70%Nintendo Switch 2

the open world stuff is actually pretty cool, kinda reminds me of breath of teh wild in terms of collectables but man ... its still mario kart.. you played one you layed em all

5%Nintendo Switch 2

•▪︎■●{Real Score: 0/10}●■▪︎•

This game is an absolute huge steaming pile of garbage. Just when I thought Nintendo has done the greediest thing imaginable, something even greedier comes up. When I pay $60, I expect top-notch AAA quality. When I pay $70, I expect even better. I have yet to give a positive score to a $70 game, so what do you think I expect for $80? At $80, words can't even describe how high my expectations are. I expect it to be the most biblical thing imaginable, it has to blow everything out of the water, it has to buy me a stairway to heaven. Forget Led Zeppelin, it has to pull off a Belinda Carlisle. But what did I get instead? The greedy developers are charging $80 for a mobile game. That is extremely expensive. The graphics are a joke. The physics are beyond horrible. The animations are trash. The driving mechanics are awful. The draw distance is atrocious and there is too much fog in the horizon; literally early PS3 quality. Donkey Kong looks weird now. The developers heavily advertised the open world aspect, which is nothing more than a gimmick that gets old fast. How about they spend time actually improving the gameplay, instead of coming up with gimmicks.

And there's nothing to do in the open world, it's boring. When you get inside the double trailer semi-truck, you can control it briefly and send cars flying in the air when crashing into them. And when crashing into the cars with the semi-truck, the collision physics are awful, it literally looks like it came straight from a Windows 98 game. I know what you're going to say "but it's a kid's game" you want to come up with that bogus excuse? Okay then, we'll go along with that pathetic excuse, but I'm about to point out something that not even the biggest Nintendo fanboy can defend. Are you ready for it? Since the truck can launch cars into the air by crashing into them, that would mean that the impact is severe, right? Then why are the cars in pristine condition afterwards? There's no car deformation, no dents, not even a single scratch; they're completely indestructible. To make matters worse, the cars disappear in about 2 seconds. And when my character launched out of the semi-truck, he magically clipped through a vehicle in the air. You can't defend this. If this were Ubisoft, the narrative would've been so different. You toy-collecting millennials would've been mocking them for hours on end, and don't you dare deny it.

The price tag is the biggest flaw here. Since RDR2 was $60, $80 for this indie quality game is the ultimate disrespect. "But Mario Kart is more fun" how so? Because of the bright colors, pretty lights everywhere, cute upbeat music, and a cow that looks like it was taken straight from a daycare wall painting? Believe it or not some of us actually enjoy activities such as golf, fishing and watching sports. I know that's a little hard for you to grasp, because in your child-like perspective, your idea of fun is cartoons with pretty colorful lights everywhere and cheerful music and stupid talking animals. And anything outside of that is what you consider boring. Since you're a grown man with toys in your room, let me introduce to you to this thing called "outgrowing." Now I'm not trying to shame anyone for liking a "children's" game. As a matter of fact, there are some "kid games" I did enjoy and I would much rather play kid games than arty farty trash like TLOU2. But I'm just letting you know that not everyone gets thrilled by cartoon effects. Fun is subjective, quality is not. We need to value quality, because saying "value is subjective" is exactly why MTX exist in the first place, stupid. I thought you were against MTX?

The multiplayer is a load of garbage and unbalanced. Right when I was about to win a race, someone stole my victory with a Bullet Bill. How was I suppose to defend myself from the pole position? Well whatever, the items being unbalanced is nothing new in Mario Kart. But in another race, I saw with my own two eyes that I came in 1st, but was officially 2nd. I avoided a corbel bracket thing in a race because I thought it was solid, therefore ruining my momentum. But in another lap I saw the leader magically clipped through it. How was I suppose to know that? I lost the race because of that. The passengers cannot board and exit the bus in real-time, lazy devs forgot the door animations. Tracks are lame. So many negative things to say, but I need to calm down and besides, character limit. As for the score, if a $60 game is a 4, probably a 2 by $70 standards, 0 for $80. So if I give a 1 to an $80 game, you devs should be grateful. If you want me to give your $80 game a green score, being better than RDR2 is not good enough. You have to make RDR2 look like a joke. I don't recommend this game at all.

The review above was originally posted by me on Metacritic on June 7, 2025 under one of my backup accounts, which they deleted and banned.

P.S. It's my way or the highway.

90%Nintendo Switch 2

I was skeptical at first but the changes really grew on me and now I really love this game. The tracks are beautiful, knockout tour is intense and quite challenging. Online super fun and very hard. Only small criticism is I wish we had more tools for exploring in free roam. A free camera would make exploring more fun since you're limited by the car.

95%Nintendo Switch 2

Amazing

100%Nintendo Switch 2

Jogo muito divertido com pistas muito bem construídas. Zerei na 150 CC e até que teve momentos complicados, mas no geral foi bem tranquilo!! Recomendo demais!!!

75%Nintendo Switch 2

Definitely not worth €90. (Luckily I only paid €70 for it at release and even that is a stretch.)

The cups, where you spend most of the time racing between the courses, feel too much like the knock out tour, because only the first course has 3 rounds. I'd have prefered the old cup system, jumping from course to course and racing each one 3 times. That way the knock out tour would more feel like its own thing. Right now cups and the tour are very similar.

80%Nintendo Switch 2

Overall good but tracks feel sometimes empty yet 24 racers feel too much. There should be an optional "old-school" Grand prix mode (only 12 racers and tracks without the empty "open world" parts) I think this would solve the issue. I like the MK8 (Deluxe) tracks more. Open world is fun and in a way there is "much to do", despite it has very repetitive p-switch missions and so on. There are many small design decisions I dont understand. Why is drifting and the "charged jump" on the same button? It often leads to one of the two being performed unintentionally. Also I often struggle jumping on walls/rails, especially when in a curve. Wall jumps and "railgrinding" and jumping between rails, mostly feels unintuitive/inaccurate. Charging the jump also feels strange, there is no point in fully charging it. Performance is good, but you should have in mind that its only a handheld and therefore it has graphics from 10 years ago, this is noticeable when you play on a 4k TV, for example. It would run and look better on any other console or PC. Im a bit devided, it can be very fun but also a bit annoying and even boring at times. 80€-90€ is way, way too much for the game, at least if there is no free stuff coming.

85%Nintendo Switch 2

Mario Kart World is a really fun game that has a ton of love put into a lot of areas, while also falling a bit short in areas that a game like MK8D excelled in.

The core racing gameplay feels better than it ever has. The physics are bouncier and more exaggerated, and the tracks are filled with branching pathways, rails to grind, and walls to ride, which allow for more player expression than ever before. Chaining together tricks and rail/wall rides feels so fluid and fun! Almost every track has very unique theming, and there aren’t really any that I dislike playing. Driving from one track to another is a really neat idea on paper, and in execution, it’s also really neat! However, I think that racing on the inbetween tracks doesn’t give you enough time to become familiar with the track you’re driving to, as in most cases only the final lap takes place on the track itself. The destination is treated as the grand finale of a race rather than the focal point of it, which is why i can see myself playing the tracks in versus mode far more often, as im able to race the full three or more laps on a single track, while in many cases also being presented with branching pathways on each lap which explore the full layout of a track further. If you haven’t played a track in versus mode, then you haven’t experienced all of what it has to offer.

One of the headlining new modes, Knockout Tour, is by far my favorite. A battle royale style race across six tracks without stopping once is exactly as exciting as it sounds. The item balancing in this game is extremely frantic in some cases, but I think it adds a lot to this mode specifically. It’s very hard to gain such a lead to the point where other players cant catch up, so you’ll always be engaged with the race. I think that Knockout Tour will be the mode that keeps me coming back to the game

Free Roam is the most unique mode as far as Mario Kart standards go, and is really good at specific things that I wasn’t expecting. First of all, it’s really impressive just how seamlessly each track is blended into a large world. It doesn’t feel like 30 tracks just stitched together nearly as much as it feels like places that just exist in a racing centric world. Most open world games run the risk of feeling empty. Mario Kart World’s map also feels empty, but I think it was strangely enough designed that way. There’s a ton of area to drive around, but Free Roam doesn’t really have any “meaningful” content to complete. There are hundreds of P-Switch challenges, and small collectables that give you stickers hidden around, but the game doesn’t expect, and in my eyes, doesn’t really want you to complete them all. This game feels designed to be unending in a way. There isn’t a completion tracker or in game counter for how many challenges or medallions there are left to find, there arent side quests or a story mode or anything to really “progress through”. Free Roam is really about relaxing and just driving around, seeing how these tracks connect, finding cute little details off road, listening to the PHENOMENAL soundtrack comprised of so, so many incredible songs, and occasionally coming across a new challenge to complete or a collectable you haven’t found yet. In this context, Free Roam works. It’s designed to be something that you never fully find everything in, something that you never see the full scope of. It’s something thats meant to last you an entire console generation, always offering you something you haven’t seen before. Similar to our real world, you’ll never be able to see absolutely everything, and everyone will have seen different things. If you’re going into Free Roam wanting specific things to do and meaningful objectives to complete, I am so sorry because Free Roam is not that. I think Nintendo could have provided a middle ground to satisfy those who expected a more traditional open world experience, because what this mode is truly about is understandably not going to appeal to everyone. It’s a relaxing, huge world to drive around in for 15 minutes after a few races, before moving on to something else.

Others areas of the game at launch feel like they could be expanded upon a more in future updates. Id love to see more battle modes, more beloved characters like Diddy and Funky, more costumes for characters who got little to none, among other small adjustments to things like setting rulesets.

Mario Kart World is a great game. It’s a blast in multiplayer, and the track design is some of the best in the entire series. The game gets all of the big things so right, but at launch it tends to neglect some smaller things. If you like Mario Kart even at the most casual level possible, you’ll like this about as much as you like all of the other ones. If you’re a hardcore fan you’ll appreciate all of the new movement systems, the world design, and track layouts. It’s a game that does alienate both kinds of players in minor ways, but it also unites both under great gameplay.

75%Nintendo Switch 2

Mechanically one of the better Mario Karts, probably. I've enjoyed my time with it but I've got some issues. Completing this game SUCKS, the CPUs cheat more than usual. I don't find the open world empty, but god are platforming challenges clunky as hell. Ambition for ambition's sake. The only thing keeping it from a 7 is Knockout Tour online

80%Nintendo Switch 2

fun new gimmicks. performance and art style are amazing. the highway courses arent as bad as everyone says they are

70%Nintendo Switch 2

Just another instance of the best racing/party game out there. Not that much better than it's always been. Wall jumps are a nice implementation and the music remixes are absolutely great. Spent most of my time exploring and doing challenges in free roam mode, very fun.

100%Nintendo Switch 2

THIS GAME IS WAY TOO AMAZING. IT"S A VERY FUN NOSTALGIA TRIP! JUST A BETTER MARIO KART 8 DELUXE. THERE IS SO MANY CHARACTER AND "KARTS" TO CHOOSE FROM! WE DON'T NEED MARIO KART 8 DELUXE OR MARIO KART WII, WE HAVE MARIO KART WORLD! VERY BIG SHOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOULD RECCOMEND FOR ANY MARIO KART FANS!!! EDIT: ME AND MY FRIEND FIGURED OUT A WAY TO DO MULTIPLAYER FREE ROAM AND IT"S SUCKS? WE JUST USED WIRELESS PLAY MULTIPLAYER AND LIKE...... IT SUCKS! WHEN THE PLAYERS ARE TOO FAR APART, IT WILL SEND THE PLAYERS AT LEAST 10 PIXELS AWAY FROM EACH OTHER! AND THERE IS NO MAP EVEN WHEN YOU CLICK Y NOTHING SHOWS UP!!! NINTENDO, PLEASE ADD MULTIPLAYER FREE ROAM!!!!!!!!

85%Nintendo Switch 2

As a long time MK8 player, my opinion is mixed. World feels like a MK8 re-skin with some new animations. Blue shells screw you over the same. Even the menus look like a recolour.

It’s still one of the best arcade racers of them all and isn't a bad game by any means. The soundtrack is incredible and some of the new circuits are simply mind blowing.

The new Knockout Tour is a great concept. A point-to-point race with multiple combined circuits and elimination checkpoints. It just has serious balancing issues making it almost impossible to 3 star some of the races. Think GP was bad? Imagine getting cheated near the end of a 10-minute race!

Free roam is unforgivably half-baked considering the attention it was given.

I know there will be future updates. I just feel like World in its current state was massively over-sold to bolster Switch 2 hype.

90%Nintendo Switch 2

A solid mario kart game with good online and offline play. The levels are varied and connect seamless from one to the other. I love the feeling of levels being one big long track in knock out mode. The CPU is quite aggressive on all modes, and getting a gold cup is really a matter of RNG more than skill. I'd like it if you could disable the cheaper power ups such as lightning, red shell, blue shell, bullet bill and star. The soundtrack is amazing. The graphics, looks and controls are what I expect. The music remixes and call backs are amazing. Just like MK8, this game will be getting played over and over and over again.

70%Nintendo Switch 2

It’s a Mario Kart so it is fun and enjoyable. But it is the worst of all the series. Maybe the open world for this kind of game is not the perfect match. It feels empty and the tracks are forgettable and not that fun.

80%Nintendo Switch 2

Mario Kart World é um jogo que tinha um desafio enorme a superar, MK8D foi o ápice da fórmula que a série vinha seguindo e superá-lo não seria nada fácil, pra isso tentaram ir pra novas direções, fazendo um mundo com pistas interligadas e que é explorável como um mundo aberto no modo livre e com pistas interligadas de forma pré-definida pro torneio e modo eliminatória no papel tudo maravilhoso e ambicioso mas a execução acho que pecou um pouco.

Não acho que o jogo seja ruim de forma alguma, a jogabilidade está muito boa, a dificuldade dos bots está ótima (a não ser que tenha tido um update recente que tenha mudado, quando joguei tava bem desafiador), o modo eliminatória é bem divertido (parecido com o de Grid Legends) e foi um saco pegar 3 estrelas em tudo. A lista de personagens é boa porém eles tentam inflar com roupas diferentes pros bonecos, eu preferia que só fosse uma tela de seleção normal assim como é no Crash Team Racing NF e depois que você escolhe o boneco aparece qual roupa você quer usar, sou a favor das roupas porém não gostei de como escolhe os personagens mas pior que isso só a forma como desbloqueamos os personagens e roupas. As roupas ainda acho menos mau, pra desbloquear você tem que pegar a sacolinha dourada e usar o item que vem lá, dependendo da região do mapa ou pista que você está receberá itens diferentes que te transformam, incentiva explorar os lugares com personagens diferentes. Os personagens secundários são desbloqueados quando você é acertado pelo item da Kamek que vai te transformar num bicho diferente de acordo com o local que você e quem arremessou o item está, pra mim falta três bonecos e particularmente ja desisti de desbloquear, mesmo se você tentar fazer multiplayer local pra forçar vir o item pra usar no lugar certo não tem garatia nenhuma que o item vem, mesmo tentando por mais de uma hora.

O modo de mundo aberto achei pouco atrativo, apesar de ter uma quantidade grande de coisas pra descobrir o jogo não te incentiva de muitas formas, quando você começa a dirigir pelo mundo você tem um mini mapa no canto que não é muito útil e o fato de que não da pra abrir o mapa geral pra você ver pra onde quer ir, colocar um marcador de destino pra ativar tipo um gps ou um registro no mapa com as coisas que você já fez é ridículo, não tô falando pra ser igual aqueles jogos que tem mil coisas piscando na tela te falando o que da pra fazer e onde ir só de você abrir o jogo, mas esse modo tem zero ajudas de qualidade de vida disponível.

O modo online é muito caótico com 24 competidores, a princípio acho que com 12 era mais equilibrado. Quando introduziram pistas com voltas diferentes no MK7 eu achei legal por conta de serem apenas algumas pistas, nesse jogo praticamente não temos pistas de três voltas convencionais, elas ainda estão no jogo mas é muito raro de se ver no online, até entendo que seja como é por conta do mundo aberto mas ao meu ver voltas iguais adicionam dinamismo nas corridas e estratégia pro uso de itens como a banana, agora não faz sentido algum deixar uma pra trás num ponto específico da pista como um atalho, afinal só vão passar lá uma vez e pronto.

Visualmente o jogo tá lindo, um verdadeiro salto comparado ao anterior apesar de algumas pessoas discordarem, mas o pessoal tem que entender a diferença de gráficos bons e estilo artístico.

O jogo teve que seguir novos rumos pra não cair no mais do mesmo e apesar de ambicioso faltou polimento/versatilidade em alguns elementos. Vejo que a série pode ter um futuro muito bom pela frente seguindo por esse caminho mas os primeiros passos não foram perfeitos, ao meu ver muitos dos problemas podem ser corrigidos com atualizações gratuitas principalmente pra tornar o mundo aberto mais atrativo pros jogadores e adicionar uma opção na hora de escolher a pista online se você quer a pista de três voltas ou interligada. No geral MKW e MK8D são dois jogos com propostas bem diferentes e não tem problema algum nisso, não vou entrar no assunto do preço.

Jogo indispensável pra qualquer dono do console assim como todo Mario Kart, mas se esse for o único jogo que te interessa no console no momento melhor esperar um pouco.

70%Nintendo Switch 2

Oh, we're getting karted in this jawn. I never really played too much MK8 so I can't compare much there. Pretty fun, but the open world isn't really that exciting.

90%Nintendo Switch 2

first time tried and played more than 1 and 2 races in mario kart ip. game is really beautiful that shows switch 2 capabilities

85%Nintendo Switch 2

The free roam adds a valuable addition to the series but the rubber banding of the AI is still very bad at times.

80%Nintendo Switch 2

It's Mario Kart, there's not much to say. It feels polished and sleek, and the new mechanics make it fun. I’m just a bit disappointed by the grayish/hazy graphics and the uninspired music. It tries too hard to be rock-ish, jazzy, and cool, but it’s missing the fun factor for me. Still, local multiplayer is where it truly shines, and it's as good as ever.

85%Nintendo Switch 2

Un jeu amusant avec des amis mais ne vaut pas 90 euros. Cependant, le jeu reste un classique et se démarque des anciens. On peut noter que la conduite en open world ne sert à rien mais reste plaisante à jouer.

85%Nintendo Switch 2

A Mario Kart game that tries to do things a little differently by being open world, and they do it really well. I'm actually a big fan of the connecting sections between tracks. Jumping into free roam opens up challenges and collectibles hidden all over the place, although I foresee it getting old. The real standout addition though is knockout mode.

100%Nintendo Switch 2

What a great follow-up to MK8. I was skeptical and didn't like the new tricking systems at first, but the open world really encouraged the new tech, and helped foster my love for the game.

100%Nintendo Switch 2

Jogo muito bom, modo online divertido e viciante

70%Nintendo Switch 2

World is a great addition to the Mario Kart franchise with better driving, more fun mechanics that allow you to interact with the tracks more and it looks incredible

It also doens't really do too much new and the big new feature of the open world doesn't add enough to make this the best Mario Kart out there. The other new feature is the knowckout mode which brings some great intense action but is far too easy in single player a nd can get frustrating in multiplayer when playing against others that know what they're doing. With 8 having many many more tracks available and playable on the Switch 2, there is no real incentive to get World unless you're getting it with the Switch 2 or looking for a bit of an upgrade to 8

That being said, it is very fun and is still Mario Kart with its frantic races, amazing multiplayer and smooths out a bunch of the rough edges from 8. Would still recommend to fans of the franchise looking for fresh tracks and wanting to try the new mode

70%Nintendo Switch 2

Love Knockout Tour mode, game otherwise seems average.

70%Nintendo Switch 2

Very good and fun base game at its core, but it wastes a lot of potential due to questionable design choices and lack of QOL.

80%Nintendo Switch 2

A superb Mario Kart that lacks variety in the characters and vehicles available, as well as having the WORST character unlocking method ever!

85%Nintendo Switch 2

8.75

75%Nintendo Switch 2

Buen gameplay, buenas adiciones respecto a entregas anteriores, pero el contenido es pobre, el online puede estar bueno, pero en single player se queda sin contenido y se vuelve repetitivo rápidamente.

Me quedo con MK8 Deluxe.

80%Nintendo Switch 2

Not a bad game, however the selling point of Mario Kart World is the open world, it felt pretty lack luster and got boring quickly.

80%Nintendo Switch 2

Mario kart World é a sequência de um jogo praticamente perfeito(desconsiderando o booster course pass que é lamentável), e definitivamente ele não supera o 8 deluxe. O jogo é MUITO bonito, boa trilha sonora e é Mario kart, um jogo bem divertido e engajante. Mas esse título traz diversas coisas que eu não gostei, o mundo aberto é muito legal de ver como tudo se conecta, mas somente isso mesmo, pois é totalmente desinteressante, não tem nada recompensador para fazer lá. As partidas agora estão muito mais bagunçadas, pois são mais participantes e tem caixa de item pra todo lado, o que dá a sensação que você somente aperta o A e fica tacando itens, isso é muito chato. As novas habilidades de trilhar em cima dos corrimão é difícil de fazer e são através deles que se corta caminho com atalhos, isso é meio chato. O menu de seleção dos personagens está bem poluído com muito dos mesmos personagens com skins diferentes. A novidade bacana que o jogo trouxe foi o modo de eliminação que é bem interessante e reduz o problema de bagunça na corrida no terceiro terço da rota.
Eu sei que todos gostaram, mas eu particulamente achei nada a ver os personagens aleatórios tipo morcego, abelha e etc...
Para um fã da franquia e/ou da Nintendo, é um jogo recomendável porque ainda é possível se divertir, mas para quem não é, não. O 8 Deluxe vale mais o seu tempo e dinheiro.

80%Nintendo Switch 2

Another very fun, very beautiful Mario Kart.

40%Nintendo Switch 2

(Warning: rant-y, critical review. Like the game? Let's agree to disagree.)

...Sorely disappointed by this game. The step up from 8 Deluxe was MINISCULE. Getting to drive on walls and rails, etc was not a really big change at all, and having to drive to the next course (Grand Prix) and only getting one lap (excluding the first track) is a BAFFLING decision from the part of the developers.

This is a problem made only worse by online mode where you choose a single track, drive to it and get one lap. There should at LEAST be a setting or something to remove in-between tracks or choose to get extra laps! The in-between tracks are dull and boring compared to the actual tracks, so why do you have to sit through more in-between-tracks than ACTUAL courses?! There online mode allowed your normal, better three-lap courses if you chose "Random" before, but Nintendo had the audacity to remove this after people were profiting off of this oversight and - to Nintendo's dismay - ACTUALLY HAVING FUN. Because of this, both Grand Prix and your standard online play are just stuff you shouldn't play, and waste your time with filler tracks more than the real, fun courses.

The roster is very fun and cool, but some of the characters require TONS of luck due to it being RNG-based. You have to get some of the (funner parts of the) roster through being zapped by a Kamek (new item) from another player. This is INFURIATING and whoever thought this method would NOT be torturous when implementing it seriously needs to rethink things over a few hundred more times.

Free roam is fun... For about the first while or so. The lack of meaningful rewards for completing objectives makes it hard to bring myself to even touch it. Knockout Tour is probably the best way to play the game, as the Grand Prix (as mentioned before) has been massacred and ruined. Battle mode has a LOT less mini games, which is also a confusing decision..? Like, why?

It's not ALL bad. This game saves itself from a 0% from me with mostly the map. The map itself and courses are pretty and are of nice quality. Big shame that you can't enjoy two thirds of the courses for more than a lap in Grand Prix, AND have nothing meaningful to do whilst in Free Roam.

The outfits themselves are fine, but unfortunately they were implemented in a boring way: Yoshi Diners. This is quite possibly one of the most grind-y and boring ways to implement these. The only way this doesn't siphon your soul away slowly is by collecting them naturally through racing: something that is also frustrating and not something I want to do.

Why not offer outfits as rewards in Free Roam instead of lousy stickers? I REALLY AM NOT SURE. This not-very-big change would fix Free Roam for me (for the most part). (Oh, yeah and making the characters you get from being transformed by a Kamek would also have been nice.)

You're telling me this costs £75? The price tag is completely nonsensical. It is most certainly not £10 better than every other game on the Switch 2. I'm glad I bought the game in the limited-time bundle, because it is only worth £50. In the future where the bundle no longer exists? Don't buy this. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe + Booster Course Pass might cost around £35 + £22, which is BETTER and costs less.

All in all, a very... not great installment in a pretty awesome series. Very disappointing. Did I mention this game took 8 years to create? Is this game 8-years-good, and is it £75-good? The answer to both questions are no. The developers had 8 years to develop this game, and yet Free Roam has zero content?

80%Nintendo Switch 2

Très très fun en mode défi, mais le mode balade est une bonne idée plombée par la multitude de choses à faire sans possibilité de checker où on en est.

90%Nintendo Switch 2

Mario kart World is expanding on the previous game by having all the tracks in a great open world. You can race freely in free-roam mode and complete challanges and collect hidden coins, which is very fun to do.
The normal grand prix mode is back from the previous game, but now you also have to drive from the previous track to the next. I can understand people might not like this, as they want to just race on the tracks themselves, but I like this idea. It makes the tracks feel part of the world.
There is also a mode where you race across 4 tracks without stopping, where you have to be at least a certain place to make it past checkpoints. This is my favorite mode to play.
The driving feels a little, for lack of a better word, cartoony from the previous game. But this seems to be the vibe of the whole game. After some getting used to, it feels great. There are also some new tricks you can perform, which add to the complexity. I've found the game's AI to be a little more difficult than the previous game.
There do seem to be more wide open, long straight forward track parts, which may be a side effect from the fact all the tracks are now interconnected, but it does make some parts feel a little less fun than the previous games.
Overal I think it's another fun mario kart game and I love the fact they dared to try to add something completely new like the openworld aspect, to a winning formula. They could have just upgraded the graphics, made new tracks and called it a day.
Also, the soundtrack is amazing. In free-roam mode they added so many tracks that are remasters from old games, not just mario kart songs.

100%Nintendo Switch 2

in top 6 games love this game

50%Nintendo Switch 2

A massive downgrade compared to MK8 with some truly baffling decisions—multiplayer for mostly intermission racing? Open-world multiplayer that disables the only interactables? Terrible item scaling & encouraged sandbagging in competitive multiplayer? Not even to mention the embarrassing $80 mark-up MSRP at-launch … do better, Nintendo.

100%Nintendo Switch 2

i like beating everyone but not my friends

70%Nintendo Switch 2

Mario Kart World is a game that does so many things I wanted to see from the series for decades but also implements most of them in some of the worst ways possible.

I think what we can all agree on is that the music and animation are so much better in this game. Every character model and even the karts themselves are well animated and have so much charm. Especially the main drivers don't have this Vietnam soldier stare anymore, which makes them more appealing.
Graphics-wise, if you compare World to Mario Kart 8, you'll notice the game has higher highs but much lower lows. The moment you drive off the beaten path, it loses detail, and the terrain can become much pointier. Even the shading is rather drab and often looks like it has very little color variation; an obvious example would be Moo Moo Meadows.

Now, but what about the tracks?
This is the least amount of tracks we've had since Mario Kart Double Dash, there are only 30 tracks, with two of them being split up to make the 32 Grand Prix track roster. Some of the retro courses are the most baffling choices I've ever seen. We already had Mario Circuit 3 and Choco Mountain 3 years ago. Moo Moo Meadows has been a track on every console Mario Kart game since 2008. DK Pass and Desert Hills are not good enough to be remade for a second time in a mainline entry, and then there's Koopa Troopa Beach 2, which pales in comparison to any GBA and SNES track remakes made for Mario Kart 8.
This hurts a good chunk of the track selection a lot, but luckily the new tracks are genuinely amazing. Mario Kart World impresses by overhauling its trick system, something I wanted for decades, and improves it a ton by adding wallriding and rails to grind with. These two things immensely upgrade the course design by giving you several options in each section of the course. To truly master them, you need to play them so many times; it adds so much replayability to an otherwise simple game. However, there are two huge issues. The trick system requires multiple inputs of you to master of it, but this can be easily trivialized by using a mushroom, generally speaking most tricks aren't faster except for the extremely risky ones, which are at times too risky, since a simple shell can ruin it for you.
The other issue is that you can't even learn most of the tracks thanks to...

...the Intermissions. The intermissions show up in all Grand Prix cups and forced their way into online lobbies even though they aren't remotely good. Firstly, I do like the concept. Driving to the next track seamlessly is a cool concept on paper, but it hurts how memorable the cups are, due to most of it not being spent on the actual track itself, but rather on a straight road to the track, and no, this isn't hyperbole.
I have never seen a racing game's main complaint being that you drive too much in a straight line, especially from an open-world one. Wonder why? Because Mario Kart is not designed with these long straight roads in mind, in open-world racers you risk crashing into obstacles, but the reward is that you can drive at breakneck speed. Unless you have a very bad reaction time, this won't be the case for Mario Kart, the karts are much slower and do not require you to make split-second decisions, so 90% of the time you cannot even hit obstacles. What's even worse is that the trick system is wasted since these are plain roads, there are no walls, no rails, no anything to trick off, except when there is, then it's the slowest route possible. So, what risk could they come up with to make this interesting?

Case in point: Knockout Tour. I admit, elimination modes aren't that new to the genre, but at least it's fun. Each track you reach, a new group of players gets eliminated. Yes, this is still a straight line, but it makes it much more intense; after all, all the players are bunched up, and anyone could get eliminated.

What really isn't intense is the free roam. In a way it's very therapeutic, meaning it's just neat to drive around, but then you notice that this open world is more lacking than an open-world racer from the mid-2000s. There is nothing worthwhile to do here. I mean, yeah, there are P-switch missions and stuff to collect, but for what? A sticker that you can't even see on your vehicle? Really? Even if there was a reward like costumes and racers, which they somehow tied to RNG mechanics that require so many dice rolls even Gacha games would be jealous, it still wouldn't matter. These missions are the definition of quantity over quality; all they do is spawn some assets and go, beat that challenge real quick. It irks me that such a beautiful world is wasted on level design that barely even takes advantage of the environment you're in, and somehow this is the same company that revolutionized open worlds 8 years ago?

Overall, MK World forces its title-giving gimmick in places that are fine without it but continuously avoids developing it enough to make it worthwhile on its own.

90%Nintendo Switch 2

It's got some weird quirks, but I had a tremendous time playing through all the cups with my youngest. Rainbow Road in MKW is bananasI loved everything from the cutscene to the trip up to the balls out final lap. They really outdid themselves with this one.

75%Nintendo Switch 2

Grand prix is great, but the new free roam mode is absolute garbage. Knockout Tour is only slightly better than free roam, the game feels extremely half-baked overall. A big step down from 8, even the launch version of 8 on Wii U.

100%Nintendo Switch 2

i love this game. if you're a fan of mario kart, you def need to play this game. i love the soundtrack and the free roam mode where you can just drive around, find collectibles, and unlock new costumes. i still have a lot to do but i like this game so far!

80%Nintendo Switch 2

Good game overall. The item spam is absolutely crazy in this MK iteration.

75%Nintendo Switch 2

This game really really needs a Classic Grand prix mode. In addition to this I was expecting more from the open world. It's hard to follow up on the perfection that was Mario Kart 8. I'd take the base game of 8 over world.

85%Nintendo Switch 2

Overall, Mario kart world is a great Mario kart, with magnificent music, a very cool open world to visit, and a new “survival” mode that works really well with 24 players on the track. However, the game's soft spots for me are the roads that connect the races, which I sometimes find slow in certain situations, even with 150 cc. And speaking of 150cc, I think that 200cc would have made up for this slowness, but this Mario kart is a very good launch game for the Switch 2 and is still great fun to play, whether alone or with friends. It's really cool !

90%Nintendo Switch 2

This new Mario Kart is a fantastic game that I've waited many years for. Very in depth and skilled mechanics to learn with wall riding and rail grinding/tricking. I love the wide variety of characters and their costumes, there is a great roster there. The vast majority of the tracks are fantastic, especially with the revamped old ones. And honestly, the best part of the game has to be the music. So many amazing new tracks and remixes of old favorites that are all worth listening to. The open world roaming is cool, but it does get old kind of quick. The elephant in the room is most certainly the $80 price tag, but to me, as someone who's waited over 11 years for a new Mario Kart, this was well worth the price. Highly recommend to any Mario Kart fan.