Donkey Kong Bananza (2025), Nintendo

Nintendo Switch 2 Direct - My Thoughts

    At the time of writing the Nintendo Switch 2 Direct was a few hours ago and I have... a lot of thoughts. Also seeing as this was the event that indirectly inspired me to make this page to begin with I thought I'd talk through some of the stuff I'm thinking about. Now I'm not going to be going through and breaking down every element of the direct as truth be told I wasn't super interested in a lot of stuff but I do have quite a bit to say so let's talk about it!

Mario Kart World (2025), Nintendo

So, new Mario Kart huh?

    It's really weird to think about but if you think about it, Mario Kart has not had a new entry in 11 years. Sure there was Mario Kart 8 Deluxe but it was just a remaster of the Wii U title with a few nice little extras thrown in (plus the massive Booster Course Pass), and then there was Mario Kart Tour; a mobile adaptation of Mario Kart. I suppose that would count as a new entry but like be real, are you counting this as a real Mario Kart title? No hate to those who do though it's a very pretty game for a mobile title and I enjoy the large variety of characters it has (even if it has absolutely insane monetization I'm sure my Diddy Kong fans out there know what I'm talking about). But I'm getting off track [;)], this new entry does a lot of things I either didn't think they would do, or that I never thought about in the context of a Kart Racer, but first let's do a little history lesson of this subgenre shall we?

 A Brief History of Kart Racing (in games of course)

    Despite common beliefs that Super Mario Kart was the first Kart Racing game, that is actually not the case as it was preceded by Power Drift in 1988, a whole 4 years before Super Mario Kart would release on the Super Nintendo.

Power Drift (1988), SEGA

    Power Drift was created by SEGA, specifically by SEGA AM2 the studio behind immensely popular and important racing games like Out Run, Daytona USA, and so on. It was directed by Yu Suzuki, who was the mastermind behind many of the early arcade SEGA racing games, it was a very chaotic racing game that defied many of the conventions of SEGA's prior games in a way that essentially birthed the subgenre of kart racing as a whole (I may talk more about this in the future). 

    Now despite Power Drift being so instrumental it wasn't actually that influential, the game never received a direct sequel, although it did receive a spiritual successor in the form of the Sonic Drift series on the Game Gear which is why you quite often see people say that series is derivitive of Mario Kart, that's not entirely the case (I mean just look at the names: Power Drift/Sonic Drift). Whilst there are some inspirations of course with the items and it being a mascot kart racer, it isn't just ripping off Mario Kart anymore than Mario Kart ripped off Power Drift by being a kart racer to begin with.

Sonic Drift (1994), SEGA

      

    One thing that defined Power Drift compared to the other racing games of it's time was in my opinion three core elements:

1. Claustrophobia and Chaos

     These two go hand in hand, if you look at a game like Out Run or Hang On, those games had this feeling of opennes, they are set in massive fields or vast cityscapes, especially with Out Run the roads are HUUUUGE. It creates a feeling of maneuverability and even though there were other vehicular obstacles, they drove like actual traffic/actual racers, very orderly, matching your pace, in general you never felt like there was a sense of being overwhelmed or things moving too fast or not having enough room on the road because of other racers either moving sporadically or taking up more space.

Out Run (1986), SEGA

Super Hang-On (1987), SEGA

      Power Drift essentially changed this dynamic by making the tracks super tight, the speed much faster, and the other racers become active hazards due to their unpredictability and also their own immense speed. In Power Drift it's not actually uncommon to overlap the people in last simply due to the super cramped tracks, it creates a constant active experience and is a lot different to SEGA's prior games where once someone has been passed in a lap, they may as well no longer exist.

2. Competition

    Okay this is an odd one since technically every racing game is a competition but hear me out. So in prior racing games, not just by SEGA but in general, every racer was very isolated, just like in real life F1 Racing for example, yes you are competing for times and who is the fastest, but you aren't actually doing much of anything towards the other racers, so in that sense it's a very solo experience. Power Drift essentially changed this as it becomes a much more proactive experience of competing against other racers, they are much more active obstacles as talked about above and in the user interface the other opponents are constantly shown to you via their faces not just as a number. This combined with the small tracks leading to overlapping other racers means that you are more connected to them than something like again Hang-On where they are just faceless bikers who once you pass you basically never see again.

3. Rollercoaster Track Design

    Out of all of these, I think this is most important as you can have other types of racing games that are chaotic/competitive, but where karting stands out is with the tracks. In most other racing games, tracks are usually quite flat or natural (by natural I mean it follows the lay of the land, think of real life car races, they typically happen on flat tracks or along roads built into land masses like the Monaco GP for example, which is also another SEGA racer funnily enough). In kart racers though, the tracks are much more elaborate, usually smaller, more twists and turns, ramps and steep climbs/falls, types of things you would never see on a real race track. Another element from rollercoasters is what I'd like to call artificial set dressing, what I mean by this is that it feels kind of like a theme park, instead of being in a natural environment or a professional race track, you are in a themed location; Power Drift for example has these castles which looked ripped right out of a theme park, it's also the type of stuff you would expect from a mini golf course if I'm being honest.

    So with all of those: claustrophobia, chaos, competition, and rollercoaster track design, Power Drift constructed this subgenre and those 4 elements have largely been carried over into every kart racer ever made since (even if they still miss the odd one or two, they tend to have at least a good combination of these in some form).

Back to Mario Kart World

    So with the brief history lesson out of the way let's get into the actual new game shall we? I'll break the different elements of Mario Kart World up into different parts and evaluate (I probably won't be as in depth as with Sonic Racing Crossworlds, if you know, you know).

Presentation

    Let's just get the cat out of the bag right from the start: the presentation for this game is really good. Before talking about graphics though I want to talk about the music, now I'm not the most musically knowledgeable so I could get some things wrong here but I want to talk about it because it sounds really nice, to me it sounds like the same band that created Mario Kart 8's music: DIMENSION. There's some licks that sound very similar to parts of 8's soundtrack, however rather than having the big band sound of Mario Kart 8, it appears they are going for a more regional themed score, kind of like Sonic Unleashed in a sense where they had different genres for each country in that game's world: here they appear to do the same which makes sense given the theme of the game and the song we hear appears to be quite western inspired. 

    Anyways onto the visuals, most of the characters seemed to have some visual touch ups since their last 3D appearances, and unlike Mario Kart 8 they seem to be mostly positive. The characters feel far more lively and expressive than they already were, but the main star of the show here is Donkey Kong.

Mario Kart World (2025), Nintendo

    I'm not going to dwell on his design too much at the moment since he has been redesigned in his new game which I will discuss later as well, but what I will say is I love how much more expressive he is, and especially in this context of a Mario game, he fits this world so much more now. I don't know how to explain it but Rareware's Donkey Kong always felt a bit out of place amongst Mario and friends in prior spin offs but this feels more right to me and I think is a really nice breath of fresh air for the character despite being an old design for Donkey Kong since it really didn't get a chance to make a proper appearance in an actual video game besides Donkey Kong (1994) for the Game Boy (which is a cool puzzle platformer that I'd recommend to anyone).

    Next I want to talk about the environments as I am very interested in video game environments and Mario Kart is always top notch in that regard, so for the aesthetics it appears to be pretty much a middle ground between Mario type areas and real world locations. They have sort of been nudging the series in this direction since 8 with it being more realistic in art style and also featuring locations inspired by real cultures and was only furthered by Tour, and this game seems to be following suit further with that. I'm of two minds about this because on the one hand I do much prefer the surreal environments of older Mario Karts, or at least ones heavily inspired by characters and locations in other Mario games, and in essence that still exists, but on the other hand just having environments that are just straight up an American desert, or a Chinese town, even with the Mario elements thrown in I'm not a huuuuge fan, but I do still like it even if it's not the exact thing I want. Speaking of art style as I mentioned before, where I do prefer this game to 8 is despite it's inspiration in areas coming from real locations, it is not trying to be realistic, and the reason why it doesn't bother me is those areas I like? They are still here thankfully, so there is just a lot of variety and in terms of visuals its full of detail and also just interesting lighting. The colour grading in particular is something I noticed and it feels gorgeous honestly. 

I really don't have any major issues with the presentation it is all incredibly solid and is just more Mario Kart goodness, like it is just furthering what was established by Mario Kart 8 and Tour, for better or for worse (and thankfully mostly for better).

Mario Kart World (2025), Nintendo

     

    There is one part of the presentation I really want to talk about: the user interface. So I am quite a nerd for UI designs in games and one thing I like about Nintendo games is how creative they get (sometimes, I'm really not a fan of the newer homogenised style, you know exactly what I'm talking about). Now for this game they definitely do try something unique which immediately puts it above Mario Kart 8 for me as it is way too sterile and bland for my tastes. So the first major change is the font; 8 uses a font called New Rodin. World on the other hand uses a font called CC Monster Mash. 

(Upper Left) Mario Kart World (2025), Nintendo | (Upper Right) CC Monster Mash, John Roshell | (Bottom Left) New Rodin, Fontworks | (Bottom Right) Mario Kart 8 (2014), Nintendo

    

    Fonts are important in a user interface as they help create an atmosphere and a mood to the text on screen, so for example New Rodin, it is used across many Nintendo games and is a "Gothic" font, this means that it's thickness across strokes is uniform. It is commonly described as the Japanese equivalent of Helvetica, the font I am using throughout this sentence, the reason this is, is because it is super versatile and minimalistic with both a strong impact when enlarged and legibility when small (for this information I sourced this video from T2norway). 

    When we look at connotations of what the text evokes it makes sense why Nintendo uses minimalist fonts so much, it tries to draw attention away from the gameplay, to blend into the background but at the same time have an impact, now on paper this makes sense and for a while it did work, I mean I can't look at that font without just going "yeah that's the Nintendo font". This however is a double edged sword because yeah... that's the Nintendo font... the one they have been using for years now and now looks very basic due to that. While the font is good, the issue is overexposure, Nintendo's UI have been slowly becoming more and more minimalist, in prior generations the text usually was accompanied by UI elements, but I bet most of you associate that font with the Switch most of all rather than Nintendo as a whole, but what if I told you Nintendo have been using that font since the Wii? However the Switch has one of Nintendo's most minimalist user interfaces yet and thus the text is more prominent, therefore you get overexposed to it and it looks homogenous. I'll talk about this again later since I noticed it in another game that bugged me, but in short it's a minimalist font that is used to draw more attention to the game, but over time has led to overexposure and thus it now looks homogenous so just using it again runs the risk of looking boring.

    So now we see in Mario Kart World they use a much more stylised font that looks like CC Monster Mash (it may either be an edited version or a different font but they look similar enough). This font evokes an almost comic book or gritty feel, I mean there are pieces missing, rough brush strokes and thick lettering, it's almost the exact opposite tonally from New Rodin as it's bombastic, in your face, and making itself known, which makes sense in a racing game where your placement is important (especially in the elimination mode I will talk about later). Another interesting note is if the prior font was supposed to hide itself to promote the gameplay, this one exists alongside it almost becoming part of the experience, and the comic book look also give it a more western inspired look which makes sense given the music we hear in the trailer. So I actually kinda like the new font, it's different and unique and I think a game that is more open ended and bombastic in general, the text reflecting that instead of hiding by being mundane is a good change.

    Aside from fonts, the user interface is also just pretty to look at, it goes for a road map theme with the map being displayed in the background of things like the character select screen, but one area I liked was the race menus where it has icons for each track with a road unwinding showing the race track, it really gives me Out Run vibes and really makes the game's UI elements feel super diegetic.

Mario Kart World (2025), Nintendo

Gameplay

    Let's talk about the real meat and potatoes though and that's the gameplay, and that is an interesting topic because if you think about it we really didn't get a lot of specifics. However what they did reveal is both interesting from a mechanical standpoint, but in terms of wider gameplay like track designs, the amount of cups and tracks, and the purpose of the open world mode? I'm not too sure about if I'm being honest.

Mario Kart World (2025), Nintendo

    The first major gameplay feature we saw was what seems like to be some sort of rail grinding feature, in the gameplay Mario does this kind of side flip onto the rail and grinds on it. My question is did this happen because he get too close to it and it happens automatically, or can you jump and do side flips akin to the Sonic All Stars games? Personally I think it may be the latter due to what we see after this, but as for the grinding mechanics it looks as if you can charge a mini turbo on top of it, also we see Shy Guy do a flip and jump up off it with a trick despite there being no incline/ramp. That makes me believe rails will essentially allow you to boost mini turbos and move automatically, and you can do tricks off of them for extra boost on top of that, if it is that basic then I think it will be kind of lame, I mean Sonic Riders had a similar mechanic but there it was sort of like an instant burst of speed then you are either on a new path or set back onto the track, here though it's just automated movement and you also get to passively build up mini turbo? I don't know how to feel about that but I'm not a massive fan of it. I think if the jump mechanic is a thing then I think this will add a lot of verticality and dare I say a platforming element to the game? But time will tell, definitely some interesting implications here.

Mario Kart World (2025), Nintendo

    This however is far more interesting to me: wall riding. This is what makes me think that jumping will just be a general mechanic (or at least the flip) because here we see Mario jump from 2 walls with no ramp or slopes present at all, so that's why I think that, but more importantly... THAT'S WALL RIDING IN MARIO KART. This opens the doors for some really interesting track design, now I can't really see how this works properly since it's a very short clip but again similar to the grinding mechanic it has some interesting implications for gameplay and again does a good job pushing this genre even further, remember chaos and wacky level design like this is exactly what makes this genre tick and so wall riding is perfect for that in my eyes.

Mario Kart World (2025), Nintendo

    Getting back to the trick system though, I think this is the main reason I think they are going for a more Sonic All Stars way of doing tricks, the aura if you will notice is directional, when Peach's bike spins it has this swirl and prior when I talked about Mario jumping onto the rail, when he did he also had a similar aura but it was more vertical rather than horizontal, this implies to me directional tricks are far more important this time around, again similar to the Sonic All Stars games. Although I could be reading into this and it's just an effect to show the vehicle spinning but it's interesting to think about nonetheless. 

Grand Prix

Mario Kart World (2025), Nintendo

    So let's talk about modes, first of all we have the classic Mario Kart experience with Grand Prix. As far as I can tell this hasn't changed massively from moment to moment, within each track the general gameplay appears to be similar to every other Mario Kart so not much of note there. However, there are a few differences that I am not entirely sure about: first of all we have the small number of cups, assuming this is all of the cups in the game, there are only 7 cups. To put that into perspective, Mario Kart 8 at launch with no DLC had 8, so that is about 4 less tracks and is less than the standard which the series has followed for decades at this point. Of course I wasn't expecting this to be as expansive as all of Mario Kart 8's DLC but considering Mario Kart 8 was considered quite lacking at launch and here we have less than that track wise? I'm not sure if that's a great move, which I assume was done to accomodate the massive interconnected world. Another issue is we know several of these tracks are returning from older games, so not only are we getting less tracks but according to the Mario Kart Wiki: 12 of the current tracks of the 24 currently known tracks are retro. Now Mario Kart has always had an even split in terms of new to retro tracks, however given how there are less tracks overall and less cups it means that there are less new tracks overall, which is a shame considering we have so many new moves like directional tricks, rail grinding, wall riding, etc. but less new tracks to take full advantage of them than the prior 3 or so games in the series?

    Another issue I have is how between tracks you have to drive to the next track. Now on paper this is a cute thing and it definitely could be interesting, we saw pit stops in the trailer so maybe that factors into things between races to recuperate and maybe get a power up, I have no idea. However, the downtime between tracks, depending on both distance and stuff to do between tracks could be a bit of a problem in creating unnecessary downtime disrupting the arcade experience of Grand Prix mode.

Exhibition Tour

Mario Kart World (2025), Nintendo

    In my opinion, this mode feels like the real standout of this game, and it also feels very SEGA arcade racer coded. In particular it reminds me of the way Out Run and Super Hang-On have a connected world map that you seamlessly transition between rather than having laps, in Super Hang-On specifically it actually is quite similar to the way it seems to work here where you can select multiple countries which dictates the length of the race, the environments you travel through, and the difficulty. I'm not sure if that specifically is how the options will work but there are 8 cups of Exhibition Tour which is 1 more than Grand Prix, and each cup (or at least the two we see in the trailer) has 6 tracks per cup rather than 4. I think this is really good especially since I assume they aren't going to have multiple laps and instead are just 1 laps per track then moving on, again similar to the games I mentioned above, and so I think this can be quite fun and interesting and compared to Grand Prix where I think the travel between tracks could disrupt the arcadey flow of gameplay, here it seems to be built around it and thus I think will be the real stand out of this game, at least for me anyways.

Out Run (1986), SEGA

Super Hang-On (1987), SEGA

Mario Kart World (2025), Nintendo

    Now the real part of Knockout Tour that I reaaaally like is the name of the mode: Knockout. So this is again something I recognise from an old SEGA racer, and in essence is an evolution of how they used to make racing games. So adding onto my prior history lesson, SEGA began making racing games with Monaco GP and in every racing game of theirs it involved racing against the clock which means you would be eliminated from the game if you didn't reach a checkpoint before a certain time limit. This was universal across basically every early SEGA racing game (and I assume others I'm just mostly familiar with SEGA) including Out Run, Hang-On, Enduro Racer, and so on. 

Super Monaco GP (1989), SEGA

    This eventually changed by the time Super Monaco GP arrived which is the most similar to this Mario Kart mode, there is a "Position Limit" which means that as the race goes on there is a maximum placement you can be, in this game it is time based whereas Mario Kart seems to be doing this more checkpoint based similar to the games I mentioned above, but here it is time based where after a certain time period people get culled, and as they are eliminated the position you can be in slowly gets slimmer and slimmer until there is only one left. This has since been adapted across many video games in different ways, even Power Drift had something similar where if you didn't place top 3 in any race you would be eliminated from the race. In terms of kart racers specifically though this was made popular by... Sonic and Sega All Stars Racing.

Sonic and Sega All Stars Racing (2010), SEGA

     

    In this game, in multiplayer there is a knockout mode where players race and whoever is in last place is eliminated, this is repeated until all but one are eliminated. Again this is quite different to Mario where it is time based rather than checkpoint based, but it is interesting to see one of the major modes of this new game blend together elements that seemingly were popularised by SEGA arcade titles. This in turn is what makes me most excited for this mode over the others as it offers a rally car type experience and really fits the worldwide theme of the game.

Free Roam

Mario Kart World (2025), Nintendo

    Finally we have Free Roam, this is the mode I have the least to talk about with if I'm being honest, I have no idea what this will entail beyond just being able to drive around freely, the way it was described made it appear as though there isn't really an objective and it's just to chill, look around and mess around with photo mode. I suppose this is fine but considering this is likely what this whole game is built around I really, really hope it's more than that. A few suggestions I have are mostly that this be inspired by Burnout Paradise, GTA Online, and Forza Horizon, these 3 are open world racing games and I think offer types of gameplay and options that would really flesh out this free roam mode. First of all is collectibles and hidden challenges; stuff like hidden goodies around the map to find and collect/unlockable characters, skins, and karts, also challenges to do certain things at certain points in the map both marked and unmarked would be really cool and reward experimentation and encourage people to really play around in this massive sandbox. 

Grand Theft Auto V (2013), Rockstar Games

    One suggestion I was specifically thinking of was being able to set up impromptu drag races with friends like in GTA Online, of course you could just do this manually but it would be awesome if it was supported where maybe you select 2 points on the map and you can freely race your friend almost like Turbo Out Run, it'd also be cool since there is no lakitu like in the main modes which means you could find totally unique routes to the same point which again would add a lot of depth to the open world just by encouraging competition in the players and to set up their own challenges and races. This does have a lot of potential but it remains to be seen if it will just be a nice, pretty thing to look at that could be helpful to find shortcuts without the constraints of the regular tracks, or it could be something more that would expand the longevity of the game.

Track Design

     Before moving onto the conclusion this is the final note I want to end the Mario Kart section on because it's probably my biggest problem with the game I've noticed thus far and is the main reason I pointed out the key components of a kart racer way back at the start. My two biggest problems are linearity, and way too much space, as I mentioned at the start having very artificial, surreal level design, and having chaos/claustrophobia is key to the kart racer genre and as I mentioned above, I referred to the Knockout Tour mode more as a rally racer which is what this game feels more like to me. Despite having 24 racers, in moment to moment gameplay that likely won't come too much into play, especially if you aren't playing online and thus I feel like this has a problem where the tracks have been widened to accomodate this but I worry that the actual gameplay won't change. This means the level design is a lot less tight and more open which leads to a much less chaotic experience I feel, also with the tracks being more integrated into the world formations rather than feeling surreal (don't get me wrong there still is wacky, surreal areas in places) it feels more and more like a rally racer rather than an actual kart racer. 

    Which leads me into the linearity because in several of the maps shown, it looks as if several tracks don't even have lap structures and are essentially straight lines similar to Mount Wario, this is quite weird and in some tracks even looks pretty uninteresting as there is very limited branching paths, interesting track design or anything it's just a straight road, so putting these two together you get a less chaotic, more open ended and simplified track which feels like a stripping back of the kart racing design in favour of something more traditional, more like a rally racer. Now I don't think this is a killing blow to the game, or even that it is necessarily a bad thing, I like rally racers and most other racing games, but I can't help but feel in terms of tracks something is being lost in translation here. 

Overall (Mario Kart World)

Mario Kart World (2025), Nintendo

    So in conclusion, Mario Kart World does look amazing, graphically it is really strong, lots of vibrant, stylish visuals, adorable animation, and almost every character has undergone some visual overhaul which just makes the presentation feel fresh, lively, and bombastic in the best way possible. It introduces a lot of cool mechanics which help freshen the basic gameplay of Mario Kart as well as a bunch of wacky characters that really came out of left field (it remains to be seen how much this affects the characters who are more major who aren't here though) and help add a lot of life to the roster at least. My biggest issues at the moment mostly stem from the open world structure, the track design, and the less cups for Grand Prix, but it is mostly looking solid and with more footage some of those other issues could potentially be non-issues.

Nintendo Switch 2

     I don't actually have a massive amount to say about the Switch 2 itself, I mean it's the Switch... but 2. It definitely has some interesting stuff going on such as the new more sleek look it has, the bigger screen, the bigger storage, the better FPS, the better resolution, and on and on. Look it's the Nintendo Switch but just better in everyway, and I like that, it's fine, it just leaves me with not much to say, although there are some new gimmicks that I do want to talk about so let's get into it.

Uh... Discord?

    Yeah so this one is quite an odd one, finally the days of the Nintendo Switch app game chat that nobody on planet Earth used is over. So Nintendo's solution was to make... Discord, which is not actually too shabby. Essentially you can talk to friends, screen share, there's a camera add on to show your face, and the cool thing with that is it seems to have integration with some games like Mario Party, which is actually pretty cool I do like that. It's a solid enough voice chat system I don't really have many faults with it and I like that they tried to do something unique with the camera, the screen share is very poor but I don't think screen sharing is super important although it's cool you can see your game and their screen share at the same time, it feels kind of like split screen so I wonder if they will ever incorporate that into a game in the future? 

    My biggest gripe has to be with... Capitalism, of course. This chat feature, despite having a button built into the system, isn't even free. Now it will be free until March next year similar to how Switch Online was originally free in it's first year, but I don't think this is very good. Xbox and PlayStation both did something similar but they phased out paying for voice chat by the Xbox One and PS4, so Nintendo doing something so archaic feels lame, like I'd get it if the screen share was paid for example, not really but at least that's something, but just voice chat in general? Very disappointing that it won't remain free after the first year.

Drag x Drive (2025), Nintendo

Super Nintendo Mouse 2

    The main controller gimmick this time seems to be mouse controls which is... interesting. Honestly my biggest issue is they didn't really do a very good job showing the applications of this control scheme, that is outside of one game: Drag x Drive. This is another tech demo similar to ARMS and I like how this looks, I wish it wasn't a tech demo because I think it's quite interesting using 2 mice to control an extreme wheelchair basketballer, the characters also look quite fun with big upper bodies and goofy arm movements, and it looks pretty fun, but it definitely reeks of that generic Nintendo tech demo look even with the New Roman font I mentioned before (well technically UD Shin Go) that is used in all these types of games. So while I think this will be neat, and I might even play it if it's cheap enough, I doubt this will have much longevity.

Nintendo Switch 2 Edition Games

    For this I'm again very conflicted and I do think going forward this practice will be a very mixed bag. So far we have 5 Nintendo Switch 2 Edition upgrades confirmed, these are essentially paid upgrades that instead of just being an increase in resolution/frame rate, they also add new features to the games, I really like this on the surface as it can be an interesting way to update games that no longer receive support, and I think 2 of the games currently do this well: Mario Party Jamboree, and Kirby and The Forgotten Land, these 2 are essentially getting full expansions with their upgraded editions and so I think are worth it (assuming it's an upgrade on a pre-existing game and not having to rebuy the full thing).

    However it's the other 4 I'm really on the fence about: Breath of The Wild, Tears of The Kingdom, Metroid Prime 4, and Pokemon Legends Z-A. For the Zelda games, apart from increased fidelity they are adding... a phone app. Okay I am being facetious there, it does have some neat features like TOTK having downloadable constructions, and I suppose trading items in both could be neat, but are negligible, then there's just stuff like new memories which are basically just some voice lines, or the item finder which is literally just a wiki function. Like those features I feel like could all be a free update yet it costs £65, to put that into perspective that is the exact same price as the new Donkey Kong game, yet apparently minor improvements and a phone app are worth the same amount? It just seems ridiculous, then there is Metroid Prime 4 and Pokemon which like... neither of those games are even out yet? Worse yet unlike Zelda they didn't even throw in a random phone app, the features these have are literally just graphical and frame rate (plus Metroid gets mouse controls, I guess). It's weird because they have announced there will be some minor improvements to some Switch 1 games as well anyways without making a Switch 2 version, so why bother with these 4 charging extra money when they are getting the same treatment? It just feels ridiculous.

 It's DK Time...

Donkey Kong Bananza (2025), Nintendo

    So to me this was the real biggest thing in this direct, Mario Kart is fun but it's just another Mario Kart at the end of the day, the Switch 2... is the Switch 2, as expected. But a brand new Donkey Kong 3D platformer from the creators of Mario Odyssey? This came completely out of left field and it is stunning. The visuals are immaculate and surreal in a way similar to but still visually very distinct from Super Mario Odyssey and even prior Donkey Kong titles, the main guy himself has had a massive visual face lift as mentioned prior with Mario Kart and he is just so much more expressive now. I did enjoy Rare DK but this version has so much more range and expression and liveliness, I've never been a massive fan of Rare DK even if i liked it a bit but this really makes me love Donkey Kong in a way I haven't really cared much about him since I played Donkey Kong '94. Rare's influence isn't completely gone though, his build is still very much built off of Rare's Donkey Kong, there are NPCs with eyes that very much resemble Rare's character designs, also there is a Donkey Kong Country inspired level in the trailer, so it's not like they are shoving all of Rare and Retro's influence into the toilet but more so showing off a new era for Donkey Kong.

One major criticism I saw is that the world feels so much more surreal than typical Donkey Kong which is usually fairly grounded, I think this is fair but I don't think them leaning into surrealism is a bad thing, just different, and regardless a lot of Donkey Kong Country takes place underground and it appears this game is about DK going underground and possibly taking inspiration from like hollow Earth theories? It's all quite interesting and not to mention... absolutely gorgeous. 

The visual facelift on DK again is just breath taking, the world is so vibrant and I suppose shiny for lack of a better term which fits with this game's theme where it seems DK has taken on more of a foreman type role and is digging through the Earth collecting crystaline bananas.

Donkey Kong Bananza (2025), Nintendo

   

Donkey Kong Bananza (2025), Nintendo

Donkey Kong Bananza (2025), Nintendo

    One amazing aspect is the level of environmental destruction on display, it looks like you can rip through absolutely anything and it makes Donkey Kong look like an absolute machine just tearing through the world, picking up rocks and hitting stuff with it, this is genuinely so bombastic, confident, and in terms of gameplay incredibly innovative and interesting. It has been a long time since I felt this way about a 3D platformer/collectathon and yeah I really just can't say much more beyond just glowing praise, genuinely just a fantastic looking game.

Conclusion

    Overall, this was a really solid direct, I know I didn't cover everything and this has mostly just been talking about Mario Kart, but the reason is I just had the most to say about it and I either didn't care much about the other stuff, or just didn't think I had much to add. I'll probably get the Switch 2 and Mario Kart + Donkey Kong, they both look really good especially Donkey Kong. Also I haven't seen the Treehouse as of writing this so my thoughts may not be correct on some of this stuff but I will make separate posts for Mario and Donkey Kong specifically for each game when I get around to it. But until then thank you for reading if you made it this far!

 

 

Hello Netizens!

 

 

 Hello Netizens! (I like that word)

    I'll keep this one brief as I'm new to this whole blogging thing. For starters yes I did rob this idea from Talxic so if he is reading this, I'm so sorry! But also go check out his blog he has very insightful thoughts. Anyways yeah I just wanted to introduce this thing, it's going to be for more long form discussions and maybe analysis, essentially stuff I don't think I can sum up on Twitter in such a short form manner. I also will probably bring my negative stuff here if I am being critical or whatever because it's a lot easier to get my thoughts across in a format more like this as opposed to Twitter reply threads.

 

    Anyways that's pretty much all I had to say so far, thank you for checking this out and I hope I can put out some interesting stuff!