(The tl;dr companion video to this article):

For those of you who have followed ATE for a spell, it is a known known that I enjoy myself Mario Kart (MK) something fierce, even if I don’t love every single MK with the same level of fervency as the rest. Earlier this year, I was at the ass end of a series of articles involving Mario Kart World (MKW), the latest release in the long running series, and what was the “darling” of the Switch 2 launch. The quotations around darling are extraordinarily relevant in my description of that particular moment in time, as the Switch 2 launch was definitely more of a divisive happening within the realm of Nintendo hardware launches, as it was a mix of worry, woe, and some level of excitement, but it didn’t feel like it took the world by storm, nor represented a watershed historical instance in the world of gaming that say, the release that Silksong represented. I’m not here to rip Nintendo a new asshole for their weak ass bullshit that represented the Switch 2 launch, but MKW is impossibly anchored to that circumstance, so it’s hard to avoid mentioning it in any capacity.

This article is more of a send up and send off to what I feel is a much better Mario Kart than World, and is one of the reasons why, even after picking up a Switch 2 and MKW for myself for Xmas, I still routinely play Mario Kart Tour (MKT) every day, and have done so almost with fail (outside of extreme circumstances involving poor health) since I started playing it three years ago. It’s crazy how long ago three years feel like at this point, but that may be more dependent on my particular subjectivity, as there has been a metric shit ton of happenings that have occurred in my life since then, though MKT has been a reliable go to for all of those years. The unfortunate catalyst that prompted the creation of this article, is that quite sadly, MKT is going to be taken offline in just a couple of days, ending a glorious 7 year run that the game enjoyed. It started pre-covid, which, I was making mention of just three years ago feeling like ages in and of itself, but thinking back to before the pandemic happened is akin to eons of distance between now and then.

MKT isn’t an online only title; one can race and battle against people all over the world, and in spite of being a mobile title (for both Android and iOS), the online was always shockingly functional, and overall a stable experience, which added untold levels of replayability to an already succulent slice of gaming delight. There was an entire single player element to the game to boot, where every two weeks they would update the cups one could race on, so one always had a host of new maps to look forward to. Not only that, but between some retro MK courses brought back from past titles, to new courses, both fictionalized, and simulacrums of real life cities one could race in, there was a ridiculous amount of courses one got to experience. On top of all of that, they had multiple versions of any given map, as the devs would further modify said courses with extra track, that took you up and off the originally built course, to gain even further replay out of it, even tracks that were as small as the infamous Baby Park got glow-ups of this variety.

Just to add a sweet cherry on top of that awesome cake that was level diversity, the two week circulation of said course availability was in conjunction with an in game “Tour”, which essentially acted like a cup (mini tournament) one could race on in a single player sense, but your score would be put up on a leaderboard against others trying to top your score, and thus a supremacy for first place with heated rivalries would take hold. What’s even greater is that, if one did indeed achieve first, or at least place (2nd and 3rd), one would receive prizes in the form of characters, karts, gliders, and any number of other goodies, dependent on performance, so it was really worth it to attempt to participate in said events, at least, if one was competitive enough, as even on top of the ego trip involved of besting so many others, the spoils of said war were mighty indeed.

One of the main reasons I like MKT, is it kept things simple; it had a super old school approach to racing, and was such a pure slice of arcade awesomeness, that any given race felt like a chaotic clusterfuck in the best way imaginable. For veterans of the series, that remember the good old days of Mario Kart DS (MKDS), you may remember a little technique called ‘snaking”, which was essentially being able to chain together a continuous chain of power slides together, so one was essentially always boosting. I always thought this was an ideal balance of how MK should operate, as anyone could learn snaking, but not everyone could it well, as it took considerable practice to hone ones skills. However, I feel like it balanced the metagame in a fantastic sense, as it raised the ceiling of potentiality for skilled racers, while not necessarily ruining the game for drivers who would still be gifted any number of advantageous items, with which to thwart those at the head of the pack. However, Nintendo did not concur with my outlook on this, and effectively nerfed snaking with a patch, so one was unable to do it to the same level of effectiveness anymore, which more or less “stuck” as the reality moving forward. Though, for some reason, Nintendo yielded in a strange sense when they released Mario Kart Wii (MKWii), as they allowed bikes to be able to wheelie, which was in no way hard to do, effectively giving bikes an easily triggered uber advantage against karts, and I guess Nintendo thought this was acceptable vs snaking for…..
??????obviouslylogicalreasons??????

In any case, Nintendo is going to Nintendo, and fast forward all the way to MKT, and while not a 1:1 ratio, snaking in some sense, returned, as one was able to emulate extremely similar behavior, especially if one switched controls to manual as opposed to automatic, which is a whole other level of awesome we can talk about…though ironically, will have to wait till next time to get to, as I’ve hit my word quota, and not a moment too soon too, as I must get ready for work.

To at least finish this particular article up with some sense of resolute finality in avoiding a cliff hanger; since the servers are going down, MKT will officially be unplayable come the end of the 29th, and thus, one of the best Mario Karts ever made will be going down with it. In the extreme unlikeliness I am unable to follow this article up with another in a further address of its awesomeness, be sure to check Mario Kart Tour out while you still can (its free on both iOS and Android) until the end of the 29th, at which point, it will be gone permanently. A respectful and fond farewell salute to one of the GOATS that did it the best.

~Pashford