Normal race:
- Get as far away from other karts as possible, ideally in the top.
The reason for this is that most weapons, like the bowling ball and cake only work at a short distance. If you are simply out of reach, those weapons are no danger to you anymore. Being 1st with a safe lead is more “safe”- Try to practice becoming first as soon as possible, then holding that position. I can't really explain how, but you need to try to “sneak by” the enemies early, somehow. My experience shows that it is easier to become 1st early, then to become 1st later in the race while you are stuck between karts which constantly humiliate you with bowling balls and cakes.
- Another way to become 1st very soon is to try to grab crates soon, too, in hope you get good weapons to blast you way through. Use cake immediately when you get it at the start, the splash damage makes it more effective
- If you are 1st, or heading for first, you totally should get bubble gum as soon as possible and maybe even discard other bonuses in favor of bubble gum. If you are 1st with a safe distance, do not activate the bubble gum shield, instead, wait for any basket ball to come close, then activate it. That way, you avoid wasting a bubble gum shield for nothing.
- Think! And think fast!
Make your own strategies. In normal races, not only your racing skills matter, but also how you interact with your enemies and how you use your power-ups. Efficient power-up management can decide between victory and failure, many hints I give you here also depend a lot on the current situation. Blindly using all power-ups instantly is usually a very inefficient strategy. Since normal races are fast-paced, it is probably a good idea to have some “automatic strategies” at your disposal in order to quickly make good decisions. Find answers to the following questions:- Gift box or nitro?
- Which enemies to attack?
- Which enemies to avoid?
- When to skid?
- …
- Gift box or nitro? You often can only collect one of those at once, so you need to decide quickly. I usually go for nitro only if I have an expectation to collect lots of them, since a single small nitro is not a good boost (IMO even a short skid is more efficient than that, but I might be wrong). My usual strategy is to collect gift boxes first until I got an item I want to keep for a while, then go for nitro. My preference list is this: big nitro → gift box → small nitro
Time-trial:
- The same applies as in normal races, without the power-ups, of course.
- The only new hint I can give here is maybe to not waste all those speed booster power-ups, especially NOT in quick succession because this rarely makes sense. I am not sure but a good average is using about one speed boost per lap. And I'd keep the last speed boost for emergencies / the finish line unless you are already far in the lead.
Follow the leader:
I don't have any particular strategy for this, but many strategies for a normal race also apply.
Hints for using power-ups:
Magic:
- If you got the Magic powerup, it might make sense to save it for when you find sticky gum (on the floor). If you find it, use Magic, it will turn into a large can of nitro!
- I usually don't save magic for getting the big nitro late in the race (esp. final lap), the chances for encountering sticky gum will be lower the closer I get to the finish line
- Of course, if you have the chance to make an enemy run into a surprising banana at the worst possible moment (especially if the kart has a dynamite), you might go for it instead.
Bubble gum:
- Bubble gum shield is mandatory if you are close to other karts (close = in fire range of cake or maybe bowling balls)
- Always use bubblegum shield sooner or later instead of losing it due to collecting another gift since this produces bubble gum on the floor on which you may use Magic later on. Be aware the same is true for enemies
- Use bubble gum to get immediately rid of: dynamite, parachute, anchor
- For dynamite, I would wait to use bubble gum until the timer is in red. I would only use it immediately in this case if I am in danger (many karts are close)
- I would use bubble gum as soon as possible to get rid of an anchor
- I would normally (!) not use bubble gum to get rid of a parachute since this can be relatively easy out-broken
Cake:
- Prefer to shoot karts close to each other for maximum damage!
- Prefer to shoot harder enemies and not those which you could easily overtake anyways
- Cakes are a very important weapon, save them for difficult enemies, especially if the finish is going to be close
Bowling ball:
- Try to use it on short distance because your chances of hitting something are greater
Plunger:
- Normally, I just use this to attach myselves to other karts (the AI karts don't seem to care if you shoot it in their head, I don't know)
- I would not use those in quick succession to attach myselves as this might be just a loss of potential speed
- If you are first, you might want to save those in order to destroy incoming basket balls (shoot backwards). This trick might need some practice to master
Basket ball:
- I don't know, I usually just fire this weapon without thinking;
- Look on the ranks list. Does the 1st one have the bubble gum shield icon on it? If yes, I would wait until it wears off, then fire the basket ball.
- You also need to account for the time it takes until it reaches the 1st
- The basket ball can fail sometimes in front of narrow bridges and the like since it crashes into these. So sometimes you may want to wait before using this weapon. Study the tracks closely to find the places where a basket ball may fail
Parachute:
- I usually use this weapon instantly without thinking
- Look on the ranking to see what bonues/penalties the enemies have right now, so you can see how those will be affected
- It will get rid of bubble gum shield and swatters on your enemies, so it might be useful to save it for later
- If many enemies in front of you have some penalty (parachute, anchor, especially dynamite), I would wait with the parachute until those penalties ended, since parachute gets rid of those, too
Speed boost / speed arrow:
- I think it might be useful to use shortly after got slowed down heavily
- I would NOT use it while I got slowed down by a parachute or anchor, the speed boost is very inefficient while you still have those so you have to wait those out first
- I tend to save those when the end of race is near and it is going to be a close call
- I also strongly recommend against using those in quick succession since the 2nd/3rd time the speed boost is less efficient; instead I wait until the speed got “normal” again for better efficiency
- In the middle of the race, prefer to use them on straight lines rather than curves (in curves, skidding is better)
Swatter:
- I have no good hint here. I usually just wait with the swatter until I get close to enemies or someone is trying to overtake me
- You can use the swatter to get rid of: dynamite, anchor, parachut
- I would usually (!) not use the swatter to get rid of the parachute since it can be easily out-broken. But if it is a close race, I'd use it
- To get
- I usually use this without thinking when I got dynamite to get rid of it
Nitro:
- Don't waste your nitro all at once. Instead, use short single bursts. Look at your speedometer, if you are at max. speed, there is no point in using nitro, wait for the speed to drop, then use the next nitro boost. That way, you can use nitro much more efficient
Strategies for handling penalties (bananas):
Anchor:
- If you got a swatter or bubble gum shield, use those as soon as possible to remove the anchor
- Otherwise, I have no real hints here, you just have to wait it out …
Parachute:
- The parachute will go away if you got slower. You will get rid of it very fast if you just brake.
- The strategy I always use for parachute is to brake instantly until the parachute is gone, then continue driving normally. Overall, I seem to be faster compared to if I would have tried to accellerate all the time
- In theory, bubble gum shield and swatter get rid of this, but the speed penalty is pretty minor so I usually save those items for later
Dynamite:
- Avoid bananas at all costs (even more so) and crash into other karts to try to get rid of it
- After you got rid of the dynamite, also try to get in a save distance of all other karts since the dynamite might be stuck back to you if you're not careful
- Look on the timer. If it is on red, it will immediately explode on the other enemy if you stick it to him/her
- Concentrate on the gift boxes and collect as many as possible, potentionally discarding bonuses you had, if needed. This is because you want to collect a swatter or bubble gum soon
- If you got lucky and got a swatter (or bubble gum) in time, and you have no chance to get rid of the dynamite by collisions, use the swatter or bubble gum to get rid of the dynamite
- But if you got a swatter (or bubble gum) but still can crash your dynamite away, I would prefer the crashing method since you can both attack an enemy and still keep the swatter as a weapon (or the bubble gum)
Bubble gum (on the floor):
- No real strategy, just avoid it
- But make sure to remember the positions of each bubble gum you encounter, this will be useful for the Magic trick
General hints:
- Avoid bananas at all costs. This sounds like a no-brainer but it is not that obvious. Most penalties are obvious penalties. But there is a chance that you get a dynamite which is the only penalty which doesn't immediately harm you. You even have the chance to crash into a another kart to get rid of the bomb and harm the other kart instead, which is a plus. So the dynamite might be considered as a weapon, but a pretty risky one. Overall, I think collecting bananas intentionally for getting dynamite is too risky and even if you got one, it may be too hard to stick it to another kart
- Skid as often as you can. Seriously. Don't drive in curves without skidding. I can't stress enough how important skidding is in this game. This is extremely important to build up your speed without power-ups. This is especially important in time-trial races. Sometimes it may make sense to skid even in not-so-sharp turns, only to gain speed and overtake enemies
- How to skid properly is tricky to say … I am not sure to decide whether to recommend many short skids in row (yellow particles) or doing long skids for an even higher speed boost (red particles)
- I tend to say the first one is better in general since it is easier to use and you have more control
- But I sometimes would use the long skid, but only for very long curves, when many short skids would be to difficult to handle
- If you are right in front of a gift box but already have an item, consider quickly using your old item (if it makes sense) before wasting it
- It might be a good idea to attack a kart which just collected a gift box, it might have been a cake
- Karts close to you should be attacked as soon as possible, their crashes slow you down and they might have a nasty swatter or even cake, and when they use it, you're screwed
- Computer players will use bubble gum shield instantly when you attack them, which means they might leave a bubble gum on the floor after the attack. So make sure you are not directly behind an enemy when attacking, you might accidentally drive on bubble gum!
- There is usually no point in shooting an enemy which was hit shortly before, they are protected from more hits for a moment
- Use the manual reset as soon as possible if you know for sure you will fly out of the track, no matter what. You will save time instead of waiting for the automatic reset to kick in since falling takes time, too.
OK, that's “all” for now.
I hope my random assorted hints and strategies help you. Note I might update this post later on.
There is probably no all-fits-it-all strategy to this game, but there are some tricks which work most of the time.
Keep in mind that many hints I gave here also depend a lot on the current situation. They might not hold true in all situation, so also think for yourselves and make good decisions.
If you have comments about your strategies, you think I gave a bad advice, or you have your own thoughts to share, please reply!
