Board 8 > Ranking all 96 tracks in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, with writeups

(+) Yeah! (+)

The end is nigh. The Switch 2 is coming out tomorrow, and with it, Mario Kart World, and with that, the best game in the Mario Kart franchise (so far) will be shelved in favor of the sequel. I won't actually be playing MKW for a while because uh, I can't afford a Switch 2 right now, and getting one would be nearly impossible anyway, so it's gonna have to wait until at LEAST Christmas. But even just KNOWING that World is out will take a lot of the shine off of 8, so it feels like I have to say goodbye to it now. Tragically, the last few months I really got back into playing it a lot, realizing just how great it is and trying to get a lot of playtime in before people move on, and I've probably played it more in 2025 than I have in any year past. So I really wanted to do this ranking, and now, there's no more time left. It has to be done now or never, while it's still the most recent game in the series. So I'm choosing now. Let's just do it.

This is a ranking of all 96 tracks in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, obviously including the Booster Pack courses. I am ranking the tracks by how much I like them and how much I want to pick them in the random offerings given to me online. It's just one person's opinion and I'm sure a lot of my opinions are well outside the norm - make your own ranking with me if you're so inclined to do so!

Criteria for the list: Whatever I want. Track design isn't the only thing I care about; stuff like theming, visuals, music, weird quirks, fun features, all that stuff is just as important to me when picking what track I want to race. All of this stuff makes a track "fun."

I'm not a pro at Mario Kart 8 - I kind of suck, I'm basically an intermediate level player with good fundamentals but I'm lazy, don't really memorize the best lanes on tracks, frequently forget about shortcuts, and I don't really have the fire for shaving off the seconds needed to consistently win. So pro strats for these tracks don't really matter to me at all - I'm not even aware of them. I'm ranking these tracks like I'm a very good beginner at the game.

I'm going to try not to overdo this list so let's just get to it

96. Tokyo Blur

I need to start by re-iterating that there aren't any BAD tracks in MK8D, in my opinion. Not a single truly bad track! So picking a #96 is kind of hard, since there's no truly loathsome track in the bunch. Despite that, for me, Tokyo Blur is definitively the least good track in the game. I feel like this is kind of a hot take for some reason - oh surely it's not THAT bad? Well no, it's not that bad. But every track has something a little bit more going for it and Tokyo Blur is just such a big nothing. It's somehow the most bland city track, which is bizarre because one thing about Japanese game devs is that they never shy away from making Tokyo or Japan in general the coolest place on earth. Part of that is exoticism from a western perspective, sure, but this track really fails to evoke pretty much anything unique about Tokyo, which is not normally a problem people who live in Tokyo have when depicting Tokyo. And then the track's just... dull. It's basically a normal circuit course but it's as bland as it gets. It's kinda cute to drive through the highway toll gate but that's about it - there are no features on this track that I could really remember or describe for you. All 95 other tracks in this game contain a more compelling reason for me to want to play it.

95. Daisy Circuit

This seems like the right time to complain about the travesty that this is the closest thing there is to a Luigi track in the game. 96 tracks, and not a single one of them is Luigi themed. Disgusting, really. Nothing against Daisy, but she's got two tracks in this game and the other one's way better. Daisy Circuit has nice lighting but that's about all. I hate the 8-shaped part of the track; I always feel like I'm supposed to turn in a circle and end up accidentally going the wrong way instead of turning where I'm supposed to. The track doesn't really have a lot of interesting features; there's a part where you can drive along a little elevated part of track at the starting line and it's just like, why? It's such a miniscule time save and it's really only for the time trial sickos. Again, this track is bad but every other track in this game, except Tokyo Blur, offers a more compelling reason to choose it. This was a late addition in the booster course and it felt like a waste of space to me.

tag

94. London Loop

If not for the red phonebooths, I would barely know this is London. This is just another really bland Tour course that feels mostly like it's driving on a road without any notable features; there's a couple of busses and a chain chomp that gets loose at some point, but that's mostly it. At least let us like, drive up Big Ben or something, I don't know! A complaint I have with a lot of Tour courses is that the path through the course is overly complicated but the race is still very simple, and a lot of times I just don't feel like it's clear which way I'm supposed to turn and I get thrown off visually. It's not a huge problem, but it's enough of a problem that racing this track doesn't feel worth it; there's no payoff for the apparent complexity. I like the British rock style music here but this is a pretty disappointing take on London.

Tag. Predicting a lot of Tour tracks in the bottom 10...!

Tag. Also predicting that the bottom is very Tour-heavy.

93. Paris Promenade

Unlike the previous two Tour tracks I ranked, I don't think this one is a failure of theming. This satisfies my desires for a Paris-themed track. You get to drive under a big Eiffel Tower! Yay! As far as track design goes this one's not terrible - the reason I have it ranked so low is because out of all the tracks in the game, this is the one where I get the most confused by turns. I feel like I need to have the track memorized because I never know which way I'm supposed to turn and I always get confused. That just makes it the most frustrating track to drive on, and the payoff for it is weak. I think it's fun that it sends you backwards for the third lap, but it doesn't really change the course that much and there's another course that does the gimmick better.

Paratroopa1 posted...

95. Daisy Circuit

wow bad drop immediately

92. Sweet Sweet Canyon

The water looks like piss. I'm sorry, someone has to say it. I don't know what it's supposed to be. Honey? Apple cider? Beats the absolute shit out of me. I can't stop thinking that it's piss and I'm driving through piss and this intrusive thought won't leave my brain and it makes the theming of this track the worst in the game. The rest of the track doesn't look that great either - it should be more colorful and appetizing but the more 'realistic' look they went for in the original MK8 tracks kind of betrays the concept. The track itself is fine to drive on, so I don't consider it the worst, but the theming is just such a failure.

91. Dry Dry Desert

It's possible to make desert tracks in MK that are fun and cool and have stuff in them! There's at least two in this game, maybe more! This one is uh... yeah it really is just a vast expanse of sand, huh? Alright. I'd probably rank this one even lower if not for the fact that you can do mushroom boosts on the sand and jumping off the holes in the oasis is fun. The irony is not lost on me that the most fun part of Dry Dry Desert is, uh, the water section. I guess it also has a big pit. That's fun! Love to drive around a big pit. Yeah, I don't know, it's one of the most forgettable tracks in the game. If it were gone I probably wouldn't even notice.

It boggles my mind that you would put a track from Mario Kart Wii (arguably one of the greatest Mario Kart games ever released) that low on the list. I think Daisy Circuit is awesome.

90. Rainbow Road (N64)

THIS IS NOT MY N64 RAINBOW ROAD. The one I remember is huge, empty, and takes way too fucking long to race, and that's how it should be! I admit that the idea of a 6-minute long marathon course like the original sounded like a way better idea as a kid than it does now, but the whole idea of the track feeling so big and epic was kind of the point and it's... totally lost here. The track looks great, the music sounds great, but it's over so comedically fast that it leaves you wondering what the point was. You don't even get a full loop of the music! It has to be the shortest track in the game, right? You can't get into the atmosphere at all because it's so brutally short. I'd like to just enjoy it while it lasts, but it just kind of ends up pissing me off. This could have been 3 laps and while it would be long if it was, I'd like it a lot more.

_Keeby posted...

It boggles my mind that you would put a track from Mario Kart Wii (arguably one of the greatest Mario Kart games ever released) that low on the list. I think Daisy Circuit is awesome.

Well...

89. Mushroom Gorge

This is probably a wildly controversial drop but I don't know. I grant that it's a pretty iconic course - it's one of the ones I remember best from Mario Kart Wii, the MK game I've strangely played the least. Didn't really like the Wii, was kind of jaded about console games for a while, so I've exhaustively played every Mario Kart game EXCEPT Wii so they're the only tracks that don't carry some degree of nostalgia for me. Mushroom Gorge has a fun theme and kinda feels fun, at first, but then I thought about it and realized that there wasn't really a lot going on. You're just bouncing on mushrooms and it's... actually not that sastisfying, in my opinion? I don't feel like I have a lot of control in the bouncy section and I don't feel like I'm really able to gain much of an advantage in it. I'm sure someone much better than me can, but it's my ranking, and I'm always left feeling like Mushroom Gorge is just kind of a little boring and dissatisfying and it doesn't live up to the expectation in my head of how fun it'll actually be.

Tag

I wish I could commit this hard to something for work lol

88. Sunset Wilds

When I said Mario Kart Wii is the ONLY MK game I haven't played exhaustively, I meant it; I played a ton of Super Circuit and I DO have nostalgia for the most 'forgotten' entry in the series, so I'm happy that the game has quite a few Super Circuit tracks. Sunset Wilds is the weakest of them. It's just too flat and uninspired and it lacks the sunset that happens as you're racing! That was the whole point of Sunset Wilds! (It is probably good that they took out the kind of racist Shy Guys though.) There's boosts and a few cool dinosaurs tracks and stuff but I really feel like the track needs more elevation or something because it feels like it's missing a few things. I don't hate it though - from here on out pretty much every tracks is basically worth picking to me.

I like the turns in Daisy Circuit. And the music. And the glider section they added is kinda neat.

Nothing mindblowing about it, but's one of the best of the "basic, cup starter" tracks in the series.

Admittedly that one stupid turn that I always try to take wrong in Daisy Circuit does a lot to damage it for me, I'm just kinda stupid

87. Amsterdam Drift

We're past the bottom tier stuff as far as Tour tracks goes. Amsterdam Drift is a step up from the ones I had at the bottom; I like the look of it and racing on it isn't frustrating. The architecture's cute, I like racing through the pasture with the windmills, and I really like the section with all the tulips and Piranha Plants at the end; I think it's a great segment to end the track on. But I don't really get why literally half of this track is underwater? It's really bland when it's underwater and totally loses the feel of the theming. I feel like it's only underwater because Mario Kart Tour wanted to have at least one track go underwater a bunch, but it doesn't really have any great ideas when it's down there. The rest of the track is fine but mostly forgettable.

Paratroopa1 posted...

This is probably a wildly controversial drop but I don't know

yeah its way too high

Paratroopa1 posted...

the music sounds great

Wait but I thought we were in the Mario Kart 8 topic.

Dedf1sh posted...

Wait but I thought we were in the Mario Kart 8 topic.

This time I am not the one with the minority opinion here

86. Toad Circuit

It's Toad Circuit! Uhh... yep, it's Toad Circuit. I know it's more boring than some of the other tracks I ranked lower but one opinion I hold here is that the really basic courses DO have their place, when that's all they're trying to be - this is probably the most basic ass 'just a race course' track but like, I kinda like it, I dunno. It's compact so there's a lot of interactions with other drivers. I like the mushroom shortcut through the pipes. I like the big Toad balloons. I like that you can fly over the bridge if you want to. Hey, it's still longer than freaking Rainbow Road 64 over here.

85. Water Park

Uhh it could be easily argued that this track should be ten spots lower and I'm giving it way too long a leash here even putting it up in the high 80's. The track is pretty dull and doesn't offer much and it doesn't do as much with its theme as it could and it has a flying section where all you can do is ram into a big ferris wheel for some reason. But I still like the theming of it and I think it's fun and chill to drive around on despite being one of the most basic and featureless courses in the game. I DO wish it did more with the theming; hell, there's multiple tracks in this game that do the concept of a water slide pretty well and this ISN'T one of them, somehow. Ah well - I still like the look of this track overall and I think it serves well enough as the second track of the game.

84. Los Angeles Laps

Weird. There's something that's just kind of uncanny about this one and I can't put my finger on it. I like the start with the Santa Monica pier and the beach and tricking off these kind of skate park-ish elements, but then after that I can't really remember any part of the track - it just blurs together. Somehow the city feels more fake and sterile than Los Angeles even is in real life. The energy of this track is wrong. The music sucks - it should have like, a Beach Boys surf rock kind of vibe, or maybe something ska inspired, instead of whatever this is. And the third lap takes you through... the um, the Inglewood Oil Field? Really? I do actually think this part's fun to race through, so points for that, but it's a weird and ugly take on LA. I do really like flying through the baseball park and I like all the palm trees and shopping mall vibes but I feel like they could have done more with LA. Where's all the traffic! There should be part of this course that takes you through I-5 where it's just jammed with traffic and you have to swerve through - or drive over - a bunch of parked cars.

83. Yoshi Valley

Yoshi Valley has kind of always been a track that doesn't really work, and it still doesn't. There are so many ways to go! But realistically, there's only one or two routes that are actually worth taking, and one way or another most people just kind of settle into a route they're most used to. Even with 12 people, the track doesn't really feel particularly hectic or chaotic enough - the seperate routes spread people out enough that they have less fighting over space and the track isn't (or doesn't feel) as narrow as it was in N64 anyway. So the whole maze-like features of the course feel like they're kinda without purpose. But it's a nostalgic track with a still-entirely unique concept, and I like the big egg. The big egg counts for a lot, for me. I like the big egg.

I still say they should have called it "Waluigi's Water Park" or something and theme it up

82. Rock Rock Mountain

This is a track that really surprised me with how low I ended up having it, but I just didn't see a reason to place it higher. It's another track where the conception in my head of how fun it will be doesn't really match the reality of actually playing it. Yeah, it's got that one uphill section where you're boosting past falling boulders and that's awesome, but the rest of it? There's not actually that much going on. The flying section is what really kills this track for me - it's one of the longest flying sections in the game and I don't know why it's there. You're flying over a huge part of the track that looks like it would be more fun to just drive through, but there's no reason to not just fly over and skip all of it unless you got really unfortunately Lightninged or something. I'm generally not a big fan of long flying sections in this game unless they have some gimmick or a clear thematic purpose, since flying in this game is just usually not very fun, and this is a track that does not need it at all. By no means a bad track, but this part of the list is filled with tracks that make me go "oh, do I really rank this one that low? Yeah, I guess I do".

Having one of the most impactful shroom shortcuts in the game right before the finish makes for a bad track imo

Great list so far. Sweet Sweet Canyon and N64 Rainbow Road are my only wtfs so far. Tokyo Blur is...the correct 96, Blur approved. Toad Circuit should be 95 though tbh

Paris Promenade would also probably be a bit higher for me. But yeah, mostly agreeing with this low tier section and agreed that there really isn't a bad track in the game.

...though I kind of hate Ice Ice Outpost for some reason. I think I just overplayed it way back on the Wii U.

Tag

Tag

Also, N64 Rainbow Road would have been perfect if it was two laps. I don't mind that it's not ridiculously long now, but one lap is way too short and that's much worse.

i mostly agree with this. the worst level in the game should have showed up by now though :)

i like n64 rainbow road but i dont feel particularly brave in saying this track would've been perfect if you got to run exactly 2 laps of it, and the criticism is very valid.

The length of RR64 is really my only problem with it at all to be honest, and if it were longer it'd rank a lot higher - but racing it is just consistently a jarring experience and I don't have any fun because it's over so quickly.

81. Athens Dash

This is another one of those Tour tracks that I think would be pretty good, except I always, ALWAYS find myself having problems figuring out where to turn when I play it. I just cannot predict where I'm supposed to drive next and the resulting friction just makes me kind of not want to play it. Which is too bad, because in theory I think this track is actually perfectly fine, and the theming with all its ancient Greek ruins is fantastic, so there's plenty of stuff going for it here, and it's just totally a personal hang-up with my ability to actually read the track itself. It doesn't throw me quite as badly as Paris Promenade so I will still pick this one sometimes, but it's not a smooth ride.

every track that drops before mario circuit 3 hurts my soul

Hbthebattle posted...

every track that drops before mario circuit 3 hurts my soul

Uh, well, settle in for some soul hurting I guess

Mushroom Gorge is an all-timer for me. Boo.

80. Cheep Cheep Beach

Cheep Cheep Beach is a perfectly competent and fun track that has no real problems but loses a little bit of its luster when you realize you can just kind of drive through the water instead of having to stay on the narrow sand bars through the beach portion of it. But much like Los Angeles Laps, I like driving on the pier and I like the beach atmosphere. Perfectly decent track, there's just 79 others that are better for one reason or another. It would be hard for me to find many more things to say about it. I'd much rather have GCN Peach Beach here and its Cataquacks, but alas.

mc3 is a great track. im sure its boring to some folks because its visually nothing but it has a satisfying layout, great drifting, and even some shortcut options. also think that mario circuit ds is a really underrated one because its also pretty visually blah. that S turn at the end is where dreams are made! (and go to die)

I'm glad to see so many Tour tracks dropping this early. I hate the whole "turns change every lap" gimmick, especially since the visual indicators of which way to go aren't very good.

79. Sky-High Sundae

Does this track suck? Yes! Is it basically just an oval with a couple of really simple low gravity jumps over some obstacles? Yup! Does it have really anything going for it at all from a racing perspective? Not a thing! Do I like jumping on the big ice creams? I LIKE JUMPING ON THE BIG ICE CREAMS. This course is just so vibrant and colorful to look at and unlike Sweet Sweet Canyon I do actually want to eat the race course. I very much want to eat it. I pick it for the aesthetics alone. I wish it was a real track that they actually remembered to design. I'll still occasionally pick it over the more generic looking tracks because it just kinda makes my brain do that.

knowing that mk world was being developed at the same time as tour and the booster course pass makes sky high sundae make a lot more sense to me. this was kind of like a placeholder version of a track better suited and more fitting for mk world physics!

Naye745 posted...

knowing that mk world was being developed at the same time as tour and the booster course pass makes sky high sundae make a lot more sense to me. this was kind of like a placeholder version of a track better suited and more fitting for mk world physics!

Oh yeah, this is a really good point. It does seem like it's meant for MKW.

78. DK Summit

Sorry, sorry. I know a lot of these beloved Wii tracks are dropping early and I know this one's going to be controversial. I know it's going to come off like a huge skill issue, but I just suck ass at this one. I keep plowing into snow piles and I don't find slaloming around on the half-pipe fun or intuitive at all. Something about this whole track just doesn't work for me, despite the fact that it ought to, because the concept is great. As far as Donkey Kong tracks where you get shot to the top of a mountain and drive down it go, this one is not my favorite.

DK Summit might be the most skill-heavy track in the game (I say this not even really thinking about it at all)

Taking those shortcuts across the gaps is pretty tough, and you can cheat the speed-boosts on the slalom if you take them correctly. Doing that is pretty tough. Doing that in a race with a crapload of people and explosions flying around everywhere is madness. But if you can, you can get crazy huge leads on everyone else.

Damn Sky High Sundae is top 20 for me! Perfect aesthetics and low grav nonsense. Also yeah, making N64 Rainbow Road 2 laps would have been such an easy fix. Shame they didn't change that in Deluxe.

dk summit is good! it has iconic music too. that said i think halfpipes have always felt like an awkward thing to exist in a kart racer and the courses in the booster course pass do not change my mind on this lol

77. Snow Land

It's Snow Land, a remake of the worst track in Mario Kart history! Oh my god, why the fuck did it shake like that, why does it make me feel like I'm going to have a seizure whenever I raced on it? Well good news, it's not like that anymore, and also it generally doesn't resemble the track it's based on at all, which is totally fine! It looks beautiful and it has penguins and that's great. The game already feels oversaturated with snow/winter themed levels and this one kinda fails to stand out, just being called Snow Land. I mean, it does look pretty and it has the penguins, yes. And I do like the 'old' Mario Kart look in general with all the colorful blocks and stuff. It's just... you know. There's competition at this point. I generally pretty much like the tracks from here on out and this is more forgettable than everything higher on the list. But it's not a bad time.

76. Sydney Sprint

The Sydney tourism board should write a big thank-you to the makers of Mario Kart, because this track makes Sydney seem like so much fun - it's just bursting with energy all over the place, like a big theme park. Previous city courses on this list have just sort of had a problem where they feel kind of plastic, especially Los Angeles, but this is the first one that I think actually feels like driving through a real city - you can see stuff off in the distance, you can see stuff that's obscured by other stuff, it feels like it has actual depth to it, it's not just a potemkin village of cardboard cutouts made to look like a city. Why do I not have it ranked higher? Put simply, the track itself is just really nondescript. I can't remember much about it aside from the bridge where you can do tricks off the ramps. Again, the competition here is fierce, this is a good track but it's gotta have something a little more for me. (Also the music's kinda overrated, sorry - it's good but it's MK8, so there's better.)

75. Sherbet Land

Honest to god, I'm really MK64-brained, so I basically never remember that there's a Sherbet Land in DD even though I played a ton of DD, and I never remember that that track that I don't remember is also in MK8. But then when I play it I'm like, this track's good, actually? Again, maybe it's just the oversaturation of winter-themed tracks that makes me forget this one exists. But I do like driving over the broken ice sheets where you can optionally go underwater and take some boosts. And I like the fireworks that are going off in the background a lot; the scenery in this track is a lot prettier and more festive than it seems like it's going to be. It's a solid track that is only hindered by its inability to stand out from the crowd. Also I just realized I had a bunch of snow-themed tracks in a big group there. I guess that's intentional.