Alright, so I dusted off the old Wii the other weekend and got sucked back into Mario Kart Wii. It’s funny how some games just pull you right back in. Anyway, I noticed my character select screen was looking a bit sparse, definitely missing a few faces I remember seeing online back in the day. So, I thought, “Okay, let’s do this. Let’s unlock everyone.”
Getting Started – Grand Prix Grind
First things first, I figured the main way to get characters was through the Grand Prix cups. Seemed logical. So, I started grinding through them.
50cc was a breeze, obviously. Good warm-up. Finished all those pretty quickly.
Then I moved onto 100cc. Things got a little more competitive here, the AI wasn’t messing around as much. I remember unlocking Dry Bones after winning the Leaf Cup in 100cc, which was cool. He’s a lightweight favorite.
150cc is where it really started to feel like proper Mario Kart again. Lots of chaos, blue shells right before the finish line – you know the drill. I had to really focus to get golds across the board. Winning the Special Cup on 150cc got me Daisy, I think. Yeah, that sounds right. Had to win the Star Cup too for another unlock, maybe Bowser Jr.? It gets a bit fuzzy remembering which cup gave who exactly, but winning was key.
Beyond the Cups – Time Trials and Other Stuff
Okay, so after doing the main cups, I still had gaps. I did a quick check – ah, Time Trials. Right. Some characters needed you to beat Staff Ghost times, or even unlock the Expert Staff Ghosts.
This took some serious effort. I remember specifically targeting Funky Kong. You needed to unlock, like, 4 Expert Staff Ghosts for him? That meant not just beating the regular staff ghost on a track, but beating it by a decent margin to make the expert one show up. Then you had to beat that one. Tracks like Ghost Valley 2 and Rainbow Road took me ages. Lots of restarting, trying different kart combos, learning the shortcuts properly. It was frustrating but kinda satisfying when I finally nailed a time.
There was also stuff tied to just playing the game a lot. Like, I think Toadette popped up after I’d played Time Trials on all 32 courses? Or maybe it was just winning a certain number of races overall. I just kept playing, doing different things.
And then there’s Mirror Mode. Man, flipping those tracks messes with your brain! But I needed to win those cups too. Getting Gold trophies in all the Mirror Cups was a challenge, but I think that’s how I unlocked the Mii Outfit B, the racing suit one.
Rosalina was another one. I read somewhere that having a Super Mario Galaxy save file on your Wii unlocks her automatically. I think I might have had one, because I don’t recall a specific tough challenge for her, but maybe I just got her after getting at least a 1-star rank in all the Mirror Cups? It’s possible I just ground that out without realizing that was the trigger.
Finally Done!
So yeah, it was a mix of things: winning Grand Prix cups across all difficulties (50, 100, 150, Mirror), getting good ranks (stars help!), grinding out Time Trials against ghosts, and just generally playing a whole lot of races. It wasn’t something I did in one sitting, more like chipping away at it over a few weekends.
But eventually, I got that notification for the last character. Scrolling through the full roster felt pretty good, not gonna lie. All those empty slots finally filled. Now the only challenge is picking who to race as!
