@OP
I more or less agree with all the things you say you'd like to see back. MK Wii not having a true traditional battle mode was ridiculous. That would have been so much fun online, especially when racing online could often be a major pain (getting item raped in 1st at the end of races, or playing against 9000 point bike users who cheat/boosted their way to first on a regular basis). But real battle mode could have somewhat made up for MK Wii's flaws. I also agree that the emblems and mission mode ideas from MKDS would be nice things to have back, just because they round out the game nicely.
The the things I DO NOT want to see back, are the Double Dash style double-cars, or bikes being able to manually wheelie-boost whenever they want. That one thing alone made playing MKWii as a kart total bullshit. If they were to put in a "DD Mode", where you people who wanted to could play a mode that exclusively has the DD style two-character cars, then fine. Because I don't have to play it. But DD, to me, was ruined because I just didn't like that being the only option available. I wanted regular MARIO KART.
And that is what MK8 looks like it's shaping up to be, more so than Wii was. Hopefully that turns out true.







