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All Mario Kart Games Ranked from Least to Most Fun

1-10

Ignacio Weil

Gaming - March 23rd 2026, 20:30 GMT+1

Mario Kart Live Home Circuit cropped processed by imagy — 10. Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit (2020)

The first lap around your own furniture is a genuine thrill. Watching a tiny kart zip past chair legs while the Switch turns your living room into a race track is such a smart idea that *Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit* almost wins on novelty alone. The problem is everything around that novelty. You need space, patience, decent lighting, and a room layout that does not turn into a headache after ten minutes. Once the surprise wears off, the racing itself feels thinner than the mainline games, and the setup can be more demanding than the payoff. It is inventive, charming, and easy to admire, but not the one people rush back to most. | © Nintendo

Mario Kart Super Circuit — 9. Mario Kart: Super Circuit (2001)

For a handheld entry, this one packed in an impressive amount of *Mario Kart*. *Mario Kart: Super Circuit* brought the series to the Game Boy Advance without losing the basic speed, items, and competitive tension that made the console games so easy to obsess over. It also deserves credit for loading the package with a huge selection of tracks, especially for its time. Even so, playing it now can feel a little cramped. The screen space is tight, the handling can get slippery in awkward ways, and some races blur together more than they should. There is a lot here, but it does not have the effortless pick-up-and-play joy of the games ranked above it. | © Nintendo

8. Super Mario Kart (1992)

You can still see the whole future of the franchise taking shape in *Super Mario Kart*. The rivalries, the item chaos, the track hazards, the sudden swings from confidence to disaster, all of it starts here, and that gives the game a charm that never really disappears. At the same time, this is also the entry that feels the most tied to its era. The handling is stiff compared to what came later, the roster is tiny, and the computer opponents can be brutal in ways that feel more punishing than fun. There is historical magic in every race, but pure enjoyment is a different question, and the series simply became smoother and more inviting after this starting point. | © Nintendo

7. Mario Kart 64 (1996)

A lot of people will defend this one with their whole chest, and it is not hard to understand why. *Mario Kart 64* turned the series into a full-on party event, the kind of game that could take over an afternoon with one lucky shortcut, one cruel shell, and one friend suddenly yelling across the room. Its best tracks are still legendary, and the jump to four-player multiplayer made it a social monster. What keeps it from climbing higher is the feel of the racing itself. The controls are looser than memory sometimes admits, some courses drag a bit, and a few long stretches lack the constant spark later games mastered. The vibes are immaculate, even when the mechanics show their age. | © Nintendo

Mario kart DS — 6. Mario Kart DS (2005)

This was the point where the series started to feel truly complete. *Mario Kart DS* had sharp racing, excellent track design, a strong battle between old and new courses, and one of the best single-player extras Nintendo ever put in a kart racer with its Mission Mode. The online play was also a huge deal at the time, because it made *Mario Kart* feel bigger than the couch for the first time. More importantly, the game still holds up because it is simply fun to drive. The karts respond well, the races move at a brisk pace, and the whole package has that dangerous “one more cup” quality that the best entries in the series always have. | © Nintendo

Mario kart wii — 5. Mario Kart Wii (2008)

This is the entry that fully embraced chaos and made it feel like the whole point. Races in *Mario Kart Wii* can swing from comfortable first place to complete humiliation in seconds, and somehow that unpredictability is exactly why so many people still love it. The bike mechanics gave skilled players more room to dominate, the roster got bigger, and the online play helped turn it into an obsession for an entire era of Nintendo fans. It also had that wonderfully messy house-party energy, especially with the Wii Wheel making every race look slightly ridiculous from across the room. It is not the most balanced game in the series, but it might be one of the loudest and most unforgettable. | © Nintendo

4. Mario Kart 7 (2011)

A lot of the ideas that later games perfected started clicking into place here. The addition of gliding and underwater sections gave the tracks a sense of movement that made older entries feel flatter overnight, and *Mario Kart 7* rarely wastes time getting to the good stuff. Its best courses are fast, clean, and easy to fall back into, especially because the driving feels so snappy on the 3DS. There is also something appealingly lean about it; this game does not overload itself with gimmicks, and that helps the racing stay front and center. It lacks the giant personality of the top three, but it is one of the easiest *Mario Kart* games to pick up and instantly enjoy. | © Nintendo

3. Mario Kart World (2025)

Nintendo finally went bigger in a way that actually changes how the series feels. Instead of treating each course like an isolated event, *Mario Kart World* turns the whole thing into an interconnected playground, and that shift gives the game a scale the older titles simply cannot match. Free Roam alone makes it stand out, because it lets the fun breathe between the usual bursts of competition, and the larger races add even more pressure once the pack starts collapsing into total madness. What keeps it just short of the top two is that some of its appeal comes from ambition as much as pure refinement. Still, when it hits, it feels like the series discovering fresh asphalt under its wheels. | © Nintendo

Thumbyyy — 2. Mario Kart: Double Dash!! (2003)

Nothing else in the franchise has quite this same chemistry. Putting two characters in one kart sounds like a strange experiment on paper, but *Mario Kart: Double Dash!!* turned that idea into one of the most playful and distinctive multiplayer systems Nintendo ever made. The switching, the special items, and the sheer personality of each team gave every race a different texture, which is a big reason the game still has such a loyal following. It also helps that the courses are memorable in that chunky, high-energy GameCube way, built for sudden collisions, dumb luck, and a lot of yelling. Other entries are smoother, but very few are this alive. | © Nintendo

Mario kart 8 — 1. Mario Kart 8 / Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (2014 / 2017)

First place goes to the version of *Mario Kart* that feels the most complete. *Mario Kart 8* already had gorgeous tracks, anti-gravity sections that actually added something, and some of the best moment-to-moment driving in the entire series, but *Mario Kart 8 Deluxe* turned that foundation into the definitive package. The controls are sharp, the track lineup is absurdly strong, the multiplayer is endlessly replayable, and almost every session produces at least one finish that feels stolen in the funniest possible way. This is the entry people keep coming back to because it has almost no weak spots once the race begins. More than any other game in the series, it understands that *Mario Kart* is supposed to feel smooth, mean, silly, and impossible to quit after just one cup. | © Nintendo

1-10

No other Nintendo series has done more damage with a single banana peel. Mario Kart has spent decades turning living rooms into crime scenes, where one blue shell, one shortcut, or one badly timed laugh can rewrite the entire mood in under ten seconds.

So this ranking gives no extra credit for nostalgia, legacy, or being first. The only thing that matters here is fun: which Mario Kart games still feel electric when the race starts, the items get mean, and everyone suddenly takes a cartoon plumber way too seriously.

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No other Nintendo series has done more damage with a single banana peel. Mario Kart has spent decades turning living rooms into crime scenes, where one blue shell, one shortcut, or one badly timed laugh can rewrite the entire mood in under ten seconds.

So this ranking gives no extra credit for nostalgia, legacy, or being first. The only thing that matters here is fun: which Mario Kart games still feel electric when the race starts, the items get mean, and everyone suddenly takes a cartoon plumber way too seriously.