Hey all, last time I was around these boards was for Double Dash a few years ago. I recently got back into Mario Kart with MK8 and I'm posting what I think is a very comprehensive explanation of all the best driving techniques in this awesome game. I'm not top tier status yet, but I've learned a lot from a bunch of places around the web and playing the game myself. I want to compile it all here for easy reference for anyone looking to improve. The guide is divided into beginner and advanced sections with each topic labeled as one or the other by my assessment of how fundamental it is to the game, and how difficult it is to perform. I've starred each technique with one to five stars based on difficulty (one being easiest). If there is anything you wish to know or would like me to add, leave a comment and I'll edit it in! If a moderator thinks this is worthy of a sticky, go right ahead. If not, I just hope it can help, since I haven't seen a nice compiled and well-explained resource anywhere else yet.
***BEGINNER****
COINS: In Mario Kart 8, you can hold up to 10 coins. Getting hit causes you to lose 3. If you fall off the track, Lakitu will steal 2 from you when he fishes you back. The first reason coins are important is the small instantaneous speed boost that every coin you collect gives you. This applies even to coins you get while already having the maximum of 10. The second reason only applies to your first 10 coins: each coin you pick up increases the top speed of your kart. Getting 10 coins in the first lap so that you have two full laps of top speed is a great way to keep an early lead. Of course it is worlds harder to hold on to your coins in multiplayer, so be on the lookout for always making your way back up to 10. Tip: Coins found in set locations on the track will re-spawn in multiplayer, but not in time trials. Tip 2: Often when you get hit and three coins fly out of you, one of them will be somewhere in front of you. If it's not too far off line, try to pick it up as you start moving again!
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START BOOST: As with most Mario Kart games, you can get a healthy boost right off the starting line by timing hitting the gas correctly. The countdown in Mario Kart 8 starts at 3. Each number fades onto the screen and drops a small distance before stopping, and then giving way to the next number. The correct timing to get the biggest boost is to hit the accelerate button the moment the '2' in the countdown hits the lowest point of its drop, and then hold the button for the remainder of the countdown. Be careful though: ever so slightly early will lead to a spinout on the line, which is way worse than simply getting no boost at all. The start boost has different tiers of effectiveness depending on how late after the correct timing you start holding the button. Tip: The timing actually depends on how 'revved' your engine is, not directly on how long you've been holding the button. Starting the revving just as the 2 drops is the perfect timing to rev it up to the correct level to get the max boost. However if you think you hit too early and will risk a spinout, releasing the accelerator for a moment and then hitting it again, could get you revved up perfectly as well. Get a feel for this and you can change a spinout into a perfect start every time you would have otherwise messed up.
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JUMP BOOST: This is a pretty easy speed boost to hit consistently and it will definitely shave off the seconds. Any time your kart is about to go airborne (whether from a small bump in the road, cresting a gentle hill, or hitting a big speed ramp) hit the jump button just as you're about to leave the ground. Your character will do a mid-air trick and get a decently-sized speed boost immediately after (you might be in the air if the jump deploys your glider, or you might be already on the ground if it was a small hop). That's about all for this trick. It's simple enough.
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ZERO-G COLLISIONS: Ever notice the track spinning upside down and sideways and all kinds of crazy stuff? Did you also notice the blue glowing panel that precedes each of those sections and makes your wheels turn blue and face the ground like a hovercraft? That's Mario Kart 8's zero-gravity starting up and it makes for all kinds of awesome track architecture possibilities. Collisions with any other racer who also has zero-G wheels will give you a nice boost. If you're the one that gets hit, you'll get the boost, but you will also have gotten thrown off to the side pointed at the out of bounds area, at which point a boost might be unwelcome. So watch out! In the zero-G segments of the track, there will also be blue glowing bouncy pegs sticking up in the road. These might look like something to avoid at first, but hitting them will give you the same speed boost as hitting another zero-g kart. Tip: Try to just barely graze the boost pegs. You will get the boost slightly more quickly without your kart having to fudge itself to the side first.
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CONSCIENTIOUS ITEM-USE: If you have an item, don't be so trigger-happy and ready to use it instantly. Wait for the perfect moment where it will have both the most benefit to you and the most detriment to everyone else. If you are in first place you are in full on defense-mode. Hold onto any item while in 1st for dear life because it WILL save you. When you get that awful little icon at the bottom of your screen telling you a shell is coming, throw your shell or banana backwards (hold down and hit the item button) at the last second. Your item and the oncoming one will collide and neutralize each other. Alternately, holding the item button will lock your item behind you and act as a shield. Also save mushrooms and coins for a speed boost in case you do get hit. YOU CAN ALSO KILL BLUE SHELLS IF YOU ARE IN FIRST PLACE. If you have the horn that throws out a sound-pulse through the ground and you use it just as the blue shell has locked on and is about to hit, you will destroy it. MUSHROOMS: Look out for the many short cuts the tracks have. Often there will be a wide turn with a grassy middle area that can be entirely bypassed by mushrooming in a straight line through the grass. Keep your eyes peeled for the best shroom spots in each track. THE CRAZY-8 ITEM: This item is kinda nuts. You get 8 items circling you in a very intimidating shield. When you hit the item button, whichever item is directly in front of your kart will be the one that is used. If you are behind in the race, my best advice is to use the star as soon as possible and drop the shells, banana, bomb, and blooper ink as you pass your opponents. Then if you still have the mushroom and coin, use them strategically after the star is over. Beware when holding on to this item. Anyone colliding into you will steal whichever items they hit. It might be the bomb (which won't hurt you if someone rams it by the way), but then again, they might steal your star.
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DRIFTING: This is the big one. You will not get to a competitive skill level in this game without mastering drifting. There are two main reasons. The first is that drifting allows for incredible turn control, allowing you to stay very inside of the turn and setting up a great line for the next segment of the track. If you travel in straight lines and follow the inside of every turn, you'll cover the minimum amount of ground it takes to finish the race. With a few exceptions, this is ideal and you will finish faster. The second reason why drifting is so important is that it offers two tiers of speed boosts, depending on how long you've held the drift for. How it's done: When you're nearing the turn hit and hold the jump button and then turn your control stick (or tilt if you're using tilt controls) in the direction of the turn to begin the drift. The drift will continue for as long as you hold the jump button or until you get hit or end up in grass/other out of bounds areas. You'll instantly notice a big difference in the handling of your kart. While in a drift you have two main control options. If you turn *out* of the turn your drift will be very wide. If you turn *into* the turn your drift will be very tight and allow you to take much sharper turns. Note that neither is necessarily better and constantly shifting directions to match the curvature of the track is the best technique. Also note that holding out of the turn will not make you turn that way; both directions will curve you in the drift's direction. It is simply a matter how tightly you are turning. The second main facet of drifting is the boost it provides. If you have blue sparks from a short drift or orange sparks from a large one, this signals that you will get a speed boost when the drift is released. Blue is a minor one, orange is big. Tip: The drift boost (commonly called a mini-turbo) gets charged up as the drift continues. It charges quickly while you are turning into the drift, and more slowly as your drift widens and you are turning more against the drift. It's not always optimal to go tight to charge the mini-turbo faster if doing so will take you far out of line. Experiment with starting the drift at different distances and angles relative to the track's curve to find that sweet spot that lets you hug the inside AND charge up a max turbo. Tip 2: There are two main types of karts in terms of drifting ability: the inside drifters and the outside drifters. The inside drifters are mostly the 2-wheel sports bikes. They are capable of much tighter drifts and wont throw you to the outside when the drift starts like most 4-wheel outside drifters or non-sport bikes will do. This may sound like an instant advantage, but it's really a matter of preference. I've 3-starred every cup in both 150cc and mirror mode with an inside drift bike, but time trials is dominated by the outside drifters since they tend to be heavier.
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DRAFTING/SLIPSTREAMING: If you ride closely behind an opponent's kart you'll notice some air currents flowing around your bike. This means you're caught in the slipstream behind their bike. Maintain this position for like 3 seconds and you'll start to fly past them in a boost. Combine this with the "zero-G collisions" technique I discussed earlier and your boost will stack and you will rocket past in a huge boost. Either way, hit the opponent. You will knock them away.The reason I've rated this one 3 stars is that you have to be very careful if the enemy you're drafting behind has any items trailing behind them or rotating around them.
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***ADVANCED******
LOW JUMPS: This technique will minimize your air time when going off jumps. It can be used on any jump that does not deploy your glider. It's pretty simple to do, but requires different timing for different jumps which is why I am rating it at a 3-star advanced technique. When you're going off of a jump, hit the jump button as you normally would to get a trick boost. But do it a little bit early so that you're already airborne and ideally coming down when you pass over the edge of the ramp. This will still give you the trick boost, but you will be in the air for a much shorter period of time and thus have more opportunity to stay at top speed or set yourself up for upcoming turns. This is also possible when coming down from your glider. If there is a ledge or ramp on the ground, aim for the very edge of it while you are still floating down. If you barely scrape it and hit the jump button, you will get a low jump boost. You know you did it right if your glider stays open. If you low jump on tiny hills like the moguls on Mount Wario or the wavy ground in N64 Rainbow Road, or the shock waves from the Bowser fists in Bowser's Castle, you can get a trick boost with barely any airtime at all. It's almost as if you stayed on the ground.
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MID-AIR DRIFTING: This is a technique that has been around at least since Double Dash. If you slide into a drift before going off a jump (no para-sail), the drift will continue through the jump and when you land. The charging timer on the sparks will also continue. You can go off a jump and have orange sparks by the time you come down in some cases. A particularly useful application of this is the first jump into the water at Water Park. Going into a left facing drift a little before the ramp can put you in a perfect line to boost just as you land and still be in position for the long left turn ahead. Another technique that I'll throw under the umbrella of mid-air drifting is "starting" a drift in the air after doing a trick boost. Holding the jump button through your airtime and pushing the control stick in the direction of the drift will put you into the drift as soon as you land, without throwing you to the outside.
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FIRE HOPPING/BUNNY HOPPING: There's some dispute as to which name is the accepted one for this technique but here we go. Fire hopping is a method that is EXTREMELY important to rocking the time trials. It extends the length any turbo boost by a significant amount. This covers boosts from jump tricks, mushrooms and drifting. It is very simple to explain but requires a bit of practice to nail it down. The best times to use it are when you get a big boost from orange sparks on a drift, or from a mushroom. When you begin the boost tap the jump button once while holding either left or right (whichever one won't throw you into a pit of lava right away). Immediately after touching down, jump again but this time in the other direction. Continue alternating jumps until the boost has worn out. This will extend the lifetime of the boost by a significant amount if done correctly and you should be able to comfortably fit 3-4 hops in right away, up to 5 if you're getting good at it. The net effect of alternating jump directions is that you stay on a relatively straight line, but alternating isn't totally necessary. As long as you're holding either left or right on each hop, the boost will be extended. Change directions as necessary to steer with the track. Tip: On some turns where it feels *just* too short to get those orange sparks, hold out the extra half second to get them. If you're facing into a wall where releasing the drift would normally ruin your run, it's ok. When the drift is released, instantly hop once or twice in the opposite direction from the wall. It's a great way to change directions over a really short distance, and get that max drift boost where otherwise it would have been the puny blue-spark one. Tip 2: DON'T use this technique on a significant downslope. If hopping turns to falling, your kart will lose all of it's speed. Tip 3: Try neutral hopping (not turning) a few times after the boost wears off. This seems to work, but I'm not sure why. More research needed *
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SOFT DRIFTING: This technique is tough to master but it's AWESOME. I just learned about it recently and it answered so many questions. I had been competing against some world record ghosts that I downloaded, and I noticed them inexplicably charging their drift turbo to full orange sparks WAY faster than I was, despite being on a wide turn and not being able to turn tightly into the drift to maximize the charging speed. This was happening on a lot of corners and it had me really frustrated that I was stuck with a blue turbo, while they were getting orange and fire-hopping afterwards, instantly gaining a full second on me even though I had matched their drift line perfectly. Soft drifting is the answer. Let's say you're drifting to the right. Holding the control stick all the way to the right will make your kart turn really tightly but it also charges the boost as fast as possible, allowing you to release and have an orange-spark boost very quickly. However if you hold your control stick in the upper right hand corner or lower right hand corner of the analog circle, your kart will charge the turbo at maximum speed despite having a wider turning angle. This is great for those turns where you can't afford to drift inside, but the turn doesn't last long enough to get orange sparks. For a left turn, the upper and lower left hand corners of the stick's range are the correct position. This becomes much easier with the Nunchuck control stick because instead of a circle border, the Nunchuck has an octagon with exactly the corners you need for this to work. In fact the corners aren't the only places this works. The red square in this image:
shows the locations of the control stick that will initiate a soft drift. Note that the right half of the square should be used for right turns (and includes the two corners I mentioned earlier) and vice-versa for the left half. The corners are simply a nice reference point to make it work, rather than having the stick free-floating in the middle of its range of motion. A great place to see the big difference soft drifting makes is the first turn of Bone Dry Dunes. I dare you to try to get orange sparks while holding the inside of that turn using a normal drift. If you do, you will be so far off line for the upcoming part of the track that your resulting boost will be useless. Practice soft drifting here.
PLEASE let me know if you've got any questions or anything to add or correct! If you've read this far, thanks for sticking with me. I hope this helped some of you! Keep karting, this is a very rewarding game to get good at
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