A novel idea from Velan Studios, Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit is far from a conventional Mario Kart title. Using a real-life remote-controlled go-kart and a track players must set up in their own physical space, Home Circuit requires a bit more creativity and time than your standard Mario Kart entry. Unfortunately, repetitive gameplay, stiff controls, and limitations involving surfaces and space requirements can’t be overcome by the unique gimmick.

The notion of having a Mario Kart game on the go in 2001 was enticing, and while Super Circuit is far from a bad game, it didn’t quite deliver the thrills we had grown accustomed to with the pre-existing console entries. The technical limitations of the Game Boy Advance didn’t allow for as grand of an experience as, say, the Nintendo 64, and the controls are less precise than its console brethren. Still, this early handheld entry delivered plenty of thrills, particularly when you consider it’s the first time Mario Kart was able to be played on the go.

The sole mobile Mario Kart game, Mario Kart Tour had an uphill battle thanks to its unconventional structure, unsavory monetization methods, and imprecise touchscreen controls. However, thanks to the four years of live-service updates, Mario Kart Tour includes several nods to Mario and Mario Kart’s past, plus an absolutely massive roster of racers and courses. Some of the courses in Mario Kart Tour are among the best the series has ever seen. Thankfully, for those turned away by Tour’s mobile structure, several of the best race tracks from Tour eventually made their way to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe through the Booster Course Pass.

Borne out of a desire for Nintendo to create a racing game where two characters could appear on the same screen simultaneously, Super Mario Kart began as a go-kart game without the Mario brand attached; it was only once someone suggested seeing what the racers looked like as Mario characters that the Mario Kart franchise was born. This initial entry laid the groundwork for the series, but by today’s standards, it’s rather barebones. But to this day, the soundtrack is still spectacular, the Battle Mode is a thrill, and some of the tracks remain essential classics in the franchise.

While Mario Kart 64 falls short in many categories when compared to the rest of this list, it nails it in a few select areas. The tracks of Mario Kart 64 stand toe-to-toe with most other games in the series, and the series’ first transition to full 3D graphics has aged better than many Nintendo 64 titles. But the place for which Mario Kart 64 is most important is in its innovation of doubling the number of players who can sit down and battle it out, thanks to the N64’s four controller ports. To this day, Mario Kart 64’s Versus and Battle Modes are a blast to play, even if your screen is relegated to a tiny quadrant of the TV, leading the N64 Mario Kart title to be considered one of the most nostalgic entries of the franchise.

While the accomplishments of the Wii entry of the Mario Kart series will always be overshadowed by the passable motion controls and the bundled plastic wheel that still lay dormant in many households to this day, Mario Kart Wii is a strong entry that introduced many gimmicks and conventions still going strong in the franchise to this day. Along with the introduction of bikes and stunts, plus a vastly improved online suite, Mario Kart Wii was a mainstay in millions upon millions of Wii libraries for good reason.

Mario Kart DS surprisingly goes down in history as the first title in the franchise to include online multiplayer. That’s right; a handheld title featured online functionality before a console game. While it definitely faced its fair share of bumps in the road (and has since been discontinued), the influential second handheld title in the Mario Kart series laid the groundwork for future entries to improve upon the feature set. Add to that terrific single-player content, including the new Mission Mode, as well as the standard suite of multiplayer offerings, and Mario Kart DS lived up to the series pedigree in many ways.

The final dedicated handheld Mario Kart title played it safe in a lot of ways. The formula of the franchise has always been its strong suit, but Mario Kart 7 perhaps relied too heavily on that, with the biggest innovations to the series coming in the forms of underutilized glider and underwater sections. Still, Mario Kart 7 improves on nearly every core element of the series, particularly with the multiplayer elements, where customizable rulesets allow for players to curate their own fun in this solid entry in the franchise.

The original form of Mario Kart 8 felt like the ultimate realization of the Mario Kart formula when it arrived in 2014 thanks to its eye-popping visuals, tight controls, excellent collection of courses, wide-ranging items library, and, of course, the terrific cast of characters. Add to that the gravity-defying mechanics and excellent online play, and it’s a shoo-in for one of the best games in the beloved racing series. However, one major sticking point – the lackluster Battle Mode – prevents it from being the best of the best.

Mario Kart: Double Dash is noteworthy for many reasons, but the one that sticks out the most is right there in the name: two characters ride on the kart instead of the series-standard one. This mechanic, which lets you swap between characters mid-race, allows for incredible cooperative play where one drives and the other manages items, but the convention extends to the traditional Mario Kart modes as well. No matter the mode you play, the addition of character-specific special moves and some of the greatest tracks the series has ever seen make Double Dash one of the best GameCube games and easily one of the best entries in the storied Mario Kart franchise. 

What started as a mere port of the Wii U title with a slightly bigger roster of racers and vastly improved Battle Mode exploded in the subsequent years to become something far greater. While the inclusion of a proper Battle Mode and additional characters at launch made for a drastically more well-rounded experience than the already-stellar base game, the Booster Course Pass, which doubled the number of selectable courses across 2022 and 2023, and included even more characters from the Mushroom Kingdom, make Mario Kart 8 Deluxe easily the greatest game in the history of Nintendo’s illustrious kart-racing franchise.