Gonna update my ranking ever so slightly, and talk about my (mostly) final thoughts about the wave 3 tracks. Given that the city tracks from the first two waves have all dropped like rocks in my rankings over time, I'm expecting London and Berlin to do the same, although I'm not really sure where they'll end up. Guess I'll find out in three months time.
S TIER (Top 10 track in the game)
- 3DS Rainbow Road still reigns supreme. I have a few minor quibbles with the textures: the planets don't really look all that great, and I wish the jumps also had the beautiful rainbow texture instead of just being a flat grey. I think I also prefer the original music ever so slightly, although the new remix is hardly bad either. It's just different. Regardless, it's still the best track in the series and now in the game, so I'm content with what I can get.
- Wii Maple Treeway is my second favorite track in the series, and it thankfully retains that honor in 8D. Similar to 3DS Rainbow Road, I have some minor texture quibbles, but the track still looks lovely overall. Losing the Wiggler bounce is unfortunate, but the spectacular presentation and improved track geometry helps make up for that. The remix is absolutely wonderful too, I'm a big fan.
- DS Waluigi Pinball
A TIER (Great tracks)
- Ninja Hideaway
- Tour Berlin Byways is currently my top Tour track, nitros aside. There's just so much going on here: the train station, some tight and uncomfortable turns, traffic, medians, the lap crossover (which has screwed me and others over multiple times, which is very much a good thing), and the whomps help propel this track to the top spot. The remix also goes ridiculously hard, I seriously cannot gush enough about this wave's music.
- DS Shroom Ridge
- Wii Mushroom Gorge
- DS Peach Gardens has a lovely presentation to it: replacing the flat hedges with the topiaries was a genius decision, and the texture work here is wonderful. Beautiful music too. The reverse final lap is also a very pleasant surprise; gliding over the topiaries is so damn cool. Only real complaint is that I never really loved the original track, so the core design isn't the greatest still, but it's a phenomenal remake that really pushes it to its limits.
- Tour London Loop will probably drop the most out of all these tracks over time, but as it stands right now, I really love the layout. Each route has some really satisfying turns and obstacles, with the chain chomp gimmick just being flat out adorable. Putting one in the river was completely unnecessary, and yet they did it anyway, and I love this track for it. The fog effect is also really cool, and it disguises the ugly buildings much better than any of the other Tour tracks do. Feels like the highest quality Tour track we've gotten yet, even if the underlying ideas really aren't that interesting.
- Wii Coconut Mall
- N64 Choco Mountain
B TIER (Good tracks)
- Merry Mountain is a nice little track. The theming is quite fun, and I absolutely love how it looks. My main problem here is that the layout just isn't all that interesting; the downhill on the first lap in particular is a complete snore. It's never egregiously bad though, and everything else here is quite nice, so it still remains relatively high.
- GBA Snow Land
- Tour Sydney Sprint
- N64 Kalimari Desert
- 3DS Rock Rock Mountain is solid. I think a big reason why I liked it so much on the 3DS was due to how novel the gliding was at the time; the ability to fly with that degree of freedom on such a small console was really cool. That novelty is lost a bit here, so the track has to instead rely on its layout and other ideas, which I don't really find that interesting. The gliding is still cool, don't get me wrong, but the only way to really wow me with a big gliding section now is to crank up the visuals to the max or introduce some more variety into the gliding section itself. 3DS Maka Wuhu does both, which only makes me wish we got that track instead. Oh well, this track is still good, so I won't complain too much.
- Tour New York Minute
- GBA Sky Garden
- GBA Boo Lake is a fantastic remake of a rather boring track. There just wasn't much to work with here; credit to the devs for getting the as much out of this track as possible, but there's only so much they could do. The underwater antigravity section is obviously the highlight here, and it is quite a bit of fun, but the underlying layout holds this one back.
- Sky-High Sundae
C Tier (Okay tracks)
- 3DS Toad Circuit
- SNES Mario Circuit 3
- Tour Paris Promenade
D Tier (Bad tracks)
Overall, Wave 3 was a huge success. It's gonna be real hard for Nintendo to top this one in the future; if they do, it's gonna be through the Tour and the nitro tracks, rather than the retros. Nintendo's already exhausted so many of my favorites, so there's not much left for them to pull from to really wow me in that area.
