Mario Kart 9 is likely coming sooner than we expect. While the Switch will be the first Nintendo console to have two Mario Kart titles on it, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe was simply a thiccer version of an already released game, we need a proper entry on the hybrid console. Most Mario Kart titles feature some sort of twist to keep the gameplay fresh, so in honor of the series’ 9th entry, today we'll be discussing nine different twists that could come to Mario Kart 9. Let's get into it.
9 Drilling
Before the Mario Kart 8 team decided on anti-gravity tracks being the big (uneventful) twist of the game, there was an idea floating around that the karts would have drills attached to them that they would go into the earth with. This would certainly take a little work, but it would be fun to see all of the Mario Kart shenanigans the gang could get into underground. It could also just be a lot of dirt too. Maybe that's why it didn't happen.
8 More Nintendo Characters
Mario Kart 8 featured characters from the Zelda, Animal Crossing and Splatoon franchises on the roster. Let's get weird with it this time around, why not? We want Fire Emblem characters trying to figure out what a car is. We want Pikachu because we already have babies driving, why not a mouse? He can just borrow ten-year-old Ash's license. No one is checking on Toad’s Turnpike it's a free-for-all out there. No one is safe.
7 Nintendo Themed Courses
While we're adding characters, why not stages? The Zelda and Animal Crossing courses from 8 were tons of fun, and had little touches all around that blended their home franchises with Mario Kart perfectly. Let us ride around Garrech Mach Monastery as Sylvain hits on us. Bring us to Kanto for the 38th time. Dreamland? Why not? It would only help developers to bring even more fun tracks to the table.
6 A Story Mode
Alright, this will obviously never happen, but like, please? How cool would it be to get one of those completely nonsensical story modes that kart racers sometimes have in Mario Kart? As the top kart racer out there, Nintendo really has no incentive to do this, but it would be tons of fun, even if unnecessary.
It would certainly be a nice change of pace for this series that rarely changes pace. Sometimes the only way to stop Bowser from stealing a woman is to drive faster than him and that is just that.
5 Kart Kreator
The Mario Kart series has been slowly inching its way toward kart customization for years. While we now have the choice between karts, bikes, wheels and gliders when we race, customization started as a nice little emblem you could draw on your DS. Remember when R.O.B was a racer for five seconds in that game and then Nintendo acted like that never happened? A great feature to see implemented in Mario Kart 9 would be to design karts with parts you earn however you want. Colors, features, making it an entire stroller, the choice is really yours. This would be tons of fun to mess around with. We'll discuss how stats for these karts would work a bit later.
4 Double Dash Return
Alright, we've already got a lot of great twists going. You're probably thinking, “well, it doesn't get better than this, does it?” Well surprise, we're doubling the dashing. The GameCube’s Double Dash was a ton of fun, having two riders per kart, with one controlling the driving, the other controlling the items. There's simply no reason to not have this feature present when Mario Kart 9 rolls around. It could even just be a feature that players can switch on or off depending on their mood. It just makes sense to have double the dash of your single dashes. What we won't be doing is tripling the dash. That's just asking for trouble.
3 Events
Let's follow the horrible Mario Kart Tour formula for just a quick second here. One way to keep fans coming back to the game for an extended period of time is through the use of seasonal events. Maybe don't do the Fortnite method of battle passes to suck money out of us, but make us complete challenges in order to unlock new characters and kart parts for the season. This would be a great way to keep players engaged while adding new content to the title. It would also be a great incentive to subscribe to Nintendo Switch Online. You know, that service that they charge you for just to give you bad online connections. What more could you ask for from an online service?
2 Character Specific Items
The use of character-specific items is something that has been around before in the Mario Kart games, and it's a perfect time to bring the mechanic back around. Giving each character an item all their own would help to make each character feel very unique and separate from one another. While it might be a bit hard to make items for everyone included in this gigantic roster that we've thought up, it certainly would be a great feature to see in the game. Considering that half the roster of Mario Kart games at this point are just 18 different versions of Mario and also Pink Gold Peach, they can certainly reuse some items here and there. Emerald Mario isn't special he's fine with the same mushroom as Mario.
1 Kart Power-Ups
After Mario Kart 9 lets us design karts to our liking, they should absolutely let us apply stats to those karts as we see fit. Give us a set amount of points to invest in different stats, and maybe one or two special characteristics or powers per kart. This would allow for incredible customizability for both your style of vehicle and performance, which would really help you personalize the kart racing game in whatever way you’d like to play.