Nintendo Fixes Acceleration Issues in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe

We at GamesReviews.com feel pretty confident in the following statement: very few people realized Mario Kart 8 on Wii U had an acceleration problem, but yet will be relieved to hear it has been fixed in the Deluxe edition on the Nintendo Switch. When Mario Kart 8 came out a few years ago on Wii U, Nintendo YouTube ambassador Abdallah – who is a big friend of the site – posted a video to his YouTube page regarding an issue with the acceleration numbers when selecting karts. You can see his video from a few years ago below.

Let’s examine the problem for the original Mario Kart 8 on Wii U. When choosing your kart, wheels, and gliders, the bars for acceleration, top speed, etc. change based on what you have selected. As shown in the video above, there was actually no difference between having a kart and character with 1.75 acceleration and a kart with 1.50 or 1.25. In all situations, the kart’s accelerate at the exact same pace.

Ideally, with Mario Kart 8 on Wii U, you would have selected karts, tires, gliders, and characters that would keep your stats in the .25 range, allowing you to maximize other important kart characteristics. Choosing an acceleration of 1.75 as opposed to 1.25 looks good on the screen, but provides no additional benefits, and could possibly lower one of your other stats into a lesser tier – say from 2.25 to 1.75, which will have an impact.

This issue in Mario Kart 8 was never rectified via a patch by Nintendo, nor was it – in my estimation – a widely understood concern. Abdallah has been playing through a pre-release version of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on the Nintendo Switch, courtesy of Nintendo of America, and decided to see if this problem had been rectified.

As you can see from Abdallah’s second video, the issue in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe has actually been fixed, which means you will see a difference between sub-tiers – 1.75 will accelerate faster than 1.50, and subsequently faster than 1.25. Obviously Nintendo was looking into the reports of issues with the Wii U version of Mario Kart 8 and made the necessary adjustments in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe releases this Friday, April 28th, both a retail and online via the Nintendo eShop. You can find all of Abdallah’s videos on his YouTube page, and be sure to follow him on Twitter too get up-to-the-minute updates on when his videos are going live!