The Spiny Blue Shell of Mario Kart: An In-Depth Discussion on Why It Sucks and How to Fix It

We all know that the spiny shell weapon in Mario Kart is the cheapest load of crap ever, but I’ve never seen an article articulating exactly why it is so unbalanced and unfair. So, I sought to correct that gap (much like the spiny shell tries to correct the 1st position gap).

As with any weapon in the game, there is an attacker and a target. In the case of the blue shell, the attacker is usually one of the last positioned racers and the target is always the 1st position racer. This is half the reason why the blue shell sucks.

Look at it from the perspective of the attacker: If you’re way behind, you want a weapon that will put you ahead. Your direct rivals must be taken out or bypassed before you can even think about going for the leaders. So if you’re in 7th place, who are currently your biggest rivals? 6th and 5th place. Who do you target when you fire a blue shell? The guy in way up in 1st place.

If you’re like me, you shoot the blue shell immediately to make room in your inventory for something more useful (is there any sense in holding on to it?). The 1st place kart that you’ve just taken out will surely be up-and-running again before you get close to catching up with him, and, even if you do catch up, whoever was in second place just took over as the new first place.

Some help.

hit the jump for more

When you think about it, the blue shell only benefits the couple of guys directly behind 1st place. So, why does a kart in 7th place kart get a blue shell? Why would someone so far behind want a weapon that will just help out whoever is in 2nd place?



Besides the dilemma of usefulness, it’s simply more fun to see your target get what they deserve. Launch a red shell, and you will usually get to see it hit the next player up. But if you’re way behind and you launch a blue shell, you’re not going to see your target get hit because they are so far ahead of you. Heck, the only reason you know they are getting hit is because the blue shell doesn’t ever miss.

Earlier, I said that was only half of the reason for why the blue shell sucks. That’s because I was looking at it from the position of the attacker. Now, I’ll switch to the target, which is the kart in the lead.

Blue shell aside, it is a lot of hard work to maintain a lead in Mario Kart. You dodge all sorts of other weapons, pull off stunts on every ramp for the extra boost, powerslide through every turn, avoid giant wigglers and goombas and piranha plants, etc. Unless they cheat or hack, the first position player almost certainly deserves the position they are in. They got there by pure talent, memorization of the racetrack, and practice.

Now, back to the blue shell. You’re in first, it’s the last lap, you’re a few meters away from the finishing line, and BOOM! You’re hit by the unavoidable blue shell, and whoever was in second place wins the race. Not only that, but the guys in 3rd and 4th can usually take the 2nd and 3rd finish before you can get accelerated again.

Is that fair?

What did the guy in second place do to deserve what should have been your victory? Nothing. Any savvy player knows to save that last bunch of bananas for defense just in cast the 2nd position gets a red shell, but that’s all in vain. The guy in the very last place, the guy who spun out at the start, fell off a cliff into water, got smashed by an easily-avoidable thawmp, slipped on no less that five banana peels, and tried to use the Lucky Star to drive through a lava lake, that guy who didn’t even bother to do a Grand Prix before hopping online, shot a blue shell and knocked you into 4th place.

It’s just not fair. The player who has raced beautifully should not have to be unavoidably blasted out of his spot by a player who has raced like a complete noob.

Reward and punishment are the two consequences of playing a video game. Good game design rewards players for doing well. Bad game design punishes players for no reason at all (Brawl’s random tripping mechanics come to mind). But the worst of the worst game design punishes players for doing well, and that’s exactly what the blue shell does.

Gamers like consequences, we really do. If we wanted to sit idly as something bad happened we’d watch a horror film. Unavoidability takes the player out of the equation. When I’m leading the race and I hear the siren sound of the blue shell, I am instantly pulled out of the game. I know that I will not have any choice but be forced into a crash and I become frustrated. I think most players recognize and accept a bad consequence for a mistake made, but no player truly accepts a bad consequence when there is no fault to the player.

Now for the solutions: How do we fix the blue nightmare?

Well, the easiest way would be to just remove it entirely, and good riddance to it.

But, I can’t see Nintendo doing that. To remove it would force them to admit that it sucks, which would look down on the legacy of games that had the spiny shell in the lineup.

So, I suggest they simply fix the blue shell by doing a few things:

First off, only give it to the players in 4th and 5th place. The last few places, as stated above, have very little use for the blue shell, as it hardly benefits them at all. But a 4th place kart might actually gain for launching the blue shell, as there’s a better chance that they could pass up the lead. Having only two positions that can obtain the blue shell would also make it more rare, which would limit its power.

Secondly, ground the shell again. In Mario Kart 64, the blue shell would ride along the ground and hit anyone in its path. This was more fun because everyone had to avoid it, rather than just the leader. Also, this gave the blue shell a chance at being destroyed by obstacles in the course, which lessens the ultimate unavoidability factor for the 1st position.

Next, make the blue shell something one can legitimately dodge. I have heard that in some games, if you launch a banana peel at the right moment while jumping off a cliff, one can take out the blue shell if the moon happens to be full and a black cat is crossing your path. Well, I’ve tried this many times and have never gotten it to work. I think that 1st place should be given a defense against the blue shell that is not based upon a super-unlikely, hard to pull off maneuver. How about instead of punishing the player for doing well, punish the 1st position for failing to avoid it in a legitimate way.

If, like I suggest above, the blue shell returns to being a grounded weapon, perhaps the first position player should be given the chance to destroy it before it blows up on him. In recent games, the blue shell waivers above your head for a few seconds before exploding. What if it instead wavered behind you for a few seconds, giving you a chance to shoot a green shell back at it? Or, perhaps a new trick system could allow you to avoid the shell by performing a barrel roll.

Anything, really. The creative minds at Nintendo can figure something out. Just please give the hard working racer a practical means to avoid this game-breaking weapon.

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