The following episode was originally aired on 92.1 The Frog on March 24th, 2022.

Hello, and welcome to The Sunset. My name is Nathan and I’ll be going over a feature story that I find interesting and give my thoughts on it.

Last Friday, Nintendo released Wave 1 of the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Booster Pass. Selling for $25 dollars, the pass entitles players to 48 new courses across 6 waves of releases through 2023. The tracks have been confirmed to be remastered versions of courses from previous games, including the 2019 mobile game, Mario Kart Tour.

What’s interesting about this pass is that Mario Kart 8 Deluxe came out on the Nintendo Switch in 2017, and is itself an updated version of Mario Kart 8 for the Wii U, a 2014 title that received downloadable content up through 2015. Deluxe included all of the original release’s DLC, as well as some extra content, but saw no major additions since 2017, meaning that the game is getting new content essentially 8 years after its original release. The new tracks will bring the total course count from 48 to 96, literally doubling the amount of courses to race on. At about $0.50 cents per course, that’s a pretty good deal.

I haven’t gotten a chance to play these courses, since I need to save my money for my phone bill and that sort of thing, but I looked up footage online and the tracks look fun. I have fond memories of racing in Coconut Mall in older games, and the updated version of Choco Mountain looks way better than the original. The courses from Tour are new to me, since I never really played that one that much, but I am actually a fan of the courses being based on real world locations. Ninja Hideaway is a really neat track. It takes place in and around an old traditional Japanese castle dojo, with this neat split path design where one can get to an elevated level with enough skill.

That said, all the tracks in the pass seem to be based on their Mario Kart Tour versions, so even with some graphical updates, they can look less impressive than the base game. It’s not a huge deal but it’s worth mentioning. I’ll probably buy the pass when the next wave gets released.

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