History Videogame / Mariokart

*** Peach's Gardens for Peach.

*** Yoshi's Island in the Booster Course Pass for the Yoshis.

*** New York Minute can be accosiated with Pauline because of the similarities to [[VideoGame/SuperMarioOdyssey New Donk City]].
*** Paris Promenade had associated with Peach for the starting banner having Peach's emblem.

* RealityWarping: Some Items mess with the game's physics. E.g., the Boo (gives you both {{Intangibility}} and [[PowerParasite someone else's Item]]) and the Lightning (both [[ShrinkRay Shrinks]] everyone else and gives them InterfaceScrew).

* RealityWarping: Some Items, such as the Boo (which gives you {{Intangibility}} and [[PowerParasite someone else's Item]] at the same time) and the Lightning (which [[ShrinkRay shrinks]] everyone else and makes them endure InterfaceScrew at the same time), evoke shades of this.

** A ''[[WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda Kung Fu Lakitu]]'' inspired poster appears on the bedroom wall in ''8'' 's remake of Ribbon Road.

* BadassBiker: Peach, Daisy, and Rosalina when they ride bikes or [=ATVs=], as they use body-clinging suits when riding them as opposed to their usual dresses. This however is justified because riding a bike with those dresses on would be very impractical.

* NintendoHard: In most games in the series (some more so than others), 150cc and Mirror Mode, particularly the Special and Lightning Cup. ''Super Mario Kart'' tends to be the worst of the bunch due to the following:
## Momentum in the game gets wonky at times. If you crash head on into a wall and use a feather at the same time, you bounce quite far going backwards. If you smack into another racer while turning, you stop dead cold no matter what weight class you play as.
## Trying to pass the AI, especially on 150cc is a nightmare due to how they all drive on the same path and you're likely to run into them on turns.
## The AI on 150cc never lets up, which makes staying in the lead extremely difficult. If you screwed up too many times, you stand no chance of catching up. The AI's rubber band was broken on this level. This is also on top of the AI having infinite items, being able to throw them with near pinpoint accuracy, and having unique items you could never get.
## Despite being a racing game, the game has a lives system. Every time you finish in the bottom 5, it costs a life to try the race over and it was GameOver if you lose all your lives. This was just as bad in a 2 player GP mode because if one of the players lost all their lives, they were eliminated from the rest of the cup!

** '''''Mario Kart 8 Deluxe''''' (Platform/NintendoSwitch, 2017): An UpdatedRerelease of ''Mario Kart 8'', with the main feature being an improved Battle Mode after the original ''8''[='s=] was scaled back. ''Deluxe'' also includes all of ''8''[='s=] DLC on the game card, rebalancing of characters and karts, the ability to carry two items at once, a brand-new third level of mini-turbo boost, and an expanded roster of 42 characters including the Inklings from ''Franchise/{{Splatoon}}''. It later received its own DLC expansion in 2022-2023, featuring 4 new tracks and 44 more returning tracks (including all but one introduced in ''Tour'') thereby doubling the total track count to 96, as well as eight new characters for a roster of 50.

* '''''VideoGame/MarioKartTour''''' ([[UsefulNotes/IOSGames iOS]] and {{UsefulNotes/Android|Games}}, 2019): A mobile entry in the series with simplified controls and [[LootBoxes gacha]] elements for acquiring characters and karts. It also features new tracks based on real-world locations like New York City, Tokyo, and Paris. It features "tours" which change in a biweekly basis, consisting numerous cups with three courses and a bonus challenge stage. It would ultimately receive 265 characters and 103 tracks, including 72 classic courses from ''Super'' through ''7'', 10 "Remix" courses (new layouts using elements from ''Super''), and 21 brand-new ones (14 world cities and 7 others).

** In multiple games, handling is usually the least important stat because of two factors. One: All it does is increase traction on slippery maps, which [[CripplingOverspecialization comes up too infrequently online to be really useful]], and two: a sufficiently skilled player can easily work around a low handling stat by knowing when and how sharp to take turns with their builds traction.

* DumpStat: In ''DS'', drift and weight. Due to the exploit of snaking, it was actually beneficial to have ''less'' drift since if you had more, you'd be turning too sharply while power sliding on straightaways. The same is said for weight, since it's combined with the "off-road" stat. The less weight you had, the faster you could go off road such as in grass or dirt. Plus, bumping into other players had no effect online. The item stat was also pretty useless, especially online where you couldn't get triple items. It was good for some courses during time trials, though, as you got more mushrooms to take shortcuts.
** Same goes to Handling with Sports bikes because of their inside drifting mechanic, which made them massively overpowered.