YMMV / CTGP-7

• Abridged Arena Array: CTWW suffered from this for a while, as some players thought it would be funny to spam votes for Baby Park and Miku's Birthday Spectacular and would occasionally raid lobbies with votes for these controversial courses. Averted as of 1.4.2, where a five-track cooldown was introduced in order to combat such raids.
• Breather Level: Despite being a Luck-Based Mission, "3-4 Item Mayhem" is significantly easier than most of the other missions, especially compared to the "Defend Racer" mission that precedes it. It also helps that the player can simply reset for a light character to make the race a bit easier.
• Broken Base:
  • Miku's Birthday Spectacular. Half the playerbase loves it for being challenging and visually impressive (with Awesome Music to boot). The other half finds it too janky and challenging in addition to sticking out like a sore thumb even when compared to the other Crossover tracks. It didn't help that the track was notoriously crash-prone in earlier versions.
  • Is CTGP-7's Mission Mode a technically impressive and challenging-yet-fun take on the (admittedly easy) mode from Mario Kart DS? Or is it an overly difficult butchering of the beloved mode? You decide!
  • Any time there's a change to a course or the game's mechanics designed to make the game easier for newcomers to get into, most infamously the (initial) removal of delay drifting and the ability to take the Mushroom Mountain shortcut without a mushroom, you'll have veterans of the game cry out over Pablo punishing people who invested significant time towards practicing these mechanics. Others, however, view these mechanics as unnecessary gatekeeping and accuse those who complain about such changes of having an elitist attitude.
• Damsel Scrappy: Peach (or possibly Birdo if you choose them over her) was never a particularly popular pick among Mario Kart players, but "3-3 Defend Racer", an extremely difficult mission which involves escorting her to the finish line, left such a bad taste in CTGP-7 players' mouths that she's basically never seen online. While Metal Mario/Robo Mario/Chain Chomp dominating online races doesn't do her any favors, you're likely to run into pretty much any other character at some point except for Peach.
• It's Hard, So It Sucks!: The Mission Mode has been criticized by some as being a fair bit too brutal, especially for those trying to get a perfect score.
• That One Level:
  • Castle of Time isn't terribly difficult on its own, aside from maybe executing certain shortcuts. The problem lies in the fact that even a single lap is extremely long, and the track goes for two of them, making it a slog to complete. This is because the track used to be a segmented track similar to the likes of Maka Wuhu, but was changed to have two laps. Secret Slide received similar treatment, but was slightly shortened.
  • Elemental Cave, due to being narrow, laden with sharp turns, and extremely dark by Mario Kart 7 track standards, making it difficult to navigate.
  • Evergreen Crossing has a confusing layout, sharp turns, and is quite slippery, making it easy to get into a Cycle of Hurting. Worse still, the excess white fog makes it difficult to see ahead.
  • As mentioned under Broken Base, Miku's Birthday Spectacular is laden with sharp turns, as well as glider sections littered with leeks and giant Mikus that can cause unlucky racers to drop to their doom when crashed into.
  • Star Slope is not very well-liked due to the third part of the track, which features a confusing layout of intertwining golden paths. Additionally, sometimes you'll just randomly fall into a Bottomless Pit while on the paths for no apparent reason.
  • Dark Matter Fortress, one of the newer courses, is merciless with its many pitfalls, tight corners, and annoying rolling Chain Chomps. There's also a shortcut near the beginning that shaves off a lot of time, but is extremely difficult to pull off.
  • Space Road's Early-Installment Weirdness made it one of the most universally despised tracks in CTGP-7 history. The excess hills forced the player to either slow down or do a trick, potentially falling to their doom. The main route near the beginning had a very sharp turn, while the easier-to-access glider route required a Mushroom to properly cross. Sharp turns and unnecessary hills continued to plague the track as the player went through it, and on top of all that it wasn't even that visually interesting. Mercifully the Staff Roll Update removed it in favor of the more well-made remake of GCN Bowser's Castle.
  • Of the roster of retro tracks added to this game, one of the most hated is GBA Bowser Castle 4. The course retains the sharp turns and complex layout of its game of origin; however, unique to this version is not an increase in difficulty but an increase in length. This causes the track to go from a standard length of around 2 minutes (which was as long as it took to complete the original version of the course on GBA) to 3-4 minute race, with a few even taking up to 5 minutes. This length makes the track feel bloated and meandering to go through, turning it into one of the least popular tracks in the game.
• That One Sidequest: Mission Mode in general is a lot less forgiving than its iteration in Mario Kart DS, especially for those trying to get a perfect 10-point score. However, some missions stand out for being painful even by CTGP-7 standards:
  • "1-4 Reverse Track" places you in Wii Mushroom Gorge and forces you to drive through the track in reverse order. Due to the layout of the giant mushrooms, incredibly precise usage of Super Mushrooms is required in order to beat the mission, especially within the time limit.
  • "3-3 Defend Racer" is especially infamous for being an extremely Luck-Based Escort Mission in Mario Kart of all things. You'll often find yourself fighting with both Bowser's and Peach's AI, and there's a strict time limit as well. Did we mention that the time is dependent on Peach winning the race?
  • "4-1 Collect Coins" places you in the slippery Sherbert Rink, where you'll have to fight with penguins, bumpers, and the icy track all at once in order to complete the mission on time. You are given a Super Leaf in order to collect the coins more efficiently, but if the Super Leaf wears off while you're in the middle of a coin cluster, you're basically screwed.
  • "4-2 Defeat Enemies" requires you to burn a certain amount of Frogoons within a strict time limit, with a catch: you cannot get hit at all, or you lose. Combine that with the fickle and seemingly-random jumping patterns of the Frogoons? Yeah, have fun with this one.
  • "4-4 Purple Coins", much like the Prankster Comet missions it's based off of. This nasty mission throws you into Rainbow Road and requires you to carefully-yet-quickly navigate the course and collect all ninety-nine purple coins within an extremely-strict time limit. The last part of the course also requires you to avoid massive Chain Chomps who seemingly go out of their way to ruin your mission. You will get sick of the Purple Coin music after a while.