I have no idea why, but for some reason every time I play one of Tour tracks, I nail it, I’m not even close at being the best Mario Kart player at my friend group but I always land first in those… never in my life I’ve been so disappointed for being good at something.

This was actually the very first thing I played this year, going through all the cups with some friends in the night of January 1st, however I decided to hold on talking about since I knew I wanted to get gold and experience them myself alone ‘cause I l knew that playing one after the other in one night while having a laugh will pals would be a completely different experience from slowly taking the courses in and playing them all in other while trying out the online and even more of the co-op, and boy oh boy was I right.

One thing I’ll give the Booster Course Pass as a whole is that is a joy to play through with friends, I mean duh, this is Mario Kart after all, but still, compared to other games in the series or even base Mario Kart 8/ 8 Deluxe, this is one of the few times where it feels wrong to not play at least three or four cups in succession when being with some pals. At first, I thought the reason for it was simply because of the novelty of the but after playing this whole thing in order I see the hold this can have; it’s almost addicting playing this whole thing, and ironically, I feel partly of that is because how poorly it starts off.

Wave 1 of the DLC is the single most underwhelming Mario Kart experience I’ve ever had; the track selection is mediocre at best and actually baffling at worst, visually it’s a far cry from the base experience —tho that can be said about the whole DLC or at least most of it, but it does get better as it goes on so there’s that—, some of the changes in the returning courses either don’t make anything to make them more interesting or at times they are for the worst, and to be completely honest, they couldn’t have picked a worst selection of courses from Tour to start things off, the first impression they give is abominable… but it actually gets real good real fast.

I imagine those that paid for the DLC day one must have had the sour taste way longer, but as someone that played the whole thing at its complete state, it’s super surprising just how much everything improves, to the point that by Wave 3 and onwards, the only Cup I’d call ‘’weak’’ is the Cherry Cup, and even then, it’s still pretty fun at times.

The selection of returning tracks gets better and better, the visuals and specially the sounds are even more of a joy with each passing cup, hell, even tho I started this review mocking them, some of the later Tour tracks were pretty stellar! Dubai may be a capitalist hellscape, but it makes for an amazing racing course, that’s for sure! We even get some new playable characters which, in my opinion, round the roster perfectly, and I couldn’t be happier to finally see ma boi Wiggler playable again, and we finally have Petey and King Boo in the same game again! The boys, together at last!

The new courses couldn’t have surprised me more for the better oif they wanted to; there are some on the weaker side like the Ice Cream one, but Yoshi’s Island alone is probably in my top 5 of favorite tracks in general, and hell, as much shade as I’ve thrown Wave 1, Ninja Hideaway isn’t that far off either, and it alone makes the first two cups much more bearable.

The joy of returning to the Rainbow Courses of old, seeing so many new places and the returning ones given some pretty amazing changes (running on the rails of Kalimari Damazy was simply amazing), there’s something in here that shows nothing but care and passion, and makes me wish they could have had more time in the oven from the start, ‘cause most of this is truly excellent.

There are still flaws; it relays too much of city courses, every GBA course remake feels like a flip coin between it being the best thing ever or total bullshit, there are some major omissions while also other tracks that would have benefited from some changes… but at the same time, no other collection of tracks has left me and my friends wanting for more, to play more, to see more great courses or the promise of better ones in future cups.

At worst is middling or disappointing, but at best is stellar and pure fun, kinda makes me wish we also go more Battle Courses honestly, we got a entire race course based on a bathroom, so imagine the possibilities!

Also, now that the URSS is canon in the Mario Universe, by proxy that means all bootleg Mario games released on the Dendy also are. Sorry, I don’t make the rules, Somari will appear in Mario Kart 9 for sure…