Mario Kart Worldhas been in our hands for a solid week now, giving plenty of people enough time to getstuck into a few Grand Prix tournaments and Knockout Tours, and those that like to take the game online have been optimizing their routes as much as possible for the chance of victory.
One of the biggest things that players have had to adapt to this time around is the massively expanded number of characters in every race, going from your standard 12 to a whopping 24 in a single race. That many characters in one race was always going to require an adjustment period for longtime Mario Kart fans, but some think that the changes aren’t as great as they seemed before launch.
Mario Kart World’s “Item Spam” Is Frustrating Players
In a new tweet by a Twitter user called LonelyGoomba, they claimed that the classic Mario Kart pile-ons that can inflict misery on those in first place have “stopped being fun”. I’m pretty sure it’s a universal experience in any Mario Kart to be sitting pretty in first, only to be hit by a blue shell, a red shell, flattened, and then struck by a Bullet Bill all in quick succession to then end up in last. It’s almost a rite of passage.
However, LonelyGoomba and several other Mario Kart World players seem to be getting pretty sick of them happening, claiming that they’ve gone from being a rare occurrence to happening “every other race”. LonelyGoomba thinks that races have now become a case of “hoping for the best”, and that the problem is mostly down to the increase in characters in one race.
Another Twitter user agreeing with LonelyGoomba called Matthasnocuts also agrees with the sentiment, claiming that winning takes no skill anymore, and that most online races now boil down to “item spam”. Similar sentiments are shared throughout the post by other fans, with some claiming races should have stuck to 12 players and that 24 players should have been exclusively part of Knockout Tour.
In a way, I can kind of see where they’re coming from. More players mean more items in play, and more chances that one of those will be a blue shell that can completely derail a good performance. You also have more players passing you, meaning more opportunities for someone to pile on the misery and overtake. It’s definitely more chaotic, but it seems as though some people aren’t a huge fan of that change.
