Mario Kart Tour – Mobile Review

All Nintendo have to do is not mess it up. That is what I said in my last article about Mario Kart Tour. Though, the concerns I raised did not stop me from downloading the game immediately upon release, and I must admit, playing Mario Kart on my first bus journey of the year to campus was pretty fun.

What I liked was the re-imagination of some of the most iconic courses. The initial advertisements for Mario Kart Tour showed off new courses based upon real cities, suggesting a focus on these courses rather than the classics. However, Cheep Cheep Beach, Yoshi Circuit and Mario Circuit are all reimagined in various cups, and the brand-new courses are very much in line with the Mario Kart aesthetic.

This turns Mario Kart into a pay-to-win title

Though, after an hour of playing, I started to realise the game for what it was- a meaningless cash grab riddled with predatory microtransactions. 

Prior to release, I assumed different characters or karts only added cosmetic or small differences to weight and speed, similar to the other Mario Kart titles. This version’s mechanic makes it feel as if Mario Kart is preying on players (often children) to spend money. Depending on the course, different characters, karts, and gliders give better abilities than others, such as more items or points. This turns Mario Kart into a pay-to-win title.

Just in case this was not enough, Nintendo also added a £5 a month ‘Gold Pass’ that gives you in-game bonuses and rewards. To put that into context, Nintendo’s Online Service costs £20 a year, or £1.66 a month. This inexplicably priced monthly pass also locks the 200cc behind its paywall, relegating free players to slower classes.

Furthermore multiplayer, the bread and butter of Mario Kart, is absent and this is felt hard in Mario Kart Tour.  A ‘Coming Soon’ icon plastered over a multiplayer mode suggests its inclusion is not far away, although this was possibly done at the last minute after witnessing the backlash from the community over its non-inclusion. Instead of actual multiplayer, Nintendo instead tries to trick players into thinking they are playing against other people by giving the CPU names that mimick real-life usernames. This tactic is often used in simple and cheap mobile games but is unheard of for a AAA publisher to use such tactics.

To some people these issues are meaningless. All they care about is the gameplay. Unfortunately, the controls and the game design do not replicate the experience of console Mario Kart. 

I would not recommend this game

Players must choose between two methods of steering, either only drifting, or never drifting. This makes for a poor experience as only being able to drift means small adjustments are impossible and never drifting limits how easily cornering is. The game attempts to remedy these problems through the use of auto-steering methods to prevent you from ever falling off. Though this (along with the over-generous item boxes) only further restricts player freedoms, making it seem like you are not in control, or even playing Mario Kart.

I would not recommend this game to any fans looking for a way to play Mario Kart on the go. The exploitative lootbox design and lacklustre gameplay mechanics, not to mention the absence of Luigi as a playable character (despite featuring in the loading image) screams of a rushed game, made solely to boost profits. Mario Kart’s once near-perfect reputation is now finally tarnished.