I want to thank Nintendo UK for sending us a copy of this game… uh… and kart, to review
For the longest time now I’ve been hearing Nintendo fans ask:
- ‘Where’s Mario Kart 9?’
- ‘Give us a new Mario Kart for Switch Nintendo!’
- ‘Bring back Donkey Kong Jr Nintendo!’
No? That last one just me? Well anyway, Nintendo saw these requests and decided instead to do what they do best: blindside us with a brand new experience. Instead of a standard sequel, we’ve got Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit, a Toys-to-Life venture between Nintendo and Velan Studios. This take on Mario Kart sees the player turning their real-life surroundings into the race tracks Mario and Luigi can drive around. It’s a fantastic concept, but does it take the Gold or stumble at the starting line? Let’s test it out.
Start your engine
Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit is less of a game and more of a toy, really. While it does certainly use the Nintendo Switch and requires free downloadable software to run, what the player is buying is the RC Kart itself. Mario Kart isn’t unfamiliar with the RC Kart scene. I had RC cars of Mario, Yoshi, and DK growing up and this just feels like the natural evolution to the toy. Now players don’t have to invent a game to play; there’s already a game programmed in.
However, players will need to invent the tracks they’ll be racing through. While the game comes with a Grand Prix mode, as well as Time Trial, Multiplayer, and Custom Race, there are no set tracks. The fun with Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit isn’t just driving the cars around; it’s driving them through tracks of your own creation.
Along with the RC Kart, players also receive a very Nintendo Labo inspired series of cardboard checkpoints and signs that are used to signal the key points of the track. The player has to place four checkpoints around their living space – in any way they want – and then Mario drives through them in order of 1-4. The extra two signs can be used to point players in the right direction if the track is a bit more complex.
The track design can be anything you want and the game will create the map layout for you, as well as show an outline of the track’s width using Augmented Reality. This is useful if you haven’t made a course with actual physical walls in mind, like your video game boxes or your entire amiibo collection (I know I have enough to make a course with). However, this can be turned off
There are a lot of neat options to mess around with outside of Grand Prix. You can change the game music using in-game radio stations, and yes, Rainbow Road gets one of its own. You can change the environment so that it’s raining, snowing, spooky, and more. There’s even an option for support handling similar to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe that should help players keep straight to their track and not crash into walls. There are plenty of options here to fool around with, and all before you even start a race!
Augmented Racing
As I mentioned, Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit uses AR to try to replicate the racing experience. By using an AR camera on the back of the Kart, plays get a direct video stream to their Nintendo Switch system, and it’s through this lens that our real world gets invaded with all kinds of Mario Kart madness.
The player will only participate in 6 player races against either 4 or 5 of the Koopalings, Bowser Jr. included. These racers will drive around your living room, following the course you designed, and picking up items along the way. These items are your traditional Mario Kart types, although some act slightly differently this time. The lighting bolt doesn’t shrink your car and just has you spin-out, and the returning Chain Chomp acts more like the Piranha Plant item from Mario Kart 8.
That they have items – and that the kart reacts to them – is very impressive. My first ‘oh wow’ moment in this game was getting the Chain Chomp item and actually being able to feel it pull my kart left and right. It was only subtle, but it was making my kart move slightly off-track, and I had to rearrange to not end up being pulled off entirely. It really helps with the immersion.
Even further in support of this are the gates you place down. While gate 1 is always the start, the other three vary depending on the track theme you are playing. This is why the Grand Prix mode actually comes into effect, where players race on three 5 lap courses, each one a different theme. This makes the scenery visually change, with some adding enemies to the field (like Boos), but it’s the change to the gates that are most substantial.
The gates are where Mario can pick up items or get speed boosts, and the kart actually does increase speed from this. The game has up to 200cc (and a very clever Mirror mode) included, and the speed of the game and kart increases depending on the mode chosen.
But back to the gates, these not only change appearance but also have hazards that affect the kart. The one that impressed me the most was the magnet gate, which actually pulls Mario towards its center. When driving I kept hitting a table leg and couldn’t figure out why, as I should’ve been going straight. That’s when I realised, the AR magnet was actually affecting my kart for real and pulling it towards itself. The car reacted to the imaginary magnet exactly as if it was there. This sold me on the AR in this game; it is very well done.
Breaking the speed barrier
With everything said so far, the game is shaping up quite nicely, but what are the limits of a toy concept like this? This is something I felt needed review and went to test out. I made regular tracks, really small tracks, really confusing tracks, tracks on different surfaces and even made tacks that go on multiple layers! But did they all pan out?
Starting with the different surfaces, I tested it on carpet, wood, tile, magazine covers, yoga matts and even blankets and it managed to work on all of them… to varying degrees. On the blankets it was a little awkward, sometimes getting stuck in the folds, but for all the others it worked perfectly.
With the track layouts though, the results weren’t as flexible. Regular tracks worked perfectly fine, as one would expect, but surprisingly I had difficulties making a really small track. As it turns out, the camera on the car has to capture the numbers on the gates so it knows where Mario is, but with the track I had made Mario was never far enough away from the checkpoints to do so, and thus Mario was never picked up going through any gate other than the first.
This is very minor though. What wasn’t so minor were the confusing tracks. Technically tracks like this work perfectly fine but I found one major flaw with them. You can design the most ingenious or insidious track layout imaginable, but all the game picks up is when Mario goes through the checkpoints. Meaning players can completely disregard their track layouts and beeline it straight to the checkpoints as fast as possible.
This becomes very funny when you realise the items and CPU will follow the track exactly. This lead to a really funny race that cheesed the game, where I had made 4 laps of my living room before the CPU had even done 1. By the end of the race there were at least two blue shells buzzing all around my room trying and failing to catch-up to me, my lead was that incredible. With this, the Grand Prix mode becomes an absolute joke to complete.
Breaking the game like that is a case of the player sabotaging their own fun though and it’s not something I can really blame the game for. Unfortunately, one major disappointment (and limitation) is that multi-level tracks are not doable. Everything here has to follow the Super Mario Kart standard of flat level design.
Now technically, you can create a track that goes up ramps and crosses over or under each other as I managed to make one. Mario went up a not very steep ramp onto a coffee table, from that to my sofa and then down a mountain of pillows back to the ground. I was hopeful when game picked all of this up, but when it came to the actual race the AI completely ignored the verticality of what I had created. They followed the course layout but acted as if it was all flat on the ground, meaning they ended up inside my sofa at one point – racing to a place I could never follow.
Making a victory lap
Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit has limitations. I didn’t even mention that Mario has to be within 5 meters of the Switch at all times, and how walls can disrupt that connection, making multi-room races not nearly as smooth as they could be. But the game is also crazy impressive. It’s a very cool piece of tech that works better than expected, and it honestly made me feel like I was legitimately playing Mario Kart in my living room.
I had a lot of fun with Mario kart Live: Home Circuit, but there’s the $100 question. Is the game worth the price? RC cars are expensive, and it definitely cost more to make this piece of tech than a regular game cartridge so I totally understand why this is retailing so high at £100 (well actually, no; I don’t get why it’s costing a hundred pounds, USD, and euros, but that’s a different discussion). For the average consumer though, this is a big ask. So is it worth it?
I think it depends on two factors: how much you enjoy RC cars and your living conditions. If you’re an RC car fanatic, this won’t be like the absolutely mad, top-end RC cars I have seen, but it is still worth it for the really unique experience. I haven’t seen anything else do what this game does and I can very easily say this is the best Toys-to-Life product on the market right now. So just to experience that if you are an RC car fan is worth the price.
But I am saying that assuming that someone who already plays with RC cars is actually in a living condition where they can use them as factors like the shape and size of your house are critically important. I was actually fairly limited in what I could create as the odd L-shape of my living room-kitchen combo meant every course I made looked more like Luigi Circuit than anything else.
This was the biggest room in my home as well. My bedroom was actually too small to set up all the gates and while Mario himself is small enough to go under my bed no signs would fit under there. I had to have Mario leave my room and enter the room opposite to even have something resembling a course, and then the video lag kicked in thanks to the walls getting in the way. It wasn’t ideal, so if you live in a small home this might not work very well for you. It needs at least a square room where clutter can be removed to get the most out of it.
If you have the opportunity to get Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit and have been interested in checking it out, then I do recommend it. It was a unique experience I’ve never had before, and I’ll still be busting out Mario for a quick drive even after this review is over. I’ll just have to make sure I move all the furniture out the way first before I get behind the wheel.
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I could see myself buying MKL:HC for my younger siblings, but this is probably not something I would continue playing in the long run.
I do look forward to any funny videos though, especialy with animals.