Mario Kart World puts its best wheel forward. I'm head down, Waluigi's sublimely long legs over a little motorbike blasting through the first course of Mushroom Cup – Mario Bros. Circuit. The initial lap is thrilling, taking me through the canyon's smooth corners, grindable pipes and shortcuts teasing me to embrace the game's new features through laps two and three. It's a great opening. Unfortunately, it's not a pace Mario Kart World is interested in keeping up.
The next portion of the Grand Prix starts off well. With Crown City in our sights, the race kicks off with the heaving crew of racers taking to the open road to actually travel to the next track from Mario Bros. Circuit. It's a bit different, but OK – race down a motorway, drift through some fast food to unlock a glorious Biker outfit for Waluigi. But what's that in the corner of the screen? Lap 2 of 3 already and we're not even there yet? Hitting Crown City, 'Lap 3' begins as we cross the start line for the first time. The track has plenty of great ideas, teasing me with different paths and routes – drifting up to the tops of skyscrapers is thrilling! And then it… just ends?
Pit stop
Yep, after one glorious lap of Crown City, that's all you get. And this is no anomaly – it's just standard for how Grand Prix are structured in Mario Kart World. You would expect a cup like this to be a true test of your track-by-track racing prowess, but instead it feels like you only get an appetizer of each track. No chance to make up time on another lap, no bungling yourself with a banana you dropped a minute earlier, no time to actually try to take the shortcut you spotted before.
So far in every cup I've played – about half, though I've played tracks from others across different modes – only the first, kick-off circuit follows a typical multi-lap structure, with every subsequent track consisting of, on average, about two out of three 'laps' driving across the Free Roam open world to the next actual next and then just one lap of that.
Wario's Galleon, a tight circuit that mixes harsh waves with twisting turns through wrecked ships, feels like it's over before it begins.
Even some of the ambitious tracks that cap off Cups get this treatment, a shame as it makes them feel anticlimactic instead of the tense final sprint to the finish they could so easily be. Wario's Galleon, a tight circuit that mixes harsh waves with twisting turns through wrecked ships, feels like it's over before it begins, and Bowser's Castle only teases some rip-roaring flaming action before waving the flag. I always feel like I'm getting the rug-pulled out from under me, feeling the buzz of leaping between platforms in the sky in Great ? Block Ruins (maybe my favorite MKW track), or lapping up the game's clever revamp of Dino Dino Jungle from Mario Kart Double Dash – only to be told it's time to wrap it up after one lap.
The novelty of driving between tracks is a nice idea at first, but it quickly wears thin. With a few exceptions, the track between the circuits is incredibly dull, mostly revolving around straight lines. You're just plowing forward down a motorway or straightaway, simply holding down the accelerator. One bridge has some neat rails you can grind – but I swear the up-and-down cost me several positions, meaning it was more optimal to just drive across it using boosters as normal instead. Another section has you glide straight ahead across a desert doing basically nothing for several seconds. Another has you just drive forward through water to an island for a while.
To accommodate the higher player count, the roads are absolutely massive too. You rarely have to think in these 'intermission' sections that form the bulk of races, and it feels like even when another racer is technically neck-and-neck with me I need binoculars to actually see them on the other side of the road.
As I said, I can sort of get behind the novelty. But you can't skip these in Grand Prix, and – again – it means as a result you only get one lap on the actual track. For me, it detracts significantly from each circuit, meaning you barely get a sense of their identity before you're rushed along to keep trucking through the world to the next one.
I'm also not completely convinced by Mario Kart World's original tracks as a result. I like the ideas in some – as I mentioned earlier – but I can't help but feel like they've been designed to be a bit shorter and more one-note to fulfil their role as capstones to these jaunts rather than be complete ideas in and of themselves.
As it stands, the majority of 'tracks' in Mario Kart World feel, by design, about two thirds filler as you plow down pretty dull if somewhat pretty pathways. It really makes the tracks suffer on replay, feeling like you're doing a commute before you can get to the good stuff, which is then over in moments. You can play standard 3-lap versions of all the tracks… if you double click to select it in VS Mode only. There's no way to play Grand Prix in the classic format at all.
Which would be annoying enough… But this 'tracks with intermissions' format is also the default in Online, meaning the majority of selections you get to vote on for the next track are, like in Grand Prix, massive slogs to get to a circuit, after which you play a truncated-feeling lap. It is possible to get a 3-lap option, but not regular – the best way to raise your chances being to select Random at the moment, in my experience.
In our Mario Kart World review in progress we highlight additions like Knockout Tour, but question if it can keep pace "for the long haul".
It might be on me for trying to go into Mario Kart World as blind as possible after securing my Nintendo Switch 2 bundle – I'm a big fan of the series and have played Mario Kart 8 to death across both Wii U and the original Switch. But even with the open world free roam stuff I had assumed racing between tracks would be an optional feature, not something foisted onto me at every possible moment. I could understand it as a toggle, leaving me to choose when to explore, or to do so within Free Roam, but the way it is means I unavoidably have to putter down roads between each circuit just to enjoy hunting down max stars on each Grand Prix.
I don't like being a downer, but so far on a track-by-track basis I absolutely prefer just about every single track in Mario Kart 8 – even keeping to just the launch circuits – to those in Mario Kart World. Even if just for the simple fact that you're actually playing the tracks you select there. When I select a Grand Prix in Mario Kart 8 I actually get to play each circuit in full, but do the same in Mario Kart World and it's more of a whistlestop tour. It's frustrating as there are moments I almost really like the game, until it just traffic jams itself.
Here, in Mario Kart World, it feels like Nintendo never wants to actually let you play the circuits it crafted, only begrudgingly allowing it via VS Race. Nintendo has given Mario Kart 8 Deluxe plenty of updates and new features. So I really hope they're able to make a U-turn with Mario Kart World and allow for more traditional racing formats, if only to allow players to properly enjoy the track. And please, just let me skip the commute.
Want to know how to unlock characters in Mario Kart World, by the way? We've got some answers. Want more plumber action instead? Check out our best Mario games ranking!
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