Wave 4 of the Booster Course Pass tracks are back for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. This time, they cover the Fruit Cup and the Boomerang Cup. Now that we’re past the halfway point, it feels like Nintendo is really starting to pick up the pace.
Not only do we have a great set of new and returning tracks, but we also have Birdo, a new character. All of this makes this DLC release by far the best one so far.
Starting with the Fruit Cup, you can see Amsterdam Drift from Mario Kart Tour, Riverside Park from GBA, DK’s Snowboard Cross from Wii, and the brand-new Yoshi’s Island course. Amsterdam Drift is one of the best tracks on Tour.
It sends you flying through the air against a background of farmland and windmills, and then you’re cruising along the Amstel River. It looks great.
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Riverside Park from the GBA is probably the only course in this latest DLC pack that could be called a “dud.” It’s pretty enough, but because it’s a GBA track, it’s a little simple and not as fast-paced, which makes it quite boring.
DK’s Snowboard Cross, on the other hand, is great and has some great verticality and very tight turns. Speed freaks will love it, 200cc is a tonne of fun.
Yoshi’s Island is the best part of the Fruit Cup and all of the DLC. Like Sky-High Sundae before it, this one makes its debut in MK8D (though we think it will show up in Tour soon), and you can see how much work has gone into it in terms of looks, layout, and references to its namesake SNES game.
It’s not the hardest game we’ve ever seen, but you’ll fly through the air and race across clouds before landing in water. It looks beautiful and perfectly captures the style of Yoshi’s Island. The music is also great, as we’ve come to expect.
Moving on to the Boomerang Cup, this one has Bangkok Rush and Singapore Speedway from Tour, Mario Circuit from DS, and Waluigi Stadium from GameCube.
Both of the Tour tracks are surprisingly fun and almost as good as Amsterdam Drift. Singapore Speedway looks especially nice, with the neon lights standing out against the dark sky.
Mario Circuit is the only other track that isn’t great, but unlike Riverside Park, it has enough to keep you on your toes, like wandering Goombas and Piranha Plants that shoot fireballs down the track.
Last but not least, Waluigi Stadium is still as great as it has always been. It has dangerous terrain and deadly obstacles, like fireball circles and huge wooden Piranha Plants. It’s a lot of fun.
Also, shout out to Birdo. We’re sure that a lot of fans will be happy to see her join the team. She’s a middleweight karter, just like Yoshi, and she comes in nine different colors, including a sickly green we’re not too fond of. We can’t wait to see what other drivers Nintendo adds now that we know there are five more slots on the character select screen.
The tracks in Wave 4 of the Booster Course Pass are, with the exception of one, the greatest of the bunch so far. We love the new things in Tour, and Yoshi’s Island is going to be a classic. If Nintendo keeps doing this, Waves 5 and 6 will be a lot of fun.