Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – Booster Course Pass Wave 5 Review

New characters and courses have made their way to Nintendo’s long-running Mario Kart 8 Deluxe with Booster Course Pack Wave 5. With eight new tracks now on tap, should players kick the tires and light the fires once more?

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – Booster Course Pass Wave 5 Review

As part of the new Feather Cup and Cherry Cup, eight new courses make their appearance as part of this DLC. However, these are more than just mere 1:1 ports; tracks from the Game Boy Advance, Nintendo GameCube, and Nintendo Wii era have gotten a nice glow-up that really make them stand out from the days of post-punk and Razor scooters.

The shiny high-res coat of paint is just the start; the inclusion of different music in different sections, use of underwater, antigravity, and aerial sections, and additional tweaks to track layout have made sure classics like Moonview Highway and Daisy Cruiser are back and better than ever. Even the most “flat” Mode 7 style worlds have been given a new lease on life.

Wave 5 of the Booster Course Pass also includes a number of tracks from Mario Kart Tour that will whisk players away to Athens, Los Angeles, and Vancouver. Tributes to famous landmarks are present and accounted for, each a delight to traverse. Each lap features a different part of the track as well, making sure that things are fresh and dynamic as players check out hockey games and the Santa Monica Pier.

There’s also a newcomer track in this Booster Course Pass in the form of Squeaky Clean Sprint. Shrinking racers down into pint-sized versions, players will traverse a bathroom, going down the drain, flying over a toilet, and making sure they are so fresh and so clean (clean). There’s plenty of hazards to avoid, paraglider and anti-gravity segments, and other factors that make it a nice addition to the roster – even if there’s more water segments than one is used to.

This level of detail in Wave 5 of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe’s Booster Course Pass also extends to its new characters. Made up of Kamek, Petey Piranha, and Wiggler and their own designated weight classes, each of these three has gotten the attention-to-detail that they so rightly deserve. From Kamek’s unique horn to Wiggler’s (rightly just) temper tantrums after being hit with a blue shell, it’s great to see the amount of polish on display.

However, not all is rosy in this release. Balance is still as skewed as ever, with an ungodly amount of items thrown by AI at players leading the pack. Much like previous waves, the perspective could use some work – some of the characters in the background and other areas aren’t quite up to scale.

Wave 5 of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe’s Booster Course Pass provides a compelling case to come back nearly a decade after its vanilla release. Whether one wants to hit the town or the tub, there’s a little something for everybody here.

This review of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – Booster Course Pass Wave 5 was done on the Nintendo Switch. The pass was purchased digitally.