Review – Mario Kart World brings a sense of adventure to racing in the Mushroom Kingdom

The launch of the Nintendo Switch 2 ushers in a new era of Nintendo console gaming, as well as a new era for the beloved Mario Kart series. True to its name, Mario Kart World has huge ambitions, delivering size and spectacle unlike anything that fans have experienced in their time racing through the Mushroom Kingdom. That means some elements of the Mario Kart formula have undergone significant changes, enough to surprise anyone who has grown up with the series as a staple of their Nintendo collection.

Mario Kart broadens its horizons

In developing Mario Kart World, Nintendo created not just a selection of stunning race tracks, but an entire world that ties them all together and is free for the player to roam at their whim. The in-game map is simply gigantic, with the traditional courses being linked together by a number of routes which run across the overworld’s various regions.

Mario Kart World sets a new standard for the sense of scale that can be achieved in a Mario Kart title, its vastness so great that it is something that we have barely encountered even in 3D Super Mario platformers. Whether it’s on a normal course, a connecting route, or any spot on the open map, you can often see some of the courses looming on the horizon or hovering high in the sky. This would just be window dressing for past Mario Karts, but in World, you’ll eventually be able to reach those far-off points of interest. If you can see it, you can drive on it.

It’s not simply sheer size that Mario Kart World excels in. The courses feel positively alive, their layouts dynamic and teeming with activity. There are always a number of moving parts at play, be they in the background or right in front of you on the race track. Navigating them faster than the rest of the pack means using any of the innumerable alternate paths and shortcuts found on each course. Savvy players have greater freedom of movement than ever thanks to new jump boosting, rail grinding, and wall riding mechanics, all of which make the Time Trials more addicting than ever.

Some courses are stunning to behold for their dazzling imagery or rich atmosphere, like Faraway Oasis or Dandelion Depths. Others stand out for how many elements and obstacles they manage to throw at you, like DK Spaceport, or the latest version of Bowser’s Castle. Then there are some that do both, like the new Rainbow Road. Without spoiling any finer details, Rainbow Road in Mario Kart World is nothing short of a masterpiece — a grandeur-laden marathon that deserves to go down as one of the all-time best Mario Kart tracks.

This commitment to an open-world concept impacts the structure for racing, namely in that it deemphasizes the classic three lap format. Most races are now single lap, mad dashes to the finish line. They also won’t take place entirely on one specific track. Instead, you’ll usually start out at the previous course you just raced on, move through one of the connecting routes, and finish with a lap at the chosen course.

Unsurprisingly, the new approach creates a fairly different experience, one that not all fans are going to readily accept. Mario Kart World aims to provide a Tour de Mushroom Kingdom kind of race, rather than the circuit style that was the tradition for so long. Aside from the first course in each cup, the three lap format is pretty much gone from Grand Prix. You’ll only find it regularly in VS racing, where you at least have a choice. Finding it in Online VS with strangers is somewhat tricky. You can always vote for a Random selection, but that’s equally as likely to produce a race via one of the connecting routes as it is a traditional, three lap race. Every few races a course that’s further away on the map from the other offerings will appear, which if selected by the roulette, will guarantee that three lap contest.

The change is comparable to when Breath of the Wild shook up the dungeon formula by giving the nod to size over temples with unique aesthetics and themes. You can’t always get a complete impression of a course with one lap, and the themes get a little muddled when a race might take place throughout two or three completely different environments. To an extent, Mario Kart World trades in character for size and scope.

At the same time, though, there is something to be said for the thrill that comes with traversing the interconnected tracks. Each race feels like a journey in itself, the anticipation building as you speed through the connecting route, steadily making your way to the true course that can be seen in the distance. Moments like the long climb up the icy slopes toward Starview Peak, or braving a swampy jungle before flying up along a giant water spout that leads to the Great ? Block Ruins bring a sense of adventure to this Mario Kart outing.

Nintendo clearly wants fans to experience the full breadth of this gigantic in-game world that they’ve created, so much so that they added a Free Roam mode to let us explore every inch of it. Free Roam is perfect if you want to immerse yourself in a course whose theme and aesthetics were particularly to your liking, but there’s also mechanical merit to its inclusion. On top of being ideal to familiarize yourself with courses so as to discover the most optimal paths, Mario Kart World’s map is loaded with bite-sized challenge missions to tackle. Some are genuine platforming sequences that feel like they came out of a Super Mario Maker game; others are less demanding, yet are memorable for how imaginative their premises and objectives are.

The lack of NPCs to talk to or any form of storytelling is disappointing. When even Mario Party games have featured light story modes, it continues to be a missed opportunity that a narrative-driven game mode eludes Mario Kart. With many of the challenge missions based around the same concept, Free Roam probably has a hard ceiling for how long it will entertain you before it grows stale. Still, it’s a surprisingly lovely time until you hit that ceiling. What makes it so enjoyable is that it is the polar opposite of what you come to expect from Mario Kart. Whereas racing is frenetic and ruthless, Free Roam is a breezy, leisurely way to pass the time. It is uncharacteristically relaxing for Mario Kart.

As the first marquee game to showcase the Nintendo Switch 2’s upgraded hardware, Mario Kart World is gorgeous. The visuals are gleaming with polish, and there is a palpable sense of energy in the way that everything animates. No matter how much action is on screen at once, the game also runs beautifully. For single player and two player split screen, you can count on 60 fps to be the norm. You’ll only see a dip once you get up to three or four player split screen, but even then it holds steady at 30 fps.

Your choice of avenue to race down

Another area where Mario Kart World ups the ante is the field of racers you compete against. This time around, up to 24 characters can take to the track at once, doubling the number from Mario Kart 8/Deluxe. If you’re wondering how the game could possibly achieve a reasonable sense of balance with 24 item-wielding characters, the simple, most succinct answer is that it doesn’t. Vast as these tracks may be, there’s still nowhere near enough room to comfortably fit 24 racers and have a fluent, compelling racing experience. Even the numerous branching paths and handful of gameplay balances added to this engine can’t sufficiently alleviate the chaos. With a storm of items always going off, you’re bound to get blasted, probably a lot, because the game is sorely lacking in invincibility frames upon being hit and knocked aside.

Unfortunately this means that Online VS racing is often a mess. If you’re lucky enough to get dropped into a lobby with 12 players or fewer, the clutter is tolerable. It’s certainly cleaner than Mario Kart 8 Deluxe was with 12 players. But once you start getting 16 or more racers on the track, it becomes far too bombastic for its own good.

If any game mode deserves your time and attention, it’s a brand new addition that may be the single most exciting way to play Mario Kart. Knockout Tour is an elimination form of racing where each rally stretches across an especially long section of the map, taking you over multiple connecting routes and through portions of multiple courses. Each checkpoint on the extended race chops off the bottom four competitors, slowly narrowing down the field until the last remaining quartet complete one final lap to determine the winner.

Knockout Tour successfully implements the expanded number of racers by tempering the 24 player presence. It provides a taste of the pandemonium that comes with such a crowded field, but by whittling away at the players as the rally goes on, it creates a less congested environment where driving skill steadily becomes more and more meaningful. Just the same, Knockout Tour demands that you balance urgency with judicious item use. During those calmer stretches where you’re cruising down one of the connecting routes, you’ll often be faced with a fascinating dilemma. Do you expend your strongest boost or power-up related items in an attempt to build an insurmountable lead? Do you do so to make up ground on the leaders? Or do you conserve them to possess the strongest arsenal possible to make a furious, [hopefully] unstoppable mad dash to a checkpoint? You don’t want to blow your load and leave yourself vulnerable, but you can’t get complacent, either.

It’s a wildly entertaining game mode, with each rally being a true endurance test that can go on for upward of ten minutes. Should you survive to the last four racers, be prepared for a final lap so intense that you don’t dare blink or breathe. Finishing in first place is a very difficult task, especially while playing in a packed lobby online. When you manage to take home the gold trophy, it’s about as thrilling and as rewarding as anything you could achieve in a Mario Kart contest.

The 24 player field also fares better in Battle, where the sprawling, wide-open stages are more than large enough to accommodate two dozen combatants. Although most of the stages are pulled from the racing courses, the chosen layouts include parts of the track that you often won’t touch in a race. World’s courses are so elaborate and so large, that after a little reconfiguring, the sections used here feel like they were designed specifically for Battle scenarios. It’s light on game modes, currently offering only Balloon Battle and Coin Runners, but the increased player counts and fitting stages make them very enjoyable diversions from racing.

Mario Kart World has grandiose aspirations for what Mario Kart can be, and perhaps that is necessary as it bears the responsibility of being the centerpiece launch software for the Nintendo Switch 2. The strides it makes for the series are undeniable, and with those strides come bold design choices that many fans will debate for the foreseeable future. Where those debates will lead remains to be seen, but what is certain is that Mario Kart World will stand proudly as a pivotal piece of the Nintendo Switch 2’s software library, providing fans with loads of entertainment for as long as this generation of Nintendo gaming rolls on.

SCORE: 8.5/10