Wave 5 of the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Booster Course Pass has brought a mix of surprises and one slight disappointment, placing it in a tie with Wave 4 in terms of track choices. This wave introduces three new playable characters: Petey Piranha, Wiggler, and Kamek, adding a fresh layer of excitement to the game.

The track selection for Wave 5 includes some classics and original additions. Athens Dash, initially slotted in this wave, feels more like a Wave 6 track, so in our alternate Booster Course Pass, we've moved it and replaced it with the exhilarating Los Angeles Laps.

Daisy Cruiser is a spot-on remake, skillfully blending elements from the GameCube, 3DS, and Tour versions to create an even more vibrant dining room experience.

Moonview Highway stands out as a surprising addition to the wave, as it hasn't been remade before. The thrilling feature of colliding with bomb cars from the past retained its glory. We've moved Moonview Highway to Wave 3 in our alternate Booster Course Pass to avoid overlapping with Dry Dry Ruins and Wii Rainbow Road, as they were in the same cup in the Wii version. We've placed Maple Treeway in Daisy Circuit's place and put Moonview Highway in Wave 3 to pair it with Koopa Cape, which feels like a more fitting combination.

Squeaky Clean Sprint offers a fun and detail-rich racing experience, making it feel like an exciting Easter egg hunt on the track.

Sunset Wilds, a beloved Super Circuit track, was a bit of a letdown in its remake, as it removed the signature sunset element that defined the track. In our alternate Booster Course Pass, we've replaced Sunset Wilds with Delfino Square, as Airship Fortress is already in our alternate Wave 4, and Luigi's Mansion is in our alternate Wave 1.

Koopa Cape, a standout track from Mario Kart Wii, retains its charm while incorporating features from the Wii and 3DS versions. The only minor concern is with the track's texturing, but the underwater area in Koopa Cape looks fantastic, and the reintroduction of anti-gravity and halfpipes adds to the fun factor.

Summing up Wave 5, the gameplay gets an 8, the track choices receive a solid 9, and the graphics also earn a commendable 9. With an overall score of 8.6/10, Wave 5 ties with Wave 4 as one of the best waves in the Booster Course Pass.

Gameplay: 8
Track Choices: 9
Graphics: 9

Wave 5 Score: 8.6/10

Another round of outstanding DLC. I have to give Nintendo credit for improving the quality of the Mario Kart Tour tracks added over time, although Vancouver Velocity is the weakest of wave 5's tracks (Sorry Canada). The first 2 dlc wave's MKT tracks were not intuitive, they were clearly made for a mobile game with auto drive and motion controls. The ones included here avoid that problem with large flashing arrows and what I'm sure are some slight tweaks in track size. Daisy Cruiser from Mario Kart: Double Dash is the best returning track and the new original track has you driving thorough a giant bathroom, complete with a bidet equipped toilet. Very fun. The new characters will please Super Mario Bros fans, I'm especially happy that Kamek is finally playable. I hope at least one of the remaining slots is filled by a Kong!

This update introduces two things of value; new characters and new courses. In fact, this is the part of the DLC that introduces the most new characters.

Characters:
–Petey is a great addition that mainly reps Mario Sunshine and is the first Piranha Plant type racer.
–Wiggler represents another enemy variety that wasn't available in 8 prior.
–Kamek is Bowser's right hand man and was planned for the original Mario Kart yet has never appeared in a mainly MK until now.
These all 100% offer something of value to the game. I assume they're saving Diddy and Pauline for last but I will say it's so weird that Diddy isn't in the game yet.

Courses:
–Athens Dash, Los Angeles Laps, and Vancouver Velocity add onto the large collection of tracks from Tour. I wish there weren't so many but I suppose it can't be helped. I actually found Athena to be a bit interesting.
–I love Daisy Cruiser so much. It brings me back to my childhood of playing Double Dash.
–I feel fine with Moonview Highway, Sunset Wilds, and Koopalings Cape. They're good additions even if IDC that much personally.
–Squeaky Clean Sprint is a really cool new unique stage set in a massive bathroom. The pipe drain and other parts of the stage all felt quite charming.

Final verdict:
I find this expansion to be favorable. Not over the top peak but not disappointingly either. Just really satisfied with new racers and other content.

Hopes for the final phase:
Diddy and Pauline are must haves. Listen, I'm not even big fans of these characters, they're just simply that important to the series at this point that excluding them would be absurd. I'd be more than happy with someone crazy out there tho such as ROB returning. As for courses there's so many great ones in MK8D already that I'm unsure what to ask for. I suppose I'd be really hype for Maka Wuhu since I used to speedrun the glitch category of that course buuut otherwise yeah I'm cool with anything. Just make sure the final track is something crazy huge and excited. Other content? I want 2 more items to fill in the item select menu. I honestly don't care what too badly as long as there's not empty space. I think Double Dash special ability items would be raw but I think that'd be asking for too much. Simply adding one of them such as the massive Bowser Shell would be equally as sick too tho.

Athens Dash - one of the coolest Tour tracks just due to its location compared to the usual city-theming Tour tracks go for. quite good! :3

Daisy Cruiser - another cult classic returns! i haven’t actually played the original so I can’t really compare the remake here to that version, but from what i can tell this is a great remake :D it is a little bit odd that the tables slow down as the laps progress instead of speed up, but it’s whatever

Moonview Highway - ANOTHER classic returns, but this one i have played! the location is absolutely beautiful on this track, i’m such a sucker for anything night-themed with big fuckin atmospheric ass moons. probably why i love castlevania so much. but goddamn this is a good remake with even better music! such an upbeat synth groove that adapts to a more laid-back jazzy tone when under the bridges. amazing.

Squeaky Clean Sprint - the new track of the wave and goddamn is it good! i love the setting of this one and all the little detail put into it. another one of the new tracks that almost feels criminal to be in a DLC. the music is really great, albeit not really fitting for this track imo… still bops tho so i can’t complain toooo much

Los Angeles Laps - probably the weakest track of the wave but it’s still alright. i love Arlo’s review of this one when he was really loopy and pretty much sums up how i feel about it. those poor guys are so brave for visiting LA.

Sunset Wilds - a great, beautiful remake. it’s kind of unfortunate most of these GBA/SNES remakes have the multi-colored borders from the original, but at least it’s faithful :p

Koopa Cape - another classic returns! not as stunning as some of the other ones (mostly due to MKWii still holding up well visually), but quite good nonetheless.

Vancouver Velocity - a great closer for this wave, as per usual. as you may know i’m a complete sucker for snowy levels so the first lap of this one had me awestruck. a beautiful track and, while i feel like i say this a lot, one of the better ones from Tour!

another great round of DLC with some fantastic remakes and an incredible new track! the inclusion of Kamek was a great surprise as well, welcome back(kinda lol) buddy!!

While still a good wave, I don’t think it’s quite as good as the last one. First of all, I do quite like the new playable characters added this wave! I’m so happy Kamek finally gets a chance to shine in a mainline Mario Kart game, and having Petey Piranha reunite with King Boo brings a tear to my eye. However, if I were to nitpick, to my eyes, the character models look just a tad bit lower fidelity than the characters for the base game, specifically with Kamek and Wiggler. It’s not incredibly jarring, but my ADHD will never let me not notice the slightly more apparent polygon edges on their character models. Regardless, Wave 5 still has some good tracks included. Squeaky Clean Sprint was a surprise hit for me. It’s very creative and full of charm. Other classics like Daisy Cruiser and Moonview Highway are done well here thankfully. However, starting with Koopa Cape, this is where I have some issues. Fist off, with Koopa Cape, ignoring the changes made first in 7, I think the camera can be pretty awful sometimes, specially with the pipe section and the half-pipes. It’s still a fun track, but it’s not perfect Imo. Besides, it looks a bit play-dough-y visually. Speaking of play-dough visuals, Athens Dash has some really rough visuals. The background trees and buildings look straight out of something like Mario 64 if I’m being honest, and really stick out to me in a bad way. And on Athens Dash, there is one turn in particular which is really bad and almost impossible to see coming on your first playthrough. Not a bad track but I think it isn’t a great one either. And of course, we can’t ignore the tragedy of Sunset Wilds, de-emphasis on “Sunset”. Like, why bring back this track if you’re going to end up gutting it of what made it special in the first place? At least with something like Sky Garden, it could just be chalked up to a difference in interpretation. With this, it’s straight up removing a gimmick that helped the track stand out. Fingers crossed this gets updated in the future. Finally, there’s LA Laps and Vancouver velocity. While I think the latter is very good, the former is a bit on the eh side in my opinion, especially with that one section where you drive through the oil field. On the whole, I still think it’s a solid wave, but it’s really brought down by the stinkers imo.

Also, I just wanted to rant really quickly. With the announcement of Daisy Circuit for Wave 6, it really helped me realize how oversaturated Wii has been in this DLC. Yes, I do agree that Wii has a strong selection of courses, but there are plenty of standouts from other games that could use some love. Luigi’s Mansion, Airship Fortress, Wario Coliseum, these are all tracks that would’ve been awesome to see. But no, another circuit track from a game with an already high number of tracks included. I just hope this kind of thing doesn’t happen again.

Now this is what I call MK8D DLC. For every wave that was released feels like an improvement over what came before, and this release was no exception. The track lineup is easily the best with Koopa Cape and Moonview Highway making a return, Squeaky Clean Spring was a fun new course, and the Tour tracks were actually interesting with Los Angeles Laps and Vancouver Velocity being my favorites. The new characters were also a pleasant surprise with Petey Piranha and Wiggler returning from their respective entries, and I'm happy that Kamek was here after being canned from Mario Kart 64.

Can't wait to see how Wave 6 wraps up the Booster Course Pass.

Athens Dash: Starting off strong, a tour city track that feels completely unlike any other. Lots of ups and downs, some hazards, tight gaps, it's a varied track with an aesthetic not found elsewhere in the game. Only complaint about it is that certain laps can feel repetitive due to re-treading old areas in a way most city tracks avoid. 8.5/10.

Daisy Cruiser: Weirdly despite being one of my favourite Double Dash tracks I don't love it here (or in 7). It might have something to do with the pool now being part of the track instead of an obstacle, but I also just become way too aware of how little of the track is actually spent inside the ship. It's still fun, but where I would have given the track a strong 9.5 out of memory, I'm giving this one a 7.5/10.

Moonview Highway: Probably my favourite of the non-tour city tracks in the series (or maybe "traffic tracks" is a bet term). It just feels like it's missing just a little something beyond traffic to give it an extra identity though. Still, I enjoy it. 7.5/10.

Squeaky Clean Sprint: Here's the big one, the brand new track of the wave. I love this so much. It takes a micro machines-esque premise and utilises it perfectly, from the background elements to the terrain itself. Getting sucked down a drain pipe, a desk fan that blows you off course and an erupting toilet acting as a mid-air boost. I would definitely be down for more tracks that act as if the racers were tiny in real world settings. It might have "new course bias", but the thing about enjoyment is that it doesn't matter
why the enjoyment exists, the only thing that matters is that you enjoy it. 10/10.

Los Angeles Laps: Some parts feel too similar to the majority of tour tracks, but it has sections with its own identity, especially the oil fields in the final lap. 7/10.

Sunset Wilds: Probably my least favourite of the wave. Not at all bad (though they took out the actual sun setting mechanic?), and the mining Shy Guys are cool, but I feel like they didn't do enough with the terrain. Until the final turns it's all just a flat basic course. 6/10

Koopa Cape: Oh man... My favourite Wii track and it commit the sin of using the Mario Kart 7 version with the inferior pipe section :( Why would anyone want to play with crappy underwater physics in a half pipe instead of the rapid water-flowing section that ended up spinning electric wheels? It was so much cooler. Still a very fun track, but this version is a 9/10 instead of 10/10.

Vancouver Velocity: Very fun tour track. Might not standout quite as much in the aesthetics department as Athens, but it still has a ton of great set pieces for driving through, like suspended bridges and an ice rink. 9/10.

Also the 3 characters that were added were like 3 of my biggest wants (I didn't even expect Tour-only characters to be added, so Kamek is a huge plus).

good:
- music
- most tracks
- petey piranha and kamek

bad:
- who the fuck wants to play wiggler?
- koopa cape is boring
- sunset wilds is boring
- everything is pretty ugly