{"id":906,"date":"2020-10-24T23:03:15","date_gmt":"2020-10-25T03:03:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gaminginsurrection.com\/reviews\/?p=906"},"modified":"2022-07-17T17:07:49","modified_gmt":"2022-07-17T21:07:49","slug":"mario-kart-tour-4q2020-issue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gaminginsurrection.com\/reviews\/index.php\/2020\/10\/24\/mario-kart-tour-4q2020-issue\/","title":{"rendered":"Mario Kart Tour \u2014 4Q2020<\/span> issue"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Mobile Mario Kart still stuck at start\u00ading line<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Grow\u00ading up as a gamer, there was always a series I could count on to pro\u00advide a lot of <\/span><\/span>enjoy\u00adment: Mario Kart. High qual\u00adi\u00adty, fun rac\u00ading ensued as did a famil\u00adiar\u00adi\u00adty with the sys\u00adtem that made up rac\u00ading in the Mush\u00adroom King\u00addom. But as time has marched on, there are dark clouds over the king\u00addom and it\u2019s not nec\u00ades\u00adsar\u00adi\u00adly Bowser\u2019s fault for the fool\u00adish\u00adness for once; it\u2019s Nintendo\u2019s greed.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mario Kart in mobile form has always been a safe bet for the Nin\u00adten\u00addo rac\u00ading fan. Being able to race with your favorite Mario char\u00adac\u00adters and take it on the go? Where do I sign up? But Mario Kart Tour, the lat\u00adest mobile prop\u00ader\u00adty for the gam\u00ading giant, is not a fun tour \u2026 er, trip. It\u2019s Mario Kart for the SNES<\/span> dumb\u00aded and watered down with gatcha ele\u00adments tacked on for good measure.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mario Kart Tour takes the usu\u00adal Mario Kart for\u00admu\u00adla and adds things like gatcha pulls to unlock spe\u00adcial char\u00adac\u00adters, karts and glid\u00aders, usu\u00adal\u00adly in the high-end cat\u00ade\u00adgo\u00adry, as well as lev\u00adel up your estab\u00adlished ros\u00adter. The gatcha pulls are obnox\u00adious because it\u2019s depen\u00addent on luck of the draw using real mon\u00adey to fund the pulls. The real mon\u00adey \u2014 that you\u2019re pulling out of your wal\u00adlet \u2014 is spent in the form of rubies, which allow you to pull from pipes pos\u00adsi\u00adbly con\u00adtain\u00ading the high-end items in batch\u00ades of one pull for five rubies or 10 pulls for 45 rubies. Though the rubies are mod\u00ader\u00adate\u00adly priced, it\u2019s the fact that you must buy the rubies or com\u00adplete some\u00adtimes ridicu\u00adlous chal\u00adlenges to get rubies that makes it beyond the pale.<\/span><\/p>\n

And, just as infu\u00adri\u00adat\u00ading\u00adly, there\u2019s the character\/kart\/glider sys\u00adtem that\u2019s tied to the stages cho\u00adsen for each tour. Each lev\u00adel has three or four spe\u00adcif\u00adic char\u00adac\u00adters that are favored on this track. Usu\u00adal\u00adly, the char\u00adac\u00adters that are favored are the fla\u00advor of the tour; that is, a char\u00adac\u00adter or vari\u00ada\u00adtion cre\u00adat\u00aded espe\u00adcial\u00adly for the spe\u00adcif\u00adic tour. As always, they are high-end and exceed\u00ading\u00adly hard to acquire. Because this is tied into the pipe pulls, it\u2019s also a cash grab designed to pull in the most ded\u00adi\u00adcat\u00aded who have the most mon\u00adey and time to spend fid\u00addling around with a mobile game. These \u201cwhales,\u201d as they are called in online cir\u00adcles, keep this cash grab going and endorse this con\u00adtin\u00adued behav\u00adior from Nin\u00adten\u00addo, which, in all hon\u00adesty, is atrocious.<\/span><\/p>\n

In addi\u00adtion to the tool-like sin\u00adgle-play\u00ader mode, there is the mul\u00adti\u00adplay\u00ader mode from hell. I wish I could some\u00adhow con\u00advey the trash-like qual\u00adi\u00adties of mul\u00adti\u00adplay\u00ader in words, but I\u2019m at a loss with\u00adout get\u00adting an FCC<\/span> fine for pro\u00adfan\u00adi\u00adty. The mul\u00adti\u00adplay\u00ader plays like garbage and ignores any sort of mechan\u00adics that Tour attempts to cre\u00adate in the sin\u00adgle-play\u00ader cam\u00adpaign. It is utter chaos in every match and those lucky enough to do well have to be doing that with sheer luck. It can\u2019t be from actu\u00adal skill and good mechan\u00adics, because Tour is miss\u00ading the mark in both areas.<\/span><\/p>\n

The mechan\u00adics, lack\u00ading in skill and refine\u00adment, are a seri\u00adous prob\u00adlem. Now, I\u2019m cog\u00adnizant of the fact that this is a mobile game, so we\u2019re not talk\u00ading pre\u00adci\u00adsion like a main entry would have. How\u00adev\u00ader, this is rough even for a mobile game. Often, drift\u00ading is dif\u00adfi\u00adcult and ultra mini-tur\u00adbos are next to impos\u00adsi\u00adble. Giv\u00aden that I\u2019ve mas\u00adtered the drift\u00ading fea\u00adture in Mario Kart with every entry start\u00ading from the Nin\u00adten\u00addo 64 days, I shouldn\u2019t have this much trou\u00adble main\u00adtain\u00ading a drift. The com\u00adbo sys\u00adtem, while inter\u00adest\u00ading and a great fea\u00adture, is not refined as well as it should be. There should be a meter that shows me the length of time between com\u00adbo actions and how much time I have left if you\u2019re going to tell me that I have a time lim\u00adit on those actions. Some\u00adtimes, com\u00adbos drop inex\u00adplic\u00ada\u00adbly, ruin\u00ading a run at a chal\u00adlenge that requires a cer\u00adtain number.<\/span><\/p>\n

Equal\u00adly prob\u00adlem\u00adat\u00adic are the weapons sys\u00adtem and the AI<\/span> lev\u00adel. I tend to race com\u00adfort\u00adably on 100cc, but I will race on 150cc and 200cc (with a pur\u00adchased Gold Pass) if I\u2019m work\u00ading on improv\u00ading scores in the bi-week\u00adly ranked cups. In the months since I\u2019ve begun play\u00ading, I\u2019ve noticed the aggres\u00adsion of the com\u00adput\u00ader-con\u00adtrolled karts steadi\u00adly creep\u00ading up, which is a prob\u00adlem. It\u2019s most\u00adly notice\u00adable on the week\u00adly favored track, which quick\u00adly gets infu\u00adri\u00adat\u00ading when you\u2019re try\u00ading to main\u00adtain a rank\u00ading and the com\u00adput\u00ader is hell bent on keep\u00ading you from achiev\u00ading this goal. The weapons sys\u00adtem plays a large part in this because it\u2019s near\u00adly impos\u00adsi\u00adble some\u00adtimes to receive your character\u2019s spe\u00adcif\u00adic weapon or a fren\u00adzy or even a use\u00adful fren\u00adzy despite your char\u00adac\u00adter more than like\u00adly being a high level.<\/span><\/p>\n

Also low\u00ader\u00ading Tour\u2019s fun fac\u00adtor is the char\u00adac\u00adter sys\u00adtem. As in oth\u00ader games in the series, there are a vari\u00adety of char\u00adac\u00adters from the Mush\u00adroom King\u00addom and Nin\u00adten\u00addo in gen\u00ader\u00adal that can be and have been added to the ros\u00adter. The sheer vari\u00adety is great but the need to unlock and pay for these vari\u00adeties is the prob\u00adlem. It\u2019s greedy as hell that you have to buy rubies to pos\u00adsi\u00adbly unlock a char\u00adac\u00adter to do well in the fea\u00adtured tour track or mag\u00adi\u00adcal\u00adly come up with the ways to earn them, which are far and few in between. Basi\u00adcal\u00adly, Nin\u00adten\u00addo wants you to spend mon\u00adey and they\u2019re not afraid to pimp out Mario Kart to achieve this goal, so they\u2019ll nick\u00adel and dime you constantly.<\/span><\/p>\n

And I hope you love a lot of the tracks already pulled into Tour because track vari\u00adety is lack\u00ading. There are a lot of not-fun tracks that seem to be repeat\u00aded quite often. That decreas\u00ades the enjoy\u00adment of rac\u00ading because you know you aren\u2019t going to want to mess around with a cup that has an obnox\u00adious track (I\u2019m glar\u00ading at you, 3DS<\/span> Rain\u00adbow Road).<\/span><\/p>\n

Visu\u00adal\u00adly, Tour is fine. It looks like Mario Kart and has all the ele\u00adments of the rac\u00ading god we\u2019ve come to know and love. As a mat\u00adter of fact, the game looks like a bet\u00adter ver\u00adsion of the Wii U\u2019s Mario Kart 8, just below Mario Kart 8 Deluxe for the Switch. Those oft-repeat\u00aded tracks are gor\u00adgeous recre\u00adations of old faith\u00adful favorites from the SNES<\/span>, Nin\u00adten\u00addo 64 and Game Boy Advance titles with a few new cities of the world tracks thrown in the mix. In the begin\u00adning there were a lot of dif\u00adfer\u00adent city tracks, but because of the pan\u00addem\u00adic, work on the tour has been kept to already estab\u00adlished tracks from the series that can quick\u00adly be con\u00advert\u00aded for use in Tour.<\/span><\/p>\n

Musi\u00adcal\u00adly, Mario Kart is known as hav\u00ading a banger sound\u00adtrack for every game. Tour doesn\u2019t slouch in that depart\u00adment with the new tracks, but it does mess up with some of the old\u00ader tracks. I\u2019m not quite sure how a game can get one part of the sound\u00adtrack right but mess up the oth\u00ader parts, but Tour some\u00adhow man\u00adages to do it. Any of the new tracks that were cre\u00adat\u00aded for Tour are excel\u00adlent. The menu themes are excel\u00adlent, as well, with new tunes mixed in with remixed favorites from pre\u00advi\u00adous games. But then you get to an old\u00ader track, let\u2019s say Koopa Troopa Beach from the SNES<\/span>. It does not sound the same as the orig\u00adi\u00adnal ver\u00adsion at all. The pitch sounds off by a few notes, as if some\u00adone recre\u00adat\u00aded it for Tour and kind of, sort of remem\u00adbered the way the orig\u00adi\u00adnal sound\u00aded. Rain\u00adbow Road from the SNES<\/span> has the same prob\u00adlem. It sort of resem\u00adbles the orig\u00adi\u00adnal tunes but also \u2026 not real\u00adly. I\u2019m not quite sure what I\u2019m going to get from tour to tour, so I don\u2019t nec\u00ades\u00adsar\u00adi\u00adly get my hopes up in terms of music qual\u00adi\u00adty when I see an old\u00ader track announced.<\/span><\/p>\n

All my prob\u00adlems with Mario Kart Tour are fix\u00adable, but that\u2019s up to Nin\u00adten\u00addo to work on and decide if it\u2019s worth it this far in. With increas\u00ading fre\u00adquen\u00adcy, how\u00adev\u00ader, I find myself say\u00ading this might be the part of the Tour that\u2019s my last stop.<\/span><\/p>\n