Mario Kart World [Review]

Earlier this September, I've decided to swap video game consoles with a friend; he let me stay with his Switch 2 for me to play Donkey Kong Bananza while he got my PlayStation 5 to play Death Stranding 2: On The Beach. After finishing the former, Mario Kart World was basically sitting there, waiting for me to play it, but, this time, alone, so I could be a bit more intimate with it.

I've played some good amount of the multiplayer modes before, though, so now I focused more on the collectibles of the game as well as replaying all the cups alone to get a 3-star rating (that I've got in most of them!). While playing in 2 or more players is pure fun, the small boxes and frame-rate cap to 30fps (on 3+ players) never let me really enjoy some of the more subtle aspects of the game, such as its pristine animations, models, textures, and music. While Bananza had some technical hiccups, Mario Kart World is flawless and not only runs well but looks well too, sharper than ever, and the sharpest I've seen the Switch 2 so far.

In my experience with growing up with Nintendo, the next Mario Kart was often the best Mario Kart. Although my nostalgic favorite may still be GameCube's Double Dash, the one that appeared after, Mario Kart Wii, with its 8 cups – 4 of them being remakes of fan favorites, nonetheless – and the novel trick system overshadows Double Dash's 4 cups total and mostly grounded gameplay.

Mario Kart World suggests its gameplay by creating more scenarios for player expression, rather than excluding previous games mechanics to implement new ones. So we have a game with the 'double item system' of Double Dash, air tricks from Wii, the underwater and gliding segments of 7/8 and 8 Deluxe's mini-turbo system. What is new is the possibility to drive on guardrails, walls and otherwise unexpected surfaces – as well as jumping on other players and having more of a vertical expression overall.

To accommodate to this new vision of how I could express myself on the races, all of them are connected, so most of the tracks in a cup are more of a battle between players and harder and faster hazards that try to disrupt the flow of the game. It is hard to stay 'far away' at first like previous games in the franchises, because the level design is tailored for player expression and interaction first, actual driving later.

And while this added paradigm can work, it creates an odd sensation of sameness between the tracks, and more unfortunately, a sense that they end rather sooner than later. Maybe adding a new lap after getting to the proper “circuit” would ease that feel for me. Regardless, unlike previous games in the franchise, the laps weren't that unique or that spectacular 'all the time', a feeling that I had on Mario Kart 8. Of course that there are impressive tracks, but remarkably, these are often the ones that follow the old formula, and not the big avenue that is most of the game.

A new mode that focus on these interconnected avenues is the Knockout Tour, connecting 5 stages to create a single run without loading screens that “removes” players that aren't ahead until someone eventually wins. It is fun, and forces interactions with other players and hazards, creating a chaotic fun mess that more accurately elevates World's strongest elements. Unfortunately, these aren't dynamic, and the feeling of sameness starts to appear after playing some of them in a row.

The open world mode could be a good idea if it really was feature rich, but at release, it is terrible. No categories for the challenges makes it difficult to search for specific activities, and it is easy to get lost in slop. No map pinning or editing whatsoever makes a pain to remember hidden places, no real two player exploration, no real connection between the open world systems and the actual game. It feels like – and, by all means, it is – a gimmick. Another gimmick is the clothing system, while some characters have 8 different outfits, others have none. The worst offender of fake systems, though, is the sticker system, it is visually irrelevant and really badly implemented, so the dream of having a kart that looks like my own is still not here.

What is truly great about the game, though, is its soundtrack. In my opinion, the best in the series and probably the best soundtrack ever produced by Nintendo, really. The amount of instruments and genres is staggering, as well as how everything makes sense under these colorful circumstances. Also, Mario Kart World features the best item selection in the series: every boring item is out (bye bye tanuki tail) and the new additions are nice and very well implemented.

Finishing all my thoughts on what I liked and disliked about the game undeniably gets to the point of what is like to perceive a modern Nintendo game, with its never decreasing value. Its 80 dollar price tag is not only the most expensive “standard edition” game in the world, but its lack of localized prices on popular markets makes this one of the most lush and expensive pieces of software to ever be produced for no-professional audiences. And on those lenses, Mario Kart World is pathetic. There's no amount of real reason to this game be as expensive as it is.

Still, it dares to be more expressive and new instead of iterative, and while some of its fresh mechanics sometimes misses the point, when they hit, it is a home run. And, yes, these said moments left me speechless, but were few and far between, in a package that is, in my country, twice as more expensive as how Mario Kart 8 was originally priced on the WiiU.

The new Mario Kart is not the best Mario Kart anymore, but it is still super fun and extremely well crafted. Overpriced, but well crafted.

8/10

All the images on this post are from IGDB!