Let's Rank: The Mario Kart Games

This is it, this is Nintendo's big one. Their most popular series. No matter what platform it shows up on, it sells roughly a metric ton every single time. it also helps that it is absolutely fucking amazing. Mario Kart is the epitome of fun. It's practically a rite of passage for gamers, something everyone plays at least once. It's what local multiplayer gaming should be all about.

There are eight of them. Yes, surprising to think that in over 20 years of existence, only eight ever released (for reference, we have eleven Call of Duty games in eleven years, and seven Assassin's Creed games in eight years, not counting any 'non-mainline' games for either series), but there you have it.

How would you rank them?

Here's mine:

1. Mario Kart 8
2. Mario Kart Double Dash
3. Mario Kart DS
4. Mario Kart 7
5. Mario Kart Wii
6. Mario Kart 64
7. Super Mario Kart
8. Mario Kart Super Circuit

1. Mario Kart 8: because online play
2. Mario Kart Double Dash: because I actually really liked that pair up mechanic
3. Don't really care for many of the games in this series, it's one of those franchises where the old ones become so fucking obsolete because of the successor.

Mario Kart DS > Mario Kart: Double Dash > Mario Kart Wii > Mario Kart 64

I haven't played seven or eight yet.

7 is disappointing, 8 is great.

8 is very great.

MK8 is easily >>>>>> all and that's all that matters to me.

Though I did invest much more time in Double Dash... but that's mostly due to the fact that I was 21 and my life consisted of selling happy plants all day and playing video games 40-50 hrs a week with blurs of bar nights and sex inbetween. I'm simply too busy and not brain dead enough to play that much Mario Kart these days.

Never played Double Dash, Super Circuit, Mario Kart DS, and my experience with the Wii version is too limited to where I don't wanna weigh in with it, but I'd rank it:

1. Mario Kart 8
2. Mario Kart 64
3. Mario Kart (SNES)
4. Mark Kart 7

Lets Not.

Why not?

I never played the Mario Karts on the handhelds so I would have to say Mario Kart 64 > Mario Kart 8 > Mario Kart Double D and Mario Kart SNES tied > Mario Kart Wii

1. Super Mario Kart
2. Mario Kart 64

Have not played the other ones, no need they are all the same. I own Double dash that i got free when i bought the console but i have never opened the game box, lol

You should try the online for Mario Kart 8, it's fun!

1. Mario Kart 8
2. Mario Kart Double Dash
3. Mario Kart 7
4. Mario Kart Wii
5. Mario Kart DS
6. Mario Kart 64
7. Super Mario Kart
8. Mario Kart Super Circuit

1. Mario Kart 8
2. Mario Kart DS
3. Mario Kart 7
4. Mario Kart 64
5. Mario Kart Double Dash
6. Mario Kart Wii
7. Super Mario Kart
8. Mario Kart Super Circuit

Double Dash and Wii are probably the ones I played the least. Double Dash didn't really entertain me enough and Wii I felt was rather crummy.

1. Mario kart DS
2. Double Dash
3. Mario Kart 7
4. Mario kart 8
5. Mario kart Wii

Ds had the best stages, the decal editor, mission mode, and intense online 1 vs 1 snaking duels. I have put the least time into 8 because after I unlock all the characters battle mode is where I spend most of my time, and you know... But it might get bumped up because of the zelda dlc. Mario kart Wii was an absolute mess.

1. Mario Kart 8
2. Mario Kart Double Dash
3. Mario Kart DS
4. Mario Kart 64
5. Super Mario Kart
6. Mario Kart 7
7. Mario Kart Super Circuit
8. Mario Kart Wii

I'm excluding the handheld ones since I haven't played much of them.

1. Mario Kart 64 - By far the best battle mode. I had more fun playing battle mode in Mario Kart 64 than I had with anything else in any other Mario Kart game. This is the Mario Kart game that my friends and I keep going back to for battle mode since Nintendo sadly can't make a good battle mode anymore.

2. Mario Kart Wii - After the honeymoon period with Mario Kart 8 wore off, this is now still the Mario Kart that my friends and I play for the racing mode. The battle mode was disappointing because of the forced teams and time limit instead of elimination.

3. Super Mario Kart - By today's standards, it's not the best at anything, but it also doesn't have any big flaws, which is why I rank it in the middle.

4. Mario Kart Double Dash - I really hated the double karts gimmick and how it affected items. I also felt the battle courses were too small.

5. Mario Kart 8 - It's still a fun game, but I think it is the most flawed Mario Kart. First of all the battle mode is the worst ever and Nintendo should be ashamed of the lack of effort they put into battle mode. The item balance is terrible. It's so annoying to get nothing but coins in first place. And why the hell did they remove the fake item box? The character roster was disappoining when the previous game had such a great roster. And I hate how quickly you get pulled back onto the course after you fall off; you are back on the course so quickly that it feels like you did not get any punishment for falling off. The more I played the game, the more I also realized that the courses are style over substance; they look really cool, but there isn't as many hazards that affect the race as there were in prevous Mario Karts.

8 is pretty good, but they still need to look at powerups and how they effect leader.

1 - Mario Kart DS

2 - Mario Kart Double Dash

3 - Mario Kart 8

4 - Mario Kart 64

5 - Mario Kart 7

6 - Super Mario Kart

7 - Mario Kart Wii

8 - Mario Kart Super Circuit

The top 2 are tough for me. Both DS and Double Dash deserve #1. Also I'm surprised where people are ranking Mario Kart Wii. I have never been that disappointed with a Mario Kart game. Double Dash and DS were so good and that's what they followed up with? It felt rushed to me. The tracks were lame and the controls felt too loose. I guess I just didn't really care for it. And Super Circuit was a nice try but the handheld tech wasn't quite there yet. So the game didn't run or play very good. It did look amazing for a handheld game at the time though.

The original Mario Kart on SNES

One of the funnest games ever made

Mario Kart DS 4 lyfe!

Diddy Kong Racing FTW.

Topic, I haven't played MK in ages so don't know. :P

SNES Version best version

Double Dash was also good.

@babycakin

Why Should we ?

8 is the best, but not my favorite, that goes to Mario Kart 64, from there ill say that MK Wii was ok at best, DS and Súper were pretty good, while DD was meh, Súper Circuit was also pretty good.

1.- 64

2.- 8

3.- Súper

4.- DS

5.- Super Circuit

6.- Wii

7.- DD

Havent played 7.

1. 8
2. Wii
3. 64
4. Double Dash
5. DS
6. 7
8. Super Circuit

Online has helped it a lot. Handhelds aren't great.

Played 7 and like it. It has online so there's something going for it, plus the unlockables are there. Is it stupid as shit they cut stuff compared to previous versions? Yeah, but that's par for the course with 3DS games.

Double Dash was like the only GameCube game I played besides SoulCalibur II and I still didn't care for it too much. It's fun, it's unique, whatever, didn't enjoy the steering in general and nothing really clicked for me. I was still damn good at it.

I like Wii the most. The steering feels really good there and the motorcycles are something I really dig. Really gives me hope for 8 when I pick up a Wii U.

I bought a cheap copy of Mario Kart Wii (after much hesitation) mainly because Christmas is coming and i wanna have a nice local mp game to play with my family. I've casually played a couple of cups on 50cc and 100cc, and it's enjoyable for sure, though i hate it wen i get in 1st place and i'm almost constantly hit by all types of projectiles. Can't imagine how it must be on 150cc. Overall tho, worth the price and it will be immensely fun wen we all gather and play.

Mario Kart 64 is the one i've played the most out of them all with relatives a few years ago, and just because of that it's probably my favorite. Sure, it's old, bare-bones and the graphics don't hold up. But it controls fine as butter (far better than Diddy Kong Racing) and, as i've said before, a lot of hours pumped into it.

Mario Kart DS may be my favorite to play alone because of the mission mode, which is a huge chunk of content right there to play with. Super Mario Kart.. not a fan. It's probably because i never played it in its heyday, but i really can't get used to those controls. I love the charm, but it's unplayable to me.

Can't really think of a ranking. Haven't played much of MKWii to properly have an opinion on it, there are a lot of memories tied with Mario Kart 64, MKDS is my favorite solo, and Super Mario Kart sucked ass for me. These are the only ones i've played.

1. Super Mario Kart

2. Mario Kart Super Circuit

3. Mario Kart Double Dash

4. Mario Kart DS

5. Mario Kart 8

6. Mario Kart Wii

7. Mario Kart 64

8. Mario Kart 7

I know I'm probably seen as a huge Nintendo fanboy around here and while I absolutely adore a great deal of what Nintendo puts out, Mario Kart is something I look at rather negatively. I used to like it when I was younger and it's still fun to play time trials, but the main racing mode is just plain flawed IMHO. Remember tripping in Super Smash Bros. Brawl? How not a single person liked that mechanic? Well Mario kart's been plagued by tripping for about a decade now and I don't think they'll ever decide to fix it.

In any case, I'll rank some of the mario karts based solely on the track design and mechanics because time trials is where it's at.

1) Mario Kart Wii (some great new tracks and pretty much all the best tracks from the series' history)

2) Mario Kart 8

3) Mario Kart DS

4) Mario Kart Super Circuit

5) Mario Kart 64

6) Mario Kart Double Dash

7) Mario Kart

8) Mario Kart 7

I own all 8 games and here's how I rank them.

Mario Kart 8

Mario Kart 7

Mario Kart Wii

Super Mario Kart

Mario Kart 64

Mario Kart DS

Mario Kart Double Dash

Mario Kart Super Circuit

Mario Kart 64 has my least favorite drifting but it gets its spot for being such an amazing game outside of that.

The ones I have played:

Mario Kart Wii.

Mario Kart 7.

Mario Kart 64.

Mario Kart DS.

Super Mario Kart.

Getting your ballasack punched for 20 minutes.

Three months of diarrhea.

Super Circuit.

My favorite thing about Super Mario Kart is how the top speeds are ridiculous. Every Mario Kart game has a top speed cap besides that one. If you do a flawless time trial on SMK, you get going faster and faster and faster, and your engine squeals louder and higher pitched.

My favorite character, Toad, looks hilarious going a million mph.

I dont know if Double Dash would hold up now a days because 8 is so good but I think DD had the best gimmick with the 2 characters per kart and the characters also had special abilities.

1. Mario Kart 8
2. Double Dash
3. DS
4. N64
5. 7
6. Wii (To be fair I haven't played much of wii and 7)
7. Super Circuit
8. Super Mario Kart

Honestly, I feel like the SNES and GBA title are just bleh. I really dislike the courses used in MK 8 from those two.

1. Double Dash
2. 8
3. DS
4. N64
5. 7
6. Super Circuit

@Heil68: They actually patched the item balance a bit recently, the distribution isn't as bad as it used to be.

I'm not big into racers as I've said before, but I do own all the Mario Kart games save for MK8 (which I'll grab for $20-$30 on sale sometime).

I can say that Double Dash at parties was really fun since you had to share a cart with another gamer.

I also loved the very first game on SNES since it was so new at the time, and perhaps I carried that passion into the N64 game as well. Then I sort of teetered out, buying the games but losing my zeal over time. Had bits of fun playing the DS game on airplanes with friends.

Haven't played Mario Kart 7 or Mario Kart: Super Circuit

1. Mario Kart 8 - The most fluid racer in the series, not to mention the best-looking (of course).
2. Mario Kart: Double Dash - Almost put this at #1. I still don't understand why so many dislike the duo-racer mechanic. The tracks are great here as well.
3. Super Mario Kart - A classic. It still holds up nicely, and it has that 16-bit nostalgia going for it.
4. Mario Kart DS - It's excellent just for its online play, which is no longer available. But it was a content-rich Mario Kart on a handheld all around.
5. Mario Kart Wii - The bikes were cool, and the stages were great-so was the online.
6. Mario Kart 64 - To me, this game is a mess.

I haven't played them all, but out of all of them MK Wii was pure garbage imo.

1. Mario Kart 8

2. Mario Kart DS

3. Mario Kart Double Dash-

4. Mario Kart 64

5. Super Mario Kart

8 really seems to have done a number on people.

Super Mario Kart ~ Mario Kart 8 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> the rest

-Mario Kart 7 - Most balanced of play imo. Nintendo needs to fix the playlists in mk8 or make a few adjustments as far as balance in regards to bikes/karts is concerned.

-Mario Kart 8 - absolutely amazing game. I like it more than MK7 in most ways. I've played it tons and tons, but in comparison to 7 it just has a few minor issues.

-Mario Kart DS - A complete sprint from start to finish. The game became more about memorization once one really got snaking down.

-Mario Kart 64 - The underrated entry in the bunch. In a few ways I think this is the best one. The difference between a more advanced player and novice is huge. It has the most least forgiving control out of all the games.

-Super Mario Kart/Super Circuit - very very similar games. Super Mario Kart snes gets the edge for the color palette and music, alone.

-Double Dash - still good, but the stinker of the bunch. I don't like using the word stinker but it didn't mesh well in a few ways. I don't have any experience with this online, but I've heard people are still playing it. Anyways, the multiplayer is just a bit messy given the resolution of the game, splitting the screen in four parts, and adding double the items. 64 pulled this off better imo because it had really clean cut visuals. DD has a muddy look to it in mp. There's also this disconnect between the kart and the track...

-MK Wii-----this entry didn't grasp me much, but I did buy the wii WAY WAY after launch...I got the MK bundle wii right before they stripped the GC BC.

Mario Kart 64>Mario Kart>Mario Kart 8>Mario Kart 7>Mario Kart DD>Mario Kart Wii

Too many questions already.

1. Mario Kart 8 (mainly for the online and the item balance)
2. Mario Kart DS (objectively the best in the franchise)
3. Mario Kart 64 (guilty pleasure with the best soundtrack)
4. Mario Kart Double Dash (I give it a slight edge over MKWii because of the item balance)
5. Mario Kart Wii (inconsistent)
6. Mario Kart Super Circuit (underrated)
7. Mario Kart 7 (disappointing and bare bones)
8. Super Mario Kart (way too dated)

I wish I played the gamecube one. I hope the remake it with online or something

Look around you, people hardly dislike Double Dash :p It's the series' most popular game lol.

@charizard1605: I guess I am basing my statement off negative rhetoric about the game that I have read across the internet over the years. But as far as greatest popularity, doesn't that belong to Mario Kart Wii?

I mean in terms of fan reception. In terms of sales, literally no other game, Mario Kart or otherwise, beats MKWii.

1. Mario Kart 8
2. Mario Kart: Double Dash!!
3. Mario Kart Wii
4. Mario Kart 7
5. Mario Kart 64
6. Mario Kart: Super Circuit

Lol, NinNet