A new Mario Kart mode removes Waluigi from his kart and makes him race against other opponents on foot. The character has been at the source of a number of memes and the like ever since his debut in Mario Tennis on the Nintendo 64. Lately, gamers have been rallying to see Waluigi join Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, despite the fact that he appears as a summonable assist character in the game. Of course, Nintendo hasn’t been stingy with its use of the character either.
The publisher only just added Waluigi to Mario Kart Tour (its mobile version of the racing series) during the game’s Halloween-themed event. Who knows where the lanky, bizarre, quasi-bad guy will end up next within Nintendo’s library of forthcoming Switch games. As it turns out, fans aren’t willing to wait to see, as one modder has placed Waluigi in the limelight through the implementation of a rather hilarious new mod.
The mod in question (which is currently live on Gamebanana) was created by Niment for Mario Kart Wii and it dumps Waluigi out of his kart in order to participate in races on foot. As first spotted by Kotaku, the end result is nothing short of comical, as the purple-clad ne’er-do-well sprints right alonside even the slickest looking vehicles. Surprisingly, the mod itself doesn’t utilize the assets for Waluigi within Mario Kart Wii, opting instead to import the character model and animations from Mario Party 9.
Waluigi is certainly a bizarre character, but fans seem to love him. So much so that there was even a point where they rallied to have Waluigi turned into an element on the periodic table. No, seriously. That happened. Again, he’s also a frontrunner amongst core Smash Bros. fans for inclusion as DLC, despite already being present in the game–thanks largely to mainstream coverage of his absence. No other character absence in the series has ever amassed that sort of mock hysteria.
Oddly enough, despite appearing in a number of Super Mario spin-offs, Waluigi has also failed to recieve his own game. Perhaps the ever-growing support for the character will eventually land him in a title role of some sort. Heck, maybe Nintendo will even partner the lanky loose cannon up with Wario for a buddy cop project? Perhaps that’s just wishful thinking though.
Next: Mario Kart 9 Could Learn a Few Things From Mario Kart Tour
Sources: Gamebanana, YouTube (via Kotaku)