Mario Kart World

@Tepig LOL I'm excited for a Switch 2 this Christmas because I don't even have a Switch 1. How lame is that? šŸ¤£
 
So I took my time and watched the direct and....my current expectations for this game have not changed.

Here's a picture of Baby Luigi looking completely adorable! Look at him! He has a helmet that has the word BABY on the back of it! He looks so adorable! I love him!

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Anyway, now you saw this picture of how cute Baby Luigi is, be prepared, going to unload some of my (mostly negative) thoughts on this game.

  • Rewind was a feature I did suggest before (which tells me Nintendo developers DO pay attention to what goes on in other racing games) and while I'm glad Nintendo put that in, there is no need to penalize the player for using it, as it's an accessibility feature meant for newer, struggling players. It's usable only in free roam and solo modes anyway, so why have it penalize you? When Forza did it, it reset literally everything before your screw up; the penalty for enabling rewind in Forza btw was less rewards when you win races, and it's one out of many accessibility options the game has. And Forza is literally the type of game meant for more *core* video game players than this!
  • The Free Roam isn't the worst thing but it seems to fall into the pretty common trap of having repetitive busywork to justify the open world. You can complete P Switch challenges, drive to a designated checkpoint within a time limit, find hidden medallions and ? Panels (there may be more than that), but unless there's a huge variety of these, this will get repetitive very quickly. It's fun to tackle these with a friend, of course, it's why I like Dynasty Warriors 9. But, the problem with Free Roam is simply that Mario Kart isn't built to have these sprawling open worlds; the reason they can work well in games like Forza and Burnout is because there's a much higher sense of speed and bulkiness in the cars, while here, Mario Kart always has tighter, constrained tracks meant for slower speeds, with trickier turns. The in-between segments and open world very work against Mario Kart's slower speed.
  • The character select screen UI is hot garbage. I don't want to scroll through pages of characters just to pick Worker Baby Luigi. Why aren't the alt costumes grouped together under the character you picked....? Who designed this UI????
  • Battle Mode looks to be very fun (probably the strongest aspect of Mario Kart, it outdoes its competition in that department because again, the slower, more manuervable karts work in its favor), but only Balloon Battle and Coin Runners? Why did the other battles get cut? I do like having the option to set four teams but it's kinda pointless to do this if I can't customize who is in what team and what kind of costumes they'll wear.
  • The roster cuts are abysmal, period. Nintendo is selling this game for 80 dollars, there is absolutely no excuse for this. If Nintendo wants to charge 80 dollars for this pedigree for their games, very well, I'll compare it to other games in that price range, namely Forza Horizon 5 and its 890 cars.
  • Once again VS mode has terrible customization options. Are they going to return item switch or not? Because if they don't return custom item switch, that'll be a massive disappointment.
  • The sticker customization is some of the worst types of car customization ever. I'd rather have the ability to, I don't know, change the vehicle's color than slap some tiny decal on some designated part of the car.
  • The new characters scream "we are operating under a heavy time deficit and constrained budget, so we're just gonna throw a snowman on a kart" than an actual conscious decision to include them. They're barely posed and animated, and guess what? It's also convienient that characters like Rocky Wrench don't need voice actors, right?
  • I like the ability to do a super hop and wall driving, looks fun.
  • All new items look very underwhelming, especially the Ice Flower being just a reskinned Fire Flower.
  • 30 fps in four player splitscreen isn't that big of a deal, it's always been like this, I'm not expecting them to always run at 60, four player splitscreen is extremely taxing on the system, especially when there are 24 racers and a massive world.
This is not a next gen game. This is not what I expect the next entry from a series that sold 70 million copies to look like. It's still horrendous that they choose to make you pay 80 dollars for a rather standard entry in the Mario Kart series with some extra gimmicks and the novelty of a free roam mechanic that looks very half-baked. The free roam doesn't make this game ambitious at all. Nor do the characters they added.

The direct in of itself wasn't too bad. I don't have time to parse through multiple treehouse footage so it nicely summarizes it. But Nintendo hyping the game up that they exclaim you can play as Mario and Luigi and the other fuckwad regulars is pretty much indicative of how Nintendo treats their audience: like you're an idiot, you'll buy this game regardless, fuck you, pay 80 dollars, and fuck you for expecting this game will ever drop in price.

So much of my criticism wouldn't be that applicable had they charged 60 dollars for this. But here we are, and this is me comparing this to other games much more content rich and have a better bang for your buck.
 
I think one of the biggest concerns about Mario Kart World right now is one of its biggest selling points (Knockout Tour) not giving you the option to create your own custom rally. The 8 rallies that we've seen can end up turning very stale once you get down all the routes and hazards.
 
Yoshis can finally have clothes again! After Tennis Aces and Golf Open Tour said "No cute outfits for you!" I was worried.
 
Fizzle said:
@MnSG While VS Races let you map paths to another course unlike Grand Prix, they should make an option to make a Knockout Tour Rally in VS, where Checkpoints are set places between and on tracks. (I was going to say you could do this already, but I was confusing GP in VS and KOT)
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Yeah, it just feels like a missed opportunity if it's not unlockable, or if it doesn't get added with software updates.
 
All right. *clicks pen* Time to get to business.
  • $80 game... honestly a weird thing to jump to after having only one game(?) prior that was $70. I sure hope this isn't the trend, but time will tell I guess. For what its worth, everyone's gonna get the bundle with the Switch 2 anyway... if the scalpers don't get it first.
  • Despite everyone's best efforts to assuage me, I have not seen any confirmation that traditional 3-lap courses are a thing (EDIT: in Versus Mode, forgot to clarify that). Traditional 3-lappers for Grand Prix? Yeah. Traditional however-many-lappers for Knockout Tour? Yep. But for plain old VS mode, only vague hints. Unless I missed something.
  • People complaining about rewind are super petty lol
  • The costume situation is... weird. To put it lightly. I kinda knew from the start that not everyone would have 10 costumes (despite everyone's optimism), but I couldn't expect even this. Some characters only having one alt? The Baby Princesses having more costumes than the other Baby characters? The rather obvious Tour alts getting left behind? This whole thing reeks of incomplete.
  • Everyone else has said about as much as I would like to say about the character select screen. Though I will say, why is it seemingly in a vertical sort? That's super weird.
  • "NEW ITEMS!" *4 of them are returning*
  • Still thinking of the Treehouse gameplay where the shell collision got screwed up
  • I will defend Cow to the end.
Anyway, I'm running out of things I want to say. I'm probably not getting this Day 1 (then again, I never do except for PokƩmon Moon and Super Mario Bros. Wonder) but I will have to wait and see if opinions get better or worse. We shall see, indeed.
 
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I don't think they showed off all costumes, seems weird to have Baby Mario have this awesome swimwear and leave Baby Luigi out of it.
 
I love a bit of Mario Kart. Haven't played since Mario Kart 8 on the Wii U as I had been hoping that the Switch 1 would get its own unique Mario Kart. Shame that never happened but glad that Switch 2 is getting a new Mario Kart at launch.

Love the open world thing they are going for. I think this looks set to be the best Mario Kart; I really like the free roam concept, and 24 racers sounds like it will be even more chaotic than normal.
 
Hey wait a minute... Batadons and the other ones (I nicknamed them Scutters and can't remember their real names oops) are supposed to be Easton denizens. What are they doing in a desert? Are they tourists?
 
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