Mario Kart live home circuit is just around the corner.
I've just had a full virtual demo with Nintendo and I can tell you how it works, how much it's going to cost and why I'm cautiously optimistic about the whole thing
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First off, let's get the merio thing out of the way.
This is how I say Mario, I've always said Mario like this, please just deal with that.
Thank you.
Not having an in person demo makes this a very tough experience to convey.
So, until I've had this in my hands, I can only go off that virtual demo Nintendo games.
Mario Kart live home circuit is the first ever live action Mario Kart game that works with a Nintendo console.
It's gonna cost $100 for either a Mario or Luigi cart, and you'll have to download the software directly from Nintendo to play.
You're gonna need your own cart and your own switch.
So for local multiplayer with just two people, that means two carts and two switches, and the whole system supports up to four total players.
There's a camera on the top of each cart that gives you a first person view of what the card sees.
And the software adds augmented reality effects like other racers and other elements that interact with the cart in real time.
So if you get comped by a Parana plan, your car is gonna stop or if you get sucked into a sandstorm, it'll be tougher to steer.
There's also speed boosts with machines and just like the original Mario Kart games, you can race in different classes like 50 cc, 100 cc, 150 cc, and even 200 cc.
The coolest part is that the carts physically move faster the higher up you go.
Each cart comes with four cardboard gates to arrow sign boards and a USB cable to charge the cart.
Players must lay out the four gates in an area in their home to map out and design a course.
Then the game will ask you to drive through the course or paint it as it calls it.
So it's able to save it and superimpose a track for your race.
That doesn't seem like there's too much limitation of how you can design a course.
But Nintendo doesn't recommend using ramps or anything like that.
They even sort of encouraged adding lightweight obstacles to the course.
Keep in mind though that the entire system, the gates the cart, and your switch really needs to be within a 30 foot radius for this whole thing to work as intended for 150 cc race, Nintendo says a 10 by 12 area is likely required.
I can't really speak to how doable that is without having any real hands on with it, yet.
But it's something to keep in mind.
Designing the courses mostly consists of the gate layouts, and customizing each gate special effect.
This lets you change what rests under a gate as you pass through it.
It can be item boxes, magnets, a piece which enemies a fire bar, the list goes on, and there definitely seems to be a decent amount of customization out there.
[SOUND] You can also change the environment of a course.
So say you want there to be frozen elements you can use the snow environment, or you can play while it's raining underwater, or even a rainbow road or eight bit theme to if you do play in the games Grand Prix mode The game will take your course design and add different effects to each race.
You're given the option to change the course after each one.
Or you can keep the same design for the entire Grand Prix.
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There's also a good amount of options for how you wanna design your outfits and card body.
There's gonna be unlockable stuff you can access along the way and completely change the appearance of your cart on screen.
So, as you probably can tell, it seems like this might be a largely single player experience.
So a time trial mode will let you race against your ghost for a faster time.
Nintendo is known for tons of unlockable and secrets, so it's safe to assume additional content and maybe even more modes will make their way to the game down the road.
So yeah, first sort of impressions with this seem promising, but I've got some concern.
First off, that price, $100 per cart is a lot of money.
And there doesn't really seem like there's any way to avoid a massive expense just for local multiplayer unless you're just sort of alternating time trials or races with someone.
Nintendo recommends playing with the Switch in handheld mode.
When I asked them about playing with two carts on one Switch, The indication was kind of that it's not possible.
Nintendo also says you should get about 90 minutes per charge racing in 150 CC mode, but it'll take up to three and a half hours to charge up a cart all the way back up.
I'm also a little worried about those cardboard gates if you ran into one of them, which Seems like you inevitably will, you might need to redo the entire course design setup, which does not seem great.
Nintendo says it will recommend players use something heavy to sit on the flaps at the bottom of each gate.
But we're just gonna have to wait and see how all of that goes.
I'm definitely looking forward to designing my own Mario Kart courses.
But I want to hear from you.
What do you think now that you know a lot more about how this works, what is standing out for you?
Alright, that's it for me.
Stay safe everyone and as always, thanks for watching.
