‘Mario Kart 8 Deluxe’ Reviews Are Great, But Major Connection Issues Remain

Lucky for Nintendo, the Switch is off to a rolling start. After the incredibly lackluster reception to the Wii U, the former console king is finally putting up a fight once again. The system is still insanely hard to find in stores, which is leading to a lot of frustration from potential customers. In addition to that, something else is causing a bit of concern with their fanbase. Apparently, the company’s latest first-party release is surprisingly buggy, leaving some players feeling shell-shocked.

Mario Kart 8: Deluxe was released on April 28, and has been greeted with rave reviews from critics (it’s currently sitting at an impressive 93 percent on Metacritic) and been racking up massive sales (459,000 copies were sold on launch day, breaking the record for the biggest first-day sales in the history of the nearly 25-year-old series), but the incredibly popular multiplayer component is reportedly filled with glitches and game-breaking lag for a number of players. Some fans are even struggling to cross the starting line, as they’re only able to play a few full games over the course of hours.

I think #MarioKart8 came out today. Maybe. pic.twitter.com/kFqqD7h3A6

— CMDR Elliot Lewis (@PolycountPirate) April 28, 2017

The problems seem to be many. For starters, as Kotaku pointed out, one of the major issues is that racers are being attacked with items out of nowhere.

“While the original game required the player see an item hit them on screen in order for it to register, that doesn’t seem to be the case with Deluxe, leading to players being hit by things they just don’t see coming.”

Over on the Reddit forums for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, players are bringing up myriad issues and venting their frustrations over their inability to enjoy the game without some sort of hiccup.

Thank you for making #MarioKart 8 Deluxe the fastest selling Mario Kart game in the franchise’s 25 year history! pic.twitter.com/HkjWqL8f5Q

— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) May 1, 2017

Besides general connection issues preventing some gamers from being able to play the multiplayer modes at all in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, shoddy hit detection between the racers appears to be a common complaint among the community. Basically, a character will get hit with an item like a red shell and drop some coins in the process, but they won’t actually spin out or slow down. They just keep on driving as if nothing happened.

Member NicholasNSane shared his experience Reddit.

“Besides connection drops, which are fairly frequent, there is a huge issue with item hit detection. Far too often I will land a hit on an opponent, usually with a visual cue that it landed, like my character cheering, only for the player to continue on like nothing happened and, in battle mode, no points being given to me.”

Unfortunately, this doesn’t seem to be an isolated case. Another member on the forum, BasedTanaka, also chimed in (along with hundreds of others) sharing their gameplay issues with Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.

“East Coast USA here and I have constant disconnections, errors, and no item hit registry. There is also a bug where the item wheel will take a long time to spin and then you will get the same item over and over again.”

Quite a few members of the thread from across North America have reported never experiencing any sort of problem in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Still, it appears a significant number are struggling to play the $60 game in multiplayer mode after it’s been out for over a week.

With a huge amount of people playing at the same time, the servers may simply be overwhelmed at the moment. The problem may end up being alleviated in the coming weeks and months when fewer gamers are playing the game. But for fans who shelled out their hard-earned money for the ride, they’re obviously hoping the company issues some sort of patch soon.

As of yet, Nintendo has not responded to the complaints to let fans know when they may have the game fixed.

[Featured image by Nintendo]