YMMV / Mario Kart 8

• Accidental Innuendo: Jokes about "Mount Wario" were very common during Miiverse's heyday.
  "Is 'Mount Wario' a race course, or a command?"
• Americans Hate Tingle: Pink Gold Peach and the baby characters have a pretty big fanbase in Japan, while to most international players, they're by and large seen as uninspired clones that supposedly "steal" slots from more deserving characters. This especially applies to Pink Gold Peach, Baby Daisy, and Baby Rosalina; Metal Mario, Baby Mario, Baby Luigi, and Baby Peach at least have precedent of being from a pair of beloved mainline games and a well-received spinoff entry).
• Annoying Video Game Helper:
  • Smart Steering in Deluxe is supposed to prevent falling off and crashes, but it can be obstructive sometimes. It has a tendency to railroad you into certain paths it thinks you're taking, actively blocking you from accessing shortcuts if you don't plan ahead. It also likes to pull U-turns and slams the brakes to avoid crashing, which can occasionally be just as bad of a setback as if you crash, and it prevents you from performing Ultra Mini-Turbos. Annoyingly, Smart Steering is turned on by default in multiplayer every time the game is started, regardless of whether it was turned off previously. Thankfully, it does have some use, as if you launch off a ramp in an awkward direction and quickly switch it on, you can avoid driving off the map before switching it back off at the next opportunity.
  • When you unlock a new vehicle customization option, then go to any mode other than online and go pick your vehicle, the game will "helpfully" point out the part you just unlocked by forcibly highlighting it for you. If you forgot what your build was before the game changed it for you, you're screwed, because the game won't let you revert back to it.
• Awesome Art: 8 may have the most gorgeous visuals of the franchise thanks to the Wii U's improved graphics. Even racetracks from past games are almost unrecognizable from their original appearances. It's especially notable with ones from Wii and 7. It's hard to believe how much different Moo Moo Meadows looks after only one generation, for example. And that's before getting into all the background details that were added, especially those added to GCN Baby Park. Deluxe takes this even further and makes them look better than they did on the Wii U. Even though the Booster Course Pass' visuals received mixed reception during the DLC's early life, later tracks received acclaim for their visual presentation, in particular 3DS Rainbow Road, with its rainbow track looking as though it's made of water like real rainbows are, and the players and track designs having their shadows cast on the planets like an eclipse. Other standouts include DS Waluigi Pinball, GBA Snow Land, Wii Maple Treeway, DS Peach Gardens, GBA Riverside Park, Wii DK Summit, GCN Waluigi Stadium, Tour Singapore Speedway, GCN Daisy Cruiser, Wii Moonview Highway, Tour Vancouver Velocity, Tour Rome Avanti, SNES Bowser Castle 3, and Wii Rainbow Road.
• Awesome Ego: Pauline's showiness first established in Odyssey is at its most prominent in this game, with her spouting lines from "Jump Up, Super Star" when being launched from a cannon or winning a race, and whipping out her stand microphone and pyrotechnics when performing a trick jump. But considering how frequently she's appeared since returning in Odyssey and her immense popularity in-universe and out, it's hard to take all this as bad sportsmanship and more as pure joy, and it makes Pauline all the more fun to play as.
• Awesome Levels:
  • Mario Kart Stadium, the first track in the game, is a nighttime stadium dedicated to the entire Mario Kart franchise instead of being a traditional character circuit like in all prior games.
  • Mario Circuit excellently showcases the game's characteristic antigravity feature with its Mobius strip layout. It's also on the game's Wii U box art.
  • Water Park combines Amusement Park and Down the Drain, and is especially fun for fans of real water parks.
  • Cloudtop Cruise is a course that takes place entirely in the clouds, with an airship section and a road through a thundercloud where bolts of lighting have to be avoided, set to an epic orchestral/rock score that takes cues from the famous Gusty Garden and Sky Station themes from the Super Mario Galaxy series.
  • Bowser's Castle has a giant Bowser golem that punches the track so hard it undulates, as well as a kickass electric guitar soundtrack.
  • For many, the Star Cup is the best cup in the base game:
    • Sunshine Airport is a fun race around an active airport that, as its name implies, has many references to Super Mario Sunshine. It even has a segment where you race along a runway and glide up into the air, like an actual plane taking off.
    • Dolphin Shoals is a huge love letter to water-based levels of the whole Mario franchise, but what really sells it is its incredibly strong use of Variable Mix: it starts out as an upbeat steel drum song, calms down into laid-back ambience when exploring the undersea caves, then exploding into astoundingly catchy jazz during the anti-gravity section. It only gets more awesome during the final lap where the latter rendition is played throughout the entire lap.
    • Electrodrome is a high-tech nighclub-themed racetrack that looks like it came from a rave party, with a kicking EDM soundtrack
    • Mount Wario is a race down a snowy mountain that feels like skiing, emerging from a giant helicopter onto the snowy summit, then through icy cliffs, an underground river, a hydroelectric dam, a pine forest, a slalom course, and finally a ski jump to the finish line. It also happens to have one of the most acclaimed soundtracks in the game and the entire Mario franchise, seamlessly transitioning between sections to make it feel even more like a grand adventure.
  • From the original version's DLC:
    • Mute City, one of the two F-Zero tracks, is one of the few courses that's fully in anti-gravity, on top of having a ton of boost panels to keep you going at top speed for the whole race.
    • Hyrule Circuit is a course which pays tribute to The Legend of Zelda. Instead of coins, there are rupees to collect, and the familiar "item get" jingle plays when you get an item. There's even a part of the course where hitting three boosts in a row will reveal a shortcut and the "secret revealed" jingle.
    • Wild Woods has great music and scenery, and a large water slide as well as a treetop village inhabited by Shy Guys.
    • Animal Crossing, a course based off of the series of the same name, has bells to collect instead of coins, a stage that you can play on for any season at any potential time, and showcases the fun things from the franchise up until the track's official release, with its setting based off of Animal Crossing: New Leaf in particular. Characters from the series appear on the sidelines, and Mr. Resetti pops out occasionally to serve as an obstacle.
    • Ribbon Road has been reworked from its original GBA appearance, and most agree it's for the better. You're on a toy racetrack in a kid's bedroom that resembles Andy's bedroom from the Toy Story films. Beyond that, other course remakes from the base game and Wii U DLC largely embraced by fans include Tick-Tock Clock (for staying faithful to the original while still giving it a heavy visual overhaul), Wario Stadium (for being changed drastically with the additions of anti-gravity and underwater sections, which now makes it stand out from other Wario-themed courses in the series), GBA Mario Circuit (for its creative implementation of anti-gravity and the jazzy remix of its music), Wario's Gold Mine (for being substantially less difficult than its original version), and Baby Park (for retaining the insanity of the original course, even more so when Double Item Boxes were reintroduced in Deluxe, and making it seven laps again as opposed to only having five in DS and not feeling as chaotic there, on top of the even more wacky and cartoonish remix of its theme).
    • Big Blue, the second F-Zero track, combines elements of the aforementioned Mount Wario and Mute City, making for a tension-filled race that's exciting all the way through.
  • 8 Deluxe added proper battle courses to the game, with some favorites among them including:
    • Urchin Underpass is a battle course not only themed entirely after Splatoon, but outright makes use of the titular arena from that game, albeit enlarged for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Like with Hyrule Circuit and Animal Crossing, it features unique coins through Splatoon's cash being used instead, uses the ability slot roulette sound effect for item boxes, features puddles of ink as obstacles of avoid, and has "Now or Never!" play in the final minute of the match instead of a sped-up version of "Splattack!" akin to an actual match in said series, thus making the course a big love letter to Nintendo's big Sleeper Hit.
    • Lunar Colony is well-liked for going all-in on the space station theming that Rainbow Road dabbled in, with the battle course not only being set entirely in anti-gravity, but also making use of the low gravity effects previously seen on Mario Kart 7's Rainbow Road (which would return years later in the Booster Course Pass), making it another easy favorite among the new battle courses.
    • GCN Luigi's Mansion makes its triumphant return from Double Dash!! in full HD, getting as big of a makeover as the base game retro courses, now taking place during a storm and even getting a completely different music track; a remix of the theme for Luigi's Mansion from DS rather than a remix of Double Dash!!'s battle or Bowser's Castle themes.
    • 3DS Wuhu Town comes back from 7, with the stage now being in HD and being set during daytime, thus allowing for the visual improvements to be made much more apparent. Like with GCN Luigi's Mansion, it also receives a remix of a completely different theme as opposed to the battle music from 7, that being a remix of the Wii Sports Resort theme (which received a previous arrangement for Wuhu Loop and Maka Wuhu in 7). The basketball court from the original stage is now fully accessible as well, adding a whole new area to battle in.
  • For the Booster Course Pass, the city tracks from Mario Kart Tour showcase branching paths that make those specific tracks unique to 8 Deluxe due to how they're implemented in each track thus far, but standouts include:
    • New York Minute was the first city track to receive a wholly positive reception from players, with its jazzy music, bustling city aesthetic, and part of the course going through Central Park making it a very fun track to play on.
    • Sydney Sprint is also very popular mainly due to its great music, challenging but rewarding layout, and a much more vibrant atmosphere that helped separate it from Paris Promenade, Tokyo Blur, and New York Minute. You even drive through Luna Park at one point, complete with adorable cutouts of Yoshi and Toad on some of the rides.
    • Berlin Byways is much more challenging than in Tour, but that doesn't prevent it from being even more fun than it and its variants were before. Special mention goes to the Whomps, not only because this is the only course in the series to feature Whomps as hazards despite their longevity, but also because they're used to fill in gaps in the Berlin Wall.
    • Singapore Speedway is easily the most popular city track in the whole game. While it was already well-liked in Tour, its remake in 8 Deluxe updates the graphics and the lighting to make it a much prettier track than it was in Tour, along with featuring an excellent remix of the course's music. What helps it stand out from the other city courses, however, is that the course is divided into sections after the first lap, with the final section beginning at the Gardens by the Bay, making it one of the only tracks in the game and the series to combine both overarching design ideas for tracks (laps and segments).
    • Athens Dash is often considered to be a top three city course, as it has an intricate layout with the hook of being set around the Acropolis, thus incorporating a variety of ruins into its design in unique ways that keep the course from feeling samey or boring. This also helps it get around the fatigue many feel regarding the oversaturation of cities, as the one brief urban segment of the course is built onto the roofs of traditional clay buildings instead of being on regular tarmac road. It also helps that, barring the Thwomps, nothing was lost in the transition from Tour, nor were any odd design choices made, issues which plague most of the other city courses to some extent, effectively making it a one-to-one recreation of the original track.
    • Los Angeles Laps is well-liked in 8 Deluxe for being a completely section-based track rather than utilizing alternative routes for each lap, instead using the arrows to create one singular route that takes racers from Santa Monica Pier to the Venice Beach Skatepark, Los Angeles Convention Center, Dodger Stadium, the Inglewood Oil Field, etc. making for a very cohesive and enjoyable experience.
    • Vancouver Velocity was already a fan-favorite track in Tour, being as well-liked as Singapore Speedway, and 8 Deluxe makes it even better, it combines all its routes which results in a very varied circuit going through an autumn-phased forest, a unique long epic wooden pathway which now takes advantage of anti-gravity, a lively hockey stadium, and a colorful metropolis. It's a rare, yet welcoming example of a Hailfire Peaks course in the Mario Kart series. Let alone the game, it's seen as one of the best track in the series. The fact that it also references the Vancouver 2010-themed installment of the Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games series doesn't hurt either.
  • Many of the Retro Tracks in the Booster Course Pass are just as great as they were before, with the return of fan-favorites such as Choco Mountain, Kalimari Desert, Waluigi Stadium, Daisy Cruiser, Waluigi Pinball, Peach Gardens, Mushroom Gorge, Coconut Mall, DK Summit, Koopa Cape, Maple Treeway, Moonview Highway, Wii Rainbow Road, and even 3DS Rainbow Road. In particular, Kalimari Desert now deviates midway through the second lap and actually lets you drive on the train tracks (which was something players were seen doing for years in Mario Kart 64), Peach Gardens gets a retooled third lap where you drive through the course backwards, Waluigi Pinball retains its one-of-a-kind sound design (though its music track is the same as Wario Stadium, as was the case in Mario Kart DS), Maple Treeway gets its half-pipes returned after they were removed from 7, DK Summit's shortcuts not only are still present but also improved by now allowing skilled racers pull them off without a Mushroom, and Waluigi Stadium gets a visual overhaul considered by many to be among the best in the Booster Course Pass. 3DS Rainbow Road keeps its unique three-sectioned layout (instead of the typical three-lap layout), now with even more gorgeous visuals and a beautiful remix of its soundtrack; it was seen as an excellent end to the first half of the Booster Course Pass, being the last track of the Moon Cup.
  • Ninja Hideaway is far and away one of the most popular Tour picks among fans due to its intricate branching paths, wild turns, and incredible atmosphere that reflects the tricks and traps of a traditional Japanese castle perfectly. The music track also has an energetic feel to it that really makes you feel like a ninja.
  • Sky-High Sundae is unique for being one of the only tracks that's entirely in anti-gravity, leading to a frantic, fast-paced experience much like a larger GCN Baby Park with a succulent Level Ate theme on the side.
  • Wave 4 introduced a new course based on Yoshi's Island, and it is by far the most popular course in the Wave (which is no small feat, considering it comes with some of the more popular Tour courses, Wii DK Summit, and GCN Waluigi Stadium) — and quite possibly the Booster Course Pass DLC as a whole. It's a Nostalgia Level done incredibly well, with a downright astonishing level of attention to detail to capture as much of the game as the designers could, in what was an obvious labor of love. Even the intro and end-of-race themes get swapped out for the stage start and stage complete themes of the original game similar to the F-Zero tracks and Animal Crossing!
  • Not to be outdone by Wave 4, Wave 5 introduced a brand-new course of its own with Squeaky Clean Sprint, a course set entirely in a Macro Zone bathroom (much like how GBA Ribbon Road is set in a giant bedroom) and having racers dive into a bathtub while dodging bath bombs, plunge down the drain past a giant wedding ring, gliding over a toilet, and doing half-pipe tricks off a towel. It's one of the most creative ideas for a track in the entire series, and managed win over fans at first sight based off the premise alone.
  • Wave 6 as a whole provides a great sendoff for the Booster Course Pass as well as the game overall, and one of the tracks that attests it is Piranha Plant Cove of Mario Kart Tour fame. It employs the layout-changing gimmick of the city-based tracks to combine its original variants, making up for a varied aquatic experience. The visuals are phenomenal, and the music does a great job at setting the mood.
  • SNES Bowser Castle 3 was the last SNES track added as well as the only Bowser's Castle track to be a returning course in 8 Deluxe, but it's based off the already well-liked Tour version, only with anti-gravity, updated visuals, and a heavy metal remix of the original course's music. It's one of the most popular tracks in the Booster Course Pass as whole.
  • 3DS Rosalina's Ice World serves as the final Mario Kart 7 track in the game, and it's every bit as mystical and enjoyable as before, befitting its namesake character's elegant personality.
  • It's often agreed that Wii Rainbow Road was the best choice to serve as the final course of the Spiny Cup and the Grand Finale of the Booster Course Pass. Not only is it entirely in anti-gravity, the layout carries over the best aspects of its Mario Kart Wii and Mario Kart Tour incarnations while combining that with Mario Kart 8's rock-solid physics, all set to a breathtaking visual presentation and an absolutely gorgeous remix of its music. It even carries over the reentry effects from the original version when you fall off the course!
• Awesome Music: See here.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Metal Mario is disliked by some people, because he is seen as only a metal version of Mario with slightly heavier stats. Some people even hate his voice. That being said, Japanese players and some Super Mario 64 and Super Smash Bros. 64 fans love him. Pink Gold Peach is also disliked for similar reasons, as are Tanooki Mario, Cat Peach, Gold Mario (who's a reskin for Metal Mario), and Peachette in the case of Deluxe.
  • In the Wii U version, Morton was this. Thanks to the way weight and acceleration classes interact with one another, Morton is often considered the best character in the game with the right kart setup, often running circles around the competition. While some don't mind, especially with how interchangeable the Koopalings tend to be in other games they show up in, others despise Morton because of it, often citing him as 8's version of Funky Kong in Mario Kart Wii, complete with the original version often being called Morton Kart 8. Morton became less controversial in 8 Deluxe when the buffs to other characters, especially with the mid-Booster Course Pass rebalancing, led to him being displaced by other heavyweight characters with equal or better acceleration and speed, such as Waluigi and Wiggler.
• Broken Base: See here.
• Character Tiers: While 8 retains the customization system from 7, about 90% of the speed stat comes solely from your character's weight, with heavyweights being the fastest and lightweights being the slowest. This had the side effect of confusing or angering long-time fans who were so used to seeing lightweight characters as the fastest characters, leading to characters like Morton and Waluigi being much more controversial than they would have been otherwise.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome:
  • Bowser, Dry Bowser, Wario, Morton, Roy, Waluigi, Rosalina, and heavy Miis are ubiquitously used for world-record Time Trial runs in 8 due to having the highest speed stat. Largely averted in normal racing, where the trade-off between speed and acceleration is more balanced than it was in previous titles, though the heavyweights still see plenty of use online (especially Morton and Waluigi). This was derailed by 200cc mode, which also outright rendered the "firehopping" technique completely useless — due to the sheer speed, handling is vital for not falling off in 200cc, making lighter characters more useful. Top speed and acceleration doesn't exactly help when you're too fast to actually stay on the track...
  • Certain kart combinations tend to be seen a lot more than others. Streetle + Slick tires + a heavy glider was often considered the best combo in competitive play in the original version, and if people do use bikes, expect it to be an inward-drifting one with Slick tires and a heavy glider.
  • Slick tires were heavily nerfed in Deluxe due to a mix of some stat changes, new steering mechanics, and random online matchups now allowing 150cc, Mirror, and 200cc races. The latter two alterations favor kart combinations with higher acceleration and handling, so expect to see lots of lightweight characters driving Biddybuggies and Streetles with Roller tires. Wild Wigglers are also a frequent sight, often packing said Roller tires.
  • From 2019/2020—early 2023, you'd be hard pressed to find an online lobby in Deluxe that doesn't contain at least one player using Waluigi on the Wild Wiggler with Azure Roller tires. This combination has a high top speed stat, a very high hidden Mini-Turbo (boost) stat, and handling and acceleration passable enough to adapt to the item-filled chaos. Donkey Kong and Roy also achieve the same stats as Waluigi with this combination, but are much heavier, which causes many players to ultimately settle on Waluigi. This combination was indirectly nerfed in the Wave 4 DLC by buffing most everything else.
• Common Knowledge:
  • The Booster Course Pass tracks are heavily based on their equivalents in Mario Kart Tour, but aren't direct imports — while it's more noticeable in later courses, even the earlier ones have slightly more advanced lighting and some graphical updates. For example, the Toad balloons in 3DS Toad Circuit have fully modeled hands instead of fingerless "mittens". Likewise, their synthesized music is replaced by live performances from the Mario Kart Band, who composed the rest of the game's soundtrack.
  • 3DS Rock Rock Mountain/Alpine Pass is often lambasted for looking like a simplistic Wave 1 track a la Toad Circuit, as opposed to the generally much higher-quality visuals in the rest of Wave 3. However, a lot of the textures were indeed changed to add more detail and bump mapping, unlike Wave 1's courses. Unfortunately, due to the course's lighting, it's hard to tell from a distance or when moving; slowing down makes the texture work much easier to notice.
  • It's commonly believed that DS Mario Circuit had replaced other fan-favorite DS tracks for the spot in Wave 4... except there was no proof as to what the DS track even was. None of the Wave 4 leaks implied a DS track at all, and it was just a high possibility for the DS track to be a fan-favorite simply because of how many fan-favorites are in that game.
• Crosses the Line Twice:
  • Fridge Horror as it might be, there's something oddly humorous about the prospect of using Bob-ombs in Sunshine Airport, Super Bell Subway, Coconut Mall, or a city course, especially New York Minute given the events of September 11th, 2001.
  • Berlin Byways has you passing the Berlin Wall, a melancholic monument to when Germany was divided after World War II... with Whomps filling in the gaps as obstacles to avoid. It's also covered in Mario-themed graffiti.
• Disappointing Last Level:
  • 8's version of Rainbow Road is often considered one of the weakest in the series by many critics and players. It's quite short, simplistic, and easy by Rainbow Road standards and doesn't make as much use of anti-gravity mechanics as it could (being set on a space station and all), not helped by having to follow up 7's version. Many feel N64 Rainbow Road to be a more fitting finale, which oddly the game itself seems to agree with, since that's the one that features prominently at the end of the credits as well as the main menu screen and box art of the Switch version — though the revamped second credits sequence after Mirror Mode uses the new Rainbow Road for the final shot, so this could be seen either way.
  • N64 Rainbow Road itself is a divisive remake. While the original was never anyone's favorite track due to its absolutely insane length and lack of any geniune threat or challenge beyond the occasional roaming Chain Chomp, the Mario Kart 8 version somewhat overcorrects by not only shortening the track slightly, but reducing it to one lap with three sections.
• Fandom Rivalry:
  • The game sparked a one-sided resentment from F-Zero fans towards the game and the Mario Kart series in general, as very few of them were pleased when Mario Kart 8 came and introduced the anti-gravity mechanic. They view this as a final nail in the coffin for the F-Zero series because there's no need for two racing series with anti-gravity mechanics. Not helping is the 200cc mode, which seemingly causes the game to become F-Zero in all but name^note though F-Zero has traditionally been far less forgiving of mistakes than Mario Kart due to the former series featuring finite health bars and instantly disqualifying players who fall off the track. To top it off further, the DLC packs provide tracks based on two F-Zero's recurring course themes (Mute City and Big Blue), leaving fans wondering if F-Zero's ultimate fate was to be absorbed into the Mario Kart series (though F-Zero 99 helped to alleviate some of these concerns).
  • When Mario Kart 8 Deluxe was announced to be receiving additional DLC, a small rivalry formed with players of Mario Kart Tour, consisting of fans who didn't appreciate that a microtransaction-riddled mobile game had received consistent support and additional content since its launch in 2019; meanwhile, all 8 Deluxe got at first was a few new costumes and kart parts based on The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. While the reveal of the much more substantial Booster Course Pass placated some members of this group, others were still annoyed that the added courses were directly based on ones from Tour.
• Fan Nickname:
  • "Link Kart 8", "Morton Kart 8" or "Waluigi Kart 8", for how popular those characters are among players (the latters due to the double-whammy of being heavyweights, statistically the best choice for a high top speed, and a Koopaling and Waluigi respectively; and the former simply because of the Zelda series's popularity).
  • In Spain the game is popularly called "Kartocho", a portmanteau of "Kart" and "ocho" ("eight" in Spanish).
• Genius Bonus:
  • Pink Gold Peach's name seems really odd at first, but pink gold is actually a real element. Also known as "rose gold", pink gold is an alloy of gold and copper most often used in jewelry. Or Apple products, as of late.
  • The Lucky Cat Cup is represented by the Lucky Bell, which is a symbol of good fortune in Japanese culture. Fittingly, Tokyo Blur and Ninja Hideaway are races in this cup, and the first and last track respectively.
  • The characters and karts casting shadows on the planets in 3DS Rainbow Road aren't just weird graphical quirks; they're a classic example of an eclipse, where an astronomical object stands in the way between a planet and the sunlight. Besides Earth's moon, this is most commonly observed with Saturn's rings.
• Good Bad Bugs:
  • The Spiny Shell occasionally noclips through walls if it's close enough to its target.
  • On N64 Yoshi Valley, due to the split paths of the maze, the Spiny Shell can occasionally go down the wrong lane and completely miss the player in first, causing it to take another lap to try and catch up. This can be a godsend if you're on your last lap, since it gives you time to finish the race before it catches up to you. Even better, if it takes too long to reach its target, it will despawn entirely.
  • During replays, debris from shells will stay in motion when you reverse the footage, allowing one to create a mass of shell debris by constantly replaying the right clip.
  • N64 Kalimari Desert has a few glitches that don't really affect gameplay, but are fun to mess around with. For one, for whatever reason, Lakitu won't reset you if you try to drive backward (a quirk shared with Tour London Loop). For two, the ramp and arrow barriers that appear on the second lap are flagged to load when the player reaches a certain point in the track, but don't actually check to make sure they're on the second lap when loading them. Combine these two oversights, and if you drive backward on the course for long enough, you can see the ramp and barrier appear before they're supposed to.
• Growing the Beard: While the Booster Course Pass was always viewed as a great deal for its low price, graphically the initial Golden Dash and Lucky Cat Cup courses consisted of near-direct ports from Mario Kart Tour with minimal concessions for the Switch's beefier graphics hardware, making them look extremely simplistic or even ugly next to the Scenery Porn of the original game — 3DS Toad Circuit and Shroom Ridge in particular look quite crude, with untextured grass and basic lighting that some have compared to a fan-made model import. The Turnip and Propeller Cups were mostly a step up visually, with more immersive lighting and greater use of textures and normal maps to add detail, though they still fell a bit short. But the BCP team really hit their stride starting with the Rock and Moon Cups; while the courses are still largely based on their Tour incarnations, many of them received drastic makeovers to take full advantage of the more powerful hardware. Tracks like DS Peach Gardens, Wii Maple Treeway, and 3DS Rainbow Road look especially spectacular. For many players, this was where the Booster Course Pass transitioned from "good deal with some caveats" to truly "worth it". As time went on, the expansion went on to provide additional benefits that were never hinted during its initial announcement, like extra characters (from Wave 4 onward), and extra Mii costumes and a Sound Test (in Wave 6).
• High-Tier Scrappy:
  • Heavyweight Miis, Bowser, Morton, Dry Bowser and Wario. The flawed weight system in the game has turned them into unstoppable Lightning Bruisers, and nearly all Time Attack records will have used one of the five. The latter two were the more used characters in Deluxe's first time trials because of their reduced weight and slightly better handling and traction.
  • While Waluigi is a popular character to return, he has also become a common character to encounter online, especially on the Biddybuggy/Mr. Scooty/Wild Wiggler vehicles, causing many players to grow tired of coming across a mob of Waluigis every time they go online. For a long time, many fans called for Nintendo to nerf Waluigi if they were adding new content; this would be addressed with a roster balance update released alongside Wave 4 of the Booster Course Pass, which buffed many lower-tier characters and vehicle parts to make them more competitively viable.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • In Ribbon Road, there's a hidden poster named "Kung Fu Lakitu" that is obviously a reference to Kung Fu Panda. In September 2021, Jack Black, the actor for the movie's main protagonist, Po, was announced to be voicing the series' main villain Bowser in The Super Mario Bros. Movie. Additionally, DreamWorks Animation, the company that was responsible for the aforementioned Kung Fu Panda, would later be purchased by Universal, which also owns Illumination and is the main distributor for the Mario movie.
  • Many people came up with their own remixes for Sky Garden from Mario Kart: Super Circuit long before Sky Garden was one of the courses released as part of the Booster Course Pass.
  • In 2016, the official Twitter account for Nintendo UK posted a screenshot of Toad and Wario crashing into Kalimari Desert's train in Mario Kart 64 with the caption, "Good things come to those who wait. #MK8". Over six years later, Kalimari Desert would be featured in Wave 2 of Deluxe's Booster Course Pass.
• I Knew It!:
  • When Riverside Park showed up in Tour during November 2022 with a drastic overhaul, many people correctly guessed it would be among the course features in the Booster Course Pass.
  • Petey Piranha and Kamek were both heavily speculated to appear prior to their reveals; Kamek had previously been planned for both Mario Kart 64 and the original version of 8, while Petey Piranha was originally from Mario Kart: Double Dash!! and was planned for Mario Kart Wii as well. Additionally, Petey Piranha received a course themed after him in Tour months before his reveal in 8 Deluxe in the form of Piranha Plant Cove, which made him a prime target of speculation once it was announced that characters would be added in the Booster Course Pass.
  • When new characters were revealed to be coming in the Booster Course Pass starting from Wave 4, everyone had the same 5 characters predicted; Kamek, Petey Piranha, Diddy Kong, Pauline, and Funky Kong. Lo and behold, by Wave 6, all 5 ended up in the game. Wiggler and Peachette on the other hand, were much more surprising choices for many.
  • The highly segmented layout of Los Angeles Laps in Tour led to many predicting that its remake in 8 Deluxe would instead be a section-based track rather than making use of alternating routes, something that ended up surprising no one when it happened.
  • Many people guessed that Wii Rainbow Road would be the final course of the Booster Course Pass, due to the focus on Mario Kart Wii, Rainbow Road's usual role as the last track of a Mario Kart game, and the base game's cups and the first half of the Pass all ending with a Rainbow Road course. Those who followed leaks came to the same conclusion, due to the final slot of the Spiny Cup being listed as a Wii course. Sure enough, it's the very last track in the game.
  • When SNES Bowser Castle 3 was first revealed for Tour, many took notice of how extensively the course was revamped in comparison to the other SNES tracks in the game, resulting in many concluding that it was planned to be added to 8 Deluxe with anti-gravity (particularly due to the heavily sloped section set above a lava waterfall). Once Wave 6 was revealed, these predictions were proven true.
• Improved Second Attempt: A common complaint about the game was that the first three Rainbow Roads, i.e., Wii U Rainbow Road, N64 Rainbow Road, and SNES Rainbow Road, all made the rainbow look artificial. Wave 3 of the Booster Course Pass has 3DS Rainbow Road which, by contrast, features a rainbow that looks as though it's made of water (thus more like real rainbows). Yes, it looks as gorgeous as it sounds. While Wii Rainbow Road appears to be made out of tiles of some sort, they have a shinier, more magical appearance than the LED-esque ones from the base game, akin to how they originally appeared in Wii.
• It's Easy, So It Sucks!:
  • GBA Sky Garden being based on the Mario Kart Tour version already means it's saddled with a greatly simplified layout that excises most of its fiendish chicanes and drops, but the console game's physics and more responsive controls strip away a good portion of what challenge remained. With no added obstacles or course elements to compensate, you're left with a rather flat, dull, and easy course that many players consider forgettable, a sentiment that only grew as the Booster Course Pass continued.
  • GBA Riverside Park managed to be considered underwhelming by fans because of how easy it is. Granted, the original was a Mushroom Cup course, so it was never going to be truly challenging, but it comes across as lacking compared to the Tour version, which built itself around the game's tight controls and speed cap. The 8 Deluxe version does add some Ptooies in an attempt to add some danger to the track, but they move slowly enough that they're rarely a genuine threat, and there are multiple wide turns that allow for racers to easily stack up purple mini-turbos with little in their way.
  • GBA Sunset Wilds wasn't as oversimplified as Sky Garden, but still lacks most of the tricky zigzagging curves that made the original challenging, including the entire final segment of the course being reduced to a straight line. With the sunset for which the track is named no longer being present despite its presence in the Tour iteration of the stage, all of the course's flaws — its flatness, short length, and rather generic layout — are on full display, causing many players (even those who were fans of it before) to rank it as, if not one of the game's worst, then at least one of its most disappointing.
• It's Short, So It Sucks!:
  • Some players dislike that N64 Rainbow Road is now a single-lap, three-segment course rather than a three-lap course, as the course is now over in less than two minutes, or less than 90 seconds on the highest settings if the player is good enough (ironically enough, the original version of it got complaints about being too long compared to the other race tracks in 64). It doesn't help that as a result, you often won't get to hear the background music loop even once before the final section causes the music to restart at a higher tempo.
  • The new Rainbow Road, while being three laps, is seen as anticlimactically short by some players, likely due to being the direct follow-up to Mario Kart 7's much-beloved Rainbow Road, which would return as part of Wave 3 of the Booster Course Pass.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: While fans were ecstatic to see DS Waluigi Pinball return, there was some minor disappointment aimed at the fact that it uses the pre-existing rearrangement of DS Wario Stadium instead of using a new arrangement. While this was also the case in Mario Kart DS, given that all of the courses up to Waluigi Pinball have had new arrangements (even in cases like Sweet Sweet Mountain and Sweet Sweet Kingdom, which used the same song but with a unique arrangement on each), on top of the rearrangement for DS Wario Stadium being specifically made with Wario and his traits in mind, some fans wish they crafted a new arrangement that fitted better with Waluigi in mind and to keep the new music trend going. With the Booster Course Pass content completed, the decision would come across extra egregious since Waluigi Pinball is the only course among 103 others in the game to directly re-use a song from another course, something that the Wii U version completely avoided by giving every single stage a unique arrangement.
• Memetic Badass: After Mario Kart 8 was released, Luigi is often portrayed as a merciless, hardcore racer thanks to the Death Glares he gives whenever he passes someone◊. Then, this◊ happened...
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Upon the Super Horn's reveal, many have claimed the Spiny Shell's "tyranny" is over at long last, which is kind of true: while it can destroy any Shell if used at the right time, and can be picked up by the race leader, it's also quite rare to come by.
  • With the reveal of Pink Gold Peach and Baby Rosalina in the original Wii U version, fans started coming up with increasingly ludicrous character variant ideas for sequels, like "Baby Pink Gold Funky Kong". And then the remake of Baby Park, introduced in the Animal Crossing DLC pack, actually featured a Baby Pink Gold Peach statue.
  • Cold-blooded Luigi◊'s Death Glare became a popular meme upon the game's initial release. It has mutated from there, with people trying to make nearly every single character in the game look psychotic to each racer they hit. Nintendo themselves have gotten in on it with a Miiverse post and a shout-out at E3. And when it was introduced as the last Underground challenge in the 2015 Nintendo World Championship, the first line the announcer said was "Get your death stares on!", complete with Luigi doing the stare.
  • 'Link Kart 8' became pretty popular as a snarky way to regard the sheer number of people picking Link online after the first DLC pack got released for the Wii U version.
  • "Gotta go fast!" is often used to describe 200cc. Many have snarked that the brake button is finally useful for once. There's even an unlockable Sonic amiibo suit. The "Two speeds: Fast and WAY TOO FAST!" line from the original Super Mario Kart's commercial is also used in the same context.
  • "Morton Kart 8", often referring to how Morton became 8's version of the infamous "Funky Bike Wii" meme in regards to Funky Kong being the most picked character in Mario Kart Wii.
  • "I'm using tilt controls!" referring to the frequently spammed preset message for pregame lobbies. Nintendo's UK Twitter account even acknowledged it.
  • Woomy on a Vroomy^ExplanationSaid by many fans upon the announcement that Inklings would be playable in Deluxe; "woomy" is a fan onomatopoeia for a sound that female Inklings make.
  • With Deluxe adding Auto Accelerate and Smart Steering, you can now create your own Luigi Wins By Doing Absolutely Nothing scenario in Mario Kart. Like so.
  • Similar to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Grand Theft Auto V, Mario Kart 8 has gained a reputation for just refusing to die and make way for a new game in the series, although with the end of the Booster Course Pass in November 2023, this may change.
  • Ice Ice Outpost has had many jokes made about it surrounding Vanilla Ice, due to how similar its name is to "Ice Ice Baby".
  • Bone-Dry Dunes (Final Lap) (Frontrunning)^ExplanationMuch like Tower Power Pokey from Paper Mario: Sticker Star, this song became infamous for being paired with a... certain animation featuring Ankha from Animal Crossing by animator minus8.
• Most Wonderful Sound:
  • For some, the whistle of the magical flying train going around N64 Rainbow Road is very exciting.
  • The various Mario Kart 64 motifs, like the final lap jingle, confirmation sounds, trophy presentation, and characters shouting clips from previous games, like Luigi shouting "Bingo!" when he nails someone, are quite pleasing to hear.
  • The Super Horn blares an amped-up version of your kart's normal horn, which sounds especially satisfying when you blast a Spiny Shell to bits with it.
  • The Spiny Shell's iconic whizzing sound can be this when you're not in the lead (and manage to avoid getting hit by it on its way).
  • One of Link's voice grunts when boosting sounds a lot like "Hell yeah!"
  • Hitting the sign post when completing a lap in Mario Circuit, DS Wario Stadium, 3DS Neo Bowser City, or Tour Tokyo Blur (on the final lap only) produces a "KLANG!" sound that's strangely quite satisfying. It's a small detail that's fun to exploit, especially when you finish a race in first.
  • When you get to the final segment of Big Blue, the familiar voice of the F-Zero X announcer calls out your accomplishment:
    YEAH! THE FINAL LAP!
  • In Hyrule Circuit, hearing the famous Zelda jingle that indicates the shortcut in the Master Sword room is open is quite satisfying.
  • The SNES F-Zero race start chord can induce nostalgia when it plays at the start of Mute City and Big Blue.
• Narm Charm: Link's less stylized design looks very out of place in a cartoony racing game like Mario Kart, and it can look ridiculous to see him ride on many of the karts (especially the more small vehicles like the Mr. Scooty◊). However, that's part of why many love Link's inclusion.
• Older Than They Think:
  • While anti-gravity is the biggest selling point of Mario Kart 8, Mario Kart DS's Rainbow Road already had anti-gravity sections in the form of a loop and a corkscrew. Anti-gravity isn't new to traditional kart racers either, being featured in Crash Nitro Kart back in 2003.
  • While the inclusion of Non-Mario characters such as Isabelle and Link came as a surprise to many fans, this is not the first Mario Kart game to feature Non-Mario series characters in its roster. Mario Kart DS had R.O.B. as an unlockable character and the Mario Kart Arcade GP games featured the likes of Pac-Man and several Namco characters in its roster. Using a Pac-Man amiibo in game unlocks a costume based on the aforementioned character.
  • 8 Deluxe isn't the first Mario Kart game to have auto-accelerate; that feature was first introduced in Mario Kart Arcade GP DX as a feature intended for players incapable of reaching the pedals (such as sufficiently young children or little people).
  • A patch to 8 Deluxe removing the Inkling Girl's Bicep-Polishing Gesture due to Values Dissonance isn't the first time this has happened: Bowser in Super Mario RPG had his victory pose altered in the English release for the exact same reason.
• Padding: With the Deluxe version, the game has the largest roster of any Mario Kart game to date, with 42 characters pre-DLC and 48 post. However, among these are all seven Koopalings, five baby versions of other characters, and Metal/Pink Gold/Gold and Tanooki/Cat versions of Mario and Peach. Some players felt these made the roster feel only superficially big, especially with popular Ensemble Dark Horse characters from previous games like Diddy Kong, Funky Kong, and Wiggler not initially making the cut for this one (although all of them would return in the Booster Course Pass), and Baby Rosalina and Pink Gold Peach being created specifically for this game. Adding to that, all 42 characters included with the base game are available from the go in the Deluxe version, making some players feel decision fatigue at the sheer number of choices available.
• Pandering to the Base: Most of the track selections in the Booster Course Pass, barring those from 64, Super Circuit, 7, and Tour, are tailor-made to pander to fans of Mario Kart Wii. Not only does Wii have the most retro courses in the Booster Course Pass at a grand total of 8, but many of the retro courses from other games are ones that also happened to be retro courses in Wii itself, including SNES Mario Circuit 3, DS Peach Gardens, GCN Waluigi Stadium, and GCN DK Mountain. By the end of the game's lifespan, combined with the three Wii stages included in the base game, only 5 out of 16 Nitro Tracks from said game were unrepresented in Deluxe.
• Polished Port: Mario Kart 8 Deluxe for the Nintendo Switch is considered to be the definitive version of the game, it has a massive edge over the original Wii U game in terms of pure content alone, improves upon it, and adds many features on top of that. It includes all the extra DLC content from the original version of the game, improves and expands upon the underwhelming Battle Mode from the original and adds in a bunch of new battle modes that are much more like what you'd expect from the series, brings back the dual-slot items from Double Dash!!, has various QoL enhancements, increases the game's resolution when the console is docked to 1080p and fixes a minor framerate glitch from the original version, and adds local-wireless multiplayer for up to 8 players on as few as 4 Switches (since each unit can support up to two players in a local wireless game). On top of all that, Nintendo would later add many new characters, tracks, and features either via the base game or its Booster Course Pass DLC such as Labo support, Breath of the Wild Link and the Master Cycle Zero, a Custom Items option allowing players to turn off disliked items, and the Booster Course Pass DLC, which adds an extra 48 courses and eight more characters to the port.
• Replacement Scrappy:
  • Outside of Japan, Baby Rosalina and Pink Gold Peach are hated for replacing veteran drivers like Bowser Jr. and Diddy Kong (prior to them returning in Deluxe). It doesn't help that Pink Gold Peach is esentially a Palette Swap of Peach.
  • The announcement that the Koopalings got into Smash Bros. for 3DS & Wii U as alternate costumes while Bowser Jr. still didn't get into the DLC for Mario Kart 8 left many Bowser Jr. fans livid at the Koopalings. Thankfully, this was alleviated when Bowser Jr. was added to the Deluxe edition for the Switch.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • Snow Land was largely considered That One Level in Super Circuit, mainly due to the janky ice physics making it a pain to race on in its original game and for being somewhat uninspired compared to other courses in the game. The rendition of the track present in Deluxe largely makes up for the original's faults, as the ice physics are much more bearable, the course itself received an eye-pleasing visual overhaul, and received a jolly remix of its music.
  • Wiggler's initial appearance in 7 was usually pointed to as a reason why that game's character roster was disliked, as the absence of characters like Waluigi and Dry Bones made Wiggler a more questionable choice in the eyes of many. However, due to those aforementioned characters now being present in 8 Deluxe, as well as the base roster of 8 being even more divisive initially due to the inclusion of babies and power-up variants of other characters, Wiggler's return was much more warmly-received than their initial inclusion due to them actually being a unique character.
• The Scrappy:
  • Pink Gold Peach is very disliked among fans, as she, unlike Metal Mario, doesn't have a history of appearing in any of the previous games and is found as a cheap Palette Swap. She even had her own fanmade song for the occasion.
  • While the hate for Baby Daisy has died down over the years, Baby Rosalina is despised by many fans as she was made just for this game and jeopardizes Rosalina's actual past self according to Super Mario Galaxy^note Technically, they can coexist since Baby Rosalina is a baby, while Rosalina's past self is a little girl. However, some fans are nonetheless worried that Nintendo will start treating Baby Rosalina as the "true" younger version of Rosalina, retconning her backstory as was revealed in Super Mario Galaxy, especially seeing as the storybook shows her with strawberry blonde hair while Baby Rosalina has the same platinum blonde hair as her adult self.
  • As far as the DLC characters are concerned, not many people seem to really care about Tanooki Mario or Cat Peach, mostly for them being the fourth iteration of both Mario and Peach respectively.
  • Morton is considered this for the Koopalings, as he's a High-Tier Scrappy and seen a lot while playing online, to the point that some people refuse to participate in an online race if anyone is picking Morton.
  • Gold Mario, though not as infamous as Pink Gold Peach, has similar problems. Unlike Metal Mario, he doesn't have the dedicated fanbase of Japanese, Super Mario 64, and Super Smash Bros. 64 players; worse yet, he's a Palette Swap for Metal Mario, just with modified stats. Not helping is that his only platformer appearance is in New Super Mario Bros. 2, considered one of the weakest entries in the entire Mario series. Most egregiously, he's the reward for getting first place in every cup on 200cc (Wii U DLC tracks included), meaning the reward for one of the hardest missions in the game is a reskin, being the only unlockable character in Deluxe.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • 8 brought the Coin item back, meaning it's all too possible for someone in first place to get a useless Coin item while the racer right behind them has a Red Shell. Notably, this will almost always happen to the racer in first at the start of the race at the first item box, right when they are at their most vulnerable. The Coin can still appear even if the player already has ten coins, so getting the Coin item with full coins is the equivalent of getting nothing. It doesn't help that players can only hold one item in the Wii U version. This is especially noticeable since 7 got rid of the Fake Item Box to prevent situations like this from happening. Even with Deluxe allowing players to hold two items, you still are primarily going to get useless coins. While Deluxe mitigates it a bit by making it a bit less likely that you will never pull coins while you're already holding them, it's still not going to help if the racer behind you has two Red Shells.
  • Coins boost your top speed as well as give minuscule boosts to it when you collect over ten. Improving your top speed on straightaways (especially on maps such as Excitebike Arena and Sky-High Sundae) should be a good thing. But then you learn that the extra coins don't count towards the hefty costs of kart parts and that every time you get hit (which will happen often), you lose three coins and the speed boost. Lakitu also charges you three coins for pulling you back onto the track or turning you around, which does the same thing as being hit.
  • The item distribution in general is skewed; it's not uncommon for someone in eighth or ninth to get Coins at the same time the second-place racer gets Lightning. A lot of races turn into games of chance when some players are constantly denied any useful items while others get at least a Red Shell from every box they hit.
  • The Piranha Plant item. While the coins are often a waste of an item box, the Piranha Plant is often a waste of two item boxes, because the next set of them might come before the plant runs out, and since you don't have control over when the plant uses its speed boosts, you can't use it to take shortcuts, making it basically a worse Golden Mushroom. You can speed up the process by repeatedly hitting the item button, but it still might not go away fast enough. It's not as worthless as the coins can be, but isn't very useful in protecting against attacks from behind, i.e. most attacks. Its only real use is in screwing other players over, as getting hit by a Piranha Plant is equivalent to getting hit by a shell.
  • The Lightning item was already this in previous games, but it sticks out even more in 8 and 8 Deluxe in particular because while a Spiny Shell can at least be negated with a Super Horn, Super Horns will not protect against getting zapped and losing your items (and even if they could, Lightning has no tell unless you can see the player about to use it or on the GamePad map in 8). In fact, nothing protects against Lightning except the Star (which you aren't very likely to roll anyway if you're any further ahead than the middle of the pack), not even Mercy Invincibility granted by getting hit by other items or even falling off the track. No amount of preparation will prevent you from, say, getting shocked right as you cross a glider ramp, getting escorted by Lakitu back to the ramp instead of across, and falling from 1st or 2nd place all the way back to last on the final lap. While in previous games you could avoid Lightning without having to use an item by being in a cannon, 8 replaces cannons on nearly all tracks with glider ramps that you can be shocked off. A December 2022 update for 8 Deluxe changed this such that getting shocked during a gliding section doesn’t cause you to lose your glider anymore.
  • The Boo was a beloved item in DS, but 8 severely Nerfed it by coding it to go after the items of the racers in the lead more often, which results in the racer in first getting their protection item stolen right as the second-place racer grabs a red shell — and the racer in the middle of the pack who used the Boo is stuck with a single green shell, banana, or worse, a coin instead of an item that would actually be useful. It also removed the player's ability to drive offroad while invisible, preventing players from using it to take shortcuts.
  • The removal of fire-hopping in Deluxe brought about a mini-turbo focused meta. However, there were several problems with this. For one thing, the Mini-Turbo stat isn't visible in-game, meaning that without a guide, you have no way of knowing it exists. Additionally, the stat is ridiculously overpowered, affecting not only the time it takes to build up Mini-Turbos, but also the time they last. This meant that the Mini-Turbo-boosting wheels (the Roller and Leaf Tires especially) flat-out invalidate most of the wheel choices, and most of the speed boosting karts (Circuit Special and B-Dasher) are required to run these wheels to be able to consistently perform well. However, many also point out how in the more speed-focused meta of the Wii U version of 8, the natural high-speed of heavyweights invalidated anyone who wasn’t heavyweight, and the Mini-Turbo-focused meta allows light- and middle-weights to perform much better than in 8.
  • The Red Shell has been made needlessly broken in the game, to the point it can be even more lethal than a Spiny Shell in certain circumstances. Unlike in the previous installments where the Red Shell would take the most direct route to the racer ahead of the user, it now follows the track to reach the player ahead. This makes it sound less reliable, except that this means it can now veer its way around track obstacles, making its homing properties that much more accurate. Despite it no longer taking the necessarily fastest route, it locks onto its target at a fixed speed that is much faster than the average driving speed, causing it to be a recurring nuisance. It will even follow its target into the air to hit them during glider segments or cannon shots. Granted, items can still deflect them, but with the return of the Coin item from Super Mario Kart, there's no longer a guarantee of gaining a defense mechanism against Red Shells, which will most likely lead to a chain reaction of them hitting you over and over.
• Sequel Difficulty Drop: Mario Kart 8 does away with some of the more problematic elements of previous games.
  • Finishing a Grand Prix in the 150cc engine class now automatically counts as finishing the same cup in lower engine classes, awarding you the appropriate trophy and stars for all of them, removing the need to complete Grand Prix again in 50cc and 100cc just for 100% Completion. Mirror Mode and 200cc do not count, however, so you will still have to go through them separately.
  • In the original Wii U version, 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 (specifically, during the animation it makes while despawning), 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.
  • Deluxe has Smart Steering, which makes staying on the track easier, and Auto-Accelerate.
• Sequel Difficulty Spike: Or Updated Re-release Difficulty Spike, rather. Deluxe is far more manic than the original, due to being able to hold two item boxes at once. In addition, the AI took some lessons in 200cc, unlike in the original where the AI is not designed to handle more than 150cc.
• Shocking Moments:
  • Learning that Mario Kart 8 Deluxe was getting DLC of its own, when it was a five-year-old Updated Re-release of an eight-year-old game that already had DLC, was one thing. Learning that it would be getting 12 cups' worth of it, fully doubling the amount of racing courses in the game, was quite another.
  • Every single Wave of the Booster Course Pass DLC minus the first has at least one surprise with the track selection:
    • Prior to the release of Wave 2, the DLC was stated to only contain retros. Thus, it was a shock to everyone when Sky-High Sundae, a completely brand new track, was revealed.
    • Previous leaks had placed a GCN track, likely Waluigi Stadium, in Wave 3. So when the wave was revealed, it was a massive surprise when it turned out Maple Treeway took its spot.
    • Everyone had predicted the DS track in Wave 4 would be Airship Fortress or Delfino Square, so it was a (controversial) surprise when Mario Circuit was the DS track included.
    • The prefix leak had made it obvious there'd be only 2 Wii tracks in the final 2 waves. Thus, almost nobody predicted Moonview Highway to appear in Wave 5, especially since there was no leaks including it at all prior to its reveal. Theories regarding its inclusion range from it replacing GCN Mushroom Bridge mid-development as part of a larger series of changes regarding course order to it replacing one of the blank course slots (which it did, as it is labelled as "Cnsw_63" in the game's files) or even Wii's Rainbow Road (which would be proven wrong when it was revealed to be coming in the final wave).
    • Wave 6 had spots for two Nitro Tracks (previously a third, but it was discovered to be Moonview Highway), so most people predicted one of them would be Piranha Plant Pipeline, considering the fact that every Tour Nitro Track had been included up until that point. However, it blindsided everyone upon the reveal that 3DS Rosalina's Ice World was included instead, especially considering that the prefix leak stated there'd be no more 3DS tracks after Wave 3.
• Sophomore Slump: After the Booster Course Pass was generally agreed to have hit its stride in Wave 3, Waves 4 and 6 were considered worthy follow-ups with fantastic track selections. However, in between them was Wave 5, which many considered to be the weakest wave after Waves 1 and 2. While all of the tracks in the Feather Cup were considerably well-liked, especially Wii Moonview Highway and Squeaky Clean Sprint, the tracks in the Cherry Cup were considered almost all disappointments. Tour Los Angeles Laps lacks the sunset aesthetic of its Tour counterpart, while those new to the track found the Inglewood Oil Field to be an unappealing locale, GBA Sunset Wilds barely has its elevation raised and lacks the sunset gimmick that made it popular in the first place, and Wii Koopa Cape is considered fine, but still vastly inferior to its Wii counterpart due to its shortened rapids layout and the changes made to the underwater tunnel. Tour Vancouver Velocity is the only one that's generally well-liked, but it's not without its critics for its overly-similar Laps 2 and 3.
• Special Effect Failure:
  • Much like previous Mario Karts, audience members in bleachers are 2D sprite animations placed on top of invisible vectors. Since they're usually far off in the background, this tends to not be noticeable... except in Tour Sydney Sprint, where they're within arm's reach inside of the Sydney Opera House, making their low-quality renders and few frames of animation very prominent. This can also be seen inside of Rogers Arena in Tour Vancouver Velocity, though to a lesser degree due to the more open layout. While this was also the case in the Mario Kart Tour versions of the courses, this visual flub is much more pronounced when viewed on a modern television instead of a dinky phone or tablet screen. On the other hand, the 3D spectators the game has scattered around the sides of the tracks are way out of scale compared to the racers. It's incredibly weird to be loading in the next race and see a Toad that's three times bigger than Bowser standing on the sidelines.
  • The tulip field in Tour Amsterdam Drift did not see any model updates (unlike, say, DS Peach Gardens, which largely swapped the Tour flower models for HD ones from 8) and drew a lot of scrutiny for just how rough the copy-pasted low-poly models look, particularly on a system that can deliver far better.
  • 3DS Toad Circuit and DS Shroom Ridge stand out as some of the, if not the, worst looking tracks in the Booster Course Pass, as they exclusively use Tour flower and grass models instead of their 8 HD equivalents, which coupled with their very simplistic and minimalistic designs (being mostly featureless grasslands and roads) comes across as very rough looking.
• Spiritual Successor:
  • This was the closest F-Zero fans got to a new game during the extreme Sequel Gap between F-Zero GX and F-Zero 99. The extra downloadable content helps, including Mute City, Big Blue, and the Blue Falcon vehicle in the DLC Packs, a Captain Falcon amiibo racing suit, and a lightning-fast 200cc mode.
  • With in-game vehicles being able to move on land, underwater or through the air, this feels like the closest fans will get to a sequel to Diddy Kong Racing, even though the title character was absent until the final wave of the Booster Course Pass.
  • With all the Nintendo non-Mario crossovers present (Splatoon, The Legend of Zelda, Animal Crossing, F-Zero, and Excitebike), you may as well call this Super Smash Kart.
• Suspiciously Similar Song:
  • Ice Ice Outpost's music sounds very similar to a song you might hear in Mega Man 7.
  • The final part of Thwomp Ruins' loop begins with a section that is very reminiscent of the chorus of "Apache" by The Sugarhill Gang.
  • The first part of Sunshine Airport's music sounds oddly similar to the iconic Tom and Jerry theme song.
  • London Loop's music sounds a lot like something from Team Sonic Racing.
• Tainted by the Preview: Despite the low price point for its size and length, some disliked the Booster Course Pass announcement because it meant Mario Kart 9 wouldn't be coming that console generation. Others disliked how the tracks were just upres versions of the ones from Mario Kart Tour that initially lacked the same level of polish the base game tracks have. Still others were annoyed that there were no new characters karts or Battle Mode maps added. And finally, we have the people upset that it didn't come to the Wii U version at all.
• That One Achievement:
  • Getting the Gold Glider in the Wii U version requires you to collect 10,000 coins. Since you can hold up to 10 coins per race, that's 1,000 races you have to play minimum. Fortunately, this was cut down to "just" 5,000 coins in the Switch version... which will still take at least 500 races.
  • While the base game staff ghosts are manageable with some knowledge of the courses, trying to beat the Booster Course Pass ghosts (a Self-Imposed Challenge considering you don't get anything for it) can be an exercise in pure frustration. The folks at Nintendo seem to have decided that since there's nothing locked behind these ghosts, they didn't need to hold back, and put their best players on the job. In some cases, you'll need to not only have the right vehicle parts and know the course like the back of your hand, but get 10 coins by the end of the first lap, follow the exact route the ghost does, and not make any mistakes, even minor ones like failing to trick off certain ramps, to stand a chance of placing a few milliseconds ahead of them. The ghost for N64 Kalimari Desert is particularly unforgiving.
• That One Level:
  • Bone-Dry Dunes, due to its many sharp corners, tons of sand which slows the player down, and obstacles — such as Dry Bones, Bone Piranha Plants, and quicksands — all over the place and put in very troubling positions.
  • N64 Toad's Turnpike, despite being a Shell Cup track, is infamous for how annoying it is. Like the 64 version, all of the cars and trucks are placed within narrow corridors, leaving little room for drivers to perform drifts unless they get lucky with item selections. It's partially mitigated by the zero-gravity walls with Dash Panels on them, but they accelerate drivers at a fixed speed, meaning they won't catch up with experienced drivers who have found their way around the tightly-packed obstacles and can stack up drifts. It's for all these reasons that N64 Toad's Turnpike rarely ever gets selected in online lobbies.
  • On 200cc, courses like the five Rainbow Roads, which are relatively easy on lower difficulty classes, become much more difficult due to the need to lower one's speed to avoid falling off the curves. 3DS Neo Bowser City is another example, with its winding curves and the series of S-turns over a bottomless pit, on top of the rain making the turns slippery. Going through all the cups in chronological order, one of the first real challenges of 200cc is SNES Donut Plains 3, a winding course which requires you to bring in the right kind of character/kart combination lest you spend 80% of the race in the grass.
  • GBA Cheese Land gets flak because of the many sharp turns, which often means you have to be precise on drifting through the corners lest you end up in the cheese dust. The holes in the road make this harder, as the boosts that result from tricking off of them will throw off your subsequent drift.
  • Ninja Hideaway quickly became infamous for its difficulty, especially for players who never played Tour. It immediately opens up with two 90° turns not unlike Bowser's Castle or Piranha Plant Slide, and the rest of the turns aren't much better. This doesn't even include all the hazards, including the Shy Guy kites at the first glider section that can be mistaken for decorations. The track has many jumps with ramps that change your elevation, but getting hit can send you into a pit and cost you the race. One of these infamous locations is the descending shuriken ceilings near the beginning, which have a habit of lowering themselves just enough that if you don't make the jump quickly enough, they send you straight into a wall.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • In 8, the changing of Battle Mode from arenas to modified race tracks didn't go over well with most fans, with many finding these full race tracks too huge to do proper battling in. Toad's Turnpike is particularly infamous - it's such a cramped course with such huge, damaging obstacles that many fans found it nearly impossible to hold a fair fight on. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe for Nintendo Switch saw dedicated Battle Mode arenas finally make a return (though not everyone is fine with having them be Deluxe-only).
  • The game's item mechanics have been changed slightly so people can't "double shield" with items (drag an item and hold a different item in your inventory to act as a back up shield), with Triple Shells/Bananas being deployed instantly as revolving shields. Some fans weren't too happy with the changes. Deluxe, again, resolved that by reintroducing Double Item Boxes.
  • Diehard N64 fans weren't pleased with the fact that 8's rendition of N64 Rainbow Road was split into three sections like 3DS Rainbow Road instead of having to complete three full laps around it, in order to cut down on the track's original length. The lap change is sort of justified, as if the original track length was played online, it would last a good 6-7 minutes, which defeats Mario Kart's online purpose of quick gameplay.
  • The Art Shift for the Booster Course Pass DLC was enough to set some people off. The visuals are a near-universal point of praise for the base game, so the use of Mario Kart Tour's more simplistic art style was viewed as a major step down. This would be addressed over time, with the tracks introduced in later waves (most notably the last four) seeing major visual upgrades and many standing alongside the base game in terms of quality.
  • The return of Coconut Mall in the Booster Course Pass had a major gripe in the form of the cars at the end of the race. In the original Wii and the 3DS versions, these cars were driven by Miis and would slowly drive back and forth. In this one, however, they stay still and are driven by Shy Guys instead, turning them into simple motionless obstacles. Few people were pleased by the change. Not helping matters, the cars do move in the Mario Kart Tour version of the course, albeit slower than in Wii and 7 and still driven by Shy Guys instead of Miis. Some have speculated that the reason the cars don't move at all is because they would be too difficult to dodge in 200cc mode, as the game's files show that they were originally planned to move. However, in Wave 2, the course was updated so the Shy Guys drive the cars, albeit differently than the other versions. The cars remain still in Time Trials however, likely to avoid invalidating times set earlier.
  • This game's version of GBA Sky Garden is based on the Tour remake, which deviates heavily from its original layout, reduces its difficulty significantly combined with the tighter controls in 8 Deluxe, and replaces much of its aesthetic identity with "generic" elements that are already common in other courses. It might have gotten off a bit easier, if not for the fact that the game already had a Level in the Clouds with a very similar look and play style (and in Japanese, Chinese, and Korean, the same name) in the form of Cloudtop Cruise, which just ended up making the remade Sky Garden feel like a much blander retread of a track that was already in the base game.
  • Patch 2.2.0 altered the behavior of the Lightning item so that players who are hit by it while gliding in the air no longer drop to the ground. The change was likely due to players having the ability to choose what items can appear in a race and thus make it possible that Lightning is the only item that will appear. While the change was met with a warm reception by many, just as many others feel the change sucks the fun out of being able to knock other players into a Bottomless Pit while they cross a gap.
  • Bangkok Rush was criticized by some Mario Kart Tour players for stripping out many of the unique elements of the course present in that game. In particular, the boats with bouncy canopies are no longer accessible to drivers, the Inky Piranha Plants have been replaced by completely harmless Piranha Plants like those in N64 Royal Raceway, and the unique cars on the road like tuk-tuks with bouncy roofs were stripped out and replaced with Sidesteppers. Other changes made to the track make for some... peculiar design choices, like changing the railway market to not have a wooden plank leading up to the left side, but leaving the one on the right side — which still allows access to the canopies on the left in a much less elegant fashion. However, Bangkok Rush is still generally regarded as one of the better city tracks in the game because the overall layout is still one of the most complex and creative in the entire lineup.
  • The defining gimmick of GBA Sunset Wilds — the sun setting and night falling — was inexplicably axed in its Booster Course Pass iteration. This greatly soured opinions on the course, with many feeling like its slot was wasted as a result (especially since this iteration being based on the remake featured in Mario Kart Tour, which does feature the sunset).
• Tough Act to Follow: It's speculated that this is one of the reasons why there has been no new console Mario Kart since 8's release in 2014. First there was the addition of DLC courses back in its Wii U days, then the announcement of Deluxe for the Switch, and finally the Booster Course Pass. The result is a game with a staggering 96 courses and a fully fleshed out roster of 40+ characters, along with a very refined battle mode. A hypothetical follow-up on another Nintendo system would have extremely lofty expectations coming off this game.
• Unexpected Character:
  • The Villagers and Isabelle and Inklings aren't too hard to believe as guest characters in a Mario Kart game despite being from game series that are both completely separate from the Mario franchise. But Link, a character from a series that generally has fairly primitive technology (with some magitek exceptions, most prominently in Breath of the Wild), being in a game with modern vehicles that have anti-gravity, is someone nearly no one saw coming. Granted, after the Master Cycle was properly introduced in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, no one bats an eye these days.
  • While Birdo is hardly an unusual choice for a Mario spinoff (or for Mario Kart in general, having previously appeared in Double Dash!!, Wii, and Tour), not many people were expecting her to return in Wave 4 of the Booster Course Pass, considering the DLC was until that point focused entirely on... well, courses. The patch for the DLC added an entire column of question marks to the character roster along with Birdo, all but saying there would be five more DLC characters — and then it turned out there were actually seven more DLC characters, revealed during the trailer for Wave 6. As a result, Pauline appearing right after Funky could count since everyone thought the final wave would just have two characters.
  • When more characters were revealed to be coming, everyone had set in stone predictions for who they'd be (Diddy Kong, Pauline, Petey Piranha, Kamek and Funky Kong), so almost nobody expected Wiggler to show up in Wave 5. To further add to this, he was added a few weeks before he was added to Tour, meaning this was his grand return to Mario Kart since 7. Similarly, very few expected Peachette would join the cast in Wave 6.
• Values Dissonance: In Deluxe, the Inkling Girl's original animation for hitting another driver with an item was her holding her bent right arm upwards and placing her hand on the upper arm. This gesture, while okay in Japan and parts of the United States (there, the gesture is associated with motivational wartime icon Rosie the Riveter), is an offensive gesture known as the bras d'honneur (arm of honor), the equivalent of the middle finger in Europe, Latin America, and regions of North America with high Latino populations. This was later edited so that the Inkling Girl just does a fist pump instead.
• Viewer Gender Confusion: A few players unfamiliar with the Koopalings didn't realize Lemmy Koopa in 8 was male, due to having a ponytail and being voiced by a woman.
• Win Back the Crowd: The late Satoru Iwata believed that Mario Kart 8 would be the game that would help the struggling Wii U boost in sales. It worked to an extent, but not well enough to keep the console from going down as a failure for the company. It fared far better on the Switch, becoming its best-selling game with over 43 million units sold by the end of December 2021; it ended up surpassing Mario Kart Wii as the best-selling game in the series, and by extension the best-selling racing game of all time.

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