Video Game / Mario Kart Tour

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The mobile entry in the Mario Kart series released worldwide for mobile platforms on September 25, 2019.

Theming itself around a World Tour, the game puts heavy emphasis on courses and characters taking inspiration from the real world. In addition to the returning courses from previous installments, Tour features original courses based off of real-world cities like New York City and Tokyo, with a handful of new tracks still being based in the Mario world. To date, it has the highest amount of courses in any Mario Kart entry, with 103 courses^note136 if counting individual variants of tracks as well as a whopping 265 playable characters, the highest number in any Mario game period.^noteThis number is only because the various costumes the characters have are classified as standalone characters. Not counting any variants, there are 49 playable characters, which is still a high number on its own.

Like many mobile games of its time, it includes a gacha mechanic in the form of Pipes, which each contain a driver, kart, glider, and special ability similar to the unique player abilities in Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, and uses a monetization model relying on Microtransactions in the way of Rubies, its premium currency purchased with real-life currency at the in-game Shop, which could be used for more tries on the gacha Pipes before being revamped and now can be used to directly purchase drivers/karts/gliders. Small amounts of Rubies can also be obtained as daily login bonuses, player level up bonuses, and other in-game rewards. The game also features a Gold Pass monthly subscription which grants players further and significantly more useful rewards (including Rubies), multiplayer ranks S to S+6, and other perks.

The game takes many visual and gameplay elements from Mario Kart 7 and Mario Kart 8, primarily incorporating the gliders and aesthetics of 7 while including the 200cc mode (locked behind the Gold Pass) and mini-turbo boosts of 8.

The main form of racing is through the game's titular Tours, two-week events that are composed of a series of cups. Beating courses over a certain ranking awards Grand Stars, which are necessary to unlock the later cups in a Tour up until the Baby Rosalina Tour. Grand Stars can also be used to obtain exclusive prizes at the end of an event. Each Tour also has additional challenges to beat, which also award Grand Stars in addition to badges and other goodies.

In addition to the usual layouts, each course also has a Reverse (R) and Trick (T) variant, which respectively throw the course in reverse and add more trickable obstacles, as well as versions that combine elements of both. Remix variants (RMX) completely change the course's layout.

On September 11, 2023, Nintendo announced that the Anniversary Tour in October would be the final Tour to introduce any new race tracks to the game and all future Tours would be recycling content from previous Tours.

Trope Tour, Now Open!:

• Absurdly Short Level:
  • Near the launch of the game, there was a bonus challenge that required the player to perform a Rocket Start... and that's it. As a result, the "race" would end immediately after it began.
  • The "Snap a Photo" challenge type is also usually a case of this.
• Alliterative Name:
  • Most of the city tracks go for this (Paris Promenade, London Loop, Vancouver Velocity, Los Angeles Laps, Berlin Byways, Sydney Sprint, Singapore Speedway).
  • Of the new non-city tracks, there's Merry Mountain and Piranha Plant Pipeline.
• Always Night:
  • SNES Ghost Valley 1, SNES Ghost Valley 2, N64 Frappe Snowland, GBA Boo Lake, DS Luigi's Mansion, Wii Moonview Highway, New York Minute, Vancouver Velocity, Merry Mountain, Ninja Hideaway, RMX Ghost Valley 1, Singapore Speedway and Rome Avanti.
  • The Night Tour from June 28, 2023 to July 12, 2023 (which Rome Avanti and Wii Moonview Highway debuted in) featured mostly courses with this trope, the exceptions being DS Twilight House and GCN Waluigi Stadium (the latter of which is during sunset in Tour, while the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe version is at night).
• Anachronism Stew: Madrid Drive is subject to this, as its depiction of the Puerta del Sol is based on its appearance prior to renovations that began in 2022, but the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium is designed after a still-in-progress renovation. Additionally, on the left Gate of Europe tower, a green logo can be seen near the top resembling that of Caja Madrid, a bank that went defunct all the way back in 2010.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • If the game crashes during the Tour Clear video before the All-Clear Pipe is used, the game acknowledges this upon restarting, and gives you what you would've pulled.
  • During Kart Pro, the main goal is to get a 3-win 1st Place streak, but scoring in 2nd or 3rd will save your streak.
  • If a computer player passes a human player who is about to be hit by a Spiny Shell, it will perform a late target switch and hit the CPU instead. This is the first game in the series where this happens, but it does not apply in multiplayer or when the human passes a targeted CPU.
• Artistic License – Geography:
  • All the city tracks besides Singapore Speedway and Athens Dash heavily condense their cities to include as many iconic landmarks as possible. Even then, while it faithfully recreates its respective city, Singapore Speedway is rotated relative to the actual Singapore, with the Gardens by the Bay going from southeast of the centre to north-by-northwest, and the Chinatown area going from west to southeast.
  • In Sydney Sprint, Uluru can be seen in the background, even though Uluru is located southwest of the town of Alice Springs in real life, which is thousands of kilometers away from Sydney.
• Ascended Meme: In Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, the meta for most of the game's lifespan was Waluigi on the Wild Wiggler with Roller tires. When the Wild Wiggler was announced for the game, fans noticed that Nintendo chose to use the Roller tires for it, since the wheels are unable to be freely selected this time around.invoked
• Athletic Arena Level:
  • A bevy of athletic tracks from past Mario Kart games are brought back in the game, including special remixes for the first SNES Mario Circuit.
  • Although no brand-new circuit based on this trope has been added four of the city courses feature stadiums as part of their designs. Singapore Speedway and Los Angeles Laps feature the Float @ Marina Bay Stadium and the Dodger stadium respectively, but they're barely impactful for gameplay, only being glided over. Vancouver Velocity and Madrid Drive on the other hand have racers go through the Rogers Arena and Santiago Bernabéu Stadium respectively.
• Big Applesauce: The game features a track known as New York Minute, being one of the first tracks in the series to be based on a real-life location. In this course, drivers race around New York Square and around the Central Park, and back into the city. The track features different variants where drivers go through various notable locations of New York (such as the 30 Rockefeller Plaza and Broadway), condensed with a mild dose of Artistic License – Geography in order to make them fit within the design and layouts of the course. Interestingly enough, Pauline, the mayor of the city based on the Big Apple, favors this course.
• Big Boo's Haunt: SNES Ghost Valley 1, SNES Ghost Valley 2, GBA Boo Lake, DS Luigi's Mansion, DS Twilight House and RMX Ghost Valley 1.
• Big, Bulky Bomb: The new special item of King Bob-omb (among other characters) is the Giga Bob-omb, a large bomb which bounces forward on the track before making a huge explosion.
• Boxing Kangaroo: Yoshi's Kangaroo costume comes with a pair of boxing gloves.
• Bribing Your Way to Victory: There are two currencies in the game - coins (freely available on the race tracks) and rubies (of which you only get a modest amount during each two-week set of courses). These currencies can be used to get new drivers, but the coin shop requires a very large amount of coins for the higher-end drivers (with Super Rare drivers costing 12,000 coins on the off-chance one appears in the shop - and the game has a limit of 300 coins per day that can be earned in races, and another 100 for idling on the matching screen for multiplayer). Plus, the pool of drivers that can appear in the coin shop is rather limited. On top of that, each race has a list of preferred drivers, karts, and gliders - and the game has a habit of almost always adding new courses where the only drivers/karts/gliders that give the best bonuses (score bonuses, additional item slots, and the entire ability to perform Frenzies) to do well in Ranked cups, where your placement in the entire cup versus 19 randomly chosen players entirely depends on how well you score on all three courses, are Super Rares that were only available from the ruby-paid currency for a two-week span. Also, as time goes on, the game introduces more and more courses where the only options for High-End drivers/karts/gliders are time-limited.
  In short, paying for the monthly Gold Pass for bonus rubies, karts, and drivers and buying extra rubies to regularly get more draws from the gacha (before it was removed) or directly buy the high end drivers/karts/gliders (after it was removed) are required to keep pace with what you need to guarantee getting the best ratings on courses as the game strongly encourages players to buy more rubies (or directly purchase the High-End drivers/karts/gliders) to stay on top of the rankings.
• Britain Is Only London: Justified. Many of the debuting racetracks in this game are based on capitals of real-life countries (the only exceptions being New York Minute, Los Angeles Laps, Vancouver Velocity, and Sydney Sprint, since the capitals of the USA, Canada, and Australia are Washington DC, Ottawa, and Canberra respectively). So when it's England's turn, the course representing it is London Loop, which also features many iconic attractions like the Big Ben and River Thames.
• The Bus Came Back:
  • Birdo, Diddy Kong, and Funky Kong return after having last appeared in Mario Kart Wii back in 2008.
  • Donkey Kong Jr. returns as a playable character for the first time in 28 years after being playable in the very first game in the series. Albeit as a 3D version of his sprite from that game.
  • In terms of courses, Sunset Wilds and Cheep-Cheep Island from Mario Kart: Super Circuit return for the first time in nearly two decades. The Vanilla Lake courses from Super Mario Kart makes a return, last appeared in Super Circuit.
  • Certain character-specific items that only appeared in Mario Kart: Double Dash!! (Giant Banana, Bowser's Shell, Heart, Yoshi's Egg/Birdo's Egg) make their return.
  • The "Take them out quick!" challenge that appeared in the 2020 Winter Tour returns in the Doctor Tour.
  • Kamek appears for the first time ever in a proper Mario Kart game, with his last appearance as a playable Mario Kart character being cut out and replaced by Donkey Kong after being a part of an older demo for Mario Kart 64 over 25 years ago.
  • Petey Piranha returns to the series for the first time in 19 years, since Double Dash.
• Cap:
  • The player's friend list is capped at 100.
  • The player can only obtain 300 coins per day (600 if the Gold Pass is active).
  • During events, only 99 event tokens can be collected in a single race.
• Call-Back:
  • Several karts from Double Dash have been modified as a single racer design, but all still have the rider handle on the back or in the Koopa King's and Bullet Blaster's cases, also include the platform where the second rider would've stood. The sole exception being the Barrel Train, which had its rider area removed completely in 7 onwards.
  • King Boo's special item being the Lucky 7 is a reference to his and Petey Piranha's unique ability in Double Dash to use all special items.
• Character Customization: Tour is the first game in the Mario Kart series where players can unlock different outfits for characters, which is carried over to Mario Kart World.
• Character Select Forcing:
  • Each course has all the drivers, karts, and gliders separated into Rank 1, 2, and 3. Rank 3 Drivers are the only ones that can select three items and activate Frenzies, while Rank 3 karts and gliders have increased point multipliers. In addition, only Rank 3 selectables can have boosted point totals if their levels are high. In newer courses (including Remix and R/T versions), you will need Rank 3 versions in at least 2 of the 3 options in order to get all five Grand Stars, and you'll definitely need Rank 3 in all three categories if you want to place high in the weekly rankings and move up to the next tier.
  • Played straight with the Today's Challenge, which force you to use a specific Driver for the course. If you do not have the Driver, you'll be temporarily given them for the duration of the challenge.
• Chekhov's Volcano: Like in Super Circuit, Lakeside Park features a volcano in the background that starts erupting in the second lap, dropping debris and flaming rocks on the track.
• Christmas Episode: The Winter and Holiday Tours with drivers, karts and gliders themed toward Christmas.
• Christmas Town: Merry Mountain is a Christmas-themed racecourse which starts at a village decorated with several Christmas lights and poles shaped like caramel canes, leading to a snowy mountainside with giant-sized present boxes and a flying train.
• City of Canals:
  • Amsterdam Drift; particularly the second variant of the course, in which the canals of Amsterdam have been turned into underwater sections.
  • Bangkok Rush also has a canal section, where you pass over a floating market full of boats. Although in this one you don't go underwater, instead driving on the surface of the water.
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: The Mega opponents in the "Vs. Mega" bonus challenges can use items whenever they want rather than having to wait for Item Boxes. They can also throw Bowser's Shells and Giga Bob-ombs behind them, when players can only throw them forward.
• Continuity Drift: Sky-High Sundae, Yoshi's Island, and Squeaky Clean Sprint lacks a console prefix label, despite being a "New" course for the 8 Deluxe Booster Course Pass in marketing material.
• Cruise Episode: GCN Daisy Cruiser returns in this game. As the name implies it is a cruiser in the middle of the sea turned into a racetrack.
• Cyberpunk with a Chance of Rain: 3DS Neo Bowser City always has rainy weather.
• Damn You, Muscle Memory!: Several aspects of classic courses have been tweaked to work with the touch screen controls of the game. Some, like the fact that hitting the train in Kalamari Desert now gives you points and a small speed boost, are easy to deal with. Others, like the removal of shortcuts in GCN Yoshi Circuit, will ruin the day of anyone used to the older versions.
• Death Mountain: Part of Athens Dash takes place within the famed Acropolis, the ancient Greek citadel built upon the capital's largest rocky outcrop. At one point, players have to launch themselves towards a tunnel that goes through the outcrop's interior. In the course's second variant, players have to traverse the backside of the outcrop while dodging large boulders in order to complete the lap.
• Depth of Field: The Photo Mode comes with a tunable depth-of-field blur filter that allows the player to select which elements they want in sharp focus.
• The Dinnermobile: Many of the new karts are shaped like foods and drinks, such as macharons, apples, carrots, cups of lemon tea, frankfurter sausages, a fast food meal (consists of a burger, fries and soda drink), among others.
• Do Well, But Not Perfect: This game has this come up with race ranking in two ways. How many Grand Stars you get depends on the evaluation you get from performing various actions during the race. If you're far enough in the lead, you'll never get the chance to use items on opponents and you're way less likely to block items as well, both of which can be prime point-earning opportunities. Plus, the chances of getting a Frenzy (and the attendant Frenzy Action bonus that can be repeatedly spammed and combined with other actions for huge combos) depend in part on your current place, with first naturally having the lowest chance. In some of the later races in a given tour, every bonus possible needs to be wrung out of a race to get all five Grand Stars from it, and a runaway victory makes it very difficult to get those bonuses.
• Down the Drain:
  • Piranha Plant Pipeline is a huge Pipe Maze where water is transported across extended pipeways installed within tunnels in a rocky grassland. The game also brings back the similarly-themed Piranha Plant Slide from Mario Kart 7.
  • Squeaky Clean Sprint, which was added to this game shortly after appearing in the DLC of 8 Deluxe, features a more literal interpretation of this trope, as drivers eventually find themselves getting sucked down a bathtub drain with screws and a diamond ring clogged inside it.
• Earth Drift: Inverted, after the Mario franchise has been playing the trope straight since the days of Mario Bros. Befitting its World Tour concept, the game includes real-world cities (Paris, New York, Tokyo, etc.) among the usual racing venues.
• Egopolis: 3DS Neo Bowser City.
• Eiffel Tower Effect: The real city tracks aim to stuff as many major landmarks as they can into it, actual geography being irrelevant. To use the trope naming example, "Paris Promenade" features the Eiffel Tower to the relative south west of the Arc de Triomphe, when it's to the south east in reality. The worst offender in this regard might be the fact that Uluru can be seen far in the background in "Sydney Sprint", despite Sydney being located in New South Wales at south-eastern Australia and Uluru being located in Northern Territory at northern Australia. Notably, there are two courses that avert this trope to an extent - Singapore Speedway and Athens Dash, with the former being based around the Central Area and the latter being built around the Pantheon.
• Enemy Mine: The Wario vs. Waluigi Tour sees multiple strange bedfellows on both sides. On the W side, we have Wario, Donkey Kong, Bowser, Mario, Dry Bowser, King Boo, Rosalina, Baby Mario, Baby Rosalina, Birdo, Diddy Kong, the Hammer Bros., King Bob-omb, Monty Mole, Dixie Kong, Funky Kong, and Donkey Kong Junior. On the Γ side, we have Waluigi, Toad, Luigi, Koopa Troopa, Peach, Yoshi, Shy Guy, Daisy, Lakitu, Dry Bones, Toadette, Bowser Jr., Baby Daisy, Baby Luigi, Baby Peach, the Koopalings, Pauline, Nabbit, and Kamek.
• Eternal Engine: The second variant of the course Los Angeles Laps takes players to the Inglewood Oil Field, featuring an extensive terrain with an oil extractor that serves as an obstacle and a muddy pipe network.
• Et Tu, Brute?: In the first "Peach vs. Bowser" tour, Monty Mole and Nabbit were part of Peach's team, while Yoshi, Rosalina, and Baby Rosalina were part of Bowser's team. The second one only has Rosalina on the opposing team.
• Event-Driven Clock: In Sunset Wilds, the sun slowly sets before the second lap.
• Forest of Perpetual Autumn: Like in Mario Kart Wii and 7 (as well as eventually 8 Deluxe), Maple Treeway stands out for being set in autumn whereas all other courses themed around grasslands or forests are still set in spring or summer.
• French Accordion: The game introduced the Paris Promenade racetrack, which runs past the French capital's main landmarks while a cheerful accordion musette is playing.
• Friendly Fireproof: During team races, Red and Spiny Shells will not target drivers on the same team unless they have no other choice.
• Gay Paree: Paris Promenade, true to its name, has drivers race across the idyllic streets of Paris, and the game gives it a stereotypical romantic vibe with French Accordion music and visuals that employ a color palette based predominantly on pink and orange.
• Gimmick Level: The Trick (T) variants of courses. These retain the original layout of the courses but add several ramps and artificial pathways to give racers extra opportunities to perform tricks and score points. And like the standard versions of the courses, these also have reverse versions.
• Gold-Colored Superiority: If there's a gold variant of a driver, kart, or glider, it will be guaranteed to be a high-end. For the drivers, most of them have special items devoted to wealth, and most of the gliders will increase the chance that item boxes have coins.
• Grand Finale: The 2023 Anniversary Tour is the last Tour to introduce new content^*aside from the 2025 Sunshine Tour rerun adding new "Mechanic" variants of Mario and Luigi as well as four variations of Mario Kart Wii's "Tiny Titan" kart as a promotional tie-in with the then-recently released Mario Kart World as the following tour and all others thereafter were reruns of every previous tour from the 2022 Battle Tour to the 2023 Anniversary Tour, effectively putting the game in a permanent (or at least until the servers are inevitably shut down) "Groundhog Day" Loop of its past year.
• Green Hill Zone: In addition to bringing back several traditional circuits and grassy racetracks, the game also introduces Amsterdam Drift, whose first variant takes players to a thriving farm with windmills, and whose third variant goes through a colorful tulip garden (the course is set in Netherlands, so it's no surprise).
• Hawaiian-Shirted Tourist: The first Los Angeles Tour introduces a variant of Mario called "Mario (Sunshine)", which is the plumber wearing sunglasses and the blue, short-sleeved Shine shirt from Super Mario Sunshine, based on their respective depictions in Super Mario Odyssey.
• Hollywood California: Los Angeles Laps portrays the eponymous city in the context of the Mario universe, focusing on the coastal area as well as the nearby urban zone and the (now closed) Inglewood Oil Field. While it manages to feature many of the city's iconic landmarks, there's a noticeable degree of Artistic License – Geography at play, with most locations rearranged or put closer to each other than they are in Real Life.
• Home Stage: There's a wide array of character-themed retro courses which are too numerous to count, but it also has at least a new one:
  • Petey Piranha has the course Piranha Plant Cove, which features several statues and drawings modeled after him. Note that, despite its name, Piranha Plant Pipeline is not his (it's not even named after Piranha Plants in the Japanese version, which insteal calls it Warp Pipe Canyon).
  • Despite not being named after him, Ninja Hideaway has a lot of iconography alluding to Wario, including drawings of garlic and W-shaped mustaches. The course's Wutai setting also has a lot in common with the whereabouts of ninjas in training Kat and Ana from the WarioWare series.
• Idiosyncratic Combo Levels: When you keep your combo going long enough you will get the following: Nice!,^note  You need a Combo x3 Great!,^note  You need a Combo x5 Excellent!,^note  You need a combo of x7 and Fantastic!^note  You need a combo x9 When keeping a Fantastic combo, you can hear cheering and whistling.
• Jungle Japes: Riverside and Lakeside Parks from Super Circuit, and DK Mountain and Dino Dino Jungle from ''Double Dash!! The former three are set in dense tropical jungles (with Lakeside also featuring a Chekhov's Volcano), while the latter one takes place in a primeval jungle with dinosaurs (thus overlapping with Prehistoria).
• Just Train Wrong: Berlin Byways features Berlin Hauptbahnhof as a landmark you can drive through; it is a composite of the present-day megastation and its much smaller predecessor in terms of appearance, with a Berlin S-Bahn station parked inside. This S-Bahn train appears to be based on the DB Class 420, a train which while historically used on many German S-Bahn systems has never been used in Berlin specifically (and wouldn't be compatible with the Berlin S-Bahn's unique technical specifications even if you wanted to).
• Kangaroos Represent Australia: Along with a second track based off the city of Sydney, the Sydney Tour of September 2021 also gave Yoshi a Kangaroo costume. It even comes with a pair of boxing gloves.
• Land of Tulips and Windmills: Amsterdam Drift features a few spots of grasslands outside of Amsterdam with tulips and windmills, more reminiscent of the rural parts of nearby towns like Lisse and Zaandam. Rosalina also has a Volendam costume, giving her the traditional Dutch clothing of... well, Volendam. The game also brings back Daisy Hills, which also features rural motifs like colorful flowers and windmills.
• Later-Installment Weirdness:
  • This is the only Mario Kart game to lack a Grand Prix mode.
  • This is the first game since Super Mario Kart to lack a Mirror mode.
  • Unlike all previous installments, every character is unlockable.
  • The referee Lakitu doesn't appear in the race at all. He instead gives players tips in the loading screen or when announcing the week's rank results.
  • Triple red shells are absent, the first time since Super Mario Kart.
  • Stars cannot be obtained in tour races, instead functionally replaced with "FRENZY" mode. They're instead offered in multiplayer races due to the fixed options often locking the players to two item slots which cuts out the possibility of "FRENZY" altogether.
  • Golden Mushroom is absent for the first time since Mario Kart: Super Circuit, with the Mushroom "FRENZY" mode also being its equivalent.
  • Unlike previous Mario Kart games where almost every track has 3 laps as the minimum, almost every course in Mario Kart Tour has 2 laps as the minimum. The only exceptions are GCN Baby Park, which has 5 laps on the normal, R and R/T variants and 3 laps in the T variant, 3DS Rainbow Road, which is split up into 3 sections just like in Mario Kart 7, and N64 Kalimari Desert 2, Tokyo Blur 4, New York Minute 4, Wii Rainbow Road and GBA Bowser's Castle 4, which are all split up into 2 sections.
  • The selection of tracks that can be raced on changes every two weeks, as do the cups they're housed in. It is entirely possible to have certain tracks repeated as well.
  • Each cup now houses only three regular races, and one Challenge (reminiscent of the Missions on Mario Kart DS or the Competitions in Mario Kart Wii).
  • Every track now has an R variation (which has the race track be altered to go in reverse), a T variation (which includes extra Dash Panels and ramps to Trick on, allowing for continuous combos), and an R/T variation (which combines the reverse track with the trick ramps).
  • The game lacks the "frontrunning beats" added to the music when the player is in 1st place introduced in Mario Kart 7 onwards.
  • It is the first game since Mario Kart: Super Circuit to feature numbered tracks.
  • When the player is hit an "Ouch!" notification with the icon of the opponent's character will appear, similarly, when the player hits someone a "Hit!" notification with the icon of the opponent's driver will appear.
  • It is the only Mario Kart game with a point scoring system and combo system.
  • This is the only Mario Kart game to not have a Nitro Mario Circuit, Bowser's Castle, or Rainbow Road.^note As Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit is sort of a track builder, you can just make one in that game. However, the game does have RMX (remix) versions of the SNES version of Mario Circuit and Rainbow Road, which are the closest things to nitro versions of these tracks that the game has.
  • Unlike 8, 8 Deluxe, and later World, you can ward off Bloopers by using a Super Horn, which rewards you with hundreds of points.
• Lethal Lava Land: GBA Bowser's Castle 1, 2, 3 and 4, 3DS Bowser's Castle, and RMX Bowser's Castle 1. DS Airship Fortress also takes place over a sea of lava, instead of the sky in DS and 7.
• Level Ate: Sky-High Sundae, which was added to this game shortly after debuting in the DLC of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, is primarily made from ice cream; there's even a sundae surrounded by a track loop.
• Level in Reverse: This game introduces "R" variants of courses, which have you race from what's usually the finish line back to the "start". Ramps are sometimes added to make reverse courses possible.
• Living Museum Exhibit: In the third variant of Madrid Drive, racers go through the Prado Museum. A large Piranha Plant previously drawn in one of the paintings has popped out of it, now serving as a hazard that has to be avoided.
• Long Song, Short Scene: Played with. When the final lap starts, the music goes up two whole steps from the first lap variant, and rather than restart from the beginning, resumes playing from where you left off, except on 3DS Rainbow Road.
• Luck-Based Mission: The game features weekly and bi-weekly challenges for stars, and getting enough stars grants the player extra rewards (like coins and tickets to level up your karts, drivers, or gliders). Some of these challenges fall into this - for example, if Use a Lightning pops up, best of luck triggering it, because it's the rarest item to get, has a very low probability of turning up, all of the gliders that boost its appearance are Ultra Rare, and the game has an internal timer that prevents the item from even appearing at the beginning of the race as well as making it impossible to appear if someone got one (even if not yet used) within the last 60 seconds.
• Magikarp Power: The Normal grade characters/equipment. While some of them have useful effects, they are rather basic and their max point total is lower than the Super or High-End versions. However, since they are always in the Daily Selects shop, along with getting a lot of Super Level-boost Tickets as rewards, plus being common fodder in the Pipes, they are easy to get up to Level 6, meaning any course where they are Rank 3 will give you a major point bonus at the end.
• Major World Cities: New York City (New York Minute), Tokyo (Tokyo Blur), Paris (Paris Promenade), London (London Loop), Vancouver (Vancouver Velocity), Los Angeles (Los Angeles Laps), Berlin (Berlin Byways), Sydney (Sydney Sprint), Singapore (Singapore Speedway), Amsterdam (Amsterdam Drift), Bangkok (Bangkok Rush), Athens (Athens Dash), Rome (Rome Avanti), and Madrid (Madrid Drive).
• Metropolis Level: The new tracks in this game are directly inspired by real-life cities — New York Minute, Tokyo Blur, Paris Promenade, London Loop, Vancouver Velocity, Los Angeles Laps, Berlin Byways, Sydney Sprint, Singapore Speedway, Amsterdam Drift, Bangkok Rush, Athens Dash, Rome Avanti, and Madrid Drive — and have you race through routes that follow real-life streets through the city centers, passing multiple notable landmarks on the way. The game also brings back Mushroom City from Double Dash!! and Moonview Highway from Wii.
• Moose and Maple Syrup: Vancouver Velocity, true to its name, takes place within the famed coastal city of British Columbia. It does feature several landmarks of the actual Vancouver but, as with several other city-based courses, there's a good dose of Artistic License – Geography that puts some of the landmarks much closer to each other than they actually are, while others are placed distantly but in a different orientation. The game also doesn't miss the chance of having drivers go through the hockey-themed Rogers Arena (renamed M Arena here).
• Multiplayer-Only Item: Like in 8 Deluxe, the Cape Feather is exclusive to Battle Mode, being used to jump over obstacles and dodge projectiles from rivals.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Kamek's special item being the Coin Box may be a reference to Super Mario RPG, where a Magikoopa heavily implied to be Kamek creates a special box which creates infinite coins when struck in the endgame.
  • The R/T variant of Wii Mushroom Gorge brings back the two red mushrooms originally to the left after the starting area, after they didn't appear in any other version of the course in Tour.
  • The sounds that play when you perform combos are the same sounds that play in Paper Mario: Sticker Star and Paper Mario: Color Splash whenever you successfully perform a Jump attack. Performing a long combo makes the sound gradually increase in pitch, like using a Hopslipper in the same games.
• Neon City: Singapore Speedway portrays the eponymous capital of Singapore in this fashion, being raced on during a bright-sky night when all buildings show multi-colored lights and there's a more lively atmosphere. As with the other city-based tracks, it has three versions, each one taking place within a different part of the city. The game also brings back Neo Bowser City from 7, a futuristic course which involves a lot of neon lights and bright displays (many of which serve to glorify Bowser).
• Nerf: Some items were nerfed from previous games.
  • Hearts return from Mario Kart: Double Dash!! as the special item of Peach and Daisy (joined by a few others in Tour), but only protect against items rather than letting the target get the item for their own use. Additionally, they disappear after some time passes whereas in Double Dash!! they stayed with the user until they collided with an item.
  • Unlike in Mario Kart Wii, Mega Mushrooms do not make drivers invincible; they revert to normal size when hit with an item. They also do not get a speed and off-road boost without a Frenzy. And they can't squash players anymore, either; instead, the target just gets knocked out of the way.
• New Neo City: 3DS Neo Bowser City is set in a futuristic metropolis, with lots of bright lights, shiny towers, and flying vehicles for backdrops.
• New Work, Recycled Graphics: Many of the available courses during the game's launch period were lifted from Mario Kart 7 and the retro tracks featured within. The music for online play is lifted directly from that game, while the character animations are largely lifted from Mario Kart 8.
• New York Is Only Manhattan: "New York Minute" only has the characters driving through locations native to Manhattan: Central Park, Times Square/Broadway, and the Plaza Hotel parking garage.
• Oktoberfest: For the Berlin Tour, Luigi gets a Lederhosen variant, complete with traditional Bavarian clothing and a grilled sausage on a fork. The same tour also introduces a kart shaped like a sausage on a grill, the Fast Frank. The highlighted new track, Berlin Byways, averts this, though.
• Palmtree Panic: One of the variants of Los Angeles Laps goes through the beach of Santa Monica Pier in the eponymous US city, in races celebrated during early afternoon (a few other city tracks take place near beaches or lakes as well, but the areas in question serve mostly as background scenery with next-to-nil impact in gameplay). Several coastal tracks from past games make a return as well, namely SNES Koopa Beach 2, N64 Koopa Troopa Beach, GBA Cheep Cheep Island, Wii Koopa Cape, and 3DS Cheep Cheep Lagoon.
• Pass Through the Rings: An item called Dash Ring allows certain characters and Mii costumes to invoke this trope by summoning blue rings in the path forward that grant a speed boost when passed through. The drawback is that rivals can take advantage of them as well.
• Permanently Missable Content: While most of the items are available one way or the other (such as in the Pipe, Daily Spotlight, the Gold Pass, etc.), six of the twelve Hanafuda Gliders have not been made available at all since the 2021 Trick Tour, being the Baby Mario, Yoshi's Egg, Bullet Bill, Boo, Goomba, and Jumping Mario Hanafuda's. As for the other six^note Peach, Barrel, Blooper, Cape Mario, Piranha Plant, Bowser, they all have one Favorite course that is in at least one Ranked Cup, so they can appear in the Daily Spotlight. The other six don't have that quirk, so they don't appear. Baby Rosalina (Detective), the Soaring Jack, and the Red and Green Standard 8's were made unavailable in the first loop, but during the rerun of the Anniversary Tour, they were made available, so it's unknown why the six Hanafuda's didn't get that treatment either.
• Photo Mode: When doing a cup, you are able to select an "Auto" option, that lets the CPU drive, while the player is able to take pictures of their character at any point from any perspective, including selecting other players. There are several filter options too, such as Depth of Field blur and animation and sepia color filters. Interestingly, some cups have a race where the entire goal is to take a photo of the computer racing while certain objects or players are in view.
• Pipe Maze: Piranha Plant Pipeline is a pipe network built within a canyon, and serves as a racetrack that takes drives through the interior of a pipeline overrun by Fuzzies. At one point, drivers can glide to one of two possible pipelines in a fork located past a chasm. The game also brings back Piranha Plant Slide from Mario Kart 7.
• Pimped-Out Dress: Rosalina's Aurora variant wears a gown based on Aurora Borealis. Said variant pairs it with matching High-Class Gloves.
• Play Every Day: "Today's Challenge". The player is rewarded with a pipe that gives a random item for simply finishing a race with a specific setup every day. It's impossible to fail.
• Port Town: One of the variants of Sydney Sprint goes through the eponymous city's coastal plaza. Also, one of the variants of Los Angeles Laps goes through the touristic Santa Monica Pier. Lastly, a later wave added Daisy Circuit of Mario Kart Wii fame, which features a dock, several boats and cruisers, and a lighthouse.
• Power-Up Letdown: Believe it or not, Frenzy can be this. Sure, Frenzy gives you a boost of speed, invincibility, allows you to spam your item for tons of points and a large combo, and it can produce a ton of projectiles to hit foes. However, the downside is that you don't get to choose when to activate it; it goes off automatically when the item reel reveals that you got three of the same item. If you're in the lead, it's quite possible to run out of Frenzy before you can get a new item, leaving you defenseless against a foe that saved a red shell (or worse) for when the Frenzy ended. Getting a Mushroom Frenzy can really help you pull ahead, but it might run out before a shortcut that would have saved a bunch of time that requires a speed boost is reached (GCN Yoshi Circuit R is noted to have a shortcut shortly after the tunnel section that is just past where your Frenzy will run out). Plus, each Frenzy has different desirability depending on your place. A Banana Frenzy is only going to help so much if you're not in first or second, and a Red Shell Frenzy when you're already in the lead is of limited usefulness (while they can be fired backwards, they won't bounce around as long as a green shell). Additionally, for some reason, points for Mini-Turbos aren't counted while in a Frenzy.
• Prehistoria: GCN Dino Dino Jungle. N64 Koopa Troopa Beach also has a Noshi on it in some variants.
• Promoted to Playable: This game introduces Pauline, Monty Mole, Dixie Kong, Nabbit, Hammer Bro, Ice Bro, Fire Bro, Boomerang Bro, Kamek, King Bob-omb, Chargin' Chuck, and Poochy to the Mario Kart series' playable roster for the first time.
• Racing the Train: A special version of Kalimari Desert has drivers race across the rails of the train, something that was possible but unnecessary in Mario Kart 64 (and outright impossible in 7). This would be later incorporated to the course's portrayal in 8 Deluxe.
• Real-World Episode: The new courses made for the game don't take place in Mario's world like the other games do, but rather, they take place in stylized versions of real world locations such as New York, Vancouver, Paris and Tokyo, amongst others.
• Remixed Level:
  • Besides their original versions, the game also features remixed versions of the retro courses, which change up the retro courses by changing the track design and adding new gimmicks that didn’t exist in their original forms. (For example, bouncy mushrooms and giant Piranha Plants in SNES Rainbow Road)
  • 3DS Rock Rock Mountain and 3DS Rainbow Road bear the distinction of having the start/finish line relocated in their Trick variants. Rock Rock Mountain T has the start-finish line located in the forest between the two glide ramps rather than on the cliffside, while Rainbow Road's T and R/T variants puts the start-finish line at the spinning tunnel, Singapore Speedway R/T locates the start-finish line on the Marina Bay Sands towers and Athens Dash R/T locates the start-finish line by the Hadrian's Arch.
• Retraux The drivers Mario (SNES) and Donkey Kong Jr. (SNES) use their sprites from Super Mario Kart instead of 3D models like all other characters. Playing as them even changes the countdown, item roulette sounds, and finish music to their Super Mario Kart versions. The 8-Bit Pipe Frame is a voxel version of the kart from Super Mario Kart, and multiple gliders are based on sprites from the original Super Mario Bros. 1.
• Rewarding Vandalism: Bumping to various objects like crates or cones (whether via firing shells or just crashing into them) gives bonus points as well as extends combos. Hitting small Jack-o-Lanterns on the track or big ones with projectiles during the Halloween events will give you the "Trick or Treat!" bonus along with a Special Token.
• Rewards Pass: The Tour Gifts have all the trappings of a typical Battle Pass. You collect "Grand Stars" from completing Tour Tracks (based on performance) or finish certain Challenges and progress through the different tiers of "Gifts", with there being a Free and Paid Side (the latter obviously offering better rewards). Unlike typical Battle Passes, the Paid Side isn't unlocked via one-time purchase per Tour, but is instead automatically unlocked while subscribed to the separate "Gold Pass" montly subscription. As each Tour (and its associated Tour Gifts) lasts for 14 days while the Gold Pass is renewed every 30 days, roughly 2 sets pf premium Tour Gifts can be unlocked for month.
• Rule of Three: Each city-based course, as well as Piranha Plant Cove, has three versions, with each one having drivers traverse a different part of the city or location in question.
• Screen Crunch: The game got into a lot of controversy upon its release for displaying in portrait mode instead of landscape like most mobile racers. This meant that the player couldn't see the side of the road which gave it a bunch of Trial-and-Error Gameplay for new players. It wasn't until months after launch that a landscape mode was added.
• Shifting Sand Land: The game doesn't introduce any new desert tracks, but brings back numerous ones from past games: Kalimari Desert from 64, Sunset Wilds and Yoshi Desert from Super Circuit, Dry Dry Ruins from Wii, and Shy Guy Bazaar from 7.
• Shout-Out: The Yellow Taxi's Jump Boost attribute may altogether remind players of another game which has taxis that tend to jump a lot.
• Shown Their Work: The trains crossing the Sydney Harbour Bridge in Sydney Sprint, although obviously adapted to fit the look of Mario, are faithful recreations of the real-world T sets. It especially counts as attention to detail as the developers could've picked any of Sydney Trains' in-service rolling stock to depict, but the T sets specifically are often assigned to the T1 and T9 lines in reality, who do indeed cross the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
• Slippy-Slidey Ice World:
  • Merry Mountain is a Christmas-themed course that goes through a snowy mountain; it's adorned with large present boxes, a cableway and a hovering train that drives through magically-generated rails.
  • Among the city courses, there's Vancouver Velocity, whose first variant goes through a snowy forest traversed via the Capilano Suspension Bridge, and whose other two variants take drivers to the interior of the ice hockey-themed Rogers Arena.
  • Several ice-themed retro tracks return, namely SNES Vanilla Lake 1 and 2, N64 Frappe Snowland, DS DK Pass, 3DS Rosalina's Ice World, Wii DK Summit, and GBA Snow Land.
  • Finally, the game adds two remixed versions of the SNES Vanilla Lake courses, which retain their tileset and music but add extra features like igloos and snowy trees.
• Sudden Name Change: The Snowman from previous Mario Kart games is called "Snowperson" in the Actions.
• Sprite/Polygon Mix: Mario (SNES) and Donkey Kong Jr. (SNES) are explicitly using modified sprites from Super Mario Kart rather than 3D models, with their appearance changing depending on their camera angle.
• Truck Driver's Gear Change: Unlike previous games, the final lap music goes up two full steps along with the tempo change. The only track on which this doesn't happen is 3DS Rainbow Road, which still only goes up a half-step.
• Under the Sea: Piranha Plant Cove is an archipelago featuring underwater ruins, and the drivers go through them across the course's three variants (the third one is unique for taking place entirely underwater, a first for the series). The game also brings back Cheep Cheep Lagoon and Wario Shipyard from Mario Kart 7, as well that game's version of Koopa Cape (which repurposes the Shark Tunnel originally present in Mario Kart Wii to make it a true underwater section).
• Underwater Ruins: Piranha Plant Cove is a course that goes across several ancient buildings and temples that were built on a coast, but are now flooded by the sea. The course is raced during night, which helps the beauty of the scenery.
• Variable Mix:
  • Singapore Speedway's music is techno-inspired for the most part, but it changes into a far-east variant when drivers enter the Chinatown area.
  • Madrid Drive subtly changes the state of its theme into a variant with vocals when players enter the soccer stadium (based on Real Madrid's in real life).
• Watch for Rolling Objects: In Athens Dash 2, boulders fall from the upper area of the Acropolis' outcrop and roll across the road in the opposite direction, while in GBA Bowser Castle 4 metallic spheres roll and have to be avoided. Similar rolling obstacles appear in DS Waluigi Pinball (metallic spheres again), DS DK Pass (snowballs) and 3DS Rock Rock Mountain (boulders again).
• Windmill Scenery: Amsterdam Drift, in whose first variant drivers go through a rural field (based on Zaanse Schans from Real Life Amsterdam) where windmills are located. Daisy Hills from Mario Kart 7 returns as well, and retains the windmills in its town section.
• Wintry Auroral Sky: Vancouver Velocity features the aurora borealis in the sky, despite Vancouver only experiencing it a few times per year.
• World Tour: The city tracks are designed around this concept, with the featured countries being the United States, Japan, France, the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Australia, Singapore, the Netherlands, Thailand, Greece, Italy and Spain. In the context of the Mario universe, the game also presents this trope by way of revisiting a wide array of racetracks from across the Mario Kart series.
• Writing Around Trademarks: The game features racetracks based on real-life cities, and many of them feature buildings and stadia based on those found in the actual cities. However, to prevent copyright infringement, those places have their names changed. For examples, the Rogers Arena in Vancouver Velocity is renamed "M Arena" (M standing for Mario), while the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium in Madrid Drive is simply called "Stadium" (and obviously, neither the name nor the symbol of Real Madrid appear anywhere around the stadium).
• Wutai: Ninja Hideaway features many Japanese elements, such as a red wooden bridge leading to a Big Fancy Castle, Shy Guys riding on kites, and copious cherry blossoms. Notably, the game's actual Japan-based track (Tokyo Blur) is portrayed more realistically, but that's likely part of the joke.