Mario Kart Tour continues the series of my disappointment with Nintendo mobile offerings of late; Great production values mired by subpar gameplay and insufferable microtransaction-laden mechanics everywhere. I gave it a shot to see what the game was like, but when I got hit by a requirement for me to replay some of the previous levels, I decided it was enough. I didn’t have a great time with the game itself, so everything around it just felt like adding insult to injury.
In theory, the game itself plays simply, you move left and right to steer, up and down to use items. There are two modes for drifting so you can ‘wiggle’ around to drift or just not do it at all. Both method of movements felt weird to me and I spent all my time with the game switching back and forth and not being sure what I was doing wrong that prevented me to finish 1st at 50cc difficulties. Then you go through a bunch of cups which are made of a few short races and you win a bunch of currencies and tickets. You also have a score, made up of everything you do in a race, from shooting your opponents to having a turbo boost at the beginning. This gives you stars at the end, and you need them to progress.
There are a bunch of characters in the game - you unlock more via a gacha - and they give more items per item boxes based on the track you’re playing on, and they also have a point value. The vehicles you’re using give you more points on certain courses and have special skills. Both drivers and vehicles don’t seem to have different weights and acceleration values (and if they do, they’re well hidden) so I wasn’t sure if the game was a bit too simple or if I had missed some information. Besides the handling feeling a bit annoying (see previous comment about how I switched the control systems constantly) the courses were okay. They are quite short, but there is some good variety and there are new tracks as well. Mario Kart Tour sure doesn’t lack in production values.
The game has some weird subscription service that makes close to no sense for me. Almost seven dollars per month to get some bonuses in a mobile mario kart game - like being able to race at 200cc? - is a strange value proposition that I don’t want to have anything to do with. This is all a shame because a good mobile mario kart game is certainly possible. There’s enough content here to make it happen, they have a few challenges, leaderboard ranking that gives you rewards based on what you got and a few other mechanics here and there, but then they would’ve needed to make this a premium experience where everything is unlocked and balanced for fun.
I didn’t enjoy Mario Kart Tour, it’s certainly well made - like Pokemon Masters was, or even Dr Mario World, but it’s just a shell of what the franchise is about. A mobile racing game that feels bad to play and has even worse hooks to spend money isn’t something I’d want to spend my time with, and I’m a big mario kart fan.
