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MormonWarrior

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Mario Kart: Best to Worst

We are a week away from the release of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe for the Nintendo Switch, a gussied-up new version of the 2014 Wii U game. It’s a series that many a gamer has fond memories of, and the one racing series I have stuck around with enough to actually get good at.

The Mario Kart series has had its ups and downs though and hasn’t always been better than its closest copycat competitors (Diddy Kong Racing, Crash Team Racing, ModNation Racers, Sonic & All-Stars Racing) but at its best, Mario Kart is king. From the stellar track design, sharp controls, colorful graphics, creative power-ups and catchy music, this series is a multiplayer legend.

So here is the definitive, current, best-to-worst list of all eight Mario Kart games. Disagree? Leave a comment below (but you’re wrong).

List items

  • In a word, sublime. Every single square inch of this game is showered with bright, happy, HD Nintendo goodness. The superb soundtrack is bright and joyful, the levels are huge and creative, the controls are sharp and the speed is fast, and the graphical fidelity is uncanny for the supposedly underpowered Wii U. It’s hard not to have a giant, cheesy grin on your face the whole time you play this game, and Nintendo even continued to add characters and levels with the insanely cheap $12 DLC package. The only gripe I had was that the battle mode was so bafflingly bad (just throwing it on the regular race tracks? Um, why?) and the Nintendo Switch version is set to fix all that too. The perfect racing experience and easily the best game in the series.

  • Finally Nintendo struck on a great idea: bring in remade tracks from old Mario Kart games alongside the new, fresh ones. The DS game was bursting at the seams with content – a new online mode, a fun mission mode, 32 tracks to race on rather than the now-typical 16. There were lots of characters, unique karts to choose from, customizable decals and great wireless options for local multiplayer. Oh, and also, it controls excellently and looks good too. It’s the most loaded package the series has ever had, and it still holds a special place in my heart.

  • Double Dash is weird and divisive. It doesn’t really feature any added modes beyond what the N64 game did (or more tracks either) and it lacks an online mode. However, it shakes up the formula by featuring heavier, two-person karts that allow you to mix and match based on size and desired power-ups. There are also numerous karts to choose from, and the music and graphics are bright and fun. The levels are uniformly great too. I really wish it had a lot more tracks or a more fleshed out single-player mode, but it’s hard to argue with how outright fun and frantic Double Dash is.

  • This one is a tough one to rank, because it’s technically competent and good-looking (especially with the 3D turned on!) and it’s much better than the Wii garbage. It makes the trick system work a bit better and adds the flair of underwater racing and hang gliders, which both make the flow of the game better. It also features kart customization options that allow for more personalized characters. At the same time, the whole package is a bit…bland. It also has fewer modes than the DS game, though the online component works a lot better. So in other words, it’s easy to recommend to 3DS owners but it’s not really anything to gush about to any great degree. Completely competent and inoffensive. Also, no Waluigi.

  • The original classic is legendary for a good reason: it was fun! It was also devilishly difficult, but as the first of its kind it’s really something special. (Certainly, console racing games had tried all sorts of things from weird isometric perspectives to behind-the-back racing, though they all struggled in the pre-polygonal days) Super Mario Kart had catchy music, a zany cast of characters, lots of fun items, and a handful of creative modes. The real limitation was the fact that it was only a two-player game, which reduced the party appeal.

  • Super Circuit is a strange beast. On the one hand, there are real limitations to putting a traditionally multiplayer series on a handheld, where it would require multiple systems to play against others. The game also borrows extensively from the style of the SNES original while adapting some of the trappings of the 3D N64 game. The controls are a bit slippery and it takes a while to really get the hang of the game, but it’s actually PACKED with content and it has loads of creative tracks to race on. Prior to the release of the DS game, I picked this one up and played it obsessively for a while and actually grew quite fond of it.

  • Mario Kart Wii put the nail in the coffin of the Wii for me. Apart from the majestically good Super Mario Galaxy, Nintendo had released substandard versions of all of their series over and over again (WarioWare, Metroid Prime, Zelda, Super Smash Bros.) while also seeming more desirous to pander to the new old folks’ home demographic with Wii Sports. Mario Kart Wii is a mess in terms of its visual presentation (somehow looking worse than the previous game five years older than it), overly large tracks, slow speed, and truly abysmal new items that actively sabotage your enjoyment of the game. It’s a shame because having a proper online component and the addition of the simple trick system to gain speed are both positives. It’s a Mario Kart game for grandpas though, and actively marketed as such. So of course it sold a bajillion copies.

  • Many people have fond memories of this game because a) it was the first four-player game in the series and b) they were like six years old when it came out. Mario Kart 64 has a terrible sense of speed, ugly, muddy graphics (even for the time), poor controls, and utterly terrible track designs. It’s also an incredibly barebones package with only the standard GP/Time Trial/Single Race modes of the SNES game and fewer tracks to boot. It’s an awful game, and woefully inferior to Rare’s Diddy Kong Racing, which came out a little less than a year later.

  • [BONUS!] I’ve actually gotten my hands (and feet) on the arcade game, and it’s a load of hot garbage. It’s overly simplified, has nonsensical and unbalanced items and it features really bland track design. As an arcade racer, it’s uninspired and as a Mario Kart game it completely misses the mark. There are a few different iterations of this game but they’re all simplistic and poorly made, even if the graphics look flashy.
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