If you’ve played any Mario Kart game before, you’ll find familiar mechanics with “Mario Kart World.” Nintendo really hasn’t messed with the formula, and the game loop, driving, and mechanics all work the same as before, with various Mario characters racing around some classic tracks, trying to get to first, aided by various boosts scattered around the circuit. The driving feel, controls, and boosts feel exactly as they have in all modern Mario titles — albeit with some minor differences in balancing — and it makes for a fantastically fun experience, particularly when played on a TV, in split-screen multiplayer. My only critique on this front was that, if playing in that mode, first place is a lot easier to maintain than second, as the other karts put an outsized hit on you. If you achieve a big first-place lead, the AI-controlled drivers have limited catch-up mechanics, and will target their fire heavily on the driver closest to them.

This is only a quibble though, and few games have provided more fun, in as long, as playing Mario Kart with my partner on our projector. The classic Grand Tour mode provides a series of race tournaments, on circuits and roads connecting them, whereas the Knockout Tour mode has you drive between various biomes, with each knocking out the bottom-ranked drivers, until only the top four remain, competing to get first in the final segment. There are also balloon and coin battles, but the two main modes have occupied most of our attention — particularly as the custom series mode is somewhat underdeveloped, as is the free roam.

The free-roam mode is this game’s advertised unique selling point, as the first open-world Mario Game. Rather than each track existing in isolated spaces, they are now all places on one connected map, allowing for races between tracks as part of the tournament, and for you to explore the map as you wish, in single player. This feels like the mode you should default to when using the Switch undocked, but it doesn’t provide the right incentives to make it enjoyable. You don’t unlock anything by doing all this exploring — no tracks or modes are made available to you by doing this — and you can collect as many coins as you can find, but there’s no counter, let alone an ability to spend them on anything. There are small challenges you can do throughout the world, but again, these aren’t ranked, scored, or rewarded.

Part of the problem could also be that, though the karts are fun to drive in the chaos of a race, they’re too limited and alike for free driving. I’ve played few games more than “Forza Horizon 4,” and almost all of that was just spent driving around the world. But, in contrast to “Mario Kart World,” you get incentives for doing so — such as beating speed records in sections, and finding various hidden collectibles — and each car feels, sounds, and drives differently. By contrast, exploring “Mario Kart World” often feels rather pointless. After more than 10 minutes wandering around, I feel like I’m wasting my time, and it’s a shame, because it’s such a big, pretty space to explore, full of fun details. It would be great if exploration unlocked customization options for your karts and characters, but alas, it does not.

The other pity is that, though the Knockout Mode has you driving through this map, there are only half a dozen of these. You ought to be able to make a custom race by placing various checkpoints across the map, and then race through them, but — at the moment — you cannot.

In short, the “World” part of the title is quite a waste — but it’s hard to complain about that when the classic Mario Kart elements are the best they’ve ever been. Races now have 24 drivers — the game comes with more tracks than any base Mario Kart ever before, with classics and new tracks alike, most of which are great — and it looks superb. It still retains the classic Mario Kart look, but the landscapes are larger, more detailed, and more visually appealing than ever before, particularly during sunset, when leaves or blossoms rush by in the air. Most importantly, fun is best had with other people, and this is the best local multiplayer gaming experience you can get.

The key problem with the game, then, is its price. It retails at $80 or $90 for a version with a physical cartridge. I bought it in a bundle with my Switch 2, which functionally discounts it by $30, and I’m having too much fun to regret my purchase. However, it feels wrong to pay that much money for a relaxed game, marketed at an audience that includes children, which doesn’t include a lot of new features.