Should Mario Kart have more expanded single player content?

Ray Trace

Ray Trace

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As of currently, all Mario Kart entries are stuck with Grand Prix, Vs Mode, Time Trial, and Battle Mode, and it has been this way since Super Mario Kart. Personally, I found it on the barebones side of things, with not much stuff to do for the single player other than race on cups for all cc's over and over and over again.

The most I want to ask for is like, a simple career or story mode where you're out doing certain tasks, taking large inspiration from Sonic & All-Stars Racing and Team Sonic Racing. I'm aware we've had a Mission Mode for Mario Kart DS that is a bit similar to the concept, but I find it extremely restricted (you're forced to be stuck with a character and kart rather than pick your character and kart) and it serves as a side mode anyway that actually doesn't unlock any content outside of the mode. Instead of most things just being unlocked randomly like in Mario Kart 8 or 7, they can tie costumes or kart parts behind the mode. Oh, and the thing with this single player mode is that you can play it with multiple people, so in a multiplayer-oriented racer, that at least gives people with local friends something to do rather than wait for their friends to finish the game. Have a traffic attack mode too so people will learn how brutal that mode is lol.

They could also do a full-fledged hub world with locales to drive to like Diddy Kong Racing or Crash Team Racing. It was always fun driving around and finding secrets and what not, but that means they have to design a good one in order to make that interesting rather than just busy work from point A to point B.

Game doesn't need a complicated story, but I think a story would be at least somewhat entertaining for people who like dumb plots like those in Mario Party. Probably can just introduce an OC that hosts the races so at the very least Bowser can be playable in the single player mode (and give excuse for characters to have extended dialogue in the game, think the Mario Baseball titles). Would also give them incentive to introduce boss races and battles, like in the non-sequitur SM64DS bosses in Mario Kart DS but at least have a reason behind their appearance. Idk, I just want to like, bash or race the various bosses from various Mario games such as Gobblegut or tossing bombs against Mechawiggler in a New Donk City race track or something.
 
Yeah, it sounds like a good idea.
 
I've played Kart Riders when it was new in US, they had pretty much everything you're talking about and it was great! Mario Kart should definitely do this.

In Kart Riders the plot was pretty much the characters having fun preparing for the Grand Prix and challenging each other to random stuff after the Grand Prix. I think if Mario Karts story mode was like that with the addition of creative kart minigames like in DS it'd be so good
 
Definitely something I wouldn't mind, even would welcome, actually. But I find the core-gameplay of Mario Kart to be just what I need to fully enjoy it, but to each their own.
 
Yes.
 
I'm in favour of a strange story just to provide a degree of reason to play through, and also because it's fun to see how a Mario Kart story will go.

Thank you for reading.
 
I think a Mario Kart story with similarities to the Mario Baseball games, especially Super Sluggers, would be great. Imagine traveling worlds, recruiting racers as you partake on challenges, and racers have unique dialogue when you interact with them. Wario and Waluigi can partake in a duel race in their stadium while you're Mario and Luigi is your teammate. For that, though, you'll need to start as Mario, and work your way into adding more characters to your roster.

Then you can finally race against that evil motorbike.
 
Redshift said:
I think a Mario Kart story with similarities to the Mario Baseball games, especially Super Sluggers, would be great. Imagine traveling worlds, recruiting racers as you partake on challenges, and racers have unique dialogue when you interact with them. Wario and Waluigi can partake in a duel race in their stadium while you're Mario and Luigi is your teammate. For that, though, you'll need to start as Mario, and work your way into adding more characters to your roster.

Then you can finally race against that evil motorbike.
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and then a dark version of a motorbike appears and then they team up and try and kill you.
SOUND FAMILIAR?
 
BlueFire said:
Honestly, that's the main thing I would like to see in a future Mario Kart game.
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I used to be fine with Mario Kart's single player content until I played Sonic & All-Stars Transformed, Crash Team Racing Nitro Fueled, and Team Sonic Racing and realized how utterly barren and bare-minimum it actually is. I feel like the industry leader in the kart racing genre can do much better. Hell, it HAD done much better, in its implementation of Mission Mode that it neglected to return in future Mario Karts but expanded and improved on.
 
While it would be nice, I see no reason for it to be added. Mario Kart is endlessly replayable, but a Story Mode won't add that much to the replay value of the game. Would it be cool to have a story based off Kingdom Hearts where Leo Luster is the main villain? Absolutely! Will I play it after completing it on the hardest difficulty? No.

I think the best way to do this is more ways to race. Transformed had boost races, where there's more boost panels but no items, and battle races, where each racer has three hit points and they'll be knocked out of the race in the lowest remaining place if they lose all of them. CTR and DKR had the CTR challenge and Silver Coin challenge respectively, where the player must collect all of the collectibles in a stage and place first. CTGP-R (a mod of Mario Kart Wii) has Countdown, a mode where players have a limited amount of time but gain more time if they hit other players with items. Modes like this could give players more ways to play the game, and as most of them could be implemented into multiplayer and online with little to no changes, it would give players a good reason to play them.

I do understand your point, and would like for there to be more single player content, but I don't think it would add much to the game and its replay value.
 
It's only endlessly replayable if you get enjoyment out of doing the tournaments over and over again.

If you don't and multiplayer doesn't entertain you much, not much of a reason to even buy the game.
 
I disagree that Mario Kart is endlessly replayable especially after a certain threshold of skill. Mario Kart relies on first-time novelty that you'll never experienceagain, and there's item management, and the mot difficult thing about it is following a good racing line and knowing the shortcuts (imo straightforward in a lot of Mario Karts), which is very basic, especially if you compare to other racing games, which tend to have other modes on top such as a career mode. I mean if you're new, working from 50cc up to more difficult speeds sounds okay, though highly repetitive, but if you find 150cc to be easy, then the next Mario Karts have even less steam to burn on in the single player mode, which is already reliant on repetition to hold your attention. Before kart parts, there was barely any semblance of progression, the unlockables were goddamn barren, as most kart racers give you a wide variety of parts and paint jobs to incentivize playing. But even with kart parts, all the goals just amount to repetitive racing and maybe battling. There has to be more goals than just "place first" or "collect coins". Mission Mode did show potential for expansion, but that never got anywhere, did it?

Additionally, I never found the online to ever be fun as well as the amount of items that can destroy you, the glaring lack of bots, and especially the emphasis on the beginning of the race, it all makes it way too chaotic to feel like you're challenged if you do manage a full race. Anyhow, I stick to mostly offline play, and it's as barebones as it gets. People rip on Ultra Smash for having not much to do.
 
I guess one way to spice up single player mode with a story is to give like a simple plot for each character. Like say, Mario is racing simply because he wants to prove his skills. Wario is in it for the money, Waluigi wants recognition, etc. The player's final placement for each cup and the engine class it was completed on determines how a potential "award ceremony cutscene" will play.
 
JBX9001 said:
I guess one way to spice up single player mode with a story is to give like a simple plot for each character. Like say, Mario is racing simply because he wants to prove his skills. Wario is in it for the money, Waluigi wants recognition, etc. The player's final placement for each cup and the engine class it was completed on determines how a potential "award ceremony cutscene" will play.
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Awards ceremony cutscenes. That's a phrase I haven't seen in such a bloody long time. Thanks Mario Tennis Aces for doing the bare minimum.
 
Redshift said:
Awards ceremony cutscenes. That's a phrase I haven't seen in such a bloody long time. Thanks Mario Tennis Aces for doing the bare minimum.
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Yeah, while the Zone Shot and Zone Speed techniques were really cool and the Story Mode was decent for what it was... After that, not much you can do as a single player (had a lot of fun playing with my brother though).
 
Twirlerena said:
I would like to play through a story mode with Waluigi.
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Final Race: Get a consistent first place streak on GP vs Luigi on the Luigi courses. Rub it in Luigi's face!
 
I think it should have something similar to Diddy Kong Racing or Crash Team Racing. I'd love to see a Chase HQ and or Outrun (maybe some Turbo Outrun) like mode
 
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