Well, hello there, fellow mages and non-mages! I wish you all a happy 10th of March! This day is a day to be remembered. It’s Mar10, after all, or – if you still don’t get it – MAR I O Day!
And hence I decided to write about Mario Kart Tour, my initial hype, my first few impressions and what the possibility of a mobile version of the Mario Kart sub-franchise meant for me, back when it came out and when I started playing.
First of all, I’d like to mention that this post here is a part of something whole, something great and awesome! This post is part of the Super Mario Multiverse that has been organised by The Well-Red Mage where a ton of different people around the world post about Mario Games! Feel free to check out the hub-post here with all the different posts linked to it and check out the other fellow writers and bloggers. :)
With that being said, let’s get into it.
Mario Kart has always been a great game for small gatherings of friends and family members. I really enjoyed playing it at a friend’s place on his N64 and I even enjoyed playing the NDS-version as well as the Wii-version whenever someone brought their Wii to a party. I always thought that an App would be great so that people around the world could play it on their mobile devices and while Emulators are a thing and work quite well on the phone it never really felt “right”.
That’s the reason why I was so excited about Mario Kart Tour to come out. I registered for it on the day I got the notification for it. I installed it instantly on the day it came out and I took part in my first cups and tournaments whenever they were available. I really wanted to get good at this game so that I could play with other people and compete with friends.
Mario Kart is weird in a way as you can make great friends by playing it with others and you can lose friends when you get a Blue Shell going at the right time.
Mario Kart Tour, though, is… very different.
You automatically drive and only need to steer and drift. Items are different and characters get unlocked in a gacha-like way. The game is free to play but there is a premium package to it for a lot of money and essentially you can win in tournaments at the beginning… but to win in the long run, you’ll have to pay money. Winning in tournaments is done by getting a lot of points. You get points for the place you finish at, the items you use, tricks you pull off, the characters, karts and gliders you use, and overall it’s a competition of skill and style! I liked that a lot.
But the fourth speed-grade is unlocked when you get the golden pass. A lot of characters and rewards can only be gotten with the golden pass. It’s all very tricky. Without that pass, you can’t compete, and hence it seems as if the game is pay to win… but you can still have fun. You can still play along with other people with more levels being unlocked over time and I just found it interesting to see what a mobile adaptation could look like, but I really hope that they don’t settle for this as the finished version.
And hence, I’ll stick around to my emulators and actual games and stray away from this mobile app. I didn’t particularly like it but I really got excited about it and in a way, I enjoyed my ride and the feeling of nostalgia I got when playing Mario Kart again… and that was nice.
I hope you enjoyed this short post here. It’s not a review but more of a comment, which is not something I usually do but I thought that this would fit quite well into the Super Mario Multiverse.
Please check out the hub-post and the other writers…
…and have a fantastical MAR-IO-Day!
Until next time, cheers!
Indiecator 
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