What is scarier than a MOBILE GAME!?! WITH MICRO-TRANSACTIONS NO LESS! I have spent the last 2 weeks deep into Mario Kart Tour thanks to one of my best friends asking me to add her as a friend on the game. I had been avoiding the Nintendo mobile games because the reaction has been so negative towards them in regards to micro-transactions and constant begging for money. Mario Kart Tour is notorious because of it’s subscription service needed to gain access to the 200cc races and awards. All that said, Mario Kart Tour has done the impossible. It’s made me care about Mario Kart again.
In my mind Mario Kart peaked on SNES, rebounded on game boy advanced and fell off a cliff with Double Dash on Gamecube. I hated Double Dash because it changed something so clean and perfect. I love the simplicity of every racer having a standard kart and the only difference between drivers was weight. It was simple in a time where Gran Turismo was making sim racers complex (and awesome). Double Dash adding a second racer, wider tracks and different Karts just killed the franchise for me. I would argue it kind of never recovered or felt the same (I know, it still sells). People always go back to the N64 Mario Kart and Double Dash is a cult classic at best. Mario Kart 8 takes all of the things I hated about Double Dash and multiplied it. You pick driver, kart, glider, wheels, all to get in a race and get blue shelled into oblivion if you race well. I just stopped and went to the superior Sonic All-Star series skillful driving actually won races and the visuals are far more compelling to me.
With my negative frame towards Mario Kart, I figured I would have the mobile game. Same issues where you pick driver, kart, glider, but Mario Kart Tour did something unique. It made winning and losing not matter as much as accumulating stars and getting a high score with combos. The game rewards skillful driving. Blue shells are rare. Tour made all the elements of Mario Kart come together in a beautiful symphony of score chasing and racing.
Let me attempt to explain the hook. You get into the app. Every week you have access to themed cups consisting of 3 tracks and a challenge. You earn stars by hitting a certain score on each track and accumulate enough stars to unlock the next track. Every week one track has a cumulative score board that pits your total score in the cup against the score of other real players. You get rewards based on where you place. When you pick your character, kart, and glider you see that each item has a combo multiplier on it. That combo is critical in getting high scores. Every track has certain characters that combo on that track. For example, Boo has the highest multiplier on all the ghost tracks. This combo system incentives the player to value every item and to try different combinations of karts and gliders on each track. This scoring system turns the game into an arcade game where your reaching for the high scores and it leads to some really great strategy.
On the track winning still matters. First place gets you more points than 2nd and lower. The real trick is putting together a driver, kart, and glider combo that has the longest and highest multipliers. Every action on the track is scored and if you do actions in a close enough sequence they multiply. If I hit a jump pad, hit Bowser with a red shell and then drift boost that’s a 3x multiplier to the score those actions provide. Once you get good you can combo entire laps. The biggest combo breaker is getting shot by an opponent. This system incentivizes learning the best routes on the track. It rewards you for racing on 150cc or above to maximize points. It give the game replay value and because a race is only 2 laps the time commitment is minimal. The game uses coins and rubies as currency and you get coins in races. Rubies are won by completing challenges or you can buy them.
Mario Kart Tour is the best looking phone game I’ve ever played. Period. It looks amazing. The graphics and details are stunning. They animate faces and throws. This is a game I play with the volume on because the music is awesome. This game feels like a love letter to Mario in the same way Sonic All-stars racing is a love letter to Sega. The controls are fine. You have to manual drift if you want to get the points. The karts auto accelerate, you drift with your thumb sliding across and swipe up to throw items. You’ll hit walls but figure it out and once you do it feels great. The character acquisition is randomized. You pull down on a pipe to shoot something into the air and it reveals your reward. If the pipe is gold it means your getting something nice but recently I unlocked the entire Halloween set with green pipes. It’s not a perfect system but its rewarding enough. You can coins by using rubies to unlock a coin rubs race.
There are actually more mechanics present in the game as well but it all comes together to make a really compelling and complex Mario Kart that has me engaging with the series like never before. It’s sad that the game has been floundering compared to Nintendo’s financial expectations because they made a masterpiece. To the games credit, I’ve been enjoying myself and spent 0 dollars and used the free 2 week trial of the subscription. They messed up and made a fair mobile game and that makes it harder to monetize but I honestly wouldn’t feel guilty putting money into this experience. They earned it.
I also love live games and mobile games because they have the best themed events and Mario Kart was made for a good Halloween event and they didn’t disappoint. Luigi has his vacuum car to suck up ghosts from Luigi’s Mansion. Boo has multiple drivers and a dope pumpkin kart and there are lots of tracks dating back to SNES that take place at the haunted Boo mansions. It’s been awesome playing the Halloween tracks. Mario Kart Tour also has a really positive, vibrant Reddit community.
Disclaimer- I would feel remiss to not speak on the predatory nature of mobile games, especially games with randomized character acquisition and consistent attempts to have money spent throughout. These issues are exacerbated in a kid friendly series like Mario Kart. I have been able to make it through this game without spending a lot of money, but there a lot of opportunities to spend money. Screens pop up to advertise new deals and clicking on characters you don’t have will send you to the store front. It is also very easy to sign up for that subscription. This is not a game to leave with a child if you have a credit card attached.
If you have any interest in Mario Kart, check out Tour. It’s a fantastic game. Happy Halloween! Peace.
J3Blackgamer 