Mario Kart World

It should come as no surprise that Mario Kart, as a franchise, has been with me for the vast majority of my childhood up to the present day. I grew up playing Mario Kart 64 at my local youth club, desperately trying not to get the well-worn Trident controller that wouldn’t turn left as well as the others. I was baited into switching Secondary schools by my parents under the promise of receiving a Gamecube, alongside a copy of the recently released - and outright incredible - Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, which I subsequently came to find years later had been purchased for me for my birthday, regardless of said baiting. The various portable iterations, specifically Mario Kart DS and Mario Kart 7, were obsessions of mine, much to the chagrin of anyone who wanted to see me without a DS or 3DS in hand. And, although brilliant, I developed motion sickness from prolonged sessions of Mario Kart Wii, presumably due to playing with the motion controls and the included wheel accessory.

Mario Kart as an entity is a joyous comfort, whimsical in its execution time and time again, and a juggernaut in the sales department. Mario Kart 8 / Deluxe has sold a staggering 76,660,000 units since it first released on the ill-fated Wii U back in 2014, managing double the sales of Mario Kart Wii’s colossal 37,380,000 units sold. So, when Mario Kart World was announced not only as a game in its own right but as a launch title for the long-awaited sequel to 2017’s Nintendo Switch, it just made sense. It was exciting, make no mistake, but it was certainly a safer bet compared to the reinventions that, say, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild afforded us.

In one word, Mario Kart World is fantastic. It effortlessly oozes character from its ever-so-colourful pores, begging to be experienced, and makes such an ask incredibly approachable and inviting; you’d be mad not to take it for a spin. At the same time, it certainly feels familiar, but World shakes things up as far as sticking to the tried and true allows, in just giving you *more*. More ways to play, more ways in which to traverse, be it wall riding, grinding on rails, and the like, more racers and, subsequently, more chaos.

The doubling of the racers - now 24 players per race, up from 12 in past titles - plays a significant part in shifting how each race feels in that there’s, naturally, more competition, and more items flying about to give you the most minor, yet frequent, bouts of pocket-sized rage that Mario Kart knows how to deliver best. It’s more, more, more. Balancing each “more”, though - and I promise I’ll stop saying more now - is masterful in its execution, with each particular addition having a distinct, considered reaction, always clearly on show.

With the tracks now having to accommodate the increased player count, they’re significantly wider to make the inevitable collisions happen just a bit less. But, should they occur, the knockback effect that was so prominently felt between the three weight classes in previous games has been dramatically reduced. This means you won’t feel it as much when you do find yourself hurtling towards a Bowser, questionably draped in leather Biker apparel (more on that later), when you’re playing as Baby Rosalina.

And you’ll no doubt get smothered in the varied assortment of items available, new and returning alike, so the recovery time between such hits has been reduced to still give you a fighting chance should you find yourself the apparent punching bag of the match. The core experience has been masterfully fine-tuned, never diminishing the well-loved “Mario Kart factor” known and loved by millions of players, and such a delicate feat is truly commendable.

Where Mario Kart World deviates from delivering *just* the norm is in changing how the tracks themselves are experienced. As the name of the game would suggest, World offers us, well, a world. No longer are the tracks instanced experiences as they have been since 1992’s Super Mario Kart. Instead, they find themselves housed within a varied and interconnected environment, allowing races to *mostly* flow from one track to another, to varying degrees of success. During a regular cup in Grand Prix, when one race finishes, most of the next race is spent traveling across the various anastomotic paths and roads, leading to a final “last lap” on the destination track.

The tracks in World are superb, whether new or returning and reimagined or reworked, but the disappointment of only getting to experience one lap each time, unless it was the first track of each cup, was felt time and time again. What’s more, the roads and paths you’ll spend the vast majority of each cup racing on are essentially the same, with only noticeable terrain changes - a regular road to snow, grass to sand, and so forth - standing out. These paths are often the widest, too, and even with other traffic throwing hazards and distractions alike your way, they frequently feel the most sparse and devoid of the readily available excitement so easily achieved in the core tracks themselves.

Where this does work is in the excellent Knockout Tour mode, which is new in Mario Kart World. Knockout Tour is one long, continuous race across 6 different areas in what can only be described as a 24-player battle royale. With each checkpoint passed, the number of racers dwindles, with the bottom 4 being eliminated each time. Mario Kart is known for elation-inducing moments, but those particular moments of the past pale in comparison to the fervour felt during the long and arduous 10-minute sprints that will have you, quite literally in my case, in the edge of your seat… usually cursing as you find yourself getting intimate with a Blue Shell once again. It’s here where the design of the open world makes a stronger case for itself and, whilst still sparse, the frantic nature of Knockout Tour manages to make up for it in spades.

This is even stronger online, where every match reinforced the unfortunate fact that, yes, I’m not nearly as good at Mario Kart as I thought I was. The chaos felt here was tenfold what the single player could ever muster, but due to the near-immaculate balancing mentioned earlier, nary an unfair and unwarranted frustration was felt. As is the case with most of Nintendo’s online offerings, there are some notable omissions, such as the ease of playing with friends. You can create and join a room via a code, but being able to party outside of this and search for a Race/Knockout Tour/Battle is strangely absent. It’s certainly not the biggest of gripes, granted, but still one nonetheless.

A few other notable Nintendo-isms are also found throughout, such as a seemingly intentionally obtuse character select screen. The cast of characters available - well over 24 strong - ranges from the expected - Mario, Luigi, Bowser, and the like - to the various enemies and critters found across a range of Mario titles, such as Monty Mole, Cheep Cheep, and the internet’s favourite, Cow. Moreover, the “main cast” has various outfits, unlocked by picking up food items from the various Yoshi restaurants scattered around, either during a race or out in Free Roam.

Instead of presenting such an eclectic mix of cosmetics in a fashion that made sense, ala Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, allowing you to select a character, only for it to give you the customisations in a freshly opened window, Mario Kart World throws every possible variation on the screen as its entity. This results in a vastly overinflated character select screen featuring 10 variations of Mario, 5 of Rosalina, and so on. It seems so egregiously against Nintendo’s ethos of simplification and approachability that it performs a 180 and appears to be the most Nintendo thing ever. Why wouldn’t they do what they’ve done in the past, which made sense? That would just be bizarre.

What unfortunately sticks to that simplification and approachable design language is the marketed star of the show, Free Roam. Not only is it relegated to a small prompt in the corner of the screen, should you wish to enjoy it, but it lacks not only content, but life itself leaves a lot to be desired. Countless challenges and collectables are available, with P Switches offering bite-sized challenges such as jumping between wall riding sections in quick succession, Question Blocks unlocking decals, and Peach Coins being tucked away in the most challenging of corners.

It’s difficult to drive 30 seconds in any direction without finding something that catches your eye, but it’s not enticing in the same way as, say, something out of the ordinary would in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. It deserves to be looked at, but not necessarily to get excited about. What Free Roam is perfect for are those fleeting moments when you have a spare moment and need your minute motorised Mario fix. Incidentally, it’s also the perfect mode for younger children to explore and, through their eyes, could easily be as magical and mesmerising as travelling Hyrule Field was for many of us in 1998’s Ocarina of Time.

Regardless of what you are doing and however chaotic your activity of choice may be, the new Nintendo Switch 2 manages it effortlessly, both when docked and in handheld mode. Mario Kart World is a pleasure to look at, featuring 1440p on the former and 1080p on the latter, all running at a smooth 60 FPS. The inclusion of HDR does wonders, with Mario et al. popping with colour and character like never before.

Each of the small details - karts bouncing as you turn them,  happily chugging as they sit idle, and so forth - adds to the bountiful charm found throughout. The only area where the frame rate deviates from the 60 target is when using the in-game camera, which is then limited to 30. Finally, the significantly improved loading times afforded by the vastly superior read/write speeds in the Switch 2 work wonders, loading nearly instantly, game-wide.

Conclusion

Mario Kart World is, simply put, more Mario Kart. It excels where it has always excelled, delivering effortlessly enjoyable and approachable racing to an exceptionally high standard. Countless other kart racers have come and gone throughout Nintendo’s storied 23 years of leading the pack, and that doesn’t look to change anytime soon. Some strange omissions plague World’s otherwise immaculate offering, such as the lack of other Nintendo characters and a way in which to listen to the sublime music outside of the racers - both of which were available in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe in post-release updates - but I’m very excited to keep on playing for years to come, looking forward to the inevitable additions that Nintendo would be mad not to capitalise on.

Our review is based on the Nintendo Switch 2 version of this game.

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