From our other sites
The story
An article arguing that Mario Kart World “isn’t fun” was picked up on 5ch, sparking a wide reaction on the Hardware/Industry board (Geha). In the thread, many commenters agreed with the criticism that adjusted drop rates for comeback items have turned the game into a “misfortune-avoidance contest,” and with the complaint that the new wall-riding mechanic favors advanced players and raises the skill barrier. On the other hand, some pushed back, noting that the core gameplay still carries over from previous Mario Kart titles and remains plenty enjoyable if you don’t care about competitive play — opinions split largely along how people judged the new features.
What people said
Sales are obviously nowhere close to the previous installment either.
That game was the culmination of the whole series, content volume included.
World completely fails to put its open-world scale to any real use as a main feature, and the new wall-riding mechanic is basically pro-only, which just widens the skill gap even more.
If comeback mechanics and strategic exchanges have basically disappeared, isn't that just… a skill-based match then? 🤔
Keep the elimination mode, where you're knocked out if you don't place high enough, on the current courses.
For everyone else, they should've just made a normal 3-lap course option — Nintendo's kind of dumb for not doing that.
Full of creepy players who won't attack their friends but gang up on everyone else.
The "Look at me! I got attacked by this guy so I tailed and sabotaged him the whole race!" posts you occasionally see on X are genuinely creepy.
I think people are getting turned off because it looks hard.
Also it's expensive.
If you're not thinking about competitive play, you don't need wall-riding and it's not hard — as long as you're not thinking about competitive play.
In that case 8 Deluxe is just fine, isn't it.
Watch a tutorial video and you'll pick it up right away.
It's genuinely fun, I'd recommend it.
Nintendo's literally the only company that managed to put out two Metascore-89 games this year, though.
Futon-chan's are funnier though. (another well-known streamer)
I still watch 8 Deluxe commentary videos to this day.
World just isn't fun.
↓
In Mario Kart World, basically every new feature gets panned
↓
But if you just carry over the already-polished previous entry and refine it further, you get stagnation and diminishing returns
Breath of the Wild → Tears of the Kingdom is a textbook example of that
This is exactly why Nintendo consoles, whose sales lean so heavily on a handful of first-party titles, haven't sold well for two generations running.
New Mario Kart features get panned every single time and eventually get cut, though.
Two-player riding, special items, wheelies, underwater sections, half-gravity — those are still around, but personally I hate the glider too (it got better in 8 once recovery sped up).
This time the 24-player races, the open world, and the rail wall-riding all feel like they're dragging the game down in a pretty flashy way.
Re: #66
Dropping the ability to hold two items at once made no sense. They didn't even fix that until Deluxe.
I'm not into the competitive scene, so I'm actually enjoying it more than 8 Deluxe.
Even if the features added in World are a miss, everything else is still proper Mario Kart underneath, so it sells.
It's also where the series turned into a "mushroom boost spam" game.
Though I'll give them credit, the highlight reel feature was a clever idea.
Even the complaint in Re: #1 just reads like it's coming from someone half-committed — not serious enough to actually try, but still can't stand having a low rating.
Ringomochi is a streamer who actually played pretty seriously.
Do full 24-player lobbies still fill up quickly even now?
Isn't Survival mode pretty fun though?
I don't play either since I hate racing games, but is there some clear reason 8 Deluxe won't cut it?
Smash Bros. is scary because fatal online lag turns it into a different game entirely, so if the new one flops there's no going back — but this is Mario Kart we're talking about, right?
Background and Key Points of the Discussion
Mario Kart World is the latest entry in the series, released in 2025, and it introduces major new features such as 24-player simultaneous races, open-world course traversal, and rail-based wall-riding. What split opinion in the thread was mainly how to judge these new features. Many pointed out that while wall-riding is something anyone can learn with practice, it ends up favoring more advanced players and widening the skill gap, raising the barrier to entry. There was also notable criticism that adjusting the drop rates of comeback items like the lightning bolt has made matches among top-tier players come down to “how much bad luck you managed to avoid,” making the role of randomness a central point of debate. On the other hand, some argued that the core controls and handling still carry over from previous Mario Kart games and remain plenty enjoyable as long as you’re not fixated on competitive play — it’s worth noting that dissatisfaction with the new features and evaluation of the core gameplay are being discussed as two separate threads of opinion.
*This article is compiled as an excerpt and summary from the 5ch (Hardware/Industry (Geha)) thread “An article saying Mario Kart World isn’t fun is going viral for being too on-point.”
Leave a Reply