You know how sometimes a thing that is obvious to everyone else just passes you by until suddenly you get it and you feel stupid for not knowing it all along? Like how the slogan for Kay Jewelers, “every kiss begins with Kay,” also means that the word “kiss” literally begins with the letter k? Or how Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit is a pun, as in she’s back in the traditional head garment worn by a catholic nun? Or in the second verse of “Psycho Killer” David Byrne sings about how you shouldn’t say too much and make the same point over again, while saying too much and making that point over again in the verse. Those are all real examples on my end. Let me tell you another one on the gaming side of things.

Years ago, back when I was still in college, the Mortal Kombat guys released Armageddon, which was kinda bad for a number of other reasons, but also had an inexplicable kart-racing mini game. I had no idea why. The game boasted a roster of every character to ever appear in a Mortal Kombat game ever, but no unique fatalities or ending screens for them. No room for the fundamental components of what makes a mortal Kombat game what it is, but plenty of room for kart racing? Who asked for Sub-Zero vs Scorpion on the Outworld track? Why does this exist. Why. Why. Why? I was a fairly large Mortal Kombat fan back then and that huge roster was irresistible for me, I was ready for it to be the best one ever but was let down by the weak core game, the create-your-own big tiddy fighter, and mortal kombat kart racing. I never figured out why it was in there.

That is, until this year, when my friends in Rotterdam told me to just get the latest dang Mario Kart so we can all play sometime. Well, I did, and it was fun, but then there must have been a screen in between races that showed something called MKTV. Must be something called Mario Kart T…

That was it. MK.

Mario Kart. Mortal Kombat. MK.

Are you fucking kidding me. For seventeen years. The goddamn LETTERS are the same!

I don’t even think I’m fully recovered from the shock of it. I shouldn’t have put it past Midway, I mean the reason why DC vs Mortal Kombat exists is because they really did just say once “well, there’s marvel vs capcom, there really should be one for DC as well, and it might as well should be vs mortal kombat,” so that’s the level of imagination and creativity they’re working with sometimes, but… MK, for christs sake.

Anyway, that’s the only unique thing I can bring to the discussion about this game on www.backloggd.com. It’s the latest iteration of the popular racing/party game franchise Mario Kart. You’ve played this game to death, you have like a hundred fifty hours logged on it, and I saw it on your switch profile so don’t even act like it’s not true. Even if you never have played it, you still know everything there is to know about it just by being alive in the year 2024. It’s like a review for Star Wars on letterboxd, or I dunno, the works of Shakespeare on Goodreads. It’s Mario kart, man, what do you want.

The mere fact that this game has been around for 10 years should be enough of a reason to rate it two stars.
Jokes aside, there's something about Mario Kart 8 Deluxe that just doesn't sit right with me.

It's as if they've polished the game to the point that the series' trademark liveliness vanished, thus leaving a bland kart racer that lacks both the personality and thrilling driving of the previous games. Long gone are the days when you could pull off cool stunts, discover unintented shortcuts, or simply explore the tracks on a whim, the boundaries here are much more controlled and if you try something wacky, that bozo of a Lakitu will show up and ruin the fun.

Let's talk about the tracks. Their visuals are nothing short of amazing. I was often left in awe of the sheer beauty and level of detail Nintendo managed to achieve, so kudos for that. If I look past the pretty graphics though there are a few things that irk me about the tracks, namely the anti-gravity sections. I feel they could've handled the anti-gravity gimmick a lot better since it fails to impact the gameplay in a relevant way and barely adds anything. I also wanna add that the booster pass tracks are nothing to write home about, with only a handful of them being on the same level as the ones from the base game.

What ultimately drags Mario Kart 8 Deluxe down though is an excruciatingly broken item system, which may be the worst in the entire series. Someone at Nintendo HQ really thought it would be a good idea to balance items around the distance rather than the absolute position, with the catastrophic consequence of players randomly getting overpowered items in middle positions when the frontrunner gets a breakaway. This convoluted chaos degenerates even further thanks to the double-item boxes that basically encourage players to spam relentlessly everything they land their hands on.
Single-player mode was another huge letdown for me. I think it's about time they step up and create a full-fledged story mode like the ones in Crash Team Racing and Diddy Kong Racing, playing the cups over and over just doesn't cut it anymore. In this game it feels even more pointless since all characters are unlocked from the get-go anyway.

In light of all of this, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe never felt like the definitive Mario Kart experience to me.
Nintendo pulled the wool over fans' eyes with a staggering number of tracks and delivered the biggest Mario Kart to date, but despite all of this, the charm is just not there.

I have to say you can tell this is one of the best Mario Kart games because they still haven't really bothered making a sequel. I used to have some complaints about wishing the Deluxe version had more characters and maps but with the 2nd expansion pass that's a non-issue. At this point my only complaint is that this should be max $60 with the DLC but considering it still sells as well as it does that won't happen. Also the online to me was enjoyable, not a technical expert but it felt fine to play online.

A near perfect Mario Kart game! Seeing how much this game has changed over the years has been insane. Starting out as a just alright game on the Wii U and becoming arguably the best Mario Kart as of the final wave of the booster course pack!

I’ve spent the past couple months playing through 10 or so courses every Sunday with my fiancé and another couple online and it was a lot of fun! (Even if I lost a lot)

Honestly there’s only a few things I wish this game had. A few missing tracks like Toad Factory, Wario Colosseum and Delfino Square to name a few would have been cool to see.

While I know we’ll never get it, seeing mission mode return would have been crazy. Battle mode is a lot better but I do wish they had an elimination mode for balloon battle.

Finally I do wish there were a couple more online features like being able to design a cup choosing the order of the tracks when playing with friends.

Those are all really just nitpicks but they do keep the game from being the absolute best Mario kart that gives you no reason to replay the old ones.