snes – Trekking with Dennis

Thoughts on Nintendo’s New Console

A few weeks ago, Nintendo broke the news that we’ve all been waiting for: they plan to release a new console sometime in the next fiscal year. The company did so in an incredibly barebones, investor-focused Twitter/X post, but that was enough to get the rumour mill going and to send Nintendo fans into a frenzy! It’s gotten to the point where Nintendo had to say that it won’t be talking about its new console ahead of the latest Nintendo Direct broadcast just to avoid fans and spectators getting upset.

Although no details about the console have been announced – and its release window is any time from April 2025 to March 2026 – today I thought it could be interesting to look ahead and speculate about what the console might be… as well as what it might not be! My usual caveat applies: I have no “insider information.” All I’m doing is speculating and perhaps taking a look at a couple of prominent rumours.

This Tweet/X post officially confirmed that a new Nintendo console is in the works.

First of all, let’s talk about the name. Thus far, when communicating in English, Nintendo has referred to its next machine as “the Nintendo Switch successor console.” Some fans have taken to using the names “Switch 2” or “Switch Pro” basically as placeholder titles whenever the console is being discussed – but I’m confident that Nintendo won’t use either of those names! In fact, I doubt very much whether Nintendo will re-use the “Switch” branding at all, and I expect the new console to have a brand-new monicker.

Although the Switch has been a successful console that has sold incredibly well for Nintendo, it’s not the company’s core identity. Sony has PlayStation and Microsoft has Xbox – and those gaming brands have become well-known for those corporations. But Nintendo is Nintendo – and its consoles have always been known by their names or nicknames. Furthermore, the only time Nintendo has tried to capitalise on the well-known branding of a console to help popularise its successor, it failed spectacularly!

The Wii U did not succeed at replicating the Wii’s success.

The Wii U tried to recycle or retain the “Wii” branding, with Nintendo incorrectly assuming that it would be a selling-point. It turned out not to be, in part because the confused naming and branding led many casual players and parents – a core part of Nintendo’s audience over the past couple of decades – not to fully understand what the Wii U was. Even as late as 2014, two full years after the console’s underwhelming launch, I was still encountering players who believed that the Wii U was nothing more than an accessory for the original Wii.

Nintendo will have learned a lesson from that, and that leads me to beleive the new console will have a new name, and that the company will fully break with the “Switch” branding. As Nintendo has done in the past, a new colour is even likely to come along to help visually brand the new machine. The GameCube had indigo, the Wii had white, the Wii U had a kind of aqua-blue, and the Switch has had bright red. I don’t know what the new colour will be – but I think we can safely assume it won’t be Xbox green or PlayStation blue!

Every Nintendo console (of the past twenty years, at least) has had its own distinct colour scheme.

As for the console itself… I’m in two minds at this point. Will Nintendo stick with the handheld-home console hybrid format that has worked so well for them with the Switch? That seems to be the prevailing wisdom; why change something that’s clearly working and that gamers clearly want, after all? But on the other hand, for the past twenty years Nintendo has been focused on innovating and trying out new and different ways to play. We saw that with the Wii’s motion controls, with the Wii U’s gamepad and asymmetrical multiplayer, and with the Switch’s hybrid system. Will the company be content to simply build a more powerful version of the Switch… or will this desire to innovate mean that Nintendo’s new console will look completely different?

We’ve seen in recent years other companies trying to replicate Nintendo’s hybrid success. PlayStation has a handheld accessory for the PlayStation 5, allowing players to take their favourite PS5 games on the go… at least within their own house. And handheld PCs like the Steam Deck and the ROG Ally are taking the handheld gaming console to new heights of performance. These devices and others are all, I would argue, firmly inspired by Nintendo… but they also surpass what the Switch is capable of in different ways. They also offer players who were unimpressed with the Switch a more powerful handheld experience.

Other companies have jumped on the hybrid model that the Nintendo Switch pioneered.

Perhaps the next Nintendo console might look more like the PlayStation 5 and less like the Switch, with a home console for players who want to play on the couch and a handheld accessory for gaming on the go. If the two systems were linked, sharing a single account, players could have both and get the “best of both worlds.” Or maybe it will look like a beefier, more powerful Switch – a handheld console with a dock to connect it to a TV or bigger screen. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Nintendo follow Xbox and PlayStation in releasing two models – one that has a slot for game cartridges and one that’s digital/download only.

Beyond those ideas, though, I really do wonder whether Nintendo’s desire for innovation will lead to a very unpredictable console! Having experimented with motion controls, could the new Nintendo machine have a more refined and accurate motion controller, for example? Or could it ditch the controller altogether, opting for a gesture-based interface like Microsoft tried to achieve with Kinect? Maybe Nintendo will ditch physical buttons and analogue sticks in favour of a touch-screen interface, reaching out to players who are used to gaming on phones and tablets. Any of these things – and many more that I can’t even think of – seem plausible right now!

Nintendo has never been afraid of innovating – like when they released the bazooka-looking Super Scope for the SNES!

Then there’s the question of games. Nintendo is already working with other companies in the games industry to bring third-party titles to the new console. Development kits have been sent out to some of the industry’s biggest names, so we can expect to see some popular titles and upcoming games join the system on release. As for first-party games, though… I’m not sure what to expect.

There has only just been a new Zelda title – Tears of the Kingdom was released in mid-2023. And Mario just got his latest 2D platformer a few months ago, too. Both of those games could be ported to the new console – and I expect they will be if for no other reason than to pad out the launch lineup. But Nintendo will have to do more than that; the company needs a “killer app” to really get players excited on launch day.

Mario has just had another 2D adventure on the Switch.

There are a couple of games that I think Nintendo might be planning on releasing alongside the new console. The first is a new 3D Mario game – Odyssey was almost seven years ago already, so surely the next game in that series has to be in development. As with the name “Switch 2,” don’t expect to see Mario Odyssey 2 – I’m confident that Nintendo will have a new adventure planned for its mascot! But a new 3D Mario title could build on the success of Odyssey in many ways, and take 3D platforming to new heights.

The second game that I increasingly feel Nintendo will be planning to launch either alongside the new console or within its first few months is Animal Crossing. Now, I’ve been critical of Animal Crossing: New Horizons on the Switch… but the game sold incredibly well, and is the best-selling Switch-exclusive game. No, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe doesn’t count: that’s a port! So with Animal Crossing having exploded in popularity, Nintendo would be well-advised to get the next entry in the series ready in time to launch alongside its new console!

A new Animal Crossing game could be on the cards.

I mentioned Mario Kart 8 Deluxe there… and while I truly believe a new Mario Kart game is coming some time soon, I wouldn’t be shocked at all if Mario Kart 8 Deluxe ended up being ported to the new console, too. Perhaps it would be bundled with the Booster Course Pass – as Mario Kart 8 was bundled with its Wii U DLC packs when it was ported to the Switch. But in lieu of Mario Kart 9 and with the Booster Course Pass having only recently finished adding new racetracks and characters, I wouldn’t be shocked to see Nintendo choosing to double- or triple-down on that game as a relatively easy money-maker on its new console.

So that’s where we’re at, at least as I see it. The name “Switch” is almost certainly going away, and I fully expect to see a brand-new console with a new name, new design, new colour scheme, and so on. Nintendo will surely seek to take advantage of more online features, more live-service/recurring revenue ideas, and the like… but I still believe we’ll get a machine that can be used like a regular old home console. I’m not convinced we won’t see some brand-new gimmick, too – perhaps something that’s not on anyone’s radar right now!

If Nintendo plans to launch its new console next spring – say in April or May – then we could see a full announcement as soon as next month. Regardless, as and when that happens I’ll do my best to take a look at it here on the website – so I hope you’ll check in for that! Until then, I hope this has been an interesting look ahead.

The new Nintendo console is currently scheduled for release between April 2025 and March 2026 to coincide with Nintendo’s next fiscal year. All properties, games, and other titles discussed above are the copyright of Nintendo. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.

Twelve Mario Kart racetracks that can stay in the dustbin

Thu 02.11.23Thu 02.11.23Dennis

Yesterday, Nintendo announced which eight racetracks have made the cut and will be included in the final wave of the Booster Course Pass for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. And spoiler alert, but there are some incredibly fun ones! Returning to SNES Bowser Castle 3 – in its upgraded form – is perhaps the one I’m most excited about, but there were several others that look like an absolute blast.

But that got me thinking: which racetracks haven’t been included in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe or the Booster Course Pass? Nintendo has obviously been saving some real classics for Mario Kart 9, including some highly-requested fan-favourites. And with the Switch’s successor console potentially only a year or so away from launch… that seems absolutely fair enough! One of my only real concerns with the Booster Course Pass has been that Nintendo has used up a lot of good, solid racetracks – potentially leaving fewer to be remade next time around.

While there are some racetracks whose omissions from the Booster Course Pass will undoubtedly have upset fans, those aren’t the ones we’re going to look at today! Instead, we’re going to focus on a handful of racetracks from across the Mario Kart series that I’m perfectly happy to consign to the dustbin – permanently! These are racetracks that I didn’t enjoy either in their original games or when they returned as retro tracks in later games.

It goes without saying that all of this is the entirely subjective opinion of one person! If you love any or all of these racetracks, please don’t take it personally! We all like different things, and this list is supposed to be tongue-in-cheek fun. I’m a huge fan of Mario Kart, and the fact that I’ve found a handful of racetracks to dislike doesn’t change that.

Racetracks will be put into one of three “cups” (which have been given dustbin-appropriate names) just like they would be in any other Mario Kart game. And any racetrack that has appeared in a Mario Kart title is fair game. I’ve tried not to select too many tracks from the same entry in the series.

With all of that out of the way, let’s jump into the list!

Empty Baked Bean Tin Cup

Wario Stadium
Mario Kart 64

Wario Stadium’s unforgivable flaw is that it’s just… boring. There’s nothing interesting or exciting about the titular stadium or the dirt track set there, and while it has a decently twisty layout, all that manages to do is drag out the racetrack too much. There are a couple of turns that can be challenging to take, but even those aren’t anything to write home about. The musical accompaniment isn’t spectacular, either.

Probably Mario Kart 64′s least enjoyable offering.

Baby Park
Mario Kart: Double Dash

As you’ll know if you’ve already checked out my Mario Kart 8 Deluxe tier list, I detest Baby Park. The racetrack’s plain oval layout is bad enough, but what’s worse is how random it is. If you hit a run of bad luck you can end up in last place not because of any skill issue, but by sheer chance. That might keep things “interesting” in some online races… but it doesn’t feel like a lot of fun most of the time.

An admirable attempt to try something different… but one that did not succeed.

Desert Hills
Mario Kart DS

I’m not the biggest fan of desert racetracks. One or two per game might be okay, depending on what else they bring to the table apart from sand. But DS Desert Hills really only has sand. There just isn’t much else going on here that’s any different, and the racetrack has an incredibly bland colour palette that doesn’t offer much by way of visual interest either. Mario Kart can do better desert racetracks than DS Desert Hills – and it has done so on multiple occasions.

With that in mind, what place could there be for a racetrack like this one?

Sweet Sweet Canyon
Mario Kart 8
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe

I’m not wild about food-themed racetracks in Mario Kart, and nothing about Sweet Sweet Canyon jumps out at me as being especially fun or memorable. The bland colour palette drowns in tan, brown, and yellow tones, and the inclusion of an underwater section doesn’t seem like it adds much. There are no fun secret routes or shortcuts to learn, and Sweet Sweet Canyon tends to end up as a racetrack I skip every time I play Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.

Those massive donuts look delicious, though!

Dirty Nappy Cup

Toad’s Factory
Mario Kart Wii

There was speculation that Toad’s Factory might’ve been one of the racetracks to join the Booster Course Pass, but you know what? I’m glad that it didn’t! This is probably my least-favourite track from Mario Kart Wii, and one I’d seldom choose to play. The idea of a racetrack set at an operational factory is a fun one… and there were moments in Toad’s Factory that came close to living up to the promise. But there were also annoying pinch points, a pretty basic layout, and one of the worst pieces of music in Mario Kart Wii to drag it down.

I’m all but certain that Toad’s Factory will be back in the next Mario Kart, though!

Yoshi Desert
Mario Kart Super Circuit

Most of what I said above about DS Desert Hills also applies to GBA Yoshi Desert. Desert tracks too easily fall into the trap of being one-note and uninteresting, and while Yoshi Desert gets some credit for being one of the first desert racetracks in the Mario Kart series… even that’s not enough to save it. Also included in Super Circuit was the wonderful Sunset Wilds – a racetrack that took the desert theme in a completely different direction. Yoshi Desert is nothing in comparison!

Yoshi Desert returned in Tour, though… so maybe it’ll be back in a future Mario Kart game, too.

Koopa Beach 2
Super Mario Kart

I adore Super Mario Kart, and I’m not sure that it’s always fair to compare unenhanced SNES tracks with the best that modern Mario Kart has to offer. But that being said, Koopa Beach 2 is a pretty basic track even by Super Mario Kart standards, consisting of a fairly plain oval on a beach. There isn’t much else to say; at least Koopa Beach 1 had some moments of island-hopping to mix things up. This track just… doesn’t have a lot to offer.

Compared with other beach-themed racetracks, Koopa Beach 2 just comes up short.

Amsterdam Drift
Mario Kart Tour

I have a particular criticism of Amsterdam Drift: it doesn’t really feel like Amsterdam. The main reason for that is how much time is spent racing underwater. Now I know that Amsterdam’s canals are famous… but it just felt to me like too much of this racetrack was taken up with underwater racing in these deep ditches that had no points of interest within them. If the racetrack had been called “Canal Crunch” or something, and wasn’t meant to be a representation of Amsterdam, maybe that would’ve been okay.

But the racetrack fails at its one and only objective as far as I’m concerned.

Cigarette Butt Cup

Daisy Hills
Mario Kart 7

To be honest, it was a toss-up whether to include Daisy Hills or Mario Circuit from the 3DS… but Daisy Hills claims the “win” on this occasion. While there are some moments of visual interest and a soundtrack that’s at least okay, Daisy Hills is one of those easily-overlooked racetracks that just feels bland and generic. The brown dirt track, green grass, and blue sky combo has been seen on so many different racetracks with better layouts or more memorable musical accompaniments that it doesn’t feel interesting in the slightest here.

I’d almost forgotten that Daisy Hills existed.

Hyrule Circuit
The Legend of Zelda x Mario Kart 8 DLC
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe

You may disagree with this pick if you’re a big fan of The Legend of Zelda… but as someone who never played any of those games, I just don’t feel any connection to Hyrule Circuit. The nicest thing I can say about it is that it’s neat to race through a castle that isn’t filled with molten lava, but in every other way this track just feels bland and generic. I don’t think its gimmick of a hidden path that could be opened by hitting switches was particularly well-implemented, either.

Plenty of Zelda theming (I assume, anyway) but I just don’t care about that in the least.

Yoshi Falls
Mario Kart DS

Yoshi Falls is a plain oval with a few boost panels. Its brief waterfall sections are so short that they’re easily overlooked, and there just isn’t much else that’s exciting or even memorable about such a plain racetrack. The giant Yoshi egg gives it a small amount of visual interest, I guess, but even that’s not enough to salvage this one.

Yoshi has indeed fallen.

Rainbow Road
Super Mario Kart

SNES Rainbow Road is a great track, an all-time classic, and a nostalgic punch in the face for those of us who loved Super Mario Kart! So why on earth is it on this list? Simple: it’s been recreated in the last four Mario Kart titles (7, 8, 8 Deluxe, and Tour)… so it needs a break. Bringing it back again in Mario Kart 9 would be repetitive, and transforming the racetrack in the way some other retro tracks have been would take away from its unique charm.

Give SNES Rainbow Road the day off and bring back other racetracks instead!

So that’s it!

I hope your favourite wasn’t on the list… but if it was, sorry! Actually no, I’m not sorry… because this is just one person’s entirely subjective take, and we’re all entitled to our views on this wonderful kart racing series.

There’s only a few days left until the sixth and final wave of racetracks arrives for the Booster Course Pass… and with the development of new tracks for Tour seemingly coming to an end as well, does that mean production is shifting toward Mario Kart 9?! It’s been almost a decade since Mario Kart 8 debuted on the Wii U, so it’s about time for a new entry in the series! I hope that Nintendo doesn’t include the racetracks listed above in the next game… but if they’re present I daresay I’ll get over it! Not every track can be an absolute favourite, but I think every Mario Kart game so far has managed to have far more good ones than bad.

So I hope this was a bit of fun! Stay tuned, because the second part of my Mario Kart 8 Deluxe tier list is in the works! You can find the first part, in which I ranked all 48 racetracks from the base version of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, by clicking or tapping here. And you can find my dedicated Mario Kart webpage by clicking or tapping here.

See you on the track!

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is out now for Nintendo Switch. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, the Booster Course Pass, and the Super Mario series are the copyright of Nintendo. Images of GBA Yoshi Desert, SNES Koopa Beach 2, and 3DS Daisy Hills courtesy of the Super Mario Wiki. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – Booster Course Pass: thoughts and impressions

Wed 17.08.22Wed 17.08.22Dennis

I’ve got to be honest with you right at the start: Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – Booster Course Pass disappointed me before I’d raced a single lap… or even downloaded it. That’s because I was really hoping to see Mario Kart 9 this year; a brand-new game with new features rather than just an expansion pack for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. The original version of Mario Kart 8 released for the Wii U back in 2014 (though I played a preview build at a press event in 2013; lucky me!) so I’ve been waiting to see what Nintendo would do next for a long time. This Booster Course Pass just felt underwhelming when it was announced compared to what I’d been hoping for.

With 2022 being the thirtieth anniversary of the Mario Kart series (Super Mario Kart was released for the SNES all the way back in 1992), and with Nintendo’s love of celebrating big milestones and anniversaries, again the timing for a new game felt right. But I guess Nintendo is sticking to the “one Mario Kart game per console” thing, and the Booster Course Pass is intended to throw players a bone and give the game a bit of a refresh as the Switch enters what must be the latter part of its life. I have no doubt that there’ll be a Mario Kart 9… but now it seems like it’ll be on whatever console Nintendo makes in the years ahead rather than coming to the Switch.

Pink Gold Peach in a promo image for the *Booster Course Pass*.

But the Booster Course Pass makes Mario Kart 8 Deluxe “feel like a new game,” right? That seems to be the cliché that a lot of folks have trotted out to describe the expansion pack. I’d answer that question with a firm “no.” An expansion pack like this refreshes the game, gives it a new lick of paint and shuffles things around, but the same Mario Kart 8 gameplay and visual style is still front-and-centre, even as new racetracks are added. For players who’d been getting bored of that, or who had drifted away from Mario Kart 8 Deluxe in search of new experiences, this will be at best a shot in the arm; a temporary boost to bring them back for a while. But the novelty of the new courses will fade faster than it would had there been a brand-new game this year.

But is it fair to judge the Booster Course Pass by that standard? No expansion pack is really intended to be a wholly new game, and there are undoubtedly some fun tracks that have been added to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe this time around. Not only that, but the format that Nintendo has used here is a fun one; tracks will be added in “waves” of eight at a time until the end of 2023. The total number of tracks added by the time the Booster Course Pass is complete will be forty-eight – doubling the number of racetracks in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.

The *Booster Course Pass* includes tracks from past Mario Kart titles.

I quite like the “wave” approach to the expansion pack. Building up the Booster Course Pass slowly over the span of a couple of years keeps the game feeling fresh for longer compared with dumping all of the racetracks at once in a single event. Your mileage on that may vary, though, and there’s nothing wrong with holding off on picking up the Booster Course Pass until late 2023 when the final wave of racetracks has been added. At a cost of £20 ($25 in the United States) it felt a bit steep at first for only eight additional racetracks; the value of the Booster Course Pass will feel a lot better when all forty-eight are playable!

So who is this expansion pack really for? I don’t think it’s necessarily the natural next step for the Mario Kart series in general, rather the Booster Course Pass is for people who’ve started to get bored of what Mario Kart 8 Deluxe has to offer. Once you’ve played Rainbow Road, Toad Harbour, and GBA Cheese Land a hundred times apiece, this expansion pack shakes things up and provides some new layouts, new scenery, and a bit of a new challenge. For someone new to the Nintendo Switch and/or Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, I’d say you don’t have as much to gain by picking up the Booster Course Pass at this stage, but it could be worth it later on. It just depends on how repetitive you begin to find the forty-eight courses that come with the base game!

The *Booster Course Pass* may feel like better value in a year’s time.

I’ve made a couple of lists here on the website of racetracks that I’d want to see in a future Mario Kart title, and two of my favourites have appeared already in the first couple of waves of the Booster Course Pass. As with racetracks across the rest of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, older tracks have seen more changes to both mix things up and to fit with the game’s anti-gravity, flying, and underwater mechanics that weren’t present in earlier titles.

Both Coconut Mall and Mushroom Gorge, which were tracks that debuted on the Wii, feel more or less unchanged in the Booster Course Pass. Both tracks were fantastic in Mario Kart Wii and make wonderful additions here. Their musical accompaniments are likewise neat, and both feel like a nostalgia blast! I have fond memories of playing these racetracks with friends during the Wii days, and replaying them in HD on the Switch has been a blast.

Kalimari Desert and Choco Mountain have returned from the Nintendo 64, and the former in particular is one of my all-time favourite Mario Kart racetracks. Choco Mountain is a fun course, although I would say that its all-brown colour palette makes it feel a little bland, and that’s something that could’ve been worked on or adapted for this new version.

Kalimari Desert, though, is absolutely fantastic in the Booster Course Pass. It’s more linear this time around – each of the three laps follows a definite route, meaning players don’t have as much choice when it comes to taking risky shortcuts through the tunnel or over the train tracks. But the adaptations that have been made are fantastic and really showcase the course at its best. There’s something about the “American Southwest” aesthetic that I’ve always loved about Kalimari Desert, and seeing it brought into the modern day thanks to a visual and gameplay overhaul has been wonderful. Although the track also appeared on the 3DS back in 2011, this new version feels like the definitive take on Kalimari Desert.

Kalimari Desert is one of my favourite Mario Kart tracks… ever.

Mario Kart Tour is a crappy mobile game that is bedevilled by many of the pay-to-play and pay-to-win microtransactions that blight the mobile gaming scene. As a result I’m not familiar with most of its racetracks, so the inclusion of several in the Booster Course Pass has given me my first real opportunity to play them. At time of writing (wave two) there have been four racetracks from Mario Kart Tour added; there may be six more to come for a total of ten.

I’ve been lucky enough earlier in my life to have visited both Paris and New York – the settings for two of the Mario Kart Tour tracks included in the Booster Course Pass – and I have to say that New York Minute in particular really hit me in a way that I wasn’t expecting. There were some genuinely recognisable locations in Central Park and the downtown area that I vividly remember travelling to with friends years ago, and again I wasn’t expecting this brand-new track to give me the nostalgic feels in the way that it did! The music for New York Minute is one of the best in the game; the perfect jazz accompaniment to a beautiful racetrack.

New York City comes to *Mario Kart 8 Deluxe*!

The Mario Kart Tour tracks also have fun and varied layouts, with each of the three laps taking different routes. I think this keeps things interesting and makes it a lot harder to just drive on “autopilot” even after playing each of the tracks a dozen times. The three other Mario Kart Tour tracks – Paris Promenade, Tokyo Blur, and Sydney Sprint – all hit a number of tourist attractions and key locations in their real-world settings, and it’s something both fun and a little different to race through a Mario Kart track based on a real-life locale.

Having first played Super Mario Kart in the early 1990s, not too long after it was released here in the UK, I’m a dab hand at practically all of the SNES courses that have been included in Mario Kart 8! The sole SNES inclusion in the Booster Course Pass (again, at time of writing after wave two) is Mario Circuit 3, and it’s perhaps the least-interesting from my perspective. Not much has been done to the course’s layout, and with Donut Plains 3 as part of the base game I guess it just wouldn’t have been my first choice. There are better SNES courses, like one of the Vanilla Lake tracks or possibly a Bowser Castle or Koopa Beach that might’ve offered a bit more diversity. That isn’t to say Mario Circuit 3 is bad, just that as an addition to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe it doesn’t offer as much originality as some of the other SNES courses could’ve.

Though there’s nothing wrong with SNES Mario Circuit 3 per se, there are other SNES tracks that might’ve been more fun.

Rounding out the retro courses we have Toad Circuit from the 3DS, which is fine, Snow Land from the Game Boy Advance, which is a cute winter-themed track with an icy road, Waluigi Pinball from the DS, which is one of the most unique concepts on show in the Booster Course Pack so far, Sky Garden from the Game Boy Advance, which reminded me a lot of Cloudtop Cruise from the base game in terms of the way it’s been adapted, and finally Shroom Ridge from the DS – a racetrack with traffic.

There are two brand-new tracks, too: Sky High Sundae and Ninja Hideaway. I like food-themed tracks, so Sky High Sundae was a visual treat! It’s also one of the rare tracks to fully take advantage of Mario Kart 8′s anti-gravity racing feature, which is neat. Ninja Hideaway is a Japanese-themed track with a couple of flying sections that break up what is otherwise a pretty basic layout – albeit one with a fun aesthetic.

So that’s the Booster Course Pass for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. I’ve tried to judge the additional racetracks on their own merits as much as possible, and there are definitely some fun inclusions that make Mario Kart 8 Deluxe worth returning to for lapsed players and those who’d been getting bored of the same lineup over and over again.

However, I can’t shake the feeling that it would’ve been better for Nintendo to include these tracks as part of a new game: Mario Kart 9. There could’ve been transformational gameplay changes, perhaps some new drivers from both Nintendo titles and from games and series that have found success on the Switch in recent years, and while the visuals wouldn’t be significantly improved due to the limitations of the Switch’s hardware, changing things up from a gameplay perspective would’ve been worth doing. The Booster Course Pass adds a lot of content and a lot of value to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, but a new game this ain’t.

For what it is, though, and for the price, the Booster Course Pass has plenty to offer. There are some fun tracks that I hadn’t played before as well as several blasts from the past that really hit the right nostalgic notes. I daresay the Booster Course Pass will keep Mario Kart 8 Deluxe at the top of the Switch charts now that we’re well into the second half of the console’s life – though whether it’s worth picking up now and trying out each wave of tracks as they arrive or whether it would be better to wait and pick it up in the latter part of next year is going to be up to you.

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is out now for Nintendo Switch. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – Booster Course Pass is available as an expansion pack for an additional fee. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – Booster Course Pass, and all other titles and properties discussed above are the copyright of Nintendo. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.