Mario Kart World (Switch 2)
Throughout the Mario Kart series, you would see race courses that were constructed to be extravagant hosts to the racing action. While you sometimes found yourself in a subway, mall, or airport, the tracks often felt like bespoke locations meant purely for the tournaments held for Mario and his friends. Mario Kart World though places the action on one giant island which at once feels more natural and more artificial. Between the race tracks you find backpackers camping, vehicles on the roads that aren’t participating in the races, and signs of unrelated industry. At the same time, you also have plenty of ramps for doing tricks off of, boosters, and other elements placed purely to help with the island-wide kart racing that takes place. Mario Kart World provides an open world space fit for traveling in a go-kart with areas explicitly built for competitive racing and quiet discovery.
As one might expect of a racing game, Mario Kart World does provide a range of tournaments to test your driving ability in, but making use of the vast island, these tournaments are not merely a set of races to complete. If you wish to test your ability in the eight Grand Prix cups which consist of four tracks each across three engine classes that serve as difficulty markers and speed indicators, you will also find yourself driving from course to course. The first race in the cup uses a typical lap-based structure, but after that, you spend a good deal of the cups racing to the next area, there still being cut off points to determine who won that particular race before you take off to the next location. You can still win the Grand Prix even if you don’t always place first so long as you earn enough points during each section, but Knockout Tour and its eight unique cups take things a bit further. A constant unbroken race to stay ahead as you cross the island, periodically Knockout Tour sees the lower placing racers knocked out of the competition, only the racer who can stick it out and cross the final finishing line able to earn the top spot.
The Grand Prix style of race as well as Knockout Tour can be played alone against game-controlled racers or with other players online and in person to some degree, and with the races consisting of 24 participants at the start, things can get quite chaotic. This is, in part, thanks to the familiar item system that makes the races more than a matter of taking turns well and learning shortcuts. Item boxes placed along the courses allow you to receive somewhat random items based on how well you’re doing in the race. A first place player is likely to only get Bananas to try and slip up racers behind them or Coins, coins also found scattered along tracks and very slightly increasing your speed as you gather them. Lower placing players get more dramatic tools to change their fate, like homing Red Shells to knock aside players or Mushrooms for a brief burst of speed. Players doing particularly poorly though can receive items like the Bullet Bill that turns them into a rocket to burst through the other racers for a bit or Lightning that will shrink everyone ahead of you briefly. With 24 racers all potentially having items all at once, you can definitely expect moments where suddenly everyone is unleashing some means of trying to turn the tables, and the game does account for this on some level. The Star that makes you invincible and a little faster does not come with as much of a speed boost compared to previous titles in the series, the blue Spiny Shell that homes in on the player in first is kept quite rare, and items like the Boomerang Flower and Hammer increase the chances of getting a useful attacking tool that’s only really good for racers who are within sight. The items play their role well in letting shifts in fortune occur, they definitely add some excitement and tension to Knockout Tour races, and they will sometimes cause frustration instead when you get particularly unlucky and are bombarded by many items in a row, but it’s hard to deny that they add some appreciated spice and unpredictability to the races that could otherwise be defined too much by the range of advanced techniques Mario Kart World provides.
Beyond ideas like drifting to build up boosts, Mario Kart World also allows racers to pull off a range of fancy maneuvers that take advantage of this world built for navigation by way of go-kart. You can charge up a jump to get up onto ledges or even wallride briefly, opening up possibilities on how you can travel a course beyond the road. You can grind on rails, travel across any body of water, and even take off flying from certain points, and while many more obvious off-road shortcuts exist for people with the right items, players who explore the game’s range of additional techniques or come to understand the drifting can get a huge lead even against high ranking computer players. You don’t necessarily need to always be riding on walls and rails to remain competitive either, and there’s always room for tailoring your choices in characters and kart to suit your playstyle better. Among the new ideas brought to Mario Kart World is a peculiar but charming expansion to the typical group who joins Mario and friends in their sports games and hobbies. While enemies and animals are a common sight as obstacles across the race courses, now many of them are also willing to hop into a vehicle themselves, even if they shouldn’t really be able to drive one. The Sidestepper crab, a Dolphin, the armless Goomba, the Pokey cactus, even a Snowman that looked like it was just decoration before it started driving are all able to join in the races alongside familiar faces like the gorilla Donkey Kong, Princess Peach, and the evil turtle king Bowser. It can be a bit of a task unlocking a few of them, needing to rely on the rarely seen Kamek item that transforms people into enemies or specific UFOs around the world that can be used to abduct these strange “NPC” racers. Some are better executed than others, Swoop bats use their wings to drive while Dolphin just hovers above its kart in a way that doesn’t look great, but playing as something as silly as the Cow from Moo Moo Meadows means sometimes the point is the fact it really doesn’t feel like it should be happening but is because it is so amusing. The regular racers like Mario, his brother Luigi, the baby forms of those two, and many others can also get a range of outfits if you find food items out in the world, these always providing a brief speed boost even if there is no associated costume unlocked for chowing down. The costume distribution can seem a little strange, as can the fact you might spot an enemy out in the world like the metallic Bully or moai head Tokotoko that feel like they could have been racers but aren’t, but these costumes at least serve as some interesting unlockables despite the character select menu ending up cluttered thanks to the outfits being counted as additional racers instead of simple options for looks.
The regular races in Mario Kart World can be an exciting time and make good use of the open world, but there are a few sacrifices made in service of the intermission race areas. Oftentimes in a cup or tour you only get to play a single lap on a track, and while you can do full multi-lap races on tracks in versus mode (and online if you’re lucky since it isn’t made an easily picked option), the courses can sometimes feel like they’re lacking in memorable sections. A place like Dandelion Depths really only stands out for that titular section where you briefly go through a water-filled cave with dandelions that decorate it, the segment not too long and the rest of the track is fairly standard turning with no major gimmickry. This is likely because a track like this almost exists for its role as a place you pass through along the longer tours, a place like Faraway Oasis with its savanna theming perhaps more memorable for the stampeding African mammals found around its connecting roads rather than the true race course segment. The tracks usually have solid racing fundamentals that keep you engaged in terms of turns and spots to do tricky maneuvering, but a place with a really memorable theming like the haunted Boo Cinema that has you go from the theater right into the movie only uses that for a brief race across film before you’re back in the theater. It actually ends up rather easy to tell which courses are returning from older Mario Karts because they have a better sense of progression and variation. Airship Fortress has you weave through cannon fire, race aboard the airship, move through its fiery internals, and then fire towards a nearby spiral tower, the concepts giving new obstacles as well as shifts in the actual road design to keep it exhilarating. Mario Kart World can also spice up returning places though, Dino Dino Jungle was once just a jungle that happened to have a big brontosaurus walking around but now there is a triceratops whose head can be used as a ramp, a rampaging T. Rex to avoid, and even a laboratory section. While some courses aren’t as exciting conceptually since they lean too much into their role as connectors rather than showstoppers, most every track is fleshed out from a gameplay standpoint while others are highlights because imagination was allowed to run wild during conceptualization.
Every course and in fact every inch of the island is made even more important though because of the presence of a Free Roam mode. The player is free to drive all around the island with no pressure if they so wish, exploring to their heart’s content. Being in a go-kart the whole time can make some areas a bit trickier to access, but some places can really shine when you get the time to take a laidback tour of their layout. The bustling metropolis Crown City, the Venice inspired port town of Salty Salty Speedway, these locations have an additional layer of depth when you don’t have to stick to the roads of a race. Spaces between the race courses can sometimes be quite detailed as well, it little surprise considering spaces like a large Los Angeles inspired drainage ditch or a stretch of monster-filled dessert will appear as those interstitial connecting areas in the Knockout Tour and the like. Taking your time to explore would probably lead to fascinating small discoveries on its own, tiny areas that exist to make this island feel livelier and fun to see up close, but the Free Roam mode also has a wealth of optional activities to uncover. The most prevalent of these are nearly 400 P Switch tasks. Hit these blue buttons and you’ll be given a short little challenge, the game often drawing attention to a unique area or teaching you some tricky movement skills with these… although sometimes it can feel a little phoned in. The Blue Coin collection challenge is recycled a fair bit throughout Mario Kart World, the player needing to grab eight coins in the time limit that aren’t always placed in a challenging manner. You do get to use a rewind feature as you wish outside of multiplayer racing, meaning you can reverse a few seconds back to undo mistakes in Free Roam if you fell off a high ledge or only slightly missed one of those blue coins in a challenge. However, there are also some really nifty ideas thrown into the mix too, like how courses from the original Super Mario Kart on SNES can just be thrown in as sudden small races across the world without taking up much space. Their often small nature means most don’t stand out, but then you might get one that makes imaginative use of a space like Boo Cinema getting a fun concept of a the movie “coming to life” with creatures coming out of the screen to obstruct a tight race.
P Switch Challenges don’t unlock much, only 10 necessary for something of importance with the others instead tied to stamps. Only a single stamp can be set as your player icon so having options is nice but the number of them is rather absurd, especially since you get stamps from plenty of other tasks too. In fact, the switches almost feel like their purpose is just to give you something extra to do, a bit of an intrinsically motivated bit of play rather than something with a grander point. It certainly follows Nintendo’s current ethos to open worlds, providing so many collectibles that you aren’t expected to do them all but are likely to come across a good deal along the way no matter how you play. Peach Medallions are another abundant collectible in Free Roam, these floating in the open and often asking you to find a way to reach an out of the way area with your special movement techniques, these numbering 200, while ? Panels instead are placed around the race courses in Free Roam to point you towards nooks and crannies you might not notice when focused solely on winning. Free Roam feels like it’s meant to be a relaxed activity where you look around and sometimes engage in these quick challenges, only a few memorable or demanding, these likely meant to be pick-up-and-play tasks for when you have brief downtime with your portable Switch 2. At the same time, it could have been nice if the sometimes difficult to unlock NPC racers could have alternate unlock conditions like finding a certain amount of the medallions or doing P Switches, still not necessarily making them required but giving you a little extra if you do put in the time. Even as is, there can be large stretches of the open world without any of the three collectibles, the world map you can use to teleport to different locations still looking cluttered despite those moments you wonder why there isn’t anything in that spot to do beyond drink in the view.
However, Mario Kart World’s Free Roam does lead to perhaps one of the game’s best choices, and that is to provide and absolutely phenomenal soundtrack. While race courses and menus have their own dedicated music tracks, to make sure Free Roam had a wide range of background music, an incredible amount of remixes of music from all throughout the Mario series has been assembled, with a heavy focus on jazz, big band, and easy listening. Absolutely beautiful takes on familiar music will accompany you during calm nighttime drives, bombastic jazz mixes keep things energetic and peppy elsewhere, and while sometimes you might get something a touch strange like a track meant for an ice level cropping up somewhere else, the quality and range is almost breath-taking. Music from almost every Mario Kart game, tracks from most of Mario’s platforming adventures, obscurities like Mario Paint contribute as do spin-offs like WarioWare and Yoshi’s Story. Hours and hours of excellent music accompany you no matter where you might be, the intimidating Bowser’s Castle having its own intense tracks while the cosmic final course of the cups gets a dreamy evolving track that helps it feel like it’s not only a culmination of your time in this game but appropriately a combination of many ideas of the past.
Mario Kart World is undoubtedly a beefy game no matter how you slice it. There’s a battle mode for multiplayer action as well, available both in the Coin Runners mode to grab Coins and knock them out of players to be the richest at the end while Balloon Battle finds a nice middle-ground between its past iterations. Five balloons serve as your life of sorts, a hit getting rid of one, and if you lose them all, you’re out. If the game goes to time though, the player who popped the most balloons is the winner, encouraging aggression and caution rather than the sometimes aimless play of a points-only mode. Unsurprisingly, even these spaces are sliced up parts of the larger open world, the game able to construct some solid small battle arenas to keep players constantly engaged with each other. Some truly devoted spaces may have been better fits, but Mario Kart World is almost always successful in making a space work for its dedicated purpose as well as part of the world, even if that does mean a small sacrifice here and there in terms of flash and structure.
THE VERDICT: Mario Kart World is a huge game, from a massive soundtrack that might be the best music mix in a Mario game period to an open world with a great deal of small things to do and see. At the same time, the hugeness can take a small toll on things, the interconnected nature of some tracks leading to them being more subdued or leaning more on interesting interstitial areas. The courses are still strong in their racing fundamentals regardless of how they might look, with the player having many tools to enhance how they approach them, and when gimmicks do show up, they’re often exciting eye-catchers that add extra texture to the race like the Donkey Kong inspired spaceport with its own mechanical gorilla. Mario Kart World does a lot, it lets you race as strange characters, it gives you a range of formats to experience its world with, and the items still give it that casual racer thrill of being able to see unexpected shifts in how a race plays, so while its mold-breaking elements means its not quite the best Mario Kart racer ever, it is still one of the greats.
And so, I give Mario Kart World for Nintendo Switch 2…
A GREAT rating. While its doubtful people will be clamoring for a race on Dandelion Depths, Mario Kart World is made better thanks to the sum of its parts. A course may not stand out on its own, so the surrounding area is made more thrilling or unique. When a course does come in with a fun direction or it’s an old course getting fleshed out, you get to better appreciate how Mario Kart World can still put together some entertaining regular tracks while also fleshing them out for driving around in Free Roam. Free Roam is a fun mode to mess around in, P Switch tasks a good mix of easy busywork and tight skill challenges to the degree they are nice to do if you find them but not making you ache if you can’t find the last few. Still, Free Roam does feel like it is only the start of what can be done with an open world space for the Mario Kart series. Every now and then you do get a sudden surprise like the game rewarding you if you chase down the rabbit thief Nabbit, so a wider range of ways to engage with the world and some small rewards for finding them would certainly flesh out the wide open space set before you. You are a bit restricted by the go-kart means of moving about even with all the fancy tricks you can pull off, but the format still feels ripe for iteration. The incredible music mixes though almost make Free Roam worth existing on its own, the already catchy and well-composed tracks from other Mario adventures reimagined by another team of talented artists into a collection that will possibly live on longer in people’s hearts than the main game. Of course, that’s not to say Mario Kart World is lacking when it comes to exciting races, the Knockout Tour mode is great for creating tense moments, and while having some interstitial areas be a little flat or straight can sometimes slow down the action since there’s not much to do during such segments, the course sections and the item system still give you great moments for comebacks, risky techniques, and generally engaging racing game play.
A lot of the time, lesser elements of Mario Kart World are not necessarily fully flawed, they just have an apparent part that could have been made better with a bit more time or a better sense for how it could be both congruent with the rest of the island and entertaining in isolation. It’s a little growing pain thanks to the shift in design from race courses that exist solely for a three lap race only, but it’s also a game that gives so much you can’t help but look around and think how much more it could keep expanding. Wanting more here isn’t really a case of not being satisfied, the game just preps you to expect so much with its many nice touches and unexpected charms like the weird NPC racers that you want to see what could have been with more time to keep adding to an already excellent mixture.