As with most Nintendo fans, I’ve been playing a lot of Mario Kart World on the newly released Switch 2. My passion for Mario Kart goes back to the SNES days, so when I started up the latest release, I jumped straight into Grand Prix mode, ready to hunt down those gold trophies. As I got more embedded in the game, I became obsessed with Knockout Tour, the newest gameplay mode which I wrote about here. But I didn’t feel much need to play Free Roam—and now I’d like to publicly declare that I was wrong.
Free Roam is the de facto tutorial mode of Mario Kart World that I didn’t know I needed—and it’s so much more than that. The game mode allows players to freely drive across the enormous continent that comprises the “world” portion of Mario Kart World. During these drives of exploration, players will come across P Switches that give players missions to accomplish. These missions range from incredibly simple (like racing to the top of a hill or jumping over a lake) to challenging skill tests called “precision driving” missions, which requires players to execute perfectly timed jumps, rail-grinds, and wall-drives to collect blue coins. During Free Roam, players will also come across full races, obstacle courses, and pursuit missions like tracking down Nabbit or shooting Charging Chuck.
At its core, Free Roam is very similar to the design philosophy of the Mario Kart franchise itself: easy to learn, difficult to master. The mode rewards players for learning the basics of Mario Kart World‘s gameplay, but also incentivizes mastery of more complex skill sets. Long-time players will have no trouble with the easy missions, but will pleasantly find their skills developing when tackling more challenging missions.
These training missions are essentially tutorials without direct instruction. The game makes it easy for players to play the same mission over and over again until they master it by granting players the ability to restart the mission with a push of the thumb-stick; players can even rewind a few seconds by pressing the D-Pad. In a way, these tutorials take the same principles developed for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and apply them to Mario Kart: give players tools and freedom and they’ll discover new ways to succeed and to navigate the game spaces.
The ability to visit areas of the map where races are held in other gameplay modes is also exciting and useful. Players can take time to explore shortcuts, practice difficult turns, and even map out their best navigation paths for portions of the race that give them trouble. Visiting these areas in Free Roam also builds a familiarity that breeds affection when playing these areas in Grand Prix mode later on. Throw in the ability to unlock new characters and costumes, and you’ve got a winning formula for tutorials that players actually want to use rather than ones they’re rushing to get past.
Tell us what you think! Have you played Free Roam mode on Mario Kart World? What’s your take? Share your reactions in the comments below or join the conversation on Boss Rush Network’s Discord, Facebook, and Twitter.
Featured Image: Nintendo
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