#or a mario kart 8 track or two

[everymariogalaxy]

right, im out of requests for the mario colour palette thing, so if anyone wants to send any in, feel free! one probably wont go up this week regardless, ive been sick X]

if i dont get any at all i'll probably focus my non comic work back on personal things, though i'll occasionally post mario pieces here (i still have some old ones in my drafts too)

[suppermariobroth]

In Mario Kart 8/Deluxe, the Goomba stacks on the Mario Circuit track have a limit of 118 Goombas per stack. Above are two Goomba stacks of maximum height.

Main Blog | Twitter | Patreon | Small Findings | Source: YouTube user "RoGamer97"

[smallmariofindings]

In Cheep Cheep Beach in Mario Kart DS, the lighthouse has a light that is pointing in three directions, which is highly unusual for lighthouses, as those mostly point in two opposite directions or in a single direction. The screenshots show the lighthouse from two opposite sides, revealing the three lights (the building is hexagonal, with the top image showing three of the sides and the bottom image the other three).

This was likely an oversight, as the Mario Kart 8/Deluxe version of this track replaces the tridirectional light with a regular bidirectional light.

Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source

[wfagamerants]

As is well documented by now, I really love Mario Party, even beyond the realm of Mario it’s one of my favorite series ever. It’s also been said plenty by now that my relationship with the Switch games has been rocky.

I know, me being so nice to ND Cube’s output, only to have problems with the Switch games is for many an off-beat opinion, it’s just how I feel.

When Jamboree was announced it seemed to be the MP I had been waiting for right out of the gate and I can happily say it delivered. While we are still in the honeymoon phase with the game, I feel confident even calling it one of the best Mario Party games, a sentiment I never agreed on when brought up with Superstars, which I only find solid.

I’ll go by the same structure I went with for my essay on the Switch games, since that is what I am most comfortable with, so we’ll start with the roster.

While the selection was very not for me, I do give a lot of credit to Super for really beefing up the character numbers and after a really sad showing in Superstars, Jamboree returns to that, with a 22 characters large selection, one I am a much bigger fan of.

The character/mook ratio is closer to what I prefer, the Toads are back, Pauline and Ninji are wonderful newcomers and my issues with playable Bowser have been addressed with the introduction of Imposter Bowser. At least in terms of what can be expected, the roster is just one Diddy short of being perfect for me.

The game in general prides itself on the sheer amount of content it packs and that shows with the boards too.

7 boards, 5 new and 2 returning. I got some nitpicks, particularly how we are still sticking to only N64 boards coming back, but on the whole I do like the idea of Mario Party going Mario Kart by bringing back old boards. They genuinely are really well remade.

Mario’s Rainbow Castle was always going to be more strategic and involved thanks to the inclusion of items, but Western Land was the big surprise. I always loved the board, but the greater control you have over Steamer, the train here, being able to drive two stations ahead or even get him to come to whatever station you’re at, thanks to the new Steamer Ticket item, really alters the game. It’s a far bigger part of the game plan to knock opponents back to start, but the wealth of movement based items also means you have the means to rush where you need to, it’s well balanced that way.

The 5 new boards are an extremely good selection. Superstars is the basis for the board play, so in many regards it’s a bit hard to go into heavy detail without stating the obvious. It’s classic Mario Party and still clearly based on 1-4, with things like Boo being on every board, but it’s in the details and a couple key aspects where the game leaves its own mark of quality.

Despite the Super moniker, the boards are thankfully nothing like in that game. They are all a good size and full of mechanics of their own and obstacles. In fact, what impresses me most is how distinct they all feel.

Whether you rack up an insane amount of coins and visit specific shops for items or collect stamps in Rainbow Galleria, brave the delightfully evil Bowser Byway in King Bowser’s Keep or make a mad dash across the track in Roll ‘em Raceway, every board feels distinct and has a very strong identity. I do miss the more varied star collecting methods from 6-8 and DS, with only Roll ‘em Raceway feeling similar to that, but they are still the most distinct bunch of boards to not go for that formula and that is a genuinely huge compliment.

Of course, good boards are one thing, but the finer mechanics need to check out too and luckily Jamboree doesn’t disappoint and that’s where three major points about the board play I love come into play.

First are the Lucky Spaces. I am on and off with how I feel about them, but thanks to the much greater amount of hazards threatening your coin count and ways to spend them, their bonuses end up feeling like a more natural part of the game’s economy. 

They can still feel a little overtuned at times, but unlike Superstars the game is designed in ways to make their instant perks a bit more justified. There even is an Unlucky Space counterpart, even if the penalties there are milder than the benefits of its good counterpart, but it does contribute to keeping things in check.

Secondly there are the items. While there is still a heavy emphasis on movement based items, I think the variety has seen a good upgrade. I’m particularly fond of the returning Bowser Phone, as well as the traps, which are just hexes from MPDS and can turn portions of a board into a hilarious coin and star steal minefield.

What really pushes it to another level though is an idea 6 toyed with in Snowflake Lake and what 7 made a much bigger deal of: board specific items. Superstars did have that in the sense it makes no sense to have a Skeleton Key available on the MP1 boards, but Jamboree is different.

These board specific items are all made to interact with the gimmick of the board. Use the Tide Shell on Goomba Lagoon to control the tide, put a hole into everyone’s deep pockets with the Markup Sticker in Rainbow Galleria and I already mentioned the Steamer Ticket on Western Land and how that alters how you play the game.

Items have always been meant to be the more strategic part of MP, something to give the player agency in a kind of game ruled by the dice and items like this really allow you to make power plays and plan ahead in a way the orbs in 6 and 7, still the best item system to me, excelled at.

The way they are distributed is also good. Multiple shop types like in 3, item minigames are still here as a potential outcome on an Item Space and while Lucky Spaces can still give out items, it feels a bit more restrained or at least the game is better designed around it. Horror Land in Superstars when I play it often devolves into a long series of Chomp Calls, since it’s so easy for everyone to get an arsenal of those. Nothing like that ever really happened for me here.

The third big aspect for me is the Jamboree Buddies.

For all its flaws, being basically just lifted from Star Rush, I did find the allies to be one of the genuinely interesting parts of Super, but it needed a lot of retooling and Jamboree did just that in a variety of ways.

Jamboree Buddies will eventually appear on the board, but only one is around at a time and you need to reach them first. If you aren’t fast enough they just leave and you need to wait a couple turns for the next one to show up.

Even if you do reach them, you need to win a Showdown Minigame first, each centered around that character and only through winning it, will you get them.

While their perks such as their own abilities or doubling the effects of positive spaces OR being able to use Boo twice in one turn or buy two stars at once, are very powerful, they also double negative effects. If you land on say, a Bowser Space, you take double the punishment and on King Bowser’s Keep, that even makes for situations where there are so many Bowser Spaces that passing up on a Buddy may even be the smarter move,

While their perks are potentially game changing, you only get them for a few turns and someone passing by you can steal your Buddy from you, so making the most of their perks in the limited time you have can be a genuine challenge.

All that combined makes the Jamboree Buddies a significantly more balanced take on allies. Very exciting when around, but the game doesn’t centralize around them and it is possible to even suffer more bad effects than good ones, if you get one in a bad spot.

Those are some of the big factors that help Jamboree really push the board play up further in quality for me beyond ‘’boards good’’. In the end it’s Mario Party as you know it, but it has some really good refinements and new ideas.

Another such good idea is a voting system for minigames now being an option, along with the Bonus Star options returning from Superstars. It’s just neat to see Mario Party inch towards a more customizable experience.

In fact to add to this, Jamboree introduces an entirely new ruleset called Pro Mode. This mode offers a bunch of changes, including, but not limited to:

The turn count is a set 12 turns.

Chance Time and Hidden Blocks are not a thing.

Everyone can choose one item to start the game with.

Items in item shops are limited in supply.

The voting system for minigames is the default and only option, no roulette.

There is only one bonus star and you know which one it is from the start, so you can play specifically for it.

Lucky Spaces let you choose between 10 Coins or a Double Dice item.

Bowser on a Bowser Space will automatically steal a star if you have one.

Boo always steals 15 coins, no mashing mechanic to be found.

Among other things.

Overall it’s a really fun alternative way to play the game that changes your approach to many situations. I wouldn’t call it a definitive competitive minded experience, since it is at the end of the day, still a board game, but as a different way to play the boards, it’s a lot of fun.

Of course the board is just half of the MP experience, so how are the minigames?

In my opinion, really good!

I touched on this in my write-up on revisiting the previous Switch entries, but something about how many minigames in Superstars controlled always felt off to me. It’s hard to explain and really weird since I didn’t feel that way about Top 100 or any other MP, but it is a contributor to why I was never fully on Team Superstars.

Luckily Jamboree feels just fine to me and the overall selection of minigames is solid, packing a lot of action based games, mixed with more puzzly or reaction and mashing based ones. The variety is here and there isn’t much in the way of stinkers.

I was a bit iffy seeing returning minigames initially, since two of the three last games were all returning minigames, but Jamboree handles it gracefully and in a way that, like returning boards, would even be totally cool as a new norm for me. There are only a couple, the selection is good and several are even heavily recontextualized, like Leaf Leap, Bumper Balls and Shy Guy Says now being a three-part marathon challenge in Mario’s Showdown game or Platform Peril now being a coin minigame.

I am happy to say the game cools it with Coin minigames. They are still there and that’s fine, but the game isn’t blatantly rigged for them to pop up often like Superstars was and I appreciate that.

Duel minigames are once again oddly snubbed, only five once more, but at least the selection is really good. Slappy-Go-Round in particular is easily one of the most brilliant concepts for a duel minigame in the whole series.

Showdown Minigames for Jamboree Buddies are totally new. They revolve around the character you play for and are far longer than the average mini-game. This is gonna be more subjective but I think they mostly pull it off, with Waluigi, Wario, Mario, Daisy, Jr, Rosalina and Yoshi all having really good ones. Luigi’s is pretty good, but can be an autowin for players who reach him and get an advantage. Peach and DK are the only duds for me. Peach’s has an awkward first part and a luck based second part, while DK’s doesn’t do a great job filling its length and ends up being the one game of the bunch to really feel long for me.

Jamboree also brings back boss minigames from 9, 10 and Star Rush. Once unlocked in Party Planner Trek they can appear as options on the VS Space, making them effectively a return of dedicated Battle Minigames, if mixed with regular minigames in the rotation.

The minigames themselves are decent, Imposter Bowser’s is a bit lame to me and none are quite as good as the ones in previous games, but they aren’t bad by any means and I am happy to see them experiment with bringing that idea over into the classic formula.

Lastly for Party Mode minigames there are the motion control ones and that is a bit of an awkward one. Like in Super, I actually think the controls for them work really well and I like the minigames themselves, but being required to play with the one Joycon method to play them isn’t my favorite thing in the world and it’s a shame that they didn’t find a more graceful solution than to just lock those minigames away when playing with a more comfortable controller.

Also a bit of a shame there are no Bowser Minigames this time, though at least they have a good substitute in another mode.

Despite a slightly more mixed tone by the end, I consider Party Mode a big success, so let’s discuss the other modes.

First there is Party Planner Trek, our first dedicated singleplayer, somewhat story mode, in a long time.

In a lot of ways it’s basically a mix of Advance and the Minigame Island-type modes. You can walk freely across the board and do tasks for NPCs, along with playing all the minigames to collect Mini-Stars. Collect enough and you face the boss of the board, defeat them and you can move on to the next one.

It’s a simple concept, but nicely executed. The best way to describe it is cozy. It’s a nice laidback excuse to run around the boards and play through all the minigames that I can see myself revisiting when in the mood for it. The framing of this being how all the boards are made ready for the big event is also just really charming.

The only bad thing about the mode was getting first place in Gate Key-pers due to its luck based nature. I’d even call it the worst part of the game, but it is just one tedious minigame, hardly something that ruins anything and it can be skipped if you don’t care for 100%.

Then we got the Minigame Bay, with its modes and it’s….okay. The Boss Rush and Showdown Minigames based modes are welcome inclusions and the presentation is great across the board. Still, I miss the minigame modes of days past, especially Decathlon and would love to see some of them again.

We got two more flavors of extra modes and to me the stronger one is easily the two Bowser modes.

First up is Koopathlon, which is very much just Coinathlon from Star Rush, but now with 20 players and online functionality. You still collect coins in minigames specific to this mode, to move across a linear board and race to clear a certain amount of laps first. Even the items are taken straight from Star Rush, apart from Lava Bubble being replaced by Imposter Bowser and even that amounts to the same effect, all that changes is what burns your butt.

None of this is a negative though, since Coinathlon was easily one of the best side modes in the series and Jamboree is a very positive case of more of the same. I’d even say I like it a bit more thanks to the Survivathon Bowser minigames.

These were already a thing in Coinathlon, you try to survive a Bowser minigame and if you don’t you get moved back a certain amount of spaces as punishment. Jamboree edges out as better for me for not only having more and really good Bowser minigames, but also being far more challenging to survive, making them much more intense.

Koopathlon’s just great, taking an already amazing side-mode and making it just a tad better, easily my most played mode aside from Party Mode.

The other Bowser Mode is Bowser Kaboom Squad, one that caused a lot of intrigue pre-release for how little was known about it.

An 8 player team goes up against Imposter Bowser in a city and attempts to dodge him and other obstacles to collect bombs to attack him, as well as balance that with collecting coins for a Bonus Round where all bombs do more damage. 

The team needs to defeat Imposter Bowser in 5 rounds and at the end of every round is a team minigame, where you will net items to help you in various ways, with what items you get being determined by what Rank you archived in the minigame.

In some ways this mode feels like an extension of your typical Bowser final boss minigame from the Hudson days and I really like it for that. It’s frantic, offers fun opportunities for teamwork and Imposter Bowser, especially on Hard, is genuinely imposing to go up against. 

It’s a simple mode, but I really enjoy it. Not quite on the same level as Coinathlon, but a really welcome addition. I have played quite a bit already.

Lastly is the Motion based modes. Those were always going to be more novelty driven, but I do think the end result is a positive one.

The best is easily Rhythm Kitchen, a sequel to its equivalent in Super, my favorite part of that game. Unlike in that game the minigames are cooperative, making it more of a ‘’go with the vibe’’ experience and luckily it succeeds there.

The games are simple, but easy to understand, the music catchy and you even get to play a Rhythm Heaven-style Remix mode, set to the SMB1 overworld theme.

It’s a fun, cozy mode. Doesn’t take long until you have seen everything it has, but as basically a glorified minigame mode, it does it’s job well and is a nice every once in a while option.

I feel similarly about Toad’s Item Factory. The goal is to get orbs to a goal, using motion gimmicks to guide them. The controls are intuitive, the gimmicks varied, that’s really all there can be said. Fun mode, but very simple and not something to go back to regularly, but a good time when you play it.

The last mode is Paratroopa’s Flight School and yeah, that is the lowlight of the game, not bad though.

I do love the idea and the free flight mode in particular is actually pretty cool for what it is, with two extra modes as an extra on top. It works well, never had a problem with the controls and it is a cute idea, it’s just also very much a gimmick and not one that lends itself to going back to it a lot. The idea of it just wears thin and also requires more set-up to properly play.

It’s also weird how the mode locks you into playing as Mario or Luigi as the second player. Not a huge deal, modes where not everyone is playable isn’t new to the series, but being stuck with just one set character feels alien for Mario Party.

That’s all the modes and there is one constant across most of them: online. Jamboree emphasizes that aspect more than any other part of the series and I am happy to say that at least from my experience, it’s very good. It plays as well as the game does offline and I didn’t experience more than one small lag spike and no connection errors, which sometimes plagued Superstars for me.

Another big area where the game shines is presentation. The NDCube games have always been very good at this, but Jamboree takes this to another level. There are so many things to say that I may as well do it in a list format, because there is a lot there, in many different places too.

First off, a lot of old animations got small touch-ups, tiny details in how say, Mario, Luigi and Wario’s hats now obey gravity when they go back down after hitting a dice. Similarly, the characters during high rolls will not only speed up, but even transition into a new sprinting animation once fast enough.

There are several new situation specific animations, such as the panic run animations in the Granite Getaway remake, which you don’t see anywhere else.

The camera on the boards is way more dynamic and loves showing very appealing shots, such as Imposter Bowser looming over the characters in King Bowser’s Keep.

Mario’s Rainbow Castle turns dark and threatening if Imposter Bowser is in front of the castle, you can even see Bullet Bills pass by in the background.

They went through the work to tweak some animations for certain boards. Chance Time always catapults the characters in the air for instance, but in Rainbow Galleria this comes with a crashing sound and a visual effect showing the characters crashed through the ceiling.

Roll ‘em Raceway in general bothered with a unique, if simple, animation set of everyone in cars, to make the board concept possible.

Really, long story short, the game looks great and is full of life and personality. It also retains the zany, cartoony vibe that I love the series for, Super mostly lacked and Superstars didn’t always retain either.

Goomba Lagoon is in part my favorite board for representing this so well. It’s the perfect showcase for the dynamic camera and things like Lava Bubble spaces making everyone bounce across spaces with their butts on fire or the characters being forced on zipline rides they visibly don’t want to get on and even lose their grip by the end, are that toony fun energy that always gave the series a distinct personality for me.

The game also strikes a good balance of modern Mario visuals and original stuff. There is plenty of NSMBU and 3D World inspired content in there, but then you get say, the cities from the Bowser’s Kaboom Squad mode, which feel like cities you could see in Hudson era minigames. It’s nicely diverse.

While Mario Party has always been good with cool references to other Mario things, I’d argue Jamboree may be the best one yet.

The Showdown minigames are an obvious example, with say, Wario’s taking from both Ware and Land, Waluigi’s being a Waluigi Pinball reference or Donkey Kong basically making you play Donkey Konga being some big examples.

Even beyond that though you got things like Imposter Bowser being a shout-out to the SMB1 Fake Bowsers or Plessie making his first appearance in a spin-off. There is a lot to discover and it always made me smile. Mario spin-offs aren’t really like say, Dissidia or Theatrhythm are for Final Fantasy, where they feel like a true crossover and celebration of the whole series history, so any time one does include a lot of nods and elements from other games, it’s a treat.

The music ended up being a surprising highlight too, being full of catchy and varied tunes, not to mention just a lot of music in general. This is a hopelessly subjective topic, but there are several tracks I have already listened to a bunch outside the game. Imposter Bowser’s rocking themes and the bouncy, motivating Level 2 theme for Koopathlon being my highlights.

There is a lot of good detail work in here too, such as Imposter Bowser getting his own version of the Mario’s Rainbow Castle theme when he is out or all 22 characters getting their own little turn start jingles, because this game loves effort and I in turn love it for it.

We also got a fresher set of voice clips for a bunch of the cast, some new and some from Wonder and I won’t lie, Superstars with how much it makes the characters shout their canned old clips really tested my patience with the same clips they have used game after game, not just in this one sub-series, for over a decade and being rid of them feels like sweet release.

It helps that I genuinely think Kevin does a good job with his roles and while Deanna Mustard was really good, I utterly adore Giselle Fernandez as Daisy.

Been doing a ton of gushing and well, that’s because this game’s damn good and a showcase they learned all the right lessons. It’s not perfect, I have laid out things I thought could be better or are missing, but none of it comes even close to souring the experience for me.

I’d still put 6 and 7 at the very top for me, but Jamboree is really competitive with 3 as a solid third place for me and I don’t think that’s just the honeymoon phase speaking. Jamboree is a true return to form that makes me extremely optimistic for the future of the series.

That and I am curious if we will see DLC this time. The game is already more than packed enough to not need it, but if a MP ever were to see that kind post-launch support, I’d want it to be one as robust as Jamboree.

Because Jamboree really is just that good and I am so happy I can say that.

[jayyydez]

I see you have fallen for my trap…

@scribeprotra

Genuinely though, I'm still at a somewhat loose framework.

The whole topic came about because one of the tracks in one of the newer Mario Kart games. (I think it was Dragon Driftway in Mario Kart 8?) I was trying to rationalize why a structure like this would exist, and settled on this thought.

It would make a lot of sense if Koopas worshipped dragons in this world, especially since we have seen them exist in at least two games. (First Paper Mario and Super Paper Mario) Plus, given that Bowser himself and the Koopalings have dragon-like traits, and that in our own history, we've regarded monarchs as divinely chosen or directly enacting a god's will on earth.

Add in an idea that Koopas like Bowser and the Koopalings are nobles and royalty because they have closer proximity to dragons, which are their gods. Daimao Koopas are essentially regarded as demigods amongst the Darklands for this reason.

So at least ONE dragon would be regarded as a god or an extension of the divine, but it stands to reason the others, like Hooktail, Gloomtail, Bonetail, Fracktail, and Wracktail, are divine in their own right. Wracktail even calls themself a god when you encounter them in the Pit of 100 Trials in SPM.

But clearly dragons are not the only powerful entities, since we have the star spirits as well as the Fire God and Thunder God in Superstar Saga, as well as figures like Grambi and Jaydes from SPM.

So there would likely be a whole pantheon's worth of potential divinity that rule over the Mushroom World. Despite the easy choice, I hesitate to make Grambi and Jaydes rule over life and death respectively. Grambi doesn't rule over life. He merely guards the Overthere. Jaydes is not a goddess of death. She is the goddess of the dead, in much the same way that Hades from Greek Mythology rules over the domain of the underworld and the dead, but is not the actual god of death.

I'd sooner place them as representations that I'd want to extend to Mario and Luigi. Grambi represents the Day. Honor and courage, heroism, idealism, the spotlight of popularity and attention. The light of day and all that happens in it. The physical and tangible. Due to the role Mario plays, you could consider him as being the Star Child Grambi chose to represent his domain amongst the living, and Star Children can be the chosen ones of the stars.

Jaydes, on the other hand, would represent the Night. Secrecy and mystery, underhanded tactics. The shadow that the day and the sun has cast. The cover of darkness and all that can be hidden in it. The supernatural and the metaphysical. Luigi, especially in the way I characterize him, would be Jaydes' chosen Star Child.

Night and Day are established, but that still leaves life and death as foundational forces that do not have a representative. There may not be a true death god, but there would certainly be entities that serve the same purpose. Currently, I'm placing Bonechill as one of those potential entities. He represents the withering and decay, the cold and dark. If Life's gift is a heartbeat, then Death's gift is breath, because as soon as you have air in your lungs, it is something that can be taken from you. And if I recall, Bonechill has an icy breath weapon.

So Bonechill is probably not a true death god, but he represents the worst possible deaths and suffering, and is one of the closest things they'd get to Evil in their deities.

Which still leaves the question of what represents Life. If the Stars are the power of the universe, the cosmos, of reality itself in the way it can grant wishes, Grambi and Jaydes are Day and Night, and Bonechill is an Evil that probably became a euphemism for death and suffering, then what is left?

I think a significant source of religious conflict and debate would be what each group regards to be the source of life. For the Darklands, Life comes from the volcano, and they have their own myths about a dragon breathing life into one. Fire and warmth would be important to a reptile species. Volcanoes spew ash, which can make the lands around it very fertile for when they do have agriculture periods between eruptions. The Darkland time cycle probably even revolves around the volcano, much in the way Ancient Egypt revolved around the flooding of the Nile. The Volcanoes, which were said to be brought into being by dragons, are what Koopas would regard as the source of life.

Meanwhile, of course it makes sense that the Beanians would have gods that are physically shaped like the Sun and Moon. A plantbased species that may be capable of some extent of photosynthesis and relying on the sun and moon for growth and blooming makes sense. It would also make sense that the one shaped like a moon is the Thunder God. Sunshine and rain would be a very natural duality for a plant based species. You'd need both in order to grow and flourish.

So my current framework is basically that the Star Spirits we meet in Paper Mario 64 are the supreme beings, or at least very close to it, with a whole hierarchy of Star Spirits and Star Sprites that would probably function like an angelic or even the demonic hierarchy is Abrahamic religions, which would include Geno and Starlow, and then there would be other entities that either were Star Spirits that took on a new form, or something created by the stars.

I was toying with the idea of the Pure Heart and Chaos Heart being primordial entities that predated the stars and represented Creation and Entropy, but I'm not sure if I want to continue that train of thought or not.

I also think that where royal Koopas are essentially demigods from dragons, the Ancients may be demigods from the Stars, and it is why their magical abilities are so strong and why Pixls were something to be so concerned about.

(Also if someone has ideas about other potentially divine entities in the Mario World, please let me know. This is a potentially huge rabbithole of research)

[blazehedgehog]

Any hopes or expectations for Sonic Racing CrossWorlds?

My dream game for years was a version of Racing Transformed that's equivalent to Mario Kart 8 DX, where it's just, like, a remastered collection of every track from all three games in one place.

I genuinely hate it that over the course of three games, it went from "Sega Racing" to "Sonic Racing." Sonic is obviously the popular one, but throwing out Sega's legacy really sucks. Seeing deep cuts like Bonanza Brothers or Burning Rangers was a lot of the fun of those games for me. Cutting out that kind of stuff hurts it. Especially when Team Sonic Racing completely failed to have interesting or worthy replacements.

CrossWorlds is by Hardlight, the same guys behind Sonic Dash and Sonic Forces Speed Battle, so it's just going to be the Sonic kart racing template with a mobile game costume/skin system laid over the top of it. An excuse to have Movie Sonic, Classic Sonic, Prime Sonic, Boom Sonic, and Modern Sonic all in the same game together. We'll have tracks set in Green Hills Montana mixed with Green Hill Zone (Generations) and Green Hill Zone (Forces).

I want two things.

Sonic Dream Team, Sonic Dash, and Sonic Forces Speed Battle are not fast enough for me. Sumo's racers had a great sense of speed and I'm worried CrossWorlds will end up like Cars 2: The Game or Disney Speedstorm where something about them feels oddly slow, like they're keeping the training wheels on for little kids. I want to feel the speed.

I want more than just Sonic characters. I want to race as Kazuma Kiryu. I want to race as Beat. I want to race as Ash from Phantasy Star Online. Tillis from Burning Rangers. Astal. Yes, even Bug. Leave no stone unturned. The deeper the cut, the happier I am. Smash Bros. is the reason anyone in America learned what Fire Emblem was, and now that's an international franchise for Nintendo. Make people care about old Sega properties like that.

I do not have high hopes for either of these things. You got a lot to prove, Hardlight, and Sega's never given these racing games as much respect as they've deserved.

[mariokart8wiiu]

Spotting the differences between Mario Kart 8 Wii U vs. Deluxe

To the untrained eye, Mario Kart 8 and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe may seem very similar. In fact, a simpleton might even claim they are the same. But there is more than you would think! This long-awaited post will go over some of the easy ways to spot the differences between the two from gameplay. Look at the following screenshots:

Do you know which one is which? If you said the left is MK8 and the right is MK8DX, you are correct! They may look similar at a glance but there are a couple of key differences.

The easiest way to spot a MK8DX screenshot is to look at the UI elements. Mario Kart 8 Wii U will never have the double item bubbles on screen! This is a ridiculous thing that Deluxe invented as a sacrilegious act of no longer having one item per driver. The other key difference is that MK8 will have a vibrant blue for its minimap, while Deluxe has a dull and depressing grey. MK8 screenshots may not have a minimap at all if they are from an older version.

However, you may see screenshots or footage made for promotional purposes, or from replays, that do not have UI elements. In this case, it's easier to tell if a screenshot is from Deluxe rather than if it isn't. All characters, tracks and kart parts in MK8 are present in MK8DX, but many things from Deluxe are NOT present in 8. This includes racers like Dry Bones, Bowser Jr, King Boo and the Inklings.

Is this from MK8 Wii U or Deluxe? If you said Deluxe you are right! Note the presence of a dedicated Battle Course, something that replaced the perfectly fine tracks we had in MK8. Mario also holds a cape feather in his hand. This and the boo item were not present in Wii U. There are a few vehicle exclusive vehicle parts too, such as the Koopa Klown. Everything from the Booster Course Pass is also a dead giveaway, but listing all of that here would be an exercise in redundancy.

Is this MK8 or Deluxe? This is actually a Deluxe screenshot despite no exclusive elements being present. Unfortunately this is where simple deduction fails, as there is no way to guarantee an image is from Mario Kart 8 Wii U exclusively from visual info, apart from certain rare elements such as doing Battle Mode on race courses. In this case external research is needed, whether looking at timestamps or the context of the image. In this case this image can be easily reverse searched to reveal it is part of the Nintendo Switch press kit from 2017.

Overall the easiest way to remember all this is simply to remember everything that was in Mario Kart 8 Wii U, including all the DLC. If you see something that doesn't fit, then Deluxe is it! Hopefully this post will prevent people getting fooled by the wrong version of Mario Kart 8. Make sure to always check any screenshots or videos before sharing to make sure they are the correct version. Until then... Keep on racing!!!!!!!!

[probablynotguy]

So I've crafted a new iteration of the classic Mario Kart tickling game idea.

Let's say it's between two people. You both pick a cup in Mario Kart so that there's a scoreboard. As you finish races, keep track of the score. After the cup is over, calculate the difference between each of your scores. Use that difference as the amount of time one person gets to tickle the other. 1 point = 1 minute. This doesn't include breaks.

For example, in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe the highest score a player can get is 60 points if they get first place four times in a row. If the other player gets second place the entire time, they will get 48 points. So the winner gets to tickle the loser for 12 consecutive minutes.

So you better hope you're really good at Mario Kart. I know I am.

[7grandmel]

Todays rip: 22/04/2024

Robbie's Rotten Mine

Season 8 Featured on: The Joke​-​Explainer 7000​™​'s Highest Quality Rips: Sunrise

Ripped by berg8793

Tentative rip name: Robbie's Rotten Mine

Hey, yesterday I covered the olden ways of doing We Are Number One rips - it only seems right to contrast it with how things are done nowadays!

Though, of course, Robbie's Rotten Mine is far form the first rip of this style that I've covered on here, but it likely won't even be the last. Chillin’ Like A Villain, Ska Cha Cha (Rotten Mix), and of course The expanse of meme in past was split, A fiendish trap has now been set; Behind a tree the villains sit, Terror of sport, the Robbie's Net., are all some of my favorite rips on the channel - and the reason is just because, even eight years later, I'm very attached to this silly ska song. There's a lot of memes that seem to have run their course for people, stuff like All Star mashups as I talked about in Semi-Charmed All Star, and while the rest of the internet certainly aren't out there celebrating We Are Number One anymore, the SiIvaGunner team is still making rips of the song at a remarkably consistent clip. And like, I stand by what I declared back on We Are Number 4 (Golden) - of all the long-running jokes on the channel, We Are Number One feels as if it is the most refined and polished one - it isn't just being used as a reocurring gag, but because rippers have become exceptionally good at using it for truly high quality rips.

Robbie's Rotten Mine, then, decides to combine my affection for We Are Number One with my unabashed love for Mario Kart Wii, which I've rambled on about with several posts already now like Neon Wi-Fi and Sweatpants Select. The result is a rip that just made me smile as soon as the rugpull occurred: Those unedited first four seconds builds suspense for just long enough, only for Robbie's sax playing to suddenly introduce the rip proper, not just revealing the joke, but reminding you of just how far We Are Number One-posting has come. Because yes, that is unmistakeably the same saxophone sound as in the original song - but its playing the opening to Wario's Gold Mine, the arrangement is absolutely seamlessly blending the two. It really just gets better from there going into the chorus, I love how the ripper leverages Wario's Gold Mine having a sort of ebb-and-flow between sounding silly and trepidatious by matching them with We Are Number One's chorus and verses respectively. The Wario's Gold Mine melody going all nervewracking and tense feels like it was MADE for something like Robbie Rotten talking about sneaking around and laying booby traps - in the words of one commenter, "I’m more surprised this didn’t happen until now".

I talk a lot on here about rips in the vein of, say, Poké Village: the ones that feel ever-so-personal, like love letters to parts of a ripper's life, the ones that bridge parts of the online world together that you'd never considered before listening. But there's just as much value to be found in the rips on the other end of the spectrum, ones like Among Drip Drop Galaxy - the ones where the joke fits so well, that it's a marvel it hadn't been done sooner. I declared Among Drip Drop Galaxy a damn-near perfect rip for that very reason, and I'm going to do the very same for Robbie's Rotten Mine - with maybe just one sole exception, there are few songs that I think would fit We Are Number One quite as perfectly as Wario's Gold Mine, and yet it took me eight years past the meme's upbringing for me to come to that conclusion. And to me, that speaks volumes to just how enduring of a tune We Are Number One is - there's surely yet more to be done with this track, and I'm all here for it.

[zaptap]

curious whether nintendo music used the files from splatune 2, octotune, and splatoon 2 live in makuhari, since a lot of it's shuffled around compared to the ost orderings, and they even combined fly octo fly and ebb and flow octo into one track for some reason (yeah those do play back to back in game, but they're two different songs. what if you wanted to listen to an extension of just one of them?)

like, with mario kart 8 deluxe, you wouldve thought they'd at least use the album versions of the tracks from the wii u, even if they didnt release a better quality version of the switch stuff, but they just used the same quality of music from the game for everything instead (which for mario kart 8--original and deluxe--in particular is unusually bad quality among switch games. and wii u games for that matter i think)

probably doesnt matter as far as quality goes for splatoon 2 though. im looking at the extra tracks i have that werent on the osts and theyre all looking good. though, considering those same extra tracks (for instance the coccyx phase music from octo expansion) are also missing on nintendo music, that would suggest they just used the osts and shifted the order around, the following ways:

they put the newer battle themes with the older ones (abxy's were on octotune, sashimori and diss-pair were on splatoon 2 live in makuhari, and now instead of those being at the very end of the list they're right after ink theory's)

they moved wet floor's now or never and victory/defeat stuff to after the other multiplayer bands' music instead of in front of them with the other wet floor songs (this is odd because they didn't do that with c-side's in splatoon 3. going out of their way to create inconsistencies lol)

they moved nasty majesty and shark bytes lower on the list, to right before splattack octo (i guess this makes more contextual sense. nasty majesty was almost at the beginning of octotune because it was kind of the main theme, and shark bytes was just thrown into the middle of dedf1sh's songs. this is where they actually play)

combining fly octo fly and ebb and flow octo is unusual but it's less drastic a difference than mario kart 8 deluxe's nintendo music version having extra tracks for different phases that the original mario kart 8 cd didn't even have, in this case they'd just have to stick them together back to back and that's all

doesnt look like they put inkopolis memorial mixtape on there though so they definitely fucked it up

trailer themes are also missing, as with splatoon 3. why is botw the only game allowed to have them...?

(also i just noticed it uses the splatoon 3 grizzco album art???? huh??)

[weirdmarioenemies]

Name: Luigi (Lederhosen)

Debut: Mario Kart Tour

Happy Pride Month! At a glance, you might think we're being silly again, and I wouldn't blame you. How on earth could Luigi (Lederhosen) possibly relate to Pride Month?

Well, take a closer look at his hat... do you see it? The rainbow band? It's a subtle nod to the LGBTQ+ community, but it's also there because this month is the second anniversary of the release of Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle, which was one of the rare video games to feature an openly gay character (in the form of Toadette's alter ego, Captain Toadette)! That's right; we've been celebrating for two whole years already, and this is just another reason.

This isn't the first time that Luigi has been used to promote Pride Month, either. This past year, in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Nintendo introduced a new Pride-themed Rainbow Road, which is now one of the most popular tracks in the game (at least in our house). It was the first time that Nintendo had ever shown such overt support for Pride Month. It's a small thing, but it means a lot to those of us who have been hoping for more LGBTQ+ representation in Nintendo's games.

We've also been celebrating Pride Month with our friends over at the Nintendo Enthusiast website, so be sure to check out their list of 10 LGBTQ+ Nintendo characters.

We're not the only ones celebrating. This June, Nintendo of America is partnering with GLAAD, the world's largest LGBTQ media advocacy organization, to celebrate Pride Month. This is a major step forward for Nintendo, which has been criticized in the past for its lack of LGBTQ+ representation.  

We're also excited to see that Nintendo is partnering with The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) for Pride Month! This is a huge step forward for Nintendo, which has been criticized in the past for its lack of LGBTQ+ representation. 

Nintendo has been gradually becoming more inclusive over the years, with the introduction of openly gay characters like Toadette and the inclusion of same-sex relationships in games like Animal Crossing: New Horizons. We hope that this trend will continue, and that we'll see even more LGBTQ+ characters in Nintendo's games in the future.

In the meantime, we'll be celebrating Pride Month with our favorite Nintendo characters, and we hope you'll join us!  

[suppermariobroth]

The Music Park track from Mario Kart 7 and 8 bears a striking resemblance in its layout to the Silence 2 track from F-Zero X. The bottom image depicts the two overlaid over each other; note how the consecutive U-turns in the bottom portion match up perfectly, as well as the spiral portions being in the same place on the track.

As Mario Kart games both have members of F-Zero game staff working on them, as well as contain overt references to F-Zero such as dedicated tracks in Mario Kart 8, it is possible that this is a deliberate reference.

Main Blog | Twitter | Patreon | Small Findings | Source

[majestic-ruiqing]

Hermits as Songs from the Mario Kart Wii OST

(yes specifically Wii, not mariokart 8. Their rendition of moo moo meadows is bad)

Bdubs- Maple Treeway (pretty song for the man with pretty builds. who am I kidding, all their builds are pretty lol. still think this one is vibey and suits him)

Beef- Moo Moo Meadows (yes, I think the chill vibes fit him, it's not just because there are cows. It's maybe a little bit just because there are cows)

Cleo- Luigi Circuit and Mario Circuit (first off, can't believe they used the same song for two courses. second off, nice song with interesting stuff going on throughout. she can have two courses, as a treat)

Cub- GBA Battle Course 3 (funky beat with higher energy and also just plain fun)

Doc- Grumble Volcano (spooky ominous song for the man who insists on playing a villain lol, but there's still more to it to make the song interesting)

Etho- N64 DK's Jungle Parkway (can't believe this man always builds in a jungle. same tune all the way through reflects his consistency in content [I mean this in a good way lol, his videos are great])

False- Rainbow Road (pretty song, gives me the sort of grand feeling that reminds me of her s9 base)

Grian- Chain Chomp Roulette (I don't know how to explain it but half the tune sounds like it's a satire of the funky chicken dance. Kinda baffling but still a good time)

Gem- Coconut Mall (a lot of fun but not overwhelmingly chaotic, iconic)

Hypno- SNES Battle Course 4 (look man idk, it's literally past midnight and this is what I'm doing. it fits his vibe I think)

Impulse- DS Delphino Square (good song with a lot going on, but balances it all very well)

Iskall- GCN Mario Circuit (great song with just the right amount of funk to it to keep things interesting)

Jevin- GBA Shy Guy Beach (got me boppin my head man, very pleasant tunes)

Joe- SNES Ghost Valley 2 (less a song and more like two minutes of spooky noises being strung together, which sounds like the kind of bit he'd commit to. Beetlejhost)

Joel- Moonview Highway (high energy, kinda crazy, lots of fun and great vibes)

Keralis- GCN Peach Beach (matches his tropical vibe this season)

Mumbo- Koopa Cape (kinda weird. kinda funky. half of it sounds like it's underwater, who comes up with this stuff)

Pearl- Mushroom Gorge (bouncy, lots of personality, lots of layers to the music and lots of layers to the detailing in her builds)

Ren- Aqua Resort (a banger, keeps things insteresting all the way through, a lot of fun)

Scar- GCN Cookie Land (not just because of the cookie shop lol. bouncy tune, a good time for Mr. Goodtimes)

Skizz- Finished Race [First Place] Results (not a course related song but still a banger, giving it to him because he deserves first place, and because I've only got good memories associated with it)

Stress- Daisy Circuit (pretty song, fairly chill with just a bit of a kick to it, reminds me of her brand of chaos)

Tango- Toads Factory (very industrial, fits his base this season. I was tempted to give it to Doc though)

TFC- Wario's Gold Mine (while a chiller track would probably fit him better, we're settling for the Mine One. Still a good song though)

Wels- N64 Mario Raceway (a bit calmer as far as some of these songs go, but no less interesting and fun for it)

xB- DK Snowboard Cross (calm. vibey. could have half his house blown up in demise and still be cool about it)

Xisuma- Block Plaza (fun, and the blocky noise reminds me of tech-related kinda stuff. not exactly reflective of his more naturey build style, but does relate a bit to his minecraft update videos or redstone work)

Zed- Dry Dry Ruins (much like this song randomly switching to a completely different song halfway through, I never know what he'll be doing next)

Playlist of the songs if anyone cares enough to listen to it and tell me why I'm wrong lol, but given I spent several hours on this and most people don't listen to the mario kart wii soundtrack for fun, I'm willing to assume I'm in safe waters

[rosyrosethorns]

bratt loves retro games. he probably has. arcade machines in his lair. and pinball.

madi got him into some newer games that gave him nostalgia, though, since she has a nintendo switch. mario kart 8, mario wonder, and super mario party are games the two of em play together sometimes ( ´∀｀)

but madi also loves messing around on his arcade/pinball machines, she tends to lose track of time playing pac-man & q*bert kgbghvnh

[furryprovocateur]

For the video gaymer ask meme: 1-8

platform of choice when gaming

not to be annoying but sony is the console manufacturer i prefer. in a perfect world sony would not be the best of the big three and would instead easily be the worst. but we live in a society that does not value men who. how does the full quote go idk it

2. top 5 games of all time

in ascending order: shin megami tensei: persona 3, sonic adventure 2: battle, fire emblem, phantasy star online: episode I and II plus, shin megami tensei: nocturne. the top 2 have been fairly set in stone for several years now, and the remaining 3 have fluctuated among the top 10 or so but this feels most correct. sad that the 6th place snub is FFXII 💔

3. favorite boss

NONE OF THEM!!!! #antiwork anyways i'm not sure what i would use as a criteria for this. i think i'm gonna go with the master from fallout because it really is just the most well done encounter in any RPG imo. if there's a "favorite final boss" question i'll kms because this would be my answer for that one.

4. favorite OST

here since i already answered this i'll just isolate some of my favorite tracks off the top of my head: "Dark Samus Boss Fight" - Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, "Miller Ball Breakers" - Jet Set Radio, "Kopfsprung" - Ever17, "You Blow My Mind" - Street Fighter III: Third Strike, "This is True Love Makin'" - Capcom vs. SNK 2, "Distant Travels" - Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade, "Climbing to the Top" - Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones, "Hoist the Sword with Pride in the Heart" - Etrian Odyssey III: The Drowned City, "Their Own Brand of Justice" - Etrian Odyssey III: The Drowned City (yes it gets two entries. fatlus, remember), "Demon of Darkness" - Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor, "Septentrione" - Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor 2, "Changing Seasons" - Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3, "Lovely Gate 3" - Sonic Adventure 2, and, if you've actually read this entire list, we must end with the classic "NO MORE NO MORE HEROES" - No More Heroes.

5. most memorable game moment

any time i see this prompt on asks like this my mind immediately and distinctly goes to one of the plot twists of zero time dilemma, specifically one regarding D team. i won't say what it is, but all i will say is that it had me going "SHUT THE FUCK UP. . . NO FUCKING WAY" for like 5 mins straight. the ending of drv3 is also up there on the same level of memorable.

6. first game you ever played

probably the original super mario bros. on NES at a family member's house. it's much harder to delineate what was the first game i meaningfully played on my own. i'm tempted to say something like mario kart 64.

7. most recent game you've played

trying to catch a calm lilleep from the dreamworld in white 2. before that, i was mat duping in PSO all of yesterday. i had 5 characters to do mat plans for, including TP materials (i got them with action replay. idgaf if you call that cheating because not having access to an entire material offline is stupid. 🤪). i had to stop at like 11:30 last night due to getting tired, but i only have like 400ish mats left to do, which is pretty decent all things considered.

8. most anticipated upcoming game

is "none of them" an answer? jkjkjkjkjk i wouldn't say i'm actively anticipating anything but i guess by default metaphor re:fantazio because i pre-ordered it and know nothing about it. i'm more interested in seeing what the fuck it's gonna be than i would say anything else. metroid prime 4 seems like an easy candidate for hype so i'm staying cautious. i never really wanted the prime trilogy to get a sequel and would've rather they just do their own thing like they did with dread. oh well.

[the-starlight-papers]

So this is the project I’ve been helping my sister with for about a week.

After the Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom trailers release with large amounts of saxophone, my sister came up with a theory that the overall saxophone content of music in Nintendo games has increased over time. (In case you are confused about what I mean, here is the TotK trailer)

But what is the best game to analyze for this theory? Preferably one that has many different musical tracks, all easily accessible and with a fairly wide variety of styles over a wide period of time.

Something like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe for the Nintendo Switch.

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is great for this analysis because it contains 48 tracks released in 2014-2015, and currently has 32 DLC tracks released 2022-2023. It also contains a variety of tracks from the 7 previous Mario Kart games. This allows us to use that to compare saxophone levels over a wide time period while only having to play one game (my sister was doing this as a school presentation so we were on a limited timeline).

To compare saxophone in each course’s sound track, we played all 70 tracks and coded each course following the chart below.

The main reason that “any horns” is a 2 is because there was a bit less saxophone than we anticipated, and also because neither of us are actually that good at identifying when a saxophone is or is not being played. Especially in an ensemble.

After spending a total of 5 hours playing through all 70 tracks, we had gathered all of our data and were able to determine our results.

As you can see, there was a slight saxophone increase from the courses released on 2014-15 to the courses released 2022-23.

As you can see, there is a slight positive linear trend if the cups are placed in release order. The brackets are around the cups released as part of DLC for the Switch version of the game, and with the exception of the Wave 3 courses (Rock cup and Moon cup) generally have higher saxophone ratings.

Boomerang cup had the highest overall saxophone rating. This is not entirely surprising, as all of the courses in this cup were originally remastered or made solely for Nintendo’s Mario Kart Tour mobile app. This means that both Bangkok Rush and Singapore Speedway had music written around the late 2010s or early 2020s. Additionally, the Mario Circuit in this cup was based of the DS version. As the DS had less complex audio options, when Nintendo adapted this track for Tour, they likely took some (saxophone heavy) liberties with the music. This makes this cup not surprising to have the highest saxophone rating.

Relatedly, you can see here the average saxophone breakdown by release game. Tour tracks have one of the highest average saxophone ratings. But while the two other highest categories, GameBoy Advance and GameCube courses are distributed throughout all 70 tracks, the Tour courses are confined solely to the recent DLC courses. This is most likely one of the main things that contributed to the higher saxophone rating for the DLC courses.

In conclusion: the amount of saxophone in Mario Kart track soundtracks has increased over the last 10 years. This may suggest a further upward trend in the amount of saxophone for other Nintendo franchises.