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Least ambitious Mario Kart

Least ambitious Mario Kart

  • 8

    Votes: 77 8.0%

  • 7

    Votes: 248 25.8%

  • DS

    Votes: 47 4.9%

  • Wii

    Votes: 181 18.8%

  • Super Circuit

    Votes: 300 31.2%

  • Double Dash

    Votes: 48 5.0%

  • 64

    Votes: 62 6.4%
  • Total voters
    963
sox

sox

Member
Oct 27, 2017
660
I was thinking back about the series and although I have a bunch of play time in Mario Kart 7, all my memories are of how bland the experience was.
Coming off the back of Mario Kart DS which was amazing and before MK8, it's just so limited in scope and ultimately boring.

Is there a less ambitious title than 7? Obviously MK8DX is just a port so we can skip that.
 
Fat4all

Fat4all

Woke up, got a money tag, swears a lot
Member
Oct 25, 2017
94,147
here
All of them

mario_kart_pie_chart.jpg
 
Zalman

Zalman

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,896
Has to be Super Circuit. It was the first handheld title, but the game itself isn't what I would call ambitious.
 
DrHercouet

DrHercouet

Member
May 25, 2018
1,700
France
Yeah, it's 7. Sure, Super Circuit felt "not that ambitious" but it was the first handheld Mario Kart featuring retro circuits AND multiplayer with only one cartridge. It was great! Not the BEST, but great!
 
super etrian odyssey

super etrian odyssey

Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,560
super circuit was the first handheld mario kart.

7 by a country mile. game didn't introduce anything legitimately new except a system feature (3D) and took away things (DS's missions). although i guess underwater racing and the glider might count, lol.

obv it's still a good game
 
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KillstealWolf

KillstealWolf

One Winged Slayer
Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
16,244
Fat4all said:
I mean, 7 is so dang good that i dont mind 8 just being a slight step up
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To be honest, I want to vote "Every single one after DS since we forget to put in a single player mode of some sort."

You grow up on Crash Team Racing and Diddy Kong Racing with their great Adventure Modes and you have to wonder how we entered this state where Mario become the dominant Kart Racer with no single player offerings of any kind. Just do the grand prix 4 times. That's it. Yay.
 
FrakEarth

FrakEarth

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,301
Liverpool, UK
Fat4all said:
All of them

mario_kart_pie_chart.jpg
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How did they survive this infographic

I absolutely loved it at the time, and it had one of the best battle modes, but the N64 game is among the weakest entries for me now. I enjoy seeing them play it on Sopranos or whatever, but I would never choose to play it over any of the others.

I loved Super Circuit. Especially all dat slap bass in the credits



edit: also shows who all the staff main (I assume that's what it is)... Koji Kondo is a Toad guy
 
Nama

Nama

A Big Deal
Member
Nov 2, 2017
1,348
Answer is 7 but the longer 9 gets put off the more I lean towards 8 deluxe.
 
Eblo

Eblo

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,643
Mario Kart 64. For the supposed 64th entry, it felt awfully similar to the previous released one. It's looking like Mario Karts 9 through 63 are going to stagnate or be wildly inconsistent.
 
The Unsent

The Unsent

Member
Oct 25, 2017
19,472
I guess Super Circuit, 64 was the first 3D one, Double Dash has the gimmick of two passagers, DS was the first one with online play, Wii had the Wii wheel and bikes, 7 introduced gliding and 8 introduced anti gravity. Some of these are gimmicks but still.
 

Raccoon

Member
May 31, 2019
15,896
I mean, it's totally Wii, right? That game is just single driver Double Dash with bikes
 
ghostcrew

ghostcrew

The Shrouded Ghost
Administrator
Oct 27, 2017
30,421
They're both great games (some of the best) but I wouldn't call Mario Kart DS or Mario Kart 8 ambitious.

If we're going with 'did they bring a lot to the plate' and how ambitious they were in terms of Mario Kart game design then surely Mario Kart DS and Mario Kart 8 are near the bottom of that list.
 
Zool

Zool

Member
Oct 28, 2017
2,234
Zalman said:
Has to be Super Circuit. It was the first handheld title, but the game itself isn't what I would call ambitious.
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It had all the snes tracks, new tracks and with that only mariokart 8 and the mobile game had more tracks. It also has the most Bowser tracks ever hehe.

Plus, the first portable Mariokart counts hehe. Strange fact is that it has four brand new battle courses, but the snes battlecourses are only playable thru hacks.. they are in the code.

All in all it's indeed not a gamechanger, but I liked it a lot.



True, it hasn't got any new items which is a shame.
 
Dyle

Dyle

One Winged Slayer
The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
30,112
I'd go with Wii. Karts and bikes weren't well implemented and the game's retro courses could have gotten more love
 
Flavius

Flavius

Member
Oct 28, 2017
2,359
Orlando, FL
ghostcrew said:
They're both great games (some of the best) but I wouldn't call Mario Kart DS or Mario Kart 8 ambitious.

If we're going with 'did they bring a lot to the plate' and how ambitious they were in terms of Mario Kart game design then surely Mario Kart DS and Mario Kart 8 are near the bottom of that list.
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This is where I am. MK8 plays fantastic and I love it, but ambitious? Nah.
 
Reinhardt Schneider

Reinhardt Schneider

Banned
Jun 2, 2019
4,947
I don't think there has ever been an unambitious Mario Kat, ever.

Each and every single one are new games that take advantage of its hardware. No rehashes, no low effort, nothing.
 
Xun

Xun

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,328
London
Mario Kart Wii for me.

That game was so incredibly bland coming from Double Dash, both in gameplay and visually.
 
joffocakes

joffocakes

Member
Nov 15, 2017
1,405
I'd say 8, as it pretty much just iterated (brilliantly) on 7. It's still my favourite all the same.
 
Red

Red

Member
Oct 26, 2017
11,785
Surprised to see so few votes for 64. I think it's the least technically impressive for its time, and it's held up worse than any of the others. I can't think of anything it tried to do that wasn't overshadowed by the ambition of every other game in the series.
Salarians said:
game devs sitting around in an office: hmmm yeah let's take it easy on this one folks
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I don't think that's the spirit of this thread. "Least ambitious" does not mean a product was created with a lack of care or hard work. I think that's especially true for a series like Mario Kart, which is consistently one of the best of its kind on every platform it's released on.
 
Spinosaurus

Spinosaurus

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,983
7 introduced a lot, biggest thing being building your own kart.

8 looks and sounds pretty but besides that it's soooo iterative on 7 that it's a more convincing answer.
 
King_Moc

King_Moc

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,136
Super circuit adds literally nothing iirc? 7 at least added the hanglider to the Wii formula.
 
RisingStar

RisingStar

Banned
Oct 8, 2019
4,849
Has to be 64 for me. Yes it was the first one in 3D but it was the least interesting release for me personally. At least SC was the first one you can take with you on the go.

Only reason I wouldn't include Wii is because of the motion controls. Despite not being a fan, it really let non gamers I know join in on the fun.
 
Marmoka

Marmoka

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,122
My vote goes to Super Circuit

I think 7 was pretty good, all the flying and underwater cars came with this game if I'm not wrong.
 
Annabel

Annabel

Member
Mar 22, 2019
1,677
Can't really agree with the people saying 8.

Anti Gravity seems like a gimmick on the surface but it allowed the dev team to do some really creative courses that you couldn't be able to get in another MK game. On top of that they significantly upped their game on Retro Tracks, just look at the GBA tracks or 8's version of N64 Rainbow Road compared to the originals. Retro Tracks in previous were more or less just copy and pasted.

8 only shafts Battle Mode (which is a pretty big omission ngl), they thankfully rectified that in DX.
 
Axiom

Axiom

Member
Oct 25, 2017
294
Red said:
Surprised to see so few votes for 64. I think it's the least technically impressive for its time, and it's held up worse than any of the others. I can't think of anything it tried to do that wasn't overshadowed by the ambition of every other game in the series.

I don't think that's the spirit of this thread. "Least ambitious" does not mean a product was created with a lack of care or hard work. I think that's especially true for a series like Mario Kart, which is consistently one of the best of its kind on every platform it's released on.
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I like 64 less than most, but I think the 3D and 3D in multiplayer brought too much to the series going forward to consider it unambitious.

Like the track quality isn't great, but they were also deciding the rules of the series going forward so it gets a lot of slack from me.

I'd say Super Circuit, it's just a giant fantastic polished and updated "modern" sequel to Super Mario Kart.
 
Gartooth

Gartooth

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
8,440
If it wasn't for Super Circuit being the obvious choice, I'd probably vote for 64. It's just Super Mario Kart but now with 3D tracks, but the core mechanics are pretty much the same. At least with later entries you can point to a new feature or gameplay mechanic that changed things. 64's best thing is bumping up multiplayer from 2 to 4 players.

Edit: Actually I forgot that mini turbos were introduced in MK64! SNES had drifting but you didn't get a boost from it. That alone is a big enough gameplay addition to change my stance on MK64's innovation. lol
 
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Symphony

Symphony

Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,361
Unpopular answer but it's 8, the only things it introduced were anti-gravity (pretty much wholesale taken from Crash Nitro Kart) and a terrible new item distribution system on the back end (8th place but 1 second behind 7th? Have a single green shell). 7 added gliders and customisable karts so while it seems dull on paper it did actually add a fair amount. Super Circuit was the first handheld entry and also the first to add retro cups (being every single SNES track), it was ambitious for the sheer amount of content the game provided.
 
NotLiquid

NotLiquid

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
34,874
Zalman said:
Has to be Super Circuit. It was the first handheld title, but the game itself isn't what I would call ambitious.
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Super Circuit had the most amount of unique tracks in Mario Kart up until that point (on top of bringing back all SNES tracks; the first time any Mario Kart game would start doing retro tracks) and was a pretty great visual showcase for the platform. It also had some stellar art direction with its great artwork and UI, being the most animated Mario Kart game. I'd argue it was really ambitious relative to when and where it released.

I'd definitely put Mario Kart 7 as the least ambitious; while visually great, it was only a marginal step up from Mario Kart DS' offerings, in some cases lacking things that were welcome additions. Before Deluxe happened I might've said Mario Kart 8, but there's no arguing for me now that 8 is the most feature complete package.
 
Mistermetz

Mistermetz

Member
Jun 17, 2018
292
Double Dash to me. Despite of the innovation with 2 players in one kart it looks and feels very "cheap" & "low budget". It starts with the title screen & music, which just looks quite generic and boring. Compared to the Mario Kart Spaceworld video, where you can just see the shiny and high polygon kart models of mario and luigi racing across the screen, Double Dash was just a dissappointment. It probably was very cheap to produce for Nintendo. Mario Kart Wii is in a whole other league, on the positive side. Much more polished in all fronts, despite of the similar hardware.
 
Wil348

Wil348

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,213
Wii was about as barebones as you could get by Mario Kart metrics. It was still a fun time though.
 
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