Welcome back to my spring passion blog thread, where I am sharing my thoughts on each of the Mario Kart Wii Grand Prix Cups. In my last post, I gave Lightning Cup a subpar ranking because of the plain awful course that is SNES Mario Circuit 3. My blog today is going to be almost a complete 180 because I am going to be discussing my second favorite cup–Star Cup.

Star Cup starts in Daisy Circuit–perhaps the most mediocre of the race series. I am using the word “mediocre” rather than “worst” because I don’t have much opposition to Daisy Circuit and it’s rather entertaining at times, but it doesn’t meet the same expectations that the other courses in the series set. Aside from that point, the course is relatively interesting with some shortcuts mixed in and obstacles that can catch you by surprise. Unlike the other Star Cup courses, however, Daisy Circuit doesn’t have a “wow” factor–there’s just that one shortcut.

The next course in the race series is my personal favorite of the four–Koopa Cape. There are a mix of waterfalls, rotating lightning bolts, and water currents that can make or break a race. Besides those course features, there are tons of goombas during the first part of the race that always slow down racers when everyone is passing through at once, adding extra challenges at the start. There are also tons of ramps to perform tricks on, but making mistakes on these can be costly one is near a waterfall and the other is on a sharp turn. Not to mention that the course is VERY aesthetically pleasing–I mean who wouldn’t want to race through a course filled with cute mushrooms and waterfalls?

Continuing on the trend of aesthetically pleasing courses, Maple Treeway is the next course in Star Cup–and might I say nothing reminds me more of Taylor Swift’s “Evermore” than this course. The race is super exciting from the start, as there are sharp turns and a fun shortcut that racers can take to one of my favorite parts of the course–the cannon. I mentioned in my other post that I love any course with a cannon, and Maple Treeway is no exception. Maple Treeway’s cannon might even be my favorite in the entire Mario Kart Wii because it shoots racers across a picturesque fall landscape and into another tree to continue racing. There is later a treetop filled with caterpillars that are deceivingly cute, because bumping into these trotting critters causes racers to bounce backward and lose valuable time. The course treats many branches as racetracks, which adds even more excitement with the high risk of falling off. And to top these course features off, there is a huge net that makes the race sort of anti-gravity going towards the finish line, ending a perfect course in a perfect way.

The last course of the series, Grumble Volcano, adds the cherry on top of the back-to-back punch of Koopa Cape and Maple Treeway. I absolutely love and despise Grumble Volcano because as the race proceeds, the race track melts away and becomes smaller and smaller, causing more and more players to fall into the lava waiting below. On top of that, there are flames that fly around the second half of the race track, which add even more difficulty and excitement to the course. There is also a shortcut that I have yet to successfully complete–but driving around one of the mountains three times can essentially complete three laps in three seconds, which can be handy when racing for the coveted star rank.

Star Cup IS a star, but not THE star. Even though the cup has Koopa Cape, Maple Treeway, and Grumble Volcano, the mediocrity of Daisy Circuit holds it back from the title of best Mario Kart Wii Grand Prix Cup. It might be the most aesthetically pleasing cup, but there is one cup that has four race tracks that are nowhere near mediocre–which I am going to discuss in my next post.