by Dillon Fisher (8th)
Driving in with the Switch 2 on launch date was Mario Kart World, the first Mario Kart we’ve gotten in roughly 8 years. The last being Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. However that game was a remaster of Mario Kart 8, hence the name Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. So, it’s more like… 11 years. But I digress, this game is a follow-up to the most sold game on the Nintendo Switch, so a lot of hype is riding on this, and I mean a lot. However in recent years, Nintendo has had a desire for money, so that’s resulting in a fair bit of issues. Today, I’m willing to go through and analyze the game to the best of my ability, weeding through all the features and filler. So let’s go and I welcome you to Rare Reviews, where today, we’ll be seeing if Mario Kart World's attempt to reach the stars succeeded. Or failed.
Part 1: Greatness through Gameplay
Mario Kart always prides itself on its amazing gameplay, and this year is no different. With more features, items and karts, it’s truly just awesome to play. But first, let’s talk about the new features. Starting off with my favorite one, jumping. Or charge jumping to be exact. To charge jump, you hold down the drift button and the jump charges, with the higher charges giving you more of a jump boost. This would sound really simple and forgettable if it weren’t for the next two mechanics, grinding rails and wall-riding. Yes, we have grinding rails in Mario Kart before GTA 6. (Why did I make that joke?) Moving on.
So those two mechanics that I listed, let’s start with rail-grinding. It’s an interesting mechanic as you can jump on, drive on or fall on or… you get the idea. You get on a rail or a fence etc, then you let the kart charge up a boost then you can trick on or off the rail. Simple. Now wall-riding… It's awesome. This is my favorite mechanic of the game, genuinely. You can ride on almost ANY wall, most walls will knock you off after a few seconds but some walls don’t. Anyways, why is this so important?
Well, this opens up so many more alternate paths, which makes the Time Trials mode some of the most fun I’ve had playing Mario Kart. There are also new items like the Feather, which is a charge jump on steroids, the Mega Mushroom returning from Mario Kart Wii (i’m not explaining what it does because Mega + Mushroom, connect the dots). There’s also the ice flower, which is a slightly better version of the fire flower and the hammer, which throws an arc of hammers that can hit your opponents, and they can also stick in the ground for a second (so there are more ways than one to use it). All of these new and exciting features and the original Mario Kart formula, that’s just some peak gameplay. Although, it does have flaws, which we will get into during the next section.
Part 2: Tracks in Turmoil?
Mario Kart is nothing without its tracks, which are normally always awesome. Except for the few that are just, meh. You really can’t escape those tracks though, there's always one. Anyways, there are 30 tracks (29 of which are unlocked to you at the start) and they are a blast to play on. There are tracks like Koopa Troopa Beach and Desert Hills which are just bland but those are the only 2 tracks which I don’t care much about. Everything else I liked.
There was a mix-up to the standard Mario Kart grand prix in this game, for better or for worse. Now, in grand prix’s, you do a normal 3 lap track for the first race, then for the next 3 races you drive to the track. Then you only do 1 lap on that track, with a few exceptions. This caused a lot of controversy, with some thinking they’re good and some thinking they’re bad. I personally think it’s good. In my experience, 24 racers really diverts your focus from the track to just trying to survive, which is all good fun. Now this opinion is not universal, because this is not the way Mario Kart usually rolls.
Being different is fine, many games have had great success by leaving the beaten path and trying something new. How do you think Mario Kart was created? Although, this time, instead of discovering El Dorado, Nintendo found themselves in a muddy and deep hole. Can they fix it, I hope they can.
Part 3: This Mode’s a Knockout!
The intermissions definitely add some new spice to the game. Good and bad. The intermissions are a new addition which I do like, with exceptions. The intermissions also allowed a new mode to be introduced; Knockout Tour. Knockout Tour is a mode where you drive on intermission tracks for a while and at the end of every segment, the last 4 racers are eliminated. As it goes on and on, you eventually have only 4 racers left which then you race 1 lap on a track that you eventually end up on. It's very fun and it’s a very chaotic party mode.
A returning mode is Time Trials, which doesn’t have any major changes. Though with the courses generally being higher quality, it makes it (subjectively) more fun to drive. It also makes it a bit more competitive since there's less tracks to race on, which means more people are going to be doing the same tracks. (No one bothers to do Koopa Troopa Beach though, come on Nintendo, no one wants to do 5 laps around a mediocre sized circle).
Battle Mode has returned and… it’s hot dookie. (As of mid November). There are only 2 modes, Balloon Battle and Coin Runners. In Balloon Battle, you try to destroy peoples balloons that are tied to their kart and when you do destroy one… you get a point! It’s interesting as now if you lose all your balloons, you're out of the round. Compared to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, if you ran out, you just respawned with 3, not 5. Coin Runners is another mode, which is to get coins, hit people so they drop coins that you can pick up and, yeah. The main problem is the courses, or the lack of good ones.
In Mario Kart 8 Deluxe you had completely original courses that were specially made for the mode. You had different environments like Wuhu Town, Dragon Palace, Urchin Underpass and Battle Stadium, which in my opinion was the best. In Mario Kart World you have Moo Moo Meadows, wait scratch that, I don’t hate it. We have (really) Big Donut, Chain Chomp Desert (which is basically Big Donut 2.0), Peach Stadium (a rectangle), and DK Pass, (really open space with nothing in it). If it had original courses and a couple more modes, it would have been awesome. Sadly though, it just misses the mark completely on this try.
From one controversy to another. Let’s talk about the Grand Prix’s. Now, the tracks are amazing and they really get boosted by the 24 player racing. The one thing that was the issue was the intermissions. I described this earlier summing it up to you driving three laps around course 1. Then the next race you drive 2-3 laps to the next course (3 laps being for longer intermission tracks), then you race on the course, or a smaller part of it for the last lap. Repeat the intermissions to tracks 2 more times and you got a full Grand Prix. The issue with everyone is the intermissions. Most people don’t outright hate them, but when you're riding on them for roughly 75% of the time, it really starts to bug you. I personally didn’t hate them because I like focusing on the good parts of games. That’s also how I managed to put 50-70 hours into Sonic Forces which is a notoriously bad game. But we're straying from the point. The intermissions aren’t bad when consumed occasionally, but when we’re driving them all the time… it really starts to get on your nerves.
Part 4: More to Explore
Now moving away from the mixed and onto the good. Mario Kart World’s standout mode… Free Roam. This is the reason Mario Kart World is different from other Mario Karts, now you have an entire “world” to explore. Haha, get it? Okay I'll stop now. Free Roam is basically the glue that kinda holds the gameplay modes together as all of the modes make use of the open world (except Time Trials, but that’s an exception).
I love Free Roam for the relaxing vibe it gives you, which is only amplified by the soundtrack. When driving around, songs from Mario’s past will play, and these are good. They’re catchy, fun to listen to and all around just great music to vibe to. I do wish that you could have a menu of all the music because once a song stops playing and a new one starts, you probably aren't going to hear it again until much later.
One of the big hooks for Free Roam is the collectibles. Sometimes you’ll stumble upon big gold coins called Peach Medallions and big yellow panels on the ground called ? Block Panels. When driven through or on they give you a sticker which you can put on your kart. There’s also one more thing in Free Roam that I haven’t talked about yet. This was the main incentive to do it too, these things were called P-Switchs. Big blue switches that stick out of the ground and one driven on, start a little mission you do.
Once you complete the missions you get a sticker, again. There are 394 P-Switches, 150 ? Block Panels and 200 Peach Medallions. So, a lot of content! Or so you thought. This is one of the community's biggest gripes with the game. Wherever you do the mission or snag a medallion/ride over a panel. It’s always stickers. Nothing else. You don’t even get some kind of special reward for 100% the game. So, it pretty much dampered any enthusiasm people had for getting that kind of achievement. I personally don’t care much about the stickers as I’m a casual player and don’t grind the game for those kinds of rewards (normally).
Free Roam also has this new and interesting feature, which is called Rewinds. They do exactly what they sound like, they rewind time. In all offline modes when you play by yourself, you can rewind time if you make a mistake or simply just want to rewind time for the fun of it.
Part 5: The Verdict
Mario Kart World is a great game to play with your friends, family or even by yourself. It has its signature stamp of quality and the new additions are a blast. Although, it’s being weighed down with it’s confusing design choices with the Grand Prix’s, collectibles and its budget Battle Mode. When it’s good, it’s a blast to play. When it’s bad… It's pretty bad. Though, with everything considered, it’s a very enjoyable experience and still being a very consistent way to ruin friendships. Therefore, I give Mario Kart an 8 out of 10. It has promise, it just hasn't delivered on it quite just yet. I’m still very confident that it can successfully become a great game, it just needs a few tune ups.
This is Dillon from Rare Reviews, signing out.
Review Score: 8/10