no i did once and it was just bad. No arenas = no fun.
Statistics are saying : ballons 7/4. Thats it.

Wasnt a big fan of battle mode at all to be honest but sometimes it was some fun for sure. Unfortunaly i dont think nintendo will bring back arenas anytime soon to mk8 -.-

signed.

Well, i also hate the 2 player splitscreen mode (no 1 player gamepad/1 player tv and vertical split is very very bad in my opinion. I want a option to make it horizontal

I played Battle Mode back in 64 when it was good. The version in 8 is awful.

I've played it with friends in previous Mario Kart games but I never actually tried it in 8. It just seemed lackluster.

Not at all. The game does not have a battle mode if you ask me.

Woah... that is all!

I was thinking the same, would certainly lessen the amount of time you spend driving around aimlessly.

I play Battle Mode in MK8 on a semi-regular basis. I actually prefer it to the past few versions of this mode.

Hear me out!

I started playing Mario Kart on the N64. And though I feel that game's racing is overshadowed by more recent games, MK64's Battle Mode was as close to perfect as the series has ever gotten. The arenas were nicely designed and the game's items and physics meshed well with the basic concept.

However, I think that the mechanics of the series changed enough over time to make Battle Mode a generally worse experience. Generally speaking, racers have gotten faster over time without becoming much more manuverable. This works wonders in regular races, but discourages the arena combat that was the staple of Battle Mode. You saw this in how the arena changed over time. MKDS had four new arenas, which were generally very open areas with few obstacles or non-curved edges. MKWii had Chain Chomp Wheel and Thwomp Desert, a pair of fat rings that encouraged plaers to go in circles to mantain speed.

Mario Kart 8 is possibly the speediest entry yet. You start with the basic formula, throw in coins and tricks for extra boosts of speed, that anti-gravity bit where bumping into opponents increases speed, and so on. Everything is faster, but the karts are not necessarily easier to hit. This is also a side effect of 12-player races; items are balanced so that players have more options available to counter item use. Note that the triple banana item now spins around a player instead of trailing behind, making it a defensive option. And of the new items, only the Boomerang Flower is primarily offensive. The Piranha Plant has a short range and the Super Horn is best used to counter enemy items.

In short, a traditional Battle Mode simply won't work witH MK8's mechanics. The only way it could work is to emphasize continuous speed and make sure the opponents will be in a limited area to maximize chances of hitting them. in other words, just keeping them on traditional race tracks.

I like Battle Mode, but the racing is what keeps me interested in Mario Kart. If the racing's changes leave the Battle Mode behind, it's a pity, but nothing more.

Dude, I haven't bothered with Battle Mode BEFORE Mario Kart 8. Not really interesting either way.

This made a lot of sense, I've never looked at it this way. I still hope the new content that's comming will improve battle mode somehow, I'm sure there are ways to make this mode much more fun with the current mechanics. Baby park would be insane, for example.