Topic: Why You Should Mourn Mario Kart Tour

[JusDBerube]

A discussion about what made Mario Kart Tour special, what will be lost, and thoughts on the game's closing.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/editorial/76546/why-you-should-mourn-mario-kart-tour

Recently it was revealed that the Mario Kart Tour servers will be closing on September 30th and that there will be no offline version made available. As someone who played Tour every day since it launched until I beat the game, by completing every challenge, I feel like I need to chime in.

First, I want to say that Mario Kart Tour is absolutely my favorite game in the series and seeing it die like this is very upsetting. Many members of the Mario Kart Tour community expected some sort of eventual offline version and it's really disappointing that's not happening.

From the start Mario Kart Tour was, unfortunately, poorly received by media and influencers that seemed to write it off as “mobile trash” and a gacha cash grab game. I think this is very far from the truth. Mario Kart Tour may have been a mobile title, but it seemed to be extremely ambitious especially when compared to nearly every other game in the series. It did a lot to advance the franchise formula which I will get into.

The gacha complaint is overblown. Yes, it was a gacha game at the start, but if you played the game wisely and used your resources efficiently this was rarely a problem. The new items, which were available weekly, were thrown in a pipe of 100 items. If you saved earned resources and thought you needed a new thing to win the high score competition Ranked Cup that week you could often easily get what you wanted as long as you weren't constantly doing this. Sure, you could blow your money on some awful packs like the infamous $40 Diddy Kong bundle, but if you did that you were a fool. The gacha elements were eventually removed but Tour always rewarded players that played wisely over risking resources immediately for the shiny new things.

I've also seen many players, clearly unfamiliar with what makes Tour special, claim that nothing of value will be lost since the Tour exclusive Courses made it into Mario Kart 8 Deluxe as part of the Booster Course Pass. Sadly, that line of thinking is wrong.

To start, one Tour exclusive course, Piranha Plant Pipeline, never made it to the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Booster Course Pass. That aside, Tour presented Reverse, Trick, and Reverse Trick (R, T, R/T) versions of nearly every track in the game in addition to the normal run.

Reverse Courses were courses played backwards that sometimes added elements to make some work. This was vastly better than the awful Mirror Mode seen in other Mario Kart games. Trick Courses added lots of other elements to each track such as more ramps, boost pads, and other crazy things. Reverse Trick Courses combined both Reverse and Trick ideas to create a fourth version of each track. The special versions of Courses aren't really playable anywhere else outside of Tour.

City Courses, and Piranha Plant Cove, in Tour also function very differently in the Booster Course Pack. In Tour, each City Course eventually got three to four versions. That meant, for example, there was New York Minute (1), 2, 3, and 4. Each one presenting its own unique drive through the Course. New York Minute in the Booster Course Pass tried to make each lap sort of one of the different versions of these City Courses which, ultimately, makes it its own unique remixed track. Now you have to consider that in Tour each New York Minute Course each got their own R, T, and R/T version and that one Course many only saw remixed in the Booster Course Pass actually has 16 unique layouts that will never be accessible again.

Mario Kart Tour also presented remixes, known as RMX Courses, of 10 classic tracks that won't be accessible again, each with their own R, T, and R/T variants. Additionally, some older courses also got new sequel versions that aren't entirely playable anywhere else but Tour.

To further explain the gravity of this, Mario Kart Tour has 130 unique normal Courses. Depending on how you want to argue it, Tour has approximately 57 exclusive normal courses. When you add up every normal Course in the game plus their unique variant versions there are 517 Courses to play in Tour. If you subtract out courses that are playable in other Mario Karts, depending on how you count it, there are roughly 443 Courses that won't be playable again. There are also five Battle Mode Courses in Tour, two of which are exclusive. That's an incredible amount of content that's about to vanish.

The Courses aren't the only thing that made Mario Kart Tour special. There was also an increased emphasis on Driver, Kart, and Glider uniqueness and variety. Each of these had a specific limited set of Courses they were best at. This affected scoring (more on that later), but in the case of Drivers also determined how many item boxes they would have access to for that race. If a Driver was bad they'd only get one item box, if they were okay they'd get two, and if they were great at a course Drivers would get three items per item box.

Drivers with three item boxes also had a chance of getting a Frenzy. Frenzies occurred when a Driver gets there of the same item out of an item box. They then gain invincibility for a short period of time and can use the item as many times as they want until the invincibility ran out. This added a new form of chaos and the ability to come back that isn't seen anywhere else.

Drivers also get their own unique Special Items again that only they have access to. This played a part in overall strategy for competitive racing and scoring each with their own metas combined with personal preference. Even the same character with a different costume could get a new Special Item which really added to the personality of every character. Some of these items are unique to the series such as Capsules for the Dr. Mario characters. This is something sorely lacking in Mario Kart World.

Many items in the game are also, in my opinion, improved over how they are presented in other games. One example is the Boomerang. In Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Mario Kart World it is just thrown forward and returns a few times. In Tour it swirls around you, in a spiral, before returning to you while hitting drivers and retrieving coins. Tour also allows the Super Horn to knock Bloopers away before they ink up your view.

The Scoring and Combo system was also special in Mario Kart Tour. The single player mainly focuses on getting high scores. This was done by using your best Driver, Kart, and Glider combos on each specific course. Accomplishing this required skill, some luck, and long term planning from good resource usage. Combos were maintained by doing an action shortly after another. This includes hitting other drivers with items, blocking attacks with items, performing Tricks and Mini-Turbos, hitting speed boosts, and more. Combos would help multiply the score and getting a Nonstop Combo for the entire race was incredibly satisfying.

Resource management was an important part of the scoring system. Yes, your skill and luck mattered, but you could increase your score by Leveling Up your individual Drivers, Karts, and Gliders with earned Tickets. Leveling up would permanently increase score directly when using those Drivers, Karts, and Gliders, but also improve things such as Frenzy chance, time allowed between combo moves, and eventually a way to upgrade the Driver's Special Item. This, combined with the unlikely odds of anyone having every available item and the variety of what's best for each Course, meant that the variety of who's being picked for each Course was much more varied than other Mario Kart games. Long term roster management was a fun and interesting way to see this variety and added a level of strategy to the game as you'd try to build out a roster for as much strong varied Course coverage as possible.

Mario Kart Tour didn't slouch on its Driver, Kart, and Glider options either. In the end there were 267 Drivers, 340 Karts, and 238 Gliders. An astonishing amount compared to any other game in the series.

Mario Kart Tour also featured a Bonus Challenge for each Cup every Tour. Bonus Challenges were similar to the Missions Mode from Mario Kart DS. While I don't know how many different ones there were in the end, Tour had plenty! This involved Challenges such as Time Trials, VS. Mega Character, Glider Challenges, Smash Small Dry Bones, Goomba Takedown, and more across a variety of Courses.

It's also worth noting that Mario Kart Tour features a lot of great music. While the soundtrack for many of the Courses may sound familiar, they are, in fact, unique versions of these musical pieces. Sadly they, along with some new original music, will also be going away never to be seen again in their true form.

Many people may find it refreshing that Tour also went back to basics in that races are between eight competitors instead of the 12 in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and the insane 24 in Mario Kart World. As a result it felt like the chaos was more manageable. Additionally, tracks weren't presented as wide as a major highway system.

I should make it clear at this point that the Single Player racing, which is the core of the game, was basically a score attack mode reminiscent of ExciteBots but less insane. You'd try to get a high score on each track, however each week there was one Cup, the Ranked Cup, where you'd be competing against others to move up the competitive tiers. Your score of the three Courses for that cup would be added up and compared to a, seemingly, random set of 19 other real players in your tier. If you placed in the top three you'd get more rewards and move up a tier for the next week. This gave the game a fun high score arcade chase feel that isn't replicated anywhere else and the competition could get fierce.

Tour also eventually got a Multiplayer Racing Mode and a Multiplayer Battle Mode. Scoring was calculated here as well, but unless there was some group collusion going on between racers it was unlikely for this to be the best scoring strategy. Races here could be as intense as any in Mario Kart and I had a blast playing them. Battle Mode was also occasionally available in single player taking place of one of the standard Courses in a Cup for scoring purposes.

Another Feature of Tour, that is seriously lacking in other Mario Kart games, is the fact that it will tell you who you hit with an item, and who hit you with an item. This is something other Mario Kart games should do, so you know who you're messing up or who screwed you over. It's a simple thing that doesn't take up much space on the screen so I don't understand why it's not implemented in the other versions of Mario Kart.

Tour wasn't without its flaws though. I will admit that the touch screen controls did have a learning curve that some players couldn't get over. That said those that figured them out were able to play expertly. It could also be annoying for players that wanted to play a specific track but it was unavailable in the current Tour. Each individual Tour, which ran for two weeks each, was a select set of Cups and Courses. Only these could be played so it made it impossible to go back to previous Courses even if just for fun until they cycled back in. I think it took nearly four years for the original New York Minute Course to return to the rotation for the first time.

I also think because Tour was more of a slow burn, requiring smart resource management to get better, many players dropped off because it seemed like paying out the ass to win was the only option. In truth, just sticking with it was the best strategy though paying for the $5 a month Gold Pass did offer a great bargain of bonuses that was very worth it to anyone really getting into the game. I gladly paid for the Gold Pass until I retired from Tour. Some people say the optional Gold Pass was a ripoff, costing $60 a year to play Mario Kart, but I disagree. Tour had biweekly updates with new Courses, Drivers, Karts, Gliders, Events, Holiday Track elements, and more for four years. Ultimately more content and things to do than any other game in the series. I'd gladly pay for that again. Every two weeks you never knew what was going to be added and it was extremely exciting.

So why did I stop playing? Basically, I won. I had maxed my Player Level and earned every bit of Player experience from every Course. Then there was one final Challenge Card, Tour’s sort of in-game achievements, titled Extreme Challenges. The goal there was to get first place in the weekly Ranked Cup scoring competition Tier 99 (the highest tier) 30 times. After about six months since the final major content update I was able to finish the Extreme Challenges and basically complete the game. With nothing left to accomplish and no new content I knew it was time to quit. But that journey was unlike anything else in Mario Kart history. Between my own growth as a player and looking in at the community of players that grew around the game there was something so special about Mario Kart Tour.

Mario Kart Tour was ultimately part resource management game, part long term strategy game, part racing/execution game, part luck/determination, and part multiplayer game. It had several hundred exclusive Courses, Drivers, Karts, Gliders and a community of dedicated players. This is what is ultimately being lost when Mario Kart Tour is shut down this September.

Sadly, the latest game in the series, Mario Kart World, really pales in comparison to what was offered in Tour and it's upsetting to me, and surely the Tour community, that many of the innovative series advancements presented in Tour weren't iterated upon in the Switch 2 version of Mario Kart.

Most of you reading this probably missed out on the excitement of Mario Kart Tour while it was available. There is already no way to go back and experience it as it was. That said, by the time of this being published you'll still have a little time to check the game out before the plug is pulled and I really hope you do because Mario Kart Tour was the most exciting and robust Mario Kart game ever made and history shouldn't forget that.