Mario Kart/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • And the Fandom Rejoiced: Several elements from Mario Kart 7.
    • Retro Studios, best known for reviving long-lost franchises, are heavily involved in development.
    • The introduction of Kart customization, and alongside that the hang glider and the submarine upgrades.
    • Online communities can be formed, which allow groups of players to determine which karts, tracks, and even items are allowed in matches.
    • No more POW Block, or, best of all, Thundercloud! No fake items or pesky ghosts either!
    • One of the unlockable karts, the "Pipe Frame", marks the return of the very first kind of karts in the whole series, the classic, generic Kart that appeared in the first three installments. And now, ladies and gentlemen, after a ten-year gap, it's back!
    • Maka Wuhu finally got patched. On top of that, Bowser's Castle GBA also got patched as well.
  • Base Breaker: Waluigi. His exclusion from Mario Kart 7 has really divided the fans over whether or not that was a good idea.
    • Maka Wuhu was this for the online players due to the infamous cliff-falling glitch that puts the user of it ahead of others by several seconds. One portion considered it unfair for those who don't know about it or just want a simple race while the other portion said it's fair game for anyone since it's in there. Nintendo's response to the outcry by keeping said glitch did not help ease the fire, so to speak.
  • Best Level Ever: 7 introduces courses that forgo the usual roundabout design, instead using checkpoints rather than one finish line. Most people regard these as the best tracks in the game, especially Rainbow Road.
  • Breather Level: Mario Kart 64's Rainbow Road, unlike the tracks before it and its Super Mario Kart counterpart, is merely extremely long, and, unlike later incarnations, has rails on the entire track instead of just the curves.
  • Butt Monkey \ Karma Houdini: Each race will probably have at least one of each.
  • Character Tiers: In every single game, but most notably in the 3-D games. Mario Kart Wii had each character give invisible bonuses, with the more favourable quickly reaching Tier-Induced Scrappy levels. 7 seems to have averted this with the customization system and lack of significant character bonuses, however.
  • Complacent Gaming Syndrome: Almost a standard in the Wii version where most people will only use a bike and certain characters just for the sake of being slightly faster than others.
    • May be a factor in why they were removed in 7.
    • Speaking of 7... Hope you like racing against Metal Mario!
      • You can probably find Lakitu somewhere as well.
  • Crowning Music of Awesome: Plenty in every game, the Mario Kart folder on this page has more information.
  • 8.8: Gamespot (of "Mario Kart 64 is a 6.4" fame) is being bashed into the ground for handing out Mario Kart 7 an 8.0 when the general consensus is higher than an 8.5. Its especially notable here, considering Gamespot has recently bashed and have been bashed about a different Nintendo Killer App.
  • Fan Nickname: The infamous Spiny Shell is pretty much known to all its fans and haters alike as the Blue Shell.
  • Fan Service: The Mario princesses in leather racing jumpsuits? Yes, please!
  • Game Breaker: Snaking since Mario Kart Double Dash. Removed in Wii.
    • Base Breaker too. You're either a cheater who can only win when they do it, or a noob who only hates it because they can't do it.
    • Bikes in Wii, they massively overshadowed karts to the point where some players joked about the games title being 'Mario Bike Wii' (or 'Funky Bike Wii' due to Funky Kong's similar status as a character version of the trope.)
      • Or Daisy Bike Wii if people want to use someone slightly different.
    • The series have tracks that can cut down on your laps greatly due to abusing exploits of the checkpoint system (this determines where Lakitu drops you off if you fall off the map). The biggest one known in more recent years is the glitch in the Grumble Volcano track in Mario Kart Wii; if done correctly, the player can literally finish the race in 30 seconds or less. Naturally, nearly everyone abused the exploit online and it was more obvious when people started to spam vote for the track. Mario Kart 7 also has a similar one with the Maka Wuhu track that allows people to skip huge sections of the track. Not only people began to abuse this online as always, but the exploit was found almost days after the game was released.
  • Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Japanese players sure love Metal Mario.
  • Goddamned Bats: Some levels have hazards which can pop out at bad times to slow you down, including sliding walls, falling presses, and, yes, bats.
    • Sometimes, the goddamned bats can be the other racers themselves as they can get in your way when you are trying to pass them or crash into them while performing a power slide and losing your momentum. This is much more noticeable with the AI since they don't deviate from their preferred path too much.
  • Hell Is That Noise: You will panic every time you hear the alert of a homing item. Especially the Spiny Shell.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: According to Wii Sports Resort, only electric cars are permitted on Wuhu Island. That's apparently not the case anymore, according to 7.
  • It's the Same, Now It Sucks: Wii got some of this reaction from people.
  • Memetic Molester: The Spiny Shell will fuck everything up for you.
  • Most Annoying Sound: In Mario Kart Wii, characters scream things like "YEAH!" or "WOOHOOOOOO!" at the top of their lungs for almost everything they do, even for little things like mini-turbos and wheelies. Although certain characters get more attention for it then others, when it comes down to it, every character could be considered equally annoying due to the cartoony ear-piercing voices.
    • Arguably even worse in 7.
    • HI I'M DAISY HI I'M DAISY HI I'M DAISY from Double Dash.
    • Toad from Mario Kart 64. "HERE WE GO! I'M THE BEST! AHHHHHHHH!"
      • Toad having a voice that sounds more scratchy in later games can be this for players who were first familiar with 64 (or Peach having a deeper voice for those going in reverse).
    • Crashing into penguins, plants, moles, etc in that game played this horrible squealing noise.
    • "Eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh...BOOM!!!"[1]
      • "Wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee...BAM!"
      • "CRACKOOM!!, bzz, bzz, bzz, bzz, bzz..."
  • Most Wonderful Sound: the Double Item Box. Polyphony at its finest.
  • Rage Quit: Commonplace once the series went online.
  • Replacement Scrappy: Queen Bee's getting this for replacing characters like Birdo and Waluigi.
  • Ruined FOREVER
  • Scrappy Mechanic:
    • The Spiny Shell, if the examples floating around didn't make it clear enough.
    • The Thunder Cloud from Wii is possibly even more reviled.
      • Which is really shouldn't be considering it affects everyone ahead of the player with it. (The farther you are the longer it takes to get better but still)The problem comes from it literally being rigged to happen too often and making you often lose your defensive item just as a red shell is coming.
    • Coins in Super Mario Kart and Mario Kart: Super Circuit. You need to hold coins to increase your speed (the boost caps at 10 coins) and getting hit by items, crashing into course hazards, or falling off the track made you lose coins. Even bumping into another racer made you lose a coin! The games also made the coins an item to give you 2 coins instantly, but it could also screw you over if someone behind you has a red shell or the like.
      • Mario Kart 7 changes the coins mechanic slightly where not having a lot of coins won't totally screw you over and bumping into people won't make you lose coins, but you can't hold more than 10 coins and you will lose 3 coins (or two if your coin count is low) every time you get attacked or fall off the track, which makes holding onto your coins a pain in the ass. Luckily, coins regenerate. Unluckily, you need to collect coins to unlock parts for your kart and you will be playing for a long time since you will need to collect several thousand coins and even beyond 10,000 coins just to get everything. This is made worse due to only being able to hold up to 10 coins per race.
  • Sequel Difficulty Drop: 7's 150cc and Mirror modes don't seem as difficult as Wii's versions, most likely because of the lowered player count and removal of some of the nastier items. Still infuriating though.
    • A large factor in this is likely the removal of the fake item box. In every Mario Kart game since Double Dash, shells go right through the fake item box, making it absolutely useless as a defensive option. A favorite technique of Mario Kart Wii's Random Number God was giving you a fake item box and then giving the CPU in 2nd place a red shell, effectively making you helpless unless there was a sharp enough turn nearby. Another major factor is that blue shells no longer strip you of an item you haven't used yet, and that lightning isn't rigged to happen every 30 seconds. All of this combines to allow a skilled player in 1st place to play a much stronger defensive game without having it stripped away by the Random Number God.
    • Also, the criteria for getting at least one star on each cup seems to be significantly lower in Mario Kart 7, and getting three of them seems to almost be down to winning every race and not falling off the track too much. Apparently because being hit by items thrown by the AI opponents doesn't hurt your rank this time round.
    • It should be noted, however, that the ranking system in 7 drops the letters and only has between one to three stars. One might be inclined to think this is just to make a person feel better.
  • That One Attack: SPINY SHELLS.
    • THUNDER.
  • That One Level: There's bound to be at least one in each game.
    • Toad's Turnpike. Extra Cup. Now, Extra Cup normally just mirrors the tracks. For this track, the course is mirrored...and the traffic cars are oncoming. Welcome to Hell.
    • Rainbow Road ends up being this for a majority in every game except its really long and safe version in MK 64 (which adverted the difficulty after the first Mario Kart), thanks to the general lack of railings and the abundance of sharp turns and narrow pathways. That's disregarding everyone trying to throw explosive flying shells at you.
    • Mushroom Gorge in the Wii version. At least 1/4th of the track is over an abyss with only bouncy mushrooms to launch yourself across to another mushroom until you hit the other side. Hitting the mushrooms at a wrong angle will most likely throw you into the pit. Using a Bullet Bill while over the mushroom pit can also be disastrous if the power up runs out over the pit instead of a mushroom. Even simply going too fast with a mushroom item or a star can throw you into the abyss. To make matters worse, you also have to hope people don't use a red shell, spiny shell, or a thunderbolt on you as you cross the gap.
    • Maka Wuhu in 7, due to the infamous glitch.
  • The Scrappy: Rosalina, Daisy, Funky Kong and the four babies in Mario Kart Wii. The former 3 for overuse and the latter 4 for being insignificant to the point that makes Waluigi look like the main character.
    • The biggest scrappy award goes to Baby Daisy, considering they made her up just to be one of the babies.
    • Mario Kart 7 has two major offenders: Honey Queen, an extremely minor Galaxy character that nobody saw coming, and Metal Mario, a Base Breaker with half the fandom welcoming him to the roster for his unique appearance/voice and the other half detesting him for being just a silver Mario. Both were made significantly more egregious by the fact that fan-favorite Waluigi is completely absent from the game. Wiggler, Shy Guy and Lakitu may also count as minor versions, but the latter two have also invoked And the Fandom Rejoiced.
  • The Unexpected:
    • Toadette in Double Dash!!
    • R.O.B. in DS.
    • Funky Kong, Dry Bowser, and Baby Daisy in Wii. The latter being especially notable, as it was her first appearance in ANY game.
    • Metal Mario, Lakitu, Wiggler, and Honey Queen in 7.
  1. ↑ "2nd", "3rd", "4th", etc.
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