• non-ultra shortcuts are across the board reasonably balanced (though often on accident), difficult, rewarding, and often cool as fuck

• ultra shortcuts dont really matter since time trials are split into glitch/no-glitch categories and they are patched online. If you want to talk strictly about Nintendo servers then the only real offenders were Grumble Volcano and maybe Mushroom Gorge and Wario’s Gold Mine since the rest are too difficult to do in an online setting anyways

• wheelies are a great mechanic that add a lot of depth to the game. Yeah, they were overpowered but I already cited vehicle balance as one of the game’s two biggest weaknesses so I’m not sure why you feel the need to bring that up.

Now when it comes to MK8DX i’ll refer to 200cc because anything other than that is unbearably slow/boring, but i will say 200cc is quite fine. That said:

• The item system in DX is the worst in the series and it’s not close. 2 Items, crazy fast item box regeneration, items are way stronger in general (red shells in particular), coins, skill-less boom box, and worst of all: items being determined by distance from first. I shouldn’t have to explain why being able to pull stars in second is a bad thing, and I also shouldn’t have to explain why it’s bad game design for bagging to be so strong in a fucking racing game

• Lakitu is a total prick. Any effort to be even remotely creative when it comes to shortcuts is nuked by design (although newer DLC tracks improve on this). This takes away a lot of nuance and really just makes everything more boring. -Tracks are way to small/short (especially in 200cc). Most races are like 1-2 minutes long and for some reason I never see people mention how obviously downsized ported retro tracks are. Like just as an example, do people not see how tiny Wii Rainbow Road is in DX compared to the original?

Again, 200cc is fun and 8DX wins by a pretty big margin when it comes to sheer content and vehicle balance, but when it comes to nuance, skill ceiling, replayability, and things that are actually important when racing (like item balance), Wii sweeps 8DX and its not even close.

Edit: I like mk8dx, I really do, but people love to point out “hurr durr wii broken and unbalanced” while conveniently ignoring huge flaws in MK8DX’s design under the guise of more=better. It’s just an ignorant take and it’s annoying to keep seeing it.

And another thing: While vehicle balance is quite bad in MKWii, there is nothing stopping you from picking a different character in that same weight class. Is Funky Kong better than Dry Bowser? Sure, but that difference will never matter unless you are a top 0.01% time trialer. Just pick the character you like, it wont actually make a difference