How does the Reverse Drift mechanic work?

basically you hold up and left or right while drifting, and you press back while still holding the other stuff to drift in the opposite direction.

I see, thank you. I was letting go of the gas when pressing backwards, lol

The first topic that I ever created was also a "How does Reverse Drift work" topic and a lot of people helped me xD But that was back in 2023.


Reverse Drift is a technique used by many pro players nowadays, but it can be quite complex to understand at first so I'm going to explain to you each word in "Reverse drift" so you can understand it clearly.


• Reversing, in Mario Kart PC, involves pressing your brake/backwards key while turning in any direction so that your character goes in the opposite direction from where it is facing.
In the example below I am holding my forward key and my left key at the same time to go left. As you can see, when I am holding my brake/backwards key I am going right instead of left. This is what we call "reversing" in Mario Kart PC.

• Drifting, in any Mario Kart game simply allows the player to charge mini-turbos or super mini-turbos.
In the example below I am charging mini-turbos and chaining my drifts to gain more speed! This is essential if you want to really improve at the game.



Now that you know both these things, by charging super mini-turbos and continuously chaining your drifts ALL while adjusting your lines by reversing, you do what we all refer to as Reverse Drifting.
If you are having troubles to reverse drift still, try to check my key presses and reproduce them! Make sure to always hold forward and your directional key aswell as chaining your drifts while pressing your brake/backwards key from time to time whenever you want to adjust your lines.

I really appreciate this step-by-step guide, thanks a lot! I had it mostly figured out, but the tutorial I was following told me to spam reverse which kept messing me up lol. Are there any tricks to getting this down on a difficult map such as Rainbow Road? Also, is it better to always use this technique instead of regular drifts?

You should be reverse drifting pretty much the entire time. (look at any wr)

As for doing it on harder tracks, you'll just do it naturally once you get the hang of things.

Here's a list of tutorials or whatever (I know Nodac already gave you one)
Proudster's tutorial
JPG's 'tutorial'


I don't know any other ones T-T what a small list D: D: D:

It's a pleasure helping you!! Now about difficult maps, just like @Kernell said below your message, once you get the hang of reverse drifting and how to manage your drifts and adjust your lines better you'll have no problem on very difficult tracks likes SNES Rainbow Road.
Even top tier players still fall from time to time on this track

Itś almost like shifting gears in a racing game, definitely a very interesting mechanic. Should I try for records on easier maps and then move up?

Thank you for linking those regardless! I can open YouTube on my chromebook, but once I get my PC back I ´ ll be sure to.

The world record run on it was insane, I can´t even imagine how much time that took. It would probably be better to start practicing on a map I feel comfortable on first, right?

I heavily recommend you to train on DS Figure 8 Circuit as this track has both left turns, right turns and straight lines to practice your Reverse Drifting skills.
All you need to do now is train, again, again and again. If you manage to get a time below 1 minute on this track, consider yourself decent at Reverse Drift!

But it won't be an easy task, you really need to show motivation. It looks terribly hard at first, but you'll see yourself that you'll get closer and closer after each attempt to the 1 minute time limit, and that eventually you'll beat it.

Just got 47 seconds on figure 8!

Take into account that the time has to be in 150cc and that it has to be the time in which you complete all 3 laps. In 150cc, it is physically impossible to get a 47s time on DS Figure 8 Circuit.

I achieved that time on 200cc. Is 200cc easier?

In Mario Kart games, you can reverse, or in simpler terms, go backwards. When in a drift, unlike in other Mario kart games, your drift does not cancel, instead it still continues as normal allowing your reverse to still register while drifting. This idea is essentially how reverse drift works. In this game specifically your drift does not cancel after performing a reverse which allows you to reverse drift. The game wants to make you turn around because that's what reversing does for the most part, but since your in a drift, you can freely adjust your movement by tapping the reverse button and drifting while doing it. It also charges mini turbos which I don't know if that's intentional, but if it was, pretty cool of Wargor to add. You can even charge mini turbos standing still, this is unrelated I just thought it was funny.

200cc is harder because the base game tracks aren't suited for 200cc for the most part (cough cough SNES and DS cough cough). But you need to practice 150cc as it is the main speed used for almost everything in the game.