It's frustrating how close Mario Kart World free roam is to being amazing

they designed this excellent world, and did such a great job integrating all the tracks together, but then its missing so many quality of life things that would have made it feel like a truly great experience

first of all theres no north marker on the mini map like wtf

but also it would have been so much better if theyd implemented literally any kind of progression system, or integrated full races or missions into the mode, or some way to track p-switches youve done (high scores, etc), or unlocking some way to help find those things on the map, etc

feels like they actively dont want you engaging with this big world they created and its weird

Especially for how like, the entire game was designed around making it a world you could free roam on in the first placeall the straightaway connecting races, how the the courses are noticeably less crazy than in MK8the entire mode just feels so tossed off

imo it's a complete and utter misfire. the open world was a total mistake if the only worthwhile new content they could incorporate for it is the knockout mode. incorporating the intermissions into the actual tracks is maybe the worst change the series has ever seen, and the intermissions themselves are completely antithetical to mario kart's item system

i am just so unbelievably over nintendo's take on open world games. i do not care how many shrines, intermission tracks or moons there are if 90% of them are not interesting or fun

I think it was a horrible direction for one of the best selling games around. Nintendo still doesn't get open world stuff (literally no checklist or anything about your collectibles), the gacha to get new characters was horrible.

They just...they make a good decision and surround it with dumb ones. Constantly.

The free roam mode feels like a complete afterthought, there's literally nothing to do outside of that P block crap.

i love mario kart, but World really, really, really fumbled the ball hard. i could forgive the pointless, undercooked open world if the actual racing wasn't a complete unbalanced mess that revolves entirely around lightning and staying out of first place.

and i can't agree more about some kind of progression system, even if it was just some kind of XP per race based on performance. VR (the rating system) is so tired, dull, barebones, but they even fucked that up by making you lose way more than you can gain.

from singleplayer to multiplayer, the modes are so unrewarding and minimal, it feels like they somehow gave us less than the bare minimum, while charging $80 dollars for it

I think the reason for the open world is they backed themselves into a corner with supporting MK8 for so long

how can you follow up the definitive Mario kart experience with 96 tracks? The intermission tracks was their way of filling out the track list to make it feel close to the amount of options of the previous games

it didnt entirely work but, I get it

i get it too, but i would have much rather preferred new modes, a proper ranked mode, teams online, that sort of thing. the splatoon treatment, basically.

nothing's stopping them from actually still doing that, besides nintendo being nintendo of course

they played the quantity over quality card

TheGoldenEel posted...

I think the reason for the open world is they backed themselves into a corner with supporting MK8 for so long

how can you follow up the definitive Mario kart experience with 96 tracks? The intermission tracks was their way of filling out the track list to make it feel close to the amount of options of the previous games

it didnt entirely work but, I get it

i think the solution instead should have been to make the driving even more dynamic and fun. the wall and railriding is a good start, but go even further than that. add some kind of trick combo system or do something with being able to trick infinitely now. change up the drifting mechanics. make more interesting items than worthless projectiles.

instead they made a boring empty open world and an online system so horrible that i'd rather boot up MK8D again if I want to just run some online worldwides.

Tour actually had a scoring system for tricks, boosts, drafting, item hits, etc.

they had SO much they could have worked off of from Tour, from content, events, unlockables, a shop to spend coins at, new progression metrics, etc, but they just... said no, our players are dumb kids, just jingle the big open world key

Honestly i feel like the open world was an afterthought, but was made in good faith. I love knockout tour.

The open world should have been a secret unlock for getting all gold medals or something. And 5ey shouldnt have made it the main focus

TheGoldenEel posted...

I think the reason for the open world is they backed themselves into a corner with supporting MK8 for so long

how can you follow up the definitive Mario kart experience with 96 tracks? The intermission tracks was their way of filling out the track list to make it feel close to the amount of options of the previous games

it didnt entirely work but, I get it

Yeah but like, MK8 had many, many, many years after it was released on the Wii U and had the dlc it had. I get they basically doubled it over two years late, way late, in its life which was absolutely amazing, but that clearly wasn't the main team. They recycled Tour tracks, with the very occasional new one.

What was the world crew doing? Spending time on open world? Intermission tracks that just aren't fun? They could have made a ton of quality and retro tracks and launch MK9 with maybe not as many as 8 had by the end, but more than they did at the start. And add in a fun mission mode, an actual single player with a fun little story, typically multiplayer with battle and racing and bam. You have MK9

I will say this, I do appreciate Nintendo for doing something new and different with Mario Kart World. They're always trying to innovate whenever they can and I appreciate what they try to do for the industry (the creative side, not the business/financial side). I wish I like the free roam more. It had it's novelty at like the first 2 hours, but then it starts to feel boring. To me, the biggest sin is those god awful intermission tracks that they are really trying to shove down our throats. It's basically a meta to stay behind for the broken items to then rubber band you to victory. That's the reason my win rate is so high for those intermission tracks, it's the only right way to play them imo.

With that said, Mario Kart World still has the same racing feel that we all know and love. It's still a great game.