Here’s an improvement of my Mario Kart Deluxe speed run. After spending a few months playing the game quite a bit to set various times in various categories, I ended up improving a bit and managed to beat my old run pretty easily. I think the rng was as ruthless as ever, which means most of the improvement was just from better driving and some better routes.  I managed to score another perfect run with 1st place finishes in every track but those are pretty common after a certain point.

I’m not gonna explain many things again. I hope the comments for the old run get saved somewhere so that people can go back and check those if they want more in depth info. I’ll just focus on the updated stuff here.

Things that changed between then and now include starting with N64 RR instead of Mario Kart Stadium because, in N64 RR you don’t get 10 coins usually from normal driving since you start with 0 but, if the track is the first one, you start with 5 coins since you start in last place. This saves a bit of time and also lets you do the Bonus Cups early since those tracks are the roughest set in the run. It’s better to get those out of the way first since things can go bad there easily. Worth noting that what is referred as “Bonus Tracks” is the tracks that were the DLC tracks in the Wii U version of MK8. Since they’re no longer DLC, they needed a more fitting name and that’s what people came up with.

Kart choice also got updated since, upon finding out about hidden stats, it was discovered that the hidden stats also changed between MK8 and MK8D. The Streetle is no longer an optimal choice since it has bad antigravity speed and Pipe Frame is better overall for a long run like this. Tires are still the same ones since those are really overpowered with how this game favors acceleration over top speed and the level 3 Mini Turbo. Glider choice does matter so I switched to a glider that gives an acceleration increase opposed to top speed increase because these gliders also get a boost in handling and other hidden stats. For character, I went with Pink Gold Peach because she has a good balance between top speed, acceleration and handling. DK/Waluigi offer a bit more top speed at the cost of handling but I found myself getting the same time so I stuck with the easier to drive character. The Biddybuggy is a better kart choice if you go with these characters though.

The rest of the settings are pretty much the same. Game is the digital version and I use the Pro controller. Items are set to normal since Frantic is slower and normal track order is used for consistency.

Individual Track Breakdown:

N64 Rainbow Road: the track went as fast as with the no items run. A single hit here would be a restart since it’d be unacceptable to get hit this early.

GC Yoshi Circuit: the only reason I took this race was because it always goes bad and I got many good tracks later. Otherwise I’d have restarted here.

Excitebike Arena: this went pretty bad too. Did the corners bad and got hit by a blue shell. Only reason I didn’t restart was that I didn’t get hit by Lightning since all my mistakes were still less time lost than a single lightning (one of those costs you about the same as 2 blue shells).

Dragon Driftway: clean from items but a bit wonky on the driving. I use a small shortcut after the tunnel.

Mute City: this track went very awful by the 2nd half. 2 lightnings and a blue shell and that was after managing to avoid the red shells.

Wii Wario’s Gold Mine: somewhat decent. I got hit by a Blue Shell and some Bloopers. Driving was better here.

SNES Rainbow Road: many close calls but it was a no hits race.

Ice Ice Outpost: holding onto the coin is a small rng manipulation trick to get something that isn’t a coin from the next item box since it’s very rare to get double coins. Outside that it was a decent race.

Hyrule Circuit: I got the dreaded lightning + blue combo here. It wasn’t too bad past that.

GC Baby Park: driving in circles to reach heaven went well.

GBA Cheese Land: I could only use the cheese tunnel cut once due to the rng but at least I could get the glider ramp all 3 times.

Wild Woods: rng was bad here but it could have been worse. The bomb hit was funny in lap 1.

Animal Crossing: I got the minimal Blue Shell damage possible since it doesn’t completely stop you if you’re in the air opposed to when it hits you on land. I took a gamble since I was hit near an OoB area.

3DS Neo Bowser City: I got hit with a shell combo and then a blue shell but at least it destroyed the red one that was near.

GBA Ribbon Road: RNG was pretty bad here. The improvised strat to minimize Blue Shell damage was fun though.

Super Bell Subway: one good thing is that I didn’t hit the trains. That’s it.

Big Blue: this time I got the big shortcut in section 2 and very barely since I hit the rail.

Mario Kart Stadium: good overall. Only one lightning hit in this race.

Water Park: almost the same as the previous track but with an added red shell.

Sweet Sweet Canyon: the one lightning hit in the most damaging spot possible since Lakitu picked me up very slowly from there. Still, was better than what happened in the previous speed run here.

Thwomp Ruins: good driving here and no big human errors.

Mario Circuit: got a triple combo on me but the blue shell’s hit was negated due to me being already hit by the red one.

Toad Harbor: a CPU took the time to drop a banana on the path I take. I also almost messed up the ramp jump on lap 3.

Twisted Mansion: it was a good race. The red shells were persistent.

Shy Guy Falls: this time the red shells owned me. Also, I had some problems with the shortcut.

Sunshine Airport: that crash on the stairs after the plane is not usual. Outside that, it went as usual.

Dolphin Shoals: this was a pretty bad rng race. The blue shell hit was especially bad in the ramp.

Electrodrome: I messed up that turn in lap 2 badly. It happens since the slope going upwards makes you hit the road a bit sooner after jumping, which means a slight mistiming and you end up going to the other side.

Mount Wario: that brake near the start was very embarrassing. Later I got a bad combo at the end of section 2 but the red shell was negated since I was still under the effect of the blue one.

Cloudtop Cruise: the Special Cup tracks are another rough spot in every run and it’s no exception this time. rng being pretty bad as usual here.

Bone-Dry Dunes: it’s rare for this track to go well but this time I got one of my best runs here. No hits and the actual driving was good.

Bowser’s Castle: Peach got horny too late for it to make a difference. Rng was rough and driving was also bad since this is one of my worst tracks overall.

Rainbow Road: the 3rd Rainbow Road wasn’t gonna let me off that easy after the other 2 were good races. Here I got pent up rng and also messed up by falling and being too slow to get the bananas out.

Wii Moo Moo Meadows: it was almost a no hits race but I messed up by hitting the dirt and that let the blue shell and lightning catch up.

GBA Mario Circuit: you know rng is not on your side when it’s this late that you get to use a Super Horn successfully for the first time in the run. To top it, I still got wrecked at the end.

DS Cheep Cheep Beach: I got unfortunate timing on some hits like the Blooper and the rest was bad.

N64 Toad’s Turnpike: good race outside the final turn bump. It helps that item boxes are sort of out of the way here so the CPU doesn’t pick many.

GC Dry Dry Desert: sort of decent overall since I did the dirt cuts at the end but rng was bad.

SNES Donut Plains 3: decent driving overall but I messed up the last corner. Also, bad rng as usual.

N64 Royal Raceway: again, Peach got horny too late. I feel like a broken record every time I mention the rng by now.

3DS DK Jungle: this was a more decent race. I almost fell on the first ramp but was barely in good range.

DS Wario Stadium: good race. Only 2 item hits and driving was good.

GC Sherbet Land: another useless Super Horn. I almost fell on the water like 3 times.

3DS Music Park: pretty good race. Only mess up was at the end when I did the corner too wide. No item hits.

N64 Yoshi Valley: the lightning messed up the cycle and I ended up hitting the egg on lap 3.

DS Tick Tock Clock: for some reason I had some trouble here with mini turbos and lost control many times. That led to a fall in lap 1. I almost fell in lap 3 and the lightning stopped me there.

3DS Piranha Plant Slide: I’m starting to fall apart by here by erratic driving.

GC Grumble Volcano: the final track went better than usual. There was one crash and that was mostly due to the lightning. Didn’t fall on lava or hit dirt.

Well, that’s another RNG show where I had to take what the game dished out. Imagine how the bad runs looked like when this was among the good ones I got. There’s still room for improvement here as usual but it’s hard to rely on good rng to get better. It’s gotten to the point I could still not beat this with better driving if the rng is particularly bad.

Just like the previous runs I’ve done, you can catch them in my Youtube Channel (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hA9QU4arFE ) and leave a comment if you liked it or you can leave a comment on Twitter (https://twitter.com/JK_UchihaSDA ).

As usual and to close off, thanks to the SDA staff for keeping the site running and providing a site with some high quality videos for so long.

Sometimes, you start wondering how would it be if the items weren’t constantly screwing with your driving and how it’d be to do all tracks with just pure skill and driving as best as you can. After all, the purpose of a speed run is to go as fast as you can, right?

For that reason, categories with no items have become rather popular in Mario Kart games recently. These categories have managed to have more active people than the normal ones over time, especially in the Deluxe version of MK8 since the 2 items per driver mechanic has really wrecked the item balance and it’s too easy for the game to mess your run badly at any given moment. In normal runs you spend more time offering prayers to the gods than actually focusing on your driving lines and some people don’t really enjoy that. Also, another completely different factor is that runs with no items let you get better at driving by putting all focus on it and that helps runs with items eventually.

This is the first submission I did of this category to SDA and I went with my best time before I took a break. Sometimes you need breaks to not let the game get the better of you. For this run I added several new shortcuts and route changes after going through all the tracks in Time Trial looking at the top times and picking some consistent tips from them. Rewatching the run after the submission to write the commentary let me notice some errors I didn’t notice when I did it back in September. Usually, you feel like you played pretty good and had maybe one mistake or 2 in the whole thing, but then you rewatch the run and notice other little things.

I do plan to improve eventually but that’s a maybe. I fell on a few spots like in SNES RR and failed the Big Blue shortcut but Lakitu’s pick up is pretty fast in this game and in the BB fail I still saved time compared to driving normally (or broke even at least). I feel like I could have cut at least 30 more seconds but that will have to wait.

Something that is different from previous runs is starting in N64 RR instead of the start of a cup. This is because N64 RR is one of the few tracks where you can’t get 10 coins in a normal lap because there’s too few of them in the road. That’s true if the track appears at any point in the run but, if it’s the first track, you’ll start with 5 coins due to starting on last place and this lets you get to 10 coins.

Regarding the character choice, the Pipe Frame kart seems to be one of the most optimal vehicles for long runs. It’s a good all around kart and has the right attributes like good anti-gravity speed and good acceleration and handling. One of the hidden stats is the Mini Turbo length stat but it is directly connected to the acceleration stat so you can look at your acceleration stat to see how much MT length you have since it will coincide always in this game. Character choice is a bit influenced in ease to drive since there’s other characters like DK or Waluigi that give a bit more acceleration but have less handling and that can make some tracks a lot harder. I find Pink Gold Peach is right for how I drive.

Regarding other technical things, I use a Pro controller because it’s easier to drive due to the better control sticks and I use the digital version because load times are faster, especially if the game is in the internal memory of the console.

I didn’t do track-by-track explanations because it’d be either “this track went well” or “I fell here” in most of them.  Item runs do have some variety in that area.

I hope you enjoy the run and I hope it shows that MK8D has some potential as a game where you drive fast. These days, with no more F-Zero games, people dismiss Mario Kart too easily as a replacement but 200cc is the closest we’ll ever get to a new F-Zero. It’s faster than most of the older F-Zero games since only F-Zero X and GX are faster overall. I hope the next Mario Kart is designed around 200cc speed since this game wasn’t originally designed for this speed, which is why some tracks feel awkward to play in 200cc.

Just like the previous runs I’ve done, you can catch them in my Youtube Channel ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SceITxxLk8 ) and leave a comment if you liked it or you can leave a comment on Twitter (https://twitter.com/JK_UchihaSDA ).

As usual and to close off, thanks to the SDA staff for keeping the site running and providing a site with some high quality videos for so long.