Mario Kart 8 Deluxe - Booster Course Pack Wave 2 Review
Is the second effort better than the first? Did David forget about this series entirely?
Hello!
It has been a long time. Too long, honestly. Long enough that Wave 3 of the DLC is just a week away, and yet here I am, writing the review on Wave 2.
That’s my bad.
Nevertheless, we persist, and I’m back to provide you with another review on the Booster Course Pack, the DLC that Nintendo released for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe for the Nintendo Switch, adding 48 courses to the 48 existing within the game in six installments of eight courses apiece — deemed “waves”.
For a link to the first review, look here. As with the last review, the intent is to honestly look at these courses and tell you, the consumer, whether we think it’s worth the money and time to procure this pass if you don’t already have it.
Much like the first wave, our second wave contains two cups: the Turnip Cup and the Propeller Cup, both of which have four tracks apiece. Just like last time, we’ll walk you through both cups one at a time on a by-track basis, giving you insight on every element of the play experience.
First up, the Turnip Cup, within which you’ll find [Tour] New York Minute, [SNES] Mario Circuit 3, [N64] Kalimari Desert, and [DS] Waluigi Pinball.1 On the surface, I was a little less excited for this one than I was for the other cup, but it held its own.
New York Minute kicked us off, as seems to be standard fare at this point, with a Mario Kart Tour track. I’ve articulated what Tour is, why I dislike it, and what the tracks that come from it directly seem to lack ad nauseam, so I won’t continue to bore you with it, but these problems continue here. Despite what should objectively be a great atmosphere — it’s the Big Apple, baby! — there’s no soul, no real feeling. Most other city-based tracks evoke at least some sense of “oh hey this is where I am”, however hokey, while New York feels like Generic Cityscape A.
Mario Circuit 3 was also featured in Mario Kart Wii, and while it doesn’t quite have the same fun frenetic pace that it did then, I feel like this track carries itself better than, say, Donut Plains. There’s only so much variety involved in these early courses, and this track in particular does about as good a job as is possible in maximizing enjoyment given a rather limited skill set.
Kalimari Desert was a track that I was totally unfamiliar with when it was first announced. Trailers admittedly had me really excited… up until I played it. Something isn’t scaled right, or maybe I’m just hoping for more, but the track feels wildly empty for how narrow it is. Driving on it, I was really hoping for a bit more action, but it just sort of feels like a kiddie coaster where you get a close call with the train — maybe — and then the rest of the lap is teasing you in the run back up to that.
Waluigi Pinball is my comfortable favorite from this cup and so far, one of my frontrunners from the entire DLC pack. It captures all the energy of the original, and while the turns are a little nightmarish on 200cc, it’s still a lot of fun. There’s enough to the track to give a sense of replayability in a way that some of these tracks don’t have; instead of feeling like you’re being pulled on a string, there’s a lot more free action involved.
All in all? Starts slow, finishes strong. This feels a bit like a filler cup, mostly building to bigger and better things, leftovers thrown together in order to meet quota. I doubt that’s actually true, but that’s the overwhelming feeling I get from running this cup.
Our second and final cup is the Propeller Cup, featuring [Tour] Sydney Sprint, [GBA] Snow Land, [Wii] Mushroom Gorge, and Sky-High Sundae, our first original course2 in the DLC pack.
Sydney Sprint is so far my favorite of the “city courses”, as I’m calling the Tour ventures that place us in real-world settings. It’s got just enough challenge to give it a little oomph where other courses like Paris fell short, but it’s also not convoluted enough to feel labyrinthine, as Ninja Hideaway does basically every time I’m unlucky enough to race there. They’ve struck the balance quite well, and the splash colors do the environment a ton of justice in curating the right sort of feeling.
Snow Land is just a really solid effort. It’s much like Donut Plains and Mario Circuit 3, which docks it a couple points, because there isn’t really a ton to speak of in terms of the actual racing course, but ice tracks will always be simultaneously near and dear to my heart and a moment’s notice from expulsion to the far reaches of the universe. They’re very bipolar that way and Snow Land is no different. I love seeing Mario Kart 8 take on snow courses, and feel as though we got a dearth of them throughout the regular game’s release — so to see one crop up in the DLC is cool.
Mushroom Gorge is the obvious superstar of the entire pack. It was a fan favorite — with damn good reason — in Mario Kart Wii, and that carries through here comfortably. Some minor changes to the course mean that you can’t just carry your old strategies through and run away with victory, and that adds an element of challenge to the fight that I LOVE. I think it’s the best example of what I wanted from the DLC pack so far — courses that feel like they were molded to fit Mario Kart 8 without losing the flavor and identity that made them so iconic in their original series.
Sky-High Sundae may have flown a little too close to the sun. Branding a track as original is a risky move, considering the precedent set throughout the game up to this point, and it made the glaring shortcomings of Tour-bent tracks all the clearer. Additionally, for all the bright colors, they don’t really work in the favor of the track here the way they do for Sydney — here, they’re disjointed, entirely too much, and it doesn’t really feel like the track actually gives much of a consistent identity. I really wanted more for this one.
All in all? Mushroom Gorge salvages what is otherwise a pretty mediocre offering. Like its sibling cup, it fills a gap, and I’m hoping that means that Wave 3 knocks it out of the park, but there’s a reason the reviews are much shorter this time around: there’s just not as much to say.
On the whole, what’s the takeaway?
Not every track or cup or wave is going to be a home run. I think that they did really well with Mushroom Gorge and Waluigi Pinball, but I think that they conversely massively missed the mark on New York Minute and Sky-High Sundae.
I said this last time, and I won’t bother to rehash the full argument, but the influence of Mario Kart Tour is an ever-greater threat to the best parts of Mario Kart. Small details get chipped away because in a mobile game they’ll matter less, so everything feels a little flatter, a little less polished. There’s no Baseball Mario or Uber Super Mega Ultra Gold Peach to distract the player from some of the lackluster elements of these tracks when they’re played on Switch, and I can’t imagine I’m the only person noticing this.
That said, it is still an incredibly fun time. My girlfriend and I will devote hours to this game, trying forever to beat the other, and we don’t do that with too many games (except Mario Party, which is just Breakup Simulator). It’s a delightful time at its core because it’s always going to be fun, and some of the visuals not being where they need to be can simultaneously be a red flag to note and also something that, in the grand scheme of things, Does Not Matter.
Is it worth the money?
My vote was yes the first time, and it is yes now, even more so. Despite any flaws with this game, you’re essentially doubling the depth of the game at half the price; that’s value that easily outpaces what amount to minor quirks and personal preferences.
What’s your track ranking?
Mushroom Gorge is the clear frontrunner here, though Waluigi Pinball makes a very earnest challenge and comfortably sits second. I think I’m going Snow Land third, with Mario Circuit 3 and Sydney Sprint close behind jousting for fourth. Lagging significantly off of those three is New York Minute in sixth, with Sky-High Sundae in seventh and Kalimari Desert in eighth.
Mario Kart Tour Is Bad
This article is still in the works. Depending on the time frame between Waves 3 and 4, it may come then. I just need to figure out how best to articulate my many thoughts on this subject, but the general headline has not changed.
Final thoughts
Mario Kart remains among the most pristine examples of a game that is accessible to all, and anything that adds to that legacy is going to be regarded as a positive in my eyes, but there are still sticking points with some of these courses that tell me that a little polish would have gone a very long way. It’s still quite enjoyable, though, and I am REALLY ready for Wave 3 come December 7.
Maybe I’ll even publish a review in the same month this time!
Brackets reference the game in which the course first featured
This is a “new” course, but it’s widely understood it’s coming to Tour