First of all, I’d like to apologize for something I have done. A few weeks ago, I did a stream on my twitch channel (twitch.tv/thiqqmuffin) where I ranked all of the tracks in “Mario Kart 8 Deluxe”, in which I ranked the map Baby Park as an A-tier track. My chat got very angry at me, claiming that I should have ranked it as an S-tier track, which is the highest tier that I am able to award. This seemed like a bit too much praise for what I believe to be a decent map, but nothing special. However, this did prompt me to take a closer look at what truly makes a good map.
A good track, in my humble opinion, consists of quite a few things, the most important of which is how enjoyable it is to play on. If I find myself just not having fun at some point on a track, then I start to wonder whether it’s actually worth playing on or if it’s a waste of my time to be doing so. Baby Park definitely has this level of fun, unless you are constantly getting barraged by items every five seconds, which, honestly, about sums up most rounds on that track.
Speaking of rounds, that’s all Baby Park is. It’s just round; a small oval that you repeat seven times over. While this can be fun, since you’ll always be close to everyone else racing and it can get a little too chaotic at times, especially if you are getting bombarded by items every other lap as mentioned before.
I think item and power-up box placement is also a factor in what makes a good map, and while there are a lot of power-up boxes on Baby Park, they’re spaced out weird, and you can’t take a very optimal route around the track if you go out of your way to get items. It almost makes you wonder if getting them is worth it, or if you should trade speed for items. Usually, one would always go for speed over items, however, most people immediately reconsider this after getting carpet-bombed by red shells and having nothing to protect themselves with. It makes even the toughest of players want to have a banana on the back of their cart, just for insurance. Baby Park is not the map to choose if you want to go purely for speed, since items will inevitably be necessary.
One place that Baby Park does excel in terms of good track design is definitely the turns. All of them are very simple; 14 u-turns scattered over the course of seven laps. If you have the slightest inkling of how to drift and the benefits of doing so, then drifting will be most of the movement you perform on this track. You can get insane boosts, and you’re able to cut the corners really close if you get good enough.
Not all tracks have drifting capabilities like this one. If you want to get really good, you can even apply advanced techniques like counter-hopping to cut the corners even closer, going over bits of grass that you normally couldn’t go over quickly without a mushroom boost. Some of these techniques get overpowered if you apply them in the right place.
In conclusion, I don’t think I’m actually sorry that I ranked Baby Park where I did. While Baby Park is an excellent track with many great features, it just doesn’t have the intrigue or fun-factor that other S-tier tracks like Wario’s Gold Mine or Yoshi Valley have. Come on guys, it’s just seven ovals, that’s it. It won’t be the end of the world if this map gets a little bit of criticism, which I would argue it fully deserves.
