mode in Grand Prix, it has 20 tracks (4 cups with 5 tracks each) instead of the usual 16 (or 32 including the retro courses in games with them). 64 has an "Extra" mode that's very similar to the current Mirror Mode, though also has a few other changes. The most significant change was in Toad's Turnpike, where you would now be racing against the flow of traffic rather than with it. Super Circuit didn't have an Extra or Mirror mode, but it had 5 cups of 4 tracks each, as well as all the courses from Super Mario Kart (giving Super Circuit the most tracks out of any Mario Kart before the release of the DLC packages for 8, with 40 courses spread over 10 cups). It wasn't until DS where both Mirror mode and retro courses started appearing together from then on, and previously used retro courses have never been repeated (aside from the SNES courses in Super Circuit, although some previously-used retro courses have been brought back in the DLC for both 8 and 8 Deluxe, as well as Tour).
  • Super Circuit's and 64's VS mode did not feature A.I. racers, and oddly, every course played in VS mode would have several Bomb Karts in it that you had to dodge. If you wanted to race against the A.I. with a friend, you had to choose Grand Prix mode. No Battle Mode A.I. ever existed until Double Dash!! either.
  • Super Mario Kart, 64, and Super Circuit forced you to redo a Grand Prix race if you (and your friend in 2 player Grand Prix) failed to place within the top 4. Every other installment lets you continue, albeit at a disadvantage.
  • Super Mario Kart also had a different mini-turbo mechanic. While the rest of the series had you power slide by moving the analog/directional buttons left and right, the first game has you swing around curves and the straighten yourself out in order to get the boost. This mechanic was revisited in Super Circuit and tweaked further in Wii, 7, and 8 due to the power sliding on straightaways exploit to move faster (Snaking) that emerged mostly in the Double Dash!! and DS games.
  • Super Mario Kart was the only game that has the Feather item before 8 Deluxe's Battle Mode, which allows you to jump high over obstacles and walls for shortcuts. Unlike the other items, it has not been used in the rest of the games since. It's also the only game to require 5 laps in each course instead of the usual 3 (some exceptions apply in later games, such as 7 (5 in DS) for Baby Park, 2 for Wario Colosseum, and 1 for some courses starting in 7 (with the "laps" instead being used as checkpoints, and the Final Lap cue occurs once the player enters the third and final part of the course)).
  • Super Mario Kart was the first game to use the coin system that lets you speed up the more coins you had on you and lost coins every time you were hit or fell off course. Only Super Circuit, 7, and 8 revived the coin mechanics, with a 10 coin Cap with the latter 2.
  • Super Mario Kart, 64 (not shown unless you fail in a race), and Super Circuit are the only games in the series to use a lives system, making it possible to get a Game Over for failing to finish in the top 4 one too many times. However, 64 has infinite lives, and will still give you a negative Award Ceremony sequence if your point total over all 4 races does not make the top 3.
  • Super Mario Kart and Super Circuit are also the only games to have multiple versions of each course. While Super Circuit kept this to just 4 Bowser Castle courses, Super Mario Kart had 4 Mario Circuits, 3 Donut Plains, 3 Ghost Valleys, 3 Bowser Castles, 2 Choco Islands, 2 Koopa Beaches, and 2 Vanilla Lakes.
  • If playing with more than two players in 64, the music is mute to allow audio channels to play sounds from all three/four racers. This was more of a technical limitations issue.
  • The skill level in the Lightning Cup of Super Circuit is something between the Flower and Star Cups, having "average" difficulty in its courses. Since DS, other incarnations of the Lightning Cup had a Special Cup-based skill level for its retro tracks.
  • Super Mario Kart didn't allow you to reverse and the manual outright tells you that you have to turn around via hopping if you needed to right yourself. All games afterwards allow you to reverse or spin in place to reorient yourself.
  • In Super Mario Kart, item boxes (or panels, in this case) were one-time-only uses. In all future games, item boxes respawn after use.
  • The second lap jingle was not present in Super Mario Kart, and it had a different melody in Super Circuit.
  • The green and red shells were silent in the first three games. In Double Dash!!, the sounds they made were different from the current ones introduced in DS.
  • The earliest games had a bit more of a grounded motorsport theme to them. The results screen of Super Mario Kart featured the characters standing on a podium, with many of them posing with or downing a bottle of champagne to celebrate their win. Mario Kart 64 dots its tracks with advertisements that, in the original Japanese version, were direct parodies of real-world Formula 1 sponsors at the time. Beyond those games, Mario Kart makes little pretence of its races taking part in something resembling a real world racing series, with perhaps the closest thing that remains is that it is still common for at least one or two tracks in each game to be set at a fairly realistic circuit.
• Earn Your Bad Ending: In every game prior to Double Dash!!, earning enough score to be in the three top places would give you a pretty similar coronation ceremony, only changing the color of the trophy. Getting fourth place would give you a different sequence in which your character watches the ceremony without claiming any rewards (with 64 even having a sequence where the player gets further humiliation from a Bomb Kart). But in order to get this negative ceremony, you had to struggle to stay in fourth place all the races, since 5th or lower won't let you continue. Getting this ending ends up being more difficult than being in first place.
• Earn Your Fun: Super Mario Kart would not let you access the Special Cup on 50cc; you had to play on 100cc and then get gold trophies on the rest of the cups just to be able to play the Special Cup. You also have to beat the Special Cup with a gold trophy earned just to be able to play the 150cc class.
• Easter Egg:
  • The results music in 64 plays a different piano solo after 64 loops, which takes 52 minutes and 48 seconds.
  • Pressing "Select" in Super Circuit honks the horn, which doesn't do anything.
  • The horn is also present in Double Dash!!, but this time, the player has to press the item button when there's no item currently in possession.
  • The horn returns in 8, functioning like it did in Double Dash!!. This time, it takes up most of the space on the Wii U gamepad if the map or TV screen options aren't selected. Naturally, touching it honks it. All it does is spook the other drivers.
  • Holding Y+A while selecting your character in Super Mario Kart will make your character tiny. Normal sized characters can squash you by running you over, but unlike characters shrunk by lightning, your speed is unaffected.
  • In 8, Yoshi spectators can sometimes be heard singing Totaka's Song (Kazumi Totaka is the voice actor for Yoshi). Although, it's drowned out by the music.
• Easy-Mode Mockery:
  • A very mild case in 7 and 8. The added bass percussion that plays when you're in the lead does not play when playing 50cc Grand Prix, no matter how much of a lead you have.
  • Super Mario Kart doesn't allow you to race in the Special Cup if you play on 50cc.
• Edible Ammunition: In the arcade games, the Banana gets a shooting variant called the Banana Shot, which is basically a cannon with a banana in it.
• Egopolis:
  • Neo Bowser City in 7, 8, and Tour.
  • Diamond City in Arcade GP.
• Embedded Precursor: Unlockable, at least; Super Circuit contains all of the tracks from the original Super Mario Kart minus their track hazards. Starting with DS, each game features a Nitro set of cups (16 new tracks) and a set of Retro cups (containing 16 tracks from previous Mario Kart games).
• Enemy Mine:
  • In Double Dash!!, it is possible to have a setup like Mario with Bowser on a kart, and have them cooperate.
  • In 8, you and a rival racer can "cooperate" by repeatedly bumping into each other during anti-gravity mode to give both of you spin boosts.
• Eternal Engine:
  • Toad's Factory in Wii.
  • Tick Tock Clock in DS and 8.
• Everything's Better with Rainbows: Each Mario Kart concludes with a rainbow-themed course, with 7 having two Rainbow Roads; one being new to that game and the other being the one that started the tradition. 8, again, has one new and one from 64. With the first DLC Pack, SNES Rainbow Road comes back again, meaning that 8 has three Rainbow Roads in the same game, while the Booster Course Pass for Deluxe would add the 3DS version. Tour features five Rainbow Roads, having the SNES version (and two remixes), 7 and Wii.
• Evolving Title Screen: All entries except Super Mario Kart have different title screens once certain conditions are met in the game. In 64 unlocking the Mirror Cups has the racers drive to the side in an orange sunset shading rather than head-on in midday; in Double Dash!! the voices change depending on who was played last; in all others getting gold in all of that game's Cups yields a new title screen.
• Fade to Black: Momentarily whenever you fall off an edge, in every game except Super and 8. Some games have an Iris Out instead.
• Fake Difficulty:
  • Besides the Rubber-Band A.I. and Super's use of Secret A.I. Moves that are better than anything you'll ever get from an item panel, the computer players are more than happy to spam the best items in the game if you're doing better than them at any given time. Happens in all games starting with Double Dash which introduced this AI behavior, but it's most notorious in that game (due to the double number racers and item boxes doubling the number of items), Wii (which introduced 12 racers), and 8/8 Deluxe (which also features 12 racers alongside double item boxes in 8 Deluxe, increasing the number of items even further by bringing back the coin item and it being very common in first place, making it much easier to get bombarded by items).
  • In the original release version of 8, the only way to see the course map and which items everyone has is with the GamePad. This means anyone playing with another controller (like Wii Remote + Nunchuk) goes without this sometimes useful information. The tablet can be placed on the stand it comes with, but it's generally too small for all players to see the information clearly. Ultimately, an August 2014 update to the game made it possible for a minimap to be displayed on the TV screen itself.
• Fireballs: The special item for Mario and Luigi in Double Dash!!, and made a regular item in 7. A stationary version also appeared in Super Mario Kart as a computer-exclusive item for Bowser to put onto the course.
• Fragile Speedster: The "quick to start, hard to catch up" variant. The lightweights, such as Toad, Koopa Troopa, and Baby Mario don't have the highest top speed, but are de facto quite fast thanks to being able to accelerate quickly in addition to having the highest handling and off-road. However, they have low weight and are mostly vulnerable to getting pushed around by heavier characters. Averted in 64 where lightweights are more traditional, having the highest speed and acceleration compared to the rest of the weight classes, but being harder to control.
• Franchise Codifier: This sub-series of racing games starring Mario and his friends started in 1992 with Super Mario Kart, but its numerous traits of Early-Installment Weirdness make Mario Kart 64 the true architect of the series and the one which drew the blueprint for the elements, presentation and structure that came to define all subsequent elements (including Mario Kart: Super Circuit, which otherwise borrows many aspects of the SNES original).
• French Accordion: Three guesses on what is the main instrument of the Paris Promenade soundtrack in Tour.
• Frothy Mugs of Water: In the Japanese version of Super Mario Kart, Bowser and Peach will drink their bottle of champagne if they get first-place Gold. This was censored out in the international versions.
• Furry Confusion:
  • One of the new characters in 7 is the Honey Queen from Super Mario Galaxy, but one of the battle arenas in the same game takes place inside a beehive, featuring the bee enemies from Super Mario 3D Land as obstacles.
  • 7 also introduces a playable Wiggler driver, even as Maple Treeway and its giant Wigglers return from Wii.
• Gaiden Game: The Arcade GP sub-series. All Arcade GP games are developed by Namco rather than any of Nintendo's subsidiaries, and feature significantly different rules and an exclusive set of tracks that have never appeared in a consumer-soft Mario Kart game, not even in Nostalgia Level cups.
• Game Lobby: Racing online with friends works like this. However, players can still join between races, viewing an "instant replay" if they entered while a race is in progress.
• Game Mod: Wii has a pretty big modding community, especially in regards to remaking tracks from old games, and even some tracks from Mario Kart games released after Wii - like a couple of 7's tracks (albeit it's hard to make Wii versions of 7 tracks as 7 tracks have glider and underwater segments and Wii does not feature those capabilities. For instance, this adaptation of 7's Rainbow Road or the version in Double Dash!! have been almost perfectly converted to the point that they don't feel any different from their original games.
• Glacier Waif:
  • In Wii, size is determined by height, not weight. Waluigi, practically a living stick-man, is in the Large Class (when he was originally Middleweight in Double Dash!! and DS) because he's so tall. The same goes for King Boo (a ghost, although he was a Heavyweight in Double Dash!!) and Rosalina (who's taller than Waluigi, but about as thin as Peach). Both Waluigi and Rosalina were moved to the "Cruiser" class in later games, which acts as a middle-ground between middle and heavyweights.
  • Metal Mario and Pink Gold Peach are Heavyweights due to their metallic complexion, even though they're both the same size as their namesakes.
• Go-Karting with Bowser: The Trope Namer. Bowser is a notorious warlord and chronic princess-kidnapper in the main-series games, but here, Mario and Peach have no problem challenging him to a friendly race.
• Gold-Colored Superiority: Regular red mushrooms gives one Nitro Boost. The rare Gold Mushroom gives infinite Nitro Boosts for about 10 seconds, and usually only shows up when you're falling way behind, or playing as Toad/Toadette in Double Dash!!.
• Golden Snitch: Powerful items are usually obtained by players lagging behind. Some people purposely play horribly at the start so they can score a powerful item, catch up with good racing, and then blow past the last few people on the final lap. This also keeps them (relatively) safe from the genuine laggers behind who are using their items to mess with the players in first.
• Gravity Barrier: At the edge of some Rainbow Road courses.
• Gravity Screw: 8 introduces anti-gravity, wherein specially marked areas of the course can be driven over to transform the kart into a hovercraft of sorts. Not only does this allow you to drive on walls and upside down, but bumping into certain objects (or even other racers) will reward you with a small speed boost.
• Ground Wave:
  • Wii has the battle course Thwomp Desert, featuring a huge Thwomp in the middle of the arena. Every so often it slams down, causing huge waves that ripple outwards, throwing karts around.
  • In 7 and 8, SNES Rainbow Road has Rainbow Thwomps that cause the track to ripple when they slam down, which didn't occur in the track's original version.
  • On Music Park / Melody Motorway in 7 and 8, the Bouncing Notes cause shockwaves that drivers can do aerial tricks off of.
• Guest Fighter:
  • The Arcade GP games, developed by Namco, gave us Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, and Blinky the Ghost. Mametchi comes along in the second game, inadvertently providing the first crossover between Namco and Bandai since they merged. Arcade GP DX, would eliminate all the Bandai Namco guests save for Pac-Man, and introduce Don-Chan in their place.
  • Meanwhile, DS offered R.O.B., and beginning in Wii, you can play as your Mii. DLC for 8 adds more crossover characters; Link of The Legend of Zelda fame and a male and female Villager and Isabelle from Animal Crossing. 8 Deluxe adds the Inklings from Splatoon. Mario Kart is gradually evolving into the racing equivalent of Super Smash Bros. with its inclusion of non-Mario-related Nintendo properties.
  • There are also occasional Guest Vehicles, the Blue Falcon, the Mach Rider, and the Steel Driver.
• Harder Than Hard:
  • If 50cc, 100cc, and 150cc correspond to Easy, Medium, and Hard, then 150cc Mirror falls under this. Not only are the courses flipped, but the AI is even faster and more aggressive than before.
  • 8 takes it up one step further by introducing a 200 cc class; it's insanely fast as it sounds. You'll have to be steady on the brakes to make it through in first place.
• Having a Blast: The Bob-omb was an exclusive item for Waluigi, Wario, King Boo, and Petey Piranha in Double Dash!! but is now a standard item from DS onwards. Tour introduced the Double Bob-ombs and Bomb-omb Cannon which are exclusive special items for certain characters.
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • This will happen to you pretty often if you forget where you dropped your banana peels and fake item boxes, if your green shells rebound off walls back at you, if you throw a Bob-Omb right into your own path, etc.
  • This can also happen to you with items that are supposed to help you, such as Mushrooms and Stars. Use these speed boosting items at the wrong time and you'll fling yourself off the track.
  • The computer racers may accidentally get hit by the items they left behind in Super Mario Kart.
  • If you fire off a Spiny Shell while in first place, it will promptly drop right back on you.
  • Get triple red shells and fire them all at once at someone, that least one of them will attack YOU.
• Hollywood Drowning: Surprisingly averted in 7 and 8. Although there are tracks which let you go underwater freely, there are tracks and segments with off-limits water areas. In these tracks, your character will fall and scream until they hit the water and their screaming is promptly cut off because you can't be heard underwater. This contrasts other Mario Kart games where their voices are heard even when they are submerged underwater.
• Home Stage: Aside from the fact that every single game is guaranteed to always have a "Mario Circuit" and "Bowser's Castle" track, other characters also get race tracks named, themed or associated to them:
  • Mario Kart 64
    • Luigi Raceway for Luigi
    • Royal Raceway for Peach
    • Toad's Turnpike for Toad
    • Wario Stadium for Wario
    • Yoshi Valley for Yoshi
    • DK's Jungle Parkway for DK
  • Mario Kart: Super Circuit:
    • Peach and Luigi both have a circuit named after them, and Yoshi gets a desert.
  • Mario Kart: Double Dash!!
    • Luigi has both a track (Luigi Circuit) and a battle course (Luigi's Mansion)
    • Peach has Peach Beach
    • Baby Mario and Baby Luigi have Baby Park
    • Daisy has Daisy Cruiser
    • Waluigi has Waluigi Stadium
    • Yoshi has Yoshi Circuit
    • DK Mountain for DK
    • Wario has Wario Colosseum
  • Mario Kart DS
    • Yoshi Falls for Yoshi
    • Luigi's Mansion for Luigi
    • Waluigi Pinball for Waluigi
    • Shroom Ridge is usually associated with Toad.
    • DK Pass for DK.
    • Wario Stadium for Wario.
    • Peach Gardens for Peach.
  • Mario Kart Wii:
    • There's yet another version of Luigi Circuit.
    • Toad gets Toad's Factory.
    • DK gets yet another snow mountain racetrack with DK Summit.
    • Wario has Wario's Gold Mines.
    • Daisy gets Daisy Circuit.
    • Koopa Cape for, of course, Koopa Troopa.
    • Dry Bowser is commonly associated to Grumble Volcano, probably because it mirrors his living counterpart's track.
    • Dry Dry Ruins is usually associated with Yoshi, probably because of the sphinx with his face.
    • Rosalina gets associated with this game's Rainbow Road.
    • While Funky Kong lacks his own track, he still has Funky Stadium, his own battle course.
  • Mario Kart 7
    • Toad Circuit for Toad.
    • Daisy Hills for Daisy.
    • Shy Guy Bazaar for Shy Guy.
    • Wuhu Circuit and Maka Wuhu for the Mii characters, for obvious reasons.
    • Wario gets Wario's Shipyard.
    • Apart from the usual Castle track, Bowser also has Neo Bowser City (Koopa City in British English), though it can also be associated to Metal Mario.
    • DK has DK Jungle.
    • Rosalina has Rosalina's Ice World.
    • While Koopa Beach is from Mario Kart 64, it is impossible to not associate it to Koopa Troopa now that he is a playable character again.
  • Mario Kart 8
    • Sweet Sweet Canyon is usually associated to Peach and Daisy.
    • Toad Harbor for Toad
    • Twisted Mansion for Luigi, and as of the Updated Re-release of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, it is also associated to King Boo.
    • Shy Guy (the red one) gets Shy Guy Falls.
    • Larry Koopa is usually associated with Electrodrome because of the DJ stand.
    • Mount Wario for Wario
    • Bone Dry Dunes for Dry Bowser, and Dry Bones as of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.
    • The DLC track Dragon Driftway is associated with Lakitu.
    • Hyrule Circuit for Link.
    • The Animal Crossing track for the two Villagers and Isabelle.
    • In Deluxe, the battle course Urchin Underpass is obviously one to the Inklings.
    • Yoshi's Island in the Booster Course Pass for Yoshi.
  • Mario Kart Tour
    • New York Minute can be associated with Pauline because of the similarities to New Donk City.
    • Ninja Hideaway for Shy Guys (especially their ninja variant), and also Wario because of the course's motif.
    • Piranha Plant Cove is obviously one for Petey Piranha.
• Homing Projectile: Red Shells and the dreaded Spiny Shells, as well the special items Yoshi Eggs and Birdo Eggs from Double Dash!! and Tour.
• Hot Potato:
  • If you're in first place, you can avoid being struck by an incoming Spiny Shell by letting the racer behind you take the lead, getting them blown up instead. As a result, it's not uncommon for two players competing neck-and-neck to panic and try to wrestle second place from each other before the Spiny Shell arrives.
  • Wii has the Thunder Cloud, which gives a ten-second warning before it zaps you, shrinking you temporarily, but you can pass it to someone else by exchanging contact with them. It does, however, give you a slight speed boost (and the ability to drive off-road without losing speed), making it a double-edged sword.
  • Battle Modes involving the Shine Sprite are a reverse version of this, where whoever is holding onto the single Single Sprite when time runs out is the winner.
• Human Cannonball: The series has many tracks, often those based on the Donkey Kong Country series, where you and your vehicle get launched out of a cannon with tremendous speed. These are, namely, DK Mountain from Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, Waluigi Pinball in Mario Kart DS, and DK Summit and Maple Treeway in Mario Kart Wii (DK Mountain from Double Dash!! is featured here as well).

I - P

• An Ice Person: Introduced in Tour, Ice Flowers are exclusive special items for certain characters.
• Incredible Shrinking Man: The Lightning item causes this to the racers, resulting with them losing their items and reducing top speed. In some games, this also leaves other racers open to being flattened. In Super Mario Kart, Peach and Toad (when under computer control) could throw Poison Mushrooms that shrank anyone unfortunate to collide with one.
• Insect Queen: Queen Bee is a playable character in Mario Kart 7.
• Interface Screw:
  • Bloopers (Mario-universe squid), introduced in DS, cover your opponents' screens in black ink, obscuring their forward view. (This is also visible by painting the entire vehicle/driver black.) It even has an effect on the AI, causing them to swerve and slow down a notch when it's in effect. The ink can be removed early by hitting a booster or ramp, however. In Tour, ink can also be removed by wiping the screen.
  • In one of DS's Battle Courses, cake frosting has the same effect.
• Invincibility Power-Up: The Super Star item not only makes you invincible and speeds you up, but on top of that, you can drive off-road without speed loss, and in some games, you can crash your way through minor obstacles with impunity, sending them flying or otherwise destroying them.
• Invincible Minor Minion:
  • The Thwomps on Rainbow Road in the SNES version are star powered, causing you to spin out and lose coins from even touching them. Strictly speaking, though, they aren't invincible (they can be destroyed by a racer with star power). They reappear the next lap.
  • The Rainbow Thwomps reappear in the Nostalgia Level version of the SNES track in 7 and 8, and this time they also cause the track to ripple and shake whenever they pound the ground. They still cause you to spin out if you so much as touch them.
  • In the Bowser Castle tracks, such as those on Wii, the Thwomps do cause the track to shake if you happen to be by one when it pounds the ground, but instead of spinning you out, you can be crushed by one if you happen to have poor timing, so it helps to study the Thwomps and the sequence in which they come down.
• It's a Wonderful Failure:
  • Fail to be one of the top three racers at the end of a Grand Prix and you'll miss out on the victory ceremony. The SNES installment showed your racer sitting aside the victory podium quietly sobbing to themselves, while 64 showed your racer watching the victory celebration from a distance before getting chased down and blown up by a Bomb Kart. Super Circuit had the stand outright crush you. Later games simply give a "Better luck next time!" message with a chart showing your overall results.
  • Scoring outside the top three is actually rather difficult in the SNES, N64, and GBA installments, where if you fail to finish within the top four of any race, you lose one life and are forced to retry that course instead of proceeding on to the next. Later games allow you to proceed through all the courses in a Grand Prix cup, but as usual, you'll only get a trophy for finishing in the top three.
• Jack of All Stats: Mario, as in every spinoff, as well as others in the Medium class like Luigi.
• Jungle Japes:
  • DK's Jungle Parkway from 64 and Wii.
  • DK Mountain from Double Dash and Wii.
  • Riverside Park and Lakeside Park from Super Circuit (the former of which also appeared in Tour and 8 Deluxe's DLC). The revisit of the SNES Donut Plains courses in Super Circuit also qualify, as they use the visuals from Riverside Park rather than the original SNES aesthetics.
  • Dino Dino Jungle from Double Dash!!, 7 and Tour.
  • DK Jungle from 7 and 8.
  • Wild Woods, a DLC course from 8.
• Kid-Appeal Character: No Mario Kart game has ever been complete without one. At least Toad and Yoshi appeared in every installment.
  • 14 out of 30 (non-DLC) characters in 8 form the kid-appeal half of said game's roster.
  • Toadette, Baby Daisy, and Baby Rosalina are those who respectively originated in Double Dash!!, Wii, and 8.
• Kids Driving Cars: Since Double Dash, baby versions of Mario characters are able to drive cars alongside their adult counterparts. Certain games even have cars that are specifically designed for them. Bowser Jr. also counts.
• Lethal Lava Land: Often Bowser's Castle, which is in every game, but other tracks also feature lava, such as Grumble Volcano in Wii, where parts of the track actually collapse (look for the cracks in the track the first time by and just be aware that those sections might be gone by the time you get back around).
• Level Ate:
  • Cheese Land in Mario Kart: Super Circuit. Doubles as Cheesy Moon, since you can see Earth in the background.
  • Mario Kart: Double Dash!! has the battle stage Cookie Land, a circular course modeled after a large vanilla-and-chocolate cookie with caramels of different colors. It makes a return in Mario Kart Wii.
  • Mario Kart DS has the battle level Tart Top, which is Exactly What It Says on the Tin: A level set on the top of a tart. Complete with strawberry cream puffs, cherries and love hearts as decoration. It makes a return in Mario Kart 7.
  • Sweet Sweet Canyon in Mario Kart 8 is made of various dessert foods. The audience of Toads, Goombas, Koopa Troopas, and Shy Guys are made of gingerbread as well. The second DLC pack for the game, as well as the Deluxe port from the get-go, also includes a major overhaul of GBA Cheese Land. Deluxe also adds Sweet Sweet Kingdom to the revamped Battle Mode, and its own DLC has its own ice cream-themed track in the form of Sky-High Sundae.
• Level in Reverse:
  • The Mirror Cups take the courses and mirror them horizontally, forcing you to then have to relearn your way around the track, with left hand turns becoming right turns.
  • Tour includes "R" variants of courses, which have you race from what's usually the finish line back to the "start".
• Level-Map Display: All the games have a map of the course you're racing on.
• Level in the Clouds:
  • Sky Garden, a track from Super Circuit, which returned in DS, Tour and 8 Deluxe's DLC. In its first two appearances, it's part of the Lightning Cup, and is a racetrack made of a cobble road suspended in the sky, bridges made of vine wires, and clouds that outline it. Large beanstalks can be seen in the background.
  • Cloudtop Cruise in 8, part of the Special Cup. The sunny half of the course is safe to drive across, but the stormy side has the clouds drop lightning bolts at the dash panels, and getting struck by them will shrink you.
• Lightning Bruiser: The Parade Kart in Double Dash!!, since it's heavy, has good acceleration, and high top speed.
• Lightning Can Do Anything: Lightning has the decidedly odd effect of shrinking characters temporarily, except for characters who fall into bottomless pits or have just been fired out of a cannon in games prior to ''7''. Or characters who are invincible due to having used a star, but that at least sort of makes sense...
• Like a Duck Takes to Water: Go-karts and bikes (as well as any sort of motorized land vehicles except trains, for that matter) don't even exist in Hyrule, yet, Link apparently knows how to drive go-karts and motorcycles by the time he decides to race against the Mario characters (as well as Isabelle and the Villager) within the game's Grand Prix. Lampshaded by his DLC tag line.
  Link can drive?!
• Limited Animation: The portable DS and 7 have only your character with full animations while everyone else on your screen are stiff (and they're even rendered with less polygons to boot). This was most likely done to prevent the system from being taxed and keep things running smoothly. Tour also have this, only when setting to power-saving mode.
• Luck-Based Mission: Part of the appeal of the series where if the skill gap between players isn't too far off, a player lagging behind has a chance of winning if they get the right item. However, this is also very controversial with the competitive scene/skilled players due to throw a single item like the Spiny Shell can instantly turn a victory into a loss (especially during the final lap). It also does not help that this trope is in full effect when it comes to playing against the game's Rubberband AI. The trope is softened somewhat in a few of the games in the series that allow the players to change what type of items can be spawned in a local multiplayer game plus certain items being retooled (or removed entirely).
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: In the Arcade GP games, performing a drift will create a shield around your kart as long as you're drifting, rendering you immune to projectile attacks.
• Made of Iron: All the characters can shake off explosions, lightning strikes, and falling into lava easily.
• Mad Libs Dialogue: The Arcade GP games, from the second title onwards, are guilty of this.
• Marathon Level:
  • 64's version of Rainbow Road. It is by far the longest track in the series, taking approximately 2 minutes to complete a lap. It's so long it was reduced to one lap in 8.
  • The All-Cup Tour in Double Dash!! is, well, all sixteen tracks one after the other. It always starts with Luigi Circuit and always ends with Rainbow Road, and the remaining fourteen tracks are played in a random order.
• Mascot Mook: Koopa Troopas have been playable off-and-on since the first game. Other playable "mook" characters include Paratroopa, Dry Bones, Lakitu, Shy Guy, Wiggler, Hammer Bro (plus his boomerang, fire and ice counterparts), and Monty Mole.
• Mascot Racer: The games are all about wacky characters using wacky weapons on wacky tracks. The series still defines the genre, as most games still follow the mold codified by these games.
• Mercy Invincibility: Zig-zagged. Spinning out makes you immune to being spun out again until the animation is finished, but you are still open to harder hitting attacks that makes you tumble, such as shells. If you are hit by a shell or a similar powerful attack, you can't be hit by anything else again until the animation stops. For Super Mario Kart and Super Circuit, there's absolutely no mercy invincibility at all; not only is it possible to get beaned by items several times in a row without a way to recover quickly, but getting rammed repeatedly will drain your coins alarmingly fast.
• Metropolis Level: Some games in the series have introduced racetracks set in urban cities, like Toad's Turnpike in 64, Mushroom City in Double Dash!! and Moonview Highway in Wii. Most notably, the majority of new tracks in Tour are directly inspired by real-life cities and have you race through routes that follow real-life streets through the city centers, passing multiple notable landmarks on the way.
• Mickey Mousing:
  • Music Park in 7 and 8. On several curves, you drive over piano and xylophone keyboards, adding layers to the track's music, a tambourine is utilized like a bouncy mushroom, Piranha Plants bob their heads to the music and bite you within the beat, and giant music notes stomp to the music, creating shockwaves.
  • The Electrodrome track in 8 continues the trend, being themed after a nightclub. Driving over giant synthesizers adds harmony to the music, a certain anti-gravity area muffles the music, and the curve right before the final glider ramp includes drops punctuated by additional beats.
  • In any course from 8 featuring Shy Guys, as you drive by you can hear them chanting in time with the music.
  • The Badwagon's light and stereo speakers move to the tempo of the music.
• Mighty Glacier: The "slow to start, hard to stop" variant. Heavy karts have sluggish acceleration, but great top speed once they get going, and are able to smack lighter karts around the track. Bowser is always the heavyweight of the series while Donkey Kong and Wario are often more balanced.
• Minsky Pickup:
  • At the beginning of Baby Park's theme in Double Dash!!, DS, and 8.
  • The music for Moo Moo Farm and Yoshi Valley in 64, DS, and 8.
• Ms. Fanservice: Peach, Daisy and Rosalina have access to skin tight racing suits which shows off their figures (especially their hips) very nicely. Daisy and Rosalina also have the option to wear cute swimsuits in Mario Kart Tour and Pauline is this trope by default, a fact that would only become even more apparent once she was added to Mario Kart 8, where she can use a biker suit like Peach, Daisy and Rosalina.
• Multiplayer Difficulty Spike: There's Rubberband AI that likes to Gang Up on the Human in single-player mode, but it still can't make a good use of items and shortcuts. Enter the online mode, where you will have your ass handed to you nearly constantly by players who pick the best driving character and kart, take advantage of all the shortcuts, and maximize chaos on the road by spamming items.
• Multi-Slot Character:
  • Mario Kart: Super Circuit had Red Yoshi, Light Blue Yoshi and Yellow Yoshi as multiplayer exclusive characters in addition to Yoshi himself.
  • Mario Kart: Double Dash!! introduced Baby Mario and Baby Luigi as a playable duo, with both characters returning in Mario Kart Wii and Mario Kart 8.
  • Mario Kart Wii added Baby Peach and Baby Daisy and addition to the baby versions of the Mario Bros. Dry Bowser is also a seperate racer from his living counterpart.
  • Mario Kart 7 introduced Metal Mario, a character who had history in other Mario spinoffs as a hidden character.
  • Mario Kart 8 brought back the baby versions of the Mario Bros, Peach and Daisy and added one for Rosalina. Pink Gold Peach was also introduced in this game, serving as Metal Mario's Distaff Counterpart. The DLC packs introduced Tanooki Mario, Cat Peach, Dry Bowser and colour variants for Yoshi and Shy Guy. The Deluxe version added in the DLC characters at launch and added gendered variants for Inkling and Villager while adding Gold Mario^note who was an alternate costume for Metal Mario in Mario Golf and not based off of the form seen in New Super Mario Bros 2. as the sole unlockable character.
  • Mario Kart Tour: Most of the characters have alternate versions of them in different costumes to incentive players to get them, due to the game being free-to-play and previously featured Gacha elements.
• Musical Nod:
  • The "Final Lap" jingle is the iconic "Hurry Up!" jingle from the main Mario series. Appropiately, the track's music is also sped up during the final lap.
  • The results music in 7 is the results music from 64, just with a differently-pitched melody line.
  • The Rainbow Road music tracks from Double Dash and 7 include part of the 64 Rainbow Road theme.
  • 7's Bowser's Castle music includes part of the Double Dash!! one.
  • Neo Bowser City contains nods to Toad's Turnpike, Wii's Circuits, and 64's Raceways.
  • DK Jungle's music in 7 rearranges the jungle theme from Donkey Kong Country.
  • Rock Rock Mountain's music bears resemblance to "It's a Dead Heat" from Mario Party 8.
  • Wario Shipyard has a quick nod to the main theme of Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3.
  • The Results music for Mario (and to an extent, Bowser) in Super Mario Kart is based on the Super Mario Bros. theme.
  • Piranha Plant Slide's music in 7 contains nods to the Above Ground and Underground themes of Super Mario Bros. 1.
  • Bowser's Castle of Wii is actually a slowed-down Maple Treeway theme.
  • It's subtle, but part of Bowser's Castle theme in DS is actually a remixed version of Super Mario Bros. 3's Dark Land (World 8) theme.
  • Sweet Sweet Canyon in 8 has a pint of the World 1 theme from Super Mario Land.
  • Cloudtop Cruise in 8 remixes the Gusty Garden Galaxy theme from Super Mario Galaxy.
  • When near the Aqua Cups ride in 8's Water Park, the haunted carousel theme from Super Mario 64 can be faintly heard.
  • Mute City and Big Blue in 8 replace the usual race intro and results themes with their equivalents from F-Zero.
  • The results music for Tour is inspired from the results music from 7, which is the arrangement from 64
  • At the beginning of the main theme for Tour (though heard in trailers) is a nod to the opening movie music from Wii.
  • The main menu themes for the first two Arcade GP games include arrangements of the Super Mario Bros. 1 overworld theme. Arcade GP DX instead uses several nods to Super Mario World.
• My Rules Are Not Your Rules: Especially in early installments like Super Mario Kart, the AI definitely is a cheating bastard. The AI plays more fair in later installments, but still gives the impression of all teaming up against the player.
• Mythology Gag:
  • The Mute City and Big Blue DLC tracks in 8 have no coins at all. You gain them instead by going over the rainbow-colored pads, just like how you would restore health in the F-Zero games. On Big Blue, reaching the final segment causes the F-Zero X announcer to exclaim, "Yeah! The final lap!"
  • A billboard on Toad Harbor in 8 advertises Shy Guy Metals, "since 1987". Besides foreshadowing Shy Guy Falls, which closes out the Flower Cup, it is also a reference to Doki Doki Panic, which was the Shy Guys' debut in 1987. Their technical Mario debut was in 1988.
  • In Tour, certain costumes for Mario and Peach originated from various promotional art and Super Mario Odyssey.
  • Some trick voice clips for Pauline references the lyrics from Jump Up Superstar.
• Nerf:
  • The gimping of power sliding and the removal of "snaking" in Wii.
    • In DS, a very simple technique called "snaking" allowed karts with very certain drift and acceleration stats being balanced to each other to attain very high speed via the speed boosts from repeated drifting, even on straightaways. This was just as effective in Double Dash!!, albeit with drift angle and speed boost length being the same for every kart. The developers of Wii, 7, and 8 took note of this and completely overhauled the mini-turbo system, making it truer to Super Mario Kart and Super Circuit in how the boost was attained by drifting for a longer time around a corner.
  • The overhead map feature from DS had a slight nerf in 7; the map no longer shows active course hazards like Bullet Bills or Goombas so the Blooper item could be more dangerous if you had relied on reading the map in the DS game.
  • The shortcut in N64 Koopa Troopa Beach was cut very short in 7 and now requires a mushroom.
  • 7 nerfed the Super Star item, making its speed boost a lot less powerful compared to the other games, but it still is useful for cutting through grass and dirt for an improvised shortcut.
  • In 64, there were hidden special item blocks on Luigi Raceway and Koopa Troopa Beach that were always guaranteed to give you a spiny shell. When these retro courses reappeared on 7, the block on Luigi Raceway was changed to a normal block and, on Koopa Troopa Beach, it was replaced with a coin.
  • In DS, there was also a special hidden item block on DK Pass that would usually give anyone who gets it a star or triple mushrooms, and less often a single mushroom or even a red shell. When DK Pass came back for 7, the item block's chances were changed to give single mushrooms more often than three mushrooms or a star.
  • The Bullet Bill, an item introduced in DS, was heavily nerfed in 7 and 8, traveling much slower than it did previously.
  • The Lightning item was changed slightly in DS; rather than having everyone stay shrunk for a fixed amount of time, the amount of time one stays small depends on what position you were in when you got hit. The further up you are in position, the longer you will stay small, while doing worse in a race will have you return to normal within seconds.
  • In Wii, red shells home in on enemies even when thrown backward. In 7, they behave like green shells in that regard, and only home in when thrown forward.
  • Bikes in 8 were redesigned so that they can no longer pop wheelies. To compensate, their mini-turbos work the same as a kart plus bikes can cut corners better than a kart can.
  • In general, players can no longer hold two items at once in the regular version of 8 unlike all of the previous games, weakening their protections against incoming projectiles. Said protection gets another nerf in the form of coins becoming common items for leaders, which now forces players to think whether they should risk using items to slow down opponents or get a Super Horn to destroy Spiny Shells, or keep the item for protection before it gets used away to grab another item box. 8 Deluxe allows the player to hold two items at once.
  • The Spiny Shells in 8 no longer stun for as long and don't appear as often; and it also received an indirect nerf with the availability of the Super Horn. The Spiny Shell also received an inadvertent nerf when it gained wings in Double Dash!!. Supposedly, this addition increased the shell's speed and reliability in hitting the racer in first, but denied its ability to hit any racer in between, actually cutting its overall effectiveness for the user as a Comeback Mechanic. The developers soon realized this and removed the wings by 7.
  • Bob-ombs were nerfed heavily from 7 on, taking about twice as long to explode.
  • In 8, Lakitu's Bottomless Pit Rescue Service appears nearly instantly after a driver falls off course. In previous games, there was a delay of a few seconds before they were set back on the track, invariably costing the player in question several positions. In addition to that, falling into a pit no longer makes you lose all your items.
• Nitro Boost: Mushrooms, translating their purpose from the original series, grant a short burst of speed.
• No OSHA Compliance: A fair chunk of the levels in the series qualify as this.
• Nostalgia Level:
  • Super Circuit includes all twenty tracks from the original SNES game.
  • From DS on, the Retro Grand Prix. Four cups (Shell, Banana, Leaf, and Lightning, in that order) with four assorted tracks from previous games, usually tweaked for the new game's mechanics. 7 and 8 even finish off the Lightning Cup with an old Rainbow Road (Super Mario Kart's and 64's, respectively).
  • 7's DK Jungle is practically a love letter to Donkey Kong Country Returns, since Retro Studios designed it.
  • 7 's Shy Guy Bazaar is a major shout out not only to Super Mario Bros. 2, but to Doki Doki Panic, considering the Arabian setting.
  • Airship Fortress, Figure-8 Circuit, and Desert Hills all contain references to Super Mario Bros. 3 (the airship levels, the platforms, and all of World 2, respectively).
  • Piranha Plant Slide is one giant homage to the original game.
  • All the retro tracks in 8 take the trope to the next level by remaking the old tracks with updated HD visuals, new set pieces and remastered music. Not only do the retro tracks look and feel new with the upgrades, they also still play in a way most old fans would remember them for. On top of all this, some retro tracks use the anti gravity and glider mechanics to give the old tracks a fresher feel to them without deviating from the original design of the tracks.
  • Tour featured a variety of retro tracks. Some tracks, like Mario Circuit and Choco Island from Super, also received "Remix" versions.
• Numbered Sequels: The Nintendo 3DS and Wii U installments, Mario Kart 7 and Mario Kart 8. Not only do they refer to actually being the seventh and eighth installments, but they also respectively refer to the Lucky Seven and the Möbius strip.
• Obvious Rule Patch: Bikes in 8 were changed slightly by not allowing the player to pop a wheelie for boosts of speed, which now makes bikes more on par with karts. Bikes in Wii trumped karts so much that it was impossible to find any time trial record that wasn't a bike user and online play was also mostly a bike user game.
• Old Save Bonus: Installing Wii on a console that has a Super Mario Galaxy save is beneficial in that it ramps down the requirements for unlocking Rosalina by several notches (from ranking 1 star in every cup on Mirror - or playing 4,950 races to... merely playing 50 races).
• Ominous Pipe Organ:
  • The Bowser's Castle music from Double Dash!! has this. The regular Bowser's Castle levels for DS and 7 feature parts of the GCN medley.
  • A few of the haunted courses also use this motif, such as Luigi's Mansion from DS and Twisted Mansion from 8.
• Once per Episode:
  • Each game will have the same cup names - Mushroom, Flower, Star and Special for new courses, and Shell, Banana, Leaf and Lightning for old courses. The sole exception is Super Circuit which Lightning Cup is a normal one between Flower and Star Cup, and whose retro cups (which are called "extra") have the same names as the normal ones.
  • The Mushroom Cup always starts with a standard circuit. It is related to Luigi in three games and in a fourth game's retro cup.
  • A Mario Circuit appears in every game, almost always in the Flower Cup (DS being an exception to this, as its Mario Circuit is in the Star Cup).
  • Every game has at least one beach related track: with the exception of Super Mario Kart (whose track is in Star Cup), the most traditional ones are in Mushroom Cup while Star Cup is used for more challenging and original tracks (Wii Koopa Cape is closer to a theme park with a Shark Tunnel while 8 Dolphin Shoals focus more on corals and waterfalls than beach). Super Mario Kart also has a second track in Special Cup while Super Circuit's is in Lightning Cup, Double Dash has a Ship Level which shares the same music in Flower Cup and 7 has an island exploration track which starts and ends on a beach in Star Cup. Starting from DS, these tracks tend to be mirrored by port towns in Flower Cup (Wii is the exception here, the port town track being in Star Cup, although Banana Cup brings back DS Delfino Square too).
  • Every game also has a snow and ice related level, usually in Star Cup. While Super Mario Kart and 64 have another level in other cups (Special and Flower Cups respectively), there are exceptions: Wii 's DK Summit is in Flower Cup and 7 's Rosalina's Ice World is in Special Cup.
  • Starting from 64, every game has a desert related track. However, they are never in the same cup and while the majority reminds of Egypt, others reminds of American deserts (Super Circuit actually has the two examples in one game, Yoshi Desert and Sunset Wilds respectively). Shy Guy Bazaar of 7 is another exception, being inspired by "Arabian Nights" Days.
  • Between 64 and DS a least one Wario or Waluigi themed stadium styled after a dirt bike track would appear, typically in one of the final two cups. This trend seemed to end starting with the Wii title, barring the Retro Cups, even if Wario's dedicated tracks are still extreme in their conception.
  • Since Super Circuit, each Special Cup always ends with Bowser's Castle and Rainbow Road. Since Mario Kart 7, the Lightning Cup mirrors the Special Cup in this area, remaking a Rainbow Road (Super Mario Kart 's in 7 and 64 's in 8), and starting from Wii, the third track is the final track in the Star Cup from two games prior (DK Mountain in Wii, Airship Fortress in 7 and Grumble Volcano in 8). Notice that the latter two tracks also tend to mirror Bowser's castle.
  • Not counting spin-offs or Virtual Console rereleases, Mario Kart games generally tend to be limited to one main series installment per platform.
• 100% Completion:
  • Starting with 64, nearly every Mario Kart game requires a gold trophy in each cup and/or in each engine class to unlock new tracks or characters. A few other games in the series cranks it up by requiring a star rank or greater and getting at least one star in every cup and in every engine class gets you a star next to your name.
  • In 8, a set of 62 Miiverse stamps are added to the initial 18 by placing first in Grand Prix with each character, and beating Nintendo staff ghosts in every non-DLC course in Time Trials. An additional 10 were added in an update, bringing the total to 90 stamps.
• One Stat to Rule Them All:
  • In general, acceleration is king when playing against the AI since better acceleration lets you recover from spills quicker. Speed is the top stat for Time Trials since it's all about finishing tracks as quickly as possible, and there's no items to stop or slow you down.
  • Acceleration in Double Dash!! and DS, Speed in Wii, 7, and 8, and Handling for 200cc in 8 and Deluxe. Other stuff is useful, but those are the ones good players end up focusing on.
• Outrun the Fireball: Starting with DS, it's entirely possible to dodge a Spiny Shell's explosion. However, doing so in Wii and especially 7 requires a well timed mushroom boost (or a convenient cannon in Wii), making some luck needed and being hard to pull off. Starting in 8, the above all work, but you also have the Super Horn to destroy the Spiny Shell. In Tour, doing the above techniques will give you bonus points for your score.
• Palette Swap:
  • Every game in the series uses similar vehicles with some minor differences in performance and paintjobs.
  • There are also a few characters that have similar stats, but with different appearances and voice clips. Most glaringly, in 8, Metal Mario and Pink Gold Peach are a metallic Mario and Peach as heavyweights, and DLC characters Tanooki Mario and Cat Peach only have slightly different stats from their regular counterparts. Tour fully embraces this.
  • Lakitu is a playable character in 7 and 8. The playable Lakitu has a red shell to distinguish himself from the one that starts the race and rescues you when you fall off the track.
  • If you purchased both DLC packs for 8, you get a number of different colored Yoshis and Shy Guys.
• Palmtree Panic: The various beach-themed tracks. Notable obstacles are shallow and deep water (though beginning in 7 deep water can typically be driven through instead of being an obstacle), Cheep-Cheeps, and crabs (which in 7 look like Sidesteppers from Mario Bros.).
• Pinball Zone: Waluigi Pinball in DS, 7, Tour and 8 Deluxe's DLC. The track is also notable in that the Boost Panel, item roulette and Lap 2 sounds are replaced with 8-bit, pinball sounding ones.
• Player Data Sharing: Starting with Super Circuit, players could share Ghost data for Time Trials, and Wii made it possible to do so over the internet.
• Player Elimination: In the installments prior to Wii, Balloon Battles are a last-man-standing game where you're out if you lose all your balloons. Double Dash!! has hard elimination, while the other games let you play on after you lose: 64 and Super Circuit turn you into a Mini Bomb Kart or a Bob-omb respectively, and the former permanently eliminates you if you explode. DS turns you into a ghost that can leave item boxes for the remaining players.
• Playing with Fire: Fire Flowers were Mario and Luigi's special Item in Double Dash!!, and they become proper items in 7 and 8. In Tour, Fire Flowers are exclusive special items for certain characters.
• Poison Mushroom:
  • 64 introduced the "Fake Item Box", a hazard that resembles a normal item box; skilled players know that the best place to put one is on top of a real item box so that the other characters won't be able to know where it is. Strangely, it was removed starting with 7.
  • An actual Poison Mushroom appears in Super Mario Kart as Peach and Toad's item. It shrinks any of the drivers on contact.
  • The Thunder Cloud in Wii is ultimately one. Unlike other items, it immediately activates once obtained. While it increases the racer's top speed as it's active, it will shrink the racer after ten seconds unless it's passed off to someone else via contact.
  • When dropped, some items on the road can be driven into to use them. For some, this has a useful effect (Mushrooms give a speed boost, Super Stars give invincibility, etc). For others, however, it has a different, less useful effect (Lightning will only shrink the player, and Bloopers will only ink the player).
• Power-Up Letdown:
  • The speed boost provided by a Super Mushroom in 64 is barely even noticeable, as a result of the development team nerfing the Super Mushroom due to complaints that it was a Game-Breaker in the SNES original. Subsequent games have generally hit the right balance in terms of how much boost it provides.
  • The Blooper from the later games. It's supposedly to block your sight and make it hard to avoid obstacles... But it's not too hard to see through the gaps remaining and figure out what's going on anyway. Or just to look at the map on the bottom screen in DS or 7. On the bright side, the AI do act like drunken idiots when someone uses it against them, so it has some use as long as you're not going against human opponents. Come 8, though, the Blooper has the added effect of lowering traction as well, causing drivers to take wider swerves in turns.
  • The 2 coin item in Super Mario Kart and 8. You gain nothing to defend yourself with, and coins are easy enough to find on the track. And, if you already have maximum coins, it's completely useless.
• Prehistoria: Dino Dino Jungle from Double Dash!!, 7 and Tour.
• Product Placement:
  • Starting in 64, billboards for in-universe products are scattered through the tracks. 8 takes it a bit further, as the products advertised have to do with racing, such as motor oil or batteries, along with the logos for these fictional companies being decals on certain vehicle bodies implying that they also sponsor for the racers. The logos even appear in the end credits, as if the game itself was advertising the brands! Taken a step further in Mario Kart Tour - several of the gliders in that game have these fictional companies' logos on them, suggesting that they're a team sponsor (of course, multiple people could be using the same glider in a race).
  • In a more literal example, Mercedes-Benz shaped karts appear as free DLC in 8.
• Prolonged Video Game Sequel:
  • Mario Kart: Super Circuit has ten racing cups (five based on new tracks, and five featuring rearranged tracks from Super Mario Kart), whereas Super itself, 64 and the later Double Dash!! have only 5, 4 and 5 respectively.
  • Mario Kart DS brought back the idea of Nostalgia Level cups, this time including retro tracks from all of its predecessors, ramping the amount to eight cups. This has been a steady amount for the following games until Mario Kart 8 (first by way of Downloadable Content and then with its Deluxe port on the Nintendo Switch) provided another major bump for a total of twelve cups plus a fifth difficulty level (200cc). Then the Deluxe port got its own DLC via the Booster Course Pass, adding to a total of twenty-four cups!

Q - Z

• Racing the Train:
  • Kalimari Desert in 64, 7, Tour and 8 Deluxe's DLC has a train that runs on a continuous clockwise loop that also means the race course has two grade crossings. It can be this trope, though, especially given how being forced to slow down at either grade crossing to wait for the train to pass totally wastes a lot of time. So it means a lot of karts racing towards the grade crossing as the train races by, and the odd too slow racer smashing right into it. You can also either try and outrun the train round the track in the Nintendo 64 version by racing ahead through the tunnel. Or in the 7 version, you can fly straight over it with a glider ramp and/or just take a star and just drive straight through, sending the train flying into the air. Tour introduced Kalimari Desert 2, which let you drive along the tracks (which was later implemented into the 8 Deluxe version).
  • N64 Rainbow Road in 8 has a magical train that drops off coins along the track.
  • Super Bell Subway in the second DLC pack for 8 has drivers racing in a subway system with active trains.
• Rank Inflation: Starting with Super Circuit, then the DS and Wii games. If an A rank is not enough for you, try to get 1,2, or 3 stars. Wii ups the ante and requires you to at least 1 star some cups to unlock certain extra content ^note such as getting at least one star in all the 50cc cups to unlock Baby Daisy. 7 only has stars, from zero to three depending on how quickly you clear each cup.
• Reality Warping: Some Items mess with the games' physics. E.g., the Boo (gives you both Intangibility and someone else's Item) and the Lightning (both Shrinks everyone else and gives them Interface Screw).
• Retcon: Several characters' weight classes have been changed over the years:
  • Peach and Yoshi were originally lightweight in 64, then being made middleweight in Double Dash!!. Interestingly, Nintendo's very inconsistent with their weight throughout the series, being back to light characters in DS and 7 and back again to medium characters in Wii and 8.
  • Diddy Kong and Bowser Jr. were lightweight characters in Double Dash!!, but were rectified to being middleweights in Wii. 8 Deluxe makes Bowser Jr. a lightweight again.
  • Waluigi was a middleweight in Double Dash!! and DS, but has been changed to heavyweight in Wii. In 8, he's a class in-between.
• Rewarding Vandalism: In DS, destroying boxes reveals mushrooms which give an instant speed boost. Wii keeps the boxes and, on Maple Treeway, adds leaf-piles that may also reveal mushrooms or other items (usually banana peels). In 7, you can also bump the cardboard Goombas in Piranha Plant Slide, vases in Shy Guy Bazaar and barrels in DK Jungle to get some items. In Tour, destroying these and other items in courses (whether via firing shells or just crashing into them) gives bonus points as well as extends combos.
• Ribcage Ridge: Bone Dry Dunes from 8 features a desert landscape with several gigantic bones scattered around the course, as well as forming part of it.
• A Riddle Wrapped in a Mystery Inside an Enigma: Wario's official profile in Double Dash!! states that he is "a puzzle, wrapped in an enigma, wrapped in yellow."
• The Rival:
  • A feature that debuted in Super Mario Kart, and then returned in 7. Depending on who the player drives as, there will be certain characters that perform better and be more persistent. For example, Mario's two rivals in 7 are Bowser and Metal Mario.
  • If people are tagged with 7's StreetPass feature, their Mii may show up sometimes in Grand Prix mode to be an extra rival. Their Mii will also act as a rival in their customized Grand Prix.
• Robot Me: Robo Mario, of which there are two. Both were made by E. Gadd, and have no personality to speak of, other than being very cheatsy by being able to produce an endless stream of bananas.
• Rollercoaster Mine: Wario's Gold Mine from Wii and the first DLC pack in 8 - with drops, rises, jumps, and even a section where you are dodging mine carts.
• Rubber-Band A.I.:
  • Amplified by the fact that racers in the back get more powerful items such as the Spiny Shell (which homes in on the leader), as well as by the computer being a cheating bastard.
  • It's interesting to note that the AI players' driving is calibrated at differing strengths depending on the player's choice of driver. For example, if you play as Bowser in 7, Mario and Luigi will be your most aggressive opponents in single-player GP.
• Ruins for Ruins' Sake:
  • Dry Dry Ruins in Wii.
  • Thwomp Ruins in 8.
• Same Content, Different Rating: Subverted with 7, which boasted an E10+ rating (for Comic Mischief and nothing else, oddly) in trailers for the game. Apparently the ESRB changed their minds.
• Same Language Dub: Happened between the Japanese and International releases of 64. All the characters spoke English in the Japanese version, but some characters had their voices changed since they sounded goofy. The announcer in Japan also had an American accent, instead of just being Mario.
• Schmuck Bait:
  • You might expect picking up a stray Blooper might help you in 7. It actually will ink just you alone.
  • 8 has some areas and turns that look like good places to drift but doing so would result in going off course or into a wall in almost all cases—such as the mini-turn after the waterfalls in Shy Guy Falls, the winding road prior to the finish line in Dolphin Shoals, and the cave with sand dunes in Bone-Dry Dunes.
• Screen Crunch: Mario Kart Tour drew a lot of criticism upon its release for displaying in portrait mode instead of landscape like most mobile racers. This meant that the player couldn't see the side of the road, which gave it a bunch of Trial-and-Error Gameplay for new players.
• Selective Gravity: In 8, the anti-gravity sections seem to only affect vehicles and not the characters themselves, since a character's hair will fall in whatever direction gravity is actually going in (if Peach is riding upside down, her hair will look like it floats upwards, for example). It seems like everyone's put glue on their heads, then, since no one ever loses their headgear. And, naturally, items are perfectly capable of sticking to the road.
• Shifting Sand Land: Some sort of desert track is also common in the series, but the king of this has to be the Thwomp Desert battle arena on Wii.
• Shock and Awe: The Lightning Bolt. Starting with Double Dash!!, the lightning bolt creates an electric aura around the victim(s) who are hit by the item; the Thunder Cloud item from Wii also uses this concept.
• Shout-Out:
  • The Japanese version of 64 contain several. The most famous of them is probably the orange 64 ball, which is a parody of the Union 76 ball.
  • One of the possible driving styles in 7 is Loftwing Aviator.
  • One kart body in 8 is a submarine named the Steel Driver.
  • One kart in Wii is the Blue Falcon. It reappears in 8 as DLC along with Mute City and Big Blue based courses.
  • A Kung Fu Lakitu inspired poster appears on the bedroom wall in 8 's remake of Ribbon Road.
  • The Lucky 7 item refers to both 7 being a traditional "lucky number" as well as the lucky 7 that often appears in slot machines. Bonus points for the Item display being patterned after one.
  • The Crazy 8 is named for the traditional card game Crazy Eights.
• Simple, yet Awesome: Red Shells are far more accurate and precise than Green Shells^note Then again, they do home in on the other racers. and much more instantly reliable than Spiny Shells.
• Skill Gate Characters: The Light karts can easily recover from error, but they're the slowest karts in almost every entry.
• Skyscraper City:
  • The battle stage Skyscraper in 64.
  • Mushroom City in Double Dash!!.
  • Moonview Highway in Wii.
  • N64 Toad's Turnpike (first appearing in 64 as a more generic urban course) in 8.
• Slippy-Slidey Ice World:
  • The Vanilla Lake tracks in Super Mario Kart, Super Circuit and Tour.
  • Frappe Snowland in 64, DS, and Tour.
  • Sherbet Land in 64 and Wii.
  • Snow Land in Super Circuit, 8 Deluxe's DLC and Tour.
  • Sherbet Land (no relation to the one from 64) in Double Dash!! and 8.
  • DK Pass in DS, 7, and Tour.
  • DK Summit in Wii, Tour and 8 Deluxe's DLC^note In Wii and 8 Deluxe, the track is known as DK's Snowboard Cross outside of North America. In Tour, the name is DK Summit regardless of region..
  • Rosalina's Ice World in 7 and Tour.
  • Mount Wario, Ice Ice Outpost, and Animal Crossing (Winter) in 8.
• Smug Smiler: Metal Mario in his promotional art.
• The Smurfette Principle: Peach is the only playable female character in the first three Mario Kart games. Averted from Double Dash onwards which introduced Daisy, Toadette and Birdo, with the former of the three never missing a single game ever since then. Wii also introduced Rosalina and Peach and Daisy's baby-selfs, 7 features the Honey Queen, 8 has Baby Rosalina and Wendy O. Koopa, and Tour has Pauline, Peachette and Dixie Kong, with the former two being added to 8 as part of the Booster Course Pass DLC.
• Socialization Bonus: In 7, if you get a StreetPass tag of someone using a kart element (chassis, tires, or glider) that you don't have, the Mii in question is included in your current GP, and you win the GP, you get one of the elements that they had that you previously lacked.
• Songs in the Key of Panic: Upon reaching the final lap, the fanfare sounds, followed by the music becoming faster.
• Space Zone: Rainbow Road in 7 has part of the track on a rocky planetoid, while Rainbow Road in 8 runs around a space station.
• Spinoff Babies: Some games have baby versions of Mario characters as racers. No explanation is given as to how they're able to drive... Or why they're able to race with their adult selves.
• Spiteful A.I.:
  • If a CPU has an item, they'll almost always try to hit the player with it.
  • 7 takes it up a few notches by having the AI always drift into your path so they can steal every coin and item box in front of or your just bump you off the road. They even go out of their way to hit two item boxes so you'll be even less likely to pick one up.
• Sprite/Polygon Mix: In 64 and DS. In most games, the public is in 2D.
• Studded Shell: The Spiny Shell is a rather infamous weapon in the franchise for being a Game-Breaker; a blue shell covered in spikes (sometimes with wings) that is inescapable, unblock-able and is designed to target whatever character is in first place.
• Super Drowning Skills: Falling in water results in driving very slowly (Super Mario Kart), or you needing to get fished out immediately in subsequent games. The trope is disturbingly Played Straight on Mario Kart Wii where each character makes distressed muffled shouts as if they are actually drowning. This is averted in certain places in 7 and 8, where underwater can be an alternate route.
• Super Title 64 Advance:
  • Applies to every title in the series thus far except for Super Circuit, Double Dash!!, 7, and 8. ^note  The Japanese name for Mario Kart: Super Circuit is "Mario Kart Advance", thus playing this trope straight in that language.
  • The retro tracks, rather than their game of origin, have their original console's initials at the beginning of their names. Tracks from Super Mario Kart have "SNES" or "SFC", tracks from 64 have "N64", tracks from Super Circuit have "GBA", tracks from Double Dash!! have "GCN" or "NGC", tracks from DS have "DS", tracks from Wii have "Wii", and tracks from 7 have "3DS". Averted with the city courses from Tour in 8 Deluxe, as they use "Tour" as a prefix.
• Take the Wheel: The main appeal of Double Dash!!. If two players are playing together, they can swap places and let the other player take control of the wheel. Also used in the game's ad, with two old ladies in a security cart.
• Temple of Doom:
  • DK Jungle from 7 features a brief trip through the Golden Temple from Donkey Kong Country Returns. 8 takes the track a bit further, as the track inside the Golden Temple is sloped, bordered by torches, and turned into an anti-gravity section.
  • Thwomp Ruins in 8, overlapping with Ruins for Ruins' Sake.
• The Bus Came Back: Every time a character comes back after being absent in previous installments, such as Koopa Troopa in Double Dash and Wii, Toadette and Waluigi in 8 or even Bowser Jr., King Boo and Dry Bones in 8 Deluxe, plus Diddy Kong, Birdo, Funky Kong, Petey Piranha and surprisingly Donkey Kong Jr. (in his 16-bit appearance) in Tour.
• Third-Person Seductress: Wii introduced motorcycles to the series; equipping Peach (and her metallic variant), Daisy, Rosalina and Pauline with a bike causes them to wear a body-clinging suit instead of a frilly dress (which would be very impractical to wear on a bike). Peachette is this as well, only that instead of wearing a suit she uses a variation of her regular dress, having a shorter skirt and wearing a pair of high boots. The trope is especially prominent in 8, where the female bikers begin each race standing up straddling the seat, waving their behinds toward the player before Lakitu begins the race countdown. The motorcycle suits also feature heavily in the promotional artwork for Wii and 8.
• Title Drop:
  • The titular maneuver in Double Dash!! is a stronger variant of the rocket start that can only be achieved by two players working together.
  • 7 has the Lucky Seven item, which gives the player seven different items to use: a Mushroom, Green Shell, Red Shell, Bob-omb, Banana Peel, Super Star, and a Blooper. Additionally, one of the kart bodies available to unlock is named the Blue Seven (complete with the 7 logo on its spoiler).
  • The first track of 8, Mario Kart Stadium, does this for the entire series. 8 also features the Crazy Eight item, which adds a Coin to the Lucky Seven's arsenal, and the Mach 8, one of the default kart bodies.
  • Tour takes you to race tracks inspired from real world cities. Rather than Grand Prix mode from previous games, the game features "tours" which change every two weeks.
• Toilet Humour: Wario's horn in 8 sounds like a fart.
• Too Awesome to Use: Since the Super Horn is the only item that can destroy Spiny Shells and is fairly rare to get while in first place, people in the lead are naturally hesitant to use it on the more common Red Shells.
• Too Dumb to Live:
  • It's a good thing Lakitus are standing by, because any of the courses without guardrails is a walking deathtrap. And yet, the cast insists on racing through it.
  • Almost any of the Rainbow Road courses — fall off and, well, experience re-entry velocity.
  • Using a Spiny Shell... When in first place.
  • Grumble Volcano (Wii and 8) is a trek through a volcano mid-eruption. The course segments actually crumble as you race through.
• Toy Time: GBA Ribbon Road in 8 has racers drive through a child's bedroom filled with toy hazards.
• Tron Lines: Various places in Neo Bowser City, as well as on the kart wheels in 8's anti-gravity mode. 8's Electrodrome course even has lightcycle-style trails following the karts and bikes on some sections of the course.
• Truck Driver's Gear Change:
  • In every installment since Double Dash!!, the course music goes up in both pitch and tempo. Prior installments and the first two arcade games ^note which instead utilize truncated versions of their respective courses' music averted this, simply opting for a tempo increase.
  • In Baby Park from Double Dash!!, the music starts in F major, then goes up a half step every few bars. In 8, it goes up and speeds up with every lap.
• True Final Boss: Mission Mode of DS has a Wiggler as one.
• Under the Sea:
  • 7 introduces underwater areas. Cheep Cheep Lagoon and Wario's Shipyard are mostly underwater.
  • Dolphin Shoals from 8. Notable for being the first course in the series to start underwater.
• Variable Mix:
  • Starting from Wii, the menu music starts off simple and ambient and becomes more lively as the player confirms their settings.
  • In 7 and 8, the percussion of the course's song gets deeper if the player is in the lead. (Unless you're playing on 50cc.)
  • Additionally, certain tracks in Wii, 7 and 8 feature multiple mixes of the music playing, with the music seamlessly switching between them depending on where you are in the race. Some variations are minor (such as Toad's Factory adding a clapping track to the music when indoors; Shy Guy Falls and Wii Wario's Gold Mine add the sounds of mining equipment and chanting Shy Guys when near the mines). Others can completely change the tone and/or instrumentation of the music (like Dry Dry Ruins using a completely different instrumental when you are inside the temple; or Water Park's music becoming calmer when underwater).
  • Cloudtop Cruise in 8 has its music change genres depending where you're at in the race. Outside of the thunderstorm, it's an orchestrated song. Inside the thundercloud, it's a heavy metal guitar.
  • Super Bell Subway's music becomes more subdued and includes the underground theme from Super Mario Bros. when inside the subway tunnel.
  • The Animal Crossing track in 8 has four variations that depend on the course's season. In Spring, it's the main theme for Animal Crossing. In Summer, it's the second half of the main theme for Animal Crossing: New Leaf. In Autumn, it's the main theme for Animal Crossing: Wild World and Animal Crossing: City Folk. In Winter, it's a medley of the music that plays on Christmas Eve and the 7 PM theme in Animal Crossing: New Leaf.
• Victory Is Boring: You could drive the best you can and try and maintain first place... But then you won't get to use the most fun and powerful items. Because of this, many players like to hang back occasionally so they can get the best items, and then use them to get into first place when they need to. And, given how being in first place makes you a target for said items with limited means of defending against them, this isn't as bad of a strategy as it first seems.
• Video Game 3D Leap: 64 added depth to the flat Mode 7 courses of Super Mario Kart, but used 3D pre-rendered sprites for just about everything besides the actual maps. Double Dash!! was the first fully 3D game in the series.
• Wacky Racing: To the point that the game becomes part racing game and part vehicular combat game. The series is also the Trope Maker for many others like Konami Krazy Racers (which actually preceded Super Circuit's release on the GBA) and Diddy Kong Racing (whose title character would be integrated into this series in Double Dash!!).
• Wutai:
  • Dragon Driftway in 8.
  • Bon Dance Street and Omatsuri Circuit in Arcade GP DX.
• Your Size May Vary:
  • In a few cases, spectator characters are usually made (especially in the case of 8), a hair larger than the drivers, which is most evident with the Toads in 8's Dolphin Shoals and Rainbow Road, where the Toad spectators are bigger than the main Toad.
  • A strange example in Wii comes with Waluigi. He's as skinny as a rake, yet is classified as heavy due to his height. The same reasoning puts Rosalina in the Heavy class; despite being possibly as much as 7 feet tall, her body type certainly doesn't make her comparable to behemoths like Bowser and Donkey Kong. This is possibly the reason 7 and 8 introduced a Cruiser class for these characters.
  • 7 adds Super Mario Galaxy's Queen Bee as playable characters. In the original game, she was large enough that Mario was able to crawl on her body; in 7, she's one of the smaller heavyweights and doesn't even reach Bowser's size.
  • Also in 7, a small Wiggler participates as a racer. In Wii, giant Wigglers stomp around on Maple Treeway at the top of the tree, and Mario Kart DS featured a huge one as the Final Boss. What makes this even stranger is that Maple Treeway returns in 7 as a retro course, Wigglers and all!
  • Petey Piranha in Double Dash!! He's a heavyweight character, but he's nowhere near as big as he was when he appeared in Super Mario Sunshine (or his guest appearance in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, even). He is however the largest playable character in Double Dash!!.

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"Hey, you're pretty good! See you next time!"

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