Mario Kart World Review - Open World Karting Goodness

It was hard to know just what we were getting into with the very first tease of Mario Kart World, Nintendo’s long-awaited follow-up to the 70-million-selling Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. When more details dropped in April, reactions were mixed, mostly because of the game’s $80 price point, and skepticism over the open-world focus. Personally, I thought Free Roam had the potential to be a brilliant idea, both for young audiences and exploration junkies. More than that, I was beyond excited to try out Knockout Tour, as well as the new Grand Prix format, which is closer to an obstacle-laden rally race than a series of circuits.

It’s been a whole decade since Mario Kart 8 first debuted on the Wii U, and World’s developers are on record saying that they felt that with Deluxe, they had taken the traditional formula as far as they could. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe’s DLC brought its total to 96 tracks and 42 playable characters, plus 5 different Battle Mode modes, not to mention one of the greatest soundtracks in gaming history. Those are big shoes to fill, and most developers would simply iterate and improve on what worked, but Nintendo boldly went back to the drawing board, deciding to reimagine and refine Mario Kart. They asked, “In what new ways can we make Mario Kart fun?” and “How long can the formula be sustained in one continuous race?” Then they dialed the chaos up to 11 by allowing up to 24-player mayhem.

So although the Switch 2 console itself played it safe, Mario Kart World is far from a standard upgrade. Sure, the same modes are there on paper, but as far as Online play is concerned, the circuits themselves are now supplemented by intermission tracks that act as veritable gauntlets to separate the men from the boys. Even if you just want to do a single race online with randos, you’ll only be doing 3 lap circuits some of the time - most of the time, you’ll have 3 track options branching out from your current location, each with an intermission. If you pick Random, or if you only have 2 branching track options, a third will appear as a circuit. So you’re at the mercy of the roulette wheel.

Locally, the traditional VS mode does let you do circuit races. There’s also Time Trials, where you can race Staff Ghosts. If you’re subscribed to Nintendo Switch Online, you can download the top world record holders’ ghosts, view their runs (crucial for discovering many shortcuts), and compete to see how your own Ghost Data ranks up with the best of the best. It’s undoubtedly the best Time Trials has ever been. But each of the eight Grand Prix races take you halfway across the map, and you’ll only be racing 3 laps on the first track, with breathers to recalibrate after every “main” track along the way. While it does have its charms, the circuits are more interesting than the intermissions, so many fans have echoed the desire for a “Classic GP” mode with just the circuits.

Knockout Tour Alone Is Worth the Hype

Mario Kart World isn’t all just about drifting and track memorization anymore. There are new mechanics such as charged jumps, faster slipstreaming (drafting), wall-riding, rail grinding, and tricky boat and plane physics to master. With coin totals raised to 20, those in the back get more of a chance. You’ve got to be simultaneously offensive and defensive, often with microseconds to make split decisions, all the while dodging obstacles and picking between optimal and safer routes. Grand Prix races are still divided into four sections with the featured tracks at the end of the run, so if you’re not in a good position when you enter the track itself, you’re going to have to claw your way to victory within a single lap. Some find it frustrating. I love the fresh challenge.

The game’s defining challenge, Knockout Tour, is the prime example of this game’s design philosophy, and easily the best addition to the Mario Kart formula since the invention of drifting in Mario Kart 64. This fast, intense, cutthroat, and hopelessly addictive mode, where you race continuously between six different tracks and the last 4 racers drop out at every checkpoint, is my new go-to for online racing, and it’s as much a racing game as it is a battle royale and a shooter. (I primarily use Battle Mode, which is now relegated to just Balloon Battle and Coin Runner modes, to polish up my shell shooting skills.) You can now shoot sideways, or in any other direction, with a tilt of the right stick to move the camera.

Front-running for the duration of Knockout Tour is dangerous and makes it tougher for you to farm coins. It’s track-dependent, but bagging (hanging behind to grab more advantageous items) can leave you equally in the dust, as the item roulette seems more dynamic this time around, in that it seems to reward you depending on one’s distance from the front of the pack, the item box’s track placement, your previous driving skill, etc. 

Overall, it seems that raw numerical placement doesn’t matter as much as relative placement. Golden Mushrooms, Triple Mushrooms, Bullet Bills, and the Mega Mushroom appear often to those far behind, and smart use of each can take you up the ranks pretty quickly early on, which is a necessary balancing act given the sheer amount of chaos unleashed when 24 racers are slugging it out. Once there are less cars on the road, though, Knockout Tour becomes more of a test of raw skill, risk VS reward, and patience. Slipstreams (also called draft boosts) have never been more crucial in Mario Kart, and there’s a constant mind game going on where you’ll be wanting to tail other racers while simultaneously avoiding tails. You can escape a blue shell with a well-timed Mushroom boost, a Super Horn, or a Boo. The Rewind feature also works in single-player, and you can leap over a red shell if you have a feather or charged jump handy.

Although Mario Kart has a reputation for being luck-based and braindead from a casual standpoint, I truly believe that Mario Kart World may be one of the series’ most finely balanced entries, as I got to a point where I pretty consistently made top 4 in online Knockout Tour races, often coming in at #2 behind a clearly expert Japanese player, and whenever I did get “Mario Karted”, I could usually point to where I went wrong, either being too offensive, recklessly using items, not watching my six, or missing opportunities and losing time.

Free Roam - Fun With Friends, Or Alone

The other main new addition to Mario Kart World is the Free Roam mode, where you can drive around the continent of the Mushroom Kingdom to your heart’s content, ala Burnout Paradise or Forza Horizons. This interconnected world with collectibles and challenges is not only huge and gorgeously rendered, with four different lighting sequences to approximate different times of day, but it can also be enjoyed with friends. Two-player Free Roam on one system is possible by selecting Wireless Play and creating a room, but you won’t be able to tackle P-Switch missions with a friend. You can also explore online with a friend. If you get too far from one another, the game closes the gap, putting P2 nearer to P1’s location. Not a major inconvenience. 

I’ve heard many differing takes online - some have said the open world is empty with little to do. I don’t think that’s a fair assessment. There’s a lot of verticality in this game, as you can jump, wall ride, rail grind, etc. Sometimes you’ll stumble upon an instance where you’ll need to chase Nabbit through a gauntlet, test your flying skills, go behind a waterfall, discover a half-pipe, or just admire a cool little turnip farm. 

There are also many high points that are tricky to climb. If you are a completionist who enjoys exploration, this is a cozy mode where you can uncover secrets and learn mechanics and shortcuts while chilling out to the game’s incredible soundtrack, which is filled wall-to-wall with hours of breathtaking jazz, big band, rock, and electronic Mario covers from throughout the series’ history. Gusty Garden Galaxy, Dire, Dire, Docks, Coconut Mall, and Rainbow Shoals, to name just four, get transformative, pitch-perfect covers. I listen to it while driving.

If you like exploring for hidden treasures, there’s plenty of them, with 150 hidden panels and 200 Peach Medallions placed in sometimes tough-to-reach places. And if you, like me, miss Mario Kart DS’ Missions Mode, there are 394 P-Switch missions of great variety, which will task you with dodging foes and obstacles, collecting Blue coins within a time limit, winning short races, etc. Some of them can be quite tricky, but retrying (and rewinding) is easy and I got most of the ones I’ve done on the first or second try. Fans have complained that all you get from beating these are decals/stickers, but to me, the fact that we finally have Missions again is its own reward.

New Tracks, Vehicles, Items, Physics, and Costumes

As someone who used to play Mario Kart Tour, I had hoped that we would see a lot of that game’s innovations in the next Mario Kart, such as dynamic tracks that take you on different paths between laps, multiple costumes for fan-favorite characters, Coin-related items such as the Coin Box, and held items that automatically hitched up behind your vehicles, negating the need to hold down the item button. As it turns out, World features all of the above, and more. 

In addition to the coin box, with which you can spam coins, there’s the awesome gold coin shell, which runs down the center of the track, leaving many coins in its wake. As this appears often to racers in the middle, this is a great way to rack up early-race coins. The feather item now appears in regular races. It’s not always useful, but sometimes a free jump can start a great trick combo, saving you from having to charge-jump, which slows you down.

Nearly every new track is an absolute winner. Great “?”-Block Ruins is a favorite, as are Peach Stadium, Salty Salty Speedway, Crown City, and Boo Cinema, but there really are no losers here. This is handily the best Rainbow Road Nintendo has ever made. There are only 30 tracks on paper, but the connective tracks between them all add up to over 200. 

The wide variety of random characters provides a ton of charm. As ludicrous as it is to drive as a Dolphin, Cow, Goomba, or Cheep Cheep, it’s also really cute. You’ll unlock outfits by “Transforming” after snagging and consuming golden Yoshi take-out bags which heavily populate the map.

Wario and Waluigi get Mad Max-style threads. Luigi missed his calling as a Venetian gondolier. Yoshi gets a Boshi-inspired alt. The babies, plus Toad and Toadette, get a ton of adorable outfits. Daisy gets a swimsuit (unfortunately, she’s the only girl who does). Mario gets ten outfits and Peach gets nine. It does seem like we’ll be getting additional outfits down the road, as Donkey Kong and Pauline only have one each. Perhaps we’ll be getting some DLC not too long after Donkey Kong Bananza drops. We can only hope. 

As for vehicles and the customization involved, there are less than 20 to start with, and at the time of writing, the game has 40 vehicles total. One expects that there will be far more down the road, but there are clear winners and favorites among the available rides. R.O.B., once a character in Mario Kart DS, has been relegated to bike status.

Not All Smooth Sailing

While Mario Kart World has many series-best elements - physics, track design, graphics, soundtrack, item balance - it also falls slightly short in some areas. The models are crisp and vibrant, but once you go into Photo Mode and look up close, the seams and polygons start to show. It’s not a major issue, but rather a missed opportunity to not ‘glow-up’ the models for pictures. Online play is improved from Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, but sometimes odd latency delays can cause the AI to go off-script and de-sync from player movements, which ends up in things like shells connecting on your end, but failing to on your opponent’s end, so they’ll appear to get hit without losing their position. These are only really a problem when connections are laggy, which thankfully isn’t too often.

Battle Mode, while balanced and clearly play-tested thoroughly, feels somewhat lackluster, and the fact that it takes longer to get an online Battle room going than any of the other modes is quite telling in that it’s less popular overall. Also, while playing online with friends in a room, your options are generally limited to playing with those friends (Battle, VS, Knockout, Grand Prix) and populating the rest of the players with CPUs. This is understandable to prevent online bullying, but unfortunate. Also, the aforementioned intermission tracks are hit and miss. Some are filled with obstacles and cool elements, but others have long straightaways that seem designed to let the racers in the back slipstream and bag their way up the ranks. These stretches can, however, be boring for those in the front positions who are relegated to holding A and attempting to defend their titles. I also think that Nintendo should have options for Classic VS and Classic GP online modes, specifically for those who just want to test their mettle on the circuits.

The Greatest And Undoubtedly Most Epic Mario Kart Ever… But It May Not Be Everyone’s Favorite

There are two kinds of people in this world - Mario Kart fanatics, and everyone else. Mario Kart is my ultimate comfort series. Despite myself, I always come back to it. It’s a meditation, a test of every aspect of my character, and my favorite way to pass time. It’s taught me that life isn’t fair, and it doesn’t always make sense. Through Mario Kart I’ve come to learn that things which seem ridiculously impossible, like getting 3 stars on Gold in every single Cup, or going from 24th place to 1st, can be conquered with dedication and perseverance. I’ll be playing this game for years, of that I have no doubt. Nintendo would be wise to drop free updates, or at least ones free to Nintendo Switch Online subscribers. To me, even if I didn’t buy this game as a part of a Switch 2 bundle, I’d be willing to pay $80. To most, I can’t imagine that price seems fair or reasonable, especially as Deluxe has more tracks, and its karts are customizable. But free updates would tip the scales.

As someone who has spent countless hours on Mario Kart titles, I’d nearly always finish within the top ranks in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and feel that that game is perfect in its own way. But I’m far from a purist. I wanted to see Mario Kart World try new things, and Nintendo has not only made the series feel far more alive and vibrant than ever, they’ve expanded it into hitherto unknown territory with 24 player mayhem over a huge map. What’s more, in Knockout Tour they’ve struck upon the most radical new challenge mode the series has ever experienced.

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Verdict: 5 / 5 (Exceptional)

PROS

• Knockout Tour is the best addition to Mario Kart in nearly 2 decades

• Arguably one of the greatest soundtracks in gaming history

• Incredible track design coupled with new movement options and physics is great

• Vast open world filled with collectibles and Missions

CONS

• Online can still be wonky at times during slow connections

• Intermission tracks can be hit and miss, and currently no Classic GP

What I’ve Played 

• 23+ hours of racing goodness

• Unlocked all available vehicles, characters, and costumes

• Unlocked Mirror Mode

• Made Top 3 in every Knockout Tour at 150cc and Mirror

• Achieved 6000+ ranking in all online modes

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