Few series inspire as much excitement in gamers from across every demographic as the Mario Kart games. While the games are heavily luck-based, they also have a strong skill-based component, especially on higher speeds. Even though the Mario Kart series has a huge number of entries at this point, it’s succeeded in staying fresh thanks to the introduction of new gimmicks. Far from the creative stagnation and poor reception many franchises experience on their 8th entries, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is the Switch’s best-selling game. This is thanks in large part to the addition of gliding and diving from Mario Kart 7, and the addition of anti-gravity racing from Mario Kart 8.
Whenever Nintendo sees fit to release Mario Kart 9, it will need to find some way to give the game a fresh gameplay experience. Still, not all potential gimmicks are created equal. Gliding, diving, and anti-gravity shake up the racing experience and enable novel course designs, but how can future gimmicks build on these ideas without becoming annoying? In order to find an answer, it’s probably best to look at why 7 and 8 succeed so well with implementing gimmicks – while also noting those gimmicks’ shortcomings.
As obvious as it may sound, Mario Kart courses can only take place on tracks that karts can traverse. As earlier franchise entries restricted racers to ground-based movement, racetracks had to be based on the ground as well. However, thanks to the new gimmicks, the series could add new designs that were previously impossible. These include highlights like Mario Kart 7’s Wario Shipyard and Piranha Plant Slide, and Mario Kart 8‘s Electrodrome and mobius-strip-shaped Mario Circuit. Even fairly mundane concepts, like 8‘s San Francisco-inspired Toad Harbor, have become top-ranked fan favorite Mario Kart courses thanks to the ability to drive up walls and explore the city in unusual ways.
Gimmicks do more than just enable exciting new courses; they breathe new life into returning retro courses as well. By turning bodies of water into fully explorable course routes, for example, diving makes water-heavy retro tracks like Double Dash‘s Daisy Cruiser much more dynamic and enjoyable for beginners. Even in their original appearances, almost every Mario Kart course is filled with exciting details and lush scenery. Because the series’ gimmicks allow players to explore these background elements in new ways, adding gimmicks to retro tracks usually feels like a natural evolution.
Finally, the quirks of gliding, diving, and driving upside-down have major implications for high-level play. The over-the-top 200cc mode in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe makes karts go so fast that the player must have complete driving mastery to stay on the track. As the physics for standard driving differ from those underwater or in the air, players must master every gimmick in order to have a shot at taking home gold medals from a 200cc cup. In the hands of Nintendo’s expert developers, tracks designed to be challenging are demanding but fair, such as Mario Kart 8‘s Bowser Castle course.
Not every gimmick implementation in the most recent Mario Kart games is perfect. At times, the developers seem to insert a gimmick for its own sake, rather than for the sake of a fun course. Some ramps, underground sections, and anti-gravity sections feel lazily shoehorned-in to otherwise-decent track design. This most often occurs when retro tracks have a small section tilted at an angle to justify an anti-gravity section, such as Mario Kart 8‘s GBA Mario Circuit and DK Jungle. Mario Kart 8 is filled with many stellar course ideas, but not all of them need some form of off-road driving. Standout courses like Excitebike Arena don’t have gliding, diving, or anti-gravity, ye they are thrilling nonetheless.
Also, anti-gravity segments don’t always feel very distinct from the rest of the course. The player rarely has the chance to see a zoomed-out view of each driver’s exploits; even if an anti-gravity section twirls spectacularly into the sky, its novelty is lost if the player doesn’t understand the driver’s surroundings. It’s clear that immersion heightens player enjoyment in the Mario Kart games. The success of the Mario Kart GP VR experience is based on a feeling of presence and immersion, for example, which isn’t always guaranteed in the series’ mainline games.
To summarize the points made so far, Mario Kart 9 should have a gimmick that can be easily applied to the game’s retro courses, while also enabling exciting new course designs. Ideally, a new gimmick should turn potential hazards into new paths, making courses more dynamic and approachable for beginners. At the same time, the gimmick shouldn’t disorient the player, or need to be carelessly inserted into levels that don’t benefit from it. There is a reason why aggressively gimmick-laden spin-offs like the arcade-exclusive Mario Kart Arcade GP games remain obscure, with little demand to be ported to home console.
One possibility would be allowing karts to fly (rather than glide) in the airspace surrounding some tracks, in the style of a game like Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed. This would enable a range of new paths for players to take, and would replace the tedium of waiting for Lakitu to retrieve characters who have fallen into the abyss. It would also be easy to apply something like this to retro courses; many classic tracks take place under wide-open skies, facilitating the organic addition of flight-based paths. Even the simplest throwback SNES retro courses could become all-new challenges by adding course elements in the airspace above the track.
Another possibility could be shrinking down in size using the Mario series’ Mini Mushroom power-up. If small puddles could become rivers that let players slip under barricades and take shortcuts, this could add life to any Mario course, old or new. Given the recent release of Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit, it is clear that players enjoy seeing Mario contend with giant real-life cats, and shrinking sections would be a great way to integrate something similar into future Mario Kart games.
Of course, it’s important that Nintendo implement any new gimmick with restraint. Mario Kart is popular because of its core gameplay formula, and straying from that formula is best done cautiously. But if done right, it could be a great way to excite Nintendo fans for another round of kart-racing action.
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