Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Mario Kart World Review - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: June 13, 2025

Go to http://kindafunny.com/XREAL to grab yours now! Go to http://factormeals.com/kindafunny50off and use code kindafunny50off to get 50% off plus free shipping on your first box. 00:00:00 - Start00:06:50 - Housekeeping00:09:15 - Topic of the Show: Mario Kart World Review00:09:45 - Barrett’s thoughts00:13:05 - Mike‘s thoughts00:18:20 - Bless‘ thoughts00:22:00 - Tim‘s thoughts00:37:05 - Ads00:52:45 - Mirror mode01:03:13 - Multiplayer01:08:30 - Superchats  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up and welcome back to the kind of funny gamescast for Friday, June 13th, 2025. Of course, I'm your host Tim Geddes. I'm joined by a very unique crew of gentlemen today. I don't know that the four of us have ever been on this desk, just us. Right? Yeah, yeah. Before, so that feels weird.

It should be fun. Little Friday the 13th vibes for you. I'm Tim Geddes. I'm joined today by blessing at E.O.E.J. Jr. Good day, Tim. Snowbike, Mike. Motion control king. Remember that.

I'll never forget it, Mike. Come on. The pride you have when you told me how well you're doing in the Grand Prix is using the motion control. Yeah. Are you using the wheel? Yeah, I'm using the wheel. Good. Exclusively using the wheel.

And I'm having a blast to the point where I think my whole Mario Card adventure now will be with the wheel. Like, I'm in. Good for you, you big little child. And also we have bear recording. Oh, God. Oh, why does it have to be every show? Normally it's scary. Not for a bit nice of something.

the box. Here it comes. With a box. What if there's a bomb? What if there is a, the bomb is in play? The ball. Take your time, Greg. Is it circled around for now.

I actually like the song. Don't we paying you by the hour? Yeah. I like that song. Hello, Gamecast. Hello, Tim. Hey, Greg. What's that song,

lead to you? A lot of fear. What's it means to me? Despair. What it should mean, of course, is celebrations. Tim. Thank you, Mike. Mike knows better than anybody. When that song plays, I come out and I make the content.

I come on. I make your life better, Timothy. All right. Everybody remember, there's a championship parade here in San Francisco, June 28th. For me, it's a Saturday. We're going to walk the Embarcadero together. We're going to have a good time in front of square pie guys. We will not be in the streets. It's not that kind of parade. You said parade. It's not like you said raid. And I do want you to know it. You are raiding. Pokemon GoFest. You were trying to take this from me. Something I hold sacred.

That's just a coincidence. That's really just a coincidence. I didn't know that'd be a big day for you and all your friends would be out there being nerds. I didn't know. I didn't know. Definitely not co-opting it. It all lined up. That's a holiday this month. Ladies,

gentlemen, NB's. My Championship Parade. Go get your shirt right now. Kindoffuny.com slash store. But you probably know there's another holiday. this weekend. Father's Day. It's going to be a big day for me. I'm a dad.

It's going to be a big day. Thank you. Hold on. Round of applause. For Kevin. He's a dad. But most importantly, it's going to be a big day for Mike. Of course, a fictional father. Fictional father. Who for years convinced Sarah Bond that he was in fact a father. And continuing the tradition, Xbox and Sarah Bonn have sent Mike's

Day guess. So, I don't know what it is. There's a card on top there. I'm excited to see. Amazing. Happy Father's Day to meet him. Happy Father's Day, Mike. It's been a beautiful journey.

It's been a fun one. A lot of growth, a lot of smiles, a lot of memories. What are the kids' names again? Timmy and Susie, of course. You know, happy Father's Day. Hope you know how amazing you are. Oh, that's a long note. Dear Snowbike, Mike, happy Father Day to you, a proud Papa of the most

well-behaved, though rarely seen children in gaming. From the moment you became a dad, I knew you were determined for greatness, not just in what would be video games, but in the world of parenting. Destin for greatness. To help the whole Snowbike Mike family level up, I've sent some brand new special edition. Open those up. Which are three Wild Hunt Xbox controllers. One for you.

and one for your little baby mini-mic to enjoy in all your co-op adventures that lie ahead. With admiration and absolutely no doubt you are doing the whole dad thing, Sarah Bond. P.S. No doubt you're doing the death thing. If your kids ever need a babysitter, I'll call in

and I'll help out with some Minecraft coins. Thank you, Sarah Bond. You are incredible. Thank you to Sarah Bond, Team Xbox for, of course, allowing me to live out my Father's Day fantasy. Me and the kids will enjoy some great co-op adventures in Minecraft, grounded, Sea of Thieves, and some ESO.

Sorry, I know you were handing me that box, but you said it right as you said Mini-Mike, and I felt like that was going to imply that I was Mini-Mike, and I did not want that. Did not want that. Thanks, Sarah, Bond. Gene Jacket says, Snow-Trike Mike. Snow-trike Mike.

Thank you, Sarah Bond, for all the love and the support. I appreciate you. Thanks for making a memory that I will now never forget. I will have two framed Father's Day postcards from Sarah Bond in my household, which is great. I love you so much, Mike. And shout out to Xbox and Sarah Bond. At some point, we got to have a conversation about how many controllers Xbox sends out. I love it.

I love it. Thank you. Next gen, PlayStation, might have to make those things cheaper. Because they're just printing these things out. What's the time of how quickly Gary Wooda hits us up about getting one of these controllers? He loves his controllers. I do like the Witcher one. He loves controllers.

Thank you, Sarah Bond and the team. And thanks for bringing the fun. Of course, introing Barrett onto today's games cast, The Big Dog. This is an episode all about you because we come to you for all of the thoughts on this game we're going to talk about. Well, as one king enters the field. in motion controls for Mario Kart World. One King has to retire because he's fucking washed in Mario Kart.

We'll talk about all of that today here on this games cast. Take it away, Tim. This is the kind of funny games cast. We get together to talk about the biggest reviews, previews, and topics and video games live on YouTube, Twitch and podcast services around the globe.

If you love what we do, please support us with the kind of funny membership on Patreon, YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcast. And that'll get you the show ad-free and the daily exclusive show, Greg Way. For a chance to be part of this show, submit your thoughts and opinions as YouTube super chats as we go. So let us know what you think of Mario Kart World. What score would you give it on the Kind of Funny scale?

One of the projects we announced at the beginning of the year was to celebrate 10 years of Kind of Funny with another big video essay from Barrett. He's finally ready to show it to all of you. Next week is going to be a big one. This is every Nottie Dog game replayed by Barrett Courtney. Next week, Monday through Friday, we're going to be doing streams of a bunch of different Nottie Dog. game start with Crash Bandicoot. We got some Jack and Daxter. We got Uncharted. We got Last of Us and it all culminates on

Friday with the YouTube premiere taking the place of Gamescast next week. Bear Courtney's very long, very hard worked on video essay. You stoked? Yeah, very... I'm more so tired than anything. And like nothing like hits me anymore emotionally because of

the amount of work that has gone into this in the last six months. I did one more watch of it this last week and it was like, I didn't have any notes, but it was also like, man, none of the big, like, kind of emotional moments are hitting, or like, none of the big moments are hitting for me, but I think I've, it's just because I've been here just in this for so fucking long. So I'm like, I don't even know if this is good anymore or not, but, you know, it'll come out next week. It'll be, uh, hopefully a fun time for all of y'all as I, uh, walk y'all through my personal journey of replaying every naughty dog,

uh, game in 2024 slash 2025, because I did it over kind of the, uh, the winter break here. And so, yeah, it'll be a fun time. I'm excited to stream a bunch of of games next week with all y'all. I'm sad to miss the Last of Us Part 2 day. That'll be carried by Mike and Nick. I've got to catch a very important baseball game, the Cleveland Guardians versus the San Francisco Giants. Yep.

And what's extra cool is the reason you're doing this, it's the fifth anniversary of Last of Us 2. Well, that's not the reason I'm doing this. That's the reason we wanted it out this week. But yeah, the fifth anniversary of The Last of Us Part 2 is this coming Thursday, which is insane to think about. And that's the day. going to be playing a streaming Last of Us part two.

But I actually talk about the reason why I made the video at the very beginning. Again, going through the whole journey. But yeah. We're at 11 person business, all about live talk shows. KFGD covered a bunch of PlayStation news. After this, the boys are streaming Dune Awakening. That's exciting stuff. If you're a kind of funny member, today's Gregway is a fun one.

It's a guest spot from the one and only Rebecca Valentine telling you all about the best places in Kansas City. Why? Because one of you asked. Awesome. Thank you to our Patreon producers, Carl Jacobs, Omega Buster, and Delaney Twining. Today we're brought to you by X Real and Factor, but we'll tell you about that later. For now, let's start with the topic of the show. Dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, Mario Kart World.

We've been playing it a little over a week at this point, and we are ready to score it on the kind of funny scale and give our final reviews. I want to start with Barrett Courtney. Oh, gosh. Before I get there, actually, this one, released date, June 5th, Metacritic at an 80. the first Mario Kart in quite a while. But Barrett, what would you give Mario Kart World? After a little over a week of play, right? We got this kind of Wednesday night going to Thursday morning here.

I believe I put in a little over 30 hours after a week. I have 245 earned stickers because that's kind of your only way to like kind of collect stats throughout this game. I have 24 P blocks, 12 peach coins, 13 question blocks. and I have three-starred everything that is available to three-star, including spoilers, mirror mode. After all of that, after a week, I would, on the kind of funny scale, give Mario Kart World an eight. I think it's a great game. I think it's a solid, like, start for this, and I'm excited for the potential future of this game. But I think in the first week, there's been a lot of, like, weird things that I

I've noticed in Mario's, Mario Kart's like first foray into the open world stuff that I think holds it back right now. I'm interested to see how, if in how Nintendo kind of supports that and maybe adapts that over time. I think the highs are incredibly high. I think the highs match the highs of Mario Kart 8

in terms of the theme park feeling. To me, Mario Kart is at its best when you feel like you're constantly driving throughout a theme park. And, you know, Rainbow Road, the booth theater, all that stuff, like so many courses just give you this sense of like wonder and enjoyment. But with the open world stuff, um, kind of the biggest thing to me is that so much time is spent

not in those moments, uh, because of this inclusion of the open world. I said it to Mike yesterday, but it's like so much of this time feels like I'm not in the theme park, but I'm in the parking lot outside of the theme park going from course to course, uh, going like, uh, when it's knockout tour, going from place to place in the open world. even just Grand Prix, where you get the first race that's three, traditional three laps, and then the rest of the Grand Prix is like a lap and a half of going from one kind of boring highway to the next place and all that, so on and so forth. And so I think there there's like kind of an imbalance of kind of taking everything in and

being in awe of what a Mario Kart can be. But again, the highs are still incredibly high. I think the lows are just a bit lower that bring it back for me. And then we'll get into this later, but I think the other big thing for me is just in terms of like gameplay feel and then balancing versus the level of the skill ceiling here, which we did have like kind of a long conversation last week after our first impressions, which I, I'm going to walk back some things. But then playing this over the course of the week have kind of proved some of my worries about the skill ceiling you can have in this game versus the other systems around. the skill ceiling and, you know, the, the way you can traverse with grinding rails, wall riding and all this stuff. And then how Nintendo kind of balance all the other systems, I think is a really weird

push and pull. But yeah, I think it's a great first attempt at a open world. I don't think it's mind-blowing or anything. And again, I'm excited to see how Nintendo supports this going forward. Snowbike Mike. I like that. I'm probably going to come in with the least amount of time played. So I'll be your impressions, but most importantly, we're going to talk multiplayer with me.

And so I'm excited to dive in, kind of give you the report on that side of what I like and don't like. But for me, this is a lot of fun, Tim. This is the first time and a long time where I've grabbed a Mario Kart, and I am actively excited to play it because I am wowed by some of the new ideas when they bring up the open world, the knockout tour. I really, really like that. I haven't felt this much fun playing a Mario Kart since Mario Kart 64, right? which was like my first time jumping in.

Every time since then it's like, oh, it's more Mario Kart. Like, that's cool. I enjoy this. I jump out of it. This is the first time where I'm like, oh, wow, I'm having a blast playing this and I want to play more. And I think a lot of that is driven by the knockout mode, which I think is a really cool, fun, different way to kind of break up the, hey, we're on the track. We're doing three to five laps, right?

It's like, I like, as Baird, so well put. I do agree with you, but when you look at the maps that are not three laps and they're kind of broken up into three to five stages. It is, I'm on a highway. Oh, I'm out in the forest. I don't get to see Peaches Castle like I want to. But I also enjoy not doing the same three laps over and over again. I really do enjoy the vibe of, oh, I'm almost like Fort's Horizon with the Open World,

where I'm just driving from one point to the other. And it feels fresh. It feels new. And maybe that's why I'm riding this high off of that. But I really have enjoyed my time doing all of the Grand Prix. I love the surprise of high. riding Rainbow Road at the end and unlocking and having this big presentation of like

oh wow, that's really cool to start this off and the music. Holy cow, Tim Geddes. Let's stop. Put a pin on that music. That music are we talking, uh, soundtrack of the year? I mean, it's cheating a little bit. I'm just saying, similar to say my thoughts. It's real good. I love every single time that there's a new track played. I love hearing tracks that I love,

that they've remastered, that they've remixed. I think the music carries a lot of this, which is awesome. I think the characters are great. There's some cool outfits that I see. But also, man, I really wish we dove into the Nintendo backlog of all the characters before, as bears brought up with Lincoln stuff. Because there's a lot of animals in here. Mike, we needed room for crab. We need, I needed crab.

I needed coin coffer. Hey, man. Hey, man. Watch what you're about to say. Just so you know. No. I realize coin coffer was in this game. there's like there's like I don't know what the quick count is but there's like 20 creature characters

that's too many Tim yeah that's too many put Kirby in there get link in there get the whole get the arms character in there like it is odd it feels so right kind of sticking to just Mario but when we talk of Nintendo and kind of like the smash pose feeling of it all it is odd that we don't have that and maybe it looks better visually when there isn't all those characters that are kind of standing out but at the same time it's like when I unlock coin coffer or cheap cheap or snowman I'm kind of like I don't need that you know what I'm never going to play as him or them um who you made in uh sidestep of the crab and that's simply because I don't vibe with anyone I don't vibe with any of the cast right now it's like I would go Luigi but he's overused I would go with dunk

but he's been there I want Mike wants a perfect balance Mike wants a perfect balance Mike wants a perfect balance between the best stats and someone nobody uses. You know what I want? You know what I want, Tim? Open up Mario Kart and go, I don't vibe with the cast. I want yellow pickman. I want yellow pickman. That's all I want. You put Pikmin in there?

I'd be the Pikmin guy, you know what I mean? So I'm just telling you. I want some Nintendo characters. But really what I was getting at is I have seen a really good push of trying to innovate, innovate with quotes of like just making the multiplayer experience feel more.

modern in 2025 when we know Nintendo makes weird Nintendo decisions. And I'm happy to report that they've gotten very close. They're not there yet, Tim, but man, that multiplayer experience is so much better than what it has been, right? The idea that you can jump into a room of Grand Prix, of knockout, of battle, right? Or you can host lobbies with your friends as easy of, here's the friend code. Everybody jumps in right up to 24 players is a lot of people. and that's awesome.

I always think the more people, the better. And you have that lobby leader have so much more control than what it used to be of like, you pick one or the other and you're locked in or you have to quit everything and reset the room. Now it's like, oh, every single time we finish, I can choose, we're doing a knockout, we're doing Grand Prix, we're going to do a battle. I can leave the room and someone else can take over. Oh, you want to do a battle? Let's do three teams, two teams, four teams.

Like they've given me so much more. They're not there yet, so I don't want to give them the full pat on the back. but it's like, hey, you've gotten better. Great job on that. And I'm going to touch a lot more on the multiplayer because that's usually where I look into this. But I will say, I'm having a really good time with this. This is a great experience.

It's something where I'm having more fun with Mario Card than I have in a long, long time. So great job. Bless. Yeah, I think this is a fun one to talk about. For me, there's a adage when we're talking about video game reviews that I believe I heard originally from Tamor, where he said that you have to review what's there.

You can't review what the game isn't. You have to review what the game is. And that's kind of where I come in with Mario Kart World, where I think the best and worst thing about this game is the open world. When you play knockout, the knockout mode, that's maybe the best addition you could ever make to a Mario Card game. That is so fun. It is so intense.

I think the whittling down from 24 to 20 until you get to that top four and you're going for the winner there, that is such a genius thing. And that is only available because of this open world. format and how they've created this world. At the same time, while playing a lot more this week, I was having flashbacks to our previous conversation, our initial Nintendo Switch 2 impressions that we did a week ago.

And in that we were talking about how, I think, like, non-distinct the tracks can feel at times or how, like, maybe they can feel a bit underwhelming or not as, like, standout at some of the previous Mario Kart games. And I realized that, for me, it's not necessarily that the tracks

aren't, it's that you're spending so much of the Grand Prix in those in-between spaces. You're doing the highways that you're talking about Barrett and doing all that stuff. And once I like went into just versus race and I started to understand exactly like how that stuff works as far as oh no, you have the main track. But then like all these like an individual track might connect to five different tracks. That's fucking cool. But I don't think they see that to his full potential.

Right. Like I wish there was a way to make your own knockout route or something like that. Right. I am shocked to that that's not a thing. Right. And I would have liked to see a lot of those in between spaces stand out a bit more, be uplifted a bit more and be more interesting because I think now you're left with what feels like a lot of just like downtime when you're going from one track to another. I think it's a really

good idea with not just the best execution. All that said, right? Like this is going back to the reviewing what's their thing. The open world is where I struggle a little bit because I think back to how Nintendo has presented the open world both in their direct and within the game itself where they never really propped this thing up to be a forts of horizon. I think that's all been fan desire. Understandably so because a Mario Kart forts a Horizon game would be my perfect video game. But like even within the menu where it's at the bottom and it's free roam and you're there and it's the P blocks, right? It's like, all right, this is really underwhelming for what I wanted, for what I would have wanted this thing to be.

And I think even for what it is in the game. But I'm not going to get too mad at it because Nintendo never really wanted, seemingly never wanted it to be an open world thing. It seems like they still view Grand Prix and knockout mode and online and all the other modes in the game to be more of the prime. experience versus what free room is, which is disappointing a little bit, but also I think comes around to where I lane with this game, where I give it an eight out of ten. I think it's a great video game overall, but I think has a way to go. I totally understand what Mike is talking about as far as character roster. And I don't think it's, I don't think the issue is that it doesn't have other Nintendo characters, because in my opinion, and this goes back to even the soundtrack,

right? I love how much this game is a celebration of Mario. I think Mario as in a franchise at Nintendo has enough meat there that you can make a Mario as video game and have it feel full and lively and all these things. I think the characters that they chose are weird. You don't need to Mike's point, you don't need the 30 just random ass characters. There are tons of Mario characters

you can add that I think people would get excited for. You go to the Mario RPGs and pick some of those characters. You go to, I guess, I don't know if Gino is straight up owned by Square Inix or if there's he is, okay, maybe not Gino then. But I think there's definitely a roster of characters there that you can pull from that could help make this

roster feel a bit more lively than yeah getting to no offense Mike getting to crap I unlocked fishbone Tim and I said that's the hardest one to unlock I said who yeah that's the problem it's like they're fun they're cute and I love like it does it's the Mario world

this right place this is a Nintendo it felt like a nice reset point and I and it's cool and I was frustrated by lack of like link and some other characters but it was like okay we've had Mario card eight so long I get of like You want to refresh and maybe we add characters later on in D.C. And stuff like that. I would want those characters either be like unlockables.

And if they were unlockables, I want them to be like the last unlockable or straight up DLCD. Yeah, Concord. Yeah. Concord. I want that. Beauty World.

Uh-huh. But also like, why aren't these side characters, these creatures getting outfits, right? I played as the crab the whole time. Never unlocked a single outfit because you don't unlock. Give Penguin a little hat or something. You tell me, yeah. We put in 20 of these characters. None of them get an outfit?

Put them in a second outfit. Come on, help me out. But for me, that, that conversation extends the soundtrack as well. If they drop the Mario, like, celebration thing in the character roster,

they delivered in the soundtrack. I'm with Mike. I think this is the best soundtrack of the year. And I love Expedition 33 soundtrack. Don't get me wrong. I think that maybe that's the second best of the year. South of Midnors. That also has a really great one as well.

But fucking, dude, I don't know how you can make an argument against this one, dude. There's jazz remixes to, like, fucking dire, dire, dire, that made me tear up.

Like, this soundtrack is awful. the chain. Bless, I listen to it and I'm like, whoever's making this music, like, you gotta stop video games and like, go somewhere else because you're amazing. We don't deserve you. We deserve you.

But like, you are so good at this. We don't deserve you here in a Mario Kart game. Whatever you're doing, you're cooking. Teaching a fucking, like, university or something. I don't know. You got skill. But yeah, all that said is a great game. The Grand Prix I really enjoyed.

Like, it's at its core, it's Mario Kart. And Mario Kart has to be a certain level of quality. It's not going to be below an eight for me. You know what I mean? But yeah, I think there are some things that I wish we're here. I wish there are some things that were adjusted as far as those open-world elements. But I think there's always DLC as far as what we could see for more tracks and more characters and all that stuff. So I'm happy with this.

Timmy, how do you feel after a week? After a week, I can definitively say, objectively, that Mario Kart World is a 10 out of 10 masterpiece. piece. It's a little weird to spend $80 on a collection of music that comes with a video game. Yeah. Yeah. But, and the game's not a 10. You know what I mean? The game, I don't know what the game is, but... Wait, so you're saying the soundtrack. I'm just joking. I'm just joking. I'm just joking. I'm just joking. Real talk. This is the game, the soundtrack of the year. This is the soundtrack. This is the greatest game soundtrack of all time. Period. Hard stop. Like, I think it, I'm going to make a real argument here, Barrett, for it. Like, I'm not just being hyperbolic here.

No, yeah. I stand on it. Like, like, the sheer amount of... music here, the variety of genres and styles, the amount of live instrumentation, the commitment to the bit for it all. Oh yeah. I can't believe it. So many little moments have made me smile just like when I have done the free roam and it's just like random little, uh, tracks will pop up. I'm like, fuck yeah. It unlocks memories for me. It's so good. It's so good. There's like such a, a destined theme to it all. Like every Mario Kart has kind of a different vibe. This one being the big road trip, more of that harmonica kind of like, rocky sound, but applying that to all the different areas, having different vibes and styles,

the more kind of like chill acid trip hop going on for some of the peach circuit stuff. Like it is so well designed and so well thought out, how deep in the roster we get with some of these songs. Like there's Yoshi's Island remixes to songs that have never been arranged, period. Like we've talked about the smash brawl soundtrack being the, yes, it's cheating, but it's the greatest soundtrack of all time. Yeah. We have a new king. Like this, I think, is steps above what Smash was able to give us because of the live instrumentation and the arrangements being off the chart, but I think we're overlooking how good the original songs are in this game.

There's so much new original music, and these songs have melodies. This is video game music at its freaking best, and we can't overlook it and just be like, oh, of course we like it because it's just old songs. This is the best those old songs have ever sounded, and all the new stuff are going to be classic. They all hit.

I remember when I streamed Mario Card 8 Deluxe, for quote unquote the last time. It was one of those like hearing that main theme. I was like, there's no way they can top this. But every time I load up Mario Kart World and that main harmonica theme pops up, I'm like,

fuck yeah, let's go. Like it's such a good, hard hitting track and all of the new original stuff is, if you want to speak to the volume of tracks in this thing, there's like a YouTuber that I've been following that's been uploading the soundtrack slowly. Yeah,

and like, 246 over here. Oh, but that ain't complete. Like, that's the thing is I'm hearing new songs every day. And that's the thing is he's been, or this person has been uploading soundtracks

songs from the soundtrack every day like multiple songs and he put an update out either yesterday or the day before where he's like hey guys I've barely hit halfway and I can't do this anymore he was like I got it I have school I have to focus on my life there's too many songs

I'm sorry other people finish this Yeah it's it's crazy I heard just yesterday There was the Yoshi's Island Final Boss team And I was convinced that I had heard every song in this game already like how was there still I finally heard the Mario 64 files select remix, which goes way too hard. Yep. But anyways, getting out of the music, because obviously it is, it's so damn good.

My real score for Mario Kart, uh, Mario Kart world is an eight out of 10. Um, I think you guys have really said everything, how I feel about it. The one thing I will add that I think I kind of differ from you guys on is we keep talking about the theme park feel. I don't think that any Mario game period, cart or otherwise has ever nailed the amusement park feel as much as this game has. This truly feels like Mario Kart world in the way that it's a Disney world. They're having the different biomes, having such personality.

I think that the open world, the world itself, is immaculate. It's just the things we're doing gameplay-wise aren't. The design of it and how much it feels alive as a Mario world is mind-blowing. I can't imagine being a little kid learning about all these worlds and characters and seeing how they all interact, little Yoshi's getting on a bus. This stuff would have blown my mind as a kid and opened up my imagination. imagination to like unforeseen levels at that point. And Mike, you talking about, oh, all the Mario, like the random creatures and stuff.

Like, yeah, I don't really care about this. But if I was a kid, I'd be freaking out about like, oh, that's that thing's name that I've ran over in Mario 3D world or all these games. I think that Mario as a culture is so well celebrated in this, both music-wise, but also just like sticking to this is a Nintendo. This is Mario Kart. We'll get the Nintendo stuff. We'll get that DLC.

I can guarantee it. And we'll get music to match. and it's going to be fucking awesome. But I do think that this game is at its best in its details and it's at its worst in its details it gets wrong. And I think unfortunately, most of the details it gets wrong are the gameplay side of things.

I think that the skill ceiling in this game is much higher than the previous games. I don't vibe with it though. I don't like the rail riding. I don't like the charge jump. I have not been able to wrap my head around it and I don't think I'm ever going to get to the point that I do. So I'm continuing to play this game like it's,

because to me, that was perfect. And I'm sure there's going to be people that prefer this style of game. I'm not one of those people. We're talking minor tweaks here and there. It's not like it's like the craziest thing because this is still gameplay feel-wise close to perfection. It's just some of the more advanced things that I want to be playing at. I want to be playing at an advanced level. And I don't feel supported in my endeavors to do that.

The charge jump definitely feels inconsistent to me of just like just going straight and trying to do a jump to go off a wall. I don't know if that's like a weird controller thing or something, but I, and I know you have to be at a certain speed to do it. But even sometimes there, I feel like when I do the jump and I'm, or trying to do the jump and charge up and stuff, it doesn't always hit. And it's like, what are we doing here? I do think the skill, we had this very, like, after me playing two hours of Mario Kart World last week of back and forth of the skill ceiling and stuff. And I do concede of where you're talking about, Tim, of the additive nature of like the grinding and wallriding. all that stuff is going to present a much higher skill ceiling. And this is the thing I wanted to kind of get back to

from earlier in the show. I think everything Nintendo has designed around those things doesn't support that skill ceiling because the thing that convinced me is I saw someone post up an Instagram reel because I'm 50 years old. Of someone playing as like Toadet in like one of the like just like classic I think one of the places in the sky

like maybe question block whatever it's called doing insane pixel perfect like shortcuts almost jumping off of the level to like jump back up and all that stuff and that's where it clicked for me

and I was like oh this is like a pixel perfect 3D platformer which is not what I really want out of a cart race because all of it doesn't really apply the drift mechanics

that we've been playing with for 20 years you know it's like the drifting's in this game drifting is not this game yeah and but the other thing that really stuck with me from that video was like, oh, this is a

time trial. And I feel like the skill ceiling that they have, Nintendo has given you for this game, for the sickos who I don't think I will ever get there, but I'm starting to kind of like figure out the motions of like going between rail grinding and wall riding and all that stuff. I don't think I'll ever get to that

tow debt. But I think the amount of players that are available in multiplayer or even just doing Grand Prix and knockout tours, the slew of items that have either, return from like, I believe, like, Mario Kart Wii or even like Super Nintendo Mario Kart and all that stuff.

The amount of chaos that is in this game is much higher than Mario Kart 8 and the skill ceiling is also higher than Mario Kart 8, but I think those two things kind of conflict. So I think there's like a weird imbalance of like, I don't know if Nintendo intended for that skill ceiling to be different and higher with its like,

with like the design around these courses and what you can do with them. But I feel like they're kind of, their attempt at like making that rubber bands like much more intense, I think is like, it's a weird imbalance that I don't know if like the, the high ceiling skill players

are going to flourish in typical grand prix and knockout tours. That's the thing I'm still unsure of. And I, again, maybe through updates throughout the years and all that stuff, we'll get a bit more of like a better balance of those things because, yeah, there's a lot of crazy stuff that happens.

But like jumping off the map and hitting that pole perfectly and then 360 spinning and getting the boost is sick. It's so much fun. And then time trials is so cool of like putting the ghosts of like who has the world record and you can race with the ghost seeing them and tracking and following them and going, oh wow, that guy's on a rail that I've never seen before. Oh, he's off the map. He's under the map grinding the wall, jumping back off. I think it's so cool and fun. And yeah, it's really dope. I do have to say like,

yo, that's cool to see and fun to do. So going into a little bit more about my deeper thoughts on the actual game modes of this,

I think the knockout tour is the best Mario Kart ever been in terms of party and having fun and playing with friends. I think that is, it's awesome. I think knockout tour solo

kind of sucks. And all those far as saying really sucks. It's, I don't really like the challenge of having to three star it by being first for

every single thing. It just seems like there's not enough thought put into the pacing of that. tour to tour. And I say this as I've now two-starred all of the knockout tours. Three-starred a handful of them. I will at some point have all three, but I'm not having fun with it. It feels more frustrating than anything. Yeah. And I think that's because the knockout tour

is taking you off-road in parts of the free roam map that are just not interesting. And I think a problem with this game is we look at it all as like, oh, it's all this one world. And when we are essentially using the same courses to do different things, it starts to feel a little bit samey over time. And the knockout tour in between levels is the least interesting part of the game. Having said that, I don't think Grand Prix is getting enough love for how actually fucking awesome those courses are. And even the designed like highways, the roads in between, when you just allow yourself

to don't focus on the race, just focus on the experience, they are guiding you. It feels like a Disneyland ride. The Grand Prix is going through it. The amount of like fun set piece moments just visually of you're in the safari and all of a sudden the zebras are running next to you. They're only running in that one place. They're not running in the rest of the free world that the knockout tour brings you through, right?

And when you just like zone out, have the music on, I enjoyed Grand Prix so much more. And this should go without saying, but I think it's important to say because I think a lot of people are playing this without sound at all, just on their handheld switch, or watching TV and playing, like, I've been for my three-star stuff. When I'm just like, I am focusing on this grand prix, music on, looking at this shit, it's some magical stuff. And I'm not just talking about the Rainbow Road. I think every Grand Prix does such a good job of having the viby music that's like genre

toned correct for the area you're in, but having these big moments of when you approach Peach's Castle, then that theme kicks in. And it's like, we're going. Jesus Christ, that scared me. But I think they did such a good job that I would go as far as saying, I think that these are the best Grand Prix that the game has had. In terms of experience, in terms of the game. play in like the challenge of the three stars and the highs of the theme park feel of that i will agree with

you like some of the moments when yeah where you're getting to this course for the first time peach's castle is said uh especially i do think again this is you know their first attempt at doing interconnected world open world uh quote unquote whatever you want to call it i think for like the the lows of like how long we're spending especially in like a knockout tour sometimes in grand prix uh as well because yes like the moments of driving by the zebras or the Siegel's approaching you as you get to one of the islands and one of the Grand Prix is like a really good moment. I think if they

had condensed it down just a little bit just so some of the in-betweens weren't as long, I think that's where we would maybe be hitting in terms of design for this new style of Mario Kart like a 9.5 in terms of where we could be with this game which again I'm excited to see how Nintendo

iterates upon this idea in 12 years time when we get a follow up. Do you think they fill in the world with more points of interest? because like it does feel pretty spread out and I understand that's probably so they can transition things a bit more seamlessly and not make it feel like all right I'm in the winter winter place one second and I'm in the fiery place the next second right but like I wonder if maybe over over years they start plopping things in there if we start to get that feel of oh now things are shorter that's a great question that we'll answer after a word from our sponsors this episode's brought to you by XREL y'all know that a few months ago my life changed forever when I brought a pair of XREL 1 AR glasses on a long long flight to New York. I legit could not believe how easy it is to use and high quality my experience was playing games, watching movies, TV shows on the plane without just too much extra stuff around me or especially not a giant goofy headset around my head. No joke,

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So, Buss, you were asking if you think they're going to add points of interest to this world map. Yeah. My gut says no. I do think we're going to get more content. I just imagine it'll be like a different content and a different, like a smaller open zone. Which makes sense. Like it's hard to imagine. It seems like it'd be such a hard task to just pop something in there.

But also, like, I do like the idea of a brand new college. If you have, like, a world that's maybe half the size or a quarter of the size of this one, where you add in just a new Grand Prix, like, a set of four stages, that could be cool. Yeah. Especially if you get into the crossover stuff. If you start to add in like an F-0 track or an Animal Crossing track, that's where that gets really cool because that turns into an Nintendo world. I mean, I'm very fascinated by what the update plans for this game are going to look like. the fact that we have launched this console with the Mario Kart,

and this is a world where, like, you expect DLC from Nintendo projects like this specifically. And with Mario Kart, we've seen that they will continue to support the game even years after it seems like they're done with it. I wonder what it's going to look like here, how early and how consistently, and throughout the entire lifecycle of the Switch 2, we're going to continue to get more.

Yeah, because Deluxe was, like, a weird one where it's like, they put it out, then it was, like, kind of radio silence for a while, and then eventually after like what three four yeah it was like three or four years they're like hey we're putting out dLC is like okay um yeah i i feel like this game especially uh this being a launch title this being a new maria card is really going to live and die on how nintendo supports it in terms of um people majorly like in a major way coming back to a time and time again yeah yeah because you also imagine that whatever dLC they had has to conforms to to the format of this game, right? Like, if they add a new Grand Prix, you expect to be able to ride from track to track, right? You expect a knockout.

You gotta have, yeah, be able to do it for knockout tour mode. And so whatever they add, especially if it's crossover content between whatever, like, that's gonna, that's gonna be hard to make. Like, that's gonna be some, it's gonna be hard to make,

but also really exciting. Like, that's gonna be fucking sick-ass content if you're able to pull that off. Yeah. It's funny because I, this is more an observation than, it's definitely not a compliment

it's I don't like this about the game because of the type of gamer that I am I am a Nintendo gamer that wants my Nintendo games to give me a lot of things to do that I want to do and I know that sounds like no shit but it's like really like the best Nintendo games to me are the ones that I want to do

every shrine I want to get every star or moon or whatever it is and this game I feel actively goes out of its way to not want me to do that like when it has its open world and all the P blocks and the question mark things and the peach medallions and all that.

This game to continue with the amusement park conversation. This feels like when you're at the carnival part of the amusement park where you're throwing balls at targets to like win little prizes and stuff or you go to the arcade and you play some games. Or scanning specific areas on your phone in Nintendo. The actual Nintendo world. Exactly.

It kind of just feels like getting the costumes and getting the characters, the random characters unlocked. it's not about collecting them all. It's about the fun joy that you get in that moment. And all of those things, those moments are supposed to be created equally. No one person's supposed to have the same experience.

And I'm like, well, I'm a gamer man. I want a game. You like that. But I get what they're doing. And I feel like it very much is just trying to be like, yo, this stuff doesn't matter. Just have the fun you have in those moments. I'm like, well, that is such a letdown

when I do think the world is so beautiful and so unique. Like when you actually are driving around, it's not like just a bunch of assets being reused over and over and over. The amount of custom animations and characters and just even just like formations of land and buildings and things that they have going on, I'm very impressed by. It's just the things you're doing in that are just bored. It feels like they, it does feel like they dissentivize you to want to like really take the open world as seriously. For me, it feels like you're going to the theme park or like it feels like you're going to Times Square and everything's closed as a tourist, right? You're like, oh man, it's cool to be here.

Not shit to do here, though. And, like, I think my biggest critique for a system in this game is the sticker system. Even though I like the stickers, I think the stickers are fun and I like looking at them. And I do like that each of them represent like a thing that you've done. There's such a boring thing to collect, especially when everything is just a sticker, right? Oh, I drove a thousand kilometers. All right, here's a sticker. Oh, I did a P block.

All right, here's a sticker, right? And it like, it doesn't give me the fanfare. And I think that is a purposeful decision, and I don't like it as a purposeful decision. Like, I don't know. There are so many things to Tim's point, right, to the open world where when I'm just casually driving and I see a charge and chuck and the game's like, oh, take out the charge and chucks. I'm like, oh, that's fun.

That's like a cool emergent thing. And then I do it and nothing happens. Maybe I got a sticker or maybe not. It's, I don't know. Like, I just don't. It feels like such a weird idea of how to approach making this open world. It feels like an overcorrection of like Mario Card 8 or. I don't know like what their goal was there.

But yeah, not having a dedicated stats page. Yeah. Which is something that you had in Mario Card 8, but it's replaced by the sticker system where you, okay, this sticker represents you drove this, uh,

many things, uh, all that. And it's like, not having rewards for people who want to be completionists. I do think is a very weird direction after Mario Card 8. Like I three, I have three start everything.

I got nothing from that. Not even a sticker, which I think is fucking weird. With my fucking sticker Yeah And it's like Not even like You know

Mario Kart 8 You know He had the special gold cart Or like the secret cart Right Where you get the gold cart And then if you do a certain thing You get the gold wheels

And the gold glider And all that stuff And I think it's really weird Of like You know you have to jump through Hoops to unlock mirror mode And then even three starring all that shit It's like nothing

And it's like that's what What? It feels like to go out of their way Not to have stuff Yeah It's really fucking weird Yeah that's Mario card At its core right

Why do I still have The same stat page From way back in the day for all the cards and players, but I know every single one of those is different. They're like, oh yeah, that's the same speed as this one. And I'm like, well, I know it's not. Because like I've seen plenty of times

that this, with this character matcher, but this is different. Well, do you know why, Mike? I'm just just to explain it. There's hidden stats. There's always been hidden stats. There's a mini turbo stat that they don't show it, which is one of the most important stats in the game.

And then now like, cool, this bike and this bike have the exact same stats, same speed. It's like, well, that's not taking into the fact that there are speed stats for driving. over water, driving over dirt, driving over road. It's like, why even have this like inaccurate at the end of the day stats page for

the cards slash bikes and characters when there's information that, like, if you're going to have that at all, either don't, it doesn't matter or it matters. That's the thing with Nintendo. Like when you guys are getting that, it's like, they make some of these weird decisions where you're like, what are we doing here? Because I know this matters and you're like half showing it

full step it and get there because I shouldn't be guessing on this. Yeah. 105 AI's in the chat says they don't understand how Nintendo works. We do. And they did all of the, like a lot of the things we're talking about were things that they did in Mario Card 8 and now even less so. And then, yeah, now with like the stats even only being on like just carts entirely

and all that stuff. Like it's weird of, again, I feel like there's this weird disconnect of things that they wanted to carry over from Mario Card 8, but wanting to walk away from as well of like stats not being as important, but we're still going to include it and they're still going be character specific stats and all this shit. It's just... It gives me shades of like... It's all over the place.

Smash brawl where they're like, let's add tripping for no reason to like disaccentivize like a more competitive play and like make it more about the fun even though this is literally a fighting game, right? Like Mario, Nintendo, it's... They make weird decisions because they want to preserve I think the casual play

and also preserve the magic of discovery and having to figure these things out. But at the end of the day, I think like there are these things that for us as I guess 30 year old adults right like it's like no I just want to know I just want to I just want to know how fast my cart goes on water or whatever yeah just give me the information just give it to me or don't like don't even show it to me and then it's like cool we just don't know and that's just kind of how it is and I'm picking Rosalina because I like Rosalina you know and

like that's it um and more than that like the P blocks and all that it's like I similar to barrett I care about the stars and I want to complete all the things the free roam actively doesn't want me to do that. It's like you go to the menu and it's like you see how many peach medallions, how many P blocks and how many question marks you found. Not in sections. Like each section there are the question marks you see how many

you get. But like I don't know how many piece switches there are in any one section. The only thing that you can check on the map is how many question mark blocks are at each location. Like the specific tracks. And that's all there is. That's it. Yeah. And so that stuff, it's like I understand that maybe they don't want the map to start looking like other maps,

but you look at Tears of the Kingdom and Breath of Wild, they clearly don't care. Like those games allow you to just put as many damn markers as you want, all that stuff. It's like, I don't know. It's just frustrating because I want to play the game they made, and it seems like they don't want me to do that.

Yeah. Because I'm not having fun just at this point, I'm done. I'm done with free roam. Like I'm not, I'm not going to continue until they add an update that allows you to track that stuff, which I assume that they will at some point. But yeah,

for now it's like I'm not playing free room anymore. Yeah, I might get bored and eventually go after all the costumes and shit. But yeah, in terms of it. And I feel like that's going to be the easiest to do in free roam. But yeah, besides that, yeah, unless like someone does, did all of the question mark blocks and unlocked something actually cool instead of mirror mode, which we'll talk about. Then, yeah, I'm done. Are you should we talk about it now? Real quick, just the last thing I want to say about the free room stuff is something that's really unfortunate to me is I actually really like the content that

is there. The P-block stuff, like the challenges, the majority of them are legitimately challenging. And I feel like are fun to do. I don't like how similar they all are. I don't like a lot of the mechanics around it. The try-again stuff is why is it so bad? Why does it make you wait a second? Yeah, dude. Let me just hit it at any point. Let me just refresh at any point. These dumb little details. They're just getting the way of it. But it's like when some of the best of the P-Switch stuff are the most fun different ones. I'm like, this reminds me of Tony Hodge Pro Skater. Oh my god. This reminds me of that like this is actually challenging.

I feel like they did a really good job of finding the right time to give you for each challenge. Like none of them have been, oh, that was the easiest thing ever. No. All of them are like, I need to kind of actively try to do this. And a lot of them I think have taught me mechanic. Like I learned how to fly way better because of one of the P switch things. Exactly. Oh, wait, no, I can stay afloat.

I can like spin this way to do this way. And like I love that shit. And I think the Tony Hawk comparison is so after there are times where I'm doing the P-Switch stuff where I'm thinking back. to playing Tony Hawk's Underground too and I'm like man it'd be so cool if I had to talk to a Toad and Toad gave you this thing to do and it felt like more of a you know curated created

world and again I understand that that is very much not what they wanted to do with this but you they're like getting close in some places and then they're like all right but don't make it too good because we don't want people to think this is the main thing this is a side thing all right now we can talk about mirror mode wait hold on hold on was that a maze

yeah yeah cool right There are some cool challenges, but like, with the amount of P-block challenges there are, they all just start to feel like noise and bury some of the more fun ones like this, you know, that are just like kind of weird in zany, which I like. Yeah. Yeah, so mirror mode, which has been around, I believe, since the GameCube days. Maybe before that, did you look into it? I can look up N64, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't on the end.

64. Mirror mode is essentially just 150 cc but backwards everything is flipped so instead of doing a right turn you have to do a left turn on a course and it's the most uninteresting thing in Mario Kart for decades and it's

I don't know why it's there it adds nothing it was one of the like especially when DLC tracks started being added to Mario Kart 8 DLC and the way Mario Kart 3 starring works is that if you get three stars in 150 that counts as three stars for everything 150 and below.

It doesn't count for mirror mode and it doesn't count for 200 C.C. You have to do those separately. So doing all the courses again at 150 Cc, but like flipped is just like not interesting and it's kind of filler for filler six. Now you might be wondering, Barrett, why are you focusing in on this? It's because the game specifically has you kind of jump through hoops

to unlock mirror mode. You have to get gold on all of the Grand Prix and knockout tours. then you have to collect 10 peach coins in the open world and then you have to get gold again. No, then you have to get a certain amount of piece switches as well. Oh, you do? Yeah.

And then you have to play special cup again. Again, to unlock a cutscene, which is a cute cutscene. They give a whole cutscene from mirror. They give the whole cutscene of like mirror mode. And it's cute, you know, like, it is cute. Mario and Luigi are like, what the fuck happened? And then Mario looks at Luigi's a hat. And he's like, yo, the L is backwards.

That's crazy. And then it's like, oh, you unlocked mirror mode. Oh, that's cool. And then I'm halfway through three-starring all of the stuff in mirror mode. I'm like, there's nothing added here. There's not, there's nothing like, you don't need gold. You don't need gold for it. You just need to beat them all.

Oh, you just need to beat them all. Okay. Which again, like this, like people are confused because a lot of this is kind of weird. And it's just like one of those, like mirror mode adds no new challenge. So it's just one of those, like, why include it? It just feels like doing more stuff to just do more stuff. And at that point, it's like a tradition. Why shouldn't it be 200 CC?

Honestly, to your point, I think, yeah, I think it should be, they should replace mirror mode with 200 CC going forward. Because for me, I remember back in the Ns K4, unlocking mirror mode as a kid, and it being the coolest thing of, oh, shit, I didn't know this is here. And I think it makes more sense in that game because you don't have DLC, you don't have, like, they're not adding in new tracks, right? And, like, those tracks are also way more simple compared to where we're at today with Mario Kart.

And so to flip those levels back then, I think met a lot more to the line. longevity and the replayability of that stuff versus what we have in Mario Kart World where the levels are already so complex and so interesting that like honestly you put me in a flipped version of one of these levels I might not even notice Yeah, exactly and that's like that's something I even felt with like Mario Kart

8 a little bit as well is that like I feel like there's this assumption that you only get good at the courses because you've memorized them and when you get to a certain level of Mario Kart it's not because you've memorized them you just know what it's what you need to

do to get a certain type of turn and stuff like that. And so just flipping that around isn't going to like, oh shit, I went right the last time. Oh, now I got to go let. That's crazy. I don't know. It's just like one of those like it's such a nothing mode. And I just think it's weird that it's propped off as like the secret thing you have to do. I've been annoying about Mir Mode for a long time with Mario Kart. Like I actively dislike it and I feel like it's silly to say like I hate it. But real talk, I have a hate for Miramode. Because it's like again This is more

This is a reflection of who I am as a person And as a gamer But I do like to complete these games I do like to do all the things that they present to me And I don't like when they give me fucking filler homework Yeah Like there's mirror mode is not fun It's not more fun

I would never ever prefer to play mirror mode Over the original. Why? And when you present mirror mode as if All right, hey here's literally double the content You've already done If you three start all those You have to three star all these

I don't even want that option. And I know people who know this don't care. It's like, well, why is it here? Why is this the unlockable? Why are they presenting it this way? There's like, it's a weird. 200 Cc would have been so much better of a replacement for this. Honestly, anything.

Like, it didn't have to be 200 CC. It should have been 200 Cc. But even just secret cart, something, you know, just to give that completionist of like, hey, you three start everything here. Or did all of these, jump through all these hoops to do something here. I think would have been much more interesting. than mirror mode. I know this is just going to fall on people

who are just like, who fucking cares? But here's a big thing, I do. You care, I care. This is an $80 game. Yeah. This is the most expensive game Nintendo has ever made. And the only justification I can possibly make for that is the music.

And I'm not kidding there. It's like, I get it. Like that shit costs money. This game's not worth $80. Like, real talk, this is insane. The Mario Kart World is $80. And I understand the state of the world or whatever,

but, haven't played Donkey Kong Vanazza to completion yet, but that game being 70 and this being 80 truly baffles me and I need to say that because this game, I spent $80 on it. I bought the physical copy of this and I love this game. I gave it an 8 and I stand by it. I'm going to play this game for

the entire generation. But this game being $80 with the expectation that we're paying for DLC. Yes, exactly. Right? Like I don't think they're like that's going to be the longevity of people coming back for years and years and years is new characters were going to assume new locations and new tracks and stuff

but having the $80 kind of entry point there seems insane to me and yeah I will say I do love the art style this time around to bring it back to positive like looking at the characters

looking at the carts as well I love the card options I wasn't the biggest fan of having to choose the different parts for your carts to then determine stats even though we all now know that stats don't really matter but like I love unlocking like a fucking here's the Bowser buggy here's the fucking Rob Hogg

I love that I love it at Rob hog The Rob hog I like How everything looks and also how the color colors pop And like I The level of animation too Like everything's been updated to feel a bit more cartoony Like I hate lightning as power It always fucking annoys me like don't take away my items

When I get zapped just make me tiny But the animation for getting hit by lightning is so much more like, more like whimsical and funny and all that stuff. Like they definitely into more into the cartoony vibe with all the animations, which like makes this pop and feel different enough for than Mario Kart 8 in a way that feels new and fresh and honestly better. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, the animations are wild.

Like the amount of custom stuff that I just keep coming across is so cool. Like I was showing you a couple days ago, like Daisy, if you just leave her idol and the Mario Land music's playing. Like, she just starts dancing to the music. And it's like, that's awesome. but I've now seen on Twitter multiple other characters doing that. And it's that little level of just charm that is everywhere in this game. And yeah, the art style, they commit to it so hard.

And it looks great. Like this game just kind of runs flawlessly. And you look at it and it's like you see the production value all over this thing. And that's the power of Nintendo, which it doesn't need to be anything more than a good art style with backed up by tech that can actually handle the performance. And that's what we get here. One last note before I know Mikey. We got to talk multiplayer.

Multiplayer. Yeah, we got to. The last thing, after a week, I can definitively say, I don't think the drifting feels good. It is too slow. It is a little bit too bouncy. I know this is a different game than Mario Card 8, but I think, again, they did an overchanging of the drift that just, like, it feels weird and different. And in ways that, like, you know, they want to encourage people to do other things, but then they still have courses that are designed a lot around drifting. and I think it just feels weird,

especially with like, you know, there's the Super Mario Bros. Classic, like, circuit that you have. And even, like, Rainbow Road, there's a lot of, like, there's no other frills here. You just got to know how to drift. And, like, after playing those courses a lot

to see get the feel of the drifting, I think it feels off in a way that, but I don't think they're going to change it because I feel like a lot of the game is designed around how that feels, which is unfortunate. I also add, like, charge jump and drifting on the same button is weird.

I've been fucking me up a lot All of a sudden you think you're supposed to drift But you're technically in the charge jump and you're like What's happening? He's like then he jumps up You're like no no For me it's always a reverse of like All right let me try and get on that rail

And then I start drifting I'm like oh fuck all right cool I guess I'm doing this now I also want to give a shout out to specific tracks I actually want to ask you guys Do you guys have like a top two Top 3 tracks because like DK space port

That speaks to the donkey Kong What a cool roll up to that To see decay in front of the robot Then run away yeah And the music is so good All of the music is fucking top year All the different course themes of the original Donkey Kong game. It's great.

It's so good. I like Dino Jungle with the dinosaurs jumping in the screen. That one's fun. I was going to say Boo Cinema is another one. That's a big standout for me. That's right. Yeah, yeah. I love a good Bowser's Castle, and I think this one is fantastic.

And then also the one near it, the airship fortress, I think is really fun. Yeah, so I was going to say, airship fortress is sick. Getting to that one for the first time and realizing, like, oh, it's the Mario Brothers 3, like you're going on the ship and they even have the Monty Moles pop up and all that stuff. that level detail's so good. And then obviously, like, Rainbow Road. Like, not what I was predicting for, like, what Rainbow Road was going to look like.

And I think the Grand Prix for Rainbow Road is a little bit of a letdown of, like, just kind of, like, doing the slow roll-up to Rainbow Road. And it kind of feeling a bit more like a knockout tour than Grand Prix, which I find very weird. But getting to Rainbow Road. And it's like that entire journey throughout, it's like, and it might be my favorite Rainbow Road.

Me too. And I think it's because the designers of it, I think really were like, hey, let's just capture everyone's favorite memories of playing Mario Kart ever. And playing Rainbow Road really feels like playing through the credits of an old Nintendo game, where you're going through, you have this amazing music playing. The credits music and Nintendo game is often the best song. Right. And a celebration of the game.

Like you usually get hints of like all the other things that you've experienced. This Rainbow Road does that. But the old like Mario World, whatever, would like show like the cast of characters. You know what I mean? Like you'd see the thwomp and you'd see whatever. this game does that in gameplay. Like you're driving through and you see the dinosaur

and the, uh, from dino, dino jungle and the, the mega decay and all. I'm like, this is magical, man. I absolutely love it. And last week when we were given our first like day one

impressions of Mario Kart, I brought up, I was like, I don't know that years from now, Mario Kart world's levels are going to stand out to me. It all kind of feels the same. A week later, I was fucking wrong.

Like already I'm just like, I do think that I stand by, the knockout tour kind of taking you off course through the open, world. Not that isn't memorable at all. These grand prix are going to stick with me. And specifically these courses, there's so many bangers.

I agree. Yeah. Let's end the show with a quick multiplayer minute with Snowbike Mike. I gave praise to the multiplayer with certain things that they've added and I had a lot of fun with it. I think 24 players in a lobby is awesome. It is chaotic and wacky and wild. But to be able to get that many of your friends or the community or just the world playing

together is really, really dope in today's 2025. age. A couple of quick praises really fast. The camera usage. You know, shout out. What a fun, dumb, inventive way of like, hey, game chat is a big thing that we're pushing on the switch hardware. You could turn on your camera. We're going to put a big circle above your head.

And if you hit a banana, it's going to spin in a circle, right? It's like small dumb things that I think families, friends, small kids will love, right? You will laugh at. I'm sure we will do a day with the cameras on. I mean, and we were laughed. Literally, I couldn't stop laughing. Yeah. It was really funny. It was so fun.

It is a cool implementation of like, hey, we're pushing game chat on all of our, you know, our hardware here. Let's get it in the game. And they did a great job with that. Some question marks, right? I gave it a bunch of phrases. There's still so many question marks of like, what are we doing? Head scratching moments where you say, Nintendo, when I get knocked out in knockout rounds,

why am I only watching first place? We're playing with 24 of my friends. I should be able to spectate anyone I want. Why is there a question of when we're in a knockout or Grand Prix, what, lap is it or what what position are all these people in right like these are small things to the hud that should be on there so i'm having an enjoyable experience instead of going well i got knocked out at 24 16 i don't want to wait here like i remember i played with janet last night to just randomly joined their lobby i got knocked out at 16 i like half fell asleep i was changing the channel i looked

down was like oh shit we're on the next race because i was i'm taken out of the experience now and i don't care what's happening on the screen so like get me in there to have some fun. There's a lack of incentive to stick around if you get knocked out early. Like, Smash Bros did so good of having the lobby system

and then there's people fighting and there's a spectate area. We should have that. There's people racing. I should be able to spectate my friends. I should be able to see all of the racers. We should have a mini map. There should be a top 10 of like what's happening here.

Like, they're just things on this that are still baffling of Nintendo. What are we doing? It's such a funny company. Yeah. And so that's your quick multiplayer moment. I think they've done a really good job with this one.

I'm really pleased that you can have more control, 24 people, the battle, the races, the knockout Grand Prix. I think it's great that I have that kind of ownership. You guys brought it up as like, how cool would it be if I could make my own knockout round? Like, yeah. Yeah, that's far beyond just my small multiplayer stuff. But like, they're getting there? It's not there yet, but it's great.

So my question to you, because this has been a big hang up for some other people, how do you feel about not being able to squat up with like a small party of friends to just do random rooms of like versus and knockout tour where you're like kind of gaining coins and like the kind of competitor space like especially essentially like making an old tiny like a tiny lobby not a room to be able to jump in because you want because they keep adding what computers onto it well that but also just getting into the competitive space of like trying to race against some of like the best players out there that you might not have on your friends. list, right? I think that, yeah, that would be cool, Bair, and I think that will kind of elevate to the point where it's like, Mike is hosting the very best and, like, I'm privately DMing you, like, the switch code, right, to get in. You'll probably see

that in the weeks coming up, but yeah, there should be something, it's just not perfect yet. It's not 20, 25 standard, but, man, is it better than a lot of multiplayer games we've seen from from Nintendo. Remember, strikers? Remember, strikers? Don't fucking talk to me about strikers. No communication

era so far. I've never had a communication. And we did battle with 24 people is mayhem. And it should be dropping people. Doesn't really happen. Yeah. Yeah. Incredible. Yeah.

Yeah. Even like playing, like, I was assumed, like, even on Wi-Fi, just playing handheld mode, like, I'd get fucked up. I have seen a little bit of like, you know, a racer will stop and I'll pass them. And then they'll, like, come, oh, come again forward just because there's a bit of disconnect with the server, but that's, like, the most I've seen. But yeah, like, the, like, if I go into this race mode, not down into friends, I should be able to squat up with somebody and then we go into that. Oh, and then we go into that.

Yeah. Oh, I like that bear. Yeah. Totally. I mean, these are the small things that we've always questioned this company about. It's just so odd that we're here. And it's like, this is your launch title. This is the flagship.

And maybe they see it more as like, hey, this is a couch co-op experience. This is Greg and Ben playing it. It's not Mike Blessing Baird who's like, yo, this is my life here. And I want this to be better. But they'll get there eventually. Yeah. Nintendo goes out of the way sometimes to make it like, oh, listen,

we're not an online company. We're not an open, there's not an open world game, you know what I mean? Our YouTube chat is being bombarded by fucking Bitcoin bots and shit. I'm going in and I'm trying to fix it. Thank you, Barrett. Well, why are you doing that?

Tim had an appointment, so we had a skedaddle, so I'm taking us to land the plane. And as I'm doing that, I'm going to hop into super chats real quick. That's not going on you. Melo fellow writes in and says, where's Guigi, eGad, etc. I want to do, and this probably won't make a great

games cast episode. But I want to do an activity where we sit down and write who should the roster be. Because I feel like we could find 30 characters. Well, is Guigi in it? You said it's more of a Mario World. So would Guigi be in that or no? I would add, yes, Guigi should be in the game. Guigi's in the Mario World umbrella?

Yes. Where is Diddy Kong? I know we're not getting all the Kong because we want to make it a Mario game. But Diddy Kong should be in there. Okay, okay. Chat, keep listening people. Because I'm sure, is Kui Chupa not in there? No, it's the flag.

man now. He kind of looks close to him. No, Cooper trooper is in here, no. I don't think so. I don't think the traditional Where's all the Bowson? Yeah, he's right here. Oh, no, no, no, right. Sorry, the chat, somebody in Chats. Where are the Bouser kids? What happened to them? Why are they going to be fucked up? There's eight of them kids.

Lemmy? Fucking, I don't know, man. Mozart. Yeah, yeah, that was. I think his name. There's no way his name is Mozart. But you know what? Ludev. Who's the bit? Ludwig. Yeah. What's, um, Mozart's first name? Aren't they, aren't all the Bowser kids named after

like yeah what is moussart somebody says larry larry mozart i'm all i'm thinking is i'm a daze but i don't think that's correct we got all these baby care well that's that's moats wait what yeah that's what we're asking oh sorry wolf wolf gang is his name wolf gang thank you no another balser kids are named wolfgang never mind chat keep listening people uh is king babam in there from ballon's battlefield no no yeah again we got king boo give there were there could have been there are a plethora of characters that stand out in their own way that I think like, give me a thwump.

Yeah, like... A thwamp would make... Give me 30 minutes of prep time before games cast and let me for the first... Let Bless and Cook. For the first three minutes of the games cast, I'll tell you exactly who the roster

should be in this game. Okay. Iconic writes in and says, I don't think this is worth $80. From someone who loves Mario Kart, this one is toward the bottom of the list for all the racers. It's really only above Super Mario Kart and maybe one of the DS ones. Wow.

Wow. Okay. That's damning. Newby productions, writes in it says, the DK SpacePorts piece which was interesting. It wasn't mirrored, but more so doing the course in reverse. I thought that was interesting. That's fun.

Fun. I like that. Cabal's right said it says, 6.5 out of 10. Loat the punishing RNG in filler items. It's what always spoiled Mario Kart. Stickers. the only reward sucks. Real pretty HDR though. HR's great.

Game looks beautiful. Game looks hot. Yeah. And then last one comes from Demon Hackaroo says they should have brought back team driving from Double Dash. And that is it for your super chats. And that is it for your episode of Kind of Funny Gamescast. Where each and every weekday we get together and talk about the

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