For the first 20 years of videogames, most games only presented one or two playable characters. The Mario Kart series has always offered at least eight, even as those eight rotated (Koopa Troopa left us after Super Mario Kart only to return starting with Double Dash!! and Wii). Now up to Mario Kart 8, the game has an inordinate amount of characters—expandable by way of downloadable content.

But forget the excess. Most of those characters are variations of the same thing: Baby Mario? Cat Peach?! Since the game will never have a create-a-player, your karter may come to define you, and it doubles as a good way to evaluate your psychological state. Mario Kart is the Rorschach test of the videogame world. Maybe we're looking too far into it, but there's only one way to find out. What does your Mario Kart character say about you?

Mario

A Mario player might be good at the game, but though they may be skillful, they’re probably lacking in personality. There's nothing to behold about Mario: the guy's pretended to hold more jobs than a con man with chameleon skin, but no one questions it because the Italian plumber IS a chameleon. He's an empty palette, a blank canvas to paint on. He is the vanilla milkshake of characters: perpetually classic, but dear god why would someone ALWAYS play as him?

Luigi

If you're a Luigi player, you may have an inferiority complex. You're self-identifying as second best. Did you never own a Super Mario Brothers game, forced as a child to go over to a friend's house to play and naturally fall into the taller, sleeker brother who never gets the girl and whose biggest starring role comes when he wins a contest he never entered and fights ghosts? Here's a fun fact about games starring Luigi: They're considered part of the Mario franchise, but the Luigi games don't even get their own section of a Wikipedia page. He barely appears in his own advertisements.

In terms of karting he's a middle-weight driver, perfectly average in every way. He's second-tier in character and quality to everyone except John Leguizamo.

Alternative theory: Your favorite color is green.

Princess Peach

A Peach driver is one of three people. First choice: You are a big bro—you can out drink a sailor and feel no need to shave—and you do play as her "ironically" but are actually making your only attempt to get in touch with your feminine side.

Second: You're a man who considers himself a feminist, the type of guy who has read Betty Friedan and owns a few pink shirts.

Third possibility: You're a woman, or at least someone who doesn't identify as a man. Mario Kart 8 is the first game to offer a handful of female characters, and yet, through downloadable content you can get Link and not Zelda. Come on Nintendo. Step it up.

Toad

A person who plays as Toad cannot be trusted. Their moves cannot be predicted. Their ideologies cannot make sense. The Grateful Dead fan of the Mario lot, Toad is a mushroom, a lightweight that doesn't go very fast and gets pushed around easily while looking like a pair of cartoon boxers. A person who drives Toad is just as likely to give up halfway through the race and go backwards as they are to beat you. Do not trust this player.

Yoshi

Yoshi players wanted to be Godzilla growing up but never became giant mutated reptiles big enough to destroy cities. Mario rode around Yoshi like a horse in Super Mario World, so early '90s players know him as fast. That's not a reason people play as him, though. People play as him because they want to walk around and crush Tokyo, but cannot. Some dreams never die.

Donkey Kong

You were better at Diddy Kong Racing than Mario Kart 64. You lift weights. You read Pitchfork. You think the fact that a big gorilla is named "Donkey" is ironic genius at the level of meta-irony Alanis Moresette claims to have put in "Ironic," claiming she put no irony so that people could only remember that and ironically tell her that her own song is incorrect a few decades later. You have a weird thing for drums and percussion. You probably need to shave your chest. You had no idea what DK's voice sounded like until Mario Kart 8. You keep telling yourself you don't miss Diddy Kong, but you do.

Wario

You're not a nice person. I'm sorry to have to break it this way, but it's just the truth. There is no upside to Wario; all men play as him for the first week their mustache grows out (which is weird, since Mario and Luigi also have mustaches), but once past this brief pubescent phase, Wario has no good to offer. He's a heavy character, but he's the only heavy character who is 100% out of shape. His color scheme, yellow and purple, is the favorite look of Minnesota Vikings fans and the colorblind. Wario is evil. No one plays as Wario.

Bowser

The people who choose Bowser feel misunderstood. They don't necessarily think Bowser isn't a bad guy—three decades of kidnapping princesses is indefensible—but they do think it didn't have to be this way. When did anyone ever truly try to be Bowser's friend? When has anyone asked Bowser how his day went? Has anyone ever asked him what's bothering him? He's probably not a nice guy, but he's definitely misunderstood. Underneath that giant hard shell, those sharp spikes, and that nasty growl, there's a heart. That heart needs love.