Platform: iOS/Android
Like most gamers, I have poured so much time into Mario Kart. It’s funny, really…when I think about what got me into the game in the first place (since I never really liked racing games- but that will be a blog for another time). But, having become a fan of the series, I remember being really excited when Mario Kart Tour was announced. I have actually played my fair share of Nintendo apps, from Super Mario RUN, to MiiTomo, and Animal Crossing Pocket Camp. I have never touched a Nintendo app that I did not feel was quality, even if (like most apps) they are there make you open your wallet via micro-transactions.
I did not get to play the BETA when it was announced, but I had a friend that did. Needless to say, this friend is pretty critical when it comes to games, and especially when it comes to Nintendo products, so, when he said he wasn’t particularly impressed with the app, I was rather worried. But, even though I downloaded the app later in its life, it has been something I keep coming back to from time-to-time…and it’s always something super fun, and something very easy to get absorbed into! But, before I get to rambling too much, lets get into the review!
THE REVIEW
- Game Mechanics:
When you think about Mario Kart, the game mechanics should seem fairly simple. You pick a driver, pick a vehicle, pick a glider, you race other people on a chosen track, and you try and come in 1st place. Simple, right? But, Mario Kart Tour is not exactly like other Mario Kart games, and this shows in the way the races ACTUALLY work. Rather than choosing a driver based on their stats/weight, or whether-or-not they are your favorite, you choose your driver based on the track you are racing on. This is because, different drivers will have bonuses if they correlate to the track they are racing on.
It doesn’t mean they have some HUGE advantage, but it is something you will notice. The same thing goes for your kart and your glider. Because, not only is the goal to get in 1st place during a race, you also want to get the most points. Choosing the best driver will mean getting more items when you crash through an item block. Choosing the best kart and glider for the race means more points will be accumulated as you race. Then, getting in 1st place is just the icing on the cake.
So yeah, even though I main a Blue Yoshi in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe- in Mario Kart Tour, I have raced with all kinds of characters because the tracks encourage you to try someone new and someone different. The gimmick? You don’t really start with a lot of drivers, and, unlike other Mario Kart games where you unlock karts and gliders as you race through the championships, things work a bit different in the app. As far as the actual racing goes, it’s just like regular Mario Kart. The steering can be controlled via motion, or with your fingers on the screen. The app now has a landscape mode (which in the beginning was not an option), and you can switch between two steering modes which is the default method and then manual drift mode. I usually play in manual drift mode, but there are times when I switch to the default mode for more precision-based steering. You choose a “cup” to play in and that cup has three tracks and then a trial mode at the end. Once you have completed the cup, you move on to the next one.
At the end of a race, you are given a score, and the score that you get determines how many stars you have earned. These stars are used to unlock prizes which can be upgrade tickets, gems, or gold. The higher the score, the more stars you can earn, with 5-stars being the max amount for any track and 3-stars being the max for any trial. There is also a cup in each tour that is “ranked” and your ranking by the time the tour ends will also get you some pretty cool prizes, so, aiming for the highest score is always the way to go.
Your score in a race is calculated by many things. It starts by choosing the best driver, kart, and glider that correlates to the track you are racing on (and don’t worry, the app will let you know which drivers and such fit the track), and the next part comes down to your actions during the race. Jump boosts, rocket boosts, gliding for long distances, and even collecting coins adds points to your total score. Using items and crashing other drivers also increases your score. Doing things in quick succession can earn you a nice combo bonus, and if you come in on 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place on each lap, that also gives you a bonus to your score as well. So, not only do you want to win the race, you do want to focus on using items and getting the highest score possible. The more drivers, karts, and gliders you have, the better chance you have at getting that top score…which brings us to the next section of the review.
- Item shop & Upgrades:
Like I mentioned earlier, when you begin the app, you do not start with a lot of drivers…nor do you have a lot of karts and gliders. It is pretty bare-bones. But, luckily there are many ways to increase your collection in the game. As you race, there will be coins on the track. Originally, these coins increased a driver’s speed in other Mario Kart games, but here, they really are just currency…and you want to collect as many as possible because there is an item shop. The first item shop is pretty basic and has a collection of a couple of drivers, a couple of karts, and a glider or two. The item shop also has upgrade tickets which we will get into shortly.
As of 2021 there is also a different item shop that has items based on your ranking from the last tour. So, for example, in the Halloween Tour, I ended up as tier 22, and so I can buy items from the 22nd tier in their little ranking system. I can only assume that the better the tier, the better the items you can purchase. Items can range from a couple-hundred coins to thousands of coins in cost. So, try and collect as many coins as you can.
I also mentioned the upgrade tickets…and these are important because every driver, kart, and glider actually has a leveling system. Drivers, karts, and gliders will each have a score listed on their card, and this score can be increased by racing with those particular items and also by using the upgrade tickets. Glider tickets will increase glider scores, driver tickets increase driver scores, etc. You get the idea. The only problem is that after a time, an item can max-out on its score unless that item is leveled up. But, in order for an item to level up, you need duplicates of that item. For example, we will say that I have Mario as my driver. I have maxed out Mario’s score at 400. He can not gain anymore score. But then, I get another Mario from the item shop. That automatically levels my Mario to level 2, and now his score can be maxed out at 600 (I am just making up these numbers for the example by the way). Now, if I wanted to level up Mario again, I would need 5 duplicates! So, the game really makes you choose sometimes. Do you spend your coins on getting duplicates to better the drivers you already have? Or do you buy that new driver that you don’t have yet? The same thing goes for gliders and karts. You will want duplicates because you will reach a point where you can no longer increase those items’ scores without leveling them first.
So…you need coins to buy new items. You need tickets to upgrade those items. You also need duplicates to level those items…all so that you can get higher scores in the tours. Still following along? Great! Lets talk about the other way to get drivers and other items.
- Gacha Mechanics:
Do you like gambling? Because that is basically what this next section is about. So, even though I have not talked about the tours yet, essentially, each tour has a theme to it, and with that theme comes special drivers, karts, and gliders. These special items have higher scores than normal items and they correlate with almost all the tracks in that particular tour, so, of course you would want them! However, the only way to even try to get them is by using the “pipes”. The pipes take a currency called gems. Gems can be earned via prizes that you get for collecting stars, they can also be rewarded via the achievement system, or you can buy gems using actual currency (thus the microtransactions). But, getting gems and using the pipes does not guarantee you will get that special character, kart, or glider…in fact, it’s all one big gamble. You have a chance (a certain percentage) of getting that rare item, but that’s about it.
However, even if you don’t get the rare item, you can still get some common items which might be new characters, karts, or gliders that you never had before, or it could be duplicates which are still equally useful. It can be annoying if you REALLY want that special character and just can not seem to get them, but, that’s just gacha mechanics for you. I don’t mind this system, and so far the drop-rates for rare items has been pretty kind to me, but I’m sure others will call it frustrating and unnecessary if not completely unfair.
- Tours, Tracks, and Achievements:
Tracks are located in the various cups that are part of a monthly “tour”. These tours generally have some sort of theme attached to them, whether it be a Holiday theme or a location theme. The tracks that appear are from various Mario Kart titles and will be familiar to fans of the series. The tracks themselves do appear multiple times in a tour and are just slightly altered to be different. Maybe one version has more ramps placed, maybe it’s a reverse track, either way, you do end up playing the same tracks over, and over, and over, just with minor differences between them. You complete a tour once you have raced in every cup and finished it. At the end of a tour, there is a golden pipe which you can use to get a rare item, which is a good incentive to finish all the cups.
Another thing I really like about this app is that there is a sort of challenge system / achievement system. The more you play, the more you will unlock “badges” by doing certain tasks. This might mean winning so many races, crashing so many drivers using red shells, or just doing so many jump boosts. Some tasks are harder than others and some take more time, likewise, some of these challenges reward you with gems upon completion, and the others reward you with stars. The challenge system also works very much like a bingo board, whereas if you complete a line of 3 challenges (whether horizontally, vertically, or diagonally on the board) you then get an extra reward of coins. Again, it’s a nice incentive to keep you playing, and makes it so that you can use the pipes and it helps you save towards items in the item shop. you can also equip badges to your racing profile to show off what all you have accomplished. It’s just one other neat little feature that I like about the app.
- Trials:
Trials are located on every cup and unlike races that have 5-stars that you can obtain, trials only have 3-stars. The gimmick here with the trials is that you aren’t racing like you normally would. Just as the name states, trials have an objective that needs to be completed. Trials can be racing without taking any damage from the track, or a time trial. Sometimes you are seeing how far you can glide, or driving through rings. There are trickier trials for sure, like destroying enemies while racing around a track…but a lot of the tasks are fairly simple and easy to complete. I usually have to change my steering style for the trials requiring more precision, but other than that, I have rarely had an issue with completing a trial with all 3-stars.
- Microtransactions & Gold Membership:
Okay, lets be real here for a second…is anyone surprised by microtransactions anymore? Especially in games with gacha mechanics, microtransactions are really the lifeblood of these apps. In Mario Kart Tour, you can use real currency to buy things like gold, gems, and even sign up for a subscription service. Yup. You heard me right, there is a subscription service for this app (which is optional of course). The Gold Membership offers a lot of interesting perks. It gives you gold, gems, unlocks more rewards during the various tours, and you even get access to special gold characters and golden karts. I’m not really sure of all the specific details, but they can easily be found inside the app for those that are interested in checking it out. I debated on giving it a try just one time and then quickly decided that I don’t really play the app enough to really invest much money into it.
I bought gems one time, and they are priced about as well as you would think. You can easily buy a pull or two from the pipes for a few bucks, and if you wanna really dig in your toes to winning that special character, there are larger package options, that are $50, $80, even $100 after tax- but I just can’t see myself spending that much in one go with an app that will most likely shut down in a few more years.
- Multiplayer & etc:
This app actually did include multiplayer after awhile, which was one of the largest things that people were complaining about not having. Like most Nintendo apps, you can find your friends through linking your social media accounts, or even linking your Nintendo account. Once you send your friends a friend request, when they are added, you can all hop on and race together. There is even a ranking system among friends so that you can see who among your friends has the highest scores in a tour. Most of my friends stopped playing the app some time ago, long before the multiplayer function was released so, I can’t say that I have tried this part of the game myself…but I can at least say that it exists for those that are interested in it. I am fine racing along with NPCs and random players in the various tracks throughout a tour. If I really wanna challenge my friends, I would just do so playing a normal Mario Kart title (but that’s just my personal preference).
I suppose then, the last thing I should add, is that there are a few extras in the game that I failed to mention before. In the app, you can just set your driver to “auto” and the game will basically play itself. This is fine, for those that just want to make it to the end of a tour for the prize, but it also limits you because a computer can only do so much. You might miss out on high scores to get stars (which means less prizes), and you might not win as many races, or complete as many achievements. Also, I just don’t see the point of not playing the game? There are also various difficulty levels just like in normal Mario Kart. So you have your 100cc races and 150cc races…and you can even increase the speed further once you reach a specific threshold in the app. You can also increase your player level, which then allows you to gain more ‘score points’ for your drivers, karts, and gliders after every race…otherwise, after so many points, you are capped off for the day unless you use tickets to upgrade your items. It’s a weird system to me, but you just get used to it, and half the time, it’s not something you are really paying attention to.
Certain holidays and events also have special “tokens” that are scattered around the tracks. These tokens can be used in the item shop where they have their own section…and again it’s for buying drivers, karts, gliders, upgrade tickets, and you can even buy some gems. A lot of the time the tokens are out of the way and if you’re not within the first 3 places in a race, someone else is bound to snag them, but, try and get them when you can.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, I think that Mario Kart Tour is an exceptional app, and it really opens up Mario Kart to everyone who has ever wanted to play it. Since not everyone can afford Nintendo consoles, but most people do have some sort of smart phone, for those that can download the app, it’s something that is free and something that is fun but also a big named brand. The graphics in this game are actually really good (in my opinion) and the app plays very well. I have only ever experienced a few crashes and those were due to my own internet.
I will say that the app does feel lacking if only in the variety of tracks. I know so many good tracks in Mario Kart, and while I understand the app has to be a little limited, it does feel like a shame that so many of the tracks are very plain and very simple, and just get re-used over and over again. If not for the various incentives to finish a tour, the gameplay itself would get really stale in a short time. I can say confidently that the app has gotten better since I started playing it. I do remember a time when certain races were locked behind thresholds I just could not get past, and getting new drivers and karts was a real pain. I like that they have added in things like the gold rush and the daily challenges which allow you a free pipe draw. I also like the various pipe draws throughout the tours. Again, even though it does have gacha mechanics, I do like how nothing I have ever gotten from a pipe draw feels useless, because this game does require duplicates of items. Lastly, I like the music and sounds in the game, and it really does feel just as challenging as any other Mario Kart game despite the simplicity of everything. Other than tracks being lacking, my only other complaint is with the steering. While I like both modes of steering and like that switching between the two modes has a purpose, there have been several times where my inputs just do not register and I have lost many races because my driver just failed to turn the right way. Perhaps this could be chalked up to a dirty screen…or something else going on with my phone, but I can not say that these things (when they happen) are user error. I have never raged at this game, but there have been plenty of times where such small things like that got me annoyed enough to set it down for a minute. My last complaint is less of a complaint and more of a worry. Nintendo is known for shutting down their apps after only a few years which is why I can’t see myself investing in a monthly subscription. Because once the game is gone and the servers go offline, it’s gone forever…and all that money spent on gems and etc will all be for nothing. But, overall, this is an app I would recommend to any fan of Mario Kart, and I would recommend it to anyone interested in a fun racing game.
But what do YOU think?
Do you play Mario Kart Tour? What is your most rare driver or kart? What was your favorite track to race on? Have you tried the Gold Membership? Are you a free to play user or do you buy gems? What sort of app would you like to see Nintendo make next?
As always, let me know your thoughts and opinions in the comment-section below. Also, if you wanna drop a friend ID to maybe make more racing friends, feel free to do that as well. I have more reviews on the way, so thank you for your continued support of this blog…and I will see you all in the next one!
- Video(s):
OMG Girls Game! 
great game to race on
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