Given how long Mario Kart 8 has been the current Mario Kart game, we weren’t really sure what to expect from World. Okay, we knew there was now an open world, and that you drove between tracks. And yes, we knew that this time around, new modes like Knockout Tour added a bit more variety to the mix…

But as far as basic mechanics were concerned, we didn’t really know how different it’d actually be. Would wall riding function like anti-gravity from 8 Deluxe? Would rail grinds be automatic? Would the karts in general handle like they have in the last 3 or 4 games?

All these questions and more lingered at the back of our mind. Mario Kart World was a huge unknown, and only actually playing it would tell us what to expect here.

Having now played it though, we can now confirm that Mario Kart World is different ™.

In fact, it might be the most different Mario Kart game since DS. The physics and controls simply do not work the same way as in most of the games you’re used to.

And that’s something people are really going to need to get used to here. Where Mario Kart 8 let you turn on a dime and gave you near perfect control over your drift radius, Mario Kart World asks you to be a lot more committed to the direction you want to go in. Hence if you play like you would 8 Deluxe, you’re gonna have a very tough time adjusting. You’ll try to drift on a straightaway or course correct, and hurtle straight into the off-road.

Add this to other mechanics being significantly more or less forgiving (being hit by items doesn’t slow momentum, but you have no invincibility frames to speak of), and well, Mario Kart World is a much more chaotic game than 8 Deluxe ever was. These races aren’t peaceful A-B matters where front-running comes easily, these are full-blown demolition derbies where players are getting blasted to smithereens left, right and centre.

What’s more, with 24 players in the mix, chaos is basically guaranteed at all times. The tracks become a minefield of thrown items very quickly, and with so many people jostling for first, getting Mario Karted becomes a matter of when rather than if.

Still, once you get used to it, Mario Kart World is a revolutionary upgrade to the existing formula. This is the most skill-based Mario Kart game ever made, and one which is going to significantly change up the meta in every way possible.

Since the game’s track and world design is way more complex than before to make up for the new abilities on offer. Now, you can grind rails to get to new areas, and drive on walls for a short time to gain height or dodge obstacles. It’s absolutely insane, and means every track is filled with shortcuts and alternate routes around every corner. Do you want to drive straight, jump between walls, ride a rail to one of three upper routes or blast through that off-road with a Mushroom? Honestly, the choice is yours!

It’s an absolutely incredible change of pace, and with Mario Kart 8 being so limited with where you can go due to overzealous Lakitu checkpoint policing, something that’s long overdue here.

Regardless, let’s talk about that world design now. Namely, the open world aspect used in most of the game’s modes.

It’s a mixed bag. On the one hand, if you’re a kid that just loves running around and doing stupid things in a giant open map, this world is basically the nearest thing to heaven you’ll find on the Switch 2. Like it is literally the evolution of those “explore the tracks and play hide and seek with friends” challenges we used to do all the time as kids, except without an annoying Lakitu telling you where to go and with significantly more traversal options than in Double Dash or Wii.

So, for a certain percentage of players, the open world basically sells Mario Kart World there and then. It’s their dream setup for a Mario Kart game made a reality, and akin to a giant Mario Kart sandbox to run wild and go crazy in.

On the other hand, it’s probably a tad less appealing if you’re more of a structured gameplay type of person, or you expect more substantial content in your open world games. Because as far as actual gameplay and unlockables in free-roam, there’s really not much here.

You’ve got missions activated by doing P-Switches, and they’re pretty fun. You might be tasked to collect coins in a certain area while avoiding obstacles, navigate a tricky path by going through a series of rings, or finishing a race on various pseudo tracks littered throughout the world. They’re basically Mario Kart DS’ missions, except a bit more integrated into the world design.

And you’ve also got two types of collectables too. Peach medallions and question mark panels. These are hidden in places that are otherwise difficult to reach, and make for a fun navigation challenge and way to point out hidden details and shortcuts in the tracks.
But that’s about it. You have two collectables, you have missions, and you obtain stickers by completing all of them. There’s no story mode, no bosses to fight or no real unlockable characters and content to find by exploring the world.

It’s basically like if you took the map from Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, then removed everything except for shrines and Korok seeds. It’d still be fun to explore, and you’d still get some entertainment value from the challenges on offer, but it’d also feel like it’s missing something too. Like it’s missing a reason or incentive to explore the world beyond “it’s fun to drive places”.

Well actually, we technically lied a bit there. There is one other thing you can find in the world.

Dash Food. This is a type of item that gives you a speed boost when eaten, as well as a new costume based on the type of food in question.
And it’s the way you unlock about half the roster here. You find the food, hope it’s something interesting, then eat it to unlock the costume (which gets added to the character select screen). It’s a neat enough setup, though it’s equally useable in Grand Prix and Knockout Tour too, making free-roam more of a way to collect the costumes quickly than the ultimate way to obtain them.

So, the open world is either an immediate selling point or missed potential, depending on the type of player you are and what you enjoy about games.

However, it’s not just limited to free-roam. No, the world is heavily integrated in both Grand Prix and Knockout Tour as well.
With the former getting an entirely new shake up because of it. You see, while in previous Mario Kart games you raced round 4 tracks in order, doing 3 laps of each…

In World, you race between the tracks too. So, you do 3 laps of the initial track, then race to the next one, do 1 lap of that track, and repeat until the end of the cup. It’s a very different setup, and makes the game feel more like a road trip than a simple series of tournaments.

That said, we’re also deeply conflicted on how well it works here. You see, the intermissions aren’t as bad as they seemed in the Nintendo Direct or Treehouse footage. They’re not all straight lines, they do usually have lots of shortcuts and alternate routes, and they are fun to drive, especially on 150cc.

However, they’re also not quite as well designed as the tracks themselves. They’re fun sure, but they’re a lot more like routes through a realistic world than the quirky track designs of Mario Kart games prior.

So, while the experience of racing between tracks is exciting, it also means we don’t really get to enjoy the tracks most of the time. Unless the track itself is section based (like DK Spaceport and Rainbow Road), we only get the smallest glimpse of it before moving onto another intermission.

Hence, we wish there was an option to just do normal Grand Prix races here, and race 3 laps of all tracks in a cup. The level design is good enough to warrant it, and the need for routes between them takes away from the time spent enjoying the tracks themselves.

Meanwhile Knockout Tour is a whole mode based around these intermissions and the open world, and it may be one of the best parts of the whole game. A battle royale mode where your goal is to survive to the next checkpoint, the races become a chaotic free for all as players desperately trying to stay near the top of pack to avoid being eliminated and kicked from the event. It’s an exhilarating time for sure, and something that’s worth playing just to see how aggressive Mario Kart races can truly be.

What’s more, the single player is nearly as brutal as the multiplayer here. Indeed, remember how Mario Kart 8 Deluxe CPUs had all the intelligence of a goldfish? How a pro player could just completely wipe the floor with their AI competition in every game from DS onwards?

Yeah, World tries to avoid that. Now, the CPUs are aggressive to an almost blood lusted degree, and have a degree of rubber banding that makes even the older Mario Kart games jealous. As a result of this (plus the increased number of racers and powerful items), you’re damn well gonna have to work for your victories here. Getting 2nd or 3rd place as a Mario Kart 8 Deluxe pro is very much in the realm of possibility this time around.

So free-roam is fun for certain types of players, Knockout Tour is a blast and Grand Prix is pretty fun, even if a bit limited. How are the other modes?

Honestly, a bit meh. Cause just like in many Nintendo sequels, there are plenty of decisions where it feels like they took a few steps back as well as forward.

Like say, battle mode. In this game, it has exactly two modes: balloon battle, and coin runners.

That’s it. All those fancy modes from 8 Deluxe? Gone, nowhere to be seen.

And the same goes for fancy arenas too. Yes, you’ve got more interesting ones that in base 8, since they’re not just tracks repurposed again…

But they fall into a similar design philosophy. You’ve got bits of the open world repurposed as arenas, and that’s it.

It’s really disappointing to be honest. Why go to all that effort to improve 8 Deluxe on this front, only to roll it all back in the next game anyway?

Meanwhile time trials feel a bit limited. Sure, it’s got the usual online leaderboards and ghost replays again.

But it doesn’t really do anything exciting with the formula either. There are no records for intermissions, no way to race multiple ghosts at once, and weirdest of all, no fastest lap times either.

No, we’re not making that up. They literally don’t record your fastest lap anymore, despite it being a feature in every other game in the series. Why Nintendo? People have competed for these for decades. Why take out something so trivial here?

Online is fine, and works well from we’ve seen. We haven’t really tried it much ourselves, but no one else we follow has had any issues with it, and the options seem rather comprehensive overall. No tournaments or custom items though, which is a bit baffling.

Which brings us to our last critique here. Unlocking characters is honestly a bit of a chore.

Since with the exception of a few mainstays unlocked in Grand Prix mode (where even finishing the cup at all gives them to you), most of them get unlocked through two new mechanics. Dash Food, and the Kamek Orb.

The former is something you can find in the open world, and gives you a character costume based on the type of food eaten. It’s a neat setup, and a fun way to make route-based challenges a bit more exciting…

But it also has a serious flaw for completionists. That being, it’s never really stated where exactly certain outfits can get unlocked or what food that correlates to.

So, actually trying to complete the list becomes a real pain here. You have to visit every random restaurant and food truck on the map, and eat a ton of food to figure out which type correlates with which outfit.

And well, with character outfits not being consistently tied to a certain food type (what gives Pauline her sole alternate costume gives Mario or Luigi one of like 20 costumes), 100% completion is pretty much a matter of severe trial and error, or religiously checking the wiki page and trying to figure things out from there.

It’s also kinda unbalanced in terms of which characters have costumes too. Since well, while the main cast has a good ten or so, the secondary cast have anywhere between 1 and 5 alternate costumes instead.

Why? Why do Donkey Kong and Pauline only have 1 costume while Mario and Luigi have like 10 or more? Why do the Toads have less outfits than the babies but more outfits than Birdo or Koopa? Why are many of the Tour costumes for these characters simply not present in World, despite already being made?

And why don’t the ‘NPC drivers’ have any? There’s no reason not to give the cow sunglasses and a funny hat, or add Ice/Fire/Boomerang Bro outfits for Hammer Bro here. If Tour can add them, then World can too. No excuses.

Speaking of NPC drivers, that brings us to the Kamek Orb. Oh god, this item. It’s one of those items that’s amazing on paper, but an absolute pain in action.

Since how it works is pretty simple. Kamek is summoned, turns all the drivers in front of the user into a certain type of enemy, then summons a bunch of those enemies on the track.

Then, if you’re one of those affected drivers, that character is now permanently unlocked and can be chosen from the select screen.
Unfortunately, this has numerous issues. For one thing, it’s kinda random which character Kamek turns everyone into.

So, if you really like playing as Chargin’ Chuck or Pianta or Dolphin, good luck. You’ll have to pray the item transforms you into them at the right place and time.

That’s not exactly guaranteed in the slightest. Especially given that Kamek as an item is extremely rare.

Hence, it’ll probably happen maybe twice in 4 races, and it’ll be completely outside your control as to what the outcome will be.
What’s worse, is that Kamek can miss too.

Indeed, if you’re a decent way off the path the item’s user is following, Kamek’s magic won’t affect you at all. As a result, in any big intermission section or complex track, there’s a decent chance you’ll not get the character even if the item is used, since you won’t be in range and hence won’t get affected by it.

This has happened to us numerous times already, and has made sure that characters like Chargin’ Chuck and Fishbone didn’t get unlocked when they should have been.

It also makes you feel terrible when getting the item too. Since well, not only are the effects on the other racers pretty meaningless (the enemies can easily be avoided on most tracks).

You’re also the one person that doesn’t get the benefits of the item either. You just get to watch other people unlock new characters, while you yourself get nothing of value. Hooray for amazing item design!

Either way, character unlocks are a nightmare in World. They’re either luck based to the point of being annoying, or confusing to the point of needing a wiki or walkthrough.

And it’s a real shame, since World just does so many things right. It’s got some amazing visuals, with some of the most expressive and well-designed characters in the entire series. The music is absolutely outstanding, with well over 200 unique songs to listen to in free roam and intermissions. The amount of content is amazing, with the tracks themselves being some of the best in the series.

It’s just disappointing that Nintendo took so many steps back in other areas as well. It’s the best Mario Kart so far, but it could have arguably been significantly better.

Which brings us to the old value question. Is Mario Kart World worth buying?

Because here’s the thing. Mario Kart World costs $80, roughly equal to 8 Deluxe and the DLC. But that’s really not the full price for most people.

No, it’s arguably a $500 game too, since it’s the title that’s meant to sell people on the Switch 2. It’s the game you buy the console for right now, given that the likes of DK Bananza and Metroid Prime 4 are still a few months away.

Is Mario Kart World worth that much?

Honestly, we’d say no. It’s a great game, and it’s well worth buying if you’re a Mario fan. If you bought a Switch 2 for any other reason, there’s no reason not to get this game.

But it’s not a system seller just yet. It’s not a game that should make you rush out to buy a new console here. It’s a day 1 purchase for existing console owners and that’s it.

Regardless, those are our thoughts on Mario Kart World. Overall, it’s a good game with a lot of differences from previous Mario Kart entries, and on paper, the best game in the series bar none. It’s the kind of revolution the franchise needed after 8 Deluxe, and things like the open world and knockout tour definitely enhance the experience to a significant degree…

It’s just also limited by some questionable design decisions on Nintendo’s part, including missing features, odd character unlock conditions and a price that may be a little too high for most people to bear.

Definitely check it out if you’re a Switch 2 owner!

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