From: foolm0ron | #027
This is the dumbest statement
So what? It's "just for fun" so that means it doesn't have to be balanced? News flash bro, balanced games are way more fun than random crap (unless you have ADD or something I guess).
I never said anything about balance, I'm saying most people who complain about the balance of games are people who are trying to make it competitive, when they shouldn't be.
If you want to talk about balance, I'd make the argument that it is pretty balanced(item wise) to begin with. Aside from earlier games such as Mario Kart 64, where you could literally get a lightning bolt in 1st place.
Flying Blue shells in the Wii version you could dodge, not only from having a star, or a mushroom of some sort, but you could also destroy it if you were in the air and threw your held item back, you could dodge them by trick boosts, among other things. Lightning bolts by inexperienced players were easy to predict(they would be used right away) and ones by experienced players were easy to predict(often used on first place going over a gap or a group of players going over a gap). All the other items were pretty irrelevant, and the only that was absolutely terrible was the Thundercloud, which isn't in this game.
Really it just came down on how smart you were with your items, were you going to use you power items to boost and get shortcuts? Or were you going to save them for impending doom such as lightning or a blue shell.
But, if you want items off, there will probably be strong chance of customizable rules in hosted matches. I only say this because Nintendo mentioned something about communities in online rooms. That could mean like something related to clans, and how they want to play, custom rules, ect, ect.