Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit Reviews

Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit is ranked in the 56th percentile of games scored on OpenCritic.
IGN
Top Critic
7 / 10.0
Oct 14, 2020

Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit's course creation and in-game tracks are a blast held back by some key limitations.

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No Recommendation / Blank
Oct 21, 2020

There's real magic at the heart of this brilliantly faithful AR take on Mario Kart, but a fair few caveats abound.

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Metro GameCentral
Top Critic
7 / 10
Oct 20, 2020

A wonderfully inventive attempt to bring Mario Kart into the real world, whose mere premise is enough to amuse and delight, despite some unavoidable practical limitations.

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Oct 23, 2020

Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit brings back that sense of wonder we all felt when we cracked open our first video game and realised there was another world behind the screen. Only now that other world is in our living rooms.

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7.5 / 10.0
Oct 14, 2020

While it doesn't deliver a flawless performance, Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit is a novel concept that provides a unique twist to the well-established racing experience

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Polygon
Top Critic
Unscored
Oct 14, 2020

From racing against the computer to taking on friends with their own karts to designing the perfect track to just exploring your place through the eyes of a tiny, kart-racing Mario, this is a toy in the best way: a portal to inventive, constantly changing play that’s fun no matter how you decide to interact with the platform. Your home is now Mario’s own set of challenges and opportunities, and that’s a jump I did not expect from the Mario Kart franchise.

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GameSpot
Top Critic
7 / 10
Oct 14, 2020

Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit is Nintendo at its toyetic peak, with a magical AR effect that nonetheless requires some elbow grease to find the fun.

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Kotaku
Top Critic
Unscored
Oct 14, 2020

Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit is the natural extension of Nintendo’s penchant for unique peripherals, from the Zapper and Power Pad of the ‘80s to the Wii’s endless assortment of plastic junk (for which the planet may never forgive us). A couple years ago Nintendo smartened up with the more environmentally friendly cardboard Labo kits, which enjoyed only passing popularity.

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Unscored
Oct 14, 2020

Live Home Circuit is a great combination between a toy (a radio controlled kart) and an augmented reality game for Nintendo Switch, with some creative additions in the way we design each circuit.

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8 / 10
Oct 19, 2020

Mario Kart Live is a wondrous and magical toy that combines real world and digital play in an incredible way. It's a shame though that not everyone will have the space, or the money, to experience it.

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8 / 10
Oct 19, 2020

Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit is an entertaining take on the classic franchise. The mixed reality format allows player creativity to shine, as the ceiling for possibility is practically infinite. Nintendo is able to expertly weave staple Mario Kart features and characteristics into an augmented reality setting, making the game stand out from other RC racers.

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Oct 20, 2020

Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit is a gleefully successful experiment for Nintendo and Velan Studios...though some minor elements hold it back from exceeding expectations.

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8 / 10.0
Oct 21, 2020

Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit feels like magic. It's expensive to play multiplayer, but if your imagination (and house) is big enough, there's plenty of fun on offer.

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6.5 / 10.0
Oct 22, 2020

Nintendo's augmented reality kart racer – which involves a miniature kart – works better as a creative toy than a traditional racing game

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Dave Aubrey
Top Critic
7 / 10.0
Oct 19, 2020

Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit is heavily dependent on the amount of free floor space you have available. If you have a large home, space to drive under the sofas, no extra rugs or thick carpets, Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit will be an amazing experience to share with the children. If you live somewhere fairly cramped or have a lot of clutter that's going to get in the way, then you will find this very difficult to enjoy indeed. Great for the kids at Christmas, as long as you have the space.

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Oct 21, 2020

It's one of the best applications of AR I've got my hands on and features some impressive tech. The kart is a joy to drive and responds as closely to the game as physically possible, with multiplayer adding even more fun into the mix. Mario Kart Live Home Circuit is a fantastic blend of mad Mario Kart action in your own home. It's awesome seeing your home from the shifted perspective while you are zag zagging through your coffee table and under the sofa while dishing out red shell revenge.

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70 / 100
Oct 22, 2020

Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit is a unique experience that is really impressive at first glance. I enjoyed putting the courses together and exploring the variety of Grand Prix’s, but after a while, the experience does lose its charm much faster than normal Mario Kart experiences. I think this is in part due to the fact that there really is only so many ways I can set up four gates in my living room, the game gets stale because my ideas get stale. Some of the in-game obstacles that impact your RC cars steering, like the Chain-Chomp power-up and the high winds, often caused me to crash into living room objects or knock the gates out of place. This was incredibly annoying and really ruins the experience more than a badly timed Blue Shell. Moreover, the cost to play multiplayer is way too steep, keeping this ultimately a single-player experience for most families. While there is a nice amount of variety in courses, there really isn’t much to do after you master the 200cc difficulty – assuming you haven’t lost interest long before then.

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Unscored
Oct 14, 2020

We can't deliver our final verdict on Mario Kart Live until we've fully explored its multiplayer potential with a second RC car, but what we can say at this stage is that this is a startlingly authentic "mixed reality" recreation of Nintendo's most popular racing series which encourages you to be inventive with your course designs and does an excellent job of combining your real world surroundings with the fantasy environments of the Mushroom Kingdom. The tech side of things is undeniably impressive and it's impossible to not raise a smile the first time you play; the question is how long that magic will last, especially if your home limits your track designs and you've only got the budget to cover the cost of a single car.

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Oct 14, 2020

At its core, there’s a solid Mario Kart game here, and I hope the environmental and gate effects are brought over to the main series for the proper ninth installment, as I think those additions could add something to the franchise.

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GameXplain
GameXplain
Top Critic
Liked-a-lot
Oct 14, 2020
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