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Mario Kart 7
Nintendo 3DS
Too Much Effort in the Wrong Places
3.5/5 stars
Mario Kart 7 on the 3DS had the chance of being argued as the best Mario Kart of the series. It had 3D on it's side, which none of the other games had meaning the racing was going to feel more real. But, I felt like too much attention was put into the wrong aspects of the game, and it fell short from being great.
The racing is still fun, don't get me wrong. Sliding around corners getting a boost, trying to hit all the arrows, and nailing the enemy in front of you with a red shell are all still great. There are 16 new courses and 16 classic ones, giving a wide range to choose from. The difficulty still has 50, 100, and 150cc giving everyone a chance to enjoy it (I think 50cc is worthless personally). There are even more characters to choose from, too.
Also, you can specialize your kart by choosing the body, wheels, and glider to change certain aspects of the vehicle, but I do have a problem with that. First, you unlock these parts by beating parts of the game or getting a total amount of coins in all the races you are in. Now, the new kart parts tend to be a little better to use than the original, so you can consider this upgrading your vehicle as you play. While I'm ok with that, that's not what Mario Kart is about. First, you pretty much need these other parts to have a lot of success in the more difficult cups. Second, you can find yourself behind the 8 ball before even starting your first race online. Lastly, by trying to get more speed, weight, acceleration, or handling you hurt your kart in the other areas and you might end up screwing yourself in the races because some races have more off-roading, or you might get hit by enemies more and don't have enough acceleration, or you don't get hit but don't have enough speed to catch a cpu. There's no winning. All the customizations should be available from the start if that's what you were going to do, you already have to race a bunch to open up all the cups and mirror mode. Personally, they should have kept the old system, give 5 karts with specialized areas so you don't question yourself every time you enter a cup.
The addition of air and water made things worse in a couple minor ways and one major way in my opinion. The minor ways aren't that big, but I feel hurt the overall feel. One, by adding water you lose more control over the vehicle which I hate, in Mario Kart you already have to deal with ice from time to time. It's the same thing by air, and you can't draft or do much while you're in the air either. I didn't think it added to the game. Then, of course, the major problem. By doing this I felt like with all the new courses there aren't really any memorable ones. In every Mario Kart before I had a couple races I thought were awesome, my favorites. With this I really don't have any, they paid attention to adding the air and water elements and didn't make great races. Not only that, but because they wanted air and water, the 16 classic courses were not my favorites of the previous games at all. I also think it's time they can duplicate classic races, because the ones left that they put in this game weren't very good.
Including coins once again in Mario Kart is both good and bad. I hate it for the fact that enemies blue shell you as often as in the Wii version and whenever you get hit you lose them, and therefore speed. I like it because it adds a little more difficulty to the actual racing because you need to be more precise to get a lot of coins. I think you shouldn't have been limited to 10 in a race.
Mario Kart 7 also includes speed bonuses if you hit 'R' off of ramps or bumps....much like if you shake the wheel off of the same in Mario Kart Wii. It feels forced. I already have to hold the 'R' button during most curves for a sliding speed bonus, now I had to hit it often for this, too....which often gave me a hand cramp after a few races. Not only that, but hitting a single button for a bonus is way different than shaking a wheel. I think they felt like they couldn't take it out of the game because they had Wii races in it or something, I don't know.
Adding all of these elements together, I felt like this game didn't match up to the predecessor on the DS. The additions were more annoying than beneficial. I like 3D and the Mario Kart racing was still fun, but it is not in among the best Mario Kart has had to offer.
3.5/5
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