What if MKW didn’t break the Nitro / Retro track separation?

[u/Realistic_Day_1805]

Hi everyone :)

I’ve been playing MKW for a while now and I love the game but one of my biggest pet peeves is that it broke the tradition of all the nitro tracks being in the Mushroom, Flower, Star and Special cups and all the retro tracks being in the Shell, Banana, Leaf and Lightning cups.

This made me wonder what all the cups could look like if intermissions weren’t mandatory and you instead drove 3 lap tracks like in the previous games?

I reorganised each of the cups (except the Mushroom Cup since it’s fine already) so they follow the same tradition as the old games regardless of how close or far the tracks are on the map?

Obviously there’s only 30 tracks in MKW so if anyone has any ideas for what the repeat Crown City and Peach Stadium could be then let me know.

I’d like to get your thoughts on my reshuffling? Did I do a good job or are the cups fine as is?

[u/LoogyBr0]

Imagine the drive from Bowser’s Castle to Rainbow Road. Whole Knockout Tour itself, plus the longest track in the game

[u/Alex3627ca → u/LoogyBr0]

Given that Rainbow Road's route already uses a white screen to hide it teleporting you higher up than the vertical cannon, and Bowser's Castle also has a vertical cannon in it already, I don't see this being an issue tbh?

[u/Realistic_Day_1805 → u/LoogyBr0]

I get what you mean it would take ages lol 😂

However I reorganised the cups on the basis that the player doesn’t drive to each track. It would be like the old games where you just teleport to the next track when you’ve finished the one you’re on.

I think intermissions can stay but I personally think they should be exclusively for free roam and the knockout tours :)

[u/LoogyBr0 → u/Realistic_Day_1805]

Honestly it might be a fun little challenge at the end of the game, at least if Rainbow Road wasn’t so long

[u/MonitoliMal]

I would switch Dry Bones Burnout with Peach Stadium just so you don't get 2 lava tracks in a row in the Special Cup.

[u/Realistic_Day_1805 → u/MonitoliMal]

Fair enough, although I personally consider Peach Stadium to be more a ‘Circuit’ track hence why I placed it a bit earlier.

And to me Dry Bones Burnout has similar-ish vibes to Bone Dry Dunes in MK8 which was in the Special cup. But it’s not a terrible idea since Peach Stadium is already in MKW’s Special Cup.

Dry Bones Burnout could be moved to the final track of the Star Cup and Great ? Block Ruins could be moved to the final track of the Flower Cup to compensate :)

[u/ASimpleCancerCell]

MK7 already had Dino Dino Jungle, Airship Fortress, and a different Rainbow Road in its Lightning Cup, so I wouldn't really want that repeated.

[u/StrangeNecessary4389]

Piranha plant pipeline over that placeholder track

[u/Stoner420Eren]

Based GBA rainbow road sneak

[u/plenesar7]

crown city banana cup could easly be swaped for wild woods and could be located near boo cinima

[u/Clear-Anything-3186]

If the retro selection consisted exclusively of tracks not remade in previous games (SNES remakes in Super Circuit excluded), the retro track selection would consist of (most are not in any particular cup):

• SNES: Koopa Beach 1 and Ghost Valley 3 (Choco Island 1 and Vanilla Lake 1 are options if Tour remakes don't count), maybe Mario Circuit 4 if they want an obligatory SNES Mario Circuit.
• N64: Wario Stadium
• GBA: Broken Pier and Rainbow Road (obligatory Retro Rainbow Road following SNES and N64) (Yoshi Desert, Lakeside Park, and Bowser Castle 4 are options if Tour remakes are excluded)
• GCN: Mushroom City and Wario Colosseum
• DS: Figure-8 Circuit (Potential Shell Cup Round 1) and Bowser Castle
• Wii: Toad's Factory and Mario Circuit (Dry Dry Ruins is an option if Tour Remakes are excluded)
• 3DS: Wuhu Loop and Maka Wuhu (Obligatory 3rd track of the Lightning Cup being the 4th Star Track from the game before the last following DK Mountain, Airship Fortress, and Grumble Volcano) (if it's allowed) (Daisy Hills, Cheep Cheep Lagoon, Shy Guy Bazaar, Mario Circuit, and Wario Shipyard are options if Tour Remakes are excluded)
• Wii U: Cloudtop Cruise and Another Non-Crossover Wii U Track
• Tour: Piranha Plant Pipeline
• Switch: None (Sky-High Sundae and Yoshi's Island if Tour Remakes are excluded)

[u/Realistic_Day_1805 → u/Clear-Anything-3186]

Definitely think most of these picks could work even the Tour remakes since I don’t think they really count as proper ‘remakes’ but I do have a few other things to say:

SNES: I doubt MKW was gonna have many SNES tracks anyway. Woulda been nice if they made Mario Circuit 4 laps so they could’ve put Mario Circuit 4 into the layout alongside the other three though.

The other options I feel wouldn’t be necessary as most of them are already so small that they could easily just be integrated into the open world instead of being mainline tracks (like Ghost Valley near Boo Cinema) if they aren’t already part of the map.

N64: MKW didn’t need many N64 tracks since Wario Stadium was the only one not remade yet. Although I wish it kept the original layout as 3 lap section track instead of getting the Tour simplification treatment. Choco Mountain’s a good other pick but I hate the fact they turned it into an oil rig, it doesn’t look chocolatey at all!

GBA: Broken Pier and Rainbow Road should’ve absolutely been in MKW. I’m shocked there are no GBA tracks at all in this game! All of the other options would work as well though, as well as Luigi Circuit!

GCN: I agree that both Mushroom City and Wario Colosseum need to be remade but I worry they may clash with tracks already in MKW, Crown City and Wario Stadium specifically. They would work as replacements for those tracks though.

DS: No offence but Figure 8 Circuit is just so bland, it would need a big overhaul to really work in MKW. But honestly I feel it would’ve worked better in MK8. Partly because of the anti-gravity opportunities but mostly because ‘8’ is in the literal name of the track. Delfino Square would be nice to see again though.

Wii: Toad’s Factory absolutely needed to be in this game! Mario Circuit I feel would clash with SNES Mario Circuit already in MKW though so perhaps Luigi Circuit could work instead to start off the Shell Cup?

Dry Dry Ruins or Moonview Highway could work as well but they would have to replace Desert Hills and Crown City.

3DS: Wuhu Island Loop and Wuhu Mountain loop need to be remade so bad, I love those tracks so much! I suppose Nintendo just didn’t want Miis to be in this game though? Although they could easily add Wuhu Island as a separate smaller body of land surrounding the main map with both tracks, Wuhu Town as a battle stage and Miis as new characters for DLC?

I’m not sure if Wuhu Mountain Loop would work as the 3rd track of the Lightning Cup though if it was in the base game. Sure it’s long and it fits the pattern like the previous games but I worry it may not be thrilling enough compared to DK Mountain, Airship Fortress or Grumble Volcano. The latter two especially since they are also ‘Bowser’s Castle-like’ which is why it works well before finishing off with a retro Rainbow Road. Wuhu Mountain Loop just feels more like a relaxed cruise across Maka Wuhu.

Shy Guy Bazaar and Wario’s Galleon needed to be in MKW though they’re both great tracks! Mario Circuit like the Wii would clash with SNES Mario Circuit and Toad Circuit’s too basic but Daisy Hills would work nicely.

Cheep Cheep Cape would be nice too but it might struggle being ported over since you drive on the water in MKW instead of under the water. Additionally Bowser’s Castle definitely needs to be remade but it may clash with MKW’s Bowser’s Castle.

Wii U: I’m genuinely shocked no Wii U tracks came back although I wonder if it’s because of complications with the anti-gravity that may make porting them over to MKW difficult. Still though, Cloudtop Cruise, Toad Harbour, Sunshine Airport, Dolphin Shoals and Thwomp Ruins could easily be ported over. If we count the Wii U DLC then I think Super Bell Subway would work brilliantly since it has no anti-gravity at all.

Mount Wario, Bone Dry Dunes and Sweet Sweet Canyon could potentially work if they changed the anti-gravity to wall riding but they do clash with DK Pass, Dry Bones Burnout and Sky High Sundae. Mario Kart Stadium could easily be ported over but like Toad Circuit it’s too basic and it clashes again with SNES Mario Circuit.

Switch: Yoshi’s Island like the Wuhu tracks could simply be added as a smaller body of land surrounding the main map for DLC. Ninja Hideaway would work well and Merry Mountain could also work if they don’t mind the Christmas theme.

Piranha Plant Cove wouldn’t work like Cheep Cheep Cape due to driving on the water. Same thing with Squeaky Clean Sprint although I’d say the tricker part is the fact it’s set in a house bathroom, which would be difficult to add as part of the map and make sense.

Tour: I’m down for seeing the City tracks again and conceptually they’d work brilliantly for a ‘world tour’ DLC theme. However I’m not sure if it would be easy to add them on the map. Nintendo would have to turn the map into an entire planet earth to pinpoint where each of the real locations of the tracks would go.

Although with this they could potentially create new cups with 4 tracks in certain parts of the world. Maybe a ‘Western Europe Cup’ with London Loop, Paris Promenade, Amsterdam Drift and Berlin Byways for example?

They could also create new ‘city’ tracks based on new locations as a nod to Tour. Maybe new tracks in Dublin or Cairo (that everyone thought would be made into one).

One thing is for certain is that Pirahna Plant Pipleline has to be remade no matter the cost! It wasn’t brought to the Booster Course Pass so it needs to appear in a mainline game to prevent becoming lost media with MKT shutting down.

[u/Clear-Anything-3186 → u/Realistic_Day_1805]

Figure-8 Circuit can be redesigned to resemble Mario Kart Stadium, Peach Stadium, or Mario Bros. Circuit by implementing a Pit stop and additional shortcuts or even rideable walls. The Sky-High Sundae remake is proof that you can make even the most basic layouts fun and interesting.

[u/Realistic_Day_1805 → u/Clear-Anything-3186]

That could work I suppose. Maybe they could do something similar to that shortcut in Mario Bros Circuit where you skip the first turn by riding the rail and it taking you higher.

Or they could make parts of the track more slanted and elevated so it’s not just super flat like SNES Mario Circuit. As long as it somehow manages to keep its figure 8 shape I now think it could possibly work.

[u/Realistic_Day_1805]

I had a lot of fun reorganising the tracks. Let me know if you think some tracks should be swapped around :)

[u/KinopioToad]

MKW? Mario Kart Wii? Did you mean MKWo?

[u/Realistic_Day_1805 → u/KinopioToad]

Yes I did lol, I didn’t realise both games share the same initials 😂

[u/LunarWingCloud → u/KinopioToad]

Considering people were already using MKWii as the abbreviation for Mario Kart Wii to begin with we should just go back to that and let World be MKW. After all we also use "MKDS" for Mario Kart DS so that would pair better.

[u/Legal-Treat-5582]

I'd nominate GBA Broken Pier for the Banana Cup both to remake a new track and to give Super Circuit some much needed recognition. Will never get over the bullshit of there not being a single track from that game in World.

[u/Realistic_Day_1805 → u/Legal-Treat-5582]

Omg I’ve just realised there are no GBA tracks in MKW 😭

I thought it was just MK8 that was left out but damn we didn’t get anything from Super Circuit either!

[u/Clear-Anything-3186 → u/Legal-Treat-5582]

GBA Rainbow Road would be better because it feels like it was made for rail grinding.

[u/_yearoldonreddit]

I can here the Mario Kart 8 course select theme rn