Mario Kart World review: fun but baffling choices mean it won't replace Mario Kart 8 Deluxe

What would a Nintendo console launch be without everyone's favourite plumber? Mario Kart World takes the moustachioed hero back behind the wheel with a twist as this Nintendo Switch 2 launch title dares to question, 'what if venturing off the track didn't always demand Lakitu pilfer your coins and fish you out of trouble? What if sometimes you could just keep on trucking?'

That's right - the stalwart kart racer, maker and breaker of friendships alike, has gone both off-road and open world. Sort of. After all, when you're exploring new possibilities, it's not uncommon to get lost in the weeds.

So, no, this isn't just a shinier, janglier Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. You feel the impact of the new hardware from the first race, presenting a gorgeous world full of vibrantly cartoony charm. (Read our Nintendo Switch 2 review for our console verdict.)

Revised item effects are just one layer of exemplary icing on the cake. For instance, Blue Shells and bob-ombs now erupt into colourful plumes of smoke, punctuated by comic book sound effect text. Get zapped by shrinky lightning and the screen flashes, highlighting each racers' jerky, electrocuted silhouette.

Mario Kart World takes the same playful approach as 2023's Super Mario Bros. Wonder, pushing stylish animation and offering a visual feast in this Nintendo Switch 2 launch game.

While we're talking cartoony charms, you can also pull off multiple tricks in a row while in the air, resulting in a slew of charming key poses from your driver of choice. As you make more perilous jumps, your racer no longer remains seated, instead falling out of the kart entirely, and gripping their steering wheel for dear life as they're dragged along.

Also looser is the animation department's approach to the physicality of the karts; though still pretty lightweight and toyetic, careening around corners or wobbling along new grind wheels on only two wheels makes races feel less stiff than earlier entries.

Feast your eyes on tuned up visuals

Everyone loves a bit of sponge, and the best gateau are arguably the ones where you can taste the baker's improvement. The step up from the art team is most obvious when comparing and contrasting the Mario Kart Tour-originated tracks, with Sky-High Sundae for instance already looking good enough to eat in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, but has me practically gnawing on the corner of the handheld's 7.9 inch screen in Mario Kart World.

Though its twists, drifts, and jumps remain largely unchanged, Sky-High Sundae gets a visual overhaul in this outing that, though slightly more conservative with the original colour scheme of sugary pinks and frosted blues for track surface readability reasons, is no less of a treat here.

What leaves a bad taste is that traditional multi-lap tracks are bafflingly buried in this kart racer. Let me back up: besides a new free roam mode that allows you to poke around the open map for straightforward challenges and fun little extras, Mario Kart World's road trip angle also carries over to a number of the racing gameplay modes, including taking over returning styles of play. 'How,' you might ask? Simply put, a really long windup.

In the new Knockout Tour mode, it's a mostly straight shot from the very start, with low-placing players removed from the action as the pack moves between qualifying checkpoints across the world map. Meanwhile, even Grand Prix and Online modes get a healthy dose of A-road vibes. Across the former's cups, only the first of each of the four tracks features a full number of laps, with subsequent tracks predominantly built around racing to iconic circuits before giving you one short but sweet lap. Online too emphasises the race to these memorable speedways rather than on the tracks themselves.

While this all sounds neat on paper, it's not exactly the trash talk inducing action I've come to expect from the series for a few reasons. For one, you're often racing across a straight stretch of tarmac now wide enough to accommodate up to 24 racers at once. That means fewer bends or the followup of crashing into a narrow passage wall after misjudging a drift, and that also means cutting out much of the lightweight moment-to-moment friction the series is known for.

Even with the art team stepping up on the sights, the interstitials between more traditional tracks feel uncomfortably akin to a long motorway stretch without your playlist or podcast of choice.

Kart racer's new road trip

Every grand prix cup heavily features these straight shot interstitials between established tracks, and at time of writing there's no option to skip them. It's also not straightforward to vote for a traditional multi-lap track in online multiplayer.

This long wind up followed by a single lap does both parts a disservice; the straight shot is a one note interlude before the main event, and then when I finally get to the headlining circuit, it's over just when I'm getting into it. There's just not enough time to let each circuit shine.

It really suffers on replay too - arguably the whole point of a local and multiplayer game like this - focusing on the less exciting space between the headlining action, and then asking you to do it over and over again.

If you want the usual three-or-more laps, you'll have to manually select tracks in the VS Race mode, or either hope for the best by selecting 'random' in online multiplayer or hope for a three-lap option to materialise. A tour through homemade VS Race cups doesn't just reveal the circuits are as fun to drift around as they ever were, but that a number of these circuits evolve after the first lap.

With Dino Dino Jungle's roster of scaly guest stars keeping you on your toes, or the lap-by-lap transformation of Peach Beach and new course Crown City, why would you choose to end the race after one go-around? It's baffling.

A pit-stop on key points

Between returning courses and new circuits, it's not all bad. To briefly talk tech, you definitely do appreciate the added oomph of the new hardware in big mid-race scrums with up to 24 racers on the track - though such jostling is obviously a rarer occurrence on a wide open stretch of road. Furthermore, you should expect your frames to be cut down to 30 per second if you decide to race with more than two players in local split-screen. Beyond that, load times tend to be pleasantly snappy.

To be fair to World's new structure too, its long wind ups do actually serve one unlockable course especially well: Rainbow Road. This outing's take on the returning classic is well worth discovering for yourself, but what I will say is that I took a particular shine to this stained-glass track as it makes the most of the Nintendo Switch 2's HDR support. (Read our guide to Switch 2's specs.)

Still, I'm not completely sold on World's particular brand of prescribed fun. It's still possible to play plenty of tracks with three laps - but not as a grand prix race, and it's easy to miss the option in the VS Race mode. Free roam is a pleasantly lightweight addition that both young and old heads like me will enjoy scouring for costume unlocks - but all costumes get their own full character slot, making a mess of the character select screen even with the option to group all of your racer's wardrobe together with 'x'.

Knockout Tour is something fun and new - but I'm not sure I quite feel the same enthusiasm for all of World's bright ideas. Crowbarring a new direction into too many aspects of a tried-and-true design formula can get in the way of the fun – just let me appreciate all the tracks the dev team built to the fullest, please!