Mario Kart World has the unenviable task of being the successor to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe: arguably the best game in the series and inarguably Nintendo’s best selling game of all time at 68.2 million units sold. Much to its credit, Mario Kart World breaks away from the formula established, which Mario Kart 8 has pretty much perfected, but while with this comes new-found success, also emerging are some growing pains. The result, nevertheless, is a great launch title for the Switch 2 and one that is truly worthy of a podium place when considering all of the entries in the Mario Kart franchise so far.
Many of the 20-odd hours I spent with Mario Kart World, I spent in its front-facing game mode: Grand Prix (GP). For those unaware, GP is a single-player exclusive mode found in every Mario Kart and which involves accumulating as many points as possible, done by placing as high as possible in the standings, throughout four different tracks which together form a cup. Mario Kart World features 7* total cups and three engine speeds to race at: 50cc, 100cc and 150cc.
The engine speeds can be interpreted as the game’s difficulty modes (easy, medium, and hard), while accessibility options such as smart steering, auto-accelerate, tilt controls and auto-use items can be used to, more or less, fine-tune the level of challenge. Surprisingly, in continuing the theme of breaking with tradition, Mario Kart World does not have a 200cc mode, although, in an interview with Rolling Stone, producer Kosuke Yabuki didn’t completely rule out a future update which would include it.
This being said, during CGM’s own interview with Kabuki-san, he discusses why sometimes the best way to move forward is to leave beloved features behind, so, at least for now, the jury is still out as to how he and his team will handle post-launch support and whether or not 200cc will eventually be part of their plans. Personally, the game’s skill ceiling is so high—more on this later—that I didn’t miss 200cc too much, but I can understand why some players are asking for it, especially when Mario Kart World boasts a large and interconnected map.
“Mario Kart World breaks away from the formula established, which Mario Kart 8 has pretty much perfected, but while with this comes new-found success, also emerging are some growing pains.”
Speaking of, the presence of an interconnected map is Mario Kart World’s most important and prevalent (hence the title) gimmick. In practice, what this means is that, instead of disparate locales, all of the courses here are linked together by connective tissue—the first and last lap of each race usually involves driving to and from places such as Dino Dino Jungle, Starview Peak and more. In regards to quality and enjoyment, for my money, Boo Cinema and World’s version of Rainbow Road are the absolute standouts, but all of the courses present are winners. In any case, Mario Kart World’s, um, world, feels like it definitely took inspiration from The Super Mario Bros. Movie, in an effort to perhaps consolidate the whole Mario IP into something more uniform.
Beyond the map and the courses, Mario Kart World shakes up the gameplay by introducing new mechanics altogether. For example, in addition to the essentials (rocket start, drift, jump boost, etc.), players can now rewind time for their character and vehicle, à la Forza Horizon, angle their shots, grind on rails and even perform audacious wall jumps. In just a few days, as more and more players got to experiment with the new tricks at play, the skill ceiling got raised significantly—later is now—and the new meta has, so far, involved wall riding/jumping and grinding as much as possible. Considering that drifting used to be king, this is refreshingly different from what we’ve seen from the franchise so far.
Nowhere is this wall riding and grinding meta more apparent than in Knockout Tour, which is, by far, Mario Kart World’s most riveting game mode. As is probably clear from the name, Knockout Tour pins a maximum of 24 racers (a record high number for the series) against each other in an elimination-style marathon to the finish line. The catch is that the goalposts keep changing throughout said marathon, making it so that, at the end of the first out of its six laps, only the top 20 qualify for the next lap, then only the top 16 and so on until someone eventually gets crowned the winner.
This is incredibly exciting as it does give the impression that no race is over until it’s really over, even more so when items are constantly flung left, right and center. So, yes, whereas GP is theoretically Mario Kart World’s primary game mode, Knockout Tour ends up stealing the whole show instead and is, hands-down, the best addition to the Mario Kart series in years. Incidentally, it’s playing Knockout Tour that showed me just how entertaining game chat with friends can be, more so if they also use cameras. I’m still not particularly impressed, and would not be paying for a Nintendo Switch Online subscription solely for game chat (shout-out Discord), but I must admit that the Mario Kart World integration worked better than I initially thought it would.
Moving on, Mario Kart World’s other game modes, namely, Battle Mode, Time Trials and Free Roam are sadly nowhere near as good or as fleshed out as Knockout Tour is. Not much is interesting with regards to the former two, which I found to be inferior and tired renditions of, at least in the case of Battle Mode, something that used to be a Mario Kart staple so, as such, I’ll turn most of my attention towards the latter.
“…what Mario Kart World lacks in Free Roam, it more than makes up for with the numerous characters, vehicles and outfits present.”
In theory, the idea of free roaming in any Mario Kart game, but especially World, given its interconnected map, is tantalizing, but, unfortunately, the execution leaves much to be desired. This is because, even though collectibles, missions (sort of like in Mario Kart DS) and characters are peppered throughout, the world itself feels barren and underwhelming. In the end, I found that Free Roam is best enjoyed as a dessert, more so with friends, rather than a main course, which is disappointing considering the expectations maybe set by Nintendo’s open-world offerings such as The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
However, what Mario Kart World lacks in Free Roam, it more than makes up for with the numerous characters, vehicles and outfits present. It’s been genuinely hilarious to see Cow (yes, the one from Moo Moo Meadows) players run amok in online lobbies and Dolphin riding a Dolphin Bike…?\
When added together, Mario Kart World boasts 50 selectable racers ranging from the mascot himself, Mario, to celebrity NPCs such as Pirahna Plant. And, yes, not everyone gets an equal amount of outfits, if any, and, yes, Mario gets 9 different ones, but, in the end, it’s all worth it to get vampire Waluigi, a.k.a. Wampire, right? As for the vehicles, besides the fact that there are a whopping 40 of them, the decision to have them be preset only, meaning no more changeable parts, is a good one as when playing Mario Kart 8, for example, I’ve always defaulted to the best wheels (Roller) and not much else. At least in World, I was more tempted to give different vehicles a go as I found them to be better balanced against each other.
Otherwise, as expected from a marquee Nintendo title, Mario Kart World impresses in the audiovisual department. The soundtrack, for one, is phenomenal and, what’s more, it wonderfully remixes in loops and sounds from games past and present. It helps, too, that Mario Kart World is stunning and convincingly among Nintendo’s best looking games to date: I’ve never been more happy to see my favourite Mario character. (Luigi. It’s Luigi.) Thankfully, the graphics come at no apparent cost to performance, as I was able to maintain a rocksteady 60fps in single-player and two player split-screen in either docked or handheld. Regrettably, local multiplayer in more than two players is locked at 30fps, but that did not come as a surprise since it’s a caveat also found in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.
Overall, Mario Kart World is a great game, but definitively not the best Mario Kart there is—that recognition, as expected, is retained by Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. However, I don’t think that World necessarily aims to be “the best”, anyway. From the off-set, the developers over at Nintendo EPD wanted this to be a fresh and new title and to take bold risks with it.
Not everything panned out as well as it could have, looking at you, Free Roam, but I will always respect swinging for the fences in favour of going back to formula. With this in mind, I strongly believe that, whereas, again, Mario Kart World is not the best game in the series, it does align the franchise in the best possible direction: forward.
