It’s here! The first proper new major series release since 2014, we have the wonderful Mario Kart World. Despite the explosion of anger from certain gamers regarding its price tag, the Nintendo Switch 2’s killer launch game is just that.
It’s a banger. Whilst it throws up some intriguing new gameplay forms, at the heart of the game is the usual chaotic racing excellence that made the exceptional Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (2017) sell almost 70 million copies.
Is MK World good? Better? The same? There’s a lot to explore here, but we’ll state right from the get go—it’s awesome.
Yes, Mario Kart World is Excellent and You Should Buy it
Okay, we did our Nintendo Switch 2 console review last week. We genuinely felt Nintendo would launch its new system with the latest Mario Kart game, providing a sure-fire hit for the gaming behemoth.
There was considerable Gamer Rage regarding the price of the game and its supposed flaws (that these people were furious about before even playing the game). But to clarify:
- You can buy the Nintendo Switch 2 and Mario Kart World bundle for £429 (a very reasonable price for what you’re getting)
- The standalone game is £74 (£35 if you get the bundle option)
We’ve not had any beef with the price, to be honest, we knew Nintendo would be delivering a quality product here. It rarely fails.
And Mario Kart World is everything we were hoping it would be, even if it, perhaps, doesn’t quite deliver the best entry in the series. It may grow on us more, but for now we think Mario Kart 8 Deluxe has the edge.
But what is here is fantastic fun and you can’t go wrong with it, not least as there are now 24 players per race to up the amount of carnage across the huge tracks.
One of the triumphs of Mario Kart World is that it’s is for everyone, with game mechanics that’ll satisfy hardcore gamers, meanwhile if you have an 8-year-old kid they can pick it up and just have a total ball. Even if you’re 93 and have never played a game before, you could pick it up and soon have a ball.
It’s instantly accessible, but with so many hidden depths of gameplay layers it’s a huge credit to Nintendo they put so much time and effort into it for players.
One of the intricacies is with the controls, as there are now driving tactics to develop here that have shaken the formula up. We’re long steeped in Mario Kart lore on this, but even we’ve had to adjust our driving style to accommodate for the skateboard style wall riding, grinding, and general parkour that’s going on.
Lots more to get into, then! Thus, let’s explore its core modes to get into the nitty gritty of the MK World experience.
GP Races: Racing Fun and Swearing
This is the traditional grand prix racing bit that’s been the core of every Mario Kart. It’s where you race against computer players (AI), your friends, or online players from around the world (more on that further below).
The formula has been rejigged here, though, with Nintendo’s inclusion of driving between race tracks. This means you:
- Complete a race
- Continue driving to the next track whilst competing with other players
- Cause mayhem
- Begin the next race
With 24 players to compete against, you’re let loose on some genuinely enormous stages.
There was concern from some gamers with Nintendo’s focus on “straight lines” in the connecting stages between races. These appear as “straight”, but there’s actually a lot going on in them. Although, from time to time, you may find yourself going forward for 10 seconds with not much going on. That’s quite rare, though, especially in the online races.
The sense of this inclusion is of a road trip. Like you’re on a big old journey, whilst competing, during which you can see off in the distance the huge track you’re heading toward to compete on.
At its best, this is magnificent addition as it ramps up the sense of scale.
Some of the tracks, too, are astonishing. Two in particular—the new Bowser’s Castle and the new Rainbow Road. Just astounding! They’re jaw-dropping, edge of your seat, vast, gargantuan tracks that just seem endless and really test your gaming skills.
Rainbow Road, in particular, is going to go down as one of the all-time great Mario Kart tracks. If not the best of the lot.
These races are about winning, of course, and in traditional MK fashion the goal is to get Gold on everything and unlock Mirror Mode (all the tracks in reverse). This is one of the more bizarre things Nintendo has done here, as it’s invented this baffling and cryptic method of unlocking Mirror Mode. We had to look up online how to do it and even then it didn’t make much sense.
Anyway, once you’ve got all the modes unlocked this is the core element of the game and it’s bags of fun.
With the new driving tactics, the stages become like an obstacle course and players will be discovering new shortcuts and the like for many years to come.
Knockout: Fantastic New Gameplay Addition
This is a surprise, big new feature for MK World and it is an instant knockout. Really, an inclusion of genius by Nintendo as this has instantly become our favourite game mode.
It’s simple! You get a big bunch of tracks linked together and you have to finish ahead of a certain number of other players as each stage reaches its end, but the race just keeps running until the final track when it’s four players battling for the win.
Knockout is a flat-out run from start to finish for victory.
It’s an amazing mode and will no doubt become a series staple going forward. Each Knockout lasts quite a while, so you’ve got to be in on it and, with Mario Kart’s power up system and projectiles to use, you’re never safe. The final few stages are super tense, there’s all sorts of jostling for position and whatnot, and it’s worth getting the game for this alone.
Really, just a joy to play and in online mode against 24 players from across the world it becomes even better. 10/10 from us on this bit.
Free Roam: Open World Shenanigans
This is major new addition in the Mario Kart series—a giant open world arena where you can drive around and interact with the interconnected tracks you race on, the roads leading to them, and everything else you discover.
Free roam got a mixed reaction before launch, with an IGN preview calling it “underwhelming”. Post-launch and it’s also had a mixed response. Our perspective on it is this:
- If you play for 20 minutes you’ll be convinced it’s boring and a terrible decision.
- If you stick around for a few hours, you’ll realise there’s a lot of fun to be had.
- Also, it’s great for just chilling out and driving.
Free roam is more of a chillout experience. It’s odd to say given the fast-paced carnage in the rest of the game, but after all that you can jump into free roam at the tap of a button from the menu screen. You’ll instantly launch into the game world and can drive around whilst relaxing—it’s Mario Kart ASMR.
You can hit P switches you encounter to complete missions (some of which are a lot of fun, others not so much), collect Peach coins, see the sights, and more!
Despite our initial reservations about free roam, we’ve come to enjoy it quite a lot. Just touring around, completing tricks, discovering some of the crazy stuff Nintendo has hidden away as you explore, soon becomes fun.
And it’s genuinely relaxing to explore around the huge world. There’s an enormous amount to discover.
However, despite our positives about free roam, it’s not an exceptional inclusion. If we had to rate it we’d give 4/5 and say it’s got surprising depths, offers a huge amount of hidden secrets, but ultimately doesn’t have killer potential.
For most players, it’ll be a mild distraction between races they spend 10-20 minutes exploring.
Nintendo could spice things up by allowing an MMORPG type deal, with loads of other online races battling around or whatnot. But as it stands, it’s an intriguing extra that offers surprising calm amongst the chaotic madness of the other gameplay modes.
Online Play: OH HELL YES!!! 🐮
What’s made Mario Kart so endlessly playable since the 2008 editions is the online access. For Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, we thumped in over 600 hours to the game—primarily on its online races. These are breathless, insane, engaging, brilliant.
Mario Kart World continues this on where its predecessor left off, helped along by the arrival of Cow.
This is the first time Cow (from the Moo Moo Farm track) has been a playable character. This has caused a sensation online and has immediately become a lot of people’s favourite character, with pre-online race lobbies packed with everyone being Cow.
We should imagine Nintendo knew what it was doing there.
We’ve decided to buck the trend. Like mavericks. Our main is now Burger Toad with the Bumble Vee kart. Yellow is our favourite colour and we’ve always loved Toad, so why the heck not?
Anyway, this is where the longevity of Mario Kart World lies.
As with its predecessors, online mode is even more mayhem (24 players) and exnihilating stuff, with a particular highlight being the Knockout mode. We’ll be enjoying this one a lot for years to come.
CONCLUSION: Kart-Based Mario Driving Simulator
Frankly, with all the awful crap going on in the world right now, Mario Kart World has launched at exactly the right time. It’s a brilliant game and that’s all there is to it.
There’s something for everyone. Only the most jaded soul would pick fault with the product, with most of the criticism being due to the game’s launch price, as there are hundreds of hours of fun to be had here. The game is huge.
It also looks amazing, with exquisite attention to detail in a game teeming with life. That’s all complemented by a charming soundtrack that’s impossible not to love, packed with updates of old classics, crammed with punchy new numbers—it really gets your energy going.
Anyway, if you’re sitting on the fence about the Switch 2 and this game, ignore all the whining online about it (a lot of which is from people who haven’t played the game). It’s not only well worth your time, it’s a total must.
Perhaps not the outright best Mario Kart game ever, but close to it and Nintendo must be commended for experimenting with its best selling franchise. On the whole, it delivers excellence.
