Looking at the pros and cons of Mario Kart World, two months later

Mario Kart World was the Nintendo Switch 2’s big headlining launch title, and it’s already enjoyed a great deal of financial success so far. Up until now, it’s sold somewhere around 5,630,000 copies – a tremendous number for an all-new console. Things haven’t been smooth sailing for Mario Kart World the whole way through, however – it’s received some criticism and backlash thanks to a couple of odd decisions from Nintendo, and now a good chunk of players have moved on from the game. In other words, Mario Kart World’s “new toy syndrome” has worn off – which has left some players a bit more critical of the game than when it first released.

So today, we’re taking another look at Mario Kart World two months later. How does it hold up? What stands out as its current strengths and weaknesses? We also invite you to share your thoughts with us in the comments down below.

For one, it’s tough to talk about Mario Kart World without bringing up Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Though that game isn’t perfect either, it’s as close to perfect as a Mario Kart game could be: plenty of characters, tons of courses, and solid and satisfying gameplay. With that said, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe saw numerous content updates. The original Mario Kart 8 game on Wii U received its own DLC packs, and the Nintendo Switch port went on to receive a whole bunch of new tracks to play on as well as a few new characters. It’s important to note that Nintendo recently stated that it plans to maintain Mario Kart World’s momentum – that could mean anything, but it seems clear that content updates for the games are planned eventually. At the time of writing, Mario Kart World hasn’t received any additional content, so the most accurate comparison we could make here is to base Mario Kart 8 on Wii U. In that regard, Mario Kart World definitely has a leg up. 

One of Mario Kart World’s strengths is its roster. Historically, recent Mario Kart games haven’t had great character lineups. Mario Kart 8’s headlining newcomers were the Koopalings, Pink Gold Peach, and Baby Rosalina, with the latter two being some of the most unpopular additions in the franchise’s history. Mario Kart 7 excluded many notable characters from the roster, including Waluigi, Bowser Jr., and Diddy Kong (who was also absent from Mario Kart 8 and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on launch). Its own headlining newcomers were Metal Mario, Lakitu, Honey Queen, and Wiggler, which are a step up from Mario Kart 8’s newcomers but could still be better. For being a base roster with no DLC, Mario Kart World has a good bit of options and variety. Most of the main characters are here, for one – Bowser Jr. and Pauline are available from the start rather than being saved for DLC. Mario Kart World also doubles down on its “world” theme by making plenty of background characters that appear in Mario’s world playable. You can finally play as a Goomba for the first time in Mario Kart history, and there are other niche picks like Sidestepper, Pokey, Cheep Cheep, Dolphin, the Cow, and the Snowman.

On one hand, you could argue that a bunch of boring enemy characters aren’t enticing newcomers, and that’s a fair assessment to an extent. That said, I think it’s a step up from Mario Kart 8, where the Koopalings served as the only true non-clone newcomers to the series. Though each Koopaling is unique, they have very similar color schemes and body types. With Mario Kart World’s enemy characters, each one is extremely unique – the Koopalings do have some merit as characters, but I personally prefer a wide range of newcomers like Coin Coffer and Fish Bone – even if they are enemy characters.

Even a few months later, it’s still clear that tons of care was put into Mario Kart World’s animations, graphics, and music. After putting a good amount of time in, you’ll have seen most of the character animations, so the novelty of “wow, this character looks so much better than in Mario Kart 8” does wear off after a bit. That said, the music remains one of the most memorable parts of the game to me. Mario Kart World’s soundtrack is absolutely incredible, and I think years down the line it’s going to be part of what keeps this game on the map. Some of my favorite tracks are Space Junk Galaxy, the opening theme of Yoshi’s Island, and the fourth lap of Rainbow Road. As someone who’s collected all of the P-Switches, Peach Medallions, and Question-Mark Panels in Free Roam, the mode doesn’t have as much value to me anymore – but sometimes, when the title screen is playing a track I like, I chill out in Free Roam for a bit to listen to it.

That brings me into my next point – Free Roam is definitely cool. The open world is definitely well-designed. However, the lack of things to do in it definitely isn’t going to age well. Like I just said, I did go out of my way to obtain every single collectible in the game. If you add up every P-Switch, Peach Medallion, and Question-Mark Panel, you’ve got a total of 744 things to collect – and no way to track them. Nintendo did update the game to tell you when you’ve collected everything, but still has not added a formal tracking system just yet. That’s another aspect of Free Roam that isn’t going to age well if it goes unchanged. I think the absolute best thing Mario Kart World could have done is make the NPC drivers unlockable via Free Roam – for instance, unlock one random character after 30 P-Switch missions, another after 90 missions, and so on. They could even have made exclusive P-Switch missions – imagine finding Dolphin in the overworld next to a P-Switch and if you beat him in a race, you unlock him. That would be a much better system than the silly Kamek Orb one we have right now. That’s yet another aspect of the game that likely isn’t going to age well – unlocking NPC drivers is far too random and time-consuming. You can speed up the process somewhat by playing a local multiplayer match and farming item boxes over again… but if that’s what you have to resort to to unlock characters, something’s wrong.

What keeps me coming back to Mario Kart World, however, is the gameplay. More specifically, the skill expression. If you practice for long enough, you can show off in ways that simply aren’t possible in any other Mario Kart game. Charging up jumps, clinging to walls, and then doing a bunch of tricks off the wall is always incredibly satisfying. Online matches are challenging, but when you finally pull ahead and get first place, it’s a great feeling. Nintendo recently released an update that makes standard three-lap courses a little bit more common, but you’ll still be playing intermissions a good chunk of the time. I don’t think the intermissions are that bad, to be honest, but it’d be great if Nintendo would allow players to play their game the way they want. An online mode that only includes three-lap courses would probably be incredibly popular and get people playing more often. 

That leads us into the track design, which for the most part, is pretty good. Most of them are fairly memorable, and some of my favorites are Rainbow Road, Airship Fortress, DK Spaceport, and Great ? Block Ruins. There are a few questionable inclusions here, though – Desert Hills and Koopa Troopa Beach were adapted well for what they were, but they’re inherently not very interesting courses. Desert Hills is just about as “generic desert” as you can get, and while Koopa Troopa Beach has cool aesthetics, it’s five laps of what is essentially a giant circle. Not terrible, but not great either. That’s okay though, because not every Mario Kart course can be a winner. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe had its fair share of weak tracks – MK7 Toad Circuit, GBA Sky Garden, and some of the Tour tracks are often cited as below-average.

To sum up my assessment of Mario Kart World these days: it’s a great game held back by some really weird decisions. Free Roam should’ve included substantial unlockables beyond stickers, online play should give you more options to play how you want, and characters shouldn’t be gated behind the Kamek Orb in any way. But the game has excellent mechanics, a fantastic soundtrack, and tons of personality. In spite of its clear flaws, I think Mario Kart World is in a great position if it gets content updates in the future.

Are you still playing Mario Kart World two months later? Do you find it just as addictive as it was on day one, or have you kind of fallen off and switched to other games instead? Feel free to let us know in the comments down below.