The mechanic introduces true verticality to the series, as well as a new strategic layer: sometimes it's best to drop from the sky as quickly as possible, while elsewhere gliding above the pack is preferable. Launch your character from a special ramp and they'll glide down, allowing you to either pull back in order to gain height and fly over opponents and obstacles, or push forward to gather speed in a dramatic swoop. Wii Sports Resort's Wuhu Island makes more than one appearance as a new track in the game, while the Pilotwings hang-gliders provide the most striking addition to the formula. That's still true in Mario Kart 7 pea-green hills undulate under mellow yellow skies, while the game's all-new power-ups (the Fire Flower, the Super Leaf, the Lucky 7 and the Tanooki Tail, which allows you to swipe at enemies when they come too close) are all plucked from Miyamoto's various Mario myths.īut the pool of creative influence has opened up to include other Nintendo properties, too. With the first game in the series, Nintendo not only imported the key characters from the Mario universe into a racing game, but also the very essence of his world. It's a suitable if basic system that adds a secondary objective to each race beyond simply winning - although the decision to cap the number of coins that can be collected to just 10 per stage in order to artificially control the rate at which you unlock new items is an uncharacteristically weak one. Rather, you unlock a new, pre-set item every time you collect 50 coins. Simplicity is the watchword for Nintendo EAD, however, and there's no shop to speak of. Mario's loose change litters the tracks and can be collected in order to unlock new kart bodies and add-ons. The coin-collecting concern of the original game also makes an unusual return. The flexibility is an improvement over previous games' rather straight options, allowing for a far greater number of permutations of vehicle, and it's one area where Nintendo has expanded scope in a meaningful way. Each option offers different benefits and drawbacks, asking you to sacrifice top speed for acceleration, for example, or trade handling for heft. Now you are able to custom-build your kart before each championship, choosing the body, the wheels and, finally, a set of 'wings' used to glide back to the ground from special propulsion ramps. There are, however, a number of tweaks and additions to the core, some welcome, others contentious. This content is hosted on an external platform, which will only display it if you accept targeting cookies. We are back to just eight characters to choose between initially while Balloon Fight and Coin Collecting mini-games prop up the eight Grand Prix cups, this is a game that is largely short on extras. True to recent form, Mario Kart 7 offers 16 new courses and a further 16 classic courses, cherry-picked from the series' now rich heritage. In fact, in structural terms, little has changed since August 1992.
Whatever the reason, Mario Kart 7 proclaims to be a sequential advance in a series that has always struggled to evolve from the masterful blueprint laid down by its Super Nintendo debut. So why not Mario Kart 3DS, then? Perhaps Nintendo is no longer trying to pretend that it's reinventing a formula that it perfected long ago - or perhaps, as Shigeru Miyamoto suggested, it's just because 7 is a lucky number. Super Mario Kart, Mario Kart 64, Mario Kart DS, Mario Kart Wii: all games tethered to and defined by their hardware. But the company has always chosen to brand each game as a discrete entity, never a numbered notch on an implied arc of evolution. Chronologically, of course, sequel has followed sequel with that dependable Nintendo plod.
Why 7? There was never a Mario Kart 6 or a 5 or even a 2.