Smashboards

Is MKT even that bad? Sure, it was a gacha-ridden mess early on, but since the removal of spotlight pipes, it seems like a fun time to me. Hoping for a console Mario Kart sometime soon, but I accept Tour as a ninth mainline game despite how wildly different it is from the others.

(plus tour has bus driver waluigi which gets it a TON of goodwill points from me)

I don’t believe Tour is that bad, especially now that the gacha is gone. I personally don’t like it too much just cause I’m not too interested in how it works, but it has so much cool stuff and has done a lot of good for Mario Kart as a whole.

Fair enough - It's not really my cup of tea, but I can understand why it's so successful. Wouldn't mind unlockable skins in Tour's vein in a console MK, actually.

'Mainline' is ultimately a meaningless title but I personally don't really get how tour would be considered Mario Kart 9 and not just as a mobile game spinoff that gets a lot of attention considering 8 deluxe continues to get DLC after it released. Something like pokemon go for example is really popular and gets a lot of attention from developers but that doesn't really make it a mainline game.

Well, what "mainline" really means in this context is that they treat it on the same level as the console entries.

The Arcade games and Home Circuit don't get that treatment, and are never mentioned or listed by Nintendo when referring to the Mario Kart series and history, while Tour is. This is also why Tour content has been brought to 8, while content from those games hasn't and likely never will.

if i can live with nsmbu deluxe being considered seperate from nsmbu wii u and its own mainline title, i can live with this

The whole concept of "mainline games" and "spin-offs" for series that aren't based on an overarching narrative (and even some that are, like Kingdom Hearts) is so stupid to me. I don't get why Mario Kart is considered a spin-off but 3D Mario platformers aren't, given that sans the 3D Noun games, they have basically nothing in common with the 2D games besides running and jumping.

Probably the most egregious series about this is Rayman though, where there is literally no logical reason at all for Rayman Origins and Legends to not be Rayman 4 and 5 - different tone? Rayman 1 had a different tone too. 2D? Rayman 1 was 2D. Different developers? Rayman 1 had a different dev team too. Different character personalities? It's a platformer - the only way Rayman Legends can be a spin-off is if Rayman 2 is Rayman 1!

Wild how there hasn't been a new Mario Kart game since 2014