Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - The Final Mario Kart 8 Review - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: May 27, 2025

Go to https://mood.com and use code KINDAFUNNY to get 20% off your first order. Thank you for the support! Run of Show - 00:00:00 - Start00:02:30 - Housekeeping00:03:10 - Topic of the Show: Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Final Review!00:05:10 - Greg’s Review00:06:30 - Barrett’s Review00:10:10 - Tim’s Review00:17:10 - Mario Kart 8 Full Timeline00:34:30 - Ads00:47:00 - Credits!00:48:15 - Stats!00:56:38 - Mario Kart World01:01:30 - Superchats! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up and welcome back to the Kind of Funny Games cast for Tuesday, May 27th, 2025. Of course, I am your host, Tim Getty's. I'm joined today by Barrett Courtney. Hello, Tim. Hello, Barrett. And rounding out the group today with the one and only Greg Miller. Hey, Tim, how are you? I'm good.

How are you? I'm great. You've been having a lot of good hair days recently. Thank you. I appreciate that. I don't know. Whatever this haircut is, it's good. Okay, good one.

You're getting the volume, but you're also, it looks clean. You know what I mean? To quote one, Natalie Portman, it's a good look. Ah, yeah, I remember that, Thor. Yeah, Thor one. Forget it. She was in Star Wars, too. Yeah, and V for Vendetta.

That's true. That's true. And the assassin. Mm-hmm. And Pirates the Caribbean. What was it called? That's what it was. Beyond the professional.

The professional. Oh, yeah. I never watched. She was a child. Yeah. Everyone would remember, this is the kind of funny games cast. I was a child, too. I mean, that's why I didn't watch it.

You know what I mean? Each and every weekday. We get together to talk about the biggest reviews, previews, and topics and video games live on YouTube, and podcast services, around the globe. If you love what we do, please support us with the Kind of Funny membership on Patreon, YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts to get all of our shows ad-free, watch us record them live and get a daily exclusive Gregway. For a chance to be part of the show, submit your thoughts

and opinions as YouTube Super Chats as we go. A little housekeeping for you. Actually, before we even get there, Super Chats. It's going to be big today. Super Chat. I want your thoughts. I want your final review of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on the kind of funny scale. What would you give it? from 1 to 10, okay? Kevin, can we show them the scale? God, his eyes look so beautiful. Do we have that technology? Yeah, we have the technology.

Let's look at your eyes again real quick. Thank you. There we go. Look at them. Eyes of a fucking loser. No, don't, can you, you cheated. Here we have it, okay? From one gollum to 10 masterpiece with 0.5s,

where do you put Mario Card 8 Deluxe as a final review after a decade of playing this game? And if you have any questions about the game, you want to ask us, or if you have questions about Mario Kart World. you want to ask us about our anticipation or thoughts on that. Please send those through as Super Chats and we'll get to them throughout the show. Little housekeeping for you. We are an 11-person business all about live talk shows. You already got an episode of Kind of Funny Games Daily.

Then you're getting this right now. After this, you're getting the last of us two finale spoiler cast. Then after that is going to be a subway surfer sponsored stream, which I'm incredibly excited about. It's going to be me, Greg, and Nick, hanging out with Roger Perkorni as he schools us on subway surfers. we'll see who's school is whom we're definitely going to and i feel like it's just going to be us annoying him that's what it's going to end up being it i'm excited for this one zuber versus three old so come hang out if you're a kind of funny member today's great way's 27 minutes about superman fever superman it's here someone's got the the sickness yeah it's great when is that out

july 11 damn coming up quick coming up real quick a month two weeks no no worries thank you to our patreon producers carl jacobobbara and delaney twining today we are brought to you by but we'll tell you all about that later because we got to get into it the topic of the show dotts dots dots dots dots dotts dotts dotts dots dots Mario card eight final review it's been over 10 years since the first version of Mario cart eight came out we have been playing it consistently Barrett for 10 years yeah Greg you've been playing it consistently no that was the whole thing of like when I wanted to be on the show it was going to be you guys I kind of just was like you know I I want to be on there too, because I think I represent, to me, a more normal player where I played Marry, I've played a lot of Mario Card.

I love Mario Card until I met you two. I thought I was really good at Mario Card. Now, I think I'm just, I'm good at Mario Card, but I'm not, you're kind of good. But like, I played it, loved it, but put it down and moved on, whereas you guys never have. And so it's interesting to be here to talk to you about it and games and service versus that. But no, I mean, I love this game, but I don't have the consistency you have. Well, I am excited to talk to you about it, though, because the game's been very consistent. The game has been dropping a lot of stuff over and over.

I have a full timeline that I want to go through, but I don't want to get to that yet. I want to first just say the first one came out on May 30th, 2014. So it literally has been over 10 years since we've played the majority of this game. For the very first time. And here we are now on the eve of literally one week away from Mario Kart World and the Switch 2 coming out. So that's all exciting. But before we get into the nitty gritty, because I do want to go kind of things. thing by thing,

Barrett, event by events, addition by addition to this game, and got to talk about our thoughts now reflecting back that we've had extensive time playing through those iterations of the journey that we've been on.

But to start it off, I do want to give our review of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe the 2025 edition, keeping all of the game in mind, all the DLC, all of the final package of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe,

booster pack, and all. Greg, do you want to start by just given your thoughts? Yeah, I mean, I think you'd be a stupid idiot not to give it a 10. Like, I think this game has been so impressive and so good and then so well supported. And then the list goes on in terms of a game like you're talking about that we've played. How many years ago, Tim? How many years ago?

Yeah, I mean, 11. 11 years ago, the first time we ever played this, let alone the fact that it survived, let alone that it's satisfied, let alone that it's sold the way it happened. I mean, even ripping all of that away and just getting down to what it feels like to be on the track, the game feels great. The game is an amazing Mario card. The game is a great gateway in. I think as I see Ben playing it for the first time and really learning all the things I remember learning when I was playing Mario Kart for me, GameCube being where I really entered the series and get in there with Double Dash. Watching him do that here, watching you guys go and be masochists and try to shave off the points and the scores and like how.

quickly we can go and then me like the amount of fun i had at launch with it right the classic clip of me racing ziger and the how you try to keep up a feud we had on kind of funny like what an amazing game that even if you're as casual or young as ben versus middle of the road like me are obsessed like you guys are i think is a game that consistently can be an amazing enjoyable experience like i think it's a 10 that 10 it's it's amazing Barric Courtney I'm a fucking idiot I'm a stupid fucking idiot

because I would give this I think a a 9 to 9.5 Um you know nothing has changed for me of the overall feelings that I've had for Mario Kart

since I first played the Wii U demo of Mario Kart 8 at like a Best Buy Uh They forced you to do the motion controls for that I don't remember if they forced me to do the motion controls But it was the airport level

And there it was my first time Like truly playing like in a Mario Kart in a bit and it just kind of like the joy of it and the kind of like theme park uh like kind of amusement park feel of it just like washed over me in a way that i was like oh my god i need to get a wu is the reason i got a wu right uh granted we're talking about uh deluxe and the whole package but that initial yeah it's it's part of that journey and i think all of that stuff is still so amazing even, you know, seeing some of these tracks over and over and over again for the last decade. There are still moments that like get me like happy and giddy of, you know,

driving through what is, I assume, the shy guys like a little home and like a tree and all that stuff. And the way they play with like perspectives in Mario Kart I think is so fun. It feels good. You know, a lot of the, a lot of other cart games still look to Mario Kart. for like what a cart racer should have, right? And there are some that get close to that, but there's just something about the fuel of Mario Kart that I still don't think is, has been quite replicated to that same degree.

I think the reason for the 995 is, you know, after all of these years, you know, like, yes, there's been consistent launch, but then there was a bit of like a kind of dead space between like when the game got ported to Switch. and then when we started getting DLC for the game and like how they rolled that out. And I think also, you know, hindsight's 2020

of just the way the multiplayer works is still like kind of weird and clunky that it's in 2025, it's one of those like, yeah, this was definitely designed for the Wii U era and not thought of even I would argue for the era of when the switch was coming out in its first year. That's a great argument and a great point.

Yeah, I think I give it leniency because I still think of it as a Wii U game, but you are right, that it did launch on the Switch as a modern thing and it has been around this long. But I think I'm just so willing to forgive sins like that when we're talking about games that have been around so long. Yes, of course.

And, you know, with the DLC, you have to factor that stuff in. And a lot of cool stuff out of that DLC, a lot of weird choices out of that DLC. And so, and we'll talk about all that stuff later. But yeah, this is, even with my like, not, you know, committed 10 out of 10. is still one of my favorite games of all time. It has given me hundreds and hundreds of hours of joy.

I don't even know what the exact hour count is because Tim, you're telling me that like our accounts changes whenever you, like, change your account from one switch to another. And I've gone through three different switches. So at least on this switch, I'm at 200 plus hours, which is definitely, just this one switch. Just this one switch. Wow.

And so, yeah, I truly adore it. And a lot of the conversations will have. I have a lot of interesting questions and maybe some worries about Mario Kart World. Yeah, yeah. As do I, my friend. Timothy? Robert Gettys. What do you score Mario Card 8 deluxe on the kind of funny review scale?

I feel like I am a bit more lenient when it comes to giving out tens if I feel like a game really is special despite not being perfect. Because 10's not perfect on our scale. Masterpiece. Masterpiece. And I can't fathom not saying the Mario Card 8 deluxe is a masterpiece. Like to me, this is the pinnacle of the genre, a genre I love very much. And Mario Kart hasn't always been my favorites when you compare it to its contemporaries in the cart world. I vastly prefer Crash Team Racing to Mario Kart 64.

And there are a couple of other examples as well. But once we get to Mario Kart 8 and specifically Deluxe, I don't think that a cart racer has ever felt better. and I don't think that it can feel better. And the only hope for Mario Kart world, and in my experience, so far they've nailed it is, just keep it the same. Like really just keep 90 plus, 98% of the feel the way that they had it

because the drift mechanics, the way the courses are laid out, the momentum this game has. So much of that is just like, yeah, this is how this is supposed to feel. I can definitely nitpick a lot of specific, tiny little things because I've been playing the hell out of this game for over a decade.

So the things that bother me kind of like, I can easier like, pick out compared to back of the day. But the other thing that is way more important is the production value of this game. This being a Wii U game that to this day still looks this damn good, runs this damn good, the details everywhere. The introduction of the hover situation of like just the gravity making all these tracks. They took, I mean, essentially every track ever made in Mario Kart and by the end of this,

it was modernized to be in this. and taking just the completely flat 2D tracks of Super Mario Kart and turning them into these incredible spirals of a visual journey as you're going through these insane courses. Like it's so special and I feel like that doesn't get enough credit. And yeah, you mentioned it the music. But like that's it's some of the highest quality music we've gotten in a video game, period.

And by the end of it, we're talking about hundreds of custom tracks that are just amazing high quality. just fun as hell and such a vibe. They fit this theme so well. I was reading the Nintendo developer thing about the upcoming Mario Kart World and they're talking about the design choices between this game and World and World. They're like, we're trying to go to a bit rounder, a bit cuter, a bit more cartoony, like the Mario Wonder vibe of the art style.

Whereas this, they're like, we wanted everything to be very sleek. You see Mario's face in the title screen and he's kind of like looking like a badass a little bit. You know what I mean? It's like this game had their goal was to kind of be. cool, techno cool and sleek. And I nailed it. And I think they really, really nailed that. Like, God, I love the way this game

looks. And not losing what makes Nintendo as a toy company so special in terms of, yeah, the themes of all these tracks, the way that they're able to adapt older cart racers. I've been streaming periodically

on my own channel, the older cart games that are available on Switch. And it was my first time playing Mario Kart Super Circuit. And it was, I I didn't realize that I probably had read at one point that Ribbon Road was from Super Circuit. And it blew my mind of like what they took from Super Circuit, which is like barely a theme and it's barely there. And how they're able to adapt it to like one of my favorite tracks I think in Mario Car 8. It's just like, God damn, they were on another level of thinking about again, the theme park, amusement park just wonder and joy that they do so well.

Can you try to find Ribbon Road on Game Boy Advance and then Ribbon Road on Mario Card 8 and just let me know when you have it. We can bring that up because I do. I want to show the difference. It blew my mind. But yeah, I really feel like I can understand giving this a lower score because the single player is so simple. It is just the Grand Prix. I think at the end of the day, though, there's a lot of content there. I do think some of it can, like, we don't need Miramote.

That's something that can completely cut from this game and I don't think will bother anybody. Yeah, like I feel like they might, especially with like a world being like an open, like how do you do mirror mode and that and stuff like that? So yeah, like I feel like, yes, I can kind of criticize the things this game doesn't have. But when I look at what the game does have and the amount of it, it's so impressive. And another thing I do want to shout out like talking about the online, like yes, it does not work in the way that some of us might want in 2025 to be able to, you know, play with your friends and have tournaments. And I have all this like stuff that like, yes, makes sense. what I will say is in 2020 whenever things shut down and the

world changed. Yeah, we're looking at it here. It's so, so cool how they did it. But the most people's games was Animal Crossing, but there was a lot of people that Mario Card 8 Deluxe was the game that we were playing every week like me with my friend groups that don't normally play games. And all of a sudden, like, their wives that have never played

games are getting incredibly competitive over playing this every weekend or every, not even weekend, every couple of nights. Because we're just like having these dedicated like Zoom Hall things where we're just playing Mario Kart. Like this game, I think, transcends and is going to continue to be, I think, the pinnacle of cart racing. I think that Mario Kart World is, I'm very hopeful for it. I think it's going to be incredible.

But I think that at the end of the day, it's going to be nigh impossible to take down Mario Kart 8 deluxe as the pinnacle of what Mario Kart is. I mean, let alone because of how good it is, let alone because of pandemic vibes like that, just because it's been such a staple. Again, you talk about Animal Crossing and you talk about units moved, but when you talk about the switch and the attach rate of Mario Kart, right? And you talk about what this thing was able to do number wise. And to define not only the genre, but the IP to so many Nintendo Switch players,

I think, yeah, you know, for a world, it's going to be an uphill battle to face that. And I hope, as somebody who hasn't played it yet, but is excited for it, that they are able to take on that challenge by going left when this game went right. You're talking about art style already, right? but, you know, this open world business and how this is going to feel and what this game is going to be

and what it's going to offer a single player, where it's going to offer people wanting to use game chat, what it's going to offer hardcore folks like you. Yeah. Greg, you mentioned the sales of this game. Yeah, I did. You want to guess how many copies of Mario Cardi?

No, you know how bad I am in general, but I know how astronomic these numbers are. I want you to guess. How many copies did Mario Card 8 and Deluxe? So together. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 175 million. Holy shit.

No, no, no, no, 75. I was going to get 69. Like just, just shy of 76 million, actually. That's crazy. Which is freaking crazy to think about. What's up, Kev? Oh, he's just laughing at the 69. Oh, yeah.

All right. So jumping into it, I want to go through the timeline a little bit and stop and kind of talk about where we were at with all these things. Because May 30th, 2014, Mario Kart 8 came out on the Wii U with 32 courses. That's it. And it got an 88 on Metacritic. currently. Barrett. What were your memories of Mario Kart 8?

My memories of Mario Kart 8, like I said earlier, of playing it at that Best Buy and playing the demo station of the airport track. And I don't, I'm trying to remember when we bought the Wii U because it was one of those, I didn't get it immediately because I was, you know, taking classes in college, I was, you know, working minimum wage.

I did not have the means to just like drop a couple hundred bucks on a on a on a Wii you out of nowhere so I think it wasn't until probably like 2015 where I got it for Alyssa and I um for us to to play games together Mario Kart and other games and I just it's it's been so long that kind of those early memories are a little bit of a blur um like I don't even remember when and yet you probably have all of this information but like when 200 cc was added way later yeah way later right and then like link being added and like all the dLC stuff

but i was still like really head over heels for it um i think the 200 cc stuff i don't even think i really got into until the switch because there is a you know there was a a bit of like not a lot going on on the switch uh too much in like those those early days so like by the time this came out i was already done with breath of the wild. And so like that completionist mindset came in of like, all right, I barely have anything else to play on the switch. I'm going to try to three star everything and all this stuff. But

in those early days for for Wii you, it was just like a deep love, but not the obsessiveness that I would say people know me for today. Yeah. Yeah, it's funny. I was such a fan of Wii U games, even though I hated the Wii U. And this coming out, I was addicted to it. And pretty much immediately, like, I remember even my first preview of this game downtown in San Francisco around GDC and

just falling in love immediately. I'm just being like oh wow like because I was not falling out of love with Mario Kart but I feel like there was a couple installments that I just wasn't the biggest fan of and like weirdly I was a big fan of Mario Kart 7 at the time but I think the 3DS one it kind of like brought

things back a little bit and it just felt a little better to me but then playing this was like oh wow this is what Mario Kart 7 dreamed of being following along with the kind of like land, air, and sea vibes that that game introduced, but then adding on the gravity and all of that. But really just it's the package of everything together that I did three star everything in the original Mario Card 8 with the 32 courses that it launched with. But then August 27, 2014, so a couple months later, we got our first ever Mario Kart DLC. Do you remember what it was?

the Mercedes Benz three carts based on past and present Mercedes Benz vehicles never forget which are already available to me when I got the game I just get to reap the benefits people people had to wait months

for the Mercedes Benz collab but you know I just got to drop in there and just take it all in it's so freaking funny man but yeah so we we got Mercedes Benz as the first ever DLC because there was a partnership between Nintendo and Mercedes Benz

in Japan and Mario and Peach were in a commercial there. It's like now, we get you in a commercial and you get our cars in your game. Cool. But then a couple months later we actually got our first real DLC for Mario Kart. November 13th, 2014, The Legend of Zelda Cross Mario Kart 8.

Eight courses, including crossovers for the very first time with Excite Bike, F Zero's Mute City, Zelda's High Rules Circuit, and it featured new characters link to Nuki Mario, Fat Peach, the Blue Falcon from F Zero, and the Master Cycle, which is a Pona-looking motorcycle on the Legend of Zelda side of things.

This was a huge deal. This was, I think, some of the maybe most important moment in Mario Kart 8 history was this big DLC launch, some of the best courses in the game, I would say. And the crossovers really showed, oh, this team cares. It's not just throwing something in here for it to be there. The high rule course having the rupees instead of coins, right? Obviously the music being so good. Being able to like jump through the master sword if you like hit the three little boost things and it makes the sound and all of that stuff.

And like the song for it too, like how they're able to mix the more like kind of rock and roll. A lot of guitars with the Legend of Zelda is just like, ooh, yes. And then excite bike, obviously, what a great idea to celebrate Nintendo history by taking this classic racing. adjacent game and translating it to Mario Kart with the course kind of changing procedurally every time you play it like great stuff here, the music and the vibes of the

of the game being translated very well and then F0 same thing, the countdown being the F0 sound instead of the Mario Kart sound. It's like there's just so many dumb little things that add up to I feel like really showing a polished package that a lot of DLC things you don't get that from like you just kind of like

here here's just more courses especially for Mario Kart that at that point specifically, they really could have just went back and shot out, hey, here's these old courses again. And again, talk about the time period, right? We didn't know what to expect from DLC from Nintendo. At all. And so what are you going to get?

Are these going to be lusher than are they going to be shout out like you're talking about to get in here and find it? And like, no, like you are celebrating the Nintendo IP in the history. And the reason Nintendo has this fan base, the way they have it, right? It was awesome to see them actually go through and do that and be able to crush that and have that. I mean, even we're just seeing it right there. but in F0 there's these like

kind of glow pads on the course that when you go over it fills your boost and in Mario car when you go over it it gives you coins like coin which I didn't put together for the longest time and I was very fresh I was like how the fuck I'm supposed to get all these 10 coins to get three stars on 150 and eventually I finally notice of like

oh these guys you have to you have to drive over those things to get the coins you bringing this up I think kind of brings in a memory I think I bought this for a listen to myself Holiday 2014 because yeah I think this DLC drop was like fresh

in everybody's minds when we got this and so yeah I think like straight away Link became my my main on 150 learning like I still use on 150 that the opponent bike which to me

looks so fucking cool and yeah just the the legend of Zelda track just one for the ages. Yeah, it's so damn good. And also this one too, this Dragon Speedway, I think, one of the better new courses

in Mario Kart 8, period. And like, yeah, this DLC bag, I thought was very, very, very high quality. And then moving on, from there, we had Animal Crossing, cross Mario Kart 8, eight more courses. This was April 23rd, 2015,

which was really kind of the end of Mario Kart 8 before we moved on to Deluxe there. But this is where we got new courses, including crossovers with animals, Animal Crossing and F Zero's Big Blue, which was awesome. Yes. Villager, Isabel, Dry Bowser, and more were added as characters. And this is where 200cc first made its appearance, which I remember because April 23rd, 2015 would place this firmly in the spare bedroom where we would do many let's plays of tomorrow, Card 8, including the infamous one of me and Greg Racing while we ate hot peppers.

And we had eight hot peppers before, but it had never affected me that much. I haven't thought about that video forever. And yeah, it killed me. We did, it was this Grand Prix, so it ended in Big Blue, and it was 200 C.C. And I was fucking blitzed out of my mind on Habanero Pepper. That Neo-Bowser City course from 3DS is still, after all these years, it's still tough on 200 CC. There's some turns there that are like, the most difficult thing with 200 CC is turning

and turning sharply enough to not fall off of a track. And there are some insidious ones where you get a turn after a turn. and so when you're boosting, you're going way too fast to be able to, like, catch yourself. And yeah, that Bowser City one is still tough. But this also comes with the very important track.

I don't want to gloss over because we have one Greg Miller on the show was Baby Park. Let's not forget Baby Park. Are we kidding? You're right now here. For the old kind of funny, dude,

championship. Nick Carpina, jump to where we're melting. I won't lie to you. I forgot all about this. Let's play. Yeah. it was fucking rough dude

honestly this is I feel it in my throat right now I think this is the first time I almost had to call it like hey it's too much he's dying we gotta stop but you made it to the end right oh yeah I don't think I want I remember being so so just fucked at that point but jump to the end does Greg win as always you know what I mean come on now come on now that's what we're talking about it

yeah baby park got come the fuck on You know what I mean? Again, you want to talk about like definitive Mario Kart memories, right? GameCube in college, that thing in the Antler House, and everybody doing like how fast can you do baby? Just ripping it in laps all by yourself. Solo laps. You'd come back from class, booth instead of a new high school. Fuck, goddamn sit down. How am I going to do this? I'm going to beat him. Yeah, man. It's so, I love that it's still here. You know what you mean? And that on 200 CC is... With more racers on the course. Like, it's just fucking chaos. Yeah.

I hope we get like an equivalent. I don't know if we're going to get a lot of adaptations of old... Yeah. For World. We are. Oh, yeah? A whole bunch. Okay.

It would be fun to do something similar to Baby Park and World somewhere just because, yeah, this level of chaos just, it's hard to, like, I don't know. It's just, it's perfect. I didn't... This was the game. Cube, right? Yep. Yeah.

I didn't experience this course until it came to Mario Kart 8. And it just, it's the most Mario Kart course because it is the most just leaning into bullshit. It's the final destination of Mario Kart. You know what I mean? It's simple as hell. There's like not anything going on. It's just you and the chaos deal with it.

And then this also came with the Animal Crossing and then Wild Woods. Of course, I love Wild Woods. I love seeing my little shy guy boys just live out their lives while when they're taking a break from mining in the mines. But Animal Crossing, like, I'm not an Animal Crossing guy, but that course is so fucking beautiful. Like, the, it's great. Like, changing seasons anytime you play it,

the Christmas one is just such a, like, a joyful, like, ah, I feel like, again, at a theme park, it's, it's beautiful. Yeah, man, the different seasons is great, such a nice touch, the sound effects of getting the coins being the bell sound, the victory music being different. It's just like so much loves put into this stuff. And it's not just the crossover ones. Like, you brought up the wild,

woods, the shy guy place. Like, if you just drive through that level, quietly, or, um, slowly, and just listen to how the sound design changes as you're going through. There's like, environmental, storytelling going on. It reminds me, like,

you're bringing up the theme parks. It reminds me of being on, like, the, um, Splash Mountain at, uh, Disneyland. And it's just, like, you're kind of getting, like, all these little story bits as you're going through the, the world. And, like, when you look a little bit and, like, the houses look like the shy guy, like masks and stuff. Yeah. So much love put into it.

it. Then we have on April 28th, 2017, Mario Card 8 Deluxe launches on Switch with all 48 courses of the original and DLC. This one is at a 92 on Metacritic. This was just shy of two months after the Nintendo Switch 1 launch. And this also had a pretty major change of having two items instead of one item that you can hold, which was huge for Mario Kart 8. I think it is a vast improvement as well. Could you still hold an item behind yourself, though, in the original? Okay, because that was like the big thing for myself. Like going back to the older Mario Carts and like Super Mario Cart, you can't do that.

It's like, oh, God, the way like 64. It's like it's part of the strategy. So yeah, going back to those older games is tough. But yeah, like adding the two, I think has been, it's been nice just so you don't have to, like if you have something to hold behind your back, like you don't have to hold. right away you can choose to keep it in like your little item pouch for for a little bit longer if you want to or

to trick somebody behind you. You'd be like, oh, I have no items. A green shell. Idiot. Yeah. It is interesting because in Mario Kart world, I'm sure that there's an option to turn this off, but the default now is it auto just puts it behind you. You don't need to hold anymore. It's just like, because

they know. Yeah. Okay, so that was April 28, 2017. It launched Mario Kid 8 Deluxe. We all played Living hell out of this. I feel like it's very easy to say that the majority of people played this version more than the Wii U version. So yeah, jumping back into

that it was one that I got gold in all the courses, but I never did the three star thing in all of them because I had done that on Wii U and I was like, I don't know that I need to do this, but then that's when Greg started catching me anytime we're traveling anywhere. You'd just see me on the plane fucking playing through the stuff because I'm just like

might as well. You know what I mean? You might as well just not the mindless time killer kind of thing. But Barr can you explain that a little bit? And Kev, can you bring up the Grand Prix image? So, yeah, with the launch of Deluxe, it came with 200 Cc out of the gate. And to get three stars, for those who don't know, to get three stars from Miramode and 150cc, you have to place in first place in every course for a Grand Prix, and you have to collect, I think it might have been originally in Mario Card 810 coins,

and then they brought it down to like eight in deluxe or something like that. I vaguely remember, like, Jose Otero was reviewing Mario Card 8 for Deluxe for IGN at the time, and we're all still like kind of like trying to come up with theories on how all of this back-end stuff worked. But for 200-C, it was just you got to be first in every race. You don't have to worry about coins too much unless you want to get into like the more speed boost type of stuff, right? And so, yeah, a lot of, this is where around this time is when I'm getting really into trying to fully complete and get three stars because it, it bothers me to look at this menu and to go to 200 C.C and see like two stars, one star, all this stuff. So a lot of it is doing Grand Prix over and over and over again, almost like, stick with me here, almost like going into a soul's boss for the first time, because especially for some of the harder. bosses, you never fully expect going into it that I'm going to fucking one try this guy.

It's about learning. And that's when 200cc became about relearning the game and how, uh, kind of like, how you're navigating, uh, the game and how you're kind of trying to lean into the speed of 200 CC, but not trying to let that take over you, especially for, uh, some of the, the tougher turns, like I mentioned earlier, like, uh, the Bowser City one. and then this Mario Card 8's version of Rainbow Road, which still has one of the toughest turns. And it was that Grand Prix that took me the longest

to get three stars for. I think it took me like, I think I took a break. I walked away and it was like not until like a year, year and a half later that I finally got it. But really before even thinking about all that stuff, just like the memories of that being my first big console launch, like working in the industry.

Like I started at IGN, like October 2016, I think the week the Switch. was announced in the week the Red Dead 2 trailer came out. And then getting this like six months later or what have you, and all of us at IGN constantly coming together to play together, you know, helping Jose in the like lunchroom do like the local play of eight of us playing together so he can get an idea of like how that stuff works. So he can talk about it and all that stuff.

It was just, it was such a fun, unique time of learning not only what, you know, Mario Card 8 Deluxe means for the Switch. but still kind of learning of like what multiplayer mean meant on the switch because it was still so early in that time right um and yeah like Mario cart nights lasted for a while at IGN and uh I will say you know I've here kind of funny it's it's hard to find someone to to challenge me the same way when Brendan Graber from IGN challenged me so many times at IGN and Brendan Graber I will shout out as like my one true rival in Mario car because him and I constantly went to back and forth on who were winning Grand Prix on Mario Kart Nights. And yeah, I treasure those memories so dearly. Hell yeah, man. I'm going to keep going through Mario Kart 8 and its history and our thoughts on all of it. But first, we're going to take a quick word from our sponsors.

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order. Again, that's Mood.com promo code Kind of Funny for 20% off. And we are back. So moving on from Mario Kart 8 to Ler, Lux launching on April 28th, 2017, to the launch of the next Mario Kart. Mario Kart tour on mobile, September

25th, 2019, lasting all the way till October 1st, 2024. The thing is, Greg, you can't forget it, because it became part of Mario Kart 8. That's right. Marri-Card 8 and Mobile had 59 on Metacritic, but it also had a ton of new courses, 14 new courses

based on real world cities, New York, Tokyo, Paris, London, Vancouver, Los Angeles, Berlin, Sydney, Singapore, Amsterdam, Bangkok, Athens, Rome, and Madrid. And then seven new Mario Kart courses, including Sky High Sunday, Yoshi's Island, Squeaky Clean Sprint, and Piranha plant pipeline. These courses will eventually make their way to the booster pack course for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. But on tour, like they were updating this thing like every other week. They'd be like dropping new stuff. And the one thing that this game did that was kind of interesting,

is the, instead of going lap by lap and having it just be the same thing you're doing, it function more like the Wario Snow Mountain level in Mario Card 8, where every lap was its own kind of thing. Well, and I would even argue, like it took that a step further because yeah, like we all love Wario Mountain

because it's that iconic, like you're just going straight in one thing, you're not doing the same thing over and over again each lap. But I think the thing that was really, the thing I will give Tor credit for, because I didn't play it on mobile, I didn't play these tracks until it came to Mario Card 8 Deluxe, was you were still kind of traversing the same places over and over again,

but it would change where you were turning in each lap, which I think still was a fun way to think about how can we do something a little bit different to keep people on their toes of not getting familiar with the same turns and locales every single lap? And it was confusing as fuck. Really? I really enjoyed it. I thought it was a different new challenge for that.

And I don't remember if I knew about that design philosophy before they came to Switch. But I personally was really into it. I do think them choosing to do that for a mobile game and to not think about it for the Switch in particular and Mario Card 8 in particular, I think took a little bit of like, I think there could have been a little bit more to amp that up in really fun ways. but I enjoy them. Is it weird to go through real life places in Mario Kart a little bit? But yeah, I enjoy them as well.

More content. I do feel so, yeah, getting into it then. The Mario Card 8 Deluxe booster course pack came out from March 18th, 2022 to November 9th, 2023. Six waves of 48 courses, bringing the full game to 96 courses. So completely doubling even the final with DLC version of Mario Kart 8. New tracks included crossovers. with Yoshi's Island.

New characters included Berto, Camic, P.D. Piranha, Pauline, Pichette, Wiggler, Funky Kong, and Diddy Kong, and more. It's kind of wild, Barry. It's weird. I still have, like, the exclamation points

on all of these characters because I haven't played as any of them. But then when I pull up their, they're, like, kind of 3D models and stuff, there's just something off about them that I just, I can't quite put my finger on. Do you feel like this was the shout-out

content you were worried about or no. No, see, to me, this, this feels like they clearly were like the plan of Mario Kart World is going to be a Switch 2 game. So like, let's just any idea that we have, let's just get it done. So I don't know how it's shot out as much as speed up. Like, I feel like there probably would have been a plan that lasted longer and would flesh some of these things out even more than they did. Because like the fact that this, the final pack started getting so many characters just

thrown in, it really kind of felt like they're like, anybody that we have, like, Let's just get this and gone. And these characters were available in Tor, correct? Yes. Or at least some of them. And that's the thing is most of these were like tour things. But what's interesting is some of the levels, including Yoshi's Island and like Sky High Sunday and the squeaky clean sprint, actually debuted in the booster packs, even though they were, they're technically tour courses. So they came out first in, um, okay.

In Mario Cardi, booster pack. But they were courses like in the data files. They're designated as tour. Workhorse. Oh, interesting. Yeah. But those, there's some of my favorite

levels of the new ones. Going into the toilet, fucking hilarious. Yeah, so good. Yeah. So a lot of fun stuff there. And I feel like the, it kind of sucks that like so many of the city levels,

I feel just kind of feel the same. They just don't stand out as being memorable. Some of them do. Yeah. I forget, I think it's like Australia. I think I really enjoy. Like, the moments where you go through iconic,

like, uh, buildings or whatever, in these courses are when these courses shine but I don't think they do that nearly enough to keep up that what we expect from Mario Card 8 Deluxe

of being that constant you know you're at an amusement park kind of thing like the tour courses are like the Epcot of Mario Card 8 but like they they were almost there of making Epcot feel a little bit more special

but you know it even took Disney a while to make Epcot even sort of kind of interesting for children, right? Yeah. And Greg, to your question about the shout-out, like, shat-out version of it, like I do think in comparison to the DLC for Mario Card 8, yes, because like these, the Mario Card 8 courses were just as good, if not better, than the original courses. Whereas these, in terms of visual fidelity,

in terms of visual creativity, they're a dramatic step down. But it also makes sense because they're applying them, adapting them from the mobile game. My biggest issue with these is they start to all feel the same And the going through like you were saying earlier Like the course in different ways for each lap I feel like the signage of like where you're supposed to turn And where everything is just gets messy

It's not like it's unclear But I just think that it's not as clean as Mario Kart normally is Yeah Like you always know where you're going And if you miss a turn, that's on you I feel like in these city levels oftentimes something happens I'm just like well I gotta start over again because I'm just like

I made one wrong mistake because there's just too much going on in the screen in front of me. Yeah. But yeah, the new courses they added, I thought were really fantastic. Yeah, and I think they like balance each other out a little bit and especially in terms of like how some of the DLC looks in terms of, you know, how clean they look and how pretty they actually look and all that stuff. But you still got tracks like the Yoshi's Island one, which is like ridiculous, like, how. how good it looked and like how, like, again, taking all of these things from that game and re-contextualizing them for a cart course

is just, it showcases that, like, they still had the juice. Like, if it was just the tour courses that were the DLC, it'd be like, are they losing the sauce a little bit? What's going on here? But then you get a little bit of, like, the new stuff, and you're like,

no, they still got it. And this was, while this stuff was coming out, this was when we were going on our rants and this was, like, work from home era of, like, they gotta be working on the next thing, right? Like, because there is a little bit of like inconsistency on the quality of these courses. So they have to be already putting resources into something else, which they were. And, you know, you bringing up Yoshi's Island, like God, talk about a track that is so near and due to my heart.

Yoshi's Island, first game I ever beat. I love that game. And it so rarely gets love. And when it does, I feel like it's more Yoshi in general. as opposed to that game in its art style. And the Yoshi's Island course in this game is such a love letter. Like, again, it starts off with the level start music from Yoshi's Island, which, you know, Yoshi's Island, not a racing game.

So the fact that they went as far to change that, even the coins have the Yoshi face on them. They're the Yoshi coins. And the amount of environments from that game you go through throughout the level. It is one of those courses that's just three laps of the same thing. But throughout each lap, you go through the journey of a world, of Yoshi's Island. Like you start off in the overworld,

you do the like the caves, then you go into the fortress. It's like, dang, dude. Like they really nailed this shit. Obviously, the music's off the charts as well. Yeah.

And when you cross the finish line, it plays the victory music from Yoshi's Island. It's like, I want more of this type of stuff. Yes. And so far we're not getting that in Mario Kart world. I do think that's where the DLC comes in. But I,

I am shocked at how much love this far into the booster pack. God, the shy guys on, like the stilts and stuff. Oh, God, this takes me back,

Tim. Yeah. Takes me back. Yeah, man. And then, like, we still got,

like, you know, love for some of the other old, old school tracks that we still hadn't gotten in the game. Calamari Desert is, like, a personal favorite of mine. Uh,

Waluigi pinball. Like, I never owned the DS Mario cart, but the DS was the thing that all of my friends brought to in, like, uh, It was probably like fifth grade and then going into middle school. And that's everything that they would play.

That would be the only thing that we would do during lunch. And thankfully, I had like a friend or two who'd be like, I'll give my DS to you for like a course or two or whatever. And Waluigi pinball was like always a standout to me from back in the day. And yeah, and the Wii, the 3DS and Wii Rainbow Roads, I hold near and dear to my heart. I don't love the Mario Kart Wii. But there's still some tracks on there that I think are really fucking cool.

And seeing those Rainbow Roads get adapted to this was just like, oh, I love that. Like the Rainbow Road courses to me are always the most fun and the most like ridiculous, but also just the most encapsulating of just the magic of Mario Kart. And so the fact that we do get to kind of see the history of Rainbow Road throughout this game in particular means a lot to me. And yeah, I do really love it. And I appreciate that they keep the kind of, you can,

fall off at any point and then if you fall off and you start falling towards the planet you start like burning as you're going into the atmosphere like little details like that that are kept in and yeah it's awesome stuff and I mean it's a moment that we talked about a couple years ago now Barrett but I want to bring up again is the credits

like you beat this game there's the Mario Cardade ending where you just beat the Rainbow Road and you get the credits but then there's a you beat all the shit ending and like it's nice it's a very very Nintendo thing of like having having this fun little celebratory moment of having the credits, have fun music playing and I kind of show you through all the courses you like went through over the last decade.

But it ends with the iconic Nintendo. Thank you for playing stuff. And it kind of hits. Yes. It definitely like, I didn't expect credits. You know, they kind of confirmed at one point,

I forget when or I think when they announced the DLC of like, hey, we have these many DLC packs that we're doing. And I didn't expect credits for the last one. But yeah, seeing this pop up. and it's like you see like it's the outside of a crate like they're boxing things up for the next big adventure it really felt like a damn this is this is the end of mario cart eight and it's everybody yeah it's like oh shit like that it it felt like a moment um and you know it makes a lot of sense because you know this happens before we get a confirmation of like when the switch two is coming what's it launching with and all this stuff and it to me it makes a lot of sense that they would launch with uh mario cart world because it felt like in this moment they're like we are ready to to move on and move past this because we are very excited to show you what's coming next very soon.

And yeah, it got me a little bit in the feels for a cart racer, which, you know, is silly. Exactly. Yeah, man, God, it's even crazy. Like, the love put into all the weird little pictures and icons, the Mario Kart TV stuff. Like, they just had such a good world for Mario Kart 8 that I'm very interested to see where Mario Kart World ends up with all that. I do want to transition into talking about that a little bit unless you guys have more to say about Mario Kart 8. Great game. Amazing game.

Masterpiece of a game. There we go. So then Mario Kart World. Go for it. This will kind of tie into World. So continue on. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Oh, no, let's go for it.

You know, playing, I played a little bit over the weekend, taking breaks from Sea of Stars to just be a bit more prepared for this conversation and to kind of transition into the Mario Kart World conversation of it all. you know, I was doing some of the time trials that you had mentioned. I didn't realize that you, to unlock the gold wheels. Actually, yeah, just real, real quick to say this to everybody. The way that the end game of Mario cart is there's the gold outfit. So you can get a gold Mario, there's a gold peach, gold cart, gold tires, gold glider.

And to be able to get all those things, you need to get gold in all 200-C courses, including, actually, no, not including the DLC. and there's another one where you need to get three star for all 150 cc there's one you need to beat the nintendo like professional time trial ghost on each of the levels yeah to get the the tires um and then to get the glider you need to get 5,000 coins which is insane because to get a for a coin to count it is whatever you end a course with and you can only have up to 10 yeah so the maximum if you play perfectly is every course gets you 10 coins. So I got up to 5,000. Yeah. So you have to win 500 races with 10 coins, essentially,

if you want to like take as little time possible collecting all those coins. So I was very close to most of these things, but I had not actually attained any of them, except for the 150 Cc 3 star ones. And this is another one. You have to do all mirror mode as well, which I fucking hate. And the last couple weekends, I was like, you know what? This is what I've spent my life doing. And I did almost all of it. I did get to the 5,000 coins. And I was very proud of myself. And then I told Barrett

that. Barrett, how many coins do you have out of the 5,000 needed? 29,127 coins. Jesus fucking. That's fucking insane. Insane. Look, I've played a lot of Mario Cart. God bless you. I'm glad you have.

And you know, like I think someone pointed out in chat, like there's a possibility to get more coins and multiplayer and so maybe that stuff's added it. But a lot of, you know, I play this game a lot mindlessly and not in like

very intense, like having the music up and all that stuff. This is like, okay, we're having, we're putting comfort food TV on in the background while Alyssa is working on a lesson plan or whatever and then like my just inability to just focus on one thing. I'm like, my hands

I gotta do something right now. Mario Card is just a safe thing to boot up where I don't feel the need to like pay attention to like a story or something like that. So it's just like a nice thing to do for muscle memory. And so yeah, that's the amount of coins I have. I have 12, nearly 12.5 kilometers, 12,000, five, let me restart. I have 12,438 kilometers driven in this game, which is, I did the calculation, I think almost a third. third of the circumference of the planet Earth. My favorite course, which I love,

is Sunshine Airport, which was the first course I ever played for this game. My favorite character is shy guy. My favorite vehicle is the gold standard cart. My favorite tires are the crimson slims because I didn't realize how to unlock the gold wheels. And then my favorite glider is the gold glider because that

right there is my go-to for 200-C. Because, like I said earlier, Link was my go-to for 150. But Link on that motorcycle, is way too goddamn fast and his drifting is a little bit too wide for 200 and so I had to like

find something that was a bit more basic in 200 CC to kind of be able to even comprehend the things that I needed to do and I've just stuck with that and shy guy is my fucking boy and so to transition from that I'm sorry real quick I want to stay on the characters there

because something that uh in my last two week journey to kind of close close up Marocardate as much as I could. And I feel good about where I got. Like I'm at a point now, the only things that I didn't do were... You have closure. I have closure. I do not have, I have gold in every 200 C.C.

But I don't have three star in every 200 Cc. I have it in most of them, including the most difficult ones. So I feel like at some point I could go back. But with the world coming out, who knows? Yeah. And then I got three star gold in all the mirror mode for everything that's not the booster course packs. Gotcha.

And I'm like, I think I'm never doing that. Yeah. Fuck that. You don't even get anything. for it. So that's that. But Greg, I know you were Mr. Drybones Wiggler cart. God damn right. Right? And you do that because you're a bad of style.

Yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Drybones, favorite character, favorite vehicle, a wild wiggler. Favorite tires, standard, favorite glider, Bowser Kipe. There we go. Every time. For me, cross the board. You go Kupa, you go standard cart. You go standard wheels. You go standard glider. I don't like fucking wasting time with this goddamn selection stuff.

I don't want to deal with any of this stuff. I fucking hate it. One of my least favorite parts of this game. It just takes too long. You're sitting there with your friends. Everyone's fucking like dilly dally and fucking at all the tires don't matter. I'm gonna beat the wheels I hate the shit. They seem to be simplifying it for the world. It's just the cart, just a character. There's still stats, but and I don't know if stats are still tied to characters

versus the balance of a character versus the cart, all that stuff, but they're not doing all the different parts of a cart, which is nice. And in this last two week journey, I was like, oh, I got to do these time trials because I've never done them because that's not really a thing we do, right? We just do the grand threes. But I was like, okay, I need these gold tires, so I got to do this. And I tried, and I just kept failing. And I'm just like, I'm playing pretty much perfectly.

Like, what is going on here? And I just realized it's essentially not fucking possible with my little Cooper boy standard across. And that had a great realization, Greg, that does not bring me joy. But the meta actually fucking matters in this shit. And I was YouTube and like, what do people use? Apparently, there's not many options. Apparently, there is a standard of like, if you use these,

these random combinations, there's only a handful of them, they're just undeniably better than everything else. And I hate that. I really fucking hate that, okay? I'm sorry. But you go Yoshi, you go the teddy bear cart, you go the roller wheels. Guess what? And the, um, the, um, the, um, the animal crossing glider.

It's a fucking different game, man. You're going real fast. Yeah. You're in control. Your boost, your mini turbos are left and right. Just knocking it out of the park. It's insane. Yeah.

Yeah. And I hate it. I just want my little cup a boy to be better. Yeah. Yeah, I tried the 200-C time trials a little bit last night. And, yeah, I saw what you're seeing. And it was one of those, like, it's fucking 9.30. I'm not trying to, like, mid-max this stuff right now.

This is also not how I enjoy, like, playing this game in terms of just, like, doing a solo trial where it's just you and a ghost, and there's no items. And it's just you get the three mushrooms. And you're trying to figure out the science behind that stuff. It's like, yeah, man, that's cool. And I love that for you all, but, like, I'm cool on that. And then, so I went back to, I tried a couple of them on 150 CC and to transition into World. Yeah. Driving on 150 Cc for the first time in a while, Tim, I really need Mario Kart World to have 200 Cc.

I'm going to be honest. And it's not. And it's like, holy fuck 150 Cc feels so slow now. And I'm just like, I'm so bored. And it's like, I am so brainbroken by 200 Cc that I'm worried about. like, I'm sure I'm still going to have a magical time and everything else Mario Card 8 does. Like, I can see World doing as well. But as far as like the like crazy bullshit things that I enjoy from 8, like I'm a little bit worried I'm going to be missing, which was such a big part of why I've kept coming back to 8 after all of these years.

And so, yeah, Mario Car World. What do you have to say about it? I mean, I am with you having played it. played it at 100 cc because that's all they would let us do and it was very slow compared to what i'm used to and i think that's a combination of a couple things one it technically is i'm used to playing 150 if not 200 um so it being 100 cc i don't really hold that against it because i'm sure you just boosted up you don't need to deal with that the other problem is margart world tracks are significantly wider so the perception of speed feels slower too yeah um so that is i i think a potential issue

And more than that, it's a momentum-based thing I'm concerned about. The wall riding and rail grinding, that's the stuff that I'm like, I haven't had enough experience with it hands-on to really decide how I feel. But the on-rails things, jokes aside, feel a little too on-rails. Like, it feels like you're just kind of stuck into an animation and at like a certain speed. And I don't like that. Like, I feel like some of the advancements that I have noticed so far and how this plays is the momentum feels better of like, in Mar-A-Card 8, when you're you hit a wall, you're just done. You need to like restart.

This kind of feels like it gives you a little bit more like, okay, you clipped it. So it slowed you down a bit, but you can keep going. That's nice. So we'll see where that shakes out. But yeah, like 200, I do feel like I more so hope that it's in this game that I ever really cared about it in 8 because of the wider courses. And then these are courses that can be made with that in mind from the jump if it's in it. Right.

Whereas 200 for at least the majority of the courses, That was like a, okay, we have to make this all work. And I don't think it fully does for all the courses. So we'll see with that. My biggest concern with Mario Card eight is that the single player open world stuff is going to be awesome. But because of what we want from it and expect from it, it is going to be a letdown.

I think that they're opening themselves up to more criticism than just a straight-up cart racer. Yeah. And from what we've seen, there's a ton of things to do. There's a ton of little challenges. But all little challenges that keep posting on social media seem just like variations of the exact same easy-ass thing of like, go through these rings or like jump from this thing to this thing.

And it doesn't look fun. It just looks checklisty. Sure. So that's my biggest concern. Yeah. And like I wouldn't even say not hitting Forsa. I would say like not even hitting the expectations of like. like a burnout paradise, you know,

which is a game that came out, 15 years ago? Yeah, something like that. And so, yeah, I do worry a little bit about that, but it's also like, if the tracks themselves are fun enough, like the majority of how I'm probably going to be interacting with this game

is just through Grand Prix. And if there is an unlockable 200cc, or it's, you know, added in later or what have you, that's how I'll be interacting with this other stuff. or with the game. If the open world stuff doesn't hit as much, but the courses themselves are still fun and still hitting and doing the crazy new mode of getting knocked out

and all that stuff, I'll just probably interact with that stuff. And then the open world stuff, if that's disappointed, I'll be like, all right, yeah, they tried, but, you know, there's still a cart game in here in the middle of this open world stuff. Yeah, and I feel like at the very least, that's where my expectations are of, like, I think that they're going to nail all that stuff.

Like, I think I'm going to love it. But I do think in this conversation of our final Mario Card 8 review and now looking forward to this, it's like I don't think that this game is going to end up being a 10 the way that Mario Card 8 is because of what they're offering and what that thing is missing. Whereas I feel like with Mario Kart 8 what they offered like, yes, I wanted a more crash team racing style single player or something to have more things to do, boss characters, things like that. I like that. I like that stuff. But the game didn't need it and didn't have it. Whereas I think that if Mario Kart 8 is going to be open world, there are certain needs that so far, sorry, what to say?

Marri-Card 8's open world, you mean? Marri-Cart World. I have higher needs. It's not just expectations. It's like this, if you're going to do this, you're going to slow down the process of me getting from course to course in a Grand Prix, whatever I'm doing in between better be fun and interesting

and not just like a thing to do. Risen and repeat, you know. Swing off for no reason to pick up this thing. I had another thought really quick and I'm I mean I'll jump in and say that yeah that's like my biggest concern for the game I have no doubt that racing and grand prix is going to be fun and awesome but yeah I worry about that open world because I do want that to be

incredibly engaging and fun and I want to be able to find cool costumes out there and I want to find cool challenges out there and I don't want it to just be cool I'm driving to the next course or whatever it needs to be for the story part of it yeah we got a bunch of super chats that I want to get to close this out here. We got Tundra Boys say Mario Kart 8 at 200 Cc's, the greatest racing game ever made. Kabab says, I'd give it a 9 out of 10.

Incredible multiplayer and course options, but it falls short to Sonic and Crash when it comes to single player. Stats tied to cosmetics is also frustrating. Definitely agree with that. Not to spoil the naughty dog video where I replayed every naughty dog game and then talk about them today. but I'm just going to put it out there it's like I don't get the whole like Crash Team Racing's single players like it's so much more heightened

than the single player of other stuff. It's like you get a little bit of like a hub and you're just kind of driving around it to get to the other courses like it's fine. But that's the thing is like it's fine for the time. Expand on that for now. Yeah. Like that's what I feel like we're not even going to get that with this.

Yeah. You know? That's a letdown. Dexter says, says 10 out 10 great music amazing character selection large course variety at 10 years it never got old nice jacket tim cool shirt barrett gregg you're just cool thank you I figured it cj splits on says do we still want the neu in mkw so I guess Nintendo extended universe is what he's going for yeah Samus fox etc that's a question I post for y'all I imagine you're still

going to be meaning dry bones oh fuck yeah I it's hard to ask about carts because we don't know the breadth of what carts are going to be available to us at the beginning here. Who's your main and eight? And then like you're going to keep with him and. Well, that's my problem. I mean, like, real talk. These last two weeks have really broke me where I'm just like, fuck, it sucks that my main just can't go. But you're also, that's the way that I play.

But that's also you trying to do a time try, like a very specific thing for Mario Card 8. Yeah, but then when I'm going back and playing all the, when I was cleaning up my three star, things and the others, I'm like, this is so much. I'm so much better. Like, I am so much better, it's upsetting. But I think about it this way as well, because we're not getting like the minutia of like different wheels and carts and all that stuff, the meta is probably going to be much more different. So let's say meta is completely like, wash that all away from eight.

Are you still going cupa trooper? Yeah, probably. Maybe my baby girl, baby Rosalina. I like that. It's tough for me because Link was my main for 150cc. And we're not getting the Nintendo extended. in universe, at least at launch. So I'm struggling with who I'm going to start off with.

It'll probably be shy guy because he's my little cute boy who's just looking to have, just looking to enjoy life, really. But if that feels too slow, even on like a, like a motorcycle, that'll be, that'll be a challenge for me to figure out who my main is. The other question I had with possibly extended universe stuff of DLC and all that stuff, they tease at one point Rainbow Road stuff maybe going up to space

I hope that it's a rainbow world Rainbow Road world where it's like they probably won't do exactly this but it's a combination of all the rainbow roads I think that's 100%

what's happening because that's what they're doing so far like the Mario Kart circuits when you get to them it's a combination of the different Mario Kart it's like I very much think

that it's going to be an all star thing but also a new rainbow road which I'm excited for as well yeah yeah ending on a new rainbow road ooh Are we getting our Mercedes?

I doubt it. But yeah, I'm very hopeful that we end up getting this stuff because, like I was saying earlier, I feel like it's some of my favorite courses and stuff was the love put into the crossover stuff. Yeah. And so I'd love to see that. I do appreciate that Mario Kart world so far

is just full on Mario and they're getting as into Duffy as possible with like the random characters that you can play. I was like the dolphin and penguin and shit like that. But I'm also, is not the biggest fan of just like here's a bunch of random stuff in the course of the game like your outfits changing like I don't like that but that seems to be a core part of this game yeah um we'll have to wait to see how it actually like feels in the flow of yeah what that collecting feels like and all that shit yeah um let me get back to these superchats

it just died on me after refresh it um yelcing says uh i gave it a nine but it could never be the goat double dash. Fuck you, Fran. You know? Yeltsin knows. Kabab says, will world be a successor or a side step? That's a good question, I guess.

I definitely think it's a successor. I don't know. Successor doesn't necessarily mean better. I also think that this game has the chance to really turn into something special. Like, I feel like I don't think that this game's going to be a 10 out of the gate. What do you think it will be at the gate? Oh, man, that's rough.

Uh, I feel. between an 8.5 and a 9. Really? Yeah, it's Mario Kart and it's freaking awesome and it's new. Like, I feel like there's going to be a lot here and there's going to be a lot to critique. But I think at the end of the day, like this game's going to be fun as hell and that's really what matters the most. I could see it, yeah, like Metacritic being the same as Mario Car 8 on the Wii. For sure.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Which was it. 88. Yeah, it was like an 88, something like that. Sorry, I totally blinked. No, you're fine. I worry about the open world holding back score so much.

And then it'd be coming it's, it is a eight on Metacritic. Yeah. And that could happen. But I still think there's going to be enough. And here's the big thing. Like, we don't know what we don't know. Like right now they've only shown us a very limited. Just turn right.

Just show me if it goes back to 50cc or if it continues on to 200. Please. But yeah, I do think that, you know, in 10 years time, what does this game look like? Like I feel like there's, I think that this game will be a. a major failure if it does not get substantial DLC and substantial updates going forward. Like that to me is kind of the promise here, especially this is an $80 game. Oh, yeah. And I feel like that's a big thing to bring into this.

With $15. $1.50 drops. I mean, probably, right? Or expansion pass included. But I think that this game has the stuff to get where it needs to be eventually. But yeah, I do think that at the end of the day, if the open world stuff, which is a significant part of the game doesn't live up to what it needs to

that will forever hold the game back Yeah Tundra Boy says we didn't mention battle mode Once is it a dead mode Yes yeah I think it's that simple Like battle mode worked on the Nintendo 64 Because games were different then Yeah and it was only 16

courses of Grand Prix right And so there was a bit of a mindset of like We have to do something a little bit different here To keep people in to you know play multiplayer with each other if they were getting bored of just doing Grand Prix stuff over and over again. It was a time and place

and you know I treasure those maps of Mario Card 64. The big fire donut. Yeah. Fucking classic man. Classic. Classic. It's good, but yeah,

there's something about it that that magic hasn't been captured since and it reminds me a lot of golden eye where it's like, yeah, amazing game, amazing memories, but like it just doesn't, that type of game doesn't work today no matter how much we want it to.

Yeah. Romance Don says, The main is going to be cow regardless of CC. This is how I will maintain inner peace. I respect that. What's C.C. Oh. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. Greg, are you, is dry bones confirmed? Yes.

Yeah. Okay. He's one of the million people we've seen there. Yeah. I was very worried during the reveal. And then, of course, I think in Treehouse,

he popped up and everyone blew up my blue sky with it. So thank you so much. Yeah. Someone in the chat saw about battle mode on the DS. I do want to bring up mission mode on the DS, which I think is the best single player stuff that a Mario Cards had. And even that was just kind of like a step toward something,

like giving you different things to do besides just the Grand Prix. So I hope that they learn the right lessons from that mode for this, for the different things you have to do in the open world here. But we'll see next week when Mario Carit world comes out. We have not finalized our plans yet for our Switch to Launch coverage, but stay tuned to our schedule update early next week where we'll totally get into all the details of us being live. We'll shout out from the mountaintops.

Yeah, but just prepare everybody. We're about to be live a whole bunch starting from the Switch 2 launch day throughout the weekend because it is also summer game fast. So we're going to be reacting to all of the showcases, including SGF itself and the Xbox game showcase on Sunday. And in between all of that, it's going to be a lot of Mario Car. It's going to be a lot of Zelda, Breath of the Wild Tears of the Kingdom. A lot of Delta Rune.

Delta Rune potentially. And what else will there be? That's right. Welcome to our. We're doing welcome to our. It's going to be a lot of great stuff. So stay tuned. And I'll put the call out here now.

If you've ever wanted a chance, the more likely chance of ever beating me in a Mario Kart, it's this launch weekend. Because I won't be familiar with tracks. Just like all of us will. And it'll be a new type of game. So this is where I'm hoping. Yeah.

It'll be back to every. Not even even playing field. Obviously, you know more much in mechanics, but like, I have a chance against you all before I go away to SGF and then you all get too good. Well, everyone, let us know in the comments below what score you would give Mario Carter 8 Deluxe in 2025. Thank you so much for hanging out with us. We're about to do our Last of Us finale spoiler cast.

And then we're doing a subway surfer sponsored stream. It's going to be a great day. Keep hanging out with us here. If you're on Twitch, stay where you are. If you're on YouTube, make the jump to the next link. Until next time. Love you all. Goodbye.