Welcome to Mario Kart!

[DustStar]

I feel like this series doesn't really need an introduction. It's the series that essentially kicked off the mascot racer subgenre of racing games and is still considered one of the best in that group with very few other series having the praise and continued success that it has earned. In terms of game sales alone it is Nintendo's biggest selling series overall. Despite some controversies the latest entry, Mario Kart World, is still going extremely strong and only continues to grow rapidly. In other words, there's a very good chance you already know plenty about this series.

This is a place where you can discuss the series, share your kart builds and recommendations, show off your best times and even set up rooms or groups to race each other.

[Enbyeon]

I think I've played more single player than multiplayer Mario Kart. I had access to an N64 with the game for a few months as a kid and I learned to win gold on every cup, including the HIDDEN one.

I skipped all the ones after because I didn't have access to Nintendo consoles and I always thought Crash Team Racing was better. I did try the previous MKs, but I didn't feel it reached the same quality of gameplay as the original CTR until MK8... That said! I played a lot of MK8 solo and I haven't achieved my goal of getting gold in every cup. I've done everything except 200CC and I've gotten a few golds in 200CC but it is hard.

[lopodyr]

I loooove Mario Kart! I've been playing tons of World since it came out (around 200hrs). I have always loved Free Roaming with a car and combining that with Mario Kart works great for me.

In fact, it became one of my favorite series (if not my favorite period!) because MK8 came out right as I was studying to graduate high school. I had to work everyday though... so I made an agreement with myself to only play MK8 once I had worked 4 hours on exam stuff. I would wake up at 8am, work until noon, then play MK8 until midnight haha.
I graduated high school but DAMN I got good at Mario Kart. To the point that my friends don't want to play it with me anymore

I think I've played more single player than multiplayer Mario Kart.

Same here! (in part for the reason I mentioned above). But, I've also always had fun playing Mario Kart on my own. It's kind of like a die and retry arcade experience for me. Like a rythm game with some randomness sprinkled on top of it. I've always loved it.

There is also something to be said about bits of culture that serve as the background for many episodes of your life. I remember getting Double Dash for Christmas, playing MKDS on the bus with schoolmates, fetching my Wii when it was back from repair on the day MKWii launched... It's a huge part of my life, and I'm happy that it is

I skipped all the ones after because I didn't have access to Nintendo consoles and I always thought Crash Team Racing was better. I did try the previous MKs, but I didn't feel it reached the same quality of gameplay as the original CTR until MK8...

Crash Team Racing was really something special... I remember it fondly. Especially since I personally was not as attached to Mario Kart 64 (and I'm still not). While I was too young to compare them back then, I would totally play CTR over MK64 today. However, as a Mario nerd, I was more attached to Mario in general. Also, while CTR was great, I feel like the later installments were consistently forgettable, if not straight up frustrating. Mario Kart on the other hand, I find has been consistently improving since MKDS (I love Double Dash but it's crazy).

Also, while I appreciate all the valid criticism targetting Mario Kart World - I think it's unfortunate to see Nintendo be so stubborn in forcing the new playstyle on everyone, for instance - I think gaming discourse has just gotten too hateful. MKW discussions have turned into the same Pokémon-community, UbiBashing non-sense we start to see everywhere.
I'm not saying companies should not be criticized (especially when they fumble), or that games should not be reviewed.
I'm saying it's exhausting to be surrounded with people who conflate cynicism and critical thinking. Especially when you are just trying to have fun in an imperfect world. Much of the discourse is just people acting like piranhas, waiting for an opportunity to point an accusing finger and say something like "greed" or "lazy developers", hoping it makes their opinion look structured and perceptive.

Anyway, I'll stop my rambling as it's already too deep and just say that I love Mario Kart, I think it rocks. I love the new one and I'm always looking for people who would like to play it! I'm especially excited to play fun games in Free Roam with anyone interested! (Looking for MKW Geoguessr mates haha). I'm on a Discord just for furries trying to get together to play Mario Kart World. Maybe I'll share an invite if the server owners allow me to, and anybody here is interested

[Ja'aran]

I'm totally there on the Mario Kart World hate train, at least a little bit. A big problem I've had with a lot of Nintendo games recently, is that a bunch of them have come out feeling super undercooked or unfinished, and World is definitely among them.

1)
To get what is perhaps the pettiest complaint out of the way, I don't really agree with trying to make Super Mario "grounded" or too realistic looking. I tolerated it in Odyssey as it's own quirky thing, but I much prefer Wonder's route of leaning into the surreal, over the top nature of it all.

You don't get too many tracks that get crazy with the theming, like Music Park or Waluigi Pinball, and that's a shame. You do get the giant ice cream course, and that's fine, so I don't think I really care about the world feeling naturally interconnected or seamlessly cohesive.

2)
Normal 3-Lap Mario Kart is as strong as ever, but the way the Intermission tracks were handled feels sloppy and it can get old really quick. It's never a good sign when a new game feature leaves you feeling like you just wanna turn it off, like it's getting in the way of your enjoyment of the game.

It's especially egregious in the online, where you will very rarely get the option for a regular course, most of the time it's one of the 200+ dull intermission tracks where you just drive in a straight line.

3)
I know no one cares, but Battle Mode is washed. It's over. It's just two modes now, Balloon Battle and Coin Runners. I hope you didn't like Shine Thief, Bob-omb Blast, or Renegade Roundup. I guess that's modern gaming for you, selling less content for a higher price tag.

4)
The music is pretty good for the most part. The new course themes probably just need a bit more time to grow on me, we'll see, but there's a lot of neat remixes in there. It makes me wish there was a music player or radio stations or something, as that would've helped to immerse us in the road trip, open world vibes of it all.

5)
That leads me into complaining about Free Roam. This is an incredibly cool and ambitious idea, especially as I was that kid who wanted to drive up to Peach's Castle, or drive alongside the train tracks in Kalimari Desert. So, this should have been a dream come true for me, but there's just not a whole lot to do outside of look for ? panels, Medallions, and P Switches.

It's fine for a bit, don't get me wrong, I'd just like my treats so I can feel incentivized like in a normal video game. This isn't a new thing for Nintendo, I remember there was an interview a while back for Luigi's Mansion 3, where they explained that the reason there's no real power-ups is because they wanted to focus on "intrinsic fun". Which can be commendable, but it can also be boring in certain cases, like eating cookies without the chocolate chips.

6)
Speaking of treats, that brings me to the unlockables. The menu is a bloated mess in this game, someone needs to tell Nintendo that the X and Y buttons exist, so each costume doesn't need to take up it's own character slot in the menu.

That said, the costumes themselves are amazing. I like how each Yoshi gets their own little outfit, Aurora Rosalina is stunning, and Vampire Waluigi is immaculate.

The roster is also incredibly chaotic, but I welcome it. There are certain characters that I would've loved to see make a return, but this is the first time you can play as Goomba, of course there's the Cow, but I'm a big fan of the Penguin.

The problem is just the way you unlock them. You get the costumes by grabbing food items at these drive-thru's, so the easiest way to unlock them is just hop into Free Roam, switch between every single character, and keep eating the food until you unlock all of them. I mean, isn't that really lame? Why couldn't these be tied to missions in the open world like in a normal video game? Why can't you just be normal?

Speaking of characters I would've liked to see return, Kamek is an item now. Why not put the Wonder Flower into this game? You guys put Shine Sprites into every single Mario game after Sunshine came out, so I don't see why not! But no, I guess you guys wanted to seem grounded and more realistic for some reason.

In order to unlock the bee, the dolphin, the snowman, etc., you need to get turned into one by Kamek, and when you do get transformed, you better hope it's the one you want! Some of them only seem to appear on specific maps by the way, and even if you go to those specific maps, there's still a chance Kamek will just turn you into a "common character" anyways.

You guys put an open world into this game, am I insane for thinking that's a much better idea? You have this gigantic Free Roam mode that feels uncooked because there's nothing substantial to earn from it. This game is just absolutely baffling to me.

[Faith]

Oh gosh, I’ve been loving Mario Kart World! That being said, this is the first Mario Kart (and kart racer, for that matter) I’ve ever really gotten into. I completely missed the boat on 8 and before that only dabbled at friends’ houses growing up in the N64/GCN era.

That said, I have a curious question to open up here: how do you all think Mario Kart stacks up against other kart racers, like the Sonic Racing games or CTR? Like I said, I really have zero knowledge, so I’m curious how Mario stacks up against it. Sell me on the secret sauce here, or recommend me some similarly good racers!

[JarylGaren]

so when it comes to Mario Kart, I think I must've spent the most time on 8. Which isn't exactly a difficult thing to do, considering how it came out on the Wii U and the Switch, lmao

I haven't gotten a Switch 2 yet (because no money for it, and I'm not quite feeling what I've seen of Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bananza yet), so I haven't been able to play much of MK World myself, but I did get to play a bit of it on the Switch 2 one of my uncles got for himself recently. It was fun, but yeah, I feel like I agree with most of the points Ja'aran mentioned in their post about the game.

the intermission tracks are a pretty neat idea in concept, but I dunno, I would've preferred those to be an option alongside a more traditional Grand Prix, where each track is the full three laps. I'm also not entirely sure I vibe with Nintendo's current "make your own fun in this open world"-direction that they've seemingly been kinda going into. I get why making your own goals and just exploring for the heck of it is fun for a lot of folks, but I personally just prefer a lot more incentives and a bit more guidance in my games, but that's just me.

I do really like a lot of the music I've heard of Mario Kart World already, though! I like how they remixed some tunes from lesser-known games like Mario Land 1, 2 and 3 (aka Wario Land 1), and the remix of the final boss battle theme of Yoshi's Island 1 is *a banger*

[lopodyr]

I'm totally there on the Mario Kart World hate train, at least a little bit.

I agree with all the criticism here. I think my core issues are that:

• Nintendo is acting too much like they should be in charge or telling us how we are supposed to have fun, and they decided intermissions was the way now. They could add a "Classic Mode" and half of the backlash would be gone. They do not respect the "commodity" aspect of Mario Kart. Many players expect a baseline from it, a core experience that they are erasing here. Probably for the sake of differenciation with 8DX (which is the most sold Mario game ever after all, and also on the Switch), but it's not an excuse to make the launch title of the Switch 2 feel incomplete.

• The game sucks at distributing its content. It's not even like it lacks things it could make you unlock. It just refuses to give it away in an engaging way.

• They did not design an open world. They made a Mario Kart game, then connected the tracks with roads. That's what they say in interviews and honestly, I believe it 100%. I think this results in a game that feels like it's trying - and failing - to be one thing, when it was never going to be an open world at all. I think it's an oversight on their end, ignoring the way their development would lead to a deceptive product.

• The rushed feeling is so hard to understand. Personally, I feel like it's very polished, but hollow. It's even harder to read knowing we have no such thing as a roadmap to anticipate changes. It's hard to tell how the game will change, how much of it can be different before the next Mario Kart game. I don't know if it's "rushed" per say, but I do think it's somewhat misguided and results in this disappointing feeling for many. After all, it's arguably more Mario Kart than we have ever had at launch! Yet, it feels like it could be a ton more... but doesn't feel like it will be? I guess we are used to a medium, dense cake instead of a huge, hollow one. Time will tell if (and if so, how) that changes I guess.

• The emptiness of Free Roam is a weird topic for me. I don't want to play devil's advocate, but I'm REALLY tired of every open world being an ode to productivity with tons of nonsense fighting for my attention at once. I am more than happy to just drive around and treat the world like a skatepark rather than Disneyland. But I do understand that for players who want/need to feel some kind of growth to stay engaged, this approach does not work. Again, it's obvious they were never making "Mario Kart's Breath of the Wild" anyway, but it's hard to say "Free Roam" and call the game "World" and not have people build expectations the game does not try to meet.

• I agree that tracks (and in particular Free Roam) are not as characterful as some previous tracks have been in MK history. I'm still happy that the art style got more playful and colorful than it was in MK8 however, which I found too "Ray Tracing" for my liking.

So, at the end of the day, I'm having an amazing time with it, but I get why it's divisive. I hope Nintendo gets their stuff together and evolves it into the great MK community hub it could be.

[JarylGaren]

Nintendo is acting too much like they should be in charge or telling us how we are supposed to have fun, and they decided intermissions was the way now. They could add a "Classic Mode" and half of the backlash would be gone. They do not respect the "commodity" aspect of Mario Kart. Many players expect a baseline from it, a core experience that they are erasing here. Probably for the sake of differenciation with 8DX (which is the most sold Mario game ever after all, and also on the Switch), but it's not an excuse to make the launch title of the Switch 2 feel incomplete.

to be honest, I kinda feel like that has been consistently an issue with Nintendo in general. Just the general lack of options or letting players tweak their controls like they prefer. Obviously with some outliers (the Smash Bros games generally let you change the controls a bunch, for instance), but I dunno, it feels like Nintendo is being patronizing with what settings they allow you to tinker with in most of their games? Or is it just me?

[lopodyr]

to be honest, I kinda feel like that has been consistently an issue with Nintendo in general. Just the general lack of options or letting players tweak their controls like they prefer. Obviously with some outliers (the Smash Bros games generally let you change the controls a bunch, for instance), but I dunno, it feels like Nintendo is being patronizing with what settings they allow you to tinker with in most of their games? Or is it just me?

Oh no, I fully agree. I guess my point is that it was not as much of a cause for disappointment inside of more linear experiences. Borrowing codes from games that rely on player agency but putting it on a leash tests the limits of Nintendo's "expert craftsmen/trust the chef" approach. I think the backlash over lack of Free Roam activities and removal of the 3-lap format in most modes are evidence that there is a limit to how much players are willing to accept it. The more open experiences in the recent years (the breathofthewildification of Nintendo's IPs) will be a chance to see if they try to be forceful with it, or adapt to this openness.