Mario Kart World has been inviting comparisons to Tony Hawk's Pro Skater since its full reveal in April, with wall-riding and rail-grinding trick mechanics you can use to reach otherwise inaccessible locations and shortcuts. In a tiny new gameplay clip, Nintendo has made the connection even harder to ignore. They've got ska in this game, folks.
The Nintendo Today app has been posting little morsels of Mario Kart World footage over the past several weeks, including several looks at the P Switch challenge missions you'll find while exploring the open world.
In the latest clip, which has been archived on Bluesky, we see Luigi completing a timed challenge to wall-ride through some rings while a remix of one of the overworld themes from Super Mario Bros. 3 plays in the background. Between the driving rock drum beat, upstroke rhythm guitar, and jovial horn section, there can be no mistaking it: that's ska, baby.
The early Tony Hawk's Pro Skater soundtracks are perfect turn-of-the-century time capsules, and while they aren't purely made up of ska, the genre is pretty closely associated with the series. There's no doubt that Goldfinger's Superman is the most iconic track from the original THPS, after all.
So with the various trick systems in Mario Kart World already putting me in a Tony Hawk frame of mind, hearing a bit of ska in this random gameplay clip was downright hilarious to me.
Nintendo's put a big emphasis on getting a wide variety of music into Mario Kart World, since you can spend so much time in free roam. According to a recent developer Q&A, there are over 200 songs in the soundtrack.
"These are all brand-new arrangements, and we also did live recordings," music lead Atsuko Asahi explained. "We prepared pieces from quite a wide variety of musical genres. I believe those who are well-versed in video game music, as well as those who aren't, will enjoy listening to them."
I can certainly tell you I'm already enjoying listening to this soundtrack, and I'm sure I'm gonna spend a fair bit of my time with Mario Kart World rail-grinding like it's 1999.
Mario Kart World is just one of the Switch 2 launch games landing next week.
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