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All Mario Kart Games Ranked from Least to Most Fun

1-10

Ignacio Weil

Gaming - June 24th 2026, 18:30 GMT+2

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

The concept is pure Nintendo mischief: build a track in your living room, drive a real toy kart through it, and watch Mario dodge digital hazards on the Switch screen. The problem is that *Home Circuit* is only as fun as your floor plan, lighting, patience, and tolerance for a kart bonking into table legs. As an experiment, it is charming and genuinely clever; as a *Mario Kart* game, it feels more like a weekend novelty than a go-to party racer. | © Nintendo

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

*Super Circuit* deserves more respect than it usually gets, especially for cramming a surprisingly packed *Mario Kart* experience onto the Game Boy Advance. It brought original tracks, classic SNES courses, and a real sense of speed to a handheld that was never exactly begging for chaotic kart physics. Still, the tiny screen, flat visuals, and slippery handling make it feel more admirable than irresistible today. Fun is definitely here, but it asks players to meet it halfway. | © Nintendo

8. Super Mario Kart (1992)

The original *Super Mario Kart* is the reason this ranking exists at all, which makes placing it this low feel slightly disrespectful to gaming history. Its Mode 7 tracks, character-based rivalries, and battle mode basically wrote the rulebook for kart racers, then handed every future party game a banana peel. Going back now, though, the controls are stiff, the tracks are narrow, and the CPU racers can feel personally offended by your existence. Legendary, yes; effortless fun, not always. | © Nintendo

Mario kart DS — 7. Mario Kart DS (2005)

*Mario Kart DS* was a huge deal on handhelds, not just because it played beautifully on the Nintendo DS, but because it pushed the series into online racing in a way that felt genuinely futuristic at the time. The mission mode gave solo players something unusually substantial to chew on, while tracks like Waluigi Pinball became instant franchise royalty. Its biggest drawback is the snaking-heavy meta, which could turn competitive races into wrist-cramping homework. Still, for portable chaos, it punched far above its weight. | © Nintendo

6. Mario Kart 64 (1996)

*Mario Kart 64* is less polished than your nostalgia wants to admit, but its best moments still hit with ridiculous force. Four-player split-screen turned it into a sleepover institution, and tracks like Rainbow Road, Royal Raceway, and Yoshi Valley made the jump to 3D feel massive even with those chunky character sprites. The rubber-banding can be shameless, and some courses are emptier than memory suggests, but the multiplayer energy remains nuclear. This is the one that taught millions of friendships how to fracture politely. | © Nintendo

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

*Mario Kart Wii* is beautiful nonsense, the kind of game where skill matters until twelve racers, a Thunder Cloud, three bikes, and one Blue Shell decide democracy has failed. The Wii Wheel made it ridiculously accessible, bikes changed the competitive scene, and tricks gave every jump a little extra swagger. It is not the tightest or fairest *Mario Kart*, but fairness was clearly not the whole assignment. As a chaotic living-room machine, it still understands exactly how to make everyone yell at once. | © Nintendo

4. Mario Kart 7 (2011)

*Mario Kart 7* does not always get the loudest praise, mostly because it landed on a handheld and quietly did several important things extremely well. Gliding, underwater driving, and kart customization all became core parts of the series’ modern identity, while the 3DS gave its courses a crisp, toy-box charm. It lacks the bigness of the console entries, but the handling is clean, the track design is sharp, and the best races move with lovely momentum. Compact, smart, and dangerously easy to replay. | © Nintendo

3. Mario Kart World (2025)

*Mario Kart World* is the series finally looking at its own track list and asking, “What if we connected the whole thing?” The open-road structure, Free Roam, Knockout Tour, and bigger 24-driver races make it feel like the first *Mario Kart* in ages that is not just expanding the formula, but rearranging the furniture. Not every new idea lands with equal elegance, and the sprawl can occasionally blur the clean arcade focus. Still, when it clicks, it feels like Nintendo letting the series breathe again. | © Nintendo

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

*Double Dash!!* remains the glorious oddball of the series, and that is exactly why fans refuse to let it fade into “remember that one?” territory. Two characters per kart gave every race a tactical wrinkle, special items made pairings matter, and the GameCube tracks had a punchy, colorful attitude that still feels distinct. It is slightly heavier and stranger than the entries around it, but that personality is the whole appeal. No other *Mario Kart* has made co-op driving feel this wonderfully unhinged. | © Nintendo

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

*Mario Kart 8* already looked absurdly polished when it arrived, but *Mario Kart 8 Deluxe* turned it into the series’ most complete fun machine. Anti-gravity gave the tracks a dazzling sense of movement, the handling hit that sweet spot between accessible and technical, and the expanded course selection made it feel almost impossible to exhaust. Even after years of play, it remains the easiest entry to recommend, restart, and lose an entire evening to. This is *Mario Kart* at its slickest, loudest, and most dangerously replayable. | © Nintendo

1-10

Ranking every Mario Kart game is a dangerous sport, mostly because everyone has one sacred childhood favorite and at least one track they still blame for personal trauma. Nintendo’s kart-racing series has survived handheld experiments, motion-control chaos, double-driver gimmicks, and enough Blue Shell heartbreak to ruin entire friendships. But not every entry delivers the same level of speed, personality, and couch-multiplayer magic. From the clunkiest laps to the games that turned item-box mayhem into an art form, here are all the Mario Kart games ranked from least to most fun.

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Ranking every Mario Kart game is a dangerous sport, mostly because everyone has one sacred childhood favorite and at least one track they still blame for personal trauma. Nintendo’s kart-racing series has survived handheld experiments, motion-control chaos, double-driver gimmicks, and enough Blue Shell heartbreak to ruin entire friendships. But not every entry delivers the same level of speed, personality, and couch-multiplayer magic. From the clunkiest laps to the games that turned item-box mayhem into an art form, here are all the Mario Kart games ranked from least to most fun.