Thread by @TheHylian64

After long sessions with Mario Kart World, I can confidently say that the end result wasn't what many expected.
This game is really unorthodox, and I truly believe most reviewers out there won't fully grasp what this game is going for. It is even being unfortunately subject to discourse and reaction engagement that stems from things outside of the game itself. But, despite everything, this is a BotW moment for MK, from a design standpoint and for how much it roots itself in tradition to build something entirely new. Even if the review scores won't reflect that. (1/?)

I should preface the rest of this critical overview by making it clear to folks who don't know me that I'm in no way, shape or form a brand loyalist. I can't believe I have to say this in 2025, but we still live in an age where console warriors exist and controversy fodder is sought after like we're in a gold rush. Regardless of my taste and online alias, I'm no stranger to criticizing Nintendo titles, including high caliber ones like Zelda TotK. Company practices and other duds are also things I'm well aware of, but my concern here is purely addressing the work on its own, its proposed goals, and how well it achieves them. There will be praise here, but criticism won't be absent. (2/?)

As a longtime fan, even a competitive player in the Wii days, it blew my mind how deep and technical the mechanics are. It's surprisingly hard to master the controls.
Drifting is not the only core asset to movement anymore. It doesn't even work like it used to. The game demands you to rely on new trick options to optimize the game to its fullest potential. This is seen especially with the challenges seen in Free Roam, but I'm getting ahead of myself (3/?)

Wall riding, charge jumping, the smart use of rails and environmental tools to extend boosts and momentum, active aiming of attack items by shifting camera angles by the player, these are all clearly the meat of the gameplay redesign and a serious evolution to the MK gameplay formula. People have no clue how different it is until they play it for themselves. Some may say it's still Mario Kart, and they are right, but trying to play this game like previous MKs won't get you far. And the courses are made precisely with that mind. (4/?)
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Moving to track design, MKW continues the trend from MK8 of providing truly original and spectacular concepts and options for multiple pathways that push skill and creativity.
New courses are really inspired, like Cheep Cheep Falls, and remakes of old courses are really strong, like N64 Wario Stadium. It's a strong selection of courses, one of the best so far. (5/?)

The visual direction is superb. They managed to create a world with more cartoony and stylized designs and textures, mixing with some realistic effects that feel like a mix of MK8 and MKWii's styles. In fact, in some ways it can come off as if MK64's visual direction was made using modern technology. The colors already pop out from the conscious use of HDR, and they really tried to make a cohesive colorful world with great visual effects. Bowser's Castle, for example, looks amazing. Oldies like Airship Fortress are also a joy to look at. (6/?)

The reinterpretations of some past tracks also bring a surprising sense of continuity, while rooting them better with mainline iconography and lands.
While some overworld tracks are said to be tributes, like Choco Island, there is a clear theme of settlements changing mainline courses we've raced in the past as civilization progressed. So you have cases like Desert Hills where landmarks were reforged and buildings being built and renovated. Or, you have Dino Dino Jungle, where a once lost temple in the middle of a natural formation gave way to a high tech research facility studying the region and dinosaur life. (7/?)

Of all these cases, perhaps the course that this concept of continuity is most strongly encompassed would be N64 Choco Mountain. It went from an uninhabited natural formation on N64 going into the first settlements for mining seen in MK8, ending with an industrial undertaking in World. It's really surprising seeing these things in MK of all places. (8/?)

The biggest highlight for track design has to be the use of the open world to its favor, and this is where the design change is the strongest. Up until now, each course has been its isolated separate area. World makes everything connected. And so, driving to each course is part of the race experience that defines this game. This fundamental formula change is exactly the kind of evolution that is clearly extrapolating from the past, but it'll also cause some pushback from fans who are only open to the kind of experience they've had up until 8, much like BotW's spin on the Zelda formula and the fan reaction to that. (9/?)

What many reviewers I've seen and even YT channels and commenters here haven't shown much appreciation for is how the open world's interconnectivity forced courses to be even more intricately designed, given the need to approach it from multiple angles. This means there are different layers of each major track that will be accessible depending on the grand prix, knockout tour, or customized versus race the player chooses. We aren't just talking about how all tracks work inherently in reverse without the addition of environmental tools like Mario Kart Tour has done years ago, but also how there are different paths that can be explored specifically because of this design choice. (10/?)

The highlight races in World aren't simply 3 laps on a course and move on to the next course under that same structure. You now have a long stretch between courses, ending on a single lap in the course of destination. This encompasses a different kind of chaos racing and musical experience that normal courses don't provide. And it's way more engaging and fun than what the demos and Directs showed. With the mechanics and the constant threat from traffic and hazards, it's a new type of fun that feels new, but still incredibly Mario Kart. (11/?)

If there is any major proof of how the concept of open world serves races rather than the opposite, Knockout Tour is pretty much the second biggest mode in the game, and easily one of the most substantial new experiences being offered. It's a last-man-standing marathon that takes the world layout to its full advantage. The standard GP experience is not comparable to what this stretch offers. And this is only possible with a connected world. (12/?)

Connecting the world in itself is also an amazing feat considering the wide range of areas and concepts each course aims for. Making the transition between areas work coherently is no simple task, but they really pulled it off here. Both in races and Free Roam, it's all really natural, which can be a bit unbelievable even looking at the world map like this. You can also see this discussed in the Ask The Developer interviews, it took a good while to make this work for the entire world. (13/?)

Rainbow Road truly deserves highlight for its role in this game. In a game where the world and musical experience blatantly celebrates over 40 years of history, it is surprisingly emotional how it all builds up to what might be the greatest course ever made. It is truly epic in scope and presentation, the journey and experience reaching this higher realm and finding it in the world is unlike anything seen in the series. People may think they know Rainbow Road from previous titles and imagine what this is like. You don't. Its design is stellar, and it hits like a truck if you have any history with this series. They really ended this game on an extremely high note. This ending will be remembered for years to come. And the way they kept Mirror Mode in the game was beyond charming, a surprisingly rewarding goal with a love letter to Super Mario 64 on top of it. (14/?)

Speaking of celebrating history, much like Breath of the Wild, Mario Kart World has been stated by its developers to be an appeal to its roots, the original Super Mario Kart, aiming to recapture its sense of joy and art style, and it really shows. The love put into this game and the IP's history shows in the effort put into the world and content. You'll find dozens of ? panels that were the original forms of acquiring items in SMK. You'll find dozens of stickers and material paying tribute to the original game, with courses gaining tributes of their own that can only be found in overworld exploration. (15/?)

But what makes Mario Kart World even more special in its reverence to history is that it doesn't just concern itself with the Mario Kart series, but rather, it focuses on celebrating the entire web of the Super Mario universe's mainline series. The extensive cast covering even mainline enemies and NPCs is already a testament to this, but it all goes much harder when taking music into account. This game's soundtrack covers not just the entire Mario Kart history, but it also goes from mainline Mario games and spinoffs handled by EPD, to the Yoshi, Wario, and Luigi's Mansion series. (16/?)

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Now, back to the review thread you're here for.

Since I spoke about music, I might as well cover what is probably a huge part of the beating heart of Mario Kart World. The series already had a strong reputation for compositions over the decades, but MK8 was the game that cemented the IP's impact in the musical world beyond just the gaming landscape. It became culturally influential. Nintendo would even include its musical catalogue even in concerts of the mainline Mario series. Its appeal to big band orchestras that revived a lot of the musical heritage of the golden age of American music in 20th century spawned a huge following for the series on that pillar alone. It is not uncommon to find people who were saying how much they were looking forward to Mario Kart World for its music as well. (17/?)

I don't think anyone's expectations were quite ready for the scale of what Mario Kart World offers. The musical selection is not only far more extensive covering decades' worth of history and games from multiple series, but the tracks themselves are some of the best arrangements of past pieces seen in the medium. The quality of the performances are beyond stellar. Which is why one of the very few "problems" the game really has is the lack of a proper sound test where the player can select the music they want to hear. Maybe this was intentional, trying to make the music experience be more like a radio station, but I'm getting ahead of myself. (18/?)

Perhaps the most mind-blowing thing about it is that the vast majority of the score is recorded live. There are, no joke, over two hundred music tracks in this game's soundtrack. As someone who has worked with people in orchestras and knows about recording costs, the idea of it being mostly live in this scale is something that I can assure you would warrant really high budgets to compensate. It's very expensive to hire orchestras and freelance talents like they did here. Those of you into Japanese concerts will recognize familiar faces here. While the dev time dating back to 2017 can partially explain the price hike for its budget, the investment on this much live recorded content is definitely something to also consider, and it's something I don't see anyone really talk about when discussing MKW's price tag. This is precisely why you see a game like Final Fantasy VII Rebirth hyping its soundtrack having the same amount of tracks as MKW, yet the final product is mostly using synths and artificial orchestras while live recordings comprise less than half of the OST. It's a pricey endeavour, but in MKW's case it's an initiative that paid off. I don't think there's any soundtrack quite like this. It might be the best soundtrack Nintendo has ever produced. In some ways it makes me wonder how fair it is to award it the best score of the year, given how much old material is being used, but the arrangements are so high quality with a character of their own that it makes me think there's a solid case for it. If FFVII Remake and Rebirth got awarded for best scores despite being primarily FFVII's tracks with only a handful of new compositions, MKW might have some space in that regard. (19/?)

Atsuko Asahi reprises her role from Mario Kart 8, working as musical director and arrangement lead for Mario Kart World. There is good reason she was included in the Ask the Developer interviews. Rarely are musical directors placed there. And this was the case because MKWorld's identity and brilliance is also heavily owed to her work. It was important, according to her, that they nailed the impact on the player driving riding as the plethora of arrangements from the past plays in the background. The use of transitional music is also not to be understated, it really sold the experience of going from one course to another. Her vision was paramount for this work's quality. (20/?)

The arrangements of the plethora of past compositions mainly play in intermission tracks, which already give those types of courses their own flair, but this musical direction really shines in Free Roam. In many ways, this is what Asahi called the jukebox effect, and it plays as a radio-like experience where you drive around for the sheer fun of it in these gorgeous places. This is a specially resonating idea for people who lived in an age before ease of access to favorite music and when said music playing in radios was also an event in itself. This is a part of MKW I think most will miss or not appreciate. Half of Free Roam's appeal really is just the fun in driving around peacefully on these roads and natural environments in day and night. All of this while listening to some of your favorite music and just having fun with the new mechanics to do fun stunts and reach places races don't allow for. This might sound self-fulfilling and overly simple, but the goal and fun of it really is there. (21/?)

I genuinely have to wonder where this peculiar taste came from within Nintendo. Masahiro Sakurai famously talked about this exact appeal irl, maybe he or Yabuki, the MKW producer, planted the seed for someone to have this be a feature in the game. It seems to be a common hobby for some folks with nice cars to find entertainment in literally just driving around to soothing places with incredible music accompanying their journey. This experience isn't quite mainstream or easily communicated for a game like this, but it should be clear how this is one of the major goals for this mode, and why open world is a major part of the game's identity. Mario Kart is more than just races now. And after playing it for myself, I genuinely get the appeal. (22/?)

Now that we covered the first half of the appeal of Free Roam, what is the other half?
It would have to be the challenges and secrets to find in the overworld and in the main courses. This is where Mario Kart World goes even further beyond than just being a racing game, turning into a pseudo-platformer where you are met with hundreds of missions to complete. The world is designed in a way you'll always find something to discover or a challenge to complete. Some people online have been claiming the open world is empty, while others say it's overwhelming with things to do. This lack of consensus shows how the way to approach the open world will entirely determine how much you'll find enjoyment here. From my perspective, the missions and collectibles are spread out enough that you have a lot of content that made the map layout worthwhile. But it isn't overwhelming like TotK. (23/?)

If you are familiar with Kirby Air Ride, a cult classic racing game from 2003, and its fan reception, you might be aware of City Trial, a single player mode that was meant to be side-content to the main races but ended up winning the hearts of many. It was a mode where you roam an open environment as you try to search for stat boosters and new vehicles that spawned in unpredictable places throughout a city. In parallel, events would play out to shake the gameplay experience. Free Roam in MKW follows kind of an inverse formula, where the events are constantly available and the main driving force for the single player experience. And I think that, like City Trial, Free Roam will gain a serious cult following. Mark my words. (24/?)

Let's now look at Mario Kart World's open world challenges proper. You have 3 types of objectives that give the world things to do and explore:
- P-Missions.
These are the main source of objectives and challenges around the world. Difficulty varies, but there are a lot of missions that are a lot more challenging than any single player material in the series. These are also fantastic as a means to teach the player the game's mechanics and crazy shortcuts. They most often involve getting blue coins in key positions or reaching a goal within a time threshold, but the variety in how they build these objectives is the impressive part. For example, you have a mission to reach a goal by flying between wings of moving planes like it's Mission Impossible. You also have a race in SMK tribute courses with the same reach-the-goal objective. They're all thematically alligned with the environment you're in. It's basically what the Korok Seeds in BotW and TotK should have been. (25/?)

- Peach Medallions
These are position-based challenges, basically rewards in highlight areas like shrines but are most often rewards for getting to hard-to-reach places like the top of finish line gates or the summit of a high building. These are the challenges that require the most from the player's movement skills and environmental awareness. In some ways, these are the closest to Super Mario's Stars that Mario Kart gets. (26/?)

- ? Panels
These panels are found on the floor or walls in discrete places around the main courses. They are, fundamentally, the exploration-focused challenges. Some are easy to find, others are much harder to get across. These are essentially what make the course design even more intricate and clearly curated, and serve as payoff for what the developers showed hints of in Mario Kart 8: a desire to create a lived-in world with tons of details and appeal to explore. Courses are spaces that could have more to appreciate than just where you race in. And we finally have that realized in Mario Kart World. (27/?)

All of this gives the open world multiple purposes that warrants the game's promotion of its interconnected playground. And here is where I run back to the beginning of this review. Mario Kart World's employment of open world is unorthodox. It doesn't have the main modes serving the open world. It isn't concerned with the standard understanding of what an open world is. It isn't interested in side quests, NPC dialogue, stories or bosses. The point is that the open world is actually the very important basis for other experiences. Like BotW, in many ways, it rethinks open world design, but, differently from BotW, it isn't iterating on established understanding of the genre either. MKW places the open world as a background feature, a behind-the-scenes tool that makes the main show work. It basically adopts the backwards version of open world design. The open world is built around the content, rather than the content being built around the open world, like what is seen in BotW and GTA. (28/?)

If there is one core issue with the execution of the open world, it's the use of the world map. You can keep track of the P-Missions that were completed, as well as the number of ? Panels and Peach Medallions found. However, there is no indication at all on the map of where these things were found. If the player wishes to complete the game, the hunt for where the player hasn't visited yet in a world as large as this becomes 10x more cumbersome. Other open world games use markers on the map to help guide the player to where they probably won't need to revisit. There should be a solution here, and I think it's an issue that a free update could really help fix. (29/?)

The game's title and marketing pushed the open world front and center, and with hindsight it's understandable why they did it. It's precisely the open world that allows the main highlights of the game to work, and the appeal of the world itself is what builds the game's identity. But I think the mainstream notion of open world content may get in the way of what is to be expected here by general audiences. To many today who grew up with open world as this hot button feature that should be the center of attention and the structure that everything else is built to serve, approaching this game this way can cause some serious clashes, sometimes downright dissonance from players. It's an unfortunate situation, but a natural consequence of a work that swims against the current to do something more niche. (30/?)

Of course, this game's non-diegetic context didn't do it favors too. The marketing for the game was a mixed bag. The Nintendo Direct on the game was notoriously underwhelming, basically a presentation made to the most casual consumer who hasn't been following the game, which isn't really the audience watching these presentations. The Ask the Developer interviews did a far better job selling the game and explain better what it's all about. But, as I always say in my YouTube channel, the non-diegetic context regarding a work's creation and the normative design goals it sets for itself will always be the only standards that a work should be judged upon. Playing the game should illustrate what it goes for and what its focus is. (31/?)

Before I move on to the final points, I want to address this issue with MKW that really deserves a heads up from Nintendo. The Character Select menu in this game follows an awful pattern from other high-end EPD titles since Tears of the Kingdom, where you have this low density content on screen that forces you to scroll endlessly to find the thing you want. Mario Kart World makes it worse for itself by featuring costumes for characters as separate slots, so you multiply the available content even further. It's a terrible user experience, and I seriously hope Nintendo cuts this absolutely awful UI direction moving forward. It was terrible in TotK, it was terrible in Echoes of Wisdom, it's terrible here. (32/?)

As a solution to this problem, take inspiration from Mario Kart 8's design direction. I understand that we need to shake things up frequently, but the UI design itself should carry this freshness to it. A game's personality is in the details and visuals, not necessarily radical layout changes. Since we have costumes to highlight while also having the need to show the extremely charming animations, just do the pop up window that MK8DX uses for characters like Yoshi. Here is a mockup made by @Deiji_Zeruda that illustrates this perfectly. (33/?)

When it comes to Battle Mode, it's generally good with some downsides. I very much appreciate the change back to how it was in the original with Balloon Battle rules. Having the player be eliminated if all balloons are out raises stakes much higher compared to how Coin Runners is. World's Battle Mode course design is a mix of OG MK8's design and 8DX's, where they have 2 actual battle arenas, but the other 6 use parts of the main courses to build an arena. It's not lame like OG 8, but it's also a bit sad it doesn't feature more World-original arenas. The way it uses some stages for Battle is quite smart, especially Peach Stadium and Moo Moo Meadows. Those felt like MK64 arenas in scope, verticality, and themes. The really surprising thing here though is the lack of 8 Deluxe's modes beyond Balloon Battle and Coin Runners. While, yes, those two are the most popular Battle options, it sucks that we don't have the Double Dash options like Shine Thief and Bob-Omb Blast. Renegade Roundup is another major loss. I can see an update adding these in, but for all the additions and ambition that MKW provides, it's disappointing how thin Battle Mode came out at launch. (34/?)

Next, I should address something that seems to not be common knowledge out there. People have been incorrectly claiming this game doesn't have a consistent way of identifying when an online course can be selected as a 3 lap course or an intermission into a 1-lap course. The game actually does show you when it's a 3-lap course by not showing dashed lines to your player icon, as seen in the image below. With that said, online experience in general is not much different from 8 Deluxe, which was pretty good all things considered. Of course, there are some features to improve, like being able to create a group of friends online that can then join lobbies with strangers. But the experience is still great, and World seems to handle item interaction through lag better than 8 Deluxe. (35/?)

Now, it's time to address the elephant in the room.
Unfortunately, Mario Kart World drew the world's vitriol the moment it became the first game sold at an USD 80 price, bringing concern, discomfort, and sometimes mindless hate whenever this title was brought up in discourse. The effects of this are felt when looking into a lot of reactions to this game, be it from reviews in the press, be it from social media users. What is a really strong game became subject to a long-winded campaign of misinformation and tribalism that obscured the real qualities and failures this title provided. Add to this the fact that racing games are not treated with the same respect and glamour as an adventure, RPG or shooter get today.
So, is this game worth 80 dollars?
My sincere answer is: it will really depend on what you value. I cannot speak for others, and I think many out there should have the maturity to do the same. I can definitely see the value in this game, there's something incredibly special achieved by Nintendo EPD 9 here. They have reinvented the series, rethought the approach to open world, brought the most mechanically deep and visually striking title to date, and invested absurdly into an almost fully live soundtrack of over 200 compositions covering a long history of IPs. A lot of love was clearly put into this, and there is a lot that worked. I can see this being worth 80 dollars to many, even if it's not really for everyone. (36/?)

In conclusion, Mario Kart World is, in my humble opinion, an unorthodox masterpiece that has space to grow. It has some flaws that can be easily solved with free updates, and those flaws are primarily small in weight next to the importance the game lays on the rest and the achievements that it accomplishes in those areas. There is a very obvious door open for post-launch updates and potential DLC. Donkey Kong content is slim, the character and Pauline both feature only one costume, and the timing with the biggest Nintendo game of the year releasing next month makes it obvious they'll add a wave of new content in MKW. How they'll treat these updates, if they'll monetize it or not after the hefty price tag, remains to be seen. But as a work, right now, I'd rate it a 9.5/10, but it is also one of the most impressive 9.5/10 games I've ever played. With that said, we will only be able to be fully fair with the game's legacy once it reaches its final state. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is a 10/10 game, one of the greatest works of its medium. But that is a result of almost a decade's worth of building content to make it the cultural landmark it became. Mario Kart World has that potential, with its much higher ambitions. It isn't common to find many works of art that reinvent strongly but also do so while fundamentally sticking to its roots. Nintendo managed to successfully do this 8 years ago with Zelda. EPD 9 has finally done so here with their flagship IP, even if not to the same universal praise from the media and gaming community. I can't wait to see what more EPD 9 has to offer, and I hope this game's legacy and reception warms up to what it deserves to get.
Congratulations, @yabukikosuke, for the accomplishments. The fans hope you continue to support this game with the content it deserves to receive. (37/37)