'Mario Kart Tour' Is Free, Which Means It Costs More Than Ever

Mario Kart Tour, Nintendo’s mobile version of Mario Kart, is not a kart racing video game. It’s a complicated gacha game where the player juggles rubies, coins, tickets, and stars while sometimes playing a stripped down Mario Kart.

In this mobile adaptation of the Mario Kart franchise, I used a single finger to glide my kart around the track, kicking up blue sparks when I drifted and tapping the screen to fire red shells at computer opponents. There is no multiplayer yet, just a never-ending supply of AI racers zooming around tracks from old Mario Kart games.

The real draw of Mario Kart Tour is firing the pipe. I began the game with a limited amount of racers, karts, and parasols. To earn more, I had to feed rubies into a pipe and enjoy the random contents the pipe spewed forth. Nintendo charges five rubies to fire off the pipe. Forty-five rubies will get you ten shots. Need more rubies? Three will cost you $1.99 in the store. Or you can splurge and pay $69.99—$10 more than the suggested retail price of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on the Nintendo Switch—for 135 rubies. It’d take roughly 450 rubies to clear the whole pipe.

The racing portion Mario Kart Tour is bad, it’s Mario Kart with guard rails. Maps are pulled from the series greatest hits and races are limited to two laps. The finger controls work well. I placed my finger below the racer, holding before the starting gun to get a little boost, and drifting side to side to toss blue sparks and blast ahead of the rudimentary competition. But there is no sense of stakes or risk thanks to the guardrails on the levels. Mistakes didn’t send me careening into a field or off a cliff, but bounded me back on to the track.

The point of the races is not to come in first, but to earn stars. Earning stars unlocks more tracks. I earned stars by earning points, both from my placement in the race but also from drifting properly, using items, and hitting jumps along the track. Coming in first earns more points, but I earned large bonuses from using the right racer, kart, and parasol on the right track. The incentive to unlock more karts and racers is not so you can play your favorite, but so you can pick the right racer to maximize points on the track you’re playing.

Playing as Yoshi on Rock Rock Mountain, for example while using his Yoshi-shaped Kart and the koopa-troop parasol grants massive multipliers to the points earned for running the race. The more points, the more stars, and the easier it is to get to the next race. With the right racer on the right track earning the right bonuses, I could come in last in and still earn five stars needed to proceed. If I didn’t have the right kart, I’d just need to hit that pipe until something I could use tumbled forth.

In addition to rubies, I earned coins as I moved through the levels. I could exchange these coins at a separate store for a select number of individually priced karts, parasols, and racers. There’s only three slots in the store and the items available change daily. As I earned stars I’d level up. The higher my level, the more points I’d earn towards stars. At level seven, and again at level 11, three more slots open at the store.

Currently, Donkey Kong is available for 3,000 coins. I’ve only got 499. But, if I wanted, I could spend five rubies to run a special Coin Rush course where I’d control a golden mario sprinting through waves of coins I could used to spend in the store. If I spend 25 rubies, I get a 10X bonus on every coin earned.

If I want access to the faster version of Mario Kart Tour, the version where the racers careen around the track at high speeds and the loot comes quick, I need to pay $4.99 a month. Mario Kart Tour’s fastest setting, 200cc, is only available on this subscription service. The sub also changes the loot table, so that a player with a subscription earns more rubies, more coins, and more rewards at a faster rate.

Five bucks is a lot to ask for a subscription to a gach game. For five bucks a month I could buy a subscription to Apple Arcade and access around 70 games. I could save that five dollars a month and, after a year, buy Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on the Switch. Between now and then, it’d probably go on sale.

No rubies required.