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The fact that people have to wonder "if" and "when" is honestly a sin, but seeing as Nintendo is content on resting on the Switch and they have a strict one kart per console, again I don't see it happening anytime soon.
I'll still throw in my two cents on this topic. Or maybe two dollars. It's going to be a dollar amount.


Funny enough I think kart customization is one of the few good things to come out of Mario Kart post-DS. I completely get your reasoning, but I think it still adds a nice element to the game allowing for more combinations allowing certain combinations to work better on more tracks.


I second this.


I don't know how that would be accomplished, but I figure a return to pre-MKW style MTs for karts exclusively would even the playing field. Maybe.


Well...trying to design a completely balanced game with this many variables is just about impossible. There will always be "meta" combinations regardless of what you do to try and balance the game. This is what every kart since MKW has tried to do. It's failed miserably every time.


Tilt controls I have no issue with, but otherwise I second this.


I'm like 75% agreeing  with you there, but "adding more characters" is an issue of "how many other characters can we extract from the Mario canon". It's not a hard question on the surface, but by removing these characters we just kick the can down the road. I think the feasible limit for playable characters with that constraint is 20, 25 if we push it. Which is fine for me, but maybe not for your average fan.


This would probably be the most logical decision but I don't think it justifies its own mode, perhaps a switch when selecting your cup. Super Circuit also had Quick Run, so that could be an option.


...Or this is also the most logical addition, they've done Mission Mode before, and the stamps of MK8 act as a psuedo-Challenge Mode. If they implement it well (which imo they haven't), I certainly see it well.


Fine.


Smash Ultimate did it first. It opens up the door for more options but likely it'll give Nintendo an excuse to skimp on the gameplay even more. Stick with Mario until and if they get their shit together, then perhaps expand.


Yeah this is fine.


Well the expansion of the track numbers is...fine? I think 32 was fine, but if we must expand 48 should be the absolute max. Nintendo's pulled off 20 unique tracks before (and on the GBA no less!), and I figure they should be able to manage that, but I'd still take like 24 really solid tracks over 150 MKT-tier tracks. I don't want this hypothetical MK9 turning into a Mario Kart Ultimate, after all.


MKT should be expunged from the franchise and left to be forgotten, but other than that this is fine.


I'd set the limit at MKDS for re-remakes, but other than that this is fine. MKW I believe is recent enough to justify these tracks waiting around. Or maybe I'm getting old. Or both.


Please. Let this happen. This started arguably as far back as MK7, but MK8 is where it really started and then MK8D is where shit hit the fan. I don't care if it's based on the MKT version. Remake the fucking track as it was originally made. If Nintendo wants to throw in their new gimmicks into the track, it should aim to be as non-intrusive and subtle as possible (like the MK7 remake of Daisy Cruiser). No exceptions, no "passes". I don't care about anti-gravity in my Wario Stadium. When every track is remade like the nitro tracks, suddenly none of them are special. You remove the flashiness of the nitro tracks while butchering the original's legacy.


Gamig.


To think that children are unable to grasp a kart racing game made deliberately to be simple and cartoony and thus have to be guided along into the game literally playing itself is the highest form of insult. For 25 years, people (myself included) picked up the game and figured it out on their own with little or no trouble. There is ZERO reason to assume that children nowadays are unable to grasp a game that you can play with two fingers.
Respectfully, go fuck yourself.


This is correct for every game except MK64.


I mean they pulled it off in MKDS, and people still love MKDS for mission mode alone. I personally think it was a little underwhelming but it's a fun distraction for 2-3 hours if nothing else.


MKDS pulled off 12 drivers without babies. MK7 pulled off 16 drivers without babies. MKDD pulled off 20 characters, albeit with baby characters, but also the only two that have any semblance of connection to the Mario canon. So 18 without. Theoretically I believe you can go to 25. I see no reason to why Nintendo can't go above 12 characters without resorting to the "essential" baby characters.


As if MK8D + MKT didn't already? lol.


I don't know how this relates to OP, but saying that Ultimate is the only good Smash game has to be one of the worst takes I've seen in a long while.


Welcome to the site!
Mario games are primarily for Nintendo consoles. You can download emulators of older Nintendo consoles (up to the 3DS) and roms of Nintendo games and play them on your computer, but legally I cannot condone this. I suggest snooping around your local video game shop for consoles and games if you have one, and if you don't have one, Ebay and Craiglist are also good resources. They also do sell the Switch at most big-box stores.

This took way too long to write up aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

I've done exactly what you're talking about before on other platforms on more than one occasion.
The only way to stop alts for sure is to halt account creation entirely. Which is like bringing a hand grenade to a Little League scuffle. It fixes the problem but it has side-costs so great it's not even worth considering.
You want to stop alts otherwise? Stop giving them the attention they want. It's clear that the people doing this at this point know it's an easy source of attention. Acknowledging it will just make the issue worse.
Move the fuck on.

Don't count on it. Discord's Trust and Safety Team is notoriously poor, I'd actually be surprised if a single human actually looks a single email they get their way, much less makes an attempt to address them. I have first hand account when my first discord account got banned in May of 2020. I suspect it to only have gotten worse since then.
You're not an idiot because Discord's qualifications for what constitutes a bannable offense is so needlessly vague and Discord isn't required to give you any warning before throwing the banhammer down.
Shitty moderation for a shitty platform and I can't wait for it all to collapse.

Who's cooking the popcorn?

hi

stop minimodding

I mean...it's Mario Kart. It's going to attract a young audience. Honestly I'm comfortable knowing they're happy going here than somewhere like TikTok or Snapchat. I got exposed to some weird shit way too young, and frankly this is actually a pretty good site for them.

Console: Wii
Game: Could not fucking remember for the life of me, but probably Wii Sports.
Date: Christmas Day 2008

I still have that Wii but I need to replace the disk drive...again.

Might as well provide my two cents on this

Perhaps earlier but I wasn't alive to see it.


All of those social media platforms have essentially plateaued in registered user count besides maybe Discord (which was designed more as a competitor to IM platforms, mainly Skype and TeamSpeak). Their time in the limelight is essentially up, they either have to adapt to the times or die trying. Hence everyone (mainly Discord and Twitter dot com) jumping on the sinking NFT ship, Youtube shamelessly aping TikTok's style of videos (which itself was a variation of Vine's content, which was essentially the wacky humor of early 2010's Youtube compressed into 6 second long clips. It all comes full circle), and the overall increase in advertisement on all platforms (Please download AdBlockPlus on your computer). I'd say it's become less genuine but I'd really say none of these platforms (besides Discord pre-covid) were all that genuine to begin with. Such is the evolution of the internet.


I haven't seen this roll out, at least where I'm based out of. Not like I'd ever pay for it but I'd imagine a lot of people will. There's definitely more opportunity to make money on the internet than there was 10 years ago, not even just creating content but just reacting to other people's content, a trend which I will never understand.


People are fickle. The internet enables their fickleness. There are certainly Youtubers that have transcended time to keep putting out moderately popular content well after their heyday (Cinemassacre is probably the first one to come to my mind), but the Youtube darlings of 10 years ago (Smosh, nigahiga, JackSepticEye, GoodMythicalMorning, Daneboe, etc) have largely faded from the public eye, as I'd imagine today's Youtube darlings will also largely fade from the public eye within 10 years. Such is how the internet works.


It's a quick and easy way to reach the people for them to virtue signal most effectively and gauge support in real time. Though knowing Twitter dot com that support will be negligible at best.


There's definitely a mix of good and bad in it compared to where it was 10 years ago. I do kinda miss that early Web 2.0 experience but that's just me with the rose-tinted glasses on. The internet is now no longer the Wild West that (according to my parents) was filled with child predators and scammers, it's now the definitive place to get news, network with people, research data, and really whatever the fuck you want to do. Content creator is a viable career for the short-term if you can successfully "game the algorithm". Unfortunately I think with the successful proliferation of the internet into the mainstream as the later Millennials and early Gen Z come of age, so to did that mysteriousness go with it. Content generally feels less authentic as more people try to get their 15 minutes of fame, to the point where people can and will make up stories to push their personal agenda. There's a lot more predictability to the content now and overall the web has gotten more hostile, especially on sites like Twitter dot com. I think the death of it had to be the successful proliferation of politics into every sphere of the internet circa 2016. Now, in the words of EmpLemon, "if you don't spread your platform to spread awareness about John C. Calhoun's toenail, then you don't care about the world's problems." It's fucking inescapable. To all those who are young enough (or have good enough parents) to not have social media accounts yet. Don't get them. They're really not worth the trouble.


Repetition legitimizes. Repetition legitimizes. Repetition legitimizes. Repetition legitimizes. Repetition legitimizes. Repetition legitimizes.


Legacy media services were unable to compete with the internet in terms of both cost and service provided. So they're largely dying out.


I've elaborated on the political climate on the internet...as for World War III, in the words of Albert Einstein, “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”


This, unfortunately, is the new normal. Things are never going to go back to the way they were, and if they are it's not happening in my lifetime. The lockdowns have no reason to end, not in the eyes of those tied to the CDC and Pfizer. They've pretty much established their control of every aspect of public life early on when lockdowns started raining down, and as the virus mutates to grow more contagious and less severe, people will see the number of cases and demand to stay home. I know people who have pretty much stopped the clock in March 2020. Maybe it's worth it to them, but not to me. The same goes for vaccine mandates, they're never going away (I do find it slightly amusing that in certain parts of the US you need to show proof of vaccination to eat at an Applebees, but you don't need a form of ID to vote. Go figure.), and if anything I see them cracking down on said mandates, and thus leading to more political polarization with the issue. Both sides: vaccinated and unvaccinated, at this point are waiting for the other to start dropping dead on the streets.


The internet makes it easier than ever to show your support towards an often popular cause nearly instantly to hundreds of thousands of people...without actually doing anything to further the cause. This is called virtue signalling. With the rise of politics on the internet, so to that has come into vogue. I've talked about this with regards to popularity earlier, so I'll cut it here.


Honestly the message forum is a dying breed and I love them to death. Changing this would be a disservice to its users. Reddit still has some aspects of it but more resembles your other social media platforms, and really the only "platform" in the mainstream that resembles the message forums of old would be 4chan, a site so contaminated by the rest of the internet that it's not even worth visiting unless you're there for porn.


Honestly this was a great question to ask, I've seen the internet grow as I did, and I guess now after wringing out every last dopamine neurotransmitter I have for it, I can finally realize what's changed for the good and for the bad, or even what's stayed the same.
Don't forget, you're here forever.

Might as well. This happened about a week ago. Apologies in advance for language.

So seeing as lockdowns are starting to loosen (for now anyways), life is starting to return to normal for real this time, concerts included. So one of my favorite bands (The Black Dahlia Murder, if anyone's curious) are coming to a little showroom fairly close to my location. Seeing as I have no idea when they'll be coming around again, I book tickets for the event. I'm pretty excited, to say the least.
A little later on (a week ago, as described), I'm making sure of COVID and whatever regulations that are put in place at the venue because I don't want to end up at the door denied because of some random bullshit I didn't know of. Well I was in for a rude awakening.
Starting October 1st, all attendees are required to show proof of full vaccination. A negative covid test is not acceptable for them. Seeing as a) the event is after October 1st and b) I have no intention to disclose my vaccine status to complete strangers, I can't go according to their rules and regulations.
Ok, so I'm slightly mad, now I have to go and refund my ticket. Except the ticketing service I bought it from declared that all sales are final. No refunds.
Needless to say, I'm fucking livid. I basically dumped $60 in the toilet.
The venue service said that there would be "limited refund availability, guided by local regulations, closer to October 1st". That's some pretty fishy language if I've seen it, and the fact that it's limited means that those $60 could be gone forever. Fuck me I guess.

A lot of people cream themselves over CTGP (an expansion to Mario Kart Wii), but I think for every at least decent track there's at least a clunker that doesn't work. There's also CTGP for Mario Kart DS and Mario Kart 7 but I haven't tried those out yet.
As for free for PC games...I'm fairly certain Mario Kart Roblox Dash doesn't exist anymore. There may be some flash games floating around but I think those are fairly simple in execution. Same goes for any still existing Roblox Kart games.

I have one, it's in an unofficial category but as far as I know it's the fastest time for it.


I got this in a voice call with someone blaring hentai and it was beautiful.

From my experience in MKSC, probably Yoshi Desert or Broken Pier. Both offer a nice balance of complexity and fun while keeping the track decently short.

CAPS LOCK IS CRUISE CONTROL FOR COOL.
BUT EVEN WITH CRUISE CONTROL YOU STILL HAVE TO STEER.

Apologies in advance for bumping a topic that's not been bumped for about a week, but I might as well throw my two cents into the mix.

I might as well elaborate now that I'm given the chance!

9. MK8D:
This is a lazy port that took away nearly every competitive aspect MK8U had, with very little payback that wasn't already in MK8U.

8. MKDD:
By far the weakest of the original karts. The graphics looks better than ever (even if everything looks a little bit plasticky), and you can get nearly-neck deep in the competitive mechanics of the game (as you can every kart pre-MKW). It's too bad that it controls like dogshit. Every track is the ice track, and none of the tracks seem to compliment the control scheme. It's like they designed the tracks first and then attempted to make the controls around it and failed miserably with one or two exceptions.

7. MK8U:
The first game that I ever preordered at the young age of 11 definitely left something to be desired. Competitively, this might be the most complex since the days of MKDS, but elsewhere the entire package is lacking. Many of the tracks I felt were half-baked and sometimes didn't exactly coalesce with the controls. This is probably the most "just another Mario Kart" that is up to this point.

6. MKW:
I feel Nintendo definitely took a bit of a risk with the Wii, and by extension MKW. Gone are the input-heavy days of yore, replaced with a more streamlined experience geared more towards a casual audience that works for the most part. The track/control combo is generally more stable, and while none of them feel great, they all generally work. The pace of the game has also massively slowed down partially due to a lack of easy way to acheive MT speed, but comparing the scale of the retro tracks to the originals (especially the DS tracks) also leaves a different story. This ultimately results in a slightly more boring experience all around, and generally signals the "beginning of the end" for Mario Kart's quality peak.
(I am aware of CTGP's existence, but I'm not accounting it in the ranking here. Not like it would affect it much.)

5. MK7:
The best nu-kart of the bunch, for all the wrong reasons. MK7 sees the streamlining taken to a whole new level, leading to the most straightforward karting experience up to this point. Weirdly enough though, it works. The tracks generally feel complete and most of them (with the exception of Rosalina's Ice World) all work with the controls given. The advent of kart customization is a neat idea, with additional glider and underwater mechanics also adding to the variety presented, you have one of the most diverse karts to this date.
As to be expected with any nu-kart though, the pace of the game is generally slower comparative to those MKDS backwards, and it's actually probably the slowest kart experience that you'll get from a mainline game. The amount of extra bells and whistles in tech is also near zero, with possibly the most emphasis on pure lines in any game since MKSC. This game should be a disaster. It isn't. Consider this as a last hurrah before Mario Kart's dive into mediocrity.

4. SMK:
Half of this kart's ranking is due to sheer influence alone, but it also holds up damn near 30 years on. The tracks are for the most part simple with the controls mostly working with the track design with the obvious exception of the 2 Vanilla Lake tracks. It's a little bit hard to grasp for sure, but once it's been grasped it's very rewarding.

3. MK64:
SMK may have been the blueprint to the kart racing formula, but MK64 was the realization of it in its purest form. These tracks are zany, cartoony, and contol surprisingly well. These tracks are huge but the pace is still fast, even on the obscenely long ones like Toad's Turnpike and Rainbow Road. This is also the most technically complex kart bar none, with so many ways to increase your speed and optimize your play. The beginning of the true manual MT increases the skill ceiling to near-infinity. There are still some tracks that don't exactly work, mostly due to RNG elements but they're pretty few and far in between. 25 years later and on a system that was woefully underpowered compared to its competitors, it still holds up as a fun albeit slightly frustrating kart racer.

1. MKSC + MKDS:
Trying to rank one game over another here is near impossible, so here they share the top spot. Both games are equally great for different reasons. On MKSC's side, you have the sheer quantity and quality of the tracks, the small scale of the tracks (the smallest scale MK would ever get to), the consistent track/control alliance. On MKDS's side, you have the insane input-heavy gameplay, the extremely fast pace at which tracks are taken, and the introduction of online play. I see MKDS as having the higher peaks, but MKSC being more consistent in its greatness. Both games control extremely well, with MKSC offering a refinement of the SMK control scheme and MKDS offering a faster-paced and less slippery version of MKDD's controls. The track selection for all is a joy to play through. It all comes together here exactly twice, and all for it.

Please bear in mind that I'm not accounting for MKT or MKHC, as I don't really consider those as "mainline" karts. I have no intention of ever playing MKHC and I played about 15 minutes of MKT once on a friend's phone and swore to never play it again. It goes without saying that MKT would be dead last if it were counted here.
The arcade versions should be viewed as they are, fun little excursions that aren't really worth much critical evaluation.

Welcome to the club
In all seriousness online leaderboards just work like that. You gain points if you win, and lose points if you don't. Sometimes you run into a cold streak that just sees you lose like 15 of 17 games that day, other times you get a miracle run and win those 15 of 17 games. It's part of the unpredictable nature of online multiplayer.
It's best not to give the points too much importance. I've been in that spot and it's created nothing but anguish on my end. I mean I can't stop you from giving the points importance, but it's best if you don't, in my eyes anyways.

If we're talking stuff strictly under the Mario name, that honor probably goes to Galaxy 1.
If we're talking games that at least feature Mario, then that honor goes to Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

Simple. MKDS controls better than any kart ever has and likely ever will.
It's deceptively simple really, it's a transition away from the more slidey controls of MKDD backward, but still retains the insane input-heaviness of the older karts, and even more. There's a reason MKDS has a reputation of being the game where thumbs go to die, and while it isn't exactly true, if you look at any top level time that'd likely be your first impression.

I'd also hardly call the nitro courses on MKDS lacking compared to those of MK8D. Obviously you have the fan-favorites of Waluigi Pinball, Tick Tock Clock and Airship Fortress to name a few. But even past the big names there's still a lot of good tracks, Shroom Ridge takes what Toad's Turnpike did and blasts it into the modern age with some quality-of-life improvements from MKDD. The same goes for Wario Stadium. There's also the most ambitious Mario Circuit to date, whatever the hell DK Pass is supposed to be, and obviously its iteration of Rainbow Road.

The retros, well they're mostly 1 to 1 ports from the original, scaled to the DS and removing some features here and there (mostly for the MKDD retros). It's the first time Nintendo ever tried it (MKSC did it first but that wasn't even developed by Nintendo) and it was on a system less powerful than the N64, and as such went with simpler tracks that don't pop out as much. You could say they don't change a lot. You could even say that for MKW's retros.
I'd say for MK8D they changed too much. MK8 was the third straight game in which Nintendo added on bells and whistles to the formula. As such, likely in order to give the retro tracks the love they deserve, those bells and whistles were incorporated into the tracks, to fairly mixed results. Obviously the scale of tracks is altered (especially the MK64 retros), but even then there's a lot of...bloat at hand. MK8 also started the trend of simplifying the retro track's layouts for some reason that I'm really not sure of. Most of the changes are fairly innocuous, and for the newest retros (mostly the MKW and MK7 selections), I'd dare call them improvements over the original, graphically anyways. However the further back you go, the more apparent it is that Nintendo crammed the new features into the retro tracks not because they fit into the layout, they cram it in because they felt like it. There's no logical reason to give Dry Dry Desert a water section. There's no reason to give Wario Stadium anti-gravity. Same goes with Yoshi Valley and Sherbet Land. There's no reason to load MK64's Rainbow Road with unnecessary anti-gravity and gliding sections. And the DLC tracks are even worse in that regard. Ribbon Road was utterly butchered by the change, replacing a large chunk of the track with a glider segment that wasn't needed. We don't need to see SMK's Rainbow Road remade for the 9 millionth time. And we certainly don't talk about what they did to Sky Garden.
In essence what I'm trying to say here is that having more features in and of itself isn't a good thing when the game's control has taken a massive hit. Nintendo drastically decreased the skill ceiling starting with MKW, and it keeps lowering with every passing game. So in order to keep tracks interesting, they add on bells and whistles to the track's features in order to add the illusion of progress during the race when in reality, the driving is stale and boring, lacking any technical mastery or sheer skill, just let the game play itself while you watch the pretty pictures pass by.

And I don't think we even need to talk about shortcuts when MKDS has PRB up its sleeve. Not visually flashy (like MKW's shortcuts) but one of the most technically impressive feats in any kart games, and you can use it on over half the tracks.
You wanted your "real reason", you got it!

I played MKT on a friend's phone for about 15 minutes once. Swore to never play it again. Needless to say I don't have a positive view of the game.
Most of my qualms with the game are outlined here, so I won't waste my breath.



I think Infi and I are really the only true defenders of MKDS over here, and other than its community you'll almost never see it ranked as the best. Other inferior karts (mostly MKW or MK8D) usually get that spot among the general public.
MKSC also technically introduced retro courses. Not the first but MKDS made it a mainstay.

Sometimes if a moment really resonates with you, it can influence your opinion of a game for a while. It's been coming up on 8 years since Nintendo WFC shutdown and I still remember playing online for like 2 hours every night during the summer of 2013, and absolutely loving it. It's a memory that I don't think will ever leave me, and while it doesn't affect my opinion of MKW that much, it does at least rise it to slightly above where it should be. I would also have a moment (or a series of) like that for MK64 and MKDS, both happening 5ish years down the line.
It'll be different for others though.


People like things for different reasons. Be it a critical analysis, growing up with it, having a strong memory associated with it, we all like what we like for different reasons, and we probably like different things about what we like, since we all see different parts of a game as mattering more or less than others.
Me personally I've always been in the camp of MKDS being the best. I wouldn't call it the most technical kart but it's definitely the most input heavy, and the controls align very well with most of the tracks. It's that kind of transition from the "classic karts" (MKDD backwards) to the "nu karts" (MKW forward), bringing the best of both worlds together in a package that just...controls amazingly. It's not a flawless game but it's a damn good one and I doubt Nintendo will ever top it with regards to new MKs. Some people will like MKDS for different reasons (mission mode, the intro of online play, "proper" retro tracks, emblems, etc), some people will dislike MKDS for the reasons I like it, and others still will see apply reasoning of the "best of both worlds" to another kart. Such is how we appreciate forms of art (something derived from subjective opinion).

Just off the top of my head...
-Simpleflips
-Vargskelethor
-Werster
-ExoParadigmGamer
-OfficialDuckStudios
-CGP Grey
-Marcel Vos
Some others I 100% forgot.

I'm opening up MKDS's retro track selection seeing as I'd imagine most people would see those retro tracks as at least underwhelming.

Shell Cup
SNES Koopa Beach 1
3DS Shy Guy Bazaar
GCN Mushroom Bridge
GBA Lakeside Park

Banana Cup
Wii Toad's Factory
WiiU Sweet Sweet Canyon
SNES Bowser Castle 2
N64 Wario Stadium

Leaf Cup
SNES Mario Circuit 4
3DS Maka Wuhu
GBA Yoshi Desert
DS Shroom Ridge

Lightning Cup
GCN Wario Colosseum
Wii DK Summit
N64 Banshee Boardwalk
GBA Bowser Castle 4

Tried to take into consideration how cool a potential remake would be as well as how much a remake for said track is needed.

I mean that's a lot of the draw to most speedrun.com kiddies towards MKW (as well as CTGP giving the game a million categories, so some average Joe could claim a WR in an irrelevant category). People like seeing the game broken in a lot of ways, and those shortcuts are the perfect representation of it. This is also why MKW (and MK64, a comparatively "broken" game) often gets more traction than something like MKDD (a "polished" game with very few unintended shortcuts).
MKW's overrated to shit but really you're looking at the wrong factors.