Matt Newcomer

Out of all the Mario Kart games I have played over my life time, this one is probably my least favorite with consideration of the timing of when they were released. They made great improvements with the driving itself which feels smooth and rarely ever blocky; however, I disliked basically ever other aspect unique to this game. The backgrounds are beautiful but aren’t really enjoyable to look at because of the strange ways they contort you around the tracks. To be able to drift properly, you need to know where the turns are before they start which makes it really hard to have competitive races with people that don’t own the game themselves. All of the customization that’s available seems exciting at first but I found myself very rarely utilizing the majority of the karts because there is such an emphasis on needing fast karts to keep up with the CPUs. Additionally, I think it would have been better for them to add more Nintendo characters outside of the Mario franchise such as Kirby, Pikachu, Captain Falcon, Fox, etc. before resorting to adding characters like tanooki Mario or cat peach. Lastly and most frustratingly for me, the game like many other Nintendo games continues to try and make it harder for skilled players to win. Instead of making the CPUs better racers, they for some reason choose to have them collude against you with items, often targeting you in specific even when there is a CPU in front of them. Further, you can be having a perfect race and miss out on chances to 3 star cups very frequently as a result of unfair item distribution. Most recently, I won the first three in a cup and was leading 99% of the time in the last race. The game gave me nothing coins as items except for one banana. A blue shell and 4 red shells later, I lose despite having one of my best races in relation to how I was driving. This concept doesn’t make me want to continue replaying the game to try and win it next time because it’s not something I can improve upon; therefore, it feels like I’d be simply replaying for the purpose of hoping for better item luck which is not enjoyable. Overall, while they improved on the driving itself, the game missed on a lot of opportunities as it relates to the customization aspects, is not fun to play with those that aren’t well versed in the game like you older versions were, and is somehow also not enjoyable for those skilled at the game to play it.