Video: Digital Foundry Weighs In On Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Booster Course Pass Texture Complaints

If the fundamental track is just lifted from Tour without changes then fine but they could at least do more to make them fit the look of 8. They have so many textures they could recycle from the base game for example so why does the sand and grass often look like play doh in the booster pass tracks?

Honestly the base tracks still look incredible today while the booster pass tracks look like a first pass at an HD Mario Kart before we ever got 8. It’s all backwards

Whatever "approach" they took that doesn't change the fact that graphics are terrible. They're even worse than the base game was.

This is another very important analysis. Even though it's something with a lot of content until 2023, it's not equal or close to the quality of the MK8.

@weisske You mean tour right?

I genuinely do not notice these things when I’m flying round the tracks 🤷‍♂️

In a game about throwing turtle shells as Yoshi drifts by in a Mercedes GLA, these are perfectly servicable graphics.

I would rather play 48 additional courses than not at all. After all, it's what the community has asked for for the last 5 years. I'm having a lot of fun, and this comment section can't stop me.

Will give it a watch when I have the chance. The first wave was a bit underwhelming in terms of visuals, but I think the second one looks pretty good aside from a couple complaints like the lack of grass textures in Sydney Sprint and the gross-looking rock mountains in Mushroom Gorge. Kalamari Desert could pass for a base-game track, imo.

Some of the tracks do miss that flair the base game has but I never expected to get them so for me they are still great...
48 more tracks.. That's alot, they still play well and are fun, so overall I'm happy..

@AmplifyMJ same but yeah I can spot the differences in a side by side comparison but for me, the tracks are all so entertaining to play for me to care. I’m happy I bought the pass.

Don't care about the graphics, the only disappointing track so far is Sky Garden being very different from the GBA layout. It's a fun track if you think of it like a "Sky Garden 2" but a bad remaster of the GBA original.

Overall so far I'd say the Booster Course Pass is a better option than a MK9.

"It's Nintendo therefore it's bad" sums up the hivemind whenever Nintendo does anything.
The tracks play fine, simple textures don't bother me in the slightest.

@d-slice Bingo. The only time I really noticed the details on MK8 tracks was when I gave the controller to my 3 yr old, because he took SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO long to complete even one lap. Haha.

I though I was getting crazy or something, the base 8 Deluxe tracks look so much better, the new DLC tracks look more like heavily upscaled Wii ones, but with even less detail than those.

So I was not crazy... but Nintendo was just lazy.

They might just go for a more cartoony look, like older Nintendo stuff. The base game feels more like it is going in a more realistic way.
So far I have only played the first wave.

@Noodles23 You're lucky he even made any progress, once I had people over and the younger one kept yeeting himself overboard on purpose

Before buying the additional tracks, I was worried about how little effort Nintendo put into the graphics, even 8 years after the release of Mario Kart 8.

Over time, there is more than enough expertise for Nintendo to maintain the graphics. Was it laziness? it was.

But, the graphics are acceptable. It's not a disaster, it's just a realization that Nintendo is doing as little as possible.

That is, it hurts the image of the Nintendo brand more in front of me, but the game is still ok.

It's obvious Nintendo is rushing through these so to get the Booster Pack ready by the end of 2023. I say just wait until 2024 until the full pack is finish before throwing money at it. In the mean time just subscribe to NSO+ Expansion Pack so you could try these without buying them to know if they are worth your poverty money or not.

@Rykdrew agreed. It’s disappointing, but it doesn’t ruin the experience. It’s like getting ice cream sundae with no cherry on top….

Interesting comparison I suppose.... But I couldn't care less about the textures in a racing game.

The DLC tracks are fun, especially the reimagined Kalmari Desert.

I am almost willing to accept the obvious drop in quality simply because we are getting 48 of them for for $10!! I still think we should all push Nintendo to do better, not rush their products and give all the tracks the time they need. But they were already pro consumer with allowing people who haven't bought it to play and 48 tracks for $10 so I am not too upset. All the tracks are very well designed too, "Sky-High Sundae" is the only one that feels like a mod track you'd see added in Mario Kart Wii, but it plays amazing at 200cc which makes up for it imo.

This is bad and I'm sad. 😞

I don't even notice it. For a start who is even paying that much attention to the details when racing around the tracks? They look fine, genuinely. Anyone playing a Nintendo game and scrutinising the details that closely are simply in the wrong place. They're not the tech powerhouses of Sony and Microsoft. Never have been, never will be. They're always a step behind with their graphics. Either live with it or go back to your ultra realistic racers on those other consoles.

Oh no a grass texture in the background is slightly less good in a racing game. End of the world!

@Baker1000 “They look fine” is the issue when “they look amazing” was the descriptor for pretty much all of the base tracks. I don’t know what’s wrong with expecting consistent quality for the game especially when it’s a game that’s made so much money and made by one of the biggest game companies out there.

It’s like getting a cake and buying another later from the same bakery and there’s no icing on it. Does it need icing to be a cake? No, but it sure makes it look nicer. The tracks are fine but the difference visually is night and day with the old ones and when one of the defining things about MK8 is just how good it looks it’s no surprise people are being critical of the DLC when it comes to graphics.

These new DLC are an abomination on an amazing game. Better off without them.

This is what I'm worried about.
Nintendo will keep releasing new tracks with lower quality than Mario Kart 8 Deluxe standard itself.
The decision to add more 48 tracks as DLC was really wrong idea.
It should be put on next Mario Kart so they have more time to polish the track detail and add some new elements on it.

@Anti-Matter I wouldn’t really worry, I doubt the team who made MK8 and its original DLC are the same people tasked with the booster pass. All the budget and talent will be on the next Mario Kart (probably a Switch 2 launch/launch window game at this point) while they have their B-teams on this DLC…hopefully anyway. Maybe they can just make a sub-par looking Mario Kart game with limp track designs and it’ll do just fine though given how many people are lapping these up without criticism 😝

None of the graphics are eye popping. The base game is so freaking old at this point that it’s not a discussion

All these complaints, and I'm here like: "Kart go zoom!".

Look, it's fine if you don't care that quality and effort has declined because it's just a cartoon racing game, but a lot of people do, and they should be allowed to criticise it ...because Nintendo is not your friend, it's a company that wants to make money, and if they see an increasing number of people dismissing this kind of stuff, it'll get worse, and worse, and worse, until all you get is an unfinished shell of a game with zero passion behind it, packed with DLC and whatever else they can get away with.

Mario Kart is a prestigious franchise that has always set the bar, until Tour came along, in my opinion. Step out of that bubble and demand better ...or don't. It's your money, your hobby. You enjoy what you want, but ...think. It's ...sad. It's just a dumb video game, I know, but this is part of a trend I see everywhere. Things just get worse because people just don't care.

@larryisaman I hope you're right ...Mario Kart 9, or ...10 or whatever it'll be called better be a banger. I still hold out hope for that.

Quality > Quantity
I'd rather see another WiiU quality DLC than a bloated mediocre "booster" pack. At this point they should just cancel the project and put that effort into a brand new Mario Kart already.

Yeah, graphics aren't from the same quality as the base game, doesn't change the fun my kids and I are having 😄

The thing I do not understand at all is why Nintendo are taking short cuts? They typically have a labour of love with their games but this is just a botch job.

What are they so busy doing that they can't roll out Mario Kart content to the highest possible quality?

I really hope the September Direct firstly happens(!) and secondly starts to answer some questions...

Where is Donkey Kong? How can one of their biggest IPs (their words!) have no new content on what is going to be their most successful console?
Where is 2D Zelda? They've taken so long on a new 2D Zelda we're already at another 3D Zelda.
Where is 2D Mario? Again they've taken so long with this that we're at a point where we are due a new 3D Mario!

It seems to me that Covid caused game delays, but we should be riding that out by now. There must be more to it, and I'm convinced it must be the Switch Pro. Are we in this terrible reality where a Switch Pro was going to happen but the Covid impact means it cannot be rolled out successfully, but all the software in the works is geared towards that boost in performance. Yes, Nintendo could scale back a release to get it out now, but how much are they sitting on for the next Hardware?

Do not underestimate how games sell consoles. It does not make sense to release all your best games on the old hardware, then release new hardware and make everyone wait the 4-5 years for the next new games to release. That's a sure fire way to sell no new hardware!

But you also can't produce a limited amount of hardware, have supply and distribution issues and then sell your amazing new games. That's a sire fire way to sell no new software!

Rock and a hard place.

Bit of "mustard after the meal" this video... we've all know now that the graphics are less, and the tracks were taken out of tour.... luckily they're still fun, and we see improvements

(and for me dlc for mk8 is better than full price for a game that might be slicker but is still the same , and has less tracks than 96)

between the 2 released dlc track packs there are maybe 2 courses worth caring about, they dont use zero gravity or look on par with the stages that released 8 years ago! shameful

It was so funny to hear this guy talk like graphics matter in a Mario kart game, it gave me a few good chuckles. But he clearly does not enjoy Mario Kart Tour, so he is biased.

@Rykdrew Mario Kart 8 is not 13 years old. It is 8 years old. You must be thinking of Mario Kart Wii.

@Arkay
would be better to engage with what others are saying rather than just dismiss any criticism of Nintendo as some kind of hivemind.

both the video and the comments go into detail on their issues, and why they personally dislike an aspect of something.

@ArcticEcho Thank you. I just updated the post!

@Mgalens I'm not dismissing criticism. I'm all up for valid criticism. My issue is that most people tend to echo whatever everyone else is saying, aka jumping on the bandwagon.
For instance I completely understand why some might be put off by the textures, but most people tend to exxagerate.

I don't really care about the visuals. They look fine. They're passable for gimmick-DLC meant to bolster NSO subs.

What does bug me is just how poorly-designed (and boring!) these new tracks are. They really highlight how well-executed the original game's tracks were, even the least among them reaching a far higher level of quality than the best (so far) of this new lot. To the point where I genuinely be,I've that buying this new DLC actually makes MK8U a worse game.

@Arkay
Its more the idea that people are doing it out of some hatred of Nintendo rather than their own criticisms. There can be a general similar opinion held between people without it being others doing it because of the bandwagon.

Looking at the comments in this section the general consensus is that the newer tracks are visually lacking compared to the main game, this further branches into other takes, with some saying they would have preferred fewer courses if it meant the visual quality was that of the base game, others are disappointed but still enjoying more Mario kart and a few are discussing hopes and concerns regarding Mario kart 9.

similarly when you see people equating others being critical of something as them hating it then that also doesn't hold up too well since a lot of the people criticizing the DLC hold the game in very high regard.

yes you will always get those who take things too far with criticism (the monkey island situation being a good example) but more often than not these kinds of situations have a lot of nuance to the takes even among those who share similar opinions.

@Mgalens Well put. For me it’s not hate at all or jumping on bandwagons, I’m just not overly impressed on the whole with the DLC, from the visual department to the course designs themselves. Most criticism of Nintendo comes from a love for the company and their games, not out of hate. Everyone being particularly critical about this DLC is doing so because they hold Nintendo to higher standards- standards which they’ve previously shown in the very game they’re adding content to and failing to live up to.

@larryisaman my comment "they look fine" didn't mean I think they just look passable. It's that they don't look any worse than the other tracks. Honestly, if there is a difference I don't see it when playing. It's negligible. Those sort of things just don't distract me from enjoying the game. If they really prevent your enjoyment of it then sucks to be you I guess.

Don’t care. Enjoying the courses too much to care about grass that I’m not even really looking at while I’m driving.

If I wanted pretty racer I would play Gran Turismo. This is Mario Kart and I put Mario Kart in Mario Kart standards.

Looking forward to the next tracks

Let's be real though: In the heat of an intense race, the last thing you're paying attention to would be the visuals.

Of course, that doesn't include game-interfering visuals, but I've yet to encounter such things with both the old and added tracks.

There's a lot of drama around here! Anyone coming at these tracks fresh would be expecting some blurry, unplayable abomination, which this is not 😂 Yes, some of it isn't up to the quality of the originals but it isn't noticeable if you're playing and enjoying the game instead of looking for something to criticise.

Nintendo are releasing 48 new tracks for a game that has sold tens of millions and is still in the top ten in the UK... Many casual gamers won't even know about these extra tracks and it's still selling.

Would it be nice if these new tracks were consistently hitting the heights reached by the base tracks? Sure. Does it make one iota of difference to your enjoyment of the game? It shouldn't and if it is then maybe you're approaching this gaming thing all wrong 🤷‍♂️

There is a trick to make the textures look better. Play at 200cc with a wheel xD.

And if you can use a wheel that comes with a shift stick (so you can drive with only one hand on the wheel) then they "look" even better.

Anyway.... MK Home Circuit still plays better than MK 8. It has more realistic graphics, infinite courses, FPV, and the driving mechanics feel better (if you are drifting and stop accelerating, you can still mantain the drift, which feels better than having to brake during the drift, specially if you are playing using pedals).

@larryisaman
I feel like the "haters" accusations on here are at least somewhat more mild than back on something like gamefaqs but there's still other issues you often see turn up, such as people assuming that those who aren't a fan of the visuals are looking for realistic or high end visuals, or assuming that those saying they don't like an aspect of something means they hate all aspects.

(i think the first one is known as a "False dilemma")

For me i was hoping that Mario Kart tour courses (both regular and retro) would make it into 8 so im happy with that aspect. I definitely would have been okay with fewer courses if it meant they were up to the standard of the original games DLC but at this point im mainly curious to see what they have planned for a theoretical Mario Kart 9