Mario Kart World

(Available for Nintendo Switch 2 only)

Nintendo launches their brand new console generation with a new Mario Kart – which is a real difference in launch strategy since most of the time Nintendo likes to launch a console with a strong single player game with games like Mario 64, Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, and Breath of the Wild.

Mario Kart World does make some sort of sense to launch this console with, Mario Kart 8 was the best selling game on the Nintendo Switch 1, having come out one month after the console’s release and building up extremely good lifetime sales. Adding an open world aspect to the game was what Nintendo wanted to do to entice new players over the new console, but the game has been met with some controversy- mainly the fact that in America, it is being sold for $80- a brand new price hike in game software. Last I checked, it was £73 in the UK, another major price hike just not to the same extent. As such, I’m really going to be asking myself if this game is worth that extra price tag, but it won’t play too much of a factor in my scoring since I want to judge the game that we’ve got regardless of price.

This game was confirmed to have started development as a Nintendo Switch 1 game but was then swapped over to the Nintendo Switch 2. While I think you could have this game on the first Switch, I don’t think it would be the same quality as it is here. If you come into this from Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, you’re going to have a very different experience, because while there are several distinct tracks with 30 at launch, they are all interconnected on an open world map. As a result, the game offers three modes- Grand Prix, where players go through 4 races to see who is the best of a total score depending on position in each race, Knockout Run, which acts as a Battle Royale involving you racing across the open world and if you’re not in specific location at a time you will be eliminated, an the return of Battle Mode.

There’s also Free Mode where you can just drive across the world and take part in several challenges. There’s not much to them, but they are surprisingly addictive.

Basically, the game is trying to do something similar to Forza Horizon and also a bit of Sonic and Sega All Stars Racing, since now your car can turn into a jet ski to glide across water as well as some parkour for driving against walls but I found that difficult to get the hang of.

PROS

• Grand Prix and Knockout Run

I wasn’t too sure how I would feel about the Grand Prix mode since the big difference this time is that rather than just going from track to track you now drive to the next course, so for example for Mushroom Kart you do 3 laps from Mario Bros Circuit, then you drive from there to Crown City. I will stress a couple of things- the track design is very good and all of the tracks can be done as a three lap race- some exceptions notwithstanding for courses that were designed with more than 3 laps in mind. You will lose some laps in Grand Prix mode or in the Online Mode, because in online races if you select a course nearby the one you just did it will have you drive to said course and all but one of the laps will be taken up by just driving to said lap, so you can have some trouble getting used to this, but you can go into free roam mode and learn the tracks for yourself there with no pressure.

The game does a have a good mix of new and returning tracks, but I think the people in charge of this game really liked Mario Kart 7 since there was 4 of those tracks, but when I actually double checked they didn’t get too much of an emphasis over others since Mario Kart Wii showed up a lot here too as well as Mario Kart 8. I would make the argument that one in particular looks better than the version on the Switch.

The track design is really good, and if you did have a way of not having a three lap course on each I would have marked the game down, but the fact that you have an option for both means that I actually really enjoy this new way of doing Grand Prix and online races, it certainly made sitting around and waiting for the track to be selected more interesting.

As for Bowser’s Castle, I think it’s okay and is a slight step up from 8 Deluxe in terms of track design but it’s not as visually memorable. For Rainbow Road, I don’t want to spoil too much about it, but it was always going to be better than 8 Deluxe, since that was one of my least favourites.

Knockout Run is the new mode that has been added. I’ve already explained that it’s like Battle Royale where you drive to several courses in a rally and 4 racers get eliminated each time until you have one left standing. This was the best new mode in the game, it’s utterly addictive and it adds an extra sense of pressure since if you lose time by being hit by an item, you may not get the time to recover! I love this mode and it has obviously taken a lot of the player base by storm since it was much easier to get into a lobby for this mode over the main racing experience, but we’ll have to wait how that progresses as more people get a Nintendo Switch 2.

As for the item selection, I think it’s pretty good. The new items are a mixed bag. I like the new Hammer Bro item, but the Golden Shell loses effectiveness after a certain point in the game. Probably my favourite returning item would be the Mega Mushroom, I missed it in the last game so it’s return is so welcome.

• Soundtrack

This game has one of the best Mario Kart soundtracks ever made! It’s a good mix of new and old, and even draws from the rest of the Mario series and creates great remixes out of nowhere. Honestly, this is a soundtrack that I really want to come onto Nintendo’s music app, because I would love to listen to this as time goes on.

• Graphics and Performance

Obviously this is the first 1^st party Nintendo game that was made specifically for the Nintendo Switch 2, so there isn’t much to compare it against since unlike Nintendo’s other 1^st party releases this game has been made with this console in mind and isn’t an upscale. I will stress however with all that said, it looks very good and runs well at a very stable 4K 60fps most of the time. I rarely had framerate drops and it’s a very good looking game, the team did a phenomenal job. I’ve already commented that the track design looks very good, but I will say that in terms of the open world that sometimes the tracks blend into the open world too well so you may not know where the track begins unless you’re familiar with it.

The performance never dipped online, in fact it was really not noticeable half the time that I was playing online.

MIXED

• Free Roam

I will stress that I like this mode! It was surprisingly well done. You actually can press the start button on the opening menu and go straight into Free Roam as the last character you played as, and it’s very easy to swap characters, you just select the map and press a character and you’ll be warped to where they are.

I felt this was very enjoyable when I was playing this game in Handheld Mode (which by the way, the game runs very well in this mode too).

My issues with this mode lie with the challenges. They are good, I especially like the ones that were used in the water since the water physics in this game are fantastic and some people have even suggested that Nintendo do another Wave Race game, but the challenges are a bit too short- they’re at most 30 seconds long! They don’t really stand out. I would like some beefier challenges in future content updates, and you don’t get much from unlocking them either, just tags to place on your ride for online mode.

• Character Selection

There’s not much wrong with the character selection, you get a few extra characters to unlock by getting a cup in each of the Grand Prix’s, but they’re just the Mario mainstays. It’s stretched out a bit by offering outfit selections for each of the characters which you unlock by consuming food items in either the Grand Prix, Knockout Run or Free Roam- but you’re probably best off doing that in Free Roam mode if you’re aiming to unlock specific costumes since they are locked to certain foods. The food also does act like a mushroom and provides a boost, so not too surprising there, so it’s not exactly a new item per se.

The problem I have is that the character roster is also bulked out by not only the Mario NPCs but there are several characters missing. It’s great we got newcomers like Pauline, but the Koopalings are entirely gone and Donkey Kong is the only one from his side of the universe there. I wasn’t expecting characters like Dixie or Funky Kong to make the cut but I was definitely expecting Diddy Kong! Put simply, I would like a few more characters to be in the game in the future.

• Battle Mode

Battle Mode is what you’d expect it to be, and it’s not bad. Personally, it will never be as bad as Base Mario Kart 8 Battle Mode, but the problem I have with it is that there is no specific Battle Mode maps, so there isn’t much character. Other than that, it’s pretty typical. I only really tried out Balloon Battle online and it was fun especially considering that most of the items are returning so you just keep playing until someone gets a red shell, but overall it’s not so memorable.

CONS

• Unlocking Characters

Now it’s really annoying to unlock all the different costumes if you don’t have a guide. But the worst one is unlocking all of the NPC characters! It’s just pure luck that you get transformed into a NPC character that you haven’t unlocked already- and this is the only method I found to unlock them so far. I will dispel the myth that there is no Mirror Mode in the game, it is unlockable, but it does require quite a few achievements in order to unlock it. You might want to look that one up online, though there is still at the time of review no 200cc mode in the game. I wouldn’t be surprised if that is future content update material.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I really like Mario Kart World. It feels like a step up from Mario Kart 8 in many ways. The track design is really good, I do like the open world even if it isn’t as good as a Forza Horizon open world in terms of things to do, Knockout Run is one of the most enjoyable modes to date, and the item selection is really good this time around- there aren’t many bad items in the bunch, I’m not upset that Kart customisation is gone, I honestly thought that it was a bit unnecessary. The physics are great even if the parkour element is hard to get a hold of, and I really think that the character selection does need an update, plus unlocking the NPC characters needs to be streamlined.

But, this has been incredibly addictive! I have been playing it non stop and just enjoying my time in Free Roam mode to learn the tracks and get new costumes while I’m waiting on the train, and I really have been enjoying my time online. I didn’t get a chance to test performance out when doing Local Multiplayer for this review, but the performance and graphics were great in both docked and handheld mode. I’m not sure I can justify the increased price tag for the content available at the release, I would recommend getting the bundle now before they include Paid DLC down the line. It’s a really great game.

FINAL SCORE: 9/10

And now Reece’s review

Mario Kart World is the flagship launch title for the brand-new Nintendo Switch 2 as well as the 10th Mario Kart game overall.

Mario Kart World is a racing game that sees the player compete on over 30 courses in both single player, local wireless with friends or online against players across the globe to get the highest ranking they can.

Pro:

Graphics.

Being the flagship game on Nintendo’s new console a lot of resources were put into the  development of Mario Kart World.

This is clearly seen with the graphical overhaul compared to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. With the new and improved animation style where the drivers and karts are more expressive with plenty of pull and stretch in their animations when drifting or performing tricks off ramps.

The game runs at 1440p in Docked Mode when playing on a TV screen and 1080p in Handheld Mode. This is in comparison to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe that ran at 1080p in Docked Mode and 720p in Handheld mode.

This makes the game visually look crisper and sharper on the Nintendo Switch 2 and on a TV when in Docked Mode. Aside from the resolution the game also looks much more vibrant with its new art style moving away from the futuristic high tech look of Mario Kart 8 with its anti-gravity mechanic to the more natural environmental focused design and more saturated colours to help the game pop when played in Docked Mode.

Frame Rate.

Mario Kart World performs a lot better than I was expecting after seeing the brand- new expansive courses and open world style along with the 24 player races. As the game still run at a fixed 60fps when offline playing single-player and even when venturing online I never encountered that much persistent lag or dropped frames when playing with others around the world.

Even in handheld mode I did not notice anymore dropped frames compared to playing the game docked so was very impressed playing the game on the go. The only downside is that the game with its great performance and amazing visuals drains the battery pretty fast compared to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. This is because from a full change in handheld mode the Nintendo Switch 2 went flat in roughly 3 hours. To help with this I would suggest reducing the brightness and turning off the rumble function with the vibrating Joy-Cons.

24 Player Races.

The biggest change seen when racing is that the number of drivers has doubled from 12 drivers to now 24 during a race. This makes the game a lot more intense since more drivers means more chaos, especially when 200cc gets added in the future due to being the only gameplay mode not in the game at launch.

It can make it more frustrating to get 1^st place and earn three stars in all the Grand Prix and Knockout Tours, but it is worth it as long as the player isn’t always in first place with a target on their head from all the other 23 racers on the track.

50 Drivers.

Mario Kart World features the most characters on the roster in a Mario Kart game at launch and features most of the typical fan favourites returning.

In addition there are now unlockable extra drivers based on enemies and characters from other games that the community has dubbed NPC drivers to distinguish them from the main cast.

Unfortunately a few regular drivers have not made their return in Mario Kart World that have been in multiple prior games and these include fan favourites like Diddy Kong, Dry Bowser and the Koopalings.

The most obvious missing character is the player’s avatar with the Mii. As Mario Kart World is the first game to not include them since Mario Kart Wii launched nearly 20 years ago from the debut of Mario Kart World.

Nintendo did create a huge DLC pack for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe called the Booster Pass that included 48 tracks but also 8 characters. So in the future if Nintendo creates another DLC on the same level then the missing characters could make a return along with new characters never before seen.

120+ Costumes.

After ten entries Mario Kart finally includes costumes for its drivers aside from the Mii driver with all of the main drivers getting at least one extra costume unless they are one of the NPC drivers. Players get new costumes by eating certain meals from items at food stops and each costume is unlocked by eating certain foods across the map and can’t all be received from the same food repeatedly.

These costumes can be all new designs or call-backs to prior games like Mario and Peach’s having costumes from Mario Odyssey to wholly new designs never seen before like the various All-Terrain series of costumes that multiple drivers can unlock.

Tracks.

The tracks in this game were all fantastic with more having a focus on driving in the various environments than only being circuit racers like most tracks in other games. In total there are 30 tracks with 2 tracks (Crown City and Peach Stadium) having bonus variations that the player races on in some of the different cups.

Then of those tracks there are 16 new tracks and 14 retro tracks making their return from prior games with most being either Mario Kart 7 or Mario Kart Wii tracks. The highlight is the new Rainbow Road, as it is just a visual triumph and looks so incredible with a wide variety of locales with natural based tracks to the more fantastical Boo Cinema track in the Leaf Cup.

Knockout Tour.

Easily the best part of this game is the new Knockout Tour mode that sees the player choose one of eight new cups that has four tracks like in Grand Prix in each. However instead of simply racing round the course now the player has to race against the other races through a series of checkpoint along the route of those four courses.

Then whoever is in the last four positions gets eliminated from the race until only the final four remain with first place winning overall.

This mode is pretty fun with the offline CPUs driving but the most enjoyment is when playing with friends or online with other people around the world, as real players put up more of a challenge than the regular CPU A.I can.

Rails and Walls.

The new movement mechanic in this game is the ability to now ride the rails available in the game to build up boosts and reach other paths on tracks to get an advantage over other racers or shortcuts.

The anti-gravity mechanic from Mario Kart 8 has also now been upgraded to no longer be solely on anti-gravity section of tracks, as now players can ride any wall or vertical surface as long as they get onto it first either by jumping onto them by ramps or doing tricks into them.

Open World.

The new game direction for Mario Kart World is now the ability to drive Free Roam outside the courses when not in a race.

This mode offers a lot of freedom and fun to drive around the map solo or with friends to then find collectibles, but the best part is being able to test out tracks and shortcuts while not being in a race or time trial.

It’s also how players unlock additional costumes for the cast along with Stickers as rewards for finishing the P Switch challenges, the ? panel and the Peach Medallions. So the open world has plenty to do and explore since all the tracks are loaded in at once for the player to drive between and take in the sights of the full map that normally aren’t seen when driving by in Grand Prix or Knockout Tour.

Photo Mode.

A very unexpected feature is the new photo mode that the player can use by pausing Free Roam and pressing the minus button. This gives the player a lot of options with a lot of poses along with expressions unique to all the characters to help give them more personality.

In addition to the usual zooms, tilts and frames but the option I found most useful was having the ability for the driver to face the camera which a lot of photo modes in other games don’t do.

Unfortunately photo mode has the big downside of cutting the frame rate in half down from 60fps in normal gameplay down to 30fps.

Con:

Grand Prix Intermissions.

In a decision that some fans are happy with but I personally did not enjoy was being forced to do intermissions for the Grand Prix.

As in prior games all tracks were made up of three laps of the chosen track but not anymore as now instead the player will only play one lap of their chosen track in each cup.

With the other two laps instead being counted as the drive to the track along way that mostly involve driving through straight highways and not that many turns. This makes it very frustrating when wanting to play the tracks back-to-back in Grand Prix mode but instead spending only a third of the time on the actual track players want to race on.

This carries over online with random players where for some reason the player cannot chose a three-lap version of the track as the game will force an intermission onto the player. So to get around this players instead have to choose “Random” to force the game to load a three-lap version of whatever track is chosen.

Item Balancing.

While it is a lot of fun and chaotic to have 24 players on each race at a time it does come with a very frustrating downside if the player is usually at the front of the pack. As now there are an extra 12 drivers who all get the chance to pull a powerful item from an item box including the Lightning or the Blue Shell.

In most of my races I have found that instead of the usual 0-1 Blue Shells from Mario Kart 8 Deluxe I am now seeing 3 or more Blue Shells in each race on a three-lap track with this becoming even more apparent on Knockout Tour due to how long the intermission highway parts are.

This can make it very frustrating when trying to get three stars on the Knockout Tour as the player has to be in 1^st place at every gate along the way otherwise they will only get two starts or less.

Driver Selection Menu.

The user interface for the driver choice is a complete mess in Mario Kart World and so frustrating to use and navigate quickly.

Now with 50 drivers to choose from with over 120 costumes to collect really clutters the entire screen instead of making it a neat choice like in every other game having all the drivers on one screen instead of needing to cycle between screens.

To declutter the screen I would suggest taking inspiration from Mario Kart 8 Deluxe when it brought in extra colours for Yoshi and Shy Guy.

As keep all the drivers on the one screen, but when you select the driver it then brings up a sub menu where the player then chooses the costume out of the ones unlocked while making the others non-selectable.

This would not only declutter the screen to only having the default drivers but speed up choosing the driver as the player no longer needs to cycle past every other driver and costume in the way to choose a later driver on the roster.

Kart Customisation.

One of the best recent additions to the franchise was the ability to customise a player’s kart fully starting with Mario Kart 7 on the Nintendo 3DS. Players were able to choose the kart, wheels and glider in Mario Kart 7, Mario Kart 8 and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe compared to Mario Kart World where it has now been removed and simplified. Instead players only get to chose their specific kart and driver to race with so players loose a lot of freedom in customising the Kart to specific tracks or playstyles.

Battle Mode.

Battle mode has seen such an unfortunate downgrade in Mario Kart World because unlike in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe the Battle Mode no longer takes place in unique arenas. Now each map is usually a part of a race track or a certain part of the Free Roam map that the player is now confined to for the match. This makes Battle Mode feel extremely rushed and unfinished to be put in to make sure there was enough content for the game to launch with instead of just the usual racing modes.

NPC Drivers (Unlocking and Roster).

While Mario Kart World does have 50 characters on its roster, a majority of those are random enemy NPCs from prior games like Goomba or Spike. While some of these will be unlocked at the start of the game like Cow or Sidestepper the rest will need to be unlocked through random RNG that is out of the player’s control. This is done by having another driver in the same race use the Kamek Orb on the player ahead of them to unlock a new NPC Driver. Unfortunately these are course specific for a lot of them like Swoop or Fish Bone and cannot be unlocked through other methods making them incredibly time consuming to unlock.

An easier and more rewarding way would be to unlock them through encountering then in Free Roam or as rewards for beating Time Trials or winning each Grand Prix and Knockout Tour with a Gold cup for example.

Free Roam Progress.

The three things for players to do in free roam are the nearly 400 P Switch challenge, finding 150 ? Panels and finding all 200 Peach Medallions, however the game only shows you how many P Switches and Peach Medallions the player has collected on the map screen so far, but doesn’t tell the player how many there are overall or in each location of the map making so without a guide it will be nearly impossible to find them all. This is an issue since the game does track the ? Panels around each course but do not do the same for the two other collectibles.

Rewards For Free Roam.

Unfortunately with all the challenges that players complete in free roam the only rewards are more stickers to show off on the player’s kart or profile. To help cut down the randomness of unlocking the NPC drivers through Kamek Magic instead it would be a lot better if players could also unlock those drivers through finding them in free roam. This would help cut down on grinding certain tracks repeatedly and hoping the other drivers pull and then use the Kamek Magic item on the drivers ahead as a lot of these drivers are course specific.

Conclusion:

An amazing launch title for the Nintendo Switch 2 that does a phenomenal job showing off the new console’s hardware and capabilities.

This will definitely be one of my most played games going forward to play with friends but also online and would recommend it to people who buy the Nintendo Switch 2 due to how much content is in the game at launch alone.

Score: 9.0/10