Welcome, race fans, to the big show! That’s right we’re talking about Mario Kart World, Nintendo’s Switch 2 launch game that promises to shake things up for the series. And shake them up they should, considering the last game, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, was a port of a Wii U launch game, first appearing on the neglected console way back in 2014. Think about how much has changed in the last 11 years! That game gets ported to Switch, the reception was okay because only 14 million Wii U’s were sold ever, so it gave LOTS of people a chance to play a great Mario Kart with added (and improved) features. Then, after some years, much like the elastic band on your favorite sweat pants, Nintendo stretched that game out with new content - 50 characters and 96 courses, multiple single and multiplayer modes and an online community that has been creating tournaments and setting up races to this day. What a legacy! How do you top that?

Explore The World

How? With Mario Kart World! It’s a big game that crashed onto the scene at a whopping $80, signalling a new lane for video game pricing to merge into. Is it worth that? A lot of this game is Mario Kart at its best; all new levels, lots of items, a great character roster and solid online play. The big addition to the game is the seemless, open world full of challenges and the all new Knockout Tour! You are no longer being accosted by a tormented Lakitu going ballistic because you are going the wrong way or no longer on the track - with MKW’s free roam mode you are free to move around as you please. It’s pretty amazing! You are able to move around this large map exploring each of the 32 new tracks, the space around them, the nooks and crannies that would normally get you penalized for falling into as well as the vast open world between them.

Challenges

Along with the exploration, there are tons of challenges to be found. You’ll see these P switches spread out across the map - some in desolate, hard to reach areas (getting to them is the challenge), others slapped right down in the middle of a course. Hit it and begin a challege. So far in my playthrough, I’ve seen seen a variety of these challenges:

• get to point b from point a
• collect all the blue coins
• turn into a semi-truck and crush stuff

Aside from these challenges, it seems like there are some semi-random encounters. For instance, I was leaving Faraway Oasis to the south, heading south-east when I saw two racers up ahead, one with the word TARGET over its head. I raced towards them, deploying my golden mushroom enough to catch up. One of them was throwing down question mark blocks feeding me green shells. After a few minutes of racing I closed the gap and fired off a green shell! It missed on the approach but bounced off the guardrail and came back into one of the racers! They were knocked out! I kept going, bobbing and weaving through a canyon until I was close enough to fire. Direct hit! The Charging Chuck I was tasked with eliminating was defeated and I was greeted with a message congratulating me. These little encounters are incredibly fun!

One thing I would love to see them improve would be the map - or the lack there-of. You have this big, open world, but there isn’t a very good map to look at with details. You can’t bring up a map and zoom in and inspect it. There is a mini-map when you’re cruising the world but it presents the world from an up high angle. Kind of strange! The tourism binoculars you find also shoot your p.o.v. up into the air which makes pinpointing what you’re looking at kind of difficult. My last point of criticism (for now, anyway!) is the lack of local multiplayer free-roam. I know you can do it online, but it would be excellent if Catrena and I could toot around the world together locally.

Characters & Costumes

We need to talk abou the costumes. Donkey Kong has only 1 alternate costume, but Shy Guy has 2. Toadette has 4 but Pauline has 2! She only has two costumes but her alternate costume has already caused a stir so maybe they didn’t want to overwhelm the internet. Some of Peach’s costumes are ripped right out of Odyssey but it appears Daisy’s costumes are all original? I’m complaining about this because the costume system is cool and I just want to see more of it, not because it’s anemic but because it could be so much fuller. The costume distribution system also feels like it was maybe intended to be something else? Grab a to-go bag outside of Yoshi’s Restaurant and you’ll be treated to a tasty looking meal (ranging from a candy bar or chips all the way to exotic roast meats - seriously the food is amazing and I want to do a post on it). Use the meal (just like a regular item) and your character could change costumes (and unlock it for later use). I like the costumes! But I don’t understand why we’d want to change costumes mid course. Especially if everyone doesn’t have the same amount - some of the playable enemy characters don’t have alternate costumes at all. It feels like there could have been something else planned here.

Items

If you were to give me a big open world where I can turn into a semi-truck or a UFO, I would assume there would be items with the same kind of boundless imagination! And I would be incredibly wrong! All of the standard MK items are here; bananas, green, red & blue shells, lightning. There are some new items - the gold coin shell which seeks the center of the course knocking out anyone in its way until finally it explodes into coins. Also the ice flower, the antithesis of the iconic fire flower. To me it feels uninspired. Mario Kart Double Dash is my favorite of the series, that game had some special items for each character - imagine if the outfit that you switch to in the middle of a race would have an impact on the kinds of items you could collect. It would offer some cohesion to the systems at play! But even without all of this, it’s a great game and the item usage can get extremely frantic. Classic Mario Kart!

What’s Next!?

So far we’ve been having a great time with it. We’ve still got characters and costumes to unlock, loads of P switch missions to complete, secret question mark blocks and medallions to find and online races to lose. We’ve mostly just focused on getting gold on the 100cc races and knock-out mode, which we’ve completed this evening! 150cc races are next! I’ll continue to update this as we play more!

Oh one last thing, there is a really kick-ass photo mode! Even though I’m a freak for photography I don’t find myself using photo modes often but something about this one has been great!