Ever since Nintendo made its surprise announcement that Mario Kart 8 was getting a new high-speed difficulty level, excited fans have had one question: what would it do to Mario Kart?
https://kotaku.com/mario-kart-is-getting-a-new-harder-difficulty-level-1695131174
Yes, 200CC speed certainly looked faster. But how much faster was it, exactly?
[Insert your favorite Fast and Furious quote about driving really fucking fast here]
The new Mario Kart 8 DLC finally came out this week. In addition to adding some disgustingly cute characters and awesome new tracks to gamingās foremost kart-racing title, it also added 200cc for players whoād already mastered the previous highest difficultyāi.e., gotten gold trophies for all of Mario Kart 8ās Grand Prix cups.
https://kotaku.com/mario-kart-8-is-now-officially-the-cutest-mario-kart-ev-1699699670
Kart fans online have been losing their shitāalmost entirely in a good wayāonline for the past day or so because of how game-changing 200cc has already proven to be.
Why is 200cc such a major shift for Mario Kart? Well, the short answer is that itās really, really, really fast.
On the Mario Kart subreddit, players have been commenting regularly on how much more insane the new speed makes Mario Kart 8:
Calling it ābonkersā:
…and an extremely welcome improvement for an already great game:
Theyāve been doing the same over on Twitter too:
200CC IS TOO FASSSSTTTThttp://t.co/BGUM3wBmuU pic.twitter.com/jdwD7ic0T8
— Lythero š® (@Lythero) April 23, 2015
https://twitter.com/embed/status/591290630355156992
If you get this item in 200cc, pray for dear life and hold on tight. #MarioKart8 #TheDevilsItem #OppositeClass pic.twitter.com/Mv3JVTv6Yj
— PKSparkxx(.bsky.social) || #BlackLivesMatter (@PKSparkxx) April 23, 2015
Wowing at the extreme, awesome jump in difficulty it brings to the game:
200cc is officially the most hair-pulling screamy mode there is.
— Gaijin (Gimgam) Goombah (@GaijinGoombah) April 23, 2015
200cc makes me cry.
— SomecallmeJohnny (@Somecallmejon) April 23, 2015
200cc somehow managed to make Mario Kart MORE chaotic
— šš¼šā š¾šš¼ššš³ (@Warchamp7) April 23, 2015
200cc Baby Park is fantastic and I don't think any other track can be played without crashing into a wall
— šš¼šā š¾šš¼ššš³ (@Warchamp7) April 23, 2015
https://twitter.com/embed/status/590201660875542528
…the new techniques it encourages for top Kart performance:
200cc is NO JOKE, man! You WILL need your brake to take first place, guaranteed.
Hooray, new braking mechanics š #MarioKart8
— PKSparkxx(.bsky.social) || #BlackLivesMatter (@PKSparkxx) April 23, 2015
https://twitter.com/embed/status/591376103543021569
…and the ways that it makes you feel like a total badass:
https://twitter.com/embed/status/591228923717021696
https://twitter.com/embed/status/591705337482354689
The realization behind all these jokes is that 200cc effectively recreates the Mario Kart meta-game from the bottom up:
By setting such a high bar for racesā minimum speed, suddenly heavy-weight characters (like Bowser and Wario) and vehicles arenāt as valuable for the way their extra weight helped them reach a higher top speed than the rest of Mario Kart 8ās competing light-weight ones. Now all of a sudden, handling more important than anything. Because without it, youāre just gonna keep running face-first into walls over and over again whenever coming up to a hard turn.
Itās odd to think of Mario Kart, of all things, being a game with established āmetaā and players who boast about their dedicated āmains.ā As I said yesterday: āI mean: what is this? League of Legends?ā
Really, though, Iād argue that the new 200cc mode is what proved there is a meta for Mario Kart. It was only by changing it that Nintendo could reveal its existence so nakedly. And thatās what makes Nintendoās creative shift here so brilliant.
Nintendo has always shown a unique, masterful ability to create games that are fun on multiple levelsāgames like Smash Bros. that are simultaneously silly, chaotic party games and fiercely competitive slugfests that require months (if not years) of fine-tuning and careful practice to master.
Mario Kart has always leaned towards to the casual-friendly side of things, though. And while thatās helped make the game a classic for generations upon generations of gamers, the declining interest inMario Kart 8 since it first came out last year showed that seasoned Kart racers longed to sink their teeth into something meatier…a genuinely competitive Mario Kart experience:
https://twitter.com/embed/status/590291403491672064
In case you donāt know, the āno itemsā joke these players are making is a reference to the most competitive mode in Smash Bros. that turns off items. Itās the one that helped turned Smash into a legitimate fighting game with dedicated tournaments regularly taking place across the world.
I donāt know if thatās the exact future of Mario Kart. Iām not even sure Iād want that to be its future. But as a huge Mario Kart 8 fan, Iām glad to have an amazing new reason to put down Smash in favor of picking this game up again.
To contact the author of this post, write to [email protected] or find him on Twitter at @YannickLeJacq
