Mario Kart: V² Circuit

Developer(s)

Publisher(s)

Platform(s)

Release Date(s)

July 27th, 20YB

Age Rating(s)

Genre(s)

Racer

Media Included

V² Disc

Mario Kart: V² Circuit is a entry in the Mario Kart franchise created for The V² by Toroko with conjunction from Nintendo. The game features a entirely new roster, mostly re-imagining it from the ground up. It returns many mechanics that were present in previous games such as vehicle customization and kart transformation through land, air, water, and anti-gravity. New to this installment is a casual story mode ala Mario Tennis Aces and the Phantom Drift move. Interestingly, this is the first installment to introduce a racing mode without items.

The game's title is a callback to the Game Boy Advance title Super Mario Circuit and features a similar cover. Additionally, elements from the Super Mario GP series appear as well, such as the subseries' unique lock-on feature for firing items and power slides.

Gameplay

Mario Kart: V² Circuit plays pretty similarly to other Mario Kart titles in that the player races eleven other characters on a track, using items from Item Boxes to change the tide of the race. Races can have different objectives based off what mode the player is in. Karts return with the customization they had from Mario Kart 7 and Mario Kart 8, as well as the land, underwater, air, and zero gravity modes they had.

New to this installment is the Phantom Drift. This appears as a small meter that can be seen on the lining of most of the tires in the game and appears as a small meter on the ui as well. When activated, this drift allows the kart to phase briefly through opponents as well as perform extremely sharp turns extremely quickly. The Phantom Drift meter fills as you drift, incentivizing drifting.

You can also now lock onto opponents to fire items at them. This only works with a certain range, but allows you to fire quickly with precision. You can also lock your camera onto nearby racers if you are close by. When drifting, holding it longer for 2 seconds will allow you to perform a powerslide that blocks most attacking items. You can also perform it quicker if you drain some of your built up Phantom Drift energy.

Smart Steering and Auto-Accelerate return from Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, although the double item holding does not return.

Grand Prix

The Grand Prix mode can be played up to two players with six available cups to race in. Each cup has four races on four unique tracks. The player must consistently win in the lead in these races to win, amassing enough points to top the leaderboard. The player can select from 10cc, 50cc, 100cc, 150cc, and 200cc engine classes.

Master's Prix

The Master Prix mode is the Grand Prix mode stripped of items and the kart modes (no underwater, air, or zero gravity modes). Additionally, the player can "super boost" when they drift; when then are drifting a meter will appear, dropping and raising. By consistently hitting the triggers on the controllers when the gauge is full, the player will amass more speed. The player can select from 10cc, 50cc, 100cc, 150cc, and 200cc engine classes.

Vesus Mode

With up to eight players, the players can race against each other in custom races. They can select what items appear and the rarity of them, the cpu difficulty levels, how many races and how many laps appear on each race. They can also select between Team or Solo races as well as what courses appear.

Double Mode

Pick two characters on your kart and switch between them during the race. The character hanging off the kart will carry an item while the character's stats transfer if they are driving the kart. This opens a lot of possibilities as you can have two items held at once and can swap your entire stat range in a instant, making for a lot of interesting mix-ups.

Time Mode

Cosmic Clone Trials

Race against a Cosmic Clone of your character to beat their time. After defeating the game's Cosmic Clone, you can try for a better score or get data from online Cosmic Clones that steadily rack up in difficulty, allowing for bigger and bigger rewards of coins. Beating a track's Cosmic Clone will also also unlock a character.

Frog Trials

Inspired by Wario Land 4, Frog Trials are strict time trials where you have to navigate the course and complete a lap in time to get to the vortex and escape before the Frog Switches triggered at the start of the race explode the course. These versions of the courses feature a lot of coins and Bonus Medals, which are rare items that only appear in this mode and only feature four per track.

Battle Mode

Each player has three balloons and drive around in specialized battle arenas using item boxes to grab items to attack other players with. Players can tell who hit whom with a area on the bottom of the screen alerting players of hits, as well as a balloon leaderboard showing how many balloons each player has. After a player gets hit, they have 1.7 seconds of invincibility to prevent flurry attacks from taking out their entire balloon stock.

Adventure Mode

A strange, powerful racer known only as Phantom X has arrived on Kartios Island, challenging the Mario gang to the race of a lifetime. Take your character of choice and go through many trials to train against this mysterious racer.

More details to come soon.

Hub Area	Info
Kartios Shores	TBA
Tanglewreck Tropics	TBA
Mystic Mansion	TBA
Savage Land	TBA
Wario's World	TBA
Phantom Mountain	TBA

Playable Characters

There are 121 unique characters that are playable in Mario Kart: V² Circuit. There are 36 starting characters, 54 unlockable characters, and 30 unlockable characters. On top of this, there is the Mii, who has variable stats and is designed more or less by the player.

Default Characters

Featherweight

Featherweight Characters:

Toad

Weight

Size
Medium

Stats

Toadette

Weight

Size
Medium

Stats

Koopa Troopa

Weight

Size
Medium

Stats

Goomba

Weight

Size
Small

Stats

Shy Guy

Weight

Size
Small

Stats

Bandinero

Weight

Size
Small

Stats

Wanda

Weight

Size
Small

Stats

Burt the Bashful

Weight

Size
Large

Stats

Mimi

Weight

Size
Small

Stats

Diddy Kong

Weight

Size
Medium

Stats

Koopa Kid

Weight

Size
Small

Stats

Stork

Weight

Size
Medium

Stats

Mediumweight

Mediumweight Characters:

Mario

Weight

Size
Medium

Stats

Luigi

Weight

Size
Medium

Stats

Princess Peach

Weight

Size
Medium

Stats

Yoshi

Weight

Size
Medium

Stats

Princess Fusee

Weight

Size
Medium

Stats

Princess Daisy

Weight

Size
Medium

Stats

Kritter

Weight

Size
Large

Stats

Broque Monsieur

Weight

Size
Small

Stats

Rex

Weight

Size
Small

Stats

Pauline

Weight

Size
Medium

Stats

Princess Shokora

Weight

Size
Large

Stats

Cranky Kong

Weight

Size
Large

Stats

Heavyweight

Heavyweight Characters:

Wario

Weight

Size
Large

Stats

Bowser

Weight

Size
Large

Stats

Donkey Kong

Weight

Size
Large

Stats

Captain Syrup

Weight

Size
Medium

Stats

Waluigi

Weight

Size
Small

Stats

Rosalina

Weight

Size
Small

Stats

Midbus

Weight

Size
Large

Stats

Funky Kong

Weight

Size
Large

Stats

Madame Broode

Weight

Size
Large

Stats

Cosmetta

Weight

Size
Large

Stats

Boom Boom

Weight

Size
Large

Stats

Shake King

Weight

Size
Large

Stats