Mario Kart World

[Mr EliteL]

Ah, so in an alternate reality MKW could've been simply a Mario Kart 9, but this time they decided to do a bold move of an interconnected world and 24 racers. Though they believed to have already perfected the previous formula of Mario Kart's separate tracks, they wanted to attempt something bigger.

Baby Park needs to return again purely for the chaos of 24 racers, and the laps should totally be 10. Or a new short track similar to Baby Park anyway.

[Moonface]

Ah, so in an alternate reality MKW could've been simply a Mario Kart 9, but this time they decided to do a bold move of an interconnected world and 24 racers.  Though they believed to have already perfected the previous formula of Mario Kart's separate tracks, they wanted to attempt something bigger.

Baby Park needs to return again purely for the chaos of 24 racers, and the laps should totally be 10. Or a new short track similar to Baby Park anyway.

It makes me wonder what gimmick we could have got if MK9 had been the game we're getting instead. The wall and rail jumping wouldn't probably show up because that only came about when the developers were trying to figure out how to make the straighter sections of intermission tracks more engaging. Maybe the karts transforming between car/boat/plane would have been the gimmick, although that to me would only work if the tracks had multiple routes tailored to each vehicle type like Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed does it, which would be fine by me because that game is easily one of my top kart racers of all time. On that note, I haven't seen any footage where racers have a choice to stay on a road or go onto water like Sonic Transformed does, so it doesn't seem the transform system in this game will have the depth that one does.

Baby Park showing up as a DLC track would immediately make me buy it without hesitation. Besides changing the size of the track, the only other change I can think it would get is rails along the outer edge to grind on, and maybe the same for the inside edge but only on the straights since being able to hug the U-bend corners with a rail on the inside would likely be broken balance wise.

[Mr EliteL]

Different transformations would've been cool like you said, it was either that or the Open World-like they're doing. The gliders have been fine so far but would be greater if it were a flying transformation instead. Can't think of anything else that could or hasn't already been done in MK really.

Oh dang didn't think about the grinding on rails aspect, that could happen for Baby Park. Now I'm wondering Rainbow Road having rails, but the risk of falling is removed...! OK obviously there won't be rails the entire time, but I was just thinking that anyway. Wario Colosseum would be great with grinding rails as most of that track already has barriers/rails. Though that track was also in MK8 and may not make it, especially with how the track is inside an arena, like some other "Stadium" tracks are.

[Dead2009]

After playing this a few times, I seriously wish they would have implemented the Double Dash feature as well. Instead of holding 2 items at a time, you're holding 4 between 2 characters. Now that's chaos.

[Mr EliteL]

Could've sworn it's 3 you hold for Double Dash, unless you're currently using a star or Peach's/Daisy's Special or whatever, have an item trailing you using the the use button, having the driver/partner hold an item then have picked up an item box (or double item box if no items on hold), then that's technically four.

But yes, once the games started using double items for use again, I wished the holding an item behind you counted as one in use thus freeing an empty item slot stayed. Perhaps that was considered broken, but I have seen the madness MK World can become so it would be even more chaos, practically every kart would be spinning out from getting hit so many times it may slow down the race.

[Moonface]

I'd say being able to hold an item, and have another two in reserve would be really broken even in previous Mario Kart's, but for this one it would be horrific. I've yet to play the game (despite owning it since launch) but what I've been seeing of it just screams of an idea that sounded good on paper, but did not translate well at all because the items just don't seem well balanced for 24 people. To give an example you can relate to easily @Mr EliteL, do you remember how for CTR:NF that the start of any online race was basically determined by the first set of item crates? If you went through them with the highest available level boost and managed to avoid being hit, you were practically guaranteed to keep first place for the entire race. If you got hit, you'd lose all your boost which would make it impossible to catch up to anyone who didn't, and now you're also stuck in a group of other people who also took a hit so now you have to try and get through the next set of crates without any of those people hitting you, or now you're just going to end up even further behind.

MKW races are similar to that in regards to what happens by a set of item crates determines a lot of what happens going forward. Except it isn't like CTR:NF where it's just the first set of item crates, now it's almost every single one. Being in first place towards the end of a race means everyone behind you has items, and so many of them that you'll never block them all if more than two target you, and there's so few i-frames in this game that any hit will set you up for back-to-back hits and before you know it you're lucky to be above 20th place. The only safe bet is to always stay near the back of the pack and try to get yourself two good items that you can pop near the end of the race to blow through the pack and get a good finishing position.

Having said it, i-frames are actually one of the biggest problems with the items in this game. You can get hit by a shell and before the animation even ends, someone can run you over with the giant mushroom item, and then you might take a hit from another item or because you're flat anyone else could just run over you too. My impression of the game is that if you get hit by one item and nothing else happens before you start moving forward again, you got off incredibly lucky.

On the bright side, apparently Nintendo added in an option to play races with mushrooms only, so I'm curious how different those races go compared to the normal ones.

[Mr EliteL]

Damn I thought it was pretty awful, but it's worse when hearing it like that. Also yeah, getting hit or losing your momentum in CTR:NF was a big setback. Though MKW having 24 players, with 2 items each pretty much does spell madness. Mushrooms only sounds pretty good for once, well as in actually playing. I very rarely bothered doing Mushroom item-only races in previous Mario Karts.