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Video Game / Mario Kart 7

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A new dimension of kart racing!

The seventh game in the Mario Kart series, released for the Nintendo 3DS in 2011.

This installment features many assets from Mario Kart Wii, but adds in several new additions to the series. Karts are now capable of driving underwater and are fitted with gliders, allowing them to travel through the air after driving off of a gliding ramp. Many of the returning tracks from previous games have been altered to incorporate these new mechanics. The game also introduces kart customization beyond simply choosing which character and which kart. Karts now have three separate parts: chassis, wheels, and gliders.

Coins return after having been absent from the series since Mario Kart: Super Circuit, making this the first 3D Mario Kart to include them (not counting the Arcade GP games).

If you're looking for tropes for the Game Mod CTGP-7 (which uses this game as a base), here it is.

    open/close all folders 
    Drivers 
(* indicates a character newly introduced to the series in this game)Starting Roster
  • Bowser
  • Donkey Kong
  • Luigi
  • Mario
  • Mii
  • Peach
  • Toad
  • Yoshi
  • Koopa Troopa

Unlockable

    Tracks 

    Battle Tracks 

This game contains examples of:

  • Absurdly Spacious Sewer: Piranha Plant Slide, the first course of Star Cup, takes place within a vast sewer network entered through enormous pipes which tansport water. There are some Piranha Plants have have to be avoided, and a later area is flooded. It makes a return in Mario Kart 8 and Mario Kart Tour as a Nostalgia Level.
  • Airplane Arms: Wiggler is almost constantly seen holding out his upper two arms.
  • Amphibious Automobile: The karts, which originally drove mostly on land, gain the ability to drive underwater. After all, underwater racing wouldn't be the same without them.
  • Antepiece:
    • Rainbow Road features one. Partway through the track, a glider launchpad leads directly into a large star ring that gives the racers a small speed boost. In the final third of the race, the track opens into an open gliding section where racers have to avoid floating asteroids and fly through a series of smaller, spread-out star rings to stay in flight.
    • Toad Circuit has an optional ramp with a glider launchpad, usually only used after the first lap. Using it doesn't take your kart very far (it's actually better to ignore it), but it lets the player get used to the gliding controls. Then the next level, Daisy Hills, has a larger gliding section at the end, with more obstacles to avoid (and the lake below acting as a Bottomless Pit) and its launchpads are mandatory to progress.
  • Anthropomorphic Typography: Music Park has the Music Bashes (formerly called Bouncing Notes,) giant music notes with faces that act as obstacles in the track, bouncing back and forth to the music.
  • "Arabian Nights" Days: The Shy Guy Bazaar is a nocturnal racetrack with Arabian architecture and soundtrack. Likely a Mythology Gag to Shy Guys' origin game, the Arabian-themed Doki Doki Panic.
  • Astral Finale: Rainbow Road, as usual. However, this one is unique in that the racers drive on more than just rainbow. The rings of Saturn (with sections cut out for difficulty) and the moon are also part of the track.
  • Athletic Arena Level: In addition to having circuits hosted by Toad and Mario, the game also has two courses set within Wuhu Island, of Wii Sports Resort fame. Specifically, the tracks are based on the Cycling tracks. These courses are so long that they only have to be traversed in one lap each (the only other course to have this distinction in the game is Rainbow Road). Among the retro tracks, the game has the second Mario Circuit from Super and Luigi Raceway from 64.
  • Band Land: Music Park, a track where racers drive atop piano keys, drums, and other assorted musical instruments.
  • Bat Scare: When you enter the tunnel in Rock Rock Mountain, a bunch of Swoopers will suddenly fly forward.
  • Big Boo's Haunt: Though the game doesn't introduce a new spooky track, it does bring back Luigi's Mansion from Mario Kart DS; it's still the same haunted mansion from that game, though the Portrait Ghosts were replaced with Boo paintings.
  • Big Creepy-Crawlies: 7 includes the first appearances of Wiggler and Honey Queen/Queen Bee as playable drivers (and only appearance in the latter's case). While they are as large as the other racers, they aren't threatening. The game also features Stingbies from Super Mario 3D Land on Honeybee Hive in Battle Mode, which are smaller but more threatening.
  • "Blind Idiot" Translation: The British English version of the game dubs the track Neo Bowser City "Koopa City". Koopa is Bowser's Japanese name, and that is indeed the name used for the track in the Japanese version of the game, but to international audiences "Koopa" calls to mind an ordinary turtle mook that appears nowhere in the stage. You'd think the fact that the track has pictures of Bowser plastered everywhere would have tipped them off...
  • Bonus Feature Failure: There are a few unlockable gliders you can earn. However, some of them are just a copy of the Super Glider in terms of stats, basically giving no bonus, and the rest are just a copy of the Peach Parasol in its bonus stats. This also includes all the golden parts that take so long to get, even if used together.
  • Continuity Nod: Quite a few. Nintendo EAD and Retro Studios really went all out to fill this Mario Kart with references to the Mario series's past.
    • The starting roster is identical to Super Mario Kart, with Donkey Kong replacing Donkey Kong Jr.
    • There are a lot of musical references to Mario Kart 64 in particular: the race results theme is a new rendition of the one from that game, the 1st place victory theme sounds a lot like 64's with an electric guitar and additional notes, and 3DS Rainbow Road features a loving section of the 64 Rainbow Road melody (which was similarly implemented in Double Dash), which even kickstarts the theme in the faster variant that plays as you enter the third section of the track. The main theme heard in circuits has a segment that sounds an awful lot like part of 64's raceway theme, and Neo Bowser City features both this riff and parts of the Toad's Turnpike theme. On a non-music note, the Blue Shell returns to its wingless design and ground-travelling behavior from its debut and Super Circuit.
    • The original Mario kart, the lone vehicle in the entries prior to Double Dash!! introducing a vehicle selectionnote , is now selectable as an unlockable kart body with the name of Pipe Frame. This game is the first Mario Kart to bring back older entries' vehicles in general (at least as kart bodies), with the Barrel Train returning from Double Dash!! with a design adjusted for one racer and the Egg 1 and B Dasher making a comeback from DS.
    • Shy Guy's Bazaar is filled with referenced to the games that introduced Shy Guys and brought them to the Mario series - it takes place in a desert a la World 2 of Subcon, bringing back a Middle Eastern motif of Doki Doki Panic as well as the vases from that game, and red carpets throughout the track feature the sprites of Phantos, Pansers, and Cobrats, as well as the Angry Sun.
    • Piranha Plant Slide has the look and feel of the Super Mario Bros overworld in 3D, with structures resembling that game's tiles and their bright, iconic colors. In an especially subtle reference, its bushes and clouds have the same polygonal geometry with different textures applied to each - a reference to the bushes and clouds in Super Mario Bros. being the same sprite with different palettes.
    • Wario's Shipyard features Wario in his Bull Wario form on a sign, and features a musical motif from the first two Wario Land games. While its exact location and shipwreck theme isn't an obvious reference to one location, these coupled with its pirate theming make the course an homage to Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3, which had both many ships and pirate-themed locations and enemies owing to the presence of the Brown Sugar Gang led by Captain Syrup.
    • DK Jungle is one big reference to Donkey Kong Country Returns, also developed by Retro. It features the return of the Frogoons and Tiki Goons from that game.
    • Rosalina's Ice World has some references to Super Mario Galaxy, such as a downed Toad Brigade Starshroom, the Comet Observatory in the background, and a portion of the music being remixed from the Space Junk Galaxy theme. Rainbow Road (making its annual appearance) is also filled with references to Galaxy, for example incorporating Launch Stars into its layout.
  • Cyberpunk for Flavor: Star Cup features Neo Bowser City. The course has lots of futuristic skyscrapers crowded together, a plethora of neon lights and giant screens with Bowser's face plastered on them, lots of rain, and even Blade Runner style advertising blimps.
  • Cyberpunk with a Chance of Rain: The futuristic Neo Bowser City always has rainy weather.
  • Damn You, Muscle Memory!: If you press down on the D-Pad, you switch to "tilt" mode where you turn the 3DS to steer. Simple enough, but the Trick command is still mapped to the shoulder Jump button. In Mario Kart Wii, you jerked the Wii Remote up to do the same thing. Motion control users from Wii found their 3DS screens flying off if they do this too much with their more fragile handheld, and those who used a Classic or GameCube controller in Wii found themselves unwittingly activating the motion controls.
  • Dark Reprise: The music for Neo Bowser City includes quite a few reprises, including the music of Toad/Mario Circuit, Toad's Turnpike, Mario/Luigi Circuit, and even this game's title theme. While the melodies don't sound inherently darker, it may count due to the music playing in a city named after (and presumably owned by) the Big Bad of the Mario franchise.
  • Death Mountain: The Flower Cup course Rock Rock Mountain, known in the game's European version as Alpine Pass. It's a grassy alpine biome located in a tall, rocky mountain of great altitude the drivers ride across. At one point, they enter a cave with some Swoops and exit by gliding towards the alpine forest; this is later followed by driving upward through a steep ascent while dodging some incoming boulders.
  • Derelict Graveyard: Wario Shipyard in Star Cup takes place in a graveyard of sunken ships.
  • Design-It-Yourself Equipment: In addition to bringing back the coins from Super Mario Kart and Mario Kart: Super Circuit, the game introduces gliders, and underwater driving, introduces the option to personalize the player's vehicle, even more so than Mario Kart DS (where each driver had a standard kart plus a unique kart) or Mario Kart Wii (where each weight class had its own set of bikes and karts). The player can select the kart body, the tires, and the glider to build the desired kart. By collecting many coins from the races in Grand Prix mode, the player can unlock a new body, a new set of tires, or a new glider to use. It is possible to acquire a maximum of ten coins in a race. As the user chooses the parts, the stats may vary according to the parts' combination, and the vehicle will work better in particular situations.
  • Determinator: The red shell. Even if you take to the air with a glider launchpad, it will still hunt you down.
  • Down the Drain: Piranha Plant Slide features the drivers going down a sewer system that's mostly dry, until reaching a water-filled section.
  • Dub Name Change: Quite a few course names differ between the American English and British English localizations. Here's a list of them, with the American names on the left and the British names on the right.
    • Cheep Cheep Lagoon/Cheep Cheep Cape
    • Wuhu Loop/Wuhu Island Loop
    • Music Park/Melody Motorway
    • Rock Rock Mountain/Alpine Pass
    • Piranha Plant Slide/Piranha Plant Pipeway
    • Wario Shipyard/Wario's Galleon
    • Neo Bowser City/Koopa City
    • Maka Wuhu/Wuhu Mountain Loop
    • N64 Koopa Beach/N64 Koopa Troopa Beach
    • Honeybee Hive/Honeybee House
  • Easy-Mode Mockery:
    • The top screen on the Nintendo 3DS shows Mario demonstrating how fast you'd expect to be going when you select a difficulty level. In 50cc mode, Mario drives really slowly. On top of this, the added beat to the music that plays when you have a big lead in a race doesn't play on the easy setting.
    • All of the character unlocks are tied to 150cc and Mirror, the hardest difficulty levels.
  • Egopolis: Neo Bowser City is is named after the evil king of the Koopas, and features motifs of him everywhere. And more so in its upgrade for Mario Kart 8.
  • Fake Longevity: The game pads out the requirements to unlock kart parts to the extreme. Every part requires you collecting coins to unlock them. Some parts only need a few hundred coins while other parts can only be unlocked every few thousand coins. One of the final parts will force you to get 10,000 coins or more. Have fun playing the same tracks over and over again since you can only hold 10 coins max per race. The only consolation is that a few select parts can be unlocked (or at least be unlocked a bit faster) by winning races online and successfully connecting to another player with the StreetPass feature in 7. If you lack Wi-Fi and/or don't live in a dense city where you can run into someone who also has their StreetPass turned on, or you don't have friends to play with, then you will have to resort to coin collecting.
  • First-Person Perspective: A new feature in this game. It's required to use this feature 80% of the time to unlock the gold steering wheel.
  • Foreshadowing: If, when starting the race, Lakitu is wearing a snorkel mask and his cloud is wearing goggles, that's a way of telling you that you will have a significant amount of underwater driving. He does this on Cheep Cheep Lagoon, Piranha Plant Slide, Wario Shipyard, Rosalina's Ice World, N64 Koopa Beach, GCN Daisy Cruiser, and Wii Koopa Cape. Interestingly, he does not do this on Bowser's Castle even though that track has an underwater segment.
  • Forest of Perpetual Autumn: Wii Maple Treeway remains just as autumny as it was in Mario Kart Wii.
  • Fragile Speedster: Kart combinations below give the best air top speed in the game.
    • Concerning characters, the game distinguishes feather (Toad, Koopa, Shy Guy and Lakitu) and light characters (Peach, Yoshi and Daisy): both have the best handling and top speed underwater and while the latter have a better weight and land top speed than the former, they are worse everywhere else. They also are the same size as middleweights, making them more vulnerable.
    • Regarding kart bodies, Birthday Girl, Bumble V and Egg 1 have the best acceleration while Cloud 9 and Pipe Frame are close second, but are the lightest. Bumble V's mini-turbo is also the most powerful while others' are only average and is faster than others on land (even if only above average), but is the least controllable on land. On the other hand, Birthday Girl and Cloud 9 are extremely precise but the slowest while Egg 1 and Pipe Frame are average in these two areas. Their off-road, however, is variable: Bumble V and Pipe Frame are excellent in this area while Cloud 9 and Egg 1 are average and Birthday Girl is mediocre.
    • Roller, Sponge and Wood tires amplify this trope for these vehicles in varying ways (though all of them give a great acceleration and the best air top speed): the first gives the best acceleration, handling, mini-turbo and stability, but no weight, land top speed or drift, and average off-road; Sponge also gives a good acceleration, an incredible drift, a decent off-road and an average stability, but a moderate handling, a lightweight and a small land top speed; Wood tires give a ludicrous drift, stability and good handling and off-road, but a lightweight (but not as light as others), a bad land top speed and no mini-turbo.
  • Gimmick Level: Wuhu Loop, Maka Wuhu, and the new Rainbow Road are all divided into three sections of one large course, instead of being standard three-lap circuits.
  • Glass Cannon: Put a Fragile Speedster in these vehicles and you have this trope in action:
    • The Soda Jet offers the second-to-best top speed and acceleration with a decent mini-turbo, handling and the best drift, but is extremely light and endures off-road more than the Bruiser.
    • B Dasher is heavier than Soda Jet and has the best top speed in the game, but can be considered this because it is as vulnerable to off-road, which is the Mighty Glaciers' privilege in this game. It is also slower to start and gives an average drift couple with a lame mini-mini-turbo.
    • Slick tires are the Glass Cannon tires of this game: they give the best land top speed and the most precise drift with a decent mini-turbo and stability (and weight), but only a small acceleration, no handling and are the most vulnerable to off-road.
  • Glacier Waif:
    • Once again, Rosalina needs larger karts due to her height. However, she is now considered a Cruiser character (a subtle line between middleweights and heavyweights).
    • On the other hand, Metal Mario plays this trope straight: while he is as small (and chubby) as the original character and has middle-sized vehicles, he is classified as a pure heavyweight.
  • Gold Makes Everything Shiny: Gold vehicle parts, which are usually the last parts unlocked. They resemble the Standard Kart, Wheels, and Glider, but have different stats, generally being less maneuverable with higher top speed and weight.
  • Head Desk: Whenever Donkey Kong loses a race, he responds by bashing his head into the steering wheel of his kart over and over.
  • High-Tech Hexagons: The Cyberpunk-inspired Neo Bowser City have some futuristic hexagonal motifs.
  • Hornet Hole: The battle stage Honeybee Hive, which takes place inside a giant hollow beehive and houses a swarm of the bee-like Stingby enemies that will damage any driver they come in contact with.
  • Inconsistent Dub: Queen Bee from Super Mario Galaxy is a playable racer in this game, but she was renamed "Honey Queen" for some reason.
  • Interface Spoiler: A subtle one, but when the player completes the final race required to achieve a star ranking in every cup of every class, the star(s) will be added to the player's league table position before the trophy reveal. In a way this is a good thing, as immediately upon completion the player will be able to see if, for example, they have managed to achieve one, two or three stars overall.
  • I Want My Mommy!: Subverted; The playable Lakitu may say this while falling off the track, but is soon rescued by the green-shelled Lakitu.
  • Jack of All Stats:
    • Once again, Mario and Luigi are the representants of this trope along with the Miis.
    • Light and Cruiser characters are this for nervous and powerful characters respectively: their goods and flaws are more moderate than feather and heavy characters, but the former are middle-sized and the latter are large-sized.
    • While there are standard combos for kart bodies, tires and gliders, any character can approach this trope thanks to the endless combinations: a heavy character with a light combo (or the perfect opposite) can become a balanced character to some degree.
  • Jungle Japes: DK Jungle is obviously surrounded by jungle hence the name, with the trees being denser in the beginning and the karts soon jumping on a flower platform and crossing a bridge across a waterfall near DK's hut. It also incorporates a section based on the Golden Temple from Donkey Kong Country Returns, as well as the Tiki enemies from that game.
  • Land of Tulips and Windmills: The incredibly upbeat Daisy Hills give very strong vibes of this setting, with its windmills and flowers. Although it is mixed with some alpine, Austrian flair.
  • Lightning Bruiser: Barrel Train comes back as a vehicle body: its acceleration and off-road are average but still decent compared to heavyweights, it makes you gain the maximum weight bonus and the second land top speed, and while the others speeds are mediocre, it can compensate with a monstrous mini-turbo. However, it is among the hardest cars to drive.
  • Loads and Loads of Loading: The game comes with beautifully designed track stages that move in full stereoscopic 60FPS, but with the jarring side-effect that you're presented with 4 to 7 seconds of white loading screens, each before and after the track preview. Granted, it's not much, but we're talking about a Nintendo handheld game stored on flash memory!
  • Long Song, Short Scene: Rainbow Road in this game is one long lap, broken into three sections. This game's version of the Rainbow Road theme has a very long intro, and on most speed settings it will have only just reached the 'normal' Rainbow Road leitmotif when you get to the third section, at which point it restarts and plays at a higher speed. The section on the Moon also has its own Variable Mix of the course's entire soundtrack loop, but you'll only hear around twenty seconds of it unless you deliberately park in place.
  • Luck-Based Mission: Getting three stars on any Grand Prix Mode requires you to — at the very least — win every race, finish every race with ten coins, and lead for more than half of the second and third laps. Anyone who knows anything about the 150cc and Mirror modes in this series is probably going to immediately realize just how difficult this is going to be; a perfect race with the player in 1st can easily end in tears before the finish line if an NPC fires a blue shell, and/or several of them get red shells and barrage you. Especially frustrating is if this happens on the last lap of the fourth and final race.
  • Lucky Seven: This game introduces the "Lucky 7" item, which surrounds you with seven items you can use as you want. But it's a double-edged sword and can backfire in several ways, as the items will also activate if someone else touches you, and can be lost entirely if you get hit by an item or course hazard. Its successor, the Crazy 8, spawns eight items to use at once.
  • Made O' Gold: The Gold Standard and its parts are a go-kart entirely made of just gold. This includes the steering wheel, glider (because weight is relative to Toon Physics), and tires.
  • Magic Carpet: At the end of Shy Guy Bazaar, you'll find Shy Guys flying on carpets.
  • Marathon Level: Rainbow Road is long enough that it's also one long lap around the course, divided into three segments, rather than one whole lap. It's one of three courses in its game to be a three segment course rather than a three lap one, the others being the two Wuhu Island courses (Wuhu Loop, where you loop around Wuhu Island; and Maka Wuhu, where you drive up Maka Wuhu then glide back to the beach).
  • Medley:
    • The music for the Wuhu Island tracks is a medley of the themes of Wii Sports Resort and Wii Sports.
    • Neo Bowser City is a medley of the circuit/title themes from 7, Toad's Turnpike from 64, and the circuit theme from Wii.
  • Metropolis Level: Star Cup has Neo Bowser City, a racetrack set within a futuristic city with Bowser's image heavily present. It has many curves that make driving difficult and, due to the rain, there are also water puddles that cause drivers to spin out of control and waste time. Part of its music is a nod to Toad's Turnpike from Mario Kart 64. It makes a return in Mario Kart 8, and again in Mario Kart Tour, as a Nostalgia Level.
  • Mighty Glacier:
    • A distinction is applied between Cruiser characters (Donkey Kong, Rosalina and Wiggler) and Heavy characters (Bowser, Wario, Honey Queen and Metal Mario): the former share some flaws of the latter like a weaker mini-turbo and drift, a larger hitbox and their advantages like weight and top speed aren't as strong, but some flaws like the weak acceleration aren't as problematic and they also benefit middleweights' off-road.
    • 7 vehicle bodies like the Bruiser, Zucchini, Blue Seven, and Bolt Buggy give a great top speed, a good weight to push opponents and a decent off-road, but lame acceleration. Gold Standard is heavy and powerful, but is weak to off-road, while the Barrel Train actually has a good acceleration.
    • Gold and Slick Tires give the best top speed with a decent weight and mini-turbo, but a lame acceleration and off-road. Monster and Red Monsters also give a good top speed coupled with a good weight and off-road, but are unstable and make the vehicle slower to start.
  • Musical Gameplay: The game adds drums to the Background Music when you are in the lead. And one of its stages, Music Park / Melody Motorway, has jumping musical notes for obstacles, that jump in time to the Background Music. They even speed up their jumping to match the sped-up music in the last lap.
  • Musical Nod:
    • Neo Bowser City's music is a blend of N64 Toad's Turnpike, the title theme of 7, and the Circuit themes from Mario Kart Wii and 7.
    • New Rainbow Road uses the chorus from N64 Rainbow Road. The section before that is a variation of the N64 Staff Roll.
    • The results music is that from Mario Kart 64, raised up a full step.
  • Neon City: Neo Bowser City has a futuristic theme which involves a lot of neon lights and bright displays (many of which serve to glorify Bowser).
  • New Neo City: Neo Bowser City is set in a futuristic metropolis, with lots of bright lights, shiny towers, and flying vehicles for backdrops. In the PAL release, though, it's just called Koopa City.
  • New Work, Recycled Graphics: The game reuses various assets from both Double Dash!! and Wii, which makes for a technically impressive game developed for a handheld system instead of a home console like the aforementioned titles.
  • Nitro Boost: Features many ways - a variety of different dash pads, stored nitro charges in the form of mushrooms, and a self-regenerating boost achievable by holding the right trigger and steering heavily into corners (or on certain straights by zig-zagging, if they're wide enough).
  • Nostalgia Level: In addition to bringing retro tracks as usual, the game also evokes other Nintendo games with some of the new courses:
  • Numbered Sequels: This is the first game in the series to be numbered.
  • One Stat to Rule Them All: Like the previous installment, top speed is the central criteria to settle records.
  • Palmtree Panic:
    • Cheep Cheep Lagoon are Wii Koopa Cape mix this with Under the Sea: the former is mainly underwater but also has a beachside and cave section, and the latter is set on a mountain instead of a beach, but still has beach vibes here and there.
    • Wuhu Loop is the summer town track for this game while Maka Wuhu is the summer island's exploration equivalent.
    • N64 Koopa Troopa Beach, on the other hand, is a more traditional example. Like the original, you race on the shore of the island, and this time you can actually go underwater.
  • Pinball Zone: Waluigi Pinball, returning from Mario Kart DS, is mainly the same pinball machine course as the original (although Waluigi himself is absent from this installment).
  • Pipe Maze: Piranha Plant Slide, based on the Super Mario Bros. underground levels. Not only do you enter the underground portion via a large entrance shaped like a green pipe, but also drive alongside a current of water (and there's a flooded part later on). It returns in Mario Kart 8 and Mario Kart Tour as a Nostalgia Level.
  • Port Town: Wuhu Loop starts and ends in a small touristic town while the whole battle stage Wuhu Town happens in the said town.
  • Promoted to Playable:
    • This is the first game in the series where Lakitu is playable. The playable Lakitu has a red shell to distinguish him from the one who starts the race, rescues you when you fall into pits, etc.
    • This is the first time, and so far the last, that Honey Queen from Super Mario Galaxy and Wiggler are playable.
  • Racing Ghost: This game in particular takes the concept pretty far. Every track has multiple staff ghosts (each unlocked after beating the last). If left in sleep mode, the 3DS will download ghosts from random players. There's an option to play against 7 ghosts at once.
  • Red Baron: Each player is given a title (the player can view their own under Mario Kart Channel, at the face icon) based on how they play (for example, Quick Starter is for those good at hitting a boost at the start, while Dolphin is for those good at racing underwater). When racing against the AI-controlled version of those players gained through StreetPass, their play style is informed by their title.
  • Red Ones Go Faster: The Red Monster wheels are a bit lighter and have a touch more acceleration than the regular Monster wheels.
  • Retraux: The music for the retro courses was also remastered, and the music tends to sound very similar to how it originally sounded, but with an added Truck Driver's Gear Change for the last lap/segment, and better instruments. The SNES version of Rainbow Road sounds fairly close to the original, just with cleaner synths and a better mix, for example.
  • Rubber-Band A.I.: Maka Wuhu has an exploitable glitch that lets you skip at least half the track. If you do this while racing against the AI, they will magically catch up to you without fail.
  • Scenery Porn: In classic Nintendo fashion, the new levels are all bright and colourful with the power of the 3DS utilised to make the backgrounds eye-popping. Even the retro courses receive a significant facelift as compared to the originals.
  • Secret Character: With the exception of Miis (complete all cups of any given class), all of them unlocked through completing 150cc cups with gold. In order from Mushroom to Lighting, the unlockable drivers are Daisy, Wario, Rosalina, Metal Mario, Shy Guy, Honey Queen, Wiggler, and Lakitu.
  • Sequence Breaking: Eventually patched for online play, but the game had a certain glitch that effectively cut one third of one race track. Maka Wuhu was one of the courses that were really long and cut into three sections instead of laps. However, if you jump off the course at the right area near the beginning of the second section, you'll respawn right near the end, skipping it entirely. Eventually everyone who played the course online did this, necessitating the patch.
  • Shifting Sand Land: Shy Guy Bazaar an "Arabian Nights" Days version of this setting, as it features palatial buildings and references to the Arabian-inspired Super Mario Bros. 2 (such as flying carpets, Cobrats and drawings of Phanto). There's also Kalimari Desert, which returns from Mario Kart 64 and serves as The Wild West equivalent.
  • Shout-Out: If she manages to hit an opponent with an item, Daisy will sometimes let out a Nelson Muntz-esque "Ha-ha!".
  • Slippy-Slidey Ice World:
    • Rosalina's Ice World lives up to its name, with most of the track being covered in snow and ice. Being a Special Cup track, it's designed a lot more dangerously than most snow-themed tracks (which after Super's Vanilla Lake 2 have all been found in the Star or Flower Cups of their debut games), with the slippery ice becoming especially hazardous when navigating narrow roads next to a pit and dodging giant impeding icicles. Penguins also show up near the underwater segment, which can be skipped on lap 1 or with a speed boost on later laps, where the ice on the water's surface has drifted slightly farther out.
    • DK Pass returns from DS. There's no ice, but plenty of snow that's as slippery to drive on. Snowballs and snowmen show up as obstacles on the course.
    • Sherbet Rink is the first battle course with this look since SNES Battle Course 3, taking place in a colorful ice rink decorated with Peach signage. It's possibly the most colorful ice stage in a Mario Kart game, and both Snowmen and waddling penguins act as obstacles.
  • Snowy Sleigh Bells: While all three nitro battle tracks have the same melody, the music playing on Sherbet Rink has added sleigh bells.
  • Socialization Bonus: The StreetPass feature unlocks the Gold Glider part. The more people you connect with the feature, the fewer coins you need to unlock the part. Don't live in a place where lots of people own a copy of the game and use the StreetPass feature? Have fun grinding for 10,000 coins to get that Gold Gilder.
  • Springy Spores: Mushroom Gorge from Mario Kart Wii returns, featuring bouncy mushrooms that racers use to cross gaps. This game's incarnations of Mario Circuit and Rainbow Road also have one apiece.
  • Stone Wall:
    • Tiny Tug is a fairly controllable kart with a decent acceleration, a good weight to protect itself and is among the most resistants to off-road. However, its turbo are mediocre and its (land) top speed below average (it has the best underwater top speed, however).
    • Cact-X has the same off-road advantage and is more controllable, but is lighter and slower.
  • Stopped Numbering Sequels: Inverted. The first six games in the Mario Kart series resorted to either Super Title 64 Advance or a unique subtitle for their names. This one, being the seventh (not counting the Arcade games), is simply called Mario Kart 7.
  • Super Drowning Skills: Falling into the lake of Daisy Hills equals falling into a bottomless pit. The reason for this is because the game's novelty of underwater sections isn't introduced until the next course, as Daisy Hills itself focuses on introducing aerial driving instead.
  • Super Not-Drowning Skills: The game has underwater racing in many levels. And yes, you can stay underwater for as long as you like, use fireballs and explosive items down there and see the sights of an eight person go-kart race along the sea bed.
  • Theme-and-Variations Soundtrack: All three nitro battle courses share the same tune but each one uses different instrumentation.
  • Underground Level: Piranha Plant Slide, which is part of the Star Cup. It is modeled after (and is a Homage to) the underground levels from the 2D games, especially the original Super Mario Bros.; as you navigate within, you'll find Piranha Plants popping out of large green pipes, and a large underwater area.
  • Under the Sea: Ever since this game introduced underwater racing as a mechanic, many aquatic courses are either completely this theme, such as Cheep Cheep Lagoon in Mushroom Cup; become this theme as a returning course, such as Koopa Cape in Lightning Cup going from Shark Tunnel to this; or have this theme mixed with another theme, such as Wario Shipyard in Star Cup mixing Gangplank Galleon with it.
  • Variable Mix: The game adds extra percussion (bass/snare "dance" beat or a hi-hat, for example) to the BGM if the player takes a significant lead in 100cc or higher.
  • Windmill Scenery: Daisy Hills has three windmills that lie at the bottom of the gliding section, and their sails can block the racers.

 
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Bowser

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Mocking Sing-Song

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Bowser

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