The first part of our Mario Kart 8 review looked at what the game does well-which is most things. Part 2 of our review will be much more mixed, but don't think for one second that this is a condemnation of the game. It isn't. It points out serious problems, areas where Nintendo missed the boat, but these are by no means dealbreakers. You should definitely buy Mario Kart 8. You should probably even buy a Wii U to play it. It's that good. Its online multiplayer is fantastic. But the game is not perfect. And some of its imperfections are pretty massive. One in particular: Battle Mode.
Mario Kart 8 Review: Battle Mode
One of my roommates has always loved Battle Mode in Mario Kart. It was great on Super Nintendo, perfected in Mario Kart 64, refined on GameCube, screwed up on Wii, and generally pretty irrelevant on the handhelds. But it has never been worse than in Mario Kart 8. I am very sad to report this news, but there it is. Battle Mode in Mario Kart 8 is essentially unplayable. It's really no fun at all.
And there's a very simple reason for the complete failure of Mario Kart 8 Battle Mode: it takes place entirely on regular courses. There are no dedicated Battle Mode arenas. This sounds like a bad idea on the face of it, and indeed it is. The trouble is that it's very hard to actually run into anybody else when you're playing on full courses. Mario Kart 8 tracks are pretty long in the first place, but that's not the point: the vaguely circular arenas of past games were designed to force players to run into each other as much as possible. The regular tracks, on which Battle Mode now takes place, are designed for, well, racing: for characters to pass each other and interact in a linear fashion, with the aim of getting ahead, not hitting each other as much as possible.
And it's made even harder because the game doesn't have radar. It makes finding other karts an exercise in sheer frustration. Even if you play with Shells Only, the only condition which makes Battle Mode even playable, it's simply not that much fun. The mode was clearly an afterthought on Nintendo's part, and that's a shame.
This, thankfully, is a problem that could be rectified with DLC of Battle Arenas. Whether such a thing will come to pass is very much an open question.
All that being said, let's move to a happier subject.
Mario Kart 8 Review: The Tracks
So, Mario Kart 8's Battle Mode is ruined because it takes on the regular tracks... but how do those regular tracks hold up themselves? I'm pleased to report that, in Grand Prix and Versus mode, both the new tracks and the legacy tracks are consistently pretty awesome.
Like every Mario Kart game, there are a few generic tracks... the Mario Kart equivalent of Super Smash Bros' Battlefield and Final Destination, blank templates for sheer racing. These are the least interesting in themselves, but antigravity still makes them pretty cool. Mario Kart Stadium is pretty boring, but the flagship Mario Circuit and the Sunshine-inspired Sunshine Airport are both lots of fun, as is legacy track Royal Raceway.
The specialty tracks, the ones with crazy obstacles or lots of routes, are as usual the highlights. We'll do a best of track list pretty soon, but for now, I can especially recommend Shy Guy Falls, Toad Harbor, Mount Wario, and Cloudtop Cruise among the new tracks, and Toad's Turnpike, Wario Stadium, and N64 Rainbow Road among the legacy tracks.
A few tracks in Mario Kart 8 are a little boring... there are no overtly bad tracks, but some are simply blah. There's nothing truly hate-worthy, not even the legacy track Yoshi Valley from Mario Kart 64, the worst track from that game. Like all the legacy tracks, it has been completely remastered, with new graphics, new features, and an across-the-board update, turning that once execrable track into a pretty fun one. The bad tracks tend to be simply boring. These include some of the early new tracks, like Water Park and Sweet Sweet Canyon, as well as later ones like Dolphin Shoals. Some of the legacy tracks don't make full use of the new features either, and tend to drag a bit: here's looking at you, Tick Tock Clock and Piranha Plant Slide.
But, all told, it's a really good assortment of tracks, one of the best or the best in any Mario Kart game. You will not be disappointed, and there are no tracks that are really miserable.
Next up in our Mario Kart 8 review: Online multiplayer in Part 3 and the game's UI issues in Part 4!
