A great new release title for 3DS is out. Mario Kart 7 has arrived as the third portable Mario Kart game in existence as of today. The other two portable Mario Kart games would be Mario Kart Super Circuit and Mario Kart DS. I think I can say for everyone that Super Circuit is nowhere close to being better for either Mario Kart DS or Mario Kart 7 so I'll leave it out.
Mario Kart 7 features a few new things that no other Mario Kart game held: customizable karts, underwater courses, and gliders.
In the first few Mario Kart games, characters were set to only one available kart. Eventually more karts came in that certain characters could use. Different karts gave different stats. Now, in Mario Kart 7, you are able to choose the body, the wheels, and the glider for the stats you are most comfortable with. Certain bodies, wheels, and gliders are not limited to any character.
The Gliders are new to Mario Kart 7. They appear whenever you take off a blue boost jump on a track. After lifting off, the glider will appear and you are able to fully control your kart in the air. You can make it turn left, right, sink down, and rise up.
Ah water. Remember how annoying water was in many Mario Kart games? Fall into it, and you had to wait until you were picked up by a Lakitu in order to continue driving. "No more of that!" Nintendo said. They added a small submarine propeller to all the karts and made it automatically pop out when inside water. Some of the new 3DS tracks make use of this water driving ability. Even some retro courses like Koopa Cape were slightly modified to have some points where this propeller could be useful.
Oh yes! I forgot to mention, coins have returned in Mario Kart 7. Previously used in Super Circuit, coins could be collected on track in order to boost your top speed. A maximum of 10 coins can be held. If you hit a banana peel or fall off the edge, you'll lose a few coins. Coins are also required to unlock new bodies, wheels, and gliders. So while you play the Grand Prix, be sure to collect many coins.
The items featured in this game are: banana peel and triple banana peel, green shell and triple green shell, red shell and triple red shell, star, blue shell, mushroom, triple mushroom, blooper, golden mushroom, lightning, and bullet bill. There are also 3 new items in Mario Kart 7: the fire flower, the leaf, and the 7.
The fire flower allows you shoot an infinite amount of fireballs for a certain amount of time. The fireballs only last 3 seconds before disappearing. Also, only 2 fireballs can be on the track at a time. Firing a fireball when two of your fireballs are already roaming around will make the first fireball you launched vanish.
The leaf give your kart a tail to swat off players and items. it can deflect shells, banana peels, and fireballs. It occupies your item box for time that it's activated so it's impossible to get another item while the tail is still there. It disappears after a short amount of time. falling off a cliff or hitting an item will also make the tail go away.
The 7 Power Up gives the player 7 items that rotate around you: a green shell, a star, a bob-omb, a mushroom, a red shell, a banana peel, and a blooper. Pressing the X/L button will make whatever item is in front of you act as if it was used. If hit by lightning, a bullet bill, or an invincible player, all the items rotating around you will vanish.
Lastly, Blue shells move on the ground through the middle of the road. If you're in the middle of the road and a blue shell is coming, move out of the way or it will hit you. It will jump into the air and hit the player in first upon reaching them.
Multiplayer is amazing. Not only can you do a 3DS download and be able to do grand prix on any cup, but even the online is almost exactly like single player. There's only a few differences like goombas and certain enemies not showing up at certain points as they would in single player.
Downfalls of this game? There are quite a few. Being in first can sometimes be unstoppable, or completely ruined. If you have 10 coins and are in first with a good lead, you are pretty much going to win unless you make a bad screw up somewhere. On the other hand, you could be dominating as you're in first and a red shell/blue shell happens to hit you near the end of the final lap. Depending on your lead, you either might not be affected, get in third, or place somewhere in 6th-8th despite your amount of skill in the game. They also got rid of Waluigi and Drybones. Waluigi was used up to the Wii version from Double Dash, while Dry bones was used in the DS version and the Wii version.
It's incredibly easy to get 3 stars as a rank on every cup. Mario Kart 7 is by far the easiest Mario Kart game when it comes to getting the highest rank. When I played both the 50cc and 100cc grand prix, I got 3 star ranks on every cup without having to do the cup a second time.
Some new characters like Metal Mario, Queen Bee, Wiggler, and Lakitu make it into the game as well.
Sure this is a great game, but there's also Mario Kart DS.
Oh the days of the DS! They sometimes were swell and other times they sucked. But who could forget Mario Kart DS? A huge advance from Super Circuit, it was the second portable version of a Mario Kart game and was the first Mario Kart game to feature online multiplayer.
With the limits of the DS's capabilities, the graphics weren't great on Mario Kart DS. Shells, banana peels, some enemies, and even stars were two dimensional. But graphics aren't what make a game. Game play is.
Featuring some new characters like Drybones and R.O.B. and also featuring a whopping list of 36 different karts! Mario Kart DS was also the first game to have the bullet bill item and the last game to use the Boo item. Mario Kart DS held challenge in obtaining ranks and just overall winning the race. This game wasn't really item-dependent. It was more focused on skill as to reaching first place. Unfortunately, the mini-turbo method of the game required pressing left and right one after the other in order to get a mini-turbo while drifting. This was abused in order to make a method called "snaking" in which a player would drift on a straightaway, quickly press left and right twice to get a mini-turbo, and repeat until reaching the end of a straightaway. This technique ruined a lot of fun for many players on Wi-fi.
All the DS tracks are unique in their own way. In my opinion, there's only a few bad tracks that Mario Kart DS had. But wait! There's something else!
Missions! Yes! Being the only Mario Kart game to include missions (not including tournament events in Mario Kart Wii), Mario Kart DS was nice enough to provide something different than racing. It had an optional section that allowed you to do missions. These missions included collecting all the coins, driving through all the rings, defeating all the goombas, fighting/racing bosses, and many more! It was certainly different but very enjoyable for people that liked doing something other than racing. In my opinion, it's a shame they never brought back missions. I enjoyed them very much.
Multiplayer was possible for people without the game via ds download, but were limited to the mushroom cup and the banana peel cup. If multicard, all tracks were available. Online multiplayer was slightly different. Emblems were made to identify people and you could customize it or choose not to use it. Unfortunately, this is the only game that used it. Miis became the replacement for identification. Only 4 players were allowed to race each other on wi-fi and items could not be held behind them in order to deflect things. and sort of triple weapon could not be obtained through wi-fi racing either.
Sure Mario Kart DS doesn't sound as amazing as Mario Kart 7, but growing up with the DS system and seeing that game come out was glorious.
To finish my review, which is better, Mario Kart DS or Mario Kart 7? My answer? Neither. I believe both games were amazing. Mario Kart DS was amazing for the new missions addition and how much it could do despite the DS's possibilities. Mario Kart 7 was great for the improvements it made but also lacked difficulty and making skill a little more useful than it is in this game. Both games get a rating of 8.5.
Therefore,
Mario Kart 7 = Mario Kart DS
in rating.
Mario Kart 7 features a few new things that no other Mario Kart game held: customizable karts, underwater courses, and gliders.
In the first few Mario Kart games, characters were set to only one available kart. Eventually more karts came in that certain characters could use. Different karts gave different stats. Now, in Mario Kart 7, you are able to choose the body, the wheels, and the glider for the stats you are most comfortable with. Certain bodies, wheels, and gliders are not limited to any character.
The Gliders are new to Mario Kart 7. They appear whenever you take off a blue boost jump on a track. After lifting off, the glider will appear and you are able to fully control your kart in the air. You can make it turn left, right, sink down, and rise up.
Ah water. Remember how annoying water was in many Mario Kart games? Fall into it, and you had to wait until you were picked up by a Lakitu in order to continue driving. "No more of that!" Nintendo said. They added a small submarine propeller to all the karts and made it automatically pop out when inside water. Some of the new 3DS tracks make use of this water driving ability. Even some retro courses like Koopa Cape were slightly modified to have some points where this propeller could be useful.
Oh yes! I forgot to mention, coins have returned in Mario Kart 7. Previously used in Super Circuit, coins could be collected on track in order to boost your top speed. A maximum of 10 coins can be held. If you hit a banana peel or fall off the edge, you'll lose a few coins. Coins are also required to unlock new bodies, wheels, and gliders. So while you play the Grand Prix, be sure to collect many coins.
The items featured in this game are: banana peel and triple banana peel, green shell and triple green shell, red shell and triple red shell, star, blue shell, mushroom, triple mushroom, blooper, golden mushroom, lightning, and bullet bill. There are also 3 new items in Mario Kart 7: the fire flower, the leaf, and the 7.
The fire flower allows you shoot an infinite amount of fireballs for a certain amount of time. The fireballs only last 3 seconds before disappearing. Also, only 2 fireballs can be on the track at a time. Firing a fireball when two of your fireballs are already roaming around will make the first fireball you launched vanish.
The leaf give your kart a tail to swat off players and items. it can deflect shells, banana peels, and fireballs. It occupies your item box for time that it's activated so it's impossible to get another item while the tail is still there. It disappears after a short amount of time. falling off a cliff or hitting an item will also make the tail go away.
The 7 Power Up gives the player 7 items that rotate around you: a green shell, a star, a bob-omb, a mushroom, a red shell, a banana peel, and a blooper. Pressing the X/L button will make whatever item is in front of you act as if it was used. If hit by lightning, a bullet bill, or an invincible player, all the items rotating around you will vanish.
Lastly, Blue shells move on the ground through the middle of the road. If you're in the middle of the road and a blue shell is coming, move out of the way or it will hit you. It will jump into the air and hit the player in first upon reaching them.
Multiplayer is amazing. Not only can you do a 3DS download and be able to do grand prix on any cup, but even the online is almost exactly like single player. There's only a few differences like goombas and certain enemies not showing up at certain points as they would in single player.
Downfalls of this game? There are quite a few. Being in first can sometimes be unstoppable, or completely ruined. If you have 10 coins and are in first with a good lead, you are pretty much going to win unless you make a bad screw up somewhere. On the other hand, you could be dominating as you're in first and a red shell/blue shell happens to hit you near the end of the final lap. Depending on your lead, you either might not be affected, get in third, or place somewhere in 6th-8th despite your amount of skill in the game. They also got rid of Waluigi and Drybones. Waluigi was used up to the Wii version from Double Dash, while Dry bones was used in the DS version and the Wii version.
It's incredibly easy to get 3 stars as a rank on every cup. Mario Kart 7 is by far the easiest Mario Kart game when it comes to getting the highest rank. When I played both the 50cc and 100cc grand prix, I got 3 star ranks on every cup without having to do the cup a second time.
Some new characters like Metal Mario, Queen Bee, Wiggler, and Lakitu make it into the game as well.
Sure this is a great game, but there's also Mario Kart DS.
Oh the days of the DS! They sometimes were swell and other times they sucked. But who could forget Mario Kart DS? A huge advance from Super Circuit, it was the second portable version of a Mario Kart game and was the first Mario Kart game to feature online multiplayer.
With the limits of the DS's capabilities, the graphics weren't great on Mario Kart DS. Shells, banana peels, some enemies, and even stars were two dimensional. But graphics aren't what make a game. Game play is.
Featuring some new characters like Drybones and R.O.B. and also featuring a whopping list of 36 different karts! Mario Kart DS was also the first game to have the bullet bill item and the last game to use the Boo item. Mario Kart DS held challenge in obtaining ranks and just overall winning the race. This game wasn't really item-dependent. It was more focused on skill as to reaching first place. Unfortunately, the mini-turbo method of the game required pressing left and right one after the other in order to get a mini-turbo while drifting. This was abused in order to make a method called "snaking" in which a player would drift on a straightaway, quickly press left and right twice to get a mini-turbo, and repeat until reaching the end of a straightaway. This technique ruined a lot of fun for many players on Wi-fi.
All the DS tracks are unique in their own way. In my opinion, there's only a few bad tracks that Mario Kart DS had. But wait! There's something else!
Missions! Yes! Being the only Mario Kart game to include missions (not including tournament events in Mario Kart Wii), Mario Kart DS was nice enough to provide something different than racing. It had an optional section that allowed you to do missions. These missions included collecting all the coins, driving through all the rings, defeating all the goombas, fighting/racing bosses, and many more! It was certainly different but very enjoyable for people that liked doing something other than racing. In my opinion, it's a shame they never brought back missions. I enjoyed them very much.
Multiplayer was possible for people without the game via ds download, but were limited to the mushroom cup and the banana peel cup. If multicard, all tracks were available. Online multiplayer was slightly different. Emblems were made to identify people and you could customize it or choose not to use it. Unfortunately, this is the only game that used it. Miis became the replacement for identification. Only 4 players were allowed to race each other on wi-fi and items could not be held behind them in order to deflect things. and sort of triple weapon could not be obtained through wi-fi racing either.
Sure Mario Kart DS doesn't sound as amazing as Mario Kart 7, but growing up with the DS system and seeing that game come out was glorious.
To finish my review, which is better, Mario Kart DS or Mario Kart 7? My answer? Neither. I believe both games were amazing. Mario Kart DS was amazing for the new missions addition and how much it could do despite the DS's possibilities. Mario Kart 7 was great for the improvements it made but also lacked difficulty and making skill a little more useful than it is in this game. Both games get a rating of 8.5.
Therefore,
Mario Kart 7 = Mario Kart DS
in rating.
