Nintendo has revealed big plans to add to the number of tracks in Mario Kart 8, but controversy surrounds the quality of the circuits derived from the mobile game, Mario Kart Tour. Just how do these new levels compare to the existing Mario Kart 8 line-up, and how do they stack up against their debut in the original mobile game? Truth is, we’re not particularly impressed. Oliver Mackenzie goes deep on this one.
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Their is zero downgrade on track or Nintendo quality
TL;DW: The new tracks looks like total ARSE, or a pile of dog poop if you prefer. I may sound harsh, but they really lack in refinement, improvements are quasi non-existent to the mobile Mario Kart Tour counterparts.
Glad I'm not the only person who thought the new courses looked rough. Like they honestly look like some guys mod of Mario Kart instead of something made by Nintendo themselves.
The graphics are atrocious, music is inexistant, the tracks arent fun to play and i want to get my money back
Damn, the side by sides really show you how bad the booster courses look compared to the base tracks. And also how better they look compared to mobile lol
The thing that bugs me is the scaling of the tracks. Mario kart tour is a much slower game and therefore the tracks were built to scale for that style, suddenly making these tracks have to work with Mario kart 8’s faster gameplay means they had to scale them all up. Although they play good in most cases (some still don’t feel as refined as they could be if they were either there in the base game/built for Mario kart 8) the size of things are way off, if you look at Mario kart tour and then 8 back to back you’ll see what I mean. Especially on the tour tracks specifically like Tokyo blur or Paris, the trackside details like mailboxes, bushes, chairs/benches, even off track character models are way bigger to the point where you have to look up at a bench. These were clearly upscaled from the phone game and like I said, although they play nice it’s just weird to see. Next time you play just stop and look at the massive yoshis on the side of the track. Also I do know this is a slight issue with the base game but not to the extent of this.
I was waiting on a video like this to come out! I like the dlc tracks yes but I just hope Mario kart 9 has the same if not more detail put into the tracks as the base game. And fingers crossed no mobile ports of things
One thing that confuses me so much is that they could have easily reused some of the base game's assets, but they chose to make new, worse models and textures
Very disappointing. I'm glad i didn't go in for it right away, but anyone who saw that initial trailer had their doubts.
“Almost all of these tracks have been ported from Mario Kart Tour.” Only one of every four is from Tour. What am I missing? Does this mean the other tracks that originated on other platforms were also ported to Tour, and then those versions were brought over?
honestly this is all just the most Nintendo thing ever
Of course, the reason is Mario Kart Tour. Because of the weaker hardware on smartphones, the tracks in this game are much less detailed. Nintendo probably figured that while people are buying this stripped-down Android style, this style will also appeal on the console. Obviously this style is cheaper in development.. Nintendo's tried-and-true strategy of releasing a game on a portable device first for less development cost, testing to see if people will buy it, and if it's a success, rehashing it for a stationary console afterward….
"The Switch is a not a cell phone" I mean it might as well be lol
Cash grab
isn't it because the base tracks are based on original designs as opposed to dlc tracks based on classic courses? i personally don't have an issue with how the tracks look visually, but i'm not a big fan of putting a new spin on old tracks like they did with kalimari desert.
Despite the visual downgrade i still feel like they are fun to play and relatively affordable dlc.
I sort of like the simplicity of the new maps, gives them a classic Mario feel. I dont really care for the 2D maps though, they dont really translate well to 3D
As someone who's never owned MK8 and played bucket loads of MKWii as a kid, I was always pleasantly surprised by how absolutely stunning the tracks in MK8 looked every time I got a chance to play it. They were beautiful, even at high speeds. So I dunno what all the poeple on Twitter are talking about when they say "you barely notice". I can definitely notice.
Great video! The mk8 quality tracks really shines thru! I gold trophied them all and the base game and dlc from wii u rules the roost. Nintendo cash grab should have instead did mk9.
man, this really kills my enthusiasm. I have no trouble with the visual aspects (even though it defies logic to include new shitty textures when proper ones are available in the base game assets), as ive been playing MKWii up untill a year ago, but compromised track design just doesnt fly. Given that they started out with the base engine and assets already 100% done, i would expect 48 courses to be the same quality as the courses included in the base game for this price.
One of the most egregious examples is that Waluigi pinball on the original DS version actually used a very clever system for real-time reflections instead of cube maps, compared to that fuzzy cubemap you noted in the remaster in the booster pass. Absolutely bizzare considering the incredibly low power of the DS
I think no one would be irrational enough to expect them to rework the entire collection of courses based on the idea of matching the aesthetics of the current game. They are what they are — a bonus packed with nostalgia. I don’t think they look bad. Yeah, it’s a downside, in my opinion, how there’s extreme differences regarding visuals and design itself, but given these tracks comprehend a whole collection of different games, old and new, that’s expected. Honestly, I am glad there’s a lot more tracks.
Ninty couldnt be arsed, so their work experience guys just phoned the new tracks in. Woeful.
One complaint I do have about the booster courses that I'm surprised this video never brought up are the giant sized spectators/objects. To me it is very distracting to see giant objects/people towering over the racers, it's as if the racers themselves were shrunken down to size. Yes I know this issue is also present in the base game tracks, but it's MUCH more noticeable in the booster course tracks because of how close the giant spectators/objects are to the racers. The base game tracks did a decent job hiding the scaling issues this game has by placing the spectators/objects behind fences or placing them far away from the racers as possible, that isn't the case with the booster course tracks at all. This issue is mostly noticable in the tour tracks.
Am I the only one that is completely not offended by the graphics in the booster course? They’re bringing back almost 50 courses from previous games. At this point, MK8 is literally almost a 9 year old game. I would so much rather Nintendo take as many shortcuts as they can while still giving it a aesthetically pleasing, although flat look in order to get all of this low priority work load out of the way. There are literally so many games we would all rather have Nintendo actually pour a lot of work into than MK8, again, a 9 year old game.
This is what happens when they offer you a lot of courses for not a lot of money……
I don't really mind the graphics downgrade as it was clear what the tracks would look like before they went on sale. But wow the grass looks bad.
A 13 minute video showing you 200 examples of something that is clear to everyone from day one.
Another video pooped out.
Eh, I honestly don't care about any so-called "short-comings," I still find the Booster Course Pass thoroughly enjoyable and a worthwhile addition to an incredible game
Maybe it’s just me but I don’t see the problem with the tracks you either like the style or not is it low effort yea but it’s not like they are charging you a premium price for them sorry but this is way to much crying over a wall your probably no gonna watch long enough I hope this same energy goes to actual problems in gaming
“A 1080p 60 or 720p 60 experience in handheld and docked play, respectively.”
You got that backwards.
Honestly visuals are a 7/10 but the soundtrack deserves an 11/10
Adding this much sub-par content to such a well realised, long-standing piece of art is vandalism as far as I'm concerned
We've been waiting so long for Mario Kart 9 and this low effort DLC added so late into an 8-year-old game is not an acceptable substitute.
Looks substantially worse, however it's barely noticeable when flying at 150cc haha
So it boils down to quantity over quality. What ultimately means, the more waves are arriving the worse the game will look. Really sad.
I mean, technically, yea, the switch is a Cell Phone… from 2014.
Just curious, do y’all wait till DF posts a video to have your opinions or do you form them on your own?
Why didn't Nintendo just use the assets they already had in the base Mario kart 8 game. I'm pretty sure they could have just easily copied and pasted grass textures, high polygon detail. Nintendo instead decided to start over from scratch, but by making the new DLC tracks much, much worse. I know some Nintendo warriors will say, "it's to preserve the spirit of the original". Hell no, Nintendo wasn't thinking about spirits, all they wanted was to release a lot of new paid tracks for easy money. And now we see that quality was heavily sacrificed. Sometimes they just make the dumbest decisions that defy all logic and reason.
Let´s compare the extra tracks we received for MK8 on Wii U with these ones. This is telling of the course Nintendo has taken since the Switch launched.
This is a non-issue really, we're getting 48 new tracks effectively doubling the content so that's all that matters in the end, and it's an awesome deal for the price. Yes they could look better and are a definite step down from the OG MK8 courses, but this is still a very passable quality for the extra DLC and much preferred over to having no new content at all, or maybe having just a 1/3 of these new tracks due to them taking longer to prepare. I'd also much rather have Nintendo AAA team focus on MK9 to make sure it sets a new standard for the series than use that time on tweaking the textures for these DLC retro courses. I love nice looking graphics as much as anyone, but at the end of the day that's not at all what Mario Kart is about and if you have time to worry about lack of texture detail or ambient occlusions you're probably playing the game wrong. Still, an interesting and comprehensive comparison from DF as always.
And you know that no matter how much we cry out, nothing will change 😢
People keep saying this, but they’re fifty pence a track… we’re getting bang for our buck. Also, comparing a track specifically designed for MK8 alongside a track originally designed for SNES and therefore attempting to keep some SNES like qualities to it, isn’t a fair comparison.