Mario Kart 7 review

You can read this review in full in our print edition.

Our January issue, which is on sale December 20, will include a Post Script on how Nintendo has finally managed a return to the signature balance of the original game's power-ups.

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First things first: snaking is no more. Since Mario Kart 64, players have been able to boost out of drifts by rapidly steering from left to right; by Mario Kart DS it could be built up so quickly that players chained them together not around bends, but down straights. The series’ previous handheld outing saw it make its online debut, and it was ultimately ruined by the need to ludicrously slither down straights like a ski slalom to stand any chance of success.

In Mario Kart 7, drift-boosting is accessed not by the frantic mashing of opposing directions, but by the sharpness of your turn. It means a renewed, welcome focus on optimal racing lines and, on 150cc especially, involves a great deal more risk, sharp turns from wide starts making for opportunities to crash into barriers or career off the edge of the track. It’s just one of several ways in which Nintendo has looked to the past and learned from its mistakes, reusing the mechanics that worked, and refining or dropping entirely those that didn’t.

While the drift is still an essential component for victory, it’s just one way to boost your speed. Mario Kart Wii’s stunts return – though their Tony Hawk excesses have been discarded – and while the game’s motion controls are also back, they’re mercifully locked away in a novelty firstperson mode. Hop off one of the many ramps or inclines and you’ll boost on landing. These, not drifts, are your primary method of topping up speed, spread liberally around courses and allowing access to new routes. Coins, much missed since GBA’s Super Circuit, increase your maximum speed and are meticulously placed, laid out in inviting curves around corners to suggest racing lines and point out shortcuts.

Karts are now customisable, and for every 50 coins you collect you’ll unlock a new chassis, wheel or glider type. On the ground, these affect your character’s weight, speed and handling, breaking away from the light-medium-heavy choice of previous games in the series and making character selection largely a matter of preference rather than playstyle. Bigger tyres mean better offroad performance, opening up access to more ramps and shortcuts. Take off from a blue boost pad on one of the larger ramps and the glider deploys automatically, sending you sailing over long distances. At first, you’ll use it to dodge hot-air balloons, and it feels contrived. Later, you’ll spot thermal currents issuing from roadside warp pipes. Then you’ll discover that you can pull back to gain height, cutting out swathes of track at the expense of speed, or dive to ensure that you hit the ground running. A little later you’ll realise that the glider – along with the ability to race underwater, a propeller emerging when required – enables Nintendo’s biggest change to its tried-and-tested formula: verticality.

Mario Kart 7’s courses are chock-full of alternative routes and branching paths. Shortcut isn’t really the word: some of them are longer than the straight and narrow, but offer an escape from the chaos and may contain an untouched cluster of coins or power-ups, an arcing bend or ramp, or all of them at once. At ground level, these paths are often hidden from view until you whizz past them: you’ll notice one on the first lap and take it on the second, by which point you’ll have spotted even more. By the third lap, you’ll have found more above and below, and find yourself wishing for a co-pilot with pad and pen. You’ll set about digging into the time trials, where you can save up to seven ghosts per track, the seemingly endless possibilities an invigorating, dizzying thrill.

These are the most intricate course designs in the series, and also the best. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the 16 retro-styled courses, which feel a little flat in comparison. They’ve been retooled with coins, ramps and the odd underwater section, but they were designed around old systems ill-befitting the new ones, the SNES and GBA courses throwing up right-angles, the Wii tracks ludicrous width.

At least they look gorgeous. In fact, everything does. A combination of 3DS’s power and small screen means few sharp edges, with textures polished to a reflective shine. The striking neon and bold colours of Waluigi Pinball render it unrecognisable from the DS original, and comparing Koopa Troopa Beach with its N64 incarnation shows that this handheld hardware has more than enough power under the hood to withstand Vita’s looming challenge. It’s smooth, too, the action never dropping below 60fps even with the depth slider at its maximum. As in Super Mario 3D Land, the use of 3D is at once easier on the eye and more effective than in the system’s early releases. Before too long you forget it’s there, only jolted out of your focus on the relentless pace and the ever-changing landscapes by the occasional tell-tale flutter of foreground cherry blossom petals or layers of lens flare.

Nintendo has clearly been experimenting with how to better exploit its system’s obvious potential, and its solution is a natural, graceful implementation of 3D that complements and even improves its games, rather than feeling tacked on. It’s a delicate balance, and one it’s struck twice: once with its hardware, and again by elegantly intertwining Mario Kart 7’s numerous mechanics into a coherent, balanced whole, making for the most rewarding racing experience since that beloved SNES original. As a package – with its wealth of courses, characters and customisation options, its time trials and online modes – this surely beats it. Nintendo may have taken its time producing the game – when doesn’t it? – but never has the wait for a new Mario Kart been so worth it. [9]