Mario Kart World fans discover two essential new secrets for winning a race
It’s been over a month since Mario Kart World launched and players have uncovered several useful and unexpected secrets about the game.
It’s been over a month since Mario Kart World launched and players have uncovered several useful and unexpected secrets about the game.
Mario Kart World is a strangely imperfect game for Nintendo, and while things like the open world and unsatisfying unlockables don’t stop you from having fun, the lack of explanation for the subtler elements of gameplay do work against more casual players.
Not only are the tutorials for new techniques like charge jumping very basic, and tucked away in an easily overlooked menu, but we only learned a couple of weeks ago that the characters and vehicles have hidden stat values, which diehard fans use to determine who the best racer in the game is.
Now, we’ve been informed that the charge jumping skill we’ve been using to try and win races isn’t as good as previously assumed and can be outright detrimental if used improperly.
The new charge jumping ability is primarily for hopping onto rails you can then grind across, either as a shortcut or to avoid obstacle-laden roads. However, we’re sure many of you have noticed that performing a charge jump also grants you a speed boost when landing.
Aside from giving you something to do during long, straight stretches of road, it’s an easy way to keep your speed up and stay ahead of the pack or catch up to other racers… at least, that’s what was assumed.
According to research conducted by Karting All Day on YouTube, not only does charging up for a jump slow you down slightly, but the speed boost you get (even with a full charge) is so negligible to the point where someone driving in a straight line normally can get ahead of you.
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If anything, the fastest means of going straight is by grinding on a rail and spamming tricks, since each trick gives you a boost in speed, although the rail needs to be long enough to give you multiple trick opportunities – since just grinding is slower than driving on the road.
This is not the only trick fans have uncovered since Mario Kart World came out. While using a mushroom to dodge incoming blue shells right before they hit has been a known Mario Kart technique for years (one that feels easier to pull off in World) you can also avoid them by simply using the new rewind feature.
As a reminder, holding down on the D-pad lets you return to a previous position, similar to how it works in Forza Horizon 5, in case you made a mistake and want to redo it.
We can only assume Nintendo didn’t account for players using it to nullify blue shells, since they don’t pursue you while rewinding, letting you escape the explosion.
The rewind feature can’t be used in multiplayer, but it’s a handy cheat for the single-player Grands Prix. As such, we would not be shocked if Nintendo eventually patches this out.
You can use the Rewind Feature to dodge Blue Shellsbyu/TheIcarus1632 inmariokart
Fans have also deduced that performing multiple tricks when jumping off a ramp won’t grant you any more speed boosts upon landing than doing one trick. Instead, the real reason to use it is for changing your alignment while mid-air, which we’ve found uses for when driving around in the free roam mode.
This last one isn’t so much a trick as it is a neat online feature. As shared on the Mario Kart World subreddit, when waiting to join an online lobby, you can see the other players in the open world as they’re racing, where they look like online phantoms from Dark Souls.
The game doesn’t automatically drop you to the same location as other players, but you can either search for them while driving around or instantly warp to them by opening the menu with the ‘Y’ button.
Other players do appear as ghosts, meaning you can’t interact with them, but it’s a cute feature all the same, that almost makes us wish it was included when just driving around the open world normally.
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