The Wii U may not be renowned for its power but the developer behind Mario Kart 8, which will be releasing for the platform on May 30th, it’s helping to deliver a visual experience that franchise fans haven’t seen before.
In a roundtable interview with Gamespot, producer Hideki Konno said, “We’re working with HD for the first time, and we really wanted to take advantage of that. The last console version was Mario Kart Wii, which was released in 2008, so it was about six years ago. And during those six years, we were able to incorporate a lot of technology in our development process, but especially on the graphics side. So we put a lot of effort into making this a good looking game – it’s a very pretty game.”
The best part is that the visual quality won’t see any drops in split-screen mode, like in Mario Kart Wii which experienced frame rate drops. “This time with the power of the Wii U we really made an effort to keep that graphic quality high regardless of how many ways we were splitting the TV into.”
Director Kosuke Yabuki also stated that, “We’ve also been able to show movement on the [karts and bikes] that we haven’t seen before. We’re seeing bounding, we’re seeing different parts of the kart move, we’re seeing dirt on the tires, we’re seeing skidmarks left on the course–again I think we’ve done a good job of utilizing that graphical power.
“Using the power of the Wii U, we were able to create a Mario Kart title that feels right, and the controls feel like they’re perfect for this game.”
Let us know what you think of Mario Kart 8 in the comments below.