In addition to being a way to make a video game title even longer, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe’s Booster Course Pass Wave 1 has brought fans eight new exciting tracks. Well, new-ish. And vaguely exciting.
Okay, neither that new nor exciting. None of the tracks are new. One of the tracks is exciting. Ninja Hideaway sure is doing a lot of heavy lifting here, folks. Just to be clear, Ninja Hideaway isn’t new. It’s from Mario Kart Tour. They just forgot to mark it that way. Really.
Whether you play for fun or to prove to other people you’re better at having fun than them, Mario Kart tracks always do bring a fun sense of design and style. Rainbow Road is a cultural icon for a reason: It looks cool and has an alliterative name. Weird Mario Kart tracks are often as memorable for their weird twists and turns as they are for their gameplay value. At least, that’s what people who are bad at Mario Kart say.
But are these new-yet-not-new tracks weird enough? Has Nintendo hit the bottom of the well that is revamping old tracks for subsequent games? Is a third question in this paragraph needed? We ranked all eight new tracks based on weirdness to find out the first two.
8. Toad Circuit
There is nothing memorable about Toad Circuit. It is neither good nor bad, fun nor not fun. It just is, a platonic ideal of ‘fine.’ Every part of Toad Circuit looks like every part of Mario Circuit, Luigi Raceway, or Peace Circuit. There’s a start line. There’s a finish line. There’s some road in between the two spots.
A big inflatable Toad is cool, I guess? But not really that weird. Actually, kind of normal for a big racing event.
7. Sky Garden
What can be said about Sky Garden that hasn’t already been said? Probably a lot, because I feel like there’s not a lot that’s been said or needs to be said about Sky Garden. Hey, did you know that it’s one of the only Mario Kart tracks to appear in two different games in the same cup?
The idea of racing in the heavens is a fun concept - and the flowy clouds are comforting - but Sky Garden looks and feels like a New Super Mario bonus level you only visit once.
6. Tokyo Blur
Tokyo Blur is nice to look at! And it’s a perfectly fine track, just like Toad Circuit and Sky Garden! But is it weird? Not really. Having Mario characters dance all over a Japanese backdrop isn’t that odd considering the country once used Mario to promote their Summer Olympics (and had even more plans to do so until the pandemic hit). Mario in Japan just feels normal.
The one thing that’s a little wild and a little strange is there are giant vending machines. But those are far more prominent in an entry down the list.
Really. Big vending machines are the weirdest thing about a cartoon race track that takes place in a cartoon Tokyo. It’s just not that weird.
5. Ninja Hideaway
Ninja Hideaway is easily the best course of the bunch as well as the most visually exciting. But it’s not that weird. It’s actually pretty on-theme and normal. The trope of Shy Guys as ninjas doesn’t feel out of place.
If anything, Ninja Hideaway’s weirdness comes from the inaccuracy of its name. This is an intensely large and well-lit building that seems to host public races in which anyone can join.
The ninjas aren’t even hiding. They pop out to fuck up your cart before a jump. But that’s about it. If I were a ninja, I’d probably be a little bit more protective of my hideaway than making Yoshi spin-out because I was annoyed.
Great level, though.
4. Choco Mountain
While Choco Mountain isn’t that exciting to play, at least it’s also visually uninteresting.
To be fair, we’ve been playing this same track since Mario Kart 64. Perhaps a reverse bias is at work - we’re so used to this track that Choco Mountain has become vanilla. Yes, I do hate myself for writing that. Yes, I did hate myself before that anyway.
However, the concept is pretty fun and there’s some weird stuff to talk about. If this is a mountain made of chocolate, why are there fossils? There also appear to be sedimentary layers. Are these different types of chocolate? How does the chocolate fossilize bone? Are there animals that live within the chocolate one should be worried about before biting the mountain?
There’s also a sign that says ‘Yoshi Egg Market’ which definitely has some worrisome implications for a number of reasons.
3. Shroom Ridge
Can’t beat that name.
2. Coconut Mall
Controversy over changes notwithstanding, Coconut Mall is still visually fun and surprising, even years later. It’s bright and cheerful and is one of the few Mario Kart games to feature a parking lot. True, a parking lot is perhaps the least weird of public spaces - in reality. In Mario Kart, that’s kind of weird. We often see other, non-kart drivers in Mario Kart, but we don’t see where they park so they can use the Barnes & Noble bathroom.
Coconut Mall is full of weird little moments. Do I miss the Mii characters? Yeah. Is it weird to think about Shy Guys both parking cars so they can go shopping and working in a ninja castle. Absolutely.
This track - like Tokyo Drift Blur - also features giant vending machines. Just massive. My man Link, in a regular kart, came up to maybe the bottom of the slot where you retrieve your drink. Who is using such large vending machines? None of the characters we see in Coconut Mall are that much larger than your standard racing character.
So who is it for? Who shops at the Coconut Mall?
1. Paris Promenade
Like Tokyo Blur, Paris Promenade is a nice little comfy tour through one of the world’s most famous cities. The music is pleasant and the representations of the major French landmarks are sure fun. Driving under the Eiffel Tower to cheering crowds? Yes, please!
But here’s what makes it the weirdest fucking course in the game: You can drive straight-ass through the Arc de Triomphe. The only thing stopping you is two cardboard piranha plants that you can just blast through. Then you can drive straight past all the war monuments and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. One of the most somber monuments in France. With Larry Koopa doing wheelies all over it.
At one point, I even checked to make sure this was the Arc de Triomphe. I’m not a smart man, and I could’ve been conflating my landmarks. Nope. It’s the Arc de Triomphe. And not only that, but apparently in the game Mario is Missing, the villains stole the eternal flame from the Tomb of the Union Soldier and Luigi had to get it back.
So, to be clear, Luigi had to restore a tribute to the missing, lost, and unidentified dead of one of the worst conflicts in human history. Then he came back and said, ‘Fuck it. It’s blue shell time.’