What's your favorite Mario Kart game?

[Pike]

I played the original a lot as a kid but ultimately I gotta hand it to the second in the series, Mario Kart 64.

That said, I think the original did have the better Rainbow Road (and also better Rainbow Road theme song)

[I Took the Red Pill]

Mario Kart DS. When I was in high school I got the game and it started a chain reaction. Shortly after I bought it, one of my buddies who had a DS bought the game as well. We started playing against each other during lunch and everyone was like "damn this is the hottest trout ever", so, no joke, 4 kids in my lunch period bought DS's and Mario Kart just so we could all play the game together, and then one more kid who already had a DS bought the game.

After that we would all get together during second period study halls in our Earth Science teacher's room and do team races with everyone. trout was so insane and so awesome. I'm pretty sure none of those kids ever bought another game for the Nintendo DS. It was solely so we could play MK during school hours.

Double Dash is great too, but I gotta give it to MK DS for the great memories. Cheep Cheep Beach represent.

[Formalhaut]

64 runs on nostalgia, really. I loved it as a kid, and it still is good, but I'd say some of the later ones are objectively better. I enjoyed the DS one, even if the drifting was horribly broken. Mario Kart Wii is probably the one most people are familiar with, and it is good. But I really enjoyed Mario Kart 7, it added some new things like the gliding, that didn't detract from the racing itself.

I haven't played 8 yet, so I can't really comment.

[Ayen]

Mario Kart 64.

[Slothy]

Everything after MK64 is a steady descent into troutsville. Population: 6

[Pant Leg Eater from the Bad World]

They are all pale shadows in comparison to Super Mario Kart. 64 is the closest to it by a long shot.

[Bubba]

They are all pale shadows in comparison to Super Mario Kart. 64 is the closest to it by a long shot.

This.

Super Mario Kart is the perfect incarnation of the genre. Super Mario Kart 64 will probably get more votes and it truly is a great game but... the introduction of the Blue Shell was one of the worst things Nintendo ever did. Red shells are fine so if you are only marginally in the lead you are in trouble. But if you completely dominate and are miles ahead then a couple of Blue Shells on the last lap means you'll still lose.

Basically, Nintendo punishes you for performing well... which is bollocks.

[Pike]

I dunno, the votes between SMK and MK64 are all tied up!

[Colonel Angus]

The only one w/ Ludwig von Koopa is SMB 8.

Ludwig.png

[Rostum]

Super Mario Kart and Mario Kart 64 were great back in the day (I prefer Mario Kart 64 out of the two), but Mario Kart 8 is definitely the most awesome one I've ever played.

[Rez09]

Double Dash is easily my favorite, though I have a high opinion of each game in the series. I suspect there are people out there who disliked the game's double-driver mechanics and simply dismissed it as needlessly gimmicky, but the concept was actually EXTREMELY well executed, as most of the game's advanced options -- such as mini-turbos and stealing items -- required contributions from both players instead of just one, fostering a feeling of team effort. I mean, it would have been so easy to just have the front player do ALL the driving related tasks while the rear player sat back and did nothing, simply watching the race happen and tossing weapons, but Nintendo took the high road instead, and I appreciate that. Hell, they even went so far as to make it possible for a good second player to significantly improve the kart's situation with well timed punches, moving the kart laterally to avoid obstacles in a manner that isn't possible in other titles in the series.

Outside of the actual race mechanics, the game also promoted slightly more strategy in character selection than I've found in other titles, as special weapons were tied to characters, effectively allowing you to pick two, and kart size was tied to character weight, so you needed to juggle who you played with what karts and specials you wanted. It wasn't usually that hard to build around, but it was an element of depth I rather appreciated.

Also, and it's a bit sketchy since a lot of them have appeared in other titles since its release, but DD also introduced more of my favorite tracks than any other title in series, such as DK Mountain, Mushroom Bridge, Daisy Cruiser, and one of (if not) my favorite Bowser's Castle course.

Double Dash also had Bob-omb Blast mode, which was pretty much the best thing in the history of ever.

[Mirage]

I've played all of them except 7 and advance, and out of those, MK8 is objectively the best.

SMK is good, considering the hardware it runs on. MK64 has really terrible physics and the graphics are really muddy, the framerate is also terrible in 4-player. Double dash has that gimmicky thing with two drivers, but the physics are vastly improved over 64, and it is the only mario kart game to be able to keep the game at 60 fps even with 4 players. MK Wii is all right, but really just comes off as an unpolished MK8 (not talking about the graphics, that's a given of course). DS was all right, but I never played it all that much because I didn't own it myself. MK7 is basically MK8 stripped down enough to run on 3DS, so it should be pretty similar.

MK8 has the best graphics, well-polished physics and gameplay, biggest selection of circuits, best variety in karts, and second best selection of characters. It also has exceptional online performance, which is a very good thing. Now, I will admit that MK8 does have one pretty big flaw, and that is the omission of battle arenas. Battle mode on normal circuits is a complete flop and not actually fun at all.

I would still rank MK8 as #1, and Double Dash as #2. I would put MK64 last.

PS. Bob-omb blast battlemode mode is magnificent.