Mario Kart World (NS2) - Review

by Evan Norris , posted on 30 June 2025 / 3,200 Views

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is a tough act to follow. Since 2017, it's been the best racer on the market, and it only got better as time went on thanks to the Booster Course Pass. Emerging from the very long shadow of that game is Mario Kart World, which has the unenviable task of following the previous record-setting installment — the equivalent of a young comedian going on stage after Bill Burr brings the house down — and selling potential buyers on the value of the Switch 2. So, can it hold up to its beloved predecessor? Well, let's just say Nintendo organized the launch of its latest system around Mario Kart World for a reason.

Like earlier games in the franchise, Mario Kart World is a kart racer with approachable controls, forgiving physics, and an arcade sensibility. Across 30+ race tracks you and rival drivers will jostle, attack, and outmaneuver each other for first place. How you do that — whether by deploying offensive items at nearby racers, stockpiling speed-boosting mushrooms to cut corners, drafting behind the leader, sneaking past the competition via a shortcut, or any combination thereof — is entirely up to you.

However, this latest Mario Kart game isn't content to stick only to the core tenets that have served the series well since 1992. And in its search for something more, it completely redefines the size and scope of the IP.

The biggest change to the formula, and the major selling point of Mario Kart World, is an interconnected open world. It's difficult to overstate the importance of this change, because it infiltrates every area of the game (great for those, like me, who love the connectivity and open-air freedom, not-so-great for those yearning for a more traditional experience).

In this world, which seems to go on forever and which benefits from extraordinary production design and a welcoming atmosphere, you can drive virtually anywhere — up mountains, through cities, over deserts, and across the ocean. Since all the game's races take place within this world, the line between track and adjacent space tends to blur, giving the impression that you're on a single continuous journey, albeit with several important, consequential pit-stops along the way. And this impression only becomes more powerful when the dynamic weather conditions and day/night cycle come into play. There's an exciting sensation that you're driving through a world with a past, present, and future.

Players will experience this world in one of several ways. The first, and most prominent, is Grand Prix. This mode — the Mario Kart World equivalent of a campaign — covers eight cups, with four tracks each. However, unlike the typical flow, in which one race ends and the next starts immediately, you will instead depart the preceding track and drive to the next. In the Star Cup, for example, you'll race three laps on DK Pass, then drive through an alpine forest and up a ski slope populated by shredding, snowboarding Shy Guys, before seamlessly transitioning into the starting line for Starview Peak.

These so-called intermission stages change the entire feel of the game. They provide a sense of connectivity and continuity that I didn't even know I wanted in a Mario Kart game. In fact, when going back to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe or earlier franchise installments, it feels like something is missing when one race ends and the other promptly begins. Now, they're not perfect; they're less eventful and more straightforward (literally) than the 32 conventional race tracks. But they help immerse you in the world, bridge the gap between courses, and make each cup feel far more substantial.

Intermission stages are even more crucial in what is perhaps the finest part of Mario Kart World: Knockout Tour. If Grand Prix is a series of back-to-back sprints, then Knockout Tour is a marathon. It's a non-stop, sudden-death cross-country race across six interconnected tracks. Each Tour begins with 24 players and gradually disqualifies those at the back of the pack, until only four remain. It's a test of both driving skill and endurance, and it's one of the best things to happen to Mario Kart in a long time. It's also, arguably, the most suitable platform for the increased player count in the game. Mario Kart World features races with up to 24 participants — the most in the history of the franchise. While this is perfect for Knockout Tour, it's less than ideal for Grand Prix, where the chaos can become overwhelming at times.

Knockout Tour offers eight different configurations to enjoy, but you can't craft your own custom marathon, which is too bad. With hundreds of intermission combinations, many of which go unseen in the mode, there's plenty of room for player customization. Weirdly, though, there are fewer customization options in the game than you'd think, considering its massive size and scope. This is especially true online, where players have only partial control over the type of match. The game would benefit from specific online lobbies for engine class and cup, and the option to reduce, or eliminate altogether, intermission stages, in order to recreate the typical Mario Kart experience. Note: these options do exist in local and wireless matches.

The final way to experience the open world is Free Roam, which is exactly what it sounds like. In this mode, which is available immediately from the home screen, you can drive around the entire world at your leisure, without checkpoints, finish lines, or rival racers. It's a lovely experience that's surprisingly meditative. And it's not entirely aimless. You can pick up dash food to unlock new outfits, hunt for hidden stashes of coins, collect Peach Medallions, or hit P Switches to trigger hundreds of mini-missions. Regrettably, there's no way to determine what percentage of the secrets you've unlocked. If you're a player who strives for 100% completion, you're essentially on your own.

But this is the frustrating reality of Free Roam in Mario Kart World: it's designed around stumbling upon little secrets, not about achievement and progress. Had Nintendo created an organized open world racing adventure with NPCs, quests, and boss battles — something that combines the best parts of Diddy Kong Racing and Breath of the Wild — the company would have a game-of-all-time contender on its hands. As it stands, Free Roam is a liberating, leisurely addition that doesn't reach its full potential.

In addition to Grand Prix, Knockout Tour, and Free Roam, Mario Kart World offers Time Trials and Battle Mode, the second of which covers two distinct types: Balloon Battle and Coin Runners. Balloon Battle, a fixture of Mario Kart where racers attempt to pop balloons attached to opponents and in the process eliminate them from the competition, is as fun and hectic as ever. Coin Runners, in which racers scatter across the map to collect golden coins, is fine but less exciting. It's probably the most dispensable offering in the game.

All these modes wouldn't mean much without the fundamentals: controls, driving mechanics, and physics. Luckily, the programmers at Nintendo put as much thought into the moment-to-moment racing in Mario Kart World as they did its vast open world and all the touch points therein. In fact, they've tweaked the feel of things considerably. Everything is weightier and less "skaty", for lack of a better word; and your vehicle interacts with the ground and the space around it more dynamically. Drifting and mini-turbos, a recipe for success in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, are less effective here, in part because it's relatively difficult to make micro-adjustments on the fly. It's more about drafting (which has been buffed considerably) and using the new Charge Jump to dodge attacks, jump onto rails to grind, and chain together wall-rides. The skill ceiling is higher here than in your average kart racer.

The result of these changes is that players who've logged dozens of hours in Mario Kart on WiiU and Switch will find themselves off their game, at least at first. In the immortal words of Yoda, "you must unlearn what you have learned." It's weirdly refreshing, after more than a decade of Mario Kart 8, to feel a little lost.

Once you've adjusted to the new feel and flow of the game, you'll start to dominate its tracks. Mario Kart World features 32 courses (30 unique settings + two variants), most of which are rock-solid, a few of which are brilliant, and a couple of which — here's looking at you Peach Stadium #1 and Koopa Troopa Beach — are irredeemably dull. The best ones tend to involve some mixture of branching paths, short-cut opportunities, spectacular set-pieces, and driving texture changes. The high points include DK Spaceport, Airship Fortress, Boo Cinema, Toad's Factory, and Bowser's Castle. Boo Cinema, in which you enter a sepia-tinted section through the movie screen and drive along giant film strips, is something to see.

Then there's Rainbow Road, which is immediately one of the best Mario Kart tracks ever made. I dare not spoil the surprise for players who haven't yet unlocked this final course. Suffice it to say, it's a beautiful love letter to the series.

With 32 tracks, Knockout Tour, multiple battles modes, time trials, and the seemingly endless expanse offered in Free Roam, Mario Kart World is stuffed with content. You could finish every Grand Prix cup in about four hours, but you'll need dozens more to unlock every character, costume, and vehicle, and find every last secret tucked away in the world. Furthermore, as with every installment of Mario Kart, this Switch 2 title has incredibly deep replay value. You can play endlessly online with random racers or in-person with friends via split-screen local multiplayer. One thing to note: in four-player split-screen, the regular 60 fps rate drops to 30.

Apart from that one technical caveat, there's hardly anything to complain about when it comes to performance and graphics in Mario Kart World. In fact, it's one of the smoothest, slickest, most polished games Nintendo has ever produced. The character models are detailed and animated, the textures are almost tangible, the weather and lighting effects dramatic, and the draw distance unbelievably long. Then there are all the little details and nuances: the dubious looks racers give each other at the starting line; the way drivers brace when about to collide with a shiny shell; the liquid-like distortion of item boxes; the shimmering, multi-colored finish line "ribbons"; and the way vehicles shake, rock, and angle off the ground. It's a gorgeous game to behold.

As for the music, well, it's phenomenal. The game boasts over 200 new arrangements, pulled not only from past Mario Kart titles, but from the Super Mario franchise as well. You'll hear "Kalimari Desert" from Mario Kart 64 and "Delfino Square" from Mario Kart DS, alongside "Dire, Dire Docks" from Super Mario 64 and "Fossil Falls" from Super Mario Odyssey. It's absolutely magical.

In the end, Mario Kart World doesn't surpass its predecessor, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. But that's like failing to surpass Resident Evil 4 or Half-Life 2; there's absolutely no shame in it. Judged on its own mechanics, systems, and merits, it's a brilliant racing game, a GotY contender, and one of the finest entries in the entire Mario Kart canon, not to mention another in a long line of exceptional launch titles from Nintendo. Is there room for improvement? Yes. The open world could be more organized, the 24-player Grand Prix races could be less chaotic, and the online customization options could be more flexible, but these are relatively minor issues in such a polished, daring, substantial, and joyful game that promises to provide reliable entertainment for years to come.