Mario Kart World (2025, Switch 2)

Developer: Nintendo EPD
Publisher: Nintendo
Clear Version: Switch 2
Clear Platform: Switch 2
Clear Date: 6/7/25

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Why should I care?
They made Mario Kart again.

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Welcome to the world.

My heart does not sing to tell you about Mario Kart. Although I like it as much as the next guy, I’ve always seen Mario Kart’s success as directly antagonistic to the existence of F-Zero, which is substantiated directly by one of the latter’s creators. Mario Kart World is more Mario Kart — that means it’s a best-in-class multiplayer party game and a decent racer.

And that’s pretty good. I did, as a matter of fact, attend a party a couple days after getting my Switch 2 and Mario Kart World. I brought them, and a rotating stack of four players was karting uninterrupted throughout the night.

It was obviously a good time. I hadn’t played Mario Kart in ages because I had been participating in the world’s loneliest boycott — I refused to buy another Mario Kart product until Nintendo released a new F-Zero game. With F-Zero 99, they technically did that (albeit in a form far different than I expected). Thus, I’ve returned to the fold.

I’ll be happy to have this game around for the purpose it serves, but I shall not obsess over it. I shall not spend much time with its free roam mode either. I got gold on all the cups (and the new Knockout Tour mode), and that’s good enough for me until I’m compelled to play it with others, which I’m sure will happen.

Hope you weren’t planning to learn anything about the game from this post! As a little bonus, I’ll say that I really love Pauline’s Famicom-styled racing suit (complete with a pulse line patch) and the R.O.B. motorcycle combo. Really speaks to my recent Famicom obsession.