This being the flagship game releasing alongside the launch of the Nintendo Switch 2, Mario Kart World has a lot of pressure to not just be a great game but to be a system seller as well. It is our first new Mario Kart game to be released since Mario Kart 8 in 2014 on the Wii U (for context, I was 12 when 8 released, I’m 24 now!) The Switch 1 being able to survive with just a port of 8 alone, and even being its best selling game, shows the power of the last game, and the competition which the new game needs to beat.

But does Mario Kart World justify the wait? Or the price? It is the first £70 ($80) game from Nintendo so it has a lot to live up to.

The World of Mario Kart World

This is our first Mario Kart game to have an open world - which is to say the first game to let drivers not just race around the courses but to explore a map of the courses all inter-connected as well, finding secrets and collectables along the way.

Dotted across the map of the game’s new and returning tracks are collectables such as Peach Medallions and P-Switches. The P-Switches start missions of various goals, whether it is to collect all coins, speed through all rings or dodge enemies. Each completed mission rewards the player with a new sticker which they can attach to their profile for people online to see next to their name, or just to collect.

Some of the returning tracks are wildy changed compared to their original versions. This can be cool as it gives new life to them, however considering some of them are hardly recognisable now to their original versions, what’s the point of bringing back the track if its not the same? Why not make a ‘sequel’ track like Wii Moo Moo Meadows is to N64 Moo Moo Farm. Speaking of Moo Moo Meadows, that track was brought back again, making it the third time we’ve seen it since its debut on the Wii, which is 3 of the last 4 games!

This leads onto our next section and slight negative of the game…

Intermissions Galore

This game introduces alongside the world map intermissions, which are sections alongside courses you drive between laps connecting them all together. This sounds cool on paper, as it lets you see how all the courses are linked together with interconnecting roads and highways.

The only issue with this is most of the time the roads have barely anything going on in them to look at while driving. It is essentially just straight lines with some minor obstacles for what seems to be most of the track. I would have liked to have seen more done with this to make the world feel more lively and interesting.

The other thing about this is it takes up most of the track length, to the point that you are only playing 1 lap on the course people actually voted for. You used to be able to get around this by voting random, which ended up doing the classic 3-lap formula people are familiar with, but Nintendo decided to patch this, forcing intermissions by making random choose out of the 3 options instead.

I somewhat enjoy them, if these were a bit more interesting and you maybe had a choice to have them or not, it would be a bit better of a feature.

They are a good first attempt and I hope they try this again in the next game, but it does leave a lot to be desired right now.

P-Switches and Peaches

As much as I have played the free roam of the open world, the meat of it is finding the Peach Medallions hidden in random places across the map, which encourage the player to explore, and P-Switch missions as mentioned earlier. These range from fun to easy to boring to frustrating. It does depend on how well you can master the new driving mechanics, so perhaps it’s a skill issue on my part

New Controls, New Mechanics

Others have told me that the controls feel the same in this game as Mario Kart 8, but for some reason I just can’t seem to get used to them. They feel too ‘floaty’ to me and I just can’t seem to get used to it. I however found 8’s controls to be perfectly fine and enjoyed it, so not quite sure what the issue could be. Perhaps I just need to practice more?

It could be the new mechanics in conjunction that I’m not sure about. Gone is the underwater driving and glider sections of 7 and 8, which have been replaced with on-water driving and a plane-like kart your driver now glides with, in a more, at least to me, floatier way.

These work fine, however I did prefer the old ones as I felt that they led to more interesting course designs.

The lack of anti-gravity also contributes to a more flat course design as well. Now this has been replaced by wall riding and rail grinding. These can be fun if you take time to learn, but can be tricky to master and I can see it being a turn off for casual players.

Knock Out and Grand Prix

There are other modes you can play both online and offline as well - the usual offline, single-player Grand Prix mode whre you have cups of 4 courses each and try to get first in each. The Grand Prix this time taking advantage of the new intermissions, making you travel between each one, which has the same flaws as mentioned previously.

Knock Out Tour is a new mode, like Grand Prix in the sense that you race on cups of 4 courses, but now you play them as one big race online, with intermissions connecting them, and your aim is to beat every section in the top cut, which slowly reduces the players in the race until there is only 1 left.

The Knock Out Tour mode isn’t my favourite mode added, but it is nice Nintendo are trying new things, as Nintendo are at their best when they take risks. At least Grand Prix still exists.

Conclusion

Mario Kart World overall feels like a natural progression for the series to take. I mean, there is only so much you can do with a kart racer after 8 entries, there will certainly be features which stick and those which don’t.

The game was fun with the time I have played it, but to be honest, I will probably be going back to Mario Kaer 8 as my Mario Kart game of choice with family and friends.

If the idea of exploring the world of Mario Kart for collectables sounds fun to you, then you will have a fun time, just know the world doesn’t have much to explore outside of these. If this doesn’t sound fun to you, it might be better spending your money elsewhere, or beating your backlog until the Switch 2 gets more games.

6/10