I realize I'm in the minority here, but after some reevaluation this one's my favorite Mario Kart. It's got the edge in difficulty balancing over Mario Kart 8 Deluxe - where in the latter it goes from a 150cc so laughably easy it's almost mundane to a 200cc so overamplified that it isn't always that fun to play once the novelty wears off. This looks and plays like a dream on the 2DS in particular - with the single tightest and virtually faultless control setup I was able to find on any game in the franchise, these shoulder buttons and thumbstick feel like they were handcrafted specifically for this game, and with the screen all up in your face like that during the heat of battle? Unbeatable. It's got a (as of writing) quick and still up-and-running online mode you don't have to pay for, and it successfully walks that tightrope between simplicity and spectacle which some of the other games in the series have struggled with. My mixed feelings about the flying/underwater sections here haven't changed since release, but overall they get a harmlessly decent treatment here (the underwater moreso than the flying) and it feels like the natural progression of the series anyway. It has far and away the best Rainbow Road - I mean come on this one is a pure knockout - and in addition just features some of the finest original courses (Music Park, Maka Wuhu, DK Jungle, Piranha Plant Slide, Neo Bowser City, Daisy Hills, etc.) and retro courses (Coconut Mall, Daisy Cruiser, Mushroom Gorge, Kalimari Desert, Waluigi Pinball, Maple Treeway, etc.) out of the whole collection. Sorely undervalued, but with all that praise out of the way there's one fatal, fatal flaw that sours an an otherwise great experience... where the FUCK is Versus Mode??