The Nintendo Switch has arrived, ushering in a new generation from Nintendo that kicks off with one of its most popular series, Mario Kart, transitioning to a new scale with an open world and an energizing focus on keeping the player playing as long as possible without taking them out of the driving experience. It’s a cleverly simple concept that, true to Nintendo’s style, is executed masterfully to glorify fun.
Video games have become, in practically every way possible, a very complicated subject. I’m not even talking about the current era of unbridled hatred that saturates even those who view this art and form of entertainment with the greatest of joys, I’m talking about the expansion of the audience and how complicated it has become for developers to define their target audience.
### A New Era of Mario Kart
Mario Kart World showcases the series transitioning to an open world, something that has a profound impact on the design of the entire game and allows it to position itself with all due merit as a new generation of Mario Kart. The Nintendo teams have created a huge open map that you can freely explore in Free Mode, but where races also take place in the “traditional” game modes like Grand Prix, Time Trial, Elimination, Battle, and Online.
In a familiar type of experience where we can say it’s all very familiar, yet at the same time everything is different, Mario Kart World takes you out of closed circuits and puts you on tracks that lead you through various locations, with great visual dynamism and a unique energy, true to the style of arcade racing games in an open world.
Instead of completing laps on a closed circuit, you will progress through various interconnected tracks as part of the open world. In most cases, this means starting in one location and ending in a completely different one, with changes in weather or time of day, for example.
It’s a familiar experience, but with a new energy that becomes exciting because you feel like you’re always progressing and not just repeating the same moves in the same locations. This design philosophy also allowed for the creation of one of my favorite elements in the game, the Elimination mode. In this mode, 24 competitors start, and at each of the 6 parts of the total race, the last four are eliminated until 4 remain to compete for the top spots. It’s a kind of battle royale Mario Kart that is very fun.
These modes, framed with what you expect from the series, allow you to enjoy Mario Kart World in the traditional tone of the series, but as mentioned, it’s all familiar, yet different. Drifting has been slightly adjusted for the dynamic track design, now you can use rails and even walls to gain boosts, there are plenty of new power-ups, but others remain the same, so you have an experience that you are familiar with, with lots of new features to freshen it up.
Despite that, all the pillars of Mario Kart are present in World, like the strategy in the midst of arcade driving, the main mechanics are in tune with the new stunts, so you still have that lovely and colorful experience, but at any moment it motivates you to lean in and get serious on the edge of the couch.
### A World Free to Explore
Playing Mario Kart World has been absolutely spectacular, as it allows you to see how masterful Nintendo’s ingenuity is, with such a captivating methodology to appreciate. Instead of focusing on hyper-realistic graphics or overly complicated mechanics, Nintendo continues to manage its properties with extreme care, as if they were mathematical calculations to maintain balance and never alienate any type of player.
This is evident when you expand the type of audience you play Mario Kart World with and enter Free Mode. Playing modes like Elimination or GP may pose challenges for younger or inexperienced players, which remains true in the series. You don’t even need to set the difficulty to 150cc to test this. The simplicity of the frenetic arcade experience is part of its facet, as there is still a lot of strategy here and you have to apply yourself if you want the best places.
However, the open world that you can explore in Free Mode, composed of various locations related to the Super Mario universe, such as Crown City metropolis, Moo Moo meadows, Bowser’s castle, Peach’s Stadium, Peach’s Beach, opens the doors to a larger audience. You can explore it without pressure, discover secrets, try to create acrobatic sequences to reach interesting places, and above all, get to know Nintendo’s interpretation of arcade racing games in an open world.
Mario Kart World is a new era in the series and an interesting first taste of what to expect from the Nintendo Switch 2. Played at 4K 60fps, it becomes a visually delightful and energetic experience, full of those precious animations and attention to detail that characterize Nintendo. There is not an excessive focus on highest quality textures, and you will find some more humble scenarios, but overall, it is a game that deserves praise for its visual quality. Especially because the aesthetics immediately captivate people of all ages and arouse curiosity even in non-gamers. Yes, Mario Kart World is one of those games with the charm and gameplay capable of getting your family members interested in playing.
If with the first Nintendo Switch I had a hard time wanting to play on the TV, with the Nintendo Switch 2 and Mario Kart World, I spend most of my time playing on the TV that I even forget how fantastic Mario Kart World looks in handheld mode, running on this huge 1080p screen that makes the graphical experience spectacular.
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