Speeding Through Mario Kart 8’s New DLC In 200cc

Nintendo’s first round of additional content for Mario Kart 8 was a resounding success, with each track – old and new – being enjoyable in its own right, and a couple of them even folding in some of Nintendo’s other franchises, such as Zelda and F-Zero, all at a very reasonable price.

In this new pack, which brings four new characters including two versions of Villager along with Isabelle from Animal Crossing, there’s a lot to love. There’s also eight new tracks – well, half of them are remakes, but as with all the other MK8 remake tracks, they’re almost complete overhauls – and several new vehicle options to keep you happy.

Perhaps the best part of the new content is something you’ll get whether you’ve bought the downloadable content pack or not – a new, incredibly fast, 200cc mode, where the stakes are higher than ever before, and you’ll need to learn new techniques (including one called “braking”) which you haven’t had to use before. It’s fast, frantic action like we’ve never seen before in a Mario Kart game.

In 200cc, the AI is more ruthless than you, yet they’ll make the same mistakes as you, and you’ll often see racers switch position – from first to far lower down the leaderboard – up until the very last corner of the race. You’ll speed by shortcuts and bunny hop some out of bounds sections. This is playable on all cups and tracks in the game, and it’s probably a better idea to go back to the tracks you already know in this mode before tackling the new ones: you’ll need to anticipate every corner, expect the unexpected, and keep your speed up where it matters if you don’t want to fall behind.

Saying that, the first new track available is a reworking of the legendary Baby Park from Double Dash, and this, coupled with the new speed, makes for some of the most frantic action in the game. Now, if you don’t know what this entails, then just know this: Baby Park is a tiny, fifteen second circuit with seven laps instead of the usual three.

The next track, another remake, isn’t quite as good. Coming from the GBA instalment in the series, Cheese Land is a rather uninspired circuit, with its roots clearly on show. It’s in stark contrast to the other GBA remake in the pack, Ribbon Road, which takes what was a rather flat and boring track and transforms it into a Toy Story-esque road of material within a large and finely detailed room.

Racers are small, figure-sized characters, while the environment features everything from toy castles to wind-up toys stomping over the track. There’s even a scale version of Mario’s kart in the background, and you’ll almost definitely be distracted from the race by the quirks in the background of the level.

Wild Woods is one of the better tracks here, and feels very much like a Donkey Kong Jungle track, but with a heavier focus on anti-gravity gameplay. You’ll climb up, you’ll speed down, and you’ll do everything in between. Super Bell Subway is a different story, putting you in a flatter environment, with moving trains as obstacles, as you speed along and above the tracks.

Animal Crossing was always at the forefront of this content pack, though its track is hardly the stand-out attraction. It’s actually quite generic, and despite throwing in some suspended-by-balloon item pick-ups to the mix, it doesn’t do much to represent the Animal Crossing series – certainly not as well as the Zelda track in the last DLC. It does however have a unique feature, in that every time you’ll play, it’ll pick a season, changing the track both visually and in minor aspects of the design.

There’s another new F-Zero track – Big Blue – and this one is absolutely meant to be played at 200cc. It’s a wonderfully designed track and, like Mount Wario before it, it’s effectively a long downhill race split into three sections, rather than having laps. This is perhaps a new favourite track, and represents Mario Kart at its best.

Mario Kart 8 is an utterly superb game, and this second round of DLC only serves to enhance that experience, while the free 200cc update really takes things to the next level. We’ve effectively glimpsed the future of Mario Kart 8 – faster speeds and more franchises – without having to change discs, thanks to Nintendo’s post-launch support for the game.