Back to react a little more closely at the tracks. The three City tracks are new to me so I can’t really commentate on them, but I do like these three look quite visually distinct from what we have so far. Yoshi’s Island still looks awesome. It’s my most anticipated track this wave easily.
For the retros, I’m thrilled we have both DK Summit and Waluigi Stadium. They were two of my favorite tracks in Mario Kart Wii in particular (WS, is GCN I know). A bit bummed we got Riverside Park over Lakeside Park which has the more interesting layout, but this new version of Riverside Park looked great in Tour so I’m excited to play it. I am sad with its inclusion only one of the three classic course styles can make it in now - Choco Island, Koopa Beach, and Bowser’s Castle. My big hope would be Choco Island, GCN Peach Beach and GCN Bowser’s Castle to kind of cover them all, but I don’t think it will happen. Finally, a fourth Mario Circuit is a bummer with so many great choices getting passed over (Airship Fortress, Delfino, and Desert Hills especially for me), but I refreshed myself with the layout (thanks Volcanic Dynamo for making it easy for me last page lol) and I do think it’s going to be a fun course. If we did get a Mario Circuit, I would have preferred the N64 and 3DS ones, but I am glad at least we finally have one in 8 with a pipe to go through!
I’m not committed to these yet, but Wave 5 predictions for me would be:
Feather
Tour - Los Angeles
Wii - Koopa Cape
GBA - Sunset Wilds
Tour - Vancouver
Cherry
Tour - Next City
GCN - DK Mountain
SNES - A Bowser’s Castle
New - Piranha Plant Cove
The logic here is that they’ll go through the stuff that was made first for Tour and New pulls. Wave 6 thus gets 2 new cities and the 3 new tracks. Koopa Cape is obviously up next for Wii tracks as the last banner track and it fits well with a Summer release. Sunset Wilds is the last GBA track with both the banner and music leak so that goes right in. I mentioned there were three classic themes missing and while I’d love Choco Island more, Bowser’s Castle is so overdue and so under represented I think it shows up here as the SNES track. My last pick is DK Mountain which is a bit frustrating in that we already have the far superior DK mountain course this wave, but I think it goes here because Wave 6 will have the new DK course in it. DK Mountain is too popular not to have in, so in Wave 5 it goes.