Mario Kart World – Review

The headliner of the Switch 2’s launch lineup is arguably Mario Kart World, so it’s no surprise that this was our title of choice to give the new console a test run. Given that Mario Kart World was offered as a pack-in bundle title, there’s a good chance that you already own the game, and that we’re preaching to the choir. If you’re a future Switch 2 owner though, you might be wondering whether this one is worth picking up alongside the console. Fret not, as we’ve spent the weekend driving, gliding, and even sailing across the world of Mario Kart World to deliver our verdict to you.

Story

Continuing the long-running tradition of the Mario Kart series, Mario Kart World…. has no story whatsoever. Not that it needs one, either. You already know these characters from elsewhere, and this is a racing game, a genre that isn’t particularly known for delivering gripping narratives.

Graphics

The Mario series’ visual style is relatively cartoonish and simplistic. In this regard, Mario Kart World doesn’t push any aesthetic boundaries compared to its predecessor. That’s not to say that Mario Kart World’s visuals are identical to those of 2014’s Mario Kart 8. Still images don’t do the newer title justice, as the game needs to be seen in motion. Keeping up a steady 60 fps and taking advantage of a higher resolution, the difference between Mario Kart World and Mario Kart 8 in handheld mode is night and day. There is plenty of visual variety across the different tracks too. A particularly nice touch is that when you’re playing a cup, from the second track on, the environment will actually transition from the previous track into the next. There are also plenty of fun outfits to unlock for the roster of racers, although less prominent characters get a smaller selection of these… or even none at all.

Sound

We’re gonna go out on a limb here and say that Mario Kart World’s soundtrack is the best one that the series has ever gotten. If you’re a long-time Mario fan, then most of it will sound familiar to you, as the tunes are remixed versions of music from games like Super Mario Odyssey and Luigi’s Mansion. The game’s sound effects return from previous games. Voice acting is notably new, owing to the fact that Charles Martinet has effectively retired from voicing Mario and friends. We’ve heard his replacement, Kevin Afghani, in games like Super Mario Bros. Wonder, and it’s clear that he is growing into the role more here.

Gameplay

Over the course of the last few decades, Nintendo managed to perfect the core Mario Kart formula to a tee. If you’re one of the few people reading a game review that somehow never managed to play a round of Mario Kart in their lives, here’s the gist: players pick a racer from a roster of characters from the Mario universe and race against one another over four different tracks filled with all sorts of obstacles. Along the way, racers can pick up items that are mostly used to hinder their opponents. Chaos ensues. Mario Kart World’s main mode sticks to this concept, and unsurprisingly, it absolutely nails this. The tracks have been expertly designed, and with a wide variety of unlockable racers and karts, you’ll find yourself returning to it over and over again. There are other modes supplementing this main attraction, including returning coin- and balloon-based battle modes as well as the all-new Knockout Tour. The latter mode sees you race from checkpoint to checkpoint over six interconnected tracks, with the last four racers being eliminated at the end of each track.

Hiding in the title of the game is Mario Kart World’s other big feature: this is an open world game. Surprisingly, the open world mode, called Free Roam, is somewhat tucked away on the game’s menu. Hitting + on the main screen takes you to Free Roam. In this mode, you can of course freely explore the different race tracks, both from the different cups and from Knockout Tour. This lets you discover shortcuts and secrets at your leisure, or practice particularly tricky track parts. However, the real fun comes when you go off-track. Mario Kart World’s open world is filled with different secrets and challenges. Challenges are short, time-based trials where you’ll need to reach a specific point within a set time limit. Some of these can be surprisingly tricky, and anyone looking to unlock every possible thing in Mario Kart World has their time cut out for them, even if most unlockables are purely cosmetic.

That seamlessly takes us to Mario Kart World’s multiplayer, because decking out your chosen racer in a rare or hard-to-get outfit does count for bragging rights. We feel like we’ve only barely dipped our toes in Mario Kart World’s multiplayer (or even in Mario Kart World in general). Still, we’re happy to say that despite an enormous influx of new Switch 2 owners, our online experience was seamless. Mario Kart World is a perfect game to give the Switch 2’s Game Chat Feature a run too, although that is perhaps a tangent best left for another article. The point is that Nintendo nailed things with this one.

That said, there still is an $80 elephant in the room: is Mario Kart World worth its price tag? If you got the game bundled with the console, saving you a cool 50% compared to RRP, we’d say yes. We understand the argument for opting for a physical copy of the game instead, but Mario Kart World is the kind of game that’s always going to be somewhat reliant on an online component, meaning that any cartridge version is doomed to be incomplete anyway. Historically, Mario Kart games have always been evergreens on any platform too, and we expect Mario Kart World to camp in the top 10 best-selling Switch 2 games continuously throughout the console’s life span.

Even with the new modes, the game feels fairly light on core content, mostly because of the sheer number of tracks that Mario Kart 8 had at the end of its lifespan. We fully expect that Mario Kart World will see new content being added over the next few years, including missing fan-favourite characters like Diddy Kong and Link. Given the game’s price tag, though, we’d expect any DLC to be free or at least included with an NSO-subscription, which is what you’d need to play the game online anyway. Time will tell.

Conclusion

It’s still early days, both for the Switch 2 and Mario Kart World. While we expect Nintendo to further flesh out the game over the coming years, adding more tracks, vehicles, and characters, you’re already getting a solid entry in the series here. If you picked up a Switch 2 last week, then there’s a good chance you already bit the bullet on the game anyway. If you’re still on the fence or if you happened to pick up the console without the pack-in version, then we’re going to recommend going for the game anyway. Mario Kart World is the first of hopefully many must-haves on the Switch 2.

SebastiaanRaats

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