While we may not have gotten the announcement of the massive Mario Kart World expansion I've been hoping for from the recent Direct, we did get another substantial update that easily usurps the 1.7.0 update as the game's biggest yet!
Announced in last week's Nintendo Direct, Mario Kart World's Ver. 1.8.0 update makes good use of stuff that's already in the game by turning the 'tribute courses', which are recreations of various SNES tracks built in to the world's terrain that you could race on for P Switch missions in Free Roam, into actual courses that you can play in VS and Time Trials! There were a total of 7 of these tribute courses, which, in addition to the three segments of Mario Circuit being made individually playable, adds up to 10 new courses to race on, bringing the game's total track count to 40!
The newly added courses, and tracks you select on the map screen to access them, are as follows:
- SNES Mario Circuit 1 (Accessed via Mario Circuit)
- SNES Mario Circuit 2 (Accessed via Mario Circuit)
- SNES Mario Circuit 3 (Accessed via Mario Circuit)
- SNES Choco Island 1 (Accessed via Choco Mountain)
- SNES Choco Island 2 (Accessed via Choco Mountain)
- SNES Koopa Beach 1 (Accessed via Koopa Troopa Beach)
- SNES Vanilla Lake 1 (Accessed via Sky-High Sundae)
- SNES Ghost Valley 1 (Accessed via Boo Cinema)
- SNES Ghost Valley 2 (Accessed via Boo Cinema)
- SNES Ghost Valley 3 (Accessed via Boo Cinema)
Some interesting things I want to point out: we now have both versions of Koopa Beach represented as playable courses in World, with 1 being a more basic recreation and 2 being a full-on retro course getting much more of an overhaul. Additionally, Vanilla Lake 1 being here marks the first time since Mario Kart DS introduced the Retro Courses concept that a Vanilla Lake course has been brought back in a core mainline entry. The Vanilla Lake courses previously reappeared in Super Circuit alongside the entire Super Mario Kart track list, as well as in Tour.
While this isn't as exciting as brand new tracks would be, as I said, it's a very smart usage of stuff already in the game to add meaningful content. These courses also have a bunch of unique quirks that makes them stand out from the rest of the roster, such as featuring the SNES prefix in a game where none of the retro courses have console prefixes, the music pulled directly from Super Mario Kart, each having 5 laps, and most interestingly, item boxes being replaced by flat item panels on the ground, just like in Super Mario Kart. That last thing is a really cool detail that gives these courses a distinct vibe and personality.
Plus, I find them pretty fun to race on for the most part. They're very basic, simple circuits that don't have a lot going on, but that's what I like about them! Additionally, my favorite part about these courses is the addition of ten new staff ghosts to race in Time Trials! It's been a while since I finished beating every staff ghost in the main game, so I'm very happy to have a few more to chip away at, and I've found that some of them can be pretty tough!
More than anything though, I'm really excited to see what other cool stuff they come up with to add in these updates, as this was definitely something I didn't see coming and feels like it really opens up the possibilities for what they could add in future updates.
That's not all, though, as we also got the next pair of Knockout Tours: the Propeller Rally and Turnip Rally! The Propeller Rally starts at Acorn Heights, and travels through Boo Cinema, Dandelion Depths, Moo Moo Meadows and Toad's Factory, before ending at Airship Fortress.
Meanwhile, the Turnip Rally kicks off at DK Pass and travels through Cheep Cheep Falls, Peach Stadium, Choco Mountain and Wario Stadium, before ending at Shy Guy Bazaar.
Having played them both, neither of these routes do anything particularly interesting or unique, but it's still great to have more options. These additions bring the total number of available rallies to 12, with 4 more still on the way. Considering it's been two months since the first batch dropped in early July, I'd predict that we'll see the next two drop in November or December.
The update adds a few additional little things, such as a spectator mode for online, and the ability to apply filters to photos when accessing photo mode from the pause menu, but aside from that, the new tracks and rallies are the focus.
It's great to see support finally starting to pick up for Mario Kart World after a pretty quiet first year, and I also find it pretty funny and very interesting that World and 8 Deluxe got fairly substantial updates a little over a week apart. Perhaps Nintendo sees these two games as being able to coexist as two very different flavors of Mario Kart.
Regardless, I'm excited to see what comes next for World, and hopefully it's all building up to a massive content drop some time next year!
You can check out the full patch notes here if you're interested!
