The Wide World of Dirt

Transformative Tour tracks and immensely popular retro remakes have rounded out a successful first half of the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Booster Course Pass.

Wave 4 took more of a positive turn in course quality, course design, course textures, and improving the overall gameplay of title rapidly approaching its 10th anniversary.

Instead of boring you with takes about the gameplay changes so early on, I’ll save those for the end of the article. If you’re interested, just sit tight as we’re about to go over my rankings of these new eight courses!

8. Amsterdam Drift

Though it may sit in last place in this wave, Amsterdam Drift is easily one of the five best city tracks we’ve received through the Booster Course Pass.

We get to travel through many of the famous sights and sounds of the Netherlands: flying over a train, ripping through a field of grass and windmills, and swerving through an intricate canal before frolicking through a field of beautiful tulips that leads back into the city for the finish.

The music on this course is really fun with what sounds like some droning at the very beginning with an accordion backdrop. Its lively and frantic tune pairs well with a track full of tight corners and lots of technical sections.

I genuinely have no complaints about this track. It’s well done, and it’s fun.

Grade: A-

7. Singapore Speedway

This is easily one of the most beautiful tracks in the whole game from an aesthetic perspective.

Lots of gliding around through a city full of lights and spectacular buildings, but it’s kinda a lot of road compared to the scenic and treacherous offerings of the other two Tour tracks in this Wave.

The music here is absolutely killer and accentuates the glitz, glamour, and speed found in Singapore Speedway.

The Chinatown section (along with the remixed music as you pass through) and the moving path bridges over the gardens are big highlights of this course alongside the infinity pool you’re taken to almost immediately as the course starts.

All in all, this track is rather fast once you get shot through the cannon, and I have a good time driving on it even if I finish last.

Grade: A

6. DK Summit

Y’all…

Let’s be honest with ourselves: were there any substantial changes made to this track?

I can’t seem to find any, and that’s not a bad thing! Don’t break something that’s already great by trying to make it better.

DK Summit is just as good and as fun as it ever was on the Wii, and its remixed soundtrack reminds me a bit of the mix they made for Rock Rock Mountain.

Giving this epic track some epic music certainly brings out the best in a very popular, very good circuit.

Grade: A

5. DS Mario Circuit

I expressed clear frustration to my friend Alex that this track was chosen over Airship Fortress and Delfino Square, but that frustration was laid to rest upon my first race at DS Mario Circuit.

This track arguably takes the mantle of biggest retro track improvement for this entire game, let alone just the Booster Course Pass.

Go back to Mario Kart DS and look at this track in its initial iteration. It stinks!

This track was one of the most bland courses in the entire game, a game filled with unique ideas that were better fleshed out in remakes.

They picked this course up from its handheld ashes and breathed life into it in ways I wasn’t sure Nintendo was capable of.

The fire-spitting Piranha Plants, the revamped forest section (love the Wiggler addition), and the track’s overall feel make this feel like a completely different track from its original layout.

I love this track, and it’s easily the best Circuit track in this entire game. Plenty of sharp, banked turns that allow for passing, lots of runoff area to play catch-up, and classic Mario enemies that really bring this track the life it lacked 18 years ago.

Grade: A

4. Riverside Park

One of the first tracks you play in Super Circuit, Riverside Park is a fun, short track to get players ready for the rough road ahead.

Following a long line of GBA tracks getting a healthy dose of attention and care in the Booster Course Pass, Riverside Park gets one of the best upgrades yet.

The layout of the track wasn’t messed with much thankfully, but Nintendo was able to utilize the verticality afforded to them by the current Switch hardware to make a challenging but enjoyable course with beautiful scenery to boot.

The two biggest additions to this track are the cave section towards the end that just builds off of the 360° turn from the original course and the Ptooies.

The cave section would’ve been the star of the Pass thus far had it not been for literally all of Yoshi’s Island. It combines a difficult blind corner with darkness, making the fight for the win more challenging for players.

Add to that cave section (and most of the track) a bunch of Ptooies crawling along, and they make the racing even more dynamic, blowing items above their heads. When a Ptooie is hit, it will drop whatever item it was blowing up for use on the track.

They even kept the amazing music from the original Super Circuit with the animal sounds that bring out a truly authentic feel to its first version.

I really enjoy racing at this track, and it is going right to the top with the next three tracks on this list.

Grade: S

3. Bangkok Rush

Sydney Sprint has been my baseline for how good these Tour tracks have the potential of being, and if they fall short of that, I am disappointed.

Bangkok Rush didn’t disappoint me in any way. Far from it, this track might be better than Sydney Sprint! Did not think I would say that about any of the remaining Tour tracks, but here we are.

We drive through water and over boats before going to a loose and fast section of the track before swinging into a market section of the track that leads into a section similar to Ninja Hideaway with branching paths surrounding a light rail.

The second lap sends you flying over a super neat building that leads into a hard right-hander before giving way to the epic final lap.

The course winds back through the light rail section after a parking lot excursion that ends with multiple tents that you can trick off of.

This track absolutely rocks and will be an instapick for me every time it shows up online for the foreseeable future.

Grade: S

2. Waluigi Stadium

Finally!

Finally we get a DoubleDash!! course in the Booster Course Pass, and my word, they brought back a banger.

Waluigi Stadium was one of DoubleDash’s most difficult tracks with its tight turns and bumps you couldn’t trick off of just yet.

Once you factor in the twitchy controls of DoubleDash!! as well, it’s easy to see why it took so long for Nintendo to adapt it for this game while maintaining the difficulty.

The music is even better than the original with the big band coming through with yet another stellar remix, and the new anti-grav sections provide variance for a course riddled with mud.

Not dirt, but mud.

I can’t say for sure if it’s ice physics because it feels different to drive compared to Snow Land or Sherbet Land, but this track is absolutely saturated. If you can’t hold a pretty wheel, you won’t get pretty medals after you cross the finish line.

All in all, this track did not disappoint in the slightest, and I’m excited for what will be done with the following waves due in part to this remake.

Grade: S

1. Yoshi’s Island

I will hear nothing about Mount Wario.

I will hear nothing about 3DS Rainbow Road.

This track is the best track in the entire game. A game that is tiptoeing to its second decade of life just released its greatest work last week.

In preparation of this course coming out, I decided to take a game off my bucket list and finally beat Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island, and it’s a superb 2D platformer that provided plenty of challenge for a game released in the mid-90s.

To take that wonderfully stylized game and be able to translate it to 3D as well as they did is a feat in of itself. To make a compelling and earnestly difficult course with a plethora of environments and scenes to drive through is the boldest statement the Booster Course Pass could have possibly made.

This track justifies the Booster Course Pass’ existence in my mind because these are the kinds of things that Nintendo are capable of while they are assuredly working on the console follow-up to the Switch.

The “Athletic” theme being reworked into a big band piece is even more lovely, especially the strings that carry the melody of the track.

The question cloud bridge is just the cherry on top of the immersive odyssey that is this Yoshi’s Island track. It’s the best course of the Booster Course Pass and the best overall course in this game.

Grade: S

Odds & Ends

Give it up for Birdo, y’all!

Nintendo is doing this Booster Course Pass and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe as a whole a huge justice by adding more characters (at least five more) in the final two waves.

I already talked about some of the most likely possibilities in a recent post, but man, seeing Birdo back is really heartening. She’s definitely my second main now ahead of Isabelle and King Boo.

That brings me to a big issue competitive players have had with this most recent Booster Course Pass update: Nintendo nerfed Waluigi Wiggler.

Yes, that’s right, y’all. We are finally free.

The meta is changing, and the community abroad is healing. Embrace change.

The natural reaction is to be mad because it might threaten old records, but records are made to be broken in gaming. Your hard work wasn’t for nothing, but it encouraged change. It’s gonna require you to get better. That’s a good thing!

Anyway, I love the changes to the competitive scene by this update, and I think it’ll make a lot of kart and character combinations much more competitively viable.

There will still be an optimal build at some point. There will also be way more competitive builds for other characters and character types due to the new changes.

The waves continue to get better and better with each new release. With the improvements made to Snow Land and DS Mario Circuit, the sky is the limit as far as how much even a bad track can be drastically altered into a great track.

Honestly, I just want waves 5-6 to get here already because I just know it’ll be another set of hits from Nintendo.