After many hours of racing and many shameful losses to my girlfriend, I needed to up my game! These 5 ways were how I improved enough to stand a change in beating her again and which resulted in many incredibly fun and tense races. 5 Tips aimed at those with good racing skills and many hours of Mario Kart trying to significantly improve their game! Sharing these tips is half the fun, because a challenging opponent makes the races that much more entertaining! So without further ado, here are PressQuit’s top 5 tips on How to get better in Mario Kart 8!
Tip 1: Know what you can, and cannot do!
It may sound obvious but it really should be pointed out. Know what you can, when you can do it and most important, when you should not! You would think passing the person in first place right before the finish line is a no brainer, but if they are carrying a red shell, you might just want to stay put and take the 2nd place or risk ending up 3rd, 4th or worse!
Tip 2: Cut the Corners
Learn how and where to take the absolute inside of a corner. It might not look like much, but I think this is personally the best tip I could ever give. It literally will shave of seconds of your times! Keep in mind however, that you keep the first tip in mind, no sense risking it all moments before the finish line!
Tip 3: Choose a fitting racer
..and a matching car! Sure, some set-ups might just be marginally better than others, but what is most important; Find out what works best for you! Prefer fast recovery time when you mess up? Better have high acceleration. Care more for speed than perfecting each and every turn? Max out that Speed stat. Try what works best for you and never be afraid to fiddle with your set-up of choice!
Speed: Increases the maximum speed of your racer
Acceleration: Manages how quickly you increase your speed
Weight: The heavier you are, the easier it is to bump other racers away from you
Handling: Governs how easy your racer is to control in the corners
Grip: A higher grip lowers the slowing when you go off the track
Tip 4: Practice the Time Trials
Together with tip 2, this is what made the biggest impact and where it was least expected. Racing in the Time Trials, you will be able to get to know the tracks a whole lot better. On top of that, you will also be seeing the Staff Ghosts take unexpected shortcuts. Couple this all with perfecting tip 2 on every track and you will be miles ahead of your former competition. I would suggest trying to beat all Staff Ghosts in Time Trials for starters. That should get you settled and on top of that will unlock you a sweet set of wheels!
Tip 5: Real pro’s backflip!
The final and most important tip to improve, is to improve your style! When you go off a proper ramp, you can actually choose which way your character performs it’s boost-jump. Hold back on the stick while jumping at the end of a ramp and you’ll do a backflip! Forward for a frontflip and sideways for a horizontal 360! This does absolutely nothing for your speed, but will make your victories so much more sweeter, knowing you did so in style!!
Those are my tips on how to get better in Mario Kart 8. Tips I learned from playing well over 150 hours of Mario Kart 8 on the WiiU and skills I will be perfecting on Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on the Nintendo Switch! If you have some tips you like to share, please hit me up on Twitter, I love to get in contact and help share the knowledge!
And if you ever see me racing (Name’s PressQuit) please do greet me with a red shell.. I’m sure I’ll return the favour!
