Mario Kart 8

The fourth and last course of the Flower Cup, Shy Guy Falls is home to a crystal mine built directly into the face of a mountain. Racers can drive up and down majestic, roaring waterfalls in exhilarating anti-gravity sections that make it feel more like you’re piloting viciously competitive rollercoasters than dinky karts. Then, you glide over a canyon and zoom through the mining tunnels. The Shy Guys who operate this huge mining project work tirelessly, using pickaxes to mine for crystals while singing along to the track’s delightful, infectious melody. Mine carts rattle along little tracks, filled with crystals. This track really feels like a living, bustling worksite.

The high-altitude scenery surrounding the track is lovely to look at, too. The cliffside environment features moss-covered rocks, mist, and lush greenery. In the distance, there are other mesas and plateaus to be seen, many with their own thundering waterfalls plummeting to the land far below.

Shy Guys are among the most cryptic beings in the entire Mario universe. They wear cult-like hooded robes (usually red) and spooky, white, expressionless masks. They originated in the 1987 Japan-only game, Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic, which had nothing to do with Mario and was set in the Middle East. This particular saga in Nintendo’s history is fascinating, and I will do a longer post about it one day. But for now, it just needs to be said that Doki Doki Panic was later reskinned and altered, and released outside Japan under the name Super Mario Bros. 2. Since then, Shy Guys have gone on to invade countless other Mario games, and are often portrayed as busy, industrious workers.

So, what’s under the mask? What are they so ‘shy’ about? We simply don’t know. Even to this day, we know absolutely nothing about where Shy Guys come from and what they are. In Mario Power Tennis, a Shy Guy’s mask falls off, and Luigi reacts with shock, but the Shy Guy is facing away from the viewer at the time, so we don’t get to see what’s behind it. Perhaps it’s nothing. Maybe a Shy Guy is just a mask and some clothes, completely hollow inside. But the mystery is such a defining characteristic of the Shy Guy that I hope we never get an official explanation.

Next time, as we start the Banana Cup, we’ll be heading to the parched wastes of Dry Dry Desert.