Mario Kart World: Review

Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo
Platforms: Switch 2

Since its inception on the SNES, the Mario Kart spinoff has been one of Nintendo’s most successful franchises of all time, dominating every system and has never fallen below 5 in the best-selling titles for each system. But I must ask the question, while it’s a popular franchise, a successful franchise, is it a good franchise? More specifically, good enough to launch a system with?

While it has been a sales juggernaut on every system, it has never been one that arrives on launch, it’s always been the game you have to wait several months to get. As I was waiting in the 1 degree weather outside my local EB Games on launch night, looking at the monitors showing the trailer on repeat, I asked myself if this game will have enough to tie me over until something bigger comes along like Donkey Kong Bananaza.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been a fan of Mario Kart for decades. Especially during the Wii days when me and my old friends would endure fits of rage while playing online during Game Night, but it’s never been the kind of game I can sink hours into. Breath of the Wild worked as a launch title because the vastness of Hyrule meant some time before the next big Switch game came out, which, funnily enough, WAS Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.

This is my point, Mario Kart has never had the weight of an entire console on its shoulders before and even the promise of an open world isn’t enough. Booting it up for the first time, my first instinct was to play a Grand Prix but then I ran into my first problem, since the Wii iteration, I have only used 2 racers; my Mii and Link, and of course, NEITHER are here. I went with Mario and then discovered that of course, the cart customisation is gone too, you would think that with the promise of an open world racing game that something like choosing the right bits to fit your style exactly would be here but we are back to the Wii style of choosing ready made vehicles to drive.

I will say that Mario Kart World does an amazing job showing off the power of the Switch 2, with vibrantly designed tracks and lots of environmental effects like waves caused when a Blue Sheel is used in the water. Even how racers respond to getting hit feels more fluid and natural, at least in terms of Mario Kart. The actual racing is mostly unchanged with drift boost, performing tricks and the like, the big new feature is the ability to grind rails and wall ride, but actually performing them is more tedious than it’s worth, with you in most cases having to hold the drift button while going straight just to perform a jump high enough to get on them.

Of course the big new hook besides “open world” is the upgrade to 24 drivers a race and I honestly can’t tell if the person who came up with this is either brilliant or insane especially when it comes to the online component. I found that 24 racers made even 50CC still have a bit of bite to it. After playing 8 Deluxe for so long and seeing everything on offer with the Expansion pack it’s almost weird going back to barely 30 tracks, the concept of racing to your next track is definitely something different dodging oncoming traffic but for someone who just wants to play an assortment of tracks this can seriously prolong the experience and not in a good way, because most of the race is just getting to the track and then completing a single lap.

When it comes to the new Free Roam feature, it is probably the biggest missed opportunity I’ve seen in a while. What could have been an interesting Open World just feels like a bare bones scavenger hunt looking for P Switches or hidden Question Marks. Imagine instead that the free roam was how you unlocked the additional characters by completing quests like herding cattle for the cow before beating them in a challenging 1 on 1 race or if they had kept vehicle customization, finding parts around the world. Titles like Diddy Kong and Crash Team Racing have shown that adventure modes can work in a racing game, so why not here in Mario Kart, instead unlocking several characters isn’t down to skill or exploration but a crap shoot with Kamek’s transformation which you can randomly get in power ups. This infuriates me as a lot of work has clearly gone into making this brand new world and yet I can barely interact with any of it

The online is where people will spend most of their time, this was the part I was most concerned with the introduction of 24 max players, while Mario Kart’s online has been the most reliable during Nintendo’s infamous history with online, after everything with games like Splatoon I was convinced it would turn in to an absolute shit show with lag and connection issues, well I’m very happy to tell you I was mistaken. It’s an absolute shit show because holy crap 24 player Mario Kart online is just absolutely insane! On one hand, having twice the players surprisingly balances it out at the end, but getting there can be absolutely chaos.

Issues aside, Mario Kart World is a worthy successor in the series, being the first completely new game in almost 11 years meant a lot of pressure was riding on this game, graphically the game has it down in spades, the tracks, though limited in comparison, definitely are vibrant and are teaming with life, if only I could say the same for the Free Roam….