Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit

 MARIO KART LIVE: HOME CIRCUIT

Well, this one's going to be relatively simple. Mario Kart Live is the series' newest installment, released just a couple of months ago. It is an augmented reality game that gives you a remote control car that you can drive around a track you set up yourself in your own house, and through your Switch screen it looks like you're actually racing as Mario against opponents through your own living room.

The only playable characters, I assume currently, are Mario and Luigi, as they are the only car models available. I always took it on the assumption that more cars would be made later with other characters, as Nintendo is wont to do, but we'll see how it goes. Bowser Jr. and the seven Koopalings appear as your opponents in each race. Most of the items seen here are all the standards: mushrooms, bananas, shells, and so on, with Bullet Bills and Chain Chomps standing out as both take control of your car and pull you forward for a bit.

The stages for the game are, well, your house. Or wherever it is you choose to set up your track. There are "stages" in the game, but they're more like filters that add features to the background and sometimes might add in alterations to gameplay. These include Live Circuit (no filter), Lightning Lagoon (underwater filter), Piped Wetlands (green pipe filter with water slicks on the road), Freezie Frosts (slippery track), Glazed Gardens (Sugar Rush filter), Piranha Paradise (jungle filter), Work Zone (construction filter), Cheep Cheep Reef (underwater again), Bowser's Castle (lava filter), Royal Highway (night filter), Wibble Woods (Thwomp Ruins filter), Windswept Prairie (adds wind), Mushroom Fields (baseball filter with Mushrooms on the road), Boo Fortress (Halloween filter), Tornado Tundra (snow filter with wind), Magikoopa Mirage (Kamek casts spells on you (oh, sure, add him here)), Crafty Tropics (Paper Mario filter), Gusty Galaxy (space filter with wind), Jolly Works (Christmas filter), Chain Chomp Stadium (has lots of Chain Chomps), Ember Island (not to be confused with a certain Fire Nation resort), World 1-1 (Super Mario Bros. filter), Chain Chomp Glacier (slippery and Chain Chomps), and Rainbow Road (naturally).

Well, that's about it. Here's what we've got:

Characters:

Mario Kart: Lock-on (basin or tire, fave), Shoot Forward (tornado or weather clouds), Drop Backward (oil or firecracker), Shoot Backward (pie), Melee (thunder stick), Status (shield), High Beam, Magic Hand, Jack-in-the-Box, ice flower, bubble, banana barrel, mushroom cannon, coin box, dash ring, bob-omb cannon, giga bob-omb.

Robo Mario: see all above, total gimmick rep. Might not even need to be echo.

Mario

Luigi

Princess Peach

Toad

Yoshi

Donkey Kong

Wario

Bowser

Waluigi

Bowser Jr.

Rosalina

Daisy

Baby Mario

Baby Peach

Metal Mario

Lakitu

King Boo

Pac-Man

Ms. Pac-Man

Blinky

Mametchi

Don-chan

Toadette

Diddy Kong

Funky Kong

Dry Bowser

Koopa

Shy Guy

Dry Bones

Baby Luigi

Baby Peach

Baby Rosalina

Birdo

Koopalings

Pink Gold Peach

Donkey Kong Jr.

Pauline

Peachette

Dixie Kong

Nabbit

Hammer Bro

Monty Mole

King Bob-Omb

Kamek: cast spells (don't be salty, don't be salty, he'll be added someday. Just keep hoping and dreaming, Paul).

Stages:

Mario Highway

Mario Beach

DK Jungle

Bananan Ruins

Diamond City

Snow Panic

Pac-Mountain

Pac-Labyrinth

Bowser's Castle

Castle Walls

Rainbow Coaster

Rainbow Downhill

Yoshi Park 1

Yoshi Park 2

Stadium Arena

Waluigi Stadium

Peach Castle

Kingdom Way

Splash Circuit

Tropical Coast

Bon Dance Street

Omatsuri Circuit

Aerial Road

Sky Arena

Bowser's Factory

Bowser's Castle

Pac-Man Stadium

Namco Stadium

Bananan Labyrinth

DK Jungle

VR Track

New York Minute

Tokyo Blur

Paris Promenade

London Loop

Vancouver Velocity

Los Angeles Laps

Merry Mountain

Home Circuit (most of the filters sound like something that would make for a really awesome full-on stage. Maybe we'll see them someday)

Thanks for reading! Now, let's cover our characters once again, starting with a full character review.