Mario Kart World looks absolutely gorgeous. Not, say, eighty dollars of gorgeous, but it’s a beautiful game.
Whatever balls Nintendo could be accused of dropping with the Switch 2, it cannot be said they made a poor choice of game when it came to showing the system’s graphical potential. Some of the choices made with that game may be a little more contentious.
I’ll gladly admit it upfront – as the game to introduce a new normal of publishers charging $80 (minimum) for games, Mario Kart World is something I can’t help but resent. While many people will access the game as part of a console bundle, Nintendo’s nonetheless leveraging a beloved series to acquire blanket permission for some distasteful bullshit.
This will influence reviews going forward, and I shall be holding games with a $79.99 base price to a far higher standard. If companies think they deserve to charge such an exceptional rate, their games better damn well be exceptional. If you think this is an unfair policy, feel free to stop reading.
Mario Kart World is pretty damn good – not exceptional, but it’s got that baseline level of quality one expects from a Mario Kart game. It’s also an inherently more chaotic breed of Mario Kart, one that series fans have had to adjust to.
With a whopping 24 racers in play and more items flying around than ever before, Mario Kart World is a family friendly bloodbath. There are plenty of opportunities to show off skillful driving, especially with all the acrobatics one can pull off, but finesse often surrenders the wheel to Lady Luck, and in a game full of Mega Mushrooms, Luck’s a bitch.
Not that I’m complaining about the whims of chance – I’ve been winning more races than ever before.
A lot’s crammed into Mario Kart World when it comes to raw assets. The huge roster of racers welcomes a number of debuts – including a surprising increase of mook representation, which I’m a big fan of. As someone whose favorites have always been Dry Bones and Shy Guy, I’m delighted to have the likes of Cheep Cheep, Spike, and Sidestepper joining in.
Nintendo taketh away as well as giveth, because Nintendo is Nintendo, so some faces haven’t returned – this includes the Koopalings, which I’m personally bummed out by. After Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, it’s hard not to notice what’s missing, especially when it comes to the crossover content that’s no longer there. Considering the bump in price, it’ll sting if Nintendo’s going to sell characters like Link and the Inkling as DLC.
Some new items join the usual assortment, including a golden shell that blitzes down the center of the road and drops coins along the way, a Hammer that rapidly lays obstacles down in an overheard arc, and the Mega Mushroom, by far one of the most impactful new additions – you will learn to both love and curse the power to squash rivals.
There’s also Kamek, who transforms racers into those mook characters, an Ice Flower to compliment the Fire Flower, and a Feather that’s used to bounce over hazards. Overall, a solid assortment of new toys, but I’m not really excited by any of them. Also the Golden Shell is just crap.
Maneuverability is a big part of World’s gameplay, with additional ways of getting around that provide some fun visual spectacle. A proper jump is now part of the basic toolkit, pulled off by briefly charging a hop. You can use this to temporarily ride along nearby walls, and you’ll get a short boost when you jump back onto the road. It’s not always optimal, but it is quite fun.
You can also grind along certain surfaces, with plenty of railings and such scattered around for you to slide along. As with wall karting, it’s not practical in every situation, but I can’t help going out of my way to grind because it’s so neat. Naturally, there are some areas cleverly designed with the acrobatic racer in mind, providing plenty of opportunities for kart-based parkor.
Alongside the usual bunch of game modes, Mario Kart World introduces Knockout Tour, which has become my favorite way to play. It’s an eliminator that shaves the player count down from 24 to a final 4 via intermittent checkpoints. Given the changes to some of Mario Kart’s dynamics, it’s clear Knockout Tour is meant to be the main attraction, as it’s best suited to World’s increased level of anarchy.
Of course, regular races, Battle Mode, and Grand Prix are still there, but I have spent most of my time doing Knockout runs. They start out as low stakes fun and get gradually more enthralling with each checkpoint. Winning these Tours have been some of the most excitement I’ve had with the series.
Knockout Tour is also a good way to showcase Mario Kart World’s big gimmick.
Said gimmick is in the title, with every track placed on a large interconnected world. It’s a fun idea, and there’s no denying how impressively big the thing is. I love how every playable character is placed on the map to give the impression they’re constantly riding around in real time.
This interconnectivity exacts a price when it comes to the specific identity of individual courses – I couldn’t tell you a favorite stage off the top of my head since they all bleed into each other. Much of the connective area between courses is rather mundane too, some of it just being straight stretches of plain motorway. Races are prone to spotty pacing, a lot of flavorless driving with comparative short bursts of creativity.
That’s not to say there aren’t memorable parts, but that’s exactly what they are – portions of an overall world rather than standout stages with their own presence.
I’d say the tradeoff would be worth it if the “open world” we got in return was a lot more exciting than it is. A large, explorable Mario Kart sandbox is my idea of a fantastic time – open design is one of my favorite concepts for a racing game, and if any series is suited for it, it’s this one.
Despite all the potential, however, just a little time spent in Free Roam exposes how little interest Nintendo seems to have had in making the most of the idea. I keep wanting to freely explore the world, but the sheer lack of stuff to do inspires almost no enthusiasm.
If you adore checkpoint races you’ll be in Heaven, but those expecting much more will find only disappointment. Aside from dozens of variants of checkpoint challenges, Mario Kart’s titular world offers some collectibles, the occasional Nabbit to chase, a few Boomerang Bro racers to try and frustratedly hit with Green Shells, and if I can remember anything else I’ll let you know.
With no way to mark locations on a map and only a handful of borderline useless telescope stations serving as navigation tools, locating activities across the vast environment is a matter of driving around and fighting boredom. You can spend a long time actively looking for stuff to do in Free Roam and come up short.
Don’t worry too much about completing challenges though – Mario Kart World’s idea of a reward system is complete and utter wank. Your efforts are almost always recognized with a sticker, a little logo you can affix next to your username for online players to take zero notice of because they’re tiny and uninteresting. That’s all you get for pretty much any activity that requires effort.
Why can’t you unlock new vehicles, characters, or costumes via these open world challenges? Because each type of unlockable is bound to one single method of acquisition, and mixing things up would be too interesting. Characters are tied to Grand Prix completion, karts are earned in a linear order via the acquisition of coins, and costumes are earned by having the relevant racer pick up a food item and eat it.
Kamek is about the only interesting way to get something, and that’s simply due to how utterly random he is.
I find the singular and entirely unfun process of unlocking outfits particularity aggravating. There’s such a distinct lack of spontaneity, surprise, and reward to just switching characters and having them use the same items over and over. New cosmetics would be the perfect incentive for engaging with an open world, yet Nintendo couldn’t have been less adventurous about it.
Also, why are outfits treated as entirely separate racers instead of skins like they used to be? What is the benefit of clogging up the character selection menu that much? Seriously, I could write an entire essay on World’s costume fumblings alone.
Anyway, as I’ve suggested at certain points, Mario Kart World is absolute mayhem.
The increased impact items have on races cannot be understated. It’s not uncommon to shoot from last to first place and vice versa in an instant. While this means no race feels truly lost until it’s very almost over, it also means anybody in the lead is more fragile than ever, to such a degree that trying to have a race sometimes feels counter to winning a race.
More items than ever are prepped to batter you from behind, and they will. Rarely will you ever just take a hit and cede some ground – more commonly you’ll get knocked by one thing into another thing, which will slow you down enough to perpetuate a daisy chain of bullshit from other things.
I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been toppled and squashed several times within a matter of nanoseconds, dragged from top to bottom with zero ability to negate it. Conversely, I’ve sped from the bottom to the top just as easily thanks to how damn powerful every mushroom-based boost is. It’s easy to surge ahead, but staying ahead is another thing entirely.
Common convention’s always held that whoever’s in the lead gets limited item access and has to fear the devastating Blue Shell as a form of balance. With Mario Kart World, however, I’m wondering if Nintendo has focused so heavily on players in the back half of a race that there’s almost no viable way left for the front half to defend itself. Perhaps, after all these years, the scales have tipped a bit too far?
It’s telling that, whenever I’m in the lead, I’m not even afraid of the Blue Shell anymore – that’s just part of the overall noise. Wherever I’m placed, my fear is the same – all I worry about is not getting dragged to the bottom of the bucket by the gaggle of crabs all around me.
I want to emphasize that I don’t think it’s not a fun way to play. It’s sheer anarchy, and it certainly levels the playing field in its own inelegant way. The final stretch on the way to victory is terrifying now, and the relief when one crosses the finish is consequently elating. However, it can lead to some truly disheartening outcomes over which your influence feels negligible.
One element can absolutely fuck off, and that’s the overbearing “course correction” of Lakitu. In previous games, he could always be relied on to fish players out of chasms or put them back on the road if they veered off, but for some reason he’s way overtuned in World.
He’ll grab you if you step even a tiny bit off course, confiscating any item you have in the process. It’s so bad that you won’t even know why he’s yanking you away sometimes – at one point I was literally on the course, having steered down towards a ramp while in flight mode, but the game interpreted my move as me… falling? I guess? Who knows?
Lakitu has served Mario Kart well all these years, but he’s turned into a right cloudy cunt.
Mario Kart World’s presentation is truly impeccable. The saturated colors are my perfect type of eye-searing beauty, and there are so many lovely environmental details. Despite the lack of activities, a lot has been done to make sectors of the world you’d not really see outside Free Roam at least look lively, with all sorts of characters and creatures wandering around.
Everything is backed by a truly fantastic selection of music. Catchy tunes, big brassy sounds, a ton of nostalgia thrown in for good measure, I’ve not a bad word to say about the soundtrack.
The visual design of karts is absolutely top notch. I’m not just saying that because there’s a lobster bike, but also there’s a fucking lobster bike! I wish the actual process of unlocking vehicles was more varied and interesting, because the vehicles themselves are really cool and deserve more exciting methods of acquisition.
Mario Kart World is a strange one. It’s provided some of the most fun I’ve had with the series, yet it’s also left me feeling underwhelmed at regular intervals. It offers a huge amount of fresh cool stuff, but still manages to shortchange players in major ways. Mostly, it lets itself down by promising an exciting open world but delivering a flimsy cardboard one that looks incredible but offers very little to do.
A lot of flash and some substance, it’s a very fun game in a package that doesn’t live up to its massive potential, much less the massive price tag it’s introduced to mainstream gaming.
