Mario Kart 8 Deluxe - Guides

Very Basic Techniques: A Guide for Beginners

Updated 5 years ago by Pianist15

Very Basic Skills*

These actions are simple to perform, but they'll take you far. Take your time mastering these before learning advanced tech, which is much more difficult and saves much less time than simple practice and improvement of the basics.

Start-up Boost: To get the maximum possible boost at the start of a race, hold A or Y when the beep for 2 sounds (for a visual cue, do it right as the 2 fully fades in). Any earlier and you’ll burn out (very bad); any later and the boost will be weaker (just a little bad).

Drift: While holding A/Y, press and hold R/ZR and hold left or right on the control stick (depending on the direction you want to drift). When drifting, you can move the control stick fully left or right for minor steering adjustments.

Mini-turbo (MT): Hold R/ZR to drift until blue sparks appear behind your rear wheel(s). Release R/ZR to get a boost.

Super and Ultra Mini-Turbos (SMT/UMT): Instead of releasing the drift once blue sparks appear, hold it until the sparks turn orange and release for a larger boost, or hold it even longer for a huge boost from purple sparks.

Tricks (a.k.a. Jump Boosts): Press R/ZR or shake the controller right before jumping over a ramp, bounce pad, or similar object. Be conservative with these at first in 200cc - too much speed can be hard to control.

Brake Drifting: On extremely tight turns, tap or hold B while drifting (and still holding A/Y) to slow yourself down and take a tighter line without completely stopping or losing the drift. Especially useful on 200cc. (Be careful not to hold B for too long, or you’ll slow down too much and lose your drift.)