Recently, I have gone back and started playing both Mario Kart: Double Dash!! and Mario Kart Wii again and it has inspired me to take a look back and rank the Mario Kart games from worst to best. This series has always been very dear to me as Double Dash!! was the first video game I ever played and Mario Kart Wii was the first game I ever bought with my own money. Here goes:
8. Mario Kart: Super Circuit
Mario Kart: Super Circuit is the little known entry in the series for the Game Boy Advance. Not much can be said about this game, it was the entry that brought the series to handheld, but other than that the game is dull and isn't much fun to play.
7. Super Mario Kart
Nostalgia aside, Super Mario Kart is a flat, unexciting game with very little to no fun or exciting courses. The game did start the franchise, but the game itself isn't that great of an outing.
6. Mario Kart 64
Mario Kart 64 marks the point in this countdown where the games go from "not very good" to "good". Mario Kart 64 is a great game, don't get me wrong, but compared to the other games, Mario Kart 64 can't quite compete with the other games ahead of it in the countdown. Mario Kart 64 was the first 3D game in the series and featured incredibly memorable maps such as its Rainbow Road and Yoshi Valley.
5. Mario Kart 7
This here was a tough call, because Mario Kart 7 made huge leaps in the series by introducing car parts to assemble your own race car, flying portions of track, and underwater portions of tracks. Mario Kart 7 simply just doesn't compete with its predecessor because Mario Kart DS was much more revolutionary.
4. Mario Kart DS
Mario Kart DS introduced some of the biggest staples of the entire franchise, including the first game with online competitive racing and bringing back retro tracks remastered, which still remains in the series to this day and is a massive part of every modern Mario Kart game, greatly adding to the depth, variety, and replayability of the game. As far as how fun it is and how much I enjoyed it, Mario Kart 7 is definitely in front of Mario Kart DS, but this game was simply too ground breaking to leave any further behind.
3. Mario Kart Wii
Mario Kart Wii is by far one of the greatest multiplayer games for the Nintendo Wii and to this day holds up as a fantastic multiplayer experience. Mario Kart Wii was so damn successful because of its addition of bikes, half-pipes, and tricks to add a whole separate level of gameplay to an already enjoyable game. Additionally, the motion controls and the addition of the Wii Wheel is a welcome addition that really successfully utilized the motion controls of the Wii and was surprisingly not cumbersome. Overall an incredible game that takes the cake in the series for most hectic, just not the best.
2. Mario Kart: Double Dash!!
Double Dash!! is an incredible game and is the only Mario Kart entry to feature two player coop racing within the same kart, an incredibly fun feature to use with your friends while playing. Additionally, Double Dash!! has some of the most memorable courses in Mario Kart franchise history: Baby Park, Waluigi Stadium, DK Mountain, Wario Colosseum to name a few. Also, the All Cup Tour is such a fun way to play through all of the courses still in Grand Prix mode.
1. Mario Kart 8
Wow. Mario Kart 8 is just such a mind-blowingly great game that this was the easiest decision on the entire list. Mario Kart 8 carries over the flying and underwater sections from Mario Kart 7, as well as the car parts mechanic that allows racers to construct their own cars with no limits on size. Mario Kart 8 is by far, no question, the most gorgeous looking game I believe I have seen on the Wii U. Mario Kart 8 runs at a smooth 1080p, 60fps, and it is noticeable. Mario Kart 8 is beautiful game that manages to make even old SNES and GBA courses look incredibly good and its original courses are some of the best in the series, to site a few: Mount Wario, and who cares what else because FREAKING MOUNT WARIO. The one complaint about Mario Kart 8 is its god-awful character roster. I slam Mario Kart Wii for having Baby Peach and Baby Daisy forced in, but Jesus, Mario Kart 8 includes them as well as a Baby Rosalina, each and every one of the Koopalings, and a, I shit you not, Pink Gold Peach. Meanwhile, Diddy Kong and King Boo don't even make it in. This is one thing that I literally cannot stress in words: it baffles me to know what the hell Nintendo was thinking when they crafted this roster. It seriously confuses the crap out of me. Later DLC adds Link and Dry Bowser among others, which is great that they make it in, but seriously, where the hell is Diddy Kong? Bowser Jr.? Dry Bones? Apart from the character roster, and some item problems, (mostly the existence of a coin item) Mario Kart 8 is a flawless game.
