After spending this past weekend with Mario Kart World, it’s obvious: this game delivers all that you need from a Mario Kart game. No shock there, Nintendo rarely takes chances with core games such as Mario Kart, so the fact that it’s really fun to play day one is expected.

But I’m here to tell you that Mario Kart World will leave you with a really strange itch that you just can’t scratch. The first open world game in the series, and one of the Switch 2 flagship games, MKW feels immersive on a scale we’ve never seen before from a Mario Kart game. And then you get this itch. Let me explain.

From all the trailers, we’ve known rail grinding was a new race feature that players could experience. But I must admit, I was surprised by how little grinding was actually a part of the courses. On any given map, there are rails on the sides of the track that you can grind on, but you essentially have to go out of your way to use them, and that doesn’t necessarily help your ultimate goal of winning the race. This is just one of the many things you get a taste of in this game, but never really get to sink your teeth into.

The better graphics and processing on the Switch 2 enables MKW to have really immersive maps, with lots of moving elements in the background to provide an awesome scale to the simple racing game that we all know and love. But again, that’s where it sort of stops. Maps are fairly straightforward (figuratively), and it makes you wonder if that extra computing power could be put to different sorts of experiences. There’s long been stretches on the map where you have to choose to take the left or right side of the track because of certain hazards, but what if the track truly split and went in different directions? With 24 racers that could make for epic competition within the race itself, before you’re reunited with the racers that chose the other path. They expanded the world beyond the track, but now it seems obvious...they should expand the track itself.

And then there’s the open world. I loved it. It felt so natural to be able to cruise around in this world and get that childhood type of excitement discovering parts of the map. In my opinion, it lets players develop a further connection with their go-to racer and kart. But at the same time, that’s basically where the fun ends. This isn’t an RPG, you’re not supposed to get out of your car and do other things, but you do wish there was a more immersive element to the game to be had in the open world. And I get it, at a certain point it wouldn’t be Mario Kart any more. It’d be closer to a GTA or Racing simulator, which focus on other types of game play. And that's when you realize: You've got the itch.

Verdict: Recommend

It’s hard to define just what exactly I’m looking for from this new experience in Mario Kart World, but at the very least I think more customization options would make the open world feel much more immersive. Yoshi’s fast food joint is a great addition, and unlocking  other costumes is fun. But let me pull up to Toad’s Chop Shop, have Bowser crank up my car’s sound system, or hit up Donkey Kong’s Decal Store. I think that would help these expansive cities that you experience feel more lived in. Right now there’s just some traffic and that empty feeling of a stadium when the home team isn’t in town. Ultimately, I got the experience I wanted, and I feel very optimistic knowing just how long of a lifespan Mario Kart 8 had, with many updates from Nintendo. MKW presents a lot of dope possibilities for the world of Mario Kart, so let's hope Nintendo capitalizes on them.

At the end of the day, I'm here to tell you, don't hesitate to cop Mario Kart World. It’s Mario Kart, don’t overthink it!