By 
Reviewed On and Exclusive To: Nintendo Switch 2
Price: $79.99
Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo
Release Date: June 5th, 2025
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We all knew that Mario Kart was going to be coming to the next Switch system sooner rather than later, after the amazing success of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on the Nintendo Switch 1. Well, when the Nintendo Switch 2 was revealed and Nintendo showcased Mario Kart World, and said it was a game that was launching with the Nintendo Switch 2 system. I am a fan of the Mario Kart games, but I wasn’t sure if it was going big enough to hold its own as a massive first-party. But I am glad I was mostly wrong.
Alright, before we get too deep into the review, I want to briefly talk about the elephant in the room. The price of Mario Kart World was revealed to be $80, and that seriously upset many people in the gaming world. I personally believed that it was going to price it at $70 to compare with other games on the PS5 and Xbox Series generations. Unfortunately, Nintendo chose to go even further and opened the floodgates to $80 games. The Switch 2 was $449.99 without Mario Kart World, and $499.99 with the game. This basically made Mario Kart $50, and that is great! I like to own physical games, but a $30 savings was hard to pass up for now. Nintendo was smart for this because it will increase the attachment rate of the game to Switch 2 systems, but also to try and give a small discount for being an early adopter, since the bundle isn’t a permanent deal. I will probably grab the physical version later down the line if I see it at a good price, but I am content with the digital version for now.
Alright, back to the main review. I would normally talk about the story first, but since this is Mario Kart, there is no story in this game. There are hundreds of nods and references to Mario games, including Mario Odyssey, Sunshine, Galaxy, and many more, sprinkled throughout the open world, which I think is a cool thing. It being an open world, I felt like they could have done something with a very basic plot line involving a character that you needed to rescue by beating individuals within races or battle missions throughout different parts of the world. It wouldn’t be much, but it would be a cool little extra thing, as it would have provided a bigger purpose.
In terms of the content available, there is actually a pretty nice variety, including some new features that either haven’t been in a Mario Kart game before or ones that have been missing for a long time. First up, we have the standard Grand Prix mode. This has been a staple for a long time, where you choose a Prix and race in a total of 4 areas. You can choose between 50cc, 100cc, and 150cc for the difficulty, since there is no 200cc in the game. I used to be able to wipe the floor with enemies back in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe at 150cc mode, but don’t expect the same thing in this game. After completing each Grand Prix, you will unlock one more character to add to the roster. After completing all the Prix options, you unlock the Special cup, which features the best Rainbow Road to ever exist (at least in my opinion). The levels are much bigger than before, and they are all beautiful levels, from beaches to deserts, castles, and much more!
The difficulty is much harder in this game, and unfortunately is almost too harsh at times. There are also 24 racers in this game, which is more than in other titles from the franchise, and that also will affect the difficulty, as there are more enemies that you are required to beat now. This is not just for the Grand Prix, but rather the difficulty raise is across the board. This involves item usage from having red shells, blue shells, the new golden shell, and so much more, stockpiled in the computer AI. The concept of rubber-banding is back, and the AI of the computers loves to use this tactic to get ahead. This is when you are riding right behind another racer to reduce drag on your car, and then getting a speed boost after a bit. Be warned that both of these aspects can impact your final position… It’s happened to me so many times across all modes.
One of the best new things in Mario Kart World is, hands down, the Knockout Tour. This mode is such a terrific feature that allows players to see many different aspects of the world and forces them to stay at the top of the pack. Throughout this mode, you need to complete six different laps, although these are not traditional laps; rather, they are going from location to location. The knockout part is that you will start in 24th place, and before the end of the first lap, you need to be in at least the 20th position. Then by the end of the second lap of the tour, you need to be in the 16th, and every lap cuts four more spots until the last, which has only four players racing. If you don’t reach the placement, you get knocked out of the race. Honestly, it is such a cool feature that I love, although there is no way to get a knockout tour involving Rainbow Road, which is a shame in my opinion.
One of the biggest draws for this game, besides the Grand Prix and Knockout Tour, is the concept of Free Roam. Wherever you are driving when you first start the game, if you press the plus button, you seamlessly load into the giant open world where you can drive anywhere that you choose. There are main roadways, but going off the beaten path is honestly the best thing to do, as you can explore shortcuts for tracks, collect coins, and explore the world that was built. The more regular coins you get, the more carts you unlock. Carts aren’t customizable like in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, but they have good designs. There are things to do in the free roam, but after a while of playing and exploring, it does get a tad boring by yourself, unfortunately, especially with the lack of one big feature.
In free roam, you can get skins for certain characters by eating meals that are prepared throughout the world. It is somewhat of an RNG game in figuring out what costume you get and where to get them, but sometimes they are kind of easy to figure out. Not every character has skins, and also not every character has the same number of them either. The other characters that are unlocked besides skins and those unlocked by completing Grand Prix mode are completely RNG-based. During races, you or an opponent may randomly get an item called the Kamek Orb. Once someone uses the Kamek Orb, you will be randomly transformed into a character or enemy, and once that happens the first time, you permanently unlock them as a racer. Some areas have the chance to unlock certain characters, but it is still luck-based if you even get the item during a race, or if it is even a new racer or just a repeat of one you already had. To be real, this annoys me as a completionist, as it makes it so I don’t really want to unlock them.
One of the collectibles in the free roam is Princess Peach Medallions, which you can get by doing really tricky platforming challenges or by using the environments correctly. A majority of them just seem unfair to grab, in all honesty, and you also cannot track how many you have left in any given area. I also didn’t see a single use for these in the game at all. A second thing you can find around the world are “?” spaces. These can be tracked in the game and vary in terms of how to get them or their difficulty. Some of them are as simple as riding on a road, side pathway, some are on top of buildings, some require you to wall ride or rail grind, and even more. The rewards for these panels are…stickers. To me, I felt like that was just shoe-horned in, and it could have been like a secret character or something that would only be available after getting all of them in certain areas, and once you completed the entire set in the world.
The last of the main things in the free roam area are the P-Switches. These are missions that showcase the world and different features of the game. Some of the missions are unique, like using a truck to go through a blockade, but there are a lot of the same ones over and over again, just in different areas of the world. These include things like collecting blue coins within a set amount of time, wall ride or rail grind through hoops to get to the finish line quickly, using items to traverse pathways that would usually be unexplored, joining “races” randomly and completing them, and more. What do you get out of these missions? Well…you get even more stickers. No characters are unlocked through the free roam, so in my book, it is less intriguing than I would have hoped. You also cannot track your progress besides how many you have completed, meaning you can’t see where the other ones you haven’t found yet are. I did over 50 P-Switches, got over 15 “?” panels, and collected a few medallions, but I don’t have a desire to complete everything in the world to 100% for stickers, so I am good with what I have done.
There are other things like balloon battle, which makes a return from other games, where you knock out opponents by popping the most amount of balloons. Then there is coin runners (coin battle), where you need to try and get the most coins. For myself, I think balloon battle is so much more fun with friends than with the computers, and I personally think that coin runners isn’t really fun compared to balloon popping madness, so I didn’t play it all that much. You can also do time trials to see if you can get the fastest time for different tracks by figuring out shortcuts, what tricks work best where, and more.
The online part of this game is pretty fun when you play with friends. Playing with randoms in the game online will really give you a run for your money since you will be playing against a lot of people who seriously want to test their skills. I played once online with randoms, and it was extremely hard to compete. I decided that single-player and multiplayer with friends are what I should focus on. Online connectivity is pretty solid without any disconnects or problems regarding lag from my experience. I did have a bug that I will explain later, but it was minor and didn’t seriously affect me playing with others. Online, you can play with others in VS races, a knockout tour, coin battle, or balloon battle, so there is a lot of variety in things you can do. Besides this, you can also do free roam with others; however, P-Switches no longer show up if you are in a lobby with others, which I feel like is a shame since it limits the free roam quite a bit. The “?” panels and Peach Medallions do still show up, so it’s worth it if you want to hunt those with friends.
The game is a gorgeous launch title for the new console from Nintendo, and Mario Kart World isn’t going to be the best-looking game on the Switch 2. I can bet that games that are coming later will give it a run for its money! The range of colors, from the bright and lush jungles, to the darker areas of the Bowser castle, to the absolutely stunning world of Rainbow Road. In my opinion, this is the best playing and looking Rainbow Road in the series’ history, but I don’t really want to spoil it here if you want to check it out yourself. The character models and karts make the world feel alive with how much is going on in it and how they look. The backgrounds, tracks, and everything else in the game look great and just pops, both in handheld mode and when docked. The 4K 60fps seriously helps this game shine, but the 1080p screen still looks stunning in portable mode as well. If this is just the beginning of what the Switch 2 can do in terms of graphics and art, I cannot wait to see more from studios that pulled off miracles on Switch 1.
There isn’t very much when it comes to the voice acting in the game, which is no surprise since most of the Mario games don’t have a lot of voice acting. I will say that the game has an amazing audio design with loads of nuances from the item blocks to just racing around the world. Each section of the free roam also has a unique audio feeling and style, from the darker marshes to the sandy beaches. Besides the audio design, there are also 200 songs that are in the game. I haven’t heard all of the music, and I definitely heard the same songs a couple of times, but I never got tired of hearing the music, as it is just perfection! Nintendo seriously went above and beyond with the music, and it clearly shows with the variety and sheer number of options. Quality over Quantity is what I like when it comes to music in games, but Mario Kart World has both quality and quantity!
In terms of the performance of the game, it runs super smoothly regardless of playing in handheld mode or docked mode when it comes to the offline modes. There were no massive bugs, progression blockers, or graphical glitches from the main areas in Grand Prix, Knockout Tournament, and Free Roam mode. Loading times are really quick; there were no crashes, but there were a couple of small bugs I did have. One of the bugs I saw a couple of times was when I was racing with a friend online; all of the character icons disappeared on the mini-map during the race. I wasn’t sure if it was a lag in terms of connection, but they were still on the track next to me. The other small bug I had was during free roam, when I ran over one of the P-Switches, it never started the mission. It didn’t happen the second time I tried on the same mission, so not sure what it was the first time when I ran over it. Besides this, the game was rock solid for the level of quality Nintendo games have been known to have.
There are loads of things to do in Mario Kart World. A lot of the game is a blast with the level designs from the Knockout Tournaments, Grand Prix (especially the special cup), and even the Free Roam is fun for a while. Unfortunately, playing similar types of missions over and over again just isn’t something I am in the mood for, especially without tracking what is still left to find. Going online with friends is a lot of fun as well; however, playing with randoms online isn’t really fun.
The lack of any real hefty rewards for completing the “?” mark panels, P-Switches, and finding Peach Medallions is something that seems like a misstep, like unlocking secret characters or other things besides just stickers. Overall, it is a pretty fun game as a whole package, but it feels like the free roam rewards of stickers were an afterthought; the AI difficulty and a couple of small bugs make it not as good as it could be. I definitely hoped for more from the launch title, and while Mario Kart World is fun for a bit solo, and definitely fun with friends. I am not sure if I am going to be playing this game all the way until Donkey Kong Bananza releases next month.
Review Score: 8.5/10
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