BinaryMessiah Mario Kart World Review

It's baffling to see a game like Mario Kart lead a system launch, and while I'm not the biggest Mario Kart fan, I do enjoy them. They are fantastic to look at, with great controls, characters, and charm that very few other kart racing games have been able to copy. With this being a launch title, it needs to wow everyone and sell consoles. While Mario Kart 8 was ridden on for two console generations (yikes), this is the first new Mario Kart in over a decade. I do understand that this is a game that will get better over time, and while what's here feels small in comparison to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, in due time this will be the definitive Mario Kart game, but the design changes that Nintendo made will require me to tell you to hold on to your copy of MK8D. Don't toss that out just yet. We will get the elephant in the room addressed now. There is an open-world aspect to the game, but it's not what you would think. The idea of Mario Kart World is to meld races together into one seamless track rather than having individual tracks, and this doesn't feel like it was executed well enough. I like this idea, as it helps the series evolve in a major way, and it feels good, but it means that some tracks feel slightly less unique as they need to fit into the world. There is more than just the track. Everything that you see outside of the track you can drive on, but at what cost? Of course, there's no story here, but you get plenty of new characters, returning and brand new to the series, as well as some unlockables. Your usual contenders are here: Mario, Luigi, Peach, Daisy, Rosalina, Wario, Waluigi, Bowser, Toad, Toadette, Donkey Kong, baby versions, etc. New characters include more obscure enemies and side characters like Pauline, which makes sense, but now we have Cow, Cheep Cheep, Lakitu, Nabbit, Monty Mole, and many more. These are odd choices, and I'd rather have more guest characters, but it's neat that they are including other characters and not just playable characters from previous games. You can also pick many new vehicles with four different stats to look for. Handling, Acceleration, Weight, and Speed. Everyone will have their favorite, and the vehicle stats determine how you drive it. Handling allows for better drifting and how well you stay on the track around corners, acceleration will get you out of crash recoveries faster, and top speed will make it more difficult to get caught up to when you're in first place and benefit on longer stretches. Vehicles transform like before into watercraft and aircraft, but I'm sad to see there is still zero customization. Let us make our own vehicle and decorate it. This is a huge missed opportunity, but one that can be added in at some point. Racing itself feels as good as always. The sense of speed is great; vehicles drift and hit objects with a satisfying feeling. Speed boosts, ramps, jumps, and everything else that you run over and smash into are here. Many power-ups return, such as the colored shells, bananas, mega mushrooms, you name it. Nearly every item from past games makes it here, making this the biggest arsenal of power-ups in any Mario Kart. New items are fun, such as the hammer, which will knock opponents out and make them road obstacles; the ice flower, which slows you down; the coin shells, which will leave a trail of coins; and dash food, which is the new major item and is related to the Free Roam mode. This will give you a huge speed boost and change your outfit on the fly as long as more are unlocked. Power-ups give a huge strategic advantage on the road, with players having their favorites. You can still throw in front or behind you for various advantages. Combat on the road has never been better. There are now new platforming elements tossed in, such as rail grinding and wall riding. This allows new vertical movement on the track. You can press the left stick left or right while jumping off a rail to wall ride, so it's simple and easy. This is also used in Free Roam to get to hidden areas. This is a more advanced movement, but it's really satisfying when you do it. Vehicle control in general feels better than ever, and everything just feels weightier, but not in a bad way. The updated physics really help, and you can feel it everywhere, from how you hit objects to the way water makes your car bounce. A huge update is the doubling of opponents on the track from 12 to 24. This does feel more chaotic but makes more sense with the tracks feeling wider and larger as a whole. This leads me to the Free Roam mode and the Knockout Tour mode. The biggest addition is the Free Roam mode, and this is used to unlock new outfits by finding specific Dash Food spots with each character. You can select any character from the map, and you will instantly warp to that character. The major focus here is the P Switch missions, which kind of train you on how to play the game and learn more advanced movements and tricks. These are switches hidden around every course and are a lot of fun, but there is no reward for them outside of stickers. There are also Peach coins to collect and question mark panels to find, which also give stickers. This isn't enough for a Free Roam mode. The world, despite looking good, feels empty and boring. There's nothing to do outside of the collectibles. Once you find all of those, that's it. There's zero reason to go back in. This leads to the Knockout Tour mode, which is a series of continuous races that link one track into another. This is essentially Elimination mode from Burnout if you are familiar with that. It's a long endurance race that usually lasts around 5-6 minutes, and it's a lot of fun. It allows a longer game of tug-of-war with opponents and really puts your skills to the test for a longer session. This mode is a lot of fun in multiplayer mode, which is the meat of the game. While finishing every cup in single-player is fun and helps you learn the courses, multiplayer is where most people will come back to. Both online and off. This also introduces the new Game Chat feature with video and audio, and it can be a blast to use. The course design is still top-notch despite needing to bleed into other courses. This allows for terrain regions from desert, beach, snow, ice, and various other types of terrain. The map makes sense and looks like a "world," but it's still very small and limits the amount of tracks available. I'm not sure if the sacrifice of more tracks was worth it to have this open-world design. Sadly, many diehard fans will attest to this open-world design. It will mean adding more sections to the world to add tracks, and maybe one day we will get all of our favorite tracks back, but in an open-world form. There are a lot of little details added into the maps that you don't notice before, like on the Mario Bros. Circuit, you can drive through a gas station and pit stop. There are food carts, vendors, downtown shopping areas, and other traffic driving on the roads outside of the courses. It is almost there and in some spots can feel alive, but something is just missing here to make it feel like a robust open world. I also feel like just one new mode is a crying shame, as more modes could have made up for the lack of tracks and middling free roam mode. Visually, the game is fantastic. Clearly taking advantage of at least most of the Switch 2's new hardware. Great lighting, full 1080p on handheld, highly detailed models, better textures and physics, and even HDR support. This is definitely the Switch 2's killer app...for now. As the game stands now, it's also not worth $80. There isn't $80 worth of game here, but hopefully that changes with more updates added in. Sadly, this is a game that only time will tell to determine if it's worth the money you paid and being Nintendo's only major console game at the moment. Free Roam is a nice touch but lacks content, and Knockout Tour is the standout mode here. There are a lot of characters to unlock and many outfits, so there's something here for everyone. Just don't toss out that copy of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe just yet.