The CUT Battle Modes of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe

One of the most controversial elements in the Mario Kart franchise has to be the battle modes almost anyone who’s played a Mario Kart title has enjoyed the battle mode but the controversy comes from which battle modes they enjoy see unlike the racing which have had pretty much the same roles throughout

The majority of the series the battle mode can drastically change between games this leads to some people significantly enjoying certain battle modes more than others some enjoy Mario 64’s best because of the bomb mechanic some like DS’s best because of shine Runners and some like Mario Kart 8’s

Best yeah we don’t talk to those people personally I’m a big fan of Mario Kart 8 deluxes as it has the most battle modes in the series however that’s not to say that every battle mode has returned today I want to take a look at the previous Mario Kart titles and go over

The battle modes they had that Mario Kart 8 Deluxe does not on top of that though I’m also going to cover how the battle modes that are in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe changed from those older titles as well so think of this video as a mini retrospective on the older battle modes

In my opinions on them I’ll also state which I want to come back in the future and which I think are most likely seeing as the Boost of course pass has added several surprise updates changes to the battle mode wouldn’t surprise me so I’ll mention if it’s possible for an old mode

Or rule set to come back but anyways if you enjoyed this video please make sure to leave a like subscribe to the channel and let’s jump right into the first title Super Mario Kart being the very first entry in the series this obviously has the most simple battle mode of the

Bunch somehow not the worst though this only has one battle mode to choose from that being balloon battle this is in every single Mario Kart game so that makes sense now if you haven’t played these older games you may think that means there isn’t anything to talk about

Here I mean balloon battle is a market Deluxe so it’s not cut but remember I simply to be mentioning rule changes as well and there are quite a lot here while both modes are about hitting your opponent with items to pop their balloons pretty much everything else

About it has changed in Mario Kart Deluxe you win by getting the most hits on your opponents within the time limit if you lose all your balloons though your score gets cut in half before you respawn this is entirely different in Super Mario Karts as the goal here is to

Be the last man standing if you lose all of your balloons you just lose and the last player to still be on the course is the winner this is where the most controversy for battle mode comes from a lot of people really prefer the old Last Man Standing approach whereas others

Like the new approaches it means you get to play for the whole match my personal stance on this is a bit mixed for one I think the old method creates significantly more intense scenarios it’s really fun to try and evade your friends to be the last one standing on

The other hand though the new method is much better for online play you don’t want to end up losing in a battle mode match and having to watch people fight for three hours so what would be my solution to this just have both like I cannot imagine it would be hard to

Implement a Last Man Standing variation even if they keep it exclusively for offline or online with friends that’s better than not having it at all I completely understand why some people think the older battle modes are better purely because of how much fun the old

One could be so yeah my suggestion is to just Implement an option to disable the timer and leave it as a last man standing mode I mean that’s basically what the Smash Bros Series has been doing since the start having both a mode based on Kos and a Last Man Standing

Option this I do legitimately think has a chance of coming in the last wave of the booster course pass it’s been the number one complaint about this game pretty much since launch so it would make a lot of people happy if they updated it there are a few other role

Changes in Super Mario Kart that are worth mentioning though first off it couldn’t be played in single players sorry to all of you lonely people watching this video reason it’s because you can’t have computer players battling with you only other people that also means that the max amount of players in

A battle mode match was two which I think we can all agree is 100 a downgrade you can still disable computers if you want to in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe so modern Mario Kart is definitely winning there also I went to the wiki to make sure I didn’t miss

Anything and I found these plushies of Bowser what did they do to you next up Mario Kart 64 which I hear a lot of people claim to be one of the best if not the best battle modes in the series once again we just have one battle mode

Being balloon battle this has a lot of similarities to Super Mario Kart’s version it’s based on Last Man Standing and can only be played in multiplayer with no CPUs what really makes this battle mode different comes down to how many players can play We Go From A Max

Of two to a whopping four okay despite that not seeming like a lot this does have some major implications obviously if there are only two people playing as soon as someone loses all their balloons the match just ends with four people though you need three people to go out

Before the game is over so what happens to those who go out before the match ends well in this game they get to transform into a bomb car while they have already lost and can’t win anymore this does give them a chance to influence the outcome of the match they

Can be stunned if they get hit but I’m sure you all can guess what happens if they manage to run into a play I think that’s a fantastic way to keep the other players at least a little engaged even if they’re already out sadly they can only explode once but I guess that’s

Kind of Fair since you don’t want the bomb cards to have full control over the outcome now before scripting I thought the bomb cards were the only difference worth mentioning but there is another mechanic in this battle mode that I find to be very strange apparently if a heavy

Character runs into a lightweight character with enough speed the lightweight character will lose a balloon I have never heard anyone talk about this nor have I seen it before in my time playing this battle mode I mean my brother and I just play Mario and Luigi so I guess that makes sense I’m

Sure you Bowser players love this mechanic personally I’m fine with that never returning nor do I think it will anyway Mario Kart super Circuit is game number three with just balloon battle this one is gonna be pretty quick since it’s essentially the exact same as Mario

Kart 64. you could play with up to 4 players and no less than two it’s based around last man standing and losing all of your balloons will turn you into a baba this is where a majority of the differences come in with this mode for starters instead of being a bomb car

This is just straight up of a bomb that can run round which I think looks pretty funny most importantly though the bomb car can actually respawn after exploding oh sadly the bomb car will also explode when running into items this time not just players so getting hit this time is

A bit more detrimental but that’s basically all the changes I could find for this mode I do kind of like the bomb changes so if the last man standing mode does come back I hope this version of the bomb gets added because I think it

Could be pretty fun now we’re on to our first big game with Mario Kart Double Dash this game has three different battle modes balloon battle shine thief and Bomb Blast all three of these are in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe but they are a bit different so let’s take a look at each

Of them balloon battle is very similar to our last three once again being Last Man Standing base this time though if you get out you don’t come back as a bomb car oh well skull as you shouldn’t have lost onto her first battle mode that’s not balloon based though shine Thief is one

Of my favorite to Mario critic Deluxe in both modes the goal is to hold a shine until the timer hits zero but if you get hit you lose the shine and other people can pick it up this is always super intense especially when it gets down to

The wire well conceptually these two are quite similar there are actually a decent amount of differences in Mario Kart Double Dash for example a Mario Kart 8 Deluxe everyone has their own 20 second timer so the first time someone picks it up will always start at 20. if

You get hit and then pick up the shine later you will continue your countdown from where you left off before in Double Dash though everyone shares the same timer and it starts at 50 seconds instead of 20. now this timer can’t start below 15 so if someone gets hit

While they have say 5 seconds left the timer will jump back up to 15. I think this is a kind of interesting way to go about it but in all honesty I definitely prefer Mario critic deluxe’s version it feels more intense and works a lot better for its larger number of

Characters because remember Double Dash is still stuck at a maximum of four Racers um technically it’s eight Racers since every current has two people the fact that the timer jumps all the way up to 15 seconds each time the shine is dry can make this mode take quite a while so

I’m more than happy to keep what we have in eight Deluxe the final battle mode for this game was the bomb blast this is the mode that is probably the most drastically different between here and its modern Incarnation as the name implies this is all about the bombs

Which means there’s going to be a lot of explosions hey Mario Kart 8 Deluxe this is essentially just balloon battle but the only items are about bombs that can’t damage the player who threw it along with being able to hold up to 10. that is not at all what the Double Dash

Version is like yes but bombs are still the only item here and they don’t deal damage to the person who threw it you can even still hold 10 of them though only five per character all that is all basically the same the main goal is not

Instead of being based on the number of hits within a time limit you have to try and be the first person to reach a certain point total in two player you need three points but in three or four players you need four points the way you get points is obviously by hitting

People however you also lose points by getting hit as well this leads to a very interesting battle where the players are all going constantly back and forth to try and Edge each other out for a victory I actually really like this rule set and I think it should come back in

Eight Deluxe definitely has an option though instead of the whole mode I like the KO based version we have now but I think this point system could actually be really fun to play with as well it may be hard since you have to account for 12 people instead of four but just

Having the option would be nice now we have the battle mode I have probably played the most out of any of them that being the one found in Mario Kart DS I absolutely love playing balloon battle with my family so I have a pretty big soft spot for this that’s

Not to say I had to play with my family though as this is our first battle mode that can actually be played in single player what do I even need you for that means we could play with up to eight total Racers the CPUs could play as well now alongside people connecting with

Local play I should also mention that this game has two battle modes but we’ll start with balloon battle first once again this is based on the last man standing however the way that balloons work is very interesting you start the race with only one balloon instead of

The three we’ve seen in every single other Mario Kart however you may notice there are four balloons at the top these balloons are in reserve and can be activated by blowing it to the microphone that means you technically start with 5 balloons now at first this may just seem like a really stupid

Gimmick they threw on for kids to blow into the microphone okay well it definitely is but there is actually some strategy here see the less balloons you have the better items you’ll get so you can play a bit risky and not blow up all your balloons to get better items but of

Course that comes with a chance of dying easier as if you run out of balloons even with some in reserve you’ll I really like this risk reward situation it adds a lot of depth to the game while I don’t think this will return any

Deluxe I hope they come up with a way to add it back in the next game preferably not with the microphone though I don’t need people blowing into my controllers that’s not the only difference in this mode though as we also have to see what happens to the losers that die they’ll

Come back as a ghost where they can all drop item boxes on top of people yeah gonna be honest that’s super lame being a bomb car was way more fun I mean if you’re dead I’m sure you’d rather get revenge than help people so this change

Is a bit confusing but it’s better than double Dash’s approach of just letting people do nothing that brings us to Mario Kart Diaz’s second battle mode and also the only battle mode in the series to not make it to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe that mode is shine Runners not to be

Confused with giant Thief we’ve mentioned before this also has us collecting shine Sprites but in a much different way in fact I’d say this is more similar to an entirely different battle mode that being coin Runners yeah so in this mode you have to collect as

Many shine Sprites as you can before the time limit expires which is exactly the same as coin Runners if you get hit here you’ll also lose a shine just like how you lose coins and coin Runners yeah that’s kind of disappointing wait what okay so this mode is actually kind of a

Call instead of the game just ending when the time limit expires the players with the least amount of shines are eliminated and the game continues on this goes on until there’s only one person left and honestly I think that’s a much better way to handle this type of collecting mode while I definitely

Prefer balloon battle in DS this mode ain’t bad either certainly better than coin Runners which makes me sad that it’s in more games I also don’t really see this coming back to eight since we have both a shine and collection mode in the game already but I would definitely

Be happy to see it if it did get added to 8 Deluxe it would probably get a reskin though to differentiate it from shine Thief so maybe Mario Odyssey moons could be collected instead personally I’d be a big fan of that Mario Kart Wii’s battle mode sucks like I’m just

Gonna say how it is easily one of the worst in the series The Original 8 battle mode may be the only one worse than it and even then I could see an argument for Wii being worse but why is that I mean Wii does have actual battle forces something that the original 8

Can’t say well that all comes down to what this video is about the format and rules of its battle mode first let’s start with the balloon battle this is the first game to adopt the system we see a Mario Kart 8 Deluxe where winning is based on how many hits you’re able to

Get now it did say at the start of this video that despite it being different I do like this way to play so why am I hating so hard on Mario Kart Wii well you know how every battle mode before this let you fight against everyone in a

Free-for-all yeah for some reason they made teams the only way to play together we’re stronger there is no way to turn this off even if you wanted to which means you are forced to do a 6v6 together we’re stronger oh yeah and since only four people can play on one

Wii together you are guaranteed to have at least eight CPUs playing the game with you now I’m sure there are people that like playing in teams together we’re stronger but not having the option to play by yourself against friends is terrible since you’re on teams with CPUs

By the way that means you are barely able to affect the outcome of a match since you could play so well but the rest of your team fumbles so hard that it doesn’t even matter together we’re stronger I really don’t understand the decision here and I really hope this

Never comes back the only other real difference is the fact that when you lose all of your balloons in this mode your team only loses one point instead of half which is basically nothing yeah let’s just move on the other battle mode in Mario Kart Wii is coin Runner this

One also sucks and has the exact same problems as balloon battle it’s forced into mode with no way to turn off CPUs besides that the mechanics are basically the same as the 8 deluxe version which means it’s bad let’s just hope this team thing never comes back Mario Kart 7 is

Going to be a real quick one since its two battle modes are incredibly similar to 8 deluxes balloon battle is essentially exactly the same just with a Max of 8 Racers instead of 12. very happy to not be stuck on teams though coin Runners however did receive a

Change and it’s a very odd one so the whole point of the game is to collect as many coins as possible until the time limit expires but for some reason you can’t get more than 10 coins here that just means there’s either going to be a

Ton of draws or someone will hit 10 and then camp for the rest of the game since there’s no reason to engage after that you know this video is slowly making me appreciate the coin runners in eight Deluxe it’s insane that its other variations are so terrible

But here we have it the final game to take a look at Mario Kart 8 for the Wii U as I’ve alluded to several times in this video it’s the worst battle mode that primarily comes down to one thing the courses obviously that’s not what this video is about but it’s kind of

Hard to ignore them because they’re literally just tracks recycled for this mode which is very embarrassing don’t worry though as there were actually some changes to the mode itself from this game to Deluxe there’s only one battle mode this time that of course being balloon battle now we’ve seen two

Different types of this mode so far either Last Man Standing or Kos the Mario Kart 8 version is a freakish monstrosity that tries to mix the two together the goal is to get the highest number of Kos within the time limit but this time if you lose all of your

Balloons you don’t respawn that is like the absolute worst of Both Worlds the advantage of The Last Man Standing approach is that it provides for some much more intense death matches but the KO mode is good for players that want to play the whole time without being eliminated this removes both of the

Modes advantages and pretty much just takes their worst aspects I can’t fathom how anyone thought this was a good way to implement this I mean there could be scenarios where someone as the most Kos dies but still wins anyway because there weren’t enough points on the course to

Beat them like it’s so incredibly stupid if you’re going to do one of these modes do one or the other don’t try and combine them because it will not work now if you lose all your balloons in multiplayer or teams you do get to come

Back as a ghost this allows you to hit other players which is kinda nice I guess but you can’t get any more points so yeah I think it’s safe to say that Mario kartik Deluxe has the much better version but anyways that’s it for this video have you always dreamed of delivering

Item boxes and hate me for saying it’s lame let me know in the comments this was just meant to be a shorter video after my last one turned out much longer than I thought but I actually learned quite a bit from researching this hopefully you all did as well I really

Enjoyed doing this cut series and learning about older games anyways dry bones for Smash and I’ll see you guys next time thank you foreign