The Unestablished Lore Missing in Mario Kart World
Kirby Air Riders has unleashed a wave of undeniable positivity among the gaming community that we just don’t see much of anymore. Argue everything you want regarding the Switch 2, regarding the Kirby franchise, but that beautiful madman Masahiro Sakurai gave us nearly two hours of Nintendo Direct footage within a couple months in preparation for the unexpected sequel of a cult hit from multiple decades ago.
Just let him run Nintendo, please, for the sake of the industry.
The upcoming game looks like the 2003 Gamecube racer but injected with a quadruple dosage of quality steroids as we have updated and expanded versions of all the modes that made Kirby’s Air Ride popular among the Kirby fans as well as a single-player campaign complete with cutscenes and a storyline. This game looks like a celebration of all thing Kirby while also expanding on the already-bonkers lore of the IP, which features a spectacular variety of characters, settings, powers, and villains scary enough to quality the Kirby games as part-horror. The Directs also confidently killed the rumors about how Sakurai doesn’t like the ideas from modern Kirby games as the presentations displayed references from all kinds of Dream Land lore crafted long after Sakurai had moved on to running the Smash Bros. franchise.
It’s almost a running joke about how Kirby looks so cute and innocent but the game will always have a battle against grotesque demons in its climax, regardless of how easygoing the adventure becomes, and this racing game will seemingly tote the same path. And this is where I want to discuss why I personally believe Mario Kart World became so polarizing, despite nonetheless being a good game. Yes, Mario Kart World is a well-crafted game with a ton of details, polish, and spectacular music. Yes, I will be defending the Free Roam mode while also pointing out why exactly it feels “empty” for a lot of Nintendo fans.
First, we have to get this part out of the way: Mario Kart World was not really made solely for the hardcore crowd; it’s a casual game for casual Nintendo fans and casual gamers in general that’s nonetheless inviting to all.
The Mario Kart franchise is one whose popularity far exceeds that of the IPs we full-time gamers recognize as the cornerstones of Nintendo. Mario Kart 8 on the Nintendo Switch outsold Mario Odyssey, Smash Bros. Ultimate, and even Breath of the Wild. With sales exceeding almost 70 million copies, it’s almost clear that we have Switch owners who primarily play Mario Kart and not any of the mainline games where you’ll find the characters within its roster, including Zelda, Splatoon, Donkey Kong, and even Super Mario himself.
Mario Kart is a different energy, a different vibe, and therefore isn’t and shouldn’t really be viewed with the elevated standards we place on franchises like Zelda, Mario, or Xenoblade. Not saying we shouldn’t criticize the game if its broken, but what I am saying is that Mario Kart is video game sugar; addicting, unhealthy, and doesn’t have as much depth in flavor. Sometimes I want a deep experience, sometimes I just want a few quick online races. Mario Kart scratches that casual itch, especially Mario Kart 8 Deluxe which might be the greatest casual racing game ever crafted. Yes, people do play this on a competitive level, but unlike Smash Bros. I never feel like Nintendo makes these games with the competitive scene in mind.
Nintendo clearly felt like they couldn’t top MK8 Deluxe’s course designs (with good reason because as I said the game is phenomenal and a vast improvement as to what it initially was in the WiiU era) and had to seek a different direction for the next installment, hence the wider courses, different lineup of items, and the single-player mode of roaming freely around a giant Grand Theft Auto-sized environment.
However, Free Roam is still a wildly missed opportunity to really cater to the hardcore Nintendo crowd that has become the most vocal against the game overall.
Kirby Air Riders’ entire racing ecosystem with the incoming story mode seems to exist within the already-established lore and environments of the Kirby franchise, likely also being stuffed with callbacks and references to the past while remaining cohesive to the overall scope of Kirby’s chaotic (and sometimes downright dark) world.
Mario Kart World on the other hand does not feature established locales of part Mario games of the 2-D, 3-D, spinoff, and even RPG spaces, and this was such a missed opportunity to truly deliver some fun explorable details for longtime gamers to seek as they roam around the massive, massive world created for the game.
Mario Kart World isn’t empty nor is it devoid of easter eggs, but to a select population it feels slightly empty because we aren’t really seeing an expanded or enhanced version of familiar Super Mario lore. Even Breath of the Wild despite it being in a completely different timeline still features some of the familiar Zelda tropes of having its Hyrule Castle and surrounding towns and other familiar sights like Zora’s Domain. Now, the argument can be made for the fact that Super Mario doesn’t have an established universe at all, the Mario IP is a blank canvas for you to fill with whatever you want at the moment; whether it be grandiose adventure, fun multi-player platforming, or role-playing adventure with a fun story.
However, it’s not like Super Mario isn’t without its creative and awe-inspiring places; whether it be the barely-explored Sarasaland from Super Mario Land, Isle Defino of Mario Sunshine (Double Dash toyed with featuring races within the locale), underrated Kitchen Island from Wario Land, Dinosaur Island from Super Mario World 1-2, Toad Town and Luigi’s Mansion from several different games, cult-favorite Rogueport from Thousand-Year Door, Nimbus Land from Super Mario RPG, and the list honestly goes on and on. Even with Rainbow Road, you could have paired that track with the Comet Observatory from Mario Galaxy or even Star Road from Super Mario RPG.
Imagine creating a cohesive drivable environment featuring locales of past and present Nintendo games mostly on the Super Mario side, imagine with D.K.’s appearance here having the ability to even travel to D.K Isle and drive around there. Super Mario has traversed practically every kind of setting you can think of, even ending up in a version of Hell in Super Paper Mario (a title…that Nintendo doesn’t really enjoy returning back to…), with even the existence of several “islands” could have given the Mario Kart World developers opportunities to separate entire landmasses if the locales were becoming a bit less consistent and threatening some of the immersion.
As a loose example (not the one above, this is my personal take), you could have had the Mushroom Kingdom at the center of the map complete with moat and the hidden caves from Super Mario 64, with the underground section connecting to Bowser’s villain lair and his own castle (In Mario Kart World’s defense, Bowser’s Castle is technically on the game, but the Koopalings and their fortresses/castles are sadly missing). Beyond the Mushroom Kingdom at the center (with a connecting Royal Raceway as a Mario Kart 64 callback), you could have surrounded it with Toad Town and Toad’s Highway and then expand from there to the mountains and valleys that could lead to spots like Daisy’s Sarasaland, Luigi’s Mansion, maybe even the underutilized Northern Kremisphere from DKC3. The Super Mario Bros. Movie opened the door for the D.K. universe and the Mushroom Kingdom universe to be in a shared space, and that was a project with Nintendo’s direct involvement. With pipes and extended waterways, you could have also created paths to D.K. Isle, Delfino Isle, Kitchen Island, and fan-favorite Wahu Island from the Wii Sports era.
Side-Note: Even though I don’t enjoy microtransactions, the DLC opportunities here would be spectacular. Not related to Super Mario, but Spocco Square from Nintendo Switch Sports is just begging for a second appearance. I still have dreams about that mall.
Free Roam could have been a celebration of all things Super Mario and Nintendo, and a finalized official version of a complete layout of the Super Mario universe. This could have been a game-changing moment, and then on top of that you could offer all the secrets, callbacks, and references Mario fans can handle while having the typical fun Mario Kart gameplay. If Sakurai and his Smash Bros. games have revealed anything, is that Nintendo fans love their easter eggs, just look at how well-received the wildly diverse soundtrack of Mario Kart World has been because of their quality but also because of the deep cuts in the music they selected.
Once again, I don’t think Mario Kart World is a bad game, but I do think some of the disconnect regarding the laid-back single-player gameplay stems from the developers creating a brand-new world almost from scratch to drive around (now, I do also acknowledge that there are nods to Mario Kart tracks) as opposed to making the map consist entirely of expanded variations of familiar locales throughout Nintendo’s history. It’s one thing to not offer an actual campaign, but its another to create such a vast diverse world but it still feels a little disconnected from the mythos of Super Mario. Why have Rosalina if you don’t have her cosmic library? Why have Daisy without finally creating her kingdom? Why Luigi but no Luigi’s Mansion? This was the perfect game to loosely fit all the geographical pieces together.
Mario Kart World is a grandiose game and a Nintendo experiment that is full of life, but doesn’t quite have enough established and connected lore to traverse and joyfully analyze. I wanted to see more than just the Mario Circuit, and the castles we’ve seen in almost every Mario Kart, I wanted to see deeper aesthetic references, deeper lore cuts, stuff we probably would have gotten if Mario Kart World had been directed by Sakurai. But maybe that’s why we’re going to have two high-budget racers in 2025, one for the casual gaming crowd, and one that was clearly made for those who have already invested in the wacky world of Nintendo for a long time.
But at least show me where Waluigi lives…