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fotozWords on Mario Kart World
When developing Mario Kart World I think Nintendo had a problem. Mario Kart 8 had existed for ten years and had pretty much perfected the core formula of Mario Kart. An incremental update to graphical fidelity or gameplay mechanics wasn’t going to cut it, and I don’t think the playerbase would have accepted bringing MK8 to a third generation of consoles.
The solution they came up with was following the big trend of AAA games and adding an open world. This definitely stands out as innovative and works as a great USP for the game.
What works?
On a technological level the open world is fantastic. World manages a significant visual step-up from MK8 while also having a fully open world with large draw distances and presumably lots of asset streaming. Digital Foundry has a great technical breakdown of this. I have no complaints on this front.
The new game mode built to take advantage of the open world is Knockout Tour, one long race along a route containing six track nodes and five connecting paths. Racers are knocked out along the way at each node, until a final showdown during a single lap of the final track, the remaining four battle it out for the win. This is exhilarating and tense and in contrast to the Grand Prix mode, the length really gives you time to get into the flow and develop rivalries with other racers.
Wall riding and rail griding are necessary additions to keep moment-to-moment gameplay interesting. While the tracks themselves are complex and engaging, with constant turns, boosts, shortcuts, and items, the paths between each track can often include long straights and sections without much mechanical interest. These extra ‘parkour’ style gameplay mechanics help to keep things interesting during these sections, and rails/walls are often included to be used in this way. This is probably what will give the game its longevity, as finding all these parkour routes for optimal shortcutting, and perfecting the execution, will take a lot of practice.
What doesn’t?
On the whole though, I think World’s open world causes more issues than it solves.
Circuit identity
First, lets talk about the quintessential Grand Prix mode. A GP in world looks familiar, with each cup containing four tracks where racers acumulate points with the goal of being ranked #1 after the final race. The first event is a full three-lap race around the first track. However, subsequent events include driving through the open world to the next track, and then doing one lap of it.
This removes any sense of identity each track has while playing in this mode. In the Mushroom cup, the second race is Crown City, but in practice less than half of the race actually takes place in Crown City, and the start of the race is actually back on the previous track, Mario Bros. Circuit. This causes the tracks to blend into each other and lose their own identity.
Shortcut discoverability
The bigger problem is the removal of the three-lap race, and the effect that has on how the player approaches the race. One could argue that one of the main gameplay mechanics and appeals of the Mario Kart formula is finding and taking shortcuts. It’s incredibly satisfying cutting significant sections of the track and catapaulting yourself up in position. Discovering where the shortcuts are is a significant part of that.
With a three-lap race, the player can scout out shortcuts on the first lap, attempt them on the second lap, and perfect them on the third lap.
With only a single lap, there is no time for this discovery to happen. By the time a player sees a shortcut, it’s too late to take it. This means the only way to utilise shortcuts, a big part of what makes Mario Kart great, is to play enough that they have been committed to memory. But this is completely opposed to Mario Kart’s main premise of being a casual drop-in-drop-out party game.
It’s completely fine to be a hardcore Mario Kart player, but that’s not how I interact with the game. Mario Kart peaks when played on the couch with real people screaming and yelling at each other. Most players, who play in this fashion, playing a few races during social occasions, are not going to be able to memorise where the shortcuts on all the tracks are. Having three laps is the entire reason shortcuts work with the casual party-like playstyle that Mario Kart caters for, yet World removes that.
World should have kept the standard three-lap formula for Grand Prix and left the open world shinnanigans to Knockout Tour.
Player elimination in Knockout Tour
Knockout Tour is undeniably intense and engaging, and a significant reason for that is the understanding that you can be eliminated at any point along the race.
However, this is again at odds with drop-in play with casual players. Knockout Tour is a really difficult sell to players who are new to the game or just low-skilled players. Getting knocked out after one or two sections of the race, and sitting back watching everyone else have fun, sucks.
In addition to the player elimination aspect, it also means the later stages of the race lose what makes Mario Kart special, the chaos and unpredictability of tens of racers throwing items all over the place. The last stretch of Knockout Tour only involves four players and it’s very rare that the order changes from the previous elimination gate, it’s basically a rote parole to the finish line. Finishes in Knockout Tour are rarely intense or nail-biting for that reason.
I don’t really understand why this was done. I don’t know why elimination was necessary. Keep the full 24 racers all the way to the end. Embrace the chaos.
In closing…
Mario Kart World is undeniably a great game, but some silly decisions have really stunted its approachability as a casual party game. These are things that could easily be resolved by giving players additional options in how Grand Prix and Knockout Tour are setup.
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